Susanne Vest and [No Name Given] [No Name Given]

[00:00] SUSANNE PALMER VAN WAGENEN VEST: Second, I'm Suzanne Palmer Van Wagenen vest, otherwise known as sister Vest. Also, I'm very thankful for this opportunity, and I brought a special friend with me.

[00:26] [NO NAME GIVEN] [NO NAME GIVEN]: I'm the special friend, and I'm here to interview sue, who is 84 years old. So, sue, tell me. Tell me about your life, where you were born and when and about your childhood and so forth.

[00:39] SUSANNE PALMER VAN WAGENEN VEST: Okay? I was born in Burley, Idaho, and I was very excited to come to this family because they had two other children. And so they were excited to have me, too. My dad was an agriculture teacher. He graduated from the University of Idaho. My mother was a teacher. My dad had been married before, ten years before, but his wife died in childbirth. And so then when my parents married, their first baby died. So those were the days when they didn't have ways to resuscitate you might say, people when they were close to death. So my dad was ten years older than my mother, and he was county agent. And what that meant was if people had problems with their crops or their gardens and they wanted to know about it, they would go to him for advice. And however, world War Two broke out, and that's when everyone was very unhappy because the Japs had killed so many of our young men at Pearl harbor. Everybody wanted to join in and help my dad. Join. Joined the effort. And we were assigned to go to Topaz, Utah. When we got there, we didn't realize what it was going to be like. At least I didn't. We had to have a pass to get in and to get out of. And there were fences clear around the prison, about 8ft tall, and then wire roped around on top of that so no one could escape. And there were bird nests kind of on each corner where there were guards to guard the Japanese. The Japanese were sent to these prisons because we were actually at war with Japan. And everybody was very hateful towards the Japanese. And they were called. A lot of people called them Japs. And a lot of times, if they had businesses, people would throw rocks at their windows. And so they were. People were just angry with all the japanese people. And because you could tell who they were, they were all, what shall I say? Marginalized nowadays. Anyway, my dad, his job was to set up a farm because the government didn't want to torture these prisoners, but they needed to feed them. Since my dad was in charge of the agriculture, his job was to get a farm going so they could produce food for the japanese people. Now, we think that we really treated the japanese people terribly, but there were u boats on this side of the west side of the United States that had been spotted. And of course, the government thought that maybe some of these Japanese would give them information and they could bomb California. And on the other side, towards on the east, there were also u boats, and they were from germany. So we were at war on both sides, and fear will do a lot of things to people. The Japanese were first, believe it or not, were put in horse stalls. Each family had a horse stall, but as soon as they could build these houses or these places for them, they moved them there. And this is where we lived. And we had one long barracks, and they were divided in two, and there was no division, so we had to put blankets between our bedrooms. And it was. And that's the way the Japanese were. They were not tortured or anything. They were treated well, but they didn't have privacy. They were given a barracks, part of it, and a potbelly stove to keep warm and beds, and that's about it. So when they ate, they ate together, everybody when they showered, all the women together, all the men together. And the bathrooms were not private, so we did pretty well. When you consider some of our men that were killed over in Japan, they were tortured. And I had no food and all sorts of things. So I lived there. When I lived there, I kept having dreams that I'd get caught up in this wire and I'd walk in my sleep. My parents had to lock the door because I would go out, and in my dreams, I would be caught up all in this wire. While I was there, there was one man that was, I don't know, raking in his garden, or he made motions to look like he was maybe trying to escape, and he was killed. And so that gave me some really bad dreams, too, but it was quite an experience. But most of the japanese people were very nice, and they were very productive. In other words, they went out in the desert and picked up shells, and they made beautiful pins and dolls, and they weren't. They were good people, most of them. Well, I think all of them were. So it was there where I started kindergarten in first grade. And I remember struggling because I had a japanese teacher, and I had a hard time understanding. So I know that kids learn languages early, but I had a hard time with it. So when the war was over, my dad decided he wanted to try farming. But by then he was 50 years old, but he had some land near Milad, Idaho, and he thought he wanted to try it. And my grandparents lived there, both sides. And so it was kind of a fun time for me to go and get a quinoa with my cousins and relatives, and we just lived down the street from our grandparents. And it was a lot of fun. And probably one of the most important things that I felt was somebody invited us to come to church, and we. It was the first time I'd gone to church, even though by then I was like, second grade. And so I got involved in going to primary, which is for the young people. And I loved it. And so I was baptized my sister. And from then forward, we always sought the church. Well, from there, my dad realized that at 50, you don't start farming. It's hard work. And also he was used to a regular paycheck from the government, even though it wasn't a lot, but so he. After the war, President Eisenhower put many of the men working, and the things that they did was to make all these dams, like Hiram dam. My dad was in charge of the peck. I think it was the wolf peck jam in North Dakota. So we went and moved to North Dakota, and, oh, it was so cold. North Dakota has no mountains or anything to break the wind. It was just so cold. And in those days, we didn't have buses either. We walked most of the time to school, even though it was quite a ways and the wind would just blow. We were there in, let's see, 1947 through 50, when I think it was one of the coldest winters that they had. And so I went to, let's see, 5th, 6th grade there. And before long, we decided not to. My dad decided he wanted to move west, closer to family and not so cold, but we always went to church in North Dakota. And there was just a small group of us, and we met in the American Legion hall, maybe very few people, but my sister was a wonderful pianist, and so she played the piano and I led the singing, and it was quite an experience of different country. So we moved to Wyoming. My dad heard that there were openings for the Bureau of Indian affairs, so we transferred to the Bureau of Indian affairs, and we moved to Wyoming. And little did we know what we were getting into again. We had a nice house and everything, but I went to a three room school where three grades were taught in one room. And there was a big pot belly stove, the back. So if you sat in the back, you were cooking. If you sat in the front, you were freezing. And I had a relic of a teacher. Her father actually buried sacagawea that led the Lewis and Clark people back west. So it was quite an experience. Little did I know that the two Indians were Arapahoe and Shoneys. And I had a friend, I asked her, are you shoney or Arapaho? And she was so mad at me, I couldn't figure out why she was mad. And she said she was Shoshone. Well, the reason why I found out later is that the reservation at Fort Washakie was promised to the Shoshone Indians. And then they moved the Arapahoes on after Arapahoes had been promised another reservation, but they never got moved. So the Shoshones were very mad at each. They didn't like the arapahoes, but most of them were pretty nice to me because my dad was the head of the reservation. And at that time, we never took any vacations except to visit our grandparents to Milad. And however, we became friends with these indian friends that took us on a backpacking trip. It's the only vacation I remember. And we drove about 15 miles back in the wind river mountains. And then we went by horseback, and when we got there, it was snowy. And I remember that the Leclaires, the indian people that took us, they helped us set up the tent, but we didn't have like, air mattresses or anything, so we had to put down all. They cut off limbs of the tree, and we put that underneath our blankets, and we stayed there probably. It seemed like it was about a week, and it was a fisherman's dream because nobody was back there. And we probably caught at least 100 fish, at least. And they were big ones, which would never happen nowadays. But then my brother and I, we made a little pond, and so if the fish weren't dead, we'd run and put them in our little pond. We had our own little fishery there, my brother and I. But that's the only vacation I remember. And I remember the Indians making stir or indian fried bread. Oh, it was so good with sugar on it. Oh, it was so good. Anyway, Wyoming was a really good time for us. And when I got in high school, I was actually bussed to lander, which was 16 miles away. Morning and night, I would go in there, and it was a school of about 100 people. And I would say probably maybe about 20 Indians went in there. The Indians had a choice. They had indian schools and they had indian hospitals, and they had, you know, everything provided for them. In fact, oil was discovered on that reservation at Fort Washakie. And so they received a certain amount of money quarterly for how many kids they had. And the problem is that it was just handed to them. And they really were quite lazy sometimes. But the boys, the Indians that came to this high school, most of them were athletes, and so they would come and play basketball or football or whatever. And the sad part about it is they were really never accepted in the white society and never really accepted in the back when they went back home, too, because they were kind of an outcast. So. But I enjoyed it there. I got involved. I always was in choir and I sang and. And I was a cheerleader. It was a small school, so we could get to know everyone. Well, at that time, everything was provided for the Indians. But as nowadays, there was two parties. I can't remember which one. But anyway, one party didn't want to provide everything. He wanted them to mix in with the white people. But then the Indians were happy because they were getting everything given to them. So in order to get the indian vote, the party. One party said, we want to give you more, you know, and then the other party said, they didn't. Well, in that midst, my dad got transferred because he was in the party that told them that we were supposed to close all these things. So we moved to Klamath, Oregon, and we were on the Klamath, Indian reservation. And I went to school of about 60 people, probably mostly Indians, maybe 20 caucasian people. It was very small, but I moved there in the summer, so I was really lonesome because I didn't know anybody because I lived on the reservation, and there was bus over to the. So I didn't know anybody. Well, my sister got a job at Crater Lake, and so I thought that would sure be fun. Well, she came home one day from work on the weekend and said someone had gotten fired. So I directly went up there and applied. And here I was only, like, 16 years old, and I got the job. And so I was selling souvenirs during the day. And then again, my sister and I actually got to sing at night for the tourists sometime. It was really quite fun. Oregon was a beautiful place, but I never really liked it. It was harder when I was in high school to move. See, I went to three different high schools and four different elementary schools, so I always got to know people. But still, especially in high school, it was hard for me to move. Well, my dad then got transferred again. I'm nothing sure of the reasons, but maybe he got paid more. He was head of all the indian reservations in Minnesota. There's probably at least seven indian reservations in Minnesota, a lot more than I thought. It was a beautiful area, you know, lots of lakes, lots of trees. And it was actually colder than North Dakota in temperature. But there was some mountains or hills, maybe we call them, that protected, you know, a little bit. So I can remember going to school when it was 45 below and we were not allowed to wear pants. We could wear wool pants under our skirts, but when we got to school, we had to take them off and put them in our locker, and we wore scarves around our head and around our nose because it was really. We could get frostbite. Well, I moved there my senior year, which was really difficult again. But then I got involved in choir, always sang. And the first time I ever had voice lessons, the choir teacher gave me a few lessons. Music played a big part in our life because we had no tv, no tv in Minnesota any place. And so we would sing around our piano. My dad and I and my sister would play, and, oh, I forgot one thing. When I lived in Minnesota, I got scarlet fever, and I was in the hospital, and I was contagious for two whole weeks without tv or anything. And I look back on it now and I think, what did I do for two weeks? And it was Christmas time. And I remember my parents coming to see me out. They couldn't come in. They just threw the window and they would wave to me. And this was before they had penicillin. And so I was treated with sofa drugs. And that, I think, just made me weaker. But my brother and sister, who were home, they were even, they couldn't go to school, even though I wasn't living there. Anyway, when I got home, then everything had to be aired out. I remember putting all our books and everything out, you know, trying to get rid of all the germs. But this was Christmas time, and I missed Christmas completely. And that was about when I was in about the 6th grade. And anyway, so back to Oregon. After living all these places, my desire to go to Brigham Young university was really strong because I just didn't want to date people that drank or smoked. And so I went to Brigham Young, and I loved it there and learned so much about the Church of Jesus Christ. And through my life, it has really been a strength to me. And I was excited to date other guys. And I did meet a guy by the name of Fern Vest, and he. We went together, and he. We got engaged, and he went to. He brought me home to Minnesota and met my parents and then went back so he could graduate from Brigham Young University, and he graduated. But when I went home, I got second feelings. And so my parents were big on education, and they discouraged me, and they said, you're awful young. And I was and so I sent his ring back, and that was kind of sad. I. But I went back to BYU again and met another man by the name of Jim van Wagenen, married him, and we had five children and 34 years of good marriage. Well, not good. I put my husband through medical school. I taught school. And then after 34 years, we did get a divorce. And I then served a mission, went on a mission, and then I didn't know where I was going to work. Here I was in my fifties, and I ended up with Lord's help working at BYU. What a blessing that was. And I was a hall advisor for men. Now, that's a different story completely. I could fill your books with pranks that they love to do, and everything was left out to me. I did cleaning inspections. I did, you know, had people come and repair things, and every semester had another 300. Well, I'll go on, though, because that would take the rest of the time because I worked there twelve years. Well, towards the end, I was getting about 65, and I was almost the oldest one working there. I thought that I got to retire before long. And then Lord must have known I was getting desperate because I didn't know whether to buy a house or what I was going to do. There is the rest, you know, live with my kids, whatever. And then I get this phone call from Fern vest. Well, most guys don't have the name of Fern. And he called me and was telling me that his wife had passed away and that a little bit about him. He lived in Arizona. He raised his kids there. And I had lived in California, and I had raised my kids there. I hadn't seen him for 46 years, and I don't know whether I would have even recognized him. And I said, well, if you ever come to Utah where I was working, I'll take you out to lunch or something. And then I remembered that I had some football tickets, and I said, well, maybe you'd like to come up to one of the games. Well, he said, well, I'll think about it. Well, the next morning at 830, I get a phone call, and he said he'd come up to all of them. And I thought, oh, I lived in the dorm. What was I going to do with him? My goodness. But it turned out he had a daughter that lived in not too far away. In Springville. No, someplace there. Anyway, we got back together and we just seemed to fit right in together. And so we were married on Valentine's day. That was his choice of Valentine's day. His kids. He had eight kids. They were all married. I had five kids and they were all married. We had a wonderful marriage, but then we didn't have any problems. We had no kids. We both had retired and we both were anxious to make a marriage work. And I was so happy for that because it was great and we were able to go on another mission for our church and be able to enjoy our companionship. So it was a wonderful love story, something I never dreamt because I hadn't even thought of him, to be honest with you. He may have thought of me because his wife was sick, several, you know, three years. I think she went blind. And it was hard for him. So he may have, but I didn't think of it because I was busy working my job, solving all those pranks. And so anyway, it was, it was, it's been an interesting life. And now my second Fern has passed away and now I'm a widow. And now I have to decide what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. But it certainly has been eventful, and I appreciate you sharing, letting me share this because I feel like I've had a really interesting life when I look back on it. Thank you.

[31:29] [NO NAME GIVEN] [NO NAME GIVEN]: Thank you, sue, for sharing all of that. It was very interesting.

[31:35] SUSANNE PALMER VAN WAGENEN VEST: Oh, I still have more minutes. Well, let's see. What did I miss? Let's see. Oh, I did graduate from college, by the way, in elementary and music and minor. So that's one thing my dad should be very happy because I got my education and I actually taught for about six years before I had my children. And so I think it gave me a lot of security in knowing that I could do that if I had to, even though I didn't end well. I did teach a little bit at BYU, but my, and I, so it my dad, and then my dad always thought that maybe we'd get back together, Fern and I, but we didn't. So, anyway, life has turns that you never know what kind of do. Thank you.