Arizona HistorymakersJ* ORAL HISTORY In Our Own Words: Recollections & Reflections Historical League, Inc. 8 2012 EDWYNNE C. APOLLY@ ROSENBAUM 1899-2003 1997 Arizona State Legislator Historical Preservation Advocate The following is an oral history interview with Edwynne C. "Polly" Rosenbaum (PR) conducted by Zona Davis Lorig (ZL) for Historical League, Inc. from July 8, 1996 - September 6, 1996 at the State Capitol in Phoenix, Arizona. Transcripts for website edited by members of Historical League, Inc. Original tapes are in the collection of the Arizona Historical Society Museum Library at Papago Park, Tempe, Arizona. ZL: This oral history interview is being conducted with Polly Rosenbaum on July 8, 1996 at the State Capitol in Phoenix, Arizona. Representative Rosenbaum was recently named a 1997 Historymaker by the Historical League from the Central Arizona Division of the Arizona Historical Society. The interviewer is Zona Davis Lorig. ZL: First of all, I would like to offer my congratulations to you on being named a Historymaker. That's a nice honor. PR: I am most appreciative and most surprised. Mostly surprised and very appreciative. ZL: Mrs. Rosenbaum, would you begin by telling where and when you were born. PR: I was born in Iowa in a small town which no longer exists. A small farming community in Iowa by the name of Ollie and I lived there until I was four years old. Then we moved to Colorado. My father had gone ahead and my mother and I came later on the train. I don't remember too much about the journey. I do remember a depot and the smell of cigar smoke and thinking it was awful. Then when we arrived in Colorado it was a whole new world. ZL: What did you father do in Colorado? *AHistorymakers is a registered trademark of Historical League, Inc.@ 1 Arizona Historymakers ORAL HISTORY In Our Own Words: Recollections & Reflections Historical League, Inc. 8 2012 PR: My father, first he taught. He had been a teacher, then he went into the real estate and irrigation business. Irrigation was just starting to boom there in eastern Colorado. ZL: And what was the community? PR: It was Fort Morgan. There was an old fort there, old Army fort, which was gone but the youngsters used to go down and prowl around, where the fort used to be, hunting metals of all kinds. So we lived there and I think I was lonely and my mother was a little bit until they got acquainted. She told me I said one time, "It's so lonesome here, the tea kettle doesn't sing like it used to sing in Iowa." But as soon as I found children to play with I was very happy. ZL: Did you have siblings? PR: Yes, I have one brother and two sisters. But at that time I was the only child when we moved out. ZL: So you were the oldest? PR: The oldest of the family. And my father, the first year he was there took a job teaching a rural school and he drove back and forth. It seemed like it was eight or nine miles, but it was probably five or six, but the long drive out there. He would take me with him to school occasionally and I enjoyed it very much. I got acquainted with the farm youngsters. It was dry farming and mostly cattle raising, but I got acquainted with lots of the youngsters there. ZL: Now is that the school where you started to school? PR: No, one time the school superintendent rode out with us on a cold, frosty morning and I tried to talk him into letting me go to school but you couldn't until you were six and I was four. No, I started school in Fort Morgan, went all through grade school and high school there. And by the way, that's the school where the famous Glenn Miller went also. ZL: Is that right? What kind of education had your mother received? PR: In those days girls did not go to school too much, but she had a year at Normal School in Illinois and my father graduated from a small college in Iowa. ZL: Did you parents have a lot of energy? Did they keep going like you do? PR: Yes, they had a great deal of energy and growing up we all had chores and we had to take Polly Rosenbaum audio interview 1996 2 Arizona Historymakers ORAL HISTORY In Our Own Words: Recollections & Reflections Historical League, Inc. 8 2012 responsibility in those days. We were a part of a family. And everybody had their responsibilities. ZL: Where or when did you decide where you would go to school? And how did you decide you would go on to school? PR: I always knew. We all knew we had to go to college. We probably knew we had to get ourselves there, get a scholarship probably. I went to the University of Colorado. I could have gotten a scholarship to most any of them, but I sort of liked the sound of the state university. And I did have a four year scholarship. ZL: Did you major in education? PR: My undergraduate was in history and political science. I've always been a history buff. I read. We were avid readers at home. The library was where we spent our cold winter afternoons reading. We all were readers. ZL: Did you grow up thinking women could accomplish what they set their minds to? PR: My father always taught that to us. Not particularly by gender, but that anybody, if you made up your mind and wanted to badly enough and it was within reason, you could do it. We didn't know the meaning of the word "defeat," in the broad sense. We knew that we would go to college and learn to support ourselves in whatever profession we chose. We always had jobs from the time we were small, baby sitting or things, and we saved our money because that was our college fund. ZL: So when you graduated from college then you decided to teach? PR: Yes. I had always sort of liked to teach and when we were youngsters, oh 10, 11 and 12, we'd play together. It was a large group of youngsters around the neighborhood. I guess I was the one who was always teaching. We'd play school and I taught. Youngsters don't know how to play these days like we used to play in those days. ZL: Well, you had to use your imagination almost solely then. PR: Yes we did. And in high school I was editor of the high school annual and I got the scholarship to the University of Colorado. ZL: Did you first teach in Colorado or Wyoming? Polly Rosenbaum audio interview 1996 3 Arizona Historymakers ORAL HISTORY In Our Own Words: Recollections & Reflections Historical League, Inc. 8 2012 PR: I taught in Colorado. When I started teaching, we used to have quite a change. That was before tenure and before all these amenities that go along with it now. A lot of these teachers would come and teach a year or two, then move on; it was their way to see the world. I sort of got the idea from them. Most of the teachers would stay two or three years. Some of the women would come and get married and stay there, but lots of them went on to other places. ZL: Were they allowed to teach after they were married? PR: No, in those days you were not allowed to teach. ZL: So you had some male teachers? PR: Yes, we did. Some excellent ones. Some excellent women teachers. ZL: Single female teachers. PR: Yes, my science teacher was an excellent teacher and they also called her an old maid, but we had both genders there. Even when I came to Arizona, women, if they married, had to give up their job teaching. ZL: So you taught two or three years up there? PR: I taught, I think, three years in Colorado. Then I went up to Wyoming and taught there. ZL: Now was that, as you say, your way to see the world? PR: The way to see the world, to see some different places. I loved Wyoming. ZL: What community were you in there? PR: It was an old oil camp by the name of Lusk in eastern Wyoming and there had been oil fields but they weren't in operation very much when I was there. I loved it there. A wonderful, wonderful man was superintendent of schools. We worked hard and had good times. I don't think I've ever seen a superintendent like him. Perfect discipline without making a big deal of it. He was superintendent, principal of the high school, coached football and basketball. Up there they had wonderful basketball teams. Because of the long winters they could play indoors. So they had good teams. The first thing was teaching - I taught typing and shorthand and I think history. Polly Rosenbaum audio interview 1996 4 Arizona Historymakers ORAL HISTORY In Our Own Words: Recollections & Reflections Historical League, Inc. 8 2012 ZL: And then you decided it was time to move on, try another place. PR: Yes, in one of the journals I saw an opening in Arizona in the mining camp. Everyone thought I was bereft of my senses to go to a mining camp. But they paid excellent wages in those days. I don't remember what the salary was, it would be nothing compared to salaries today.