TEMPE HISTORICAL MUSEUM ORAL HISTORY PROJECT INTERVIEW #: OH-248 NARRATORS: Mary Lou Pyle Myers and Virginia Pyle Erhardt INTERVIEWER: Pamela Rector DATE: May 4, 2006 MLM = Mary Lou Pyle Myers VE = Virginia Pyle Erhardt INT = Interviewer _______ = Unintelligible (Italics) = Transcriber’s notes Tape 1, Side A INT: Today is Thursday, May 4, 2006. My name is Pamela Rector. I’m an historian, working with the Tempe Historical Museum, conducting oral history interviews with persons instrumental in a variety of ways to the development of the growth of the city of Tempe. Today I have the privilege of interviewing the daughters and only children of former Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle and his wife Lucile. They are Mary Lou Pyle Myers and Virginia Pyle Erhardt. We are conducting the interview at Virginia’s home in Tempe, Arizona. I’ve broken down the questions into some categories, and the first ones I’d like are specific to the home you grew up in on Ash Avenue. First, Mary Lou, when and where were you born? MLM: I say I was born in Tempe; actually, I suppose, I was born in the hospital in Phoenix, it would have been St. Joseph’s Hospital, in 1937, April 6. INT: And you, Virginia? VE: Same place, St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, June 6, 1941. INT: As you both know, your family home at 1120 South Ash Avenue is in the process of being added to the City of Tempe’s Historic Property Register. And, Mary Lou, you were born in 1938 . MLM: 1937. OH-248 INT: Oh, I’m sorry, 1937—I have ’38 in my records, and I didn’t change that, excuse me— which is the year we show your parents had built their home on Ash. MLM: No, that’s incorrect. INT: And when was that? MLM: Well, I don’t know the exact year, but I think I was two years old; in 1939, probably. INT: 1939? All right. And that’s something we wanted to correct, because we weren’t quite sure, in the record, when it was built and when they moved, etc. So 1939 is the year it was built, and you were born in 1937. (to Virginia) And you were born in 1940, correct? VE: 1941. INT: 1941, okay. I’m off by a year. So it was completed after your birth, Mary Lou. Now, when your mom was interviewed, she said that she and your father owned the home for 27 years. Now, if I’m doing my math correctly, that would be 1966 when they sold, is that correct? MLM: That’s close. VE: I would say so. INT: Okay. And Mary Lou, what is your first memory of living in that house? MLM: Oh, my goodness. That’s really hard to say. We had horses in the back, and I suppose just being in the back yard and around the horses. My dad and mother had a little bulldog named Snooks, and I remember it was housed in a kennel in the back, and that may be some of the first recollection that I have of being there. INT: Do you know how old you might have been when you had that dog? MLM: I’m sure that they probably had it when they moved there, so two, I guess. And I don’t even remember how long . (to Virginia) I don’t know that that dog was there when you were around at all. VE: I don’t remember the dog at all. MLM: But it was a little bull terrier, Boston terrier. INT: And Virginia, your first memories? 2 OH-248 VE: Mainly the same thing. We had lots of animals and whatnot in the back yard. And I don’t really have recollections so much of things that happened inside the house, because we spent an awful lot of time, as little kids, playing outside in the yard. And without any TV to watch, you know, people either sat and listened to the radio or you went outside and played. So we did have a wonderful front yard as well, but the back yard was full of activity, as we had all kinds of chickens and the horses and rabbits and turkeys and whatever, ducks. So, yes, it was a very nice neighborhood to grow up in, because there were lots of things going on. INT: What fun, all those animals; I like that. Now, do you remember, Mary Lou, Ash Avenue being completely built up as a child? In other words, were all the lots built on? MLM: Most of them were, but there was one vacant lot across the street from us, on a corner, that we used to play ball on and play catch over that way, and we always cut through that way to go to school. But for the most part, the rest of the houses that were right within our vicinity were built. I don’t remember when they were built; obviously, after or about the same time our house was built. VE: I think our house was one of the newer ones, though, actually. MLM: Could have been. VE: But we did have that big lot on the corner of 11th and Ash there, on the southeast corner, that was vacant until I was in elementary school, or maybe junior high, when they finally built on that. MLM: And the one thing I noted that you said that it was 1120 South Ash; we never referred to it as South Ash, it was only 1120 Ash Avenue. So if you really want to be authentic, you might want to take the South out. INT: Okay. MLM: We would like that. VE: I don’t know if there’s a North Ash Avenue. INT: Well, and I’m sure that when the city was smaller, you didn’t need to refer to South or North. It’s like, I remember when we referred to “the freeway,” and there was only one freeway in town, really, I-17. And so it probably goes back to that time. VE: There may be a North Ash, but it would be in the middle of all of that commercial stuff on the other side of the river. INT: Well, for historical accuracy at that time, it is noted on the tape, so thank you for that, we appreciate it. 3 OH-248 Now, could you tell us, Virginia, about some of your neighbors, who they were? VE: My first recollection of a neighbor next door were Mr. and Mrs. Fireman, Bert Fireman, who was with the Arizona Historical Society, I think, but he wrote a column for the newspaper in Phoenix. And he and his wife lived next door, to the south of us, and they had two daughters who were a little bit younger than us, but certainly we played with them, they were about our age. And then we had Mrs. Mills, who lived just south of them. I mean, I could tell you everybody that lived in every house. (laughter) But I don’t think you’re particularly wanting that. INT: No, that’s fine. VE: Mrs. Mills babysat for us a lot when we were young, because she was not a married woman; I don’t know if her husband was dead or if she was divorced. But she had one daughter who was grown, so she was alone there most of the time, and she did watch us when our parents had to be gone, so we were very friendly with her. South of her was Mrs. Ward, for whom Ward School is named. And across the street, we had Mr. Bullock, who was a professor at ASU, who played the piano, and you could hear him playing all over the whole neighborhood, because there was no air conditioning in those days, so people left their doors and windows open, and when he played, you could definitely hear him all over. INT: Well, I assume he played well? VE: Oh, yes, he definitely did. INT: So that was good. VE: And we had the Plummers, he was a doctor, who lived next to them. And the Colsons, directly across the street. So we had lots of good neighbors. Everybody was very friendly on the street. INT: Now, as far as girlfriends or friends that you played with? VE: Well, the Bullocks, who lived across the street, and the Plummers, each had a daughter who was about my age, so they were friends of mine. The Zieglers, Alma and Kenneth Ziegler, had two children, and they lived a little further south, a few houses, and they had a daughter who was just younger than Mary Lou, just older than me, who was a friend of ours, and a son who was the same age as myself. Then Mary Lou’s friends lived a little further down the street. INT: And who were those friends, Mary Lou? 4 OH-248 MLM: Verlene Bosworth was one. And Patsy Waggoner was another, and Waggoner Elementary School in the Kyrene district was named after her father, C. I. Waggoner, who had been superintendent of the Kyrene Schools. And we were close friends all the way from first grade to when we graduated from high school. In fact, our birthdays were, Patsy’s was the 2nd of April, mine was the 6th, and Verlene’s was the 7th, and for all those years of elementary school at least, we all shared, we had our birthday parties together. Those were my best friends, at that particular point in time.