Carolyn Suba and Mike Suba

00:04 My name is Carolyn Ruth Quinn sober at the current time. I'm 81 years old. Today's date is Sunday December 15th. 2019 location is Yuma Arizona. My interview partner's name is Mike Suba Junior and he is my son.

00:31 My name is Mike Suba Junior. I'm currently 62 today is Sunday December 15th? 2019. We are here and Yuma Arizona. My interview partner is my mother Carolyn Suba and that is my relationship to her.

00:49 Well, thank you Mom for a joining us on this interview. And one of the things that I'd like to find out more about is your parents as well as grandma wins parents and Grandpa going we don't know a lot about Grandpa Glen, but I know Grandma Gwen Mary and her father was Albert Ludi. Can you give us some of the background about him? We were doing a little research yesterday, but can you tell me about him Albert Moody went to school in Pennsylvania? He he got a degree engineering electrical and mechanical engineering degree from college. He first went to work on a farm managing a farm in New Jersey, but that wasn't his specialty and he got an opportunity to go to

01:49 Sitka Alaska and take a job at a Indian School. Well at the time he was supposed to be a facilities manager, but when he got there the Headmaster had taken a leave of a sabbatical and my grandfather was the only one with a college degree and they had to have somebody with a college degree is Headmaster. So he was put in it as Headmaster and he he really didn't like the job. He lasted a couple years until the other one came back, but there was a man that worked at the magnetic Observatory and take Alaska and he preferred going over to the magnetic Observatory and helping the man from

02:37 Chief Observer at the time. Well that Observer went on a sabbatical and he took his place and he worked there for 2 years and he loved working with

02:49 Magnetic

02:53 Recording earthquakes and whatever at the magnetic Observatory when when the man came back he had to transfer in. The only place available was Tucson, Arizona.

03:04 So hit his family in 1920 to move to Tucson, Arizona and

03:11 They they lived at that. He was Chief a server at the magnetic observatory in Tucson, Arizona and I'll have dad already been built or was it did it already exist or did when he got there? Did he have to set it up it it was the house there was a house and they had a well there but the well went dry so he had he actually personally with my Uncle Carl the family help him dig the well by hand.

03:41 And deep in the wall. So they could have water at the tame time. They moved there. They didn't have heating or Cooling in the house and they work there and then they had a fire in the house burned down and they build a new house and it had two bedrooms and they ended up with seven children. They had sex when they moved to Tucson in the baby was born here in Tucson, and they after the fire than they did put in air condition they put in a heater, but they had it was only a two-bedroom house and all the children slept in the back on a sleeping porch and screamed and sleeping porch where they had that and then they went to school. Is there anything left of the old magnetic Observatory there?

04:40 Which is off of Tanque Verde Road and Sabino Canyon they do have the buildings and they were considering turning it into a museum, but I don't think the city funded it. It was deeded over to the city. It's no longer Federal reservation. And when my mother was a child, they didn't have the school's out there in the real one of the requirements that he said is he had to get permission to go into Tucson schools and soul my it was way out east at the time and the children went we're able to go to the city schools at because that was very important to him is the skulls one thing my grandfather did he worked with Mr. Richter on the Richter scale?

05:28 And I went to California to set up the first strong motion Earth seismographs in California. And mr. Richter said that since he had they were in a hotel in one of the upper floors and he said that my grandfather Albert Ludi could take the inside bed because I had predicted earthquake and they did have and he said if there was an earthquake, he'd be on the outside bed by the window in case there was an earthquake and they they evidently was an earthquake and they were able to test their instruments. That's interesting. Wow. Okay. So what year approximately did the grandpa or Grampa Looney come in Tucson in 1922 and they left in 1935 before I was born and then he went to work they lived in.

06:28 10 DC and he worked he had a secret project that he worked on right before the war and during the war and he wasn't even allowed to tell us family what he was working on and the project after the war he was able to let him know that he was working. They were developing radar and sonar. Okay. So Grandma so your mother Mary Ann stayed in Tucson, and she was a student at the time when they moved or was she already married. She was already married. She went to school at it was called Tempe normal school at the time and it was a teacher's college and she got her teacher. It was a two-year teacher college and she got her degree and teaching and she taught at Davis Elementary in Tucson after she graduated and she

07:23 The family still lived here that was and she ended up going to summer school in Flagstaff, and my dad was going to summer school in Flagstaff the same year, and that's how they met. Okay. I was going to ask you and she was from Pennsylvania, so they ended up meeting at the college you but it was so so was your dad at the time living in Tucson, or was he living in Flagstaff missionary itinerary pastor, and he would go to different. He had been around quite a bit. I know he talked about living in Boston, and he talked about living in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and has he went to

08:16 What do you call at seminary in Texas? So he had lived a lot of different?

08:22 Places and I remember what time it was.

08:27 On that. Okay. Do you remember which Seminary school he went to in Texas? No, I have the thing in a final at home, but I don't know what but he was ordained pastor and

08:42 Hey, my mom and dad were married in 1919 29 in September of 1929 the stock market crashed and they were his first job was a pastor at a church in Sells Arizona. And I think he was also an administrator for the I don't know whether is WPA or CCC where they train people to do jobs, and he was working there on the Indian Reservation when my brother was born in 1930.

09:20 And shortly after that he got a job with the Presbyterian Church in Northern New Mexico and he was itinerant faster. He would teach at one church Preach at one church one time one week and then go to another church and he was in a lot of churches in Northern New Mexico, but they actually lived in Jemez Pueblo and we have pictures of Albert their first child with in a shawl Indian ladies back and we have pictures of his first they they name them.

10:04 It's either talking or something that meant son baby because he was a little blond towhead and in the Indian reservation and he he learned he did with his Playmates where the Indian children and they live there and he had good memories there and butt

10:27 I just heard stories because of not being there. When did they move back to Tucson then and buy the property over on Margaret Avenue, they both back. My mother was pregnant with my sister Eleanor.

10:48 And so they wanted to move to town and because Albert was five and they wanted to put him in good schools and they moved to Tucson and they lived on a rental house when my dad built the house and he had he he got some of the Native Americans that he knew in a local contractor. They made their own Adobe and they they built the house with the help of some of the people that he knew and they they actually made their own material and everything and my mom said she was concerned because the baby was due and he was their building the house, but they said they got it finished. They moved the month before my sister was born they moved in in January and she was born in February.

11:43 1936

11:48 And then they had there were no water out there. So they had to put up a windmill and there was dog at they did have electricity. There was no gas so we had a wood stove.

12:00 And the heater was called a oil burner heater. And so that's how I grew up. I I moved into that. You know, I was born a few couple years later.

12:15 And that was my first home and when mail was part of the the home.

12:21 And but it was way out in the area east of town. It was called New Deal Acres with Roosevelt had something about the New Deal where they made home and my day has started out with 20 acres over there and just curious how many acres is he actually ended and he had to sell out a little bit at a time because the fat he didn't make much money as a pastor, but when he moved to Tucson, he had a little mission called Papago Indian mission on South 10th Avenue.

12:54 And we would

12:57 Go there, you know my mom played. She had some kind of portable piano type instrument. I remember she had to pump it.

13:07 And so that's where are we had Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas dinners. And you know, we stayed with Native spent the days with Native Americans and I would go out with my dad when he went to visit people and it was I liked it because they gave me tortillas fresh warm tortillas when I cuss a little girl and my mom didn't make him at home, but we

13:36 But he was involved with a mission for a long time and then he there was a

13:46 A group that there was a man from New Mexico that started the Southern Arizona Sonora Arizona emissions and my dad would go to Mexico when I go to take things to the people food and clothes and things to the some of the churches in Mexico. Now, when do you one of my Fondest Memories of growing up was doing the green corn tamales there at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Is that a family tradition that started when you were real young or did that come later on after you left and marry Dad? We did it just a few times you you are we did it after you were born. You said you remember? Okay because they had what the mission work. He had a lot of friends that were Hispanic.

14:42 And there were I remember one of the there was another Pastor named mr. Morales and mrs. Morales would come over and she would she taught my mom how to make those enchiladas gorditas and chili sauce. And I don't know how I can't remember what the green corn tamales suede. I'll cut the corn off the tamales and then my dad would take it to a place where they grind the corn and then we make the green corn tamales, but that's still one of my favorite. I still want to make green corn tamales and it's hard to find the way to go clear across town to get the green corn to make the tamales. It's only a little bit couple months out of the year that you can find it. Did you ever know your grandparents?

15:31 They would come my grandmother would come on a trained every so often and I was real young during the Warren Transportation was expensive and people had trouble it was an expensive thing, but my grandmother came once in a while and I remember we'd go to the train station and wait for the train and she would bring photography supplies and jewelry and crafts supplies. And when she came we would make things she taught me how to print photographs and she taught me sweet baked General jewelry out of seashells on things.

16:13 But that's what I remember most about my grandmother and I would write letters to her and she would write letters back to me. So it was communication and Everett.

16:30 With a with a postage so times back then you didn't have immediate communication, but I would get letters to her and then I'd write letters back to her.

16:44 Let me see what I was going to say, but then she came after my grandfather retired.

16:54 They can't they would come and spend a month here and she would they rented a little house and we'd go there. We walked everywhere. We didn't have even if it was Miles and Miles we would walk we go to church on Sunday and then her house was in between the church and our home and we'd stop by I pick Peoples Flowers from their yards to take to my grandmother and see and but she'd come over and I spent a lot of time mainly with the photography. I was more interested than the jewelry.

17:34 Okay, so did you ever know the paternal grandparents that well, or did you ever have a chance to meet them I never met them my great-grandfather had a tow company. It was called the Yankee Tool Company in Philadelphia and he passed away. He had lost a lot of money during the Depression but he passed away right before the war at the beginning of the war and they were starting to make money again, and then my great-great-grandmother did not know how to run the business so she sold the business but

18:11 That that was a I just don't stories about him. I don't think I ever met her.

18:18 Yeah, so you didn't have much contact with your father's side of the family, but you had more contact with your mom's side of the family. Right right after the war and I would go to Willcox and visit him and his name is Jerome George and then he moved up to the Cave Creek and bought the water company there and then it's brother and sister move down here. But by the time his sister got here, she had lost most of her brother Center.

18:52 Dad passed away. I see my sister was Betty that you know the names of the lights to okay. What was your happiest memory growing up in Tucson?

19:12 I'm I started I was in brownies when I was a little girl and I had a group of girls that you know, when we had a real good scout leader and I went through Scout starting at brownies when I was in second grade and up to seventh grade where I got one of the higher I got the curve Bar and Girl Scouts. Okay, and we used to go camping a lot. I like they're camping and activities that we did and then when I got into junior high I got with a group of the girls. I knew belong to the 4-H club.

19:51 And I was kind of the Girl Scouts for all girls but the 4-H club had activities for

20:01 Both boys and girls, so I was in a sewing club and we would show at the fair and I was very active in 4-H and

20:13 I ended up getting a lot of ribbons in 4H to and they would have social switch Junior High in girls like and we would go to the they had a lot of nice socials at the time. I don't know if they do that anymore, but that was a good time to do and we'd be at the fair. The fair was a big deal because I was in we'd have to give a demonstration and then we got blue ribbons for that. And then if you did it if you got Blue Ribbon said you got to go to the state at the University and stay in the dorms in the summer and have a week where you were able to stay in the they caught it round up and you got to stay in the dorms in the neck. Like you are a big here. They Studio High kids were like we were so you got an opportunity to do that.

21:13 I know I went to round up about three years three different years. Now. Was that held in Tucson or was that in feet?

21:23 Another thing in the summer that we used to do is with my dad being a minister Pastor the church can't we went to church camp in Prescott a lot and they let minute if they had extra cabin. So Let The Minister's family stay there free. And so we would go up for a week in the summer and go up to Prescott and stay in the cabin. And we usually we didn't have a lot of money. So we usually bought food and peanut butter and sandwiches, but then we had to pay for the meals in the cafeteria, but we ate there once in awhile and then one summer. I remember we went on up to the Grand Canyon and I had never

22:05 Eating in a restaurant before and that was my first time I'd ever eaten in a restaurant and I remember on the edge of the Grand Canyon at that time. The Bears came up to the cars and we fed them cookies and I didn't realize how dangerous it was and then we ran out of cookies and we had to roll the windows up and you keep the big. How old were you at the time. Do you remember what year was 10?

22:40 That what that was a memory of me, you know, I was amazed at the Grand Canyon and I have never seen anything like that before.

22:48 That is an amazing story feeding bears at the Grand Canyon. I don't know if I've even seen a bear up there at the Grand Canyon when I'm done up there when we went up with you and with Bob's family by ourselves. We haven't seen any bears. I think they probably that if so populated now that the they're probably in the forest and nobody from they probably discourage him to be around the people. Okay? Well, then you went on to high school and you were part of the largest graduating class in that year in the u.s. Tell us a little bit about that what the high school after junior high. It was so big that I actually was a little bit of Austin High School in junior high. I was into all the sports and I belong to Girls Athletic Association. They called it GAA and I played with one.

23:49 Semester quarter, we paid played volleyball and basketball and baseball and a game called speedball that nobody seems to know about now and tennis and I was pretty good in sports and I had a a brother that I had played with a lot and we could we could run a outrun each other we'd have races and we lived way out lot of desert around our house. So is that Albert or was at the deck? Okay. And so I so I I love to run and if we went even going to the swimming pool, we didn't we walked everywhere and we went swimming at himmel Park which is about a mile and a half away. We walked all the way there in the middle of the Summer's in Tucson hot summers and we walked all the way home and even going to the doctor I walk to the doctor.

24:49 And back, and there was one time when I was playing baseball. I was a catcher, but the schools didn't have enough gloves and mitts, and I was warming up a picture. I was and a ball hitch ball, and I ended up catching the ball on my finger. I'm have a crooked finger from then on it and they I went home and I even had to walk to the Irish Aki and I actually had to walk to the doctor that time that the teacher had realized that I was hurting. So he had somebody walk home with me and then my mother didn't have a car. So I walk to the doctor by myself and have him how far was the doctor's office from your house and it was only a little over half mile by Pima and Country Club, so it wasn't that far but

25:46 So you ended up going to Tucson High School which and when you graduated I was 1956 was a combination of three skulls and how many graduates in that class. It was 900 some it was just under a thousand.

26:08 One big class but it but they they were in the process of building Catalina High School at the time and Pueblo High School. Is that it but everybody was so squeezed together over at Tucson High.

26:21 And I if I remember correctly wasn't your mom the first graduating class at 2. So she did call roskruge. They called The Old Tucson High a really and then she she started school at ruffwear in the roskruge building and then they built the school and I don't know if it was the first or second class, but you got transferred over to the new building what she called the

26:51 The building. I went to Tucson High and I think she graduated in 1925. Okay, cuz then I thought I remember and I know yes grandma sister remember that she was the first four-year class to graduate from Tucson. I I don't I don't know any side. There were no school buses run my mother and her family and so they had a Model T pickup truck and they would first Uncle Carl drove the kids to school because my grandfather had to work and then when he graduate graduated and went to college then and I just got a special permit when she was 14. Driver brothers and sisters the skull and some of the neighbors that they was restricted to only going to school and back she couldn't drive anywhere else, but she was driving an old what model

27:51 Model T. Which wasn't that old at the time? I don't know what year, you know, I don't know what year the Model T was but when they talked about the family they were very active in the Trinity Presbyterian church in Tucson and people that remember them that was a family with all the children that in the back of the Model T pickup and they would they would even stop by and pick up other children on the way and take him to church. So they had a truckload of children every Sunday that they they have to church and church located at Trinity Presbyterian. I think it's 3rd Avenue 3rd Avenue and

28:33 Okay, it was close to 3rd Street 3rd Street. It was close to 3rd Avenue. Okay. I was just curious because I think the distance probably from the old magnetic Observatory to Tucson High must have been around 9 miles eight or nine miles one way wasn't it? Yeah, that was a good distance for even driving in a Model T to go that distance when I their streets weren't paved right? And I remember we visited the man that took over after my grandfather and it seemed like it was all day trip it took from Country Club. It took us it seems like hours to it was a long trip to go to the magnetic Observatory.

29:21 So the family

29:25 Your grandfather grandfather Ludi had moved to wash them before you were born. So when you went out when you were alive, no wonder there was no family out there anymore. It was just the way you are. Okay, and I remember they had a a swing which was a big deal real tall swing and we can play around in the desert. We usually played around when my parents visited. In fact one other place. I remember going with my parents. There was a Indian School on the Santa Cruz and it was called Indian School Road. It was awful Road and we love to play in the grass. So we roll around in the grass being raised in the desert. That was a big deal to play on grass and my dad also had business at the University and we'd go there and walk the lava wall and patrolling the grass. What kind of business did your dad have over the campus?

30:24 I'm not sure how he would go with him. He said he had business but I think it was he get donations from her first church o okay, cuz they have the back then they probably have the Big Green mall there by old main stretching out a go with I think it was called the main building. It was a library. Okay, and they have the hill there where we could roll down the hill to do. Okay. So, when did you meet Dad it was when I got my last couple years in high school probably was 54 and are 55 and my girlfriend is Mother wouldn't let her out without a

31:11 Somebody else she wanted to meet her at Carol. Carol and she wanted to meet her boyfriend. So she had me go along with her and Jack brought dad and I was Jack Black more. Yeah. Okay. I'm trying to remember the names and said so but we were at the grass. In fact, we dressed up and more funny have some things to be silly and that's what I'm mad at Miss. I didn't know him before that. Okay, and so you I know Grandpa's when wasn't too happy about you guys. So I guess then he sent you after you graduated on a odyssey back East. Yeah, I went on a trip around I started out I went to cut the Train by myself a really and I went to visit Aunt Florence and Kansas City and then I visited my sister Ellie.

32:08 In Highland Park, Illinois, and then I went to Philadelphia and stayed with some cousins and uncles in Philadelphia and they took me around sightseeing enough to New York. That was my first trip up the Empire State Building and I was petrified of hives and I remember thinking over but I was it was very scary for somebody from the Tucson was a little town there and then I went to New York City and I was the tallest building in Tucson at the time from Pioneer Hotel think of the Pioneer Hotel in about 10 or 12 11 11. Okay, and we went to see the Rockettes at time and I had a great-uncle that had retired and he he was going on a cruise so we went to the shit he was going to

33:08 Elsa Atlantic, and we went for a bon voyage party and I have never seen a table laid like that. Like I said, I was a little girl from the Tucson then I had never seen a fancy table with the ice carvings on Alda was just like in the movies and I I didn't realize that that was real life. So this is right before your 18th birthday. So yeah, and then I went to on that train trips and I stop by.

33:39 Annapolis and stayed with a cousin there.

33:43 And then I took the train a home it went through New Orleans and back to Tucson, but I was by myself the whole time while you covered a lot of territory. Yeah, I guess that must explain why I enjoy traveling so much. Well, I read a lot and I went I was quite a reader and I I would read about different places and I want to see him. So that's why I liked in my my uncle was a diplomat in foreign countries and my grandparents would travel a lot in and I also had cousins in Mexico City, so that's how

34:22 I got that you never you didn't go down to Mexico City to see an EIN as though until after you were married. I went to the year. I was 16 with my mother and we caught a bus and I remember we had to take a bus to El Paso, Texas and we transferred over wait then we had to transfer over to Juarez Mexico and catch the Mexican bus and then we went through I remember there was always Caliente and there was a different it was about a two-day trip on the bus the one that was in Mexico right next to Kin bus. So that was and I stayed there in fact, I wanted to stay there until I met Uncle Amadeo and I answer the cousins and went to us.

35:13 Big somebody's coming out party with my cousin Amadeo and his friend so was just the only ones traveling was just you and Grandma cuz I was already away at college. Is that it, correct? Okay. Okay. Alright just trying that would have been an exciting trip to take and that's why I loved Mexico is because it'll I the family down there and

35:43 So now that sounds like one of the highlights of your teenage years going down all the way down to Mexico. And how many how many weeks were you down there? We were there about three weeks and at that time I had taken two years of Spanish in high school and I was speaking Spanish pretty well when I went by the end of the third week, but then we came back here and I didn't I wasn't able to practice it as much and I took a little bit in college too, and I worked in a Bilingual School. So I did know quite a bit I could get by in Spanish, but it's been so long. I've been retired and I I can read it, but I have trouble keeping up conversation now I never was bilingual.

36:33 Yeah, I just even when I was working at the Port of Entry from time to time my Spanish never was where we call conversational. So, okay. Well at is there anything else you'd like to share with me before we wrap this interview up. Well, then I had gotten married. I was when I came back from the trip. I got married right after I got back and I was just turned 18 and I was legal and my parents didn't really want me getting married. He was they said he was a foreigner and dad was a foreigner. Yeah, and they didn't like his stance history. Okay, then we got married and you were born later. Right? And then Jim was born the next year. So I got into I was a young mother right and we were pretty low income but we we did well and I was smart enough where I knew where to

37:34 You know how to stretch food and stuff. So and then when Bob got in Kendrick four years old I decided I want to go back to school and so I went down to the university registration. I said I want to register for school but I hadn't taken any tests or any anything and they were kind of flabbergasted but they didn't help mothers at that time, but they told me to write an essay and I wrote an essay and it wasn't that good. It was so many words a night. It was way short so then I had to add another one but they put me in English class. And then I finish it took me five years to get through the university and then I started teaching after that. I'll tell you what it's just amazing what you and Dad were able to do and of course, but maybe in 62 even married 63 years. So I realized I really appreciate everything you and Dad have done and again, I appreciate you take

38:33 The time to sit down for this interview, it was hard going to University because I had three little children. Yeah. I don't know how I could do it. Okay, then I had a full load the rest of time and if it was rough, but I did it. Well you taught me well, so I think love both you and Dad and appreciate all your time and the older I get the more I appreciate you, too. So, thank you again, and thank you.