Pearl Gaynor Choate Oral History Interview Audio [transcript]

00;00;00;00 - Unknown Interviewer: Okay. Then your name is Pearl p a r. u.

00;00;11;16 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: You’ll be sorry to.

00;00;16;25 - Unknown Interviewer: Your name?

00;00;19;27 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Pearl Gaynor.

00;00;27;18 - Unknown Interviewer: I’m a I in New York City. In there?

00;00;32;20 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yes.

00;00;33;17 - Unknown Interviewer: I’m here in the nickname.

00;00;36;17 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yes. When I was barely called 50.

00;00;41;00 - Unknown Interviewer: Because you that your sisters.

00;00;42;14 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yes, I can pronounce who’s your. Say it right. If they told me that I’m still known by all my people in Canada by the name of this, they all right too. That’s it. Okay.

00;00;55;09 - Unknown Interviewer: Why did you decide to be called Pearl?

00;00;57;29 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Because that was my name for. Well, really, I was when I came to live with my uncle in Nam. Was he? In fact, I didn’t know my what my name was. And she didn’t like the name Susie, so she said he called her.

00;01;14;09 - Unknown Interviewer: the date for birth?

00;01;15;27 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: August 16th, 19.

00;01;22;01 - Unknown Interviewer: Point. Didn’t think you were correct. place of birth.

00;01;27;00 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Chris. Somebody to hold Chris.

00;01;31;17 - Unknown Interviewer: Where is that?

00;01;33;04 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, it’s about five miles over the field. This way.

00;01;37;00 - Unknown Interviewer: Oh, really? It’s that close? I haven’t heard of it before. And your phone number.

00;01;43;05 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: 4765603

00;01;47;11 - Unknown Interviewer: Five. 4765.

00;01;51;17 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: 603. Yeah.

00;01;53;10 - Unknown Interviewer: Okay. And your address is route one.

00;01;56;01 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah.

00;01;59;27 - Unknown: Box 67.

00;02;13;07 - Unknown: Okay.

00;02;15;29 - Unknown Interviewer: Your mother’s name.

00;02;19;07 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And the Althea Wells.

00;02;29;28 - Unknown Interviewer: The day. Her birth.

00;02;31;04 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: February the 27th, 1889.

00;02;37;29 - Unknown Interviewer: The place. Her birth.

00;02;43;23 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Was Zora. I don’t know what the name of the place is in that state.

00;02;50;23 - Unknown: And the day. Forgive.

00;02;54;21 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: December 4th, 1980.

00;03;01;02 - Unknown Interviewer: The year that she was married.

00;03;03;01 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Marks the 29th, 1970.

00;03;08;28 - Unknown Interviewer: Her occupation for jobs.

00;03;11;14 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Mother and housekeeper.

00;03;17;27 - Unknown Interviewer: When you say housekeeper, you mean for your house or for other people refers.

00;03;22;09 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: How can.

00;03;26;23 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Franklin Charles Grover Gainer.

00;03;39;01 - Unknown Interviewer: The date of.

00;03;39;20 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Birth. May 23rd, 1889.

00;03;46;13 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Request the first cabin to show the.

00;03;54;29 - Unknown: The date this death.

00;03;56;07 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Is still.

00;03;56;20 - Unknown Interviewer: Living. Oh, you. Oh, I almost died. Yeah, well, I don’t know. His occupations and jobs.

00;04;06;03 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, he was a farmer mostly. He worked up some mill, some. He went up to Canada 19. Live. And I believe it was. It took up land.

00;04;26;18 - Unknown Interviewer: So you went with your family of care and and then came back and your mother died. Your brothers and sisters.

00;04;36;19 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: you I couldn’t give you all the rest of their addresses or names or. I mean, I can give you the names. There’s all Ella, Ella.

00;04;48;10 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: B, is there not name? Now, these b s just b.

00;04;59;02 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And there’s every.

00;05;02;10 - Unknown Interviewer: Her sister. Brother, sister.

00;05;04;21 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: You don’t have to spell at the r e. Schaefer.

00;05;17;20 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And Opal Leslie. Oh. For her name. Are you okay?

00;05;31;00 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Lawrence.

00;05;38;06 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: To Clarence.

00;05;43;03 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And then do you want my half brothers and sisters? Oh, okay. Norman. And Dallas.

00;05;58;29 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And, the sisters was, Addie.

00;06;06;23 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I knew, and Claire.

00;06;14;06 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: My dad was married three times. And who was.

00;06;18;16 - Unknown Interviewer: Dead? Is that quite died here?

00;06;20;08 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: This.

00;06;24;22 - Unknown Interviewer: You have to say or shoot.

00;06;32;06 - Unknown Interviewer: Okay. This is birth.

00;06;34;07 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: August 27th, 19, four.

00;06;39;08 - Unknown Interviewer: Close to birth.

00;06;40;23 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Taken.

00;06;44;28 - Unknown Interviewer: Back to patient. Yeah.

00;06;46;28 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, he’s a farmer. Electrician? Carpenter.

00;06;56;00 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: He worked on the road for year.

00;07;06;02 - Unknown Interviewer: To date, because you’re married.

00;07;10;05 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: taken either hold April 18th, 1936.

00;07;24;16 - Unknown Interviewer: Your children’s lives.

00;07;27;05 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Elder Mamie McIvor. Now you want her last name?

00;07;34;24 - Unknown Interviewer: McIvor. Okay.

00;07;36;22 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: couple in c r d e r o.

00;07;44;05 - Unknown Interviewer: They in place for birth.

00;07;47;08 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: take another home. December 27th, 1927.

00;07;56;29 - Unknown Interviewer: And her occupation?

00;07;58;20 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Schoolteacher. Housewife. Mother.

00;08;12;12 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Okay, Alice. Pearl Thurman. Damn. Am a in.

00;08;20;25 - Unknown Interviewer: The a and and they in.

00;08;25;10 - Unknown: That was to be. Cooper.

00;08;30;09 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: July the 12th, 1930.

00;08;37;22 - Unknown Interviewer: And that was going to be you.

00;08;42;19 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Or occupation and registered nurse.

00;08;52;10 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And, Agnes, you born VA you to check in.

00;09;03;20 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: July the 30th, 1933.

00;09;11;25 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Her occupation. She just housekeeper to. She has worked out some that she doesn’t like it.

00;09;25;01 - Unknown Interviewer: That’s all right. 30 something to. No. I know, okay. Your education.

00;09;32;07 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: it’s be creek.

00;09;37;21 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Okay. Here. Yes.

00;09;42;14 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Your skills don’t have any.

00;09;46;23 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, wealthy and poor without raising. Well, that’s with interest. What else besides cooking the girl skill that you have?

00;10;01;14 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I don’t know of any that I just work on the farm, you know, garden, the milk cows and everything that everybody else. The family’s first start now.

00;10;13;03 - Unknown: Okay. Did your whole give you the occupation? Jobs for the farmer?

00;10;18;12 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Not after I was married.

00;10;20;22 - Unknown Interviewer: Did you have any before you?

00;10;22;00 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Before that? I mean, I don’t know how things worked in people’s homes. And, then we have, used to be what they call a midwife would go from place to place when people were sick. The babies were born helpers, the people that were there. So.

00;10;56;04 - Unknown Interviewer: Your interest parties for town?

00;11;01;08 - Unknown: oh.

00;11;02;20 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I just like to see things keep moving in the community. I don’t have any town, but I don’t think.

00;11;08;13 - Unknown: We should do.

00;11;15;24 - Unknown Interviewer: You right, Claire? Right.

00;11;17;27 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Who do? superintendent. A Sunday school for 20 years. Our Sunday school. Our primary school to.

00;11;31;11 - Unknown Interviewer: Where do you go to church now? Cream Ridge.

00;11;35;21 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: It’s about four miles from here. My mother,

00;11;40;20 - Unknown Interviewer: I can choose to go with your old church back on.

00;11;52;00 - Unknown Interviewer: Clubs, group. Society.

00;11;55;00 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, we belong to the Grange. And then I belong to this club down. And the extensive,

00;12;09;00 - Unknown Interviewer: Work that the Deacon Community Club.

00;12;22;04 - Unknown Interviewer: Awards, honors. Living.

00;12;26;18 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, I’ve got quite a few residents in the fair for different things that do in there. Like cheerleader camps. Good to know. quilts. And we have all kinds of greens and produce out of the garden. We’ve got lots of urban farm.

00;13;01;07 - Unknown Interviewer: Growing town. I see growing things in the town.

00;13;06;22 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh. Is it?

00;13;08;04 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah, I really so.

00;13;18;14 - Unknown Interviewer: What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of living in a rural area?

00;13;26;14 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, the disadvantages would be life for education. The children can’t take part in so many things. That is, after they get out, it’s great. You know, if they have to travel to ride a bus down there, had a bus back. It’s set at a certain time and there’s a lot of things they can’t participate in. No. but, some people take their children and like if they play basketball or you or and sports and things, well, then they have to go get them.

00;13;59;25 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: They can ride the bus down, but they always have to go get. And that’s the start back. I think. Back to really living in the country is the most beautiful place to do nothing.

00;14;13;01 - Unknown Interviewer: Why do you like it so much?

00;14;15;03 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I don’t know, maybe it’s just because I was born and raised here. You might say all the time. You know, I was only gonna just, Well, from. I was a year and a half old. Came back when I was 11. My mother died when I was eight, and, And I was just because I always lived here.

00;14;34;04 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Girl, I could to. Well, from.

00;14;36;16 - Unknown Interviewer: What type of place did you live in when you’re in Canada?

00;14;40;02 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, it’s dry desert country. I didn’t like, of course, that sand hills were pretty close, and for I didn’t care for it.

00;14;52;29 - Unknown Interviewer: Did your profit from up there?

00;14;54;19 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yes. Food.

00;14;58;03 - Unknown Interviewer: Why did you just. Or who made the decision for your for you to come back here?

00;15;03;24 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: My uncle a man. They have three children. Two boys and girl. they want another girl. So they. And they said they tried to get my folks to leave me here when they went to Canada, but, they, of course, wouldn’t part with me. So when my mother passed away. But then they tried to get me back. So I came back and stated, who.

00;15;27;25 - Unknown Interviewer: Did you want to come back?

00;15;29;02 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, yes. You. I was kind of unhappy up there for. Well, we go to one relative to stay a while in another relative, and they just burned all of us out. You know me, my dad would adopt the South, but he didn’t take care of us so that it was the route is with Jesus.

00;15;51;21 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, did he just feel that he couldn’t raise you as well without having a woman around?

00;15;57;24 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I suppose I don’t know what the deal was. He just to keep us all together? my sister, he was for farmed out to my aunt down here first, and then, my mother’s sister took, my sister Ella, but he kept Laurence and Clarence and myself together the longest. And then we finally went and stayed with their grandparents, and I just didn’t like it somewhere other.

00;16;28;10 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And so when George, my first one, I just was willing to come back. And when I came down, the first year, of course, I was awful homesick about real homesick for, quite a long time. And, my dad even took me to the doctor to see what was wrong with me, but I wouldn’t go back. Now, that was 21 years before I got back.

00;16;49;19 - Unknown Interviewer: Still a long gone. Where’s your father now?

00;16;54;22 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Lives in Kansas. In this, but Evans burg, Alberta first Edmonton.

00;17;02;04 - Unknown Interviewer: That he’s still pretty active.

00;17;03;22 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, yes. He takes care of his garden and he gets around to do.

00;17;13;11 - Unknown Interviewer: How would you compare the life of a rural woman with that of an urban?

00;17;20;20 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Really, I don’t know. I’ve never, never then mum. So I don’t know, but I like it. We will farm. We don’t have a very big farm. It’s only 140 acres. Now that we get our Social Security to get by. But we never made a lot of money.

00;17;40;08 - Unknown: From, you know, like.

00;17;48;15 - Unknown Interviewer: Fourth largest ham, which have been in.

00;17;53;04 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, also Spokane and Edmonton, Alberta.

00;17;59;01 - Unknown Interviewer: Did you like it there?

00;18;01;17 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I like it out in the suburbs, you know, but not right in the main part of town. I have a daughter. That’s it. All about 20 miles off of the main part of Spokane. And I like it there real well. We go up for once a week with it, so I wouldn’t want to live in town. I don’t think.

00;18;25;14 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: My husband went in town for nothing. Oh, he was born just about a mile and a half from here. Lived here all this time. It was part of harder with the place at all.

00;18;38;29 - Unknown Interviewer: How did you hear me?

00;18;40;23 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Because we met at a kitchen. Sweat the day I came down from Canada. they call. It’s a dance. You know, they used to get them in the homes. the. I didn’t know him. I’d never seen him or anything, but, we just. At this dance, and I used to have some big, long benches along the side of the walls.

00;19;06;18 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: People sit on my sitting there. He walked over, sit down, started me not. Got up the other way. Then this.

00;19;13;16 - Unknown Interviewer: Oh, how old were you?

00;19;15;19 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I was 39, 11.5. And, first, I was always large. I’ve always been the doorway to 157 when I was 13 years old. And,

00;19;29;27 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Always have appeared older than what I really am, I think. And, then the first date where he took me home from church down here, that was five years later.

00;19;43;18 - Unknown Interviewer: Oh. Did you talk to him that night or. You know, I just.

00;19;47;11 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I just left, right. What he said, I just took off.

00;19;50;23 - Unknown Interviewer: Why were you shy?

00;19;52;02 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I guess, I don’t know, kind of bashful. So, I didn’t want the boys looking at me anyway.

00;20;01;15 - Unknown Interviewer: so that was when you were 16.

00;20;04;03 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I got married when I was 16. Oh, see, that was five years before then.

00;20;08;15 - Unknown Interviewer: How long have you been dating for?

00;20;10;02 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Pretty good. We were together a year and a half.

00;20;13;20 - Unknown Interviewer: What type of activities did you do when you’re courting?

00;20;18;05 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, we go to church. We go to dances and parties. We have Halloween parties. Often things that was going on in the community, you know.

00;20;30;18 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: We used to go to church. We have revivals around gospel meetings, I’d call them, and we’d always go take those in and then we went to dances. I could go to the dances if I got up every morning. I went to Sunday school. I had to get up at morning, go to church no matter how late. I stayed out Saturday night.

00;20;52;09 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And it was good for me because I think church is very, very important.

00;20;59;09 - Unknown Interviewer: What did you expect a marriage to be like?

00;21;04;24 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, I really don’t know what to expect if I just fell in love with my husband. We that we wanted to get married. I had planned on working out that winter and going to high school, but it was married in April because school’s out when I was in the eighth grade to sleep. I didn’t get to start school till I came down from Canada.

00;21;28;06 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And, the medication was pretty short and.

00;21;34;19 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: They crowded me through. I’ve always felt bad about that, but I did see that my girls got through.

00;21;42;21 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, okay. How long did it take you to go in there? From the first grade to the eighth grade.

00;21;49;01 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: What about five and a half years? Two grades. You’re there several times. Oh, that’s quite a lot. Yeah. It is. It crams a lot in your head. You don’t do it all, you know, you can’t digest quite all of them.

00;22;06;20 - Unknown Interviewer: But you must do them pretty well.

00;22;08;20 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, yeah.

00;22;13;07 - Unknown Interviewer: Oh. Describe some of the things that you and your brothers and sisters did when.

00;22;20;09 - Unknown: You were growing up.

00;22;26;18 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I really don’t I wasn’t with my brothers and sisters enough to know, you know, I.

00;22;36;01 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: After I came down with my uncle, of course, there was there and R.C. Lyman nine. Lyman died when she was 13. It’s hard trouble, remembers the three of us. And, we just went to school back and forth to go to school in the morning, home mountain, and do whatever there was to be done at home, you know, like, well, I used to do an awful lot of work at they would work outdoors much.

00;23;03;16 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I just had to do the housework. And of course, the fact that.

00;23;07;15 - Unknown Interviewer: Everything that’s what you do for recreation.

00;23;14;03 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: We just go to the parties when they have to go to church, and that’s about all we’re cooking.

00;23;19;14 - Unknown Interviewer: You can ride horses.

00;23;20;19 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, yes. I know one time this little horse took me out and found me down with me. I kind of got with that.

00;23;30;24 - Unknown Interviewer: They wasn’t a very deep down, was it?

00;23;34;11 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Not to be way down. You.

00;23;39;24 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Know, they didn’t have much recreation. Really?

00;23;46;09 - Unknown Interviewer: Are you closer to your aunt and than your father?

00;23;49;16 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And closer to my uncle? Yes. He was my mother’s brother. And I really know more about him than I did my dad. Yeah, because I was with him more. And, I don’t know, he seemed to take more interest in me. I think we have felt about it anyway.

00;24;13;09 - Unknown Interviewer: They really like children. And they.

00;24;15;00 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yes, they do. And then I always feel good with young people because they always said, Uncle George. I said, if you have help a child, he said, your money’s not wasted. That was father’s police. His.

00;24;33;14 - Unknown Interviewer: Did, they expect you to go to school or was that something that you wanted to do?

00;24;40;29 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: That’s something I wanted to do myself, and I would have had to work out for my room and board and get my books and things, because I just couldn’t afford to help me. You know, they didn’t have a lot of finances or anything like that. But, one thing I always felt for them on the dark side across the bridge, I was welcomed back of it.

00;25;02;24 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And they did what they could do for us. But they have this girl that was so sick and it’s been out so much money for doctor bills. And they it was hard back in those days to make it to. I know we moved to Kenrick or not to Clarkston and stayed down there one winter because we thought maybe that would help her to lower altitude would be better for our children.

00;25;25;16 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah. And then we moved back in the spring and, back to the farm. He didn’t have a cent left it, and he’d worked in the woods all he could a winter. So if it is hard to.

00;25;38;29 - Unknown Interviewer: That’s all for the school and high school.

00;25;44;17 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: We didn’t have one around here. The other went to South. We go. And if I went to high school at that time, I figured, don’t go on. And I had worked out for summers for Been Pressed his wife out there when their children was born, to keep house. You see. And then Idaho Beans Farm, too. And that’s where I would work for school.

00;26;11;25 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I to work for them and for my room and board and going to high school.

00;26;18;09 - Unknown Interviewer: Before I left, he got married. What did you do to start a farm?

00;26;22;11 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yes. We’ve got this place and we’ve.

00;26;24;07 - Unknown: Been here ever since.

00;26;29;04 - Unknown Interviewer: If you like the idea of being so from.

00;26;33;02 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, I never, I never did think about my husband was. That’s what he wanted. And I just went along with it. You know, I always was kind of tough. But that’s what you do. That’s what we could just here on this place. And you never wanted to move or go anywhere else. He still doesn’t want to go anywhere else.

00;26;55;14 - Unknown Interviewer: So did you ever want to move?

00;26;58;09 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: No. I never really thought about it. I was always happy. And after I got married, I always, I don’t know, I felt like when I was a child, I was kind of. Mistreated. I don’t know whether you’d say mistreated or neglected or just flat, but I worried a lot. And first about a lot of things that hurt bothered me then.

00;27;20;13 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And after I was married, my husband was sort of the lead. We we just got along fine, and everything’s worked out real good. Yeah.

00;27;28;28 - Unknown Interviewer: Feels very good. Sounds like you still get along really well.

00;27;33;10 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, we do. I know one time. Oh, we’ve had our disagreements long and hard and, you know, if we’d ever get into a little argument or anything. One time we asked girls, how about you? And I said, no, ma’am, we wouldn’t say we wouldn’t take you to one of your parts because we love both of you.

00;27;56;27 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah. We’ve always got along real well. It’s good. Real good to be. When I got married, I thought to myself, now you got to be my husband. My mother and my father, my brothers and my sisters, as we sure tried to seal the deal. well, because I didn’t, you know, I’ve been away from them all the time.

00;28;17;16 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, my mom was always good to me and did what they could do. And if they didn’t want to talk, then, I mean, it doesn’t like it’s your own people, you know?

00;28;28;04 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, did. Even though from what you say, it doesn’t sound like they made you feel like you were didn’t quite belong. You were an outsider. Did you kind of feel that way that I.

00;28;41;24 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I sort of felt that way a little bit, but they didn’t want me to feel that way. Not at all. It’s just something that I couldn’t accept, you know, because now they treat me just like they did their children. And that my aunt went out of her way to make her youngsters be nice to me. But you just can’t accept something like that.

00;29;04;19 - Unknown Interviewer: And were you close to your mother?

00;29;07;12 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yes. Very close, of course. I was only eight to my daddy. Didn’t you know if ever the any. We as kids get into an argument or spat or anything? Why, he’d give me a blister and he wouldn’t bother. Yeah, there’s so much, I guess, because that’s all this battle.

00;29;25;01 - Unknown Interviewer: Of the affair. You know, this theory that has something to do with it. So did you have all of your children at home?

00;29;34;02 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yes. You’re all born here from.

00;29;36;16 - Unknown Interviewer: Did you have a doctor?

00;29;38;08 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yes, I have a doctor about,

00;29;41;11 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah. A very severe back acre woman.

00;29;45;05 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: My oldest daughter is. I was sick so long. The doctor had given me six, seven bottles of ether. Those two cans of ether, they were just about ready to cut her all the pieces and take her when finally she was born. I had real heart problems. All three of them.

00;30;08;22 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Sick for a long time. I got to get sick from the one girl from the next day or the next day before they got here.

00;30;22;05 - Unknown Interviewer: did you have any children? Did you want a retirement?

00;30;25;25 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, I don’t really know. When I was a girl, going to school always told the girls at school I should have seven for her, but that’s what my mother had. So that’s, I guess, maybe the reason I said it, I don’t know, but I would have liked to have four and we would have liked to have had a boy, but we didn’t get along so we wouldn’t partner for a girl.

00;30;46;06 - Unknown Interviewer: So, why did you make a decision after you had the three? Did you want to have another one or no?

00;30;54;22 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: The doctor told me that was enough. And I said, as long as I live, you will have to have them, you know. So because I had.

00;31;04;28 - Unknown Interviewer: There was one that had.

00;31;07;09 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: That’s what it was. It. And my youngest daughter had to have her baby’s first through kind of running in the family, I guess, or something. Yeah.

00;31;20;04 - Unknown Interviewer: What do you do now for recreation.

00;31;23;09 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, go to club, go to Grange and go to church. You.

00;31;29;12 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Mostly only have the. I have the three extension club and the community club. And then our Grange.

00;31;37;14 - Unknown Interviewer: You know what is the extension called?

00;31;40;21 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: It’s, to teach people how to keep cows, though. They take a full spin, sewing and canning, all that kind of stuff.

00;31;54;15 - Unknown Interviewer: Just what are you do you teach people how to do things or do you learn how to do?

00;32;00;15 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, I just go mostly and listen anymore. I did when we first started out. Of course, it helped me to learn to do things belong to them. And since.

00;32;11;15 - Unknown: Older, I don’t know, you know, so but.

00;32;17;00 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Anymore I just go to for the social part with the neighbors and things like.

00;32;22;07 - Unknown Interviewer: That. Did you teach your daughters to do a lot of things? Like.

00;32;26;03 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah, we did, yeah. The, when I got married, I had never, baked bread or clean chicken. And so I made sure that my daughters knew how to do all those things when they got married. and my husband, he knew how to do that. He was always good to help his mother. So he helped me learn a lot of that stuff.

00;32;51;07 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yes. He was very proud to tell you about cooking. I did miss First Lady tell the neighbors was it was just a joke, of course. But he would tell them that I made a cake 1 pound, and it was so hard that it sold out in the yard and the dog wouldn’t even eat.

00;33;09;16 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Because he was real good to show me how to do things. The things that I didn’t know how to do. You can learn a lot by doing for her.

00;33;19;26 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And they also, they all crochet, near, I tried to give them everything that I figured I’d missed out on, and I think that’s one reason that my mom is a teacher and one on the commercial, and another one is a housekeeper, because I wanted to be a teacher or a nurse. in a way, I got to be all three, I guess.

00;33;44;18 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: My youngest girl I know when she was little, she said one time, the oldest girl always said, well, I want to be a teacher. And the next girl didn’t know what she wanted to do till she got through high school. But the youngest girl, when she was about three years old, one day somebody asked about, she says, I want to be a mama like mom and get a man like daddy.

00;34;08;26 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: so that’s about what she had to.

00;34;13;19 - Unknown Interviewer: Did you want your children going to school?

00;34;15;28 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, definitely. Yeah. I said, that’s one thing they do. If there is any where you call it that possibility to get to school. Because I think an education helps people so much.

00;34;29;12 - Unknown Interviewer: Good. Began this daughter going to.

00;34;30;26 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: School because she had a year of college after she got to high school. And then when she went to Spokane, she took three months of college up there to learn to run computers and file her children is going to high school. She worked out and but she never really has like work out. She’s a homemaker. Really? Right from the start.

00;34;55;02 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah. The second girl that’s got to be an hour in life. She couldn’t work. She couldn’t make it at all. She’s just one of these people that’s got to be busy and and have a job, you know? And she works for three doctors down there who.

00;35;15;04 - Unknown Interviewer: Then we’ll have the older who always worked. Where did they take come when they had their children?

00;35;24;20 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I think Alice was off seven months from her job, but Alda took off. to see, I don’t remember, several years old. And she’s having to tell her children about two years apart. She has two boys and two girls. And then she waited till Debbie started school, and that’s the youngest. And she went back.

00;35;49;25 - Unknown Interviewer: So what did you think about there? Working with children fairly well. I thought it.

00;35;56;22 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Was fun to pack it up and work for youngsters. I think set the law and I think I, I would like to do it myself and didn’t get to. So I guess that’s what I wanted to do it so bad. Well, how.

00;36;12;19 - Unknown Interviewer: Long when you were a midwife, where did you actually work and.

00;36;16;13 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Where? Where we just would go and take care of a baby when it was born, or if someone was sick, we’d go help out. Maybe their tour. We never knew. Just, you know, how long would last. But Mr. Slifer lived up here on the hill, and she was real good at that. And then when she got older, she wouldn’t go unless somebody would go with her.

00;36;40;19 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: So. And my aunt did that. So I go with Mrs. Parker and for her. Mostly just be with her now. When aunt Grace, she had this first family and then ten years later, after they’d lost the little girl, then she had two more boys. And this older boy. Then when he was born, Uncle George was gone and we couldn’t get the doctor.

00;37;07;13 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And I was 16. That was,

00;37;12;17 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: He was born in August, before we was married the next day. And I was the only person person present besides my aunt. And she hadn’t been able to tell me what to do and everything out of my heart for the heck the I got my period and got in early. Yeah. And then we we have, people. He stayed with us quite a lot different times.

00;37;39;11 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: It’s just my I’ve got real bad ulcers on times. Couldn’t take care of him very well. So I kept it for a year. And, then Joe or his brother, right, died when? Therefore, I was 14 when he came. And report goes for ten years. So we sort of had boys round to, you know.

00;38;07;27 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, how long’s it been since you’ve actually done some work with midwife? Before?

00;38;17;23 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oxford. 15 years. And so I really didn’t feel like the.

00;38;23;05 - Unknown Interviewer: One has most fit them. And the toward the end of your doing that was it just being with sick people or people, new babies or.

00;38;32;15 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah, just sick people. and then people with new babies, only with Doctor Christiansen several times a year. They’d always want somebody to come with him and the doctors at to come out, you know, and different people were born in all of down here. I was the third one. Three of our children were born, and I that’s a gross cause.

00;38;55;18 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: In fact, one of Ethel’s children were born right in my house. And she stayed with me for, you know, took care of her. Well, she and you always get used to. You had to stay in bed for ten days after the baby was born. Now, I guess the third day in the hospital and that I’m up to get him and walk in and everything.

00;39;14;06 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: But back in those days, you didn’t do that? Yeah. They thought it was another day off. Or if you got out of bed before ten days. I know my dad came down from Canada and my second girl was born analysis for. And she was born at six in the morning. And we got here at 630. And well, the next day I got up and went to the table to eat dinner with him because I hadn’t seen you for a long time, and my aunt just thought that was off my what the worst thing I could do get out of bed.

00;39;48;21 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: But it didn’t seem to hurt me. I went back to bed.

00;39;56;13 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: But I hadn’t seen him for several years or. Excited? No, no.

00;40;05;02 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, did you keep getting back up while he was here?

00;40;08;22 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: No, I was back this and stayed my ten days.

00;40;15;06 - Unknown Interviewer: The magic number?

00;40;16;11 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah.

00;40;20;24 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, did you get paid to do this?

00;40;23;21 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: No. It was all just to know. We didn’t expect him to pay back in those days for things like that. You helped your neighbor out and you didn’t. If you ever needed help, they’d come help you. That’s the way it would. Well, we didn’t expect to pay.

00;40;45;14 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, was it more of kind of training services or was it just whenever there was a need?

00;40;51;25 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Just wasn’t there was a need to. Well, we didn’t consider being traded. Do you know somebody needed your help when you went and how Tillman was to.

00;41;04;17 - Unknown Interviewer: When did you first get insurance of any kind?

00;41;11;02 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh let’s see, I think it was when, Agnes, that’s the youngest one, was three years old, and, without some life insurance. His folks, of course, they, when they first came into the country, weren’t very well to do, but they were considered pretty well-to-do at the time. We was married to senior or have these older ones, and he’s next to the baby, and they never believed in any kind of experience or anything.

00;41;43;08 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: So I had quite a time talking my husband into taking out insurance, but I told him that something was to happen to him. I didn’t know how in the world I could even bury him, you know, because.

00;41;58;29 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: We didn’t have any insurance and just the place was an awful hardship. So he family to go the insurance and life insurance and eventually we have we had all these other insurance.

00;42;14;25 - Unknown Interviewer: That’s just what it seems like, for a while that your rural insurance was helping your neighbors. and then when you needed it, they were there. That’s right.

00;42;28;21 - Unknown: What have you done to help support your family?

00;42;35;01 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Just any way I could have went out in the field and worked. And of course, we have our garden. And Kim helped do chores, milk cows and just anything there was to do on the place that that I could do. That’s the only way that I’ve ever felt and never had any money to put towards it.

00;42;59;12 - Unknown Interviewer: I haven’t seen the question. The your.

00;43;03;20 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, that’s about the time the shortly after we was married, you know, that it started and that was really hard and it really tough. We had to live through that of course in the mid two to, well, World War two and then the Korean War and everything was pretty rough. Go on for a while.

00;43;28;24 - Unknown Interviewer: Did it affect your a lot or just make it harder than it usually had?

00;43;36;20 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah. Just harder. It, it didn’t really affect us so much, but, of course we had back in those days, they have these, ration stamps. You know, you couldn’t get only just so much sugar or so much gas or so many calories from US Army, but they dish you out to you could get it pretty rough to get back, but we made it.

00;44;03;26 - Unknown Interviewer: Were there any people in this community that were really hard hit by the depression?

00;44;10;13 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah, that was Pillsbury family. That really.

00;44;13;26 - Unknown Interviewer: Was true. Did they have farm?

00;44;17;00 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah, they were on farms. But, I don’t know what was the reason that I know there was one family that. Well, there was 2 or 3 families here that had really hard row. part of it was sickness. I think one family. I know the man was sick. He just couldn’t work for a good, real hard. Do.

00;44;45;09 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: But we always saying that those people had something deep or not close to keep warm after everybody else would chip in and out.

00;44;55;27 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And when we take our flour to take our wheat to the flour mill, the ground for the different ones taking potatoes and flour and stuff like that. So just give it to.

00;45;09;21 - Unknown Interviewer: The the depression or the war, like most.

00;45;15;07 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, I’d say about the same.

00;45;19;17 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I, World War two, of course. It took some of our relatives in the service. You know, we all came back. Some of them were my cousin that I lived with and one that I brought into the world by myself, has been handicapped. He got shot through the right shoulder. the. Of course, those things are sad and all, but you just have to live through and take them, you know, there’s nothing you can.

00;45;52;27 - Unknown: Do that route.

00;45;58;17 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: One thing I might mention, years and years ago, when we was first married, if somebody died, you know, they never took them to the undertaker. Father. They was always taken care of at home and someone would have to set up with them. And I know one night, the two schoolteachers, I was in the eighth grade and Grandma Herring down here passed away.

00;46;21;11 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, my aunt was a person that, she was a real good Christian woman and everything. And she believed in people facing up to the hardships and the things. You know, that’s one thing that she always taught us. And she made me go with these two teachers and set up with that lady that night. And you’d have to wring rags out of formaldehyde solution and put on them, you know, to keep from getting so dark turned purple, all in that, place where we.

00;46;52;26 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: She was just lived in a two bedroom shack and we opened the door for the window in the room where she was put away, and the cats got in there that my neighbor always told us that cats would eat on dead people. That was kind of spooky that my whole experience that I had, that kind of bothered me.

00;47;13;01 - Unknown Interviewer: Oh, this is just what they were getting ready for.

00;47;15;07 - Unknown: The funeral today. This preserved the man who threw.

00;47;22;25 - Unknown: You know.

00;47;23;27 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: This late model club table or a board, you know, so that they could be in the right shape. You know, they didn’t need to embalm them like they do now.

00;47;38;10 - Unknown Interviewer: When you think better funeral practices now, I’ve compared to them.

00;47;43;04 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, they’re a lot better now of course. But my they’re high priced. You ever you hear the remark a lot of times that you can’t afford to live, that you can’t afford to die there.

00;47;54;04 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah.

00;47;54;27 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: That’s but it’s no comparison. Now look what it was then. That was. And then there was some people that was really hard to take, you know, to do, to be able to take care of somebody that is.

00;48;10;04 - Unknown: Passed away, you know. Yeah, I can imagine it isn’t.

00;48;15;03 - Unknown Interviewer: The most pleasant experience. No. What church isn’t, what type of church you go to?

00;48;23;01 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Who I go to, you do church, the main Mount United Brethren, the name of that, I guess. And then I had belonged to the Methodist Church for several years when we used in Clarkston, we went with the Salvation Army, and I enjoyed that. I really liked the that they had the musical instruments and, Well, I don’t know, they were more jolly and happy.

00;48;53;14 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: The churches that I’ve come to before that they always seem like you always had to be so sad, to be so quiet and solemn and everything. You know, I went and went to the Salvation Army, where, of course, they’re happy. Damn. And, now over here at, at United Brethren, they’re home. Or they have their musical instruments and clap their hands.

00;49;19;02 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And it’s a lot different than it was when I first started to explore.

00;49;24;22 - Unknown Interviewer: We like it better this way.

00;49;27;17 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yes. it’s all right for those. But I can’t get emotional because I was when I was young. I think things that put into your mind and things when you’re young, it’s hard to get over it, you know? And I can’t join in with them and stomp my feet and clap my hands, but I don’t I don’t mind them doing that.

00;49;47;19 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I think that’s okay. But I was always taught that you’re supposed to go to church and be quiet and set up the Excel.

00;49;55;13 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, the Salvation Army essentially does that, right, but they were just happier about and.

00;50;05;08 - Unknown Interviewer: as far as church preferences, it just more or less by what it’s been here.

00;50;09;13 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah. That’s what we’ve had to go to. If I had my preference. I belong to the Baptist church. When we was down lost and we went to that some. And then there used to be a Sunday school Johnson we called him that came around and organized some the schools out in these rural communities. And, we’d go to Lewiston.

00;50;34;08 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And he always held his meetings in the Baptist church down there, Lewiston, Clarkston. And we’d take those in. And then he had Bible camp, and he started in that way, and we liked him real well. And I just like a church. But I’ve never lived where we could belong to that camp. The when we first came here, this was called the Dunker Church.

00;50;59;04 - Unknown Interviewer: Dunkirk.

00;51;00;02 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: The Dunkirk church and the, were real long dresses who had long sleeves and, and then they had this little prayer veil that they wore a woman. And their belief is that the woman couldn’t in the church muster had discovered, so women, they had to put off and they have, in the church down here, there’s a place under a platform where they put in the water, and the people baptized in the church and might have their little feast and the supper and everything.

00;51;36;04 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: It’s, a lot different than how it is nowadays. Of course, the people have all moved away, and, we’ve got to be a, union Sunday school, you know, for some school jobs and around it. And then we finally made it into a community church.

00;51;54;02 - Unknown Interviewer: And you’re sort of like.

00;51;55;00 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: You’ve been my.

00;51;55;13 - Unknown Interviewer: Neck.

00;51;57;16 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: You’ve got a headache.

00;51;58;24 - Unknown: You’re still there. Yeah, that’s. That’s true. Strange.

00;52;04;00 - Unknown Interviewer: Then what type of church pray.

00;52;06;29 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Do.

00;52;07;01 - Unknown Interviewer: You enjoy the most? You know, as far as traditional ritual?

00;52;14;27 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I just like Plano Church. The Bible preached.

00;52;20;16 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, I can say.

00;52;23;22 - Unknown Interviewer: When you think about things like the preparation.

00;52;27;20 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, I never did think that was necessary. I like to have, to have communion, you know, and then once we’re here, pretty much they have, I don’t know just how often, but I’ve been there several times, and that’s fine. I think that I never went so far. I just think you have to, although it’s in the Bible, bottom portion on those the and the doctors, they believe that.

00;52;56;06 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And I wouldn’t stand for any Sharkey or either. you have to have long hair. That is the women did you know?

00;53;08;25 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: So I never really went along with all that, but. And then they their dress was so different and everything. Think that. Unfortunate. But.

00;53;26;11 - Unknown Interviewer: What? magazines and newspapers.

00;53;29;00 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Subscribe to all we have. local farmer, ladies Home Journal and.

00;53;38;27 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And the farm journal and successful farming. And the group.

00;53;45;08 - Unknown: Program. you know.

00;53;51;12 - Unknown Interviewer: Are you hungry?

00;53;54;06 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah. You said you’re all finished. It’s been you today. I don’t think so far. He is. It, I suppose we’ll have to go back at the church or to the ground, so we to get outside for lunch. I don’t think that working.

00;54;14;22 - Unknown Interviewer: You watch watch TV?

00;54;17;20 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: quite a bit. father used to when we first got TV, the youngsters looked at it. But, now that I. Have more time. And everything else you ask for was quite a few of the soap operas during the day.

00;54;35;18 - Unknown Interviewer: Which shows do you like the best?

00;54;38;18 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, right now, my favorite one is, All My Children. And we used to work. I was the guiding light and, search for tomorrow and at night, Bob, my name won’t appear.

00;54;56;03 - Unknown Interviewer: Do you think those are strange? The way the people go hungry?

00;55;02;18 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, I think they’re a little far out sometimes. I don’t know, maybe the that all that that’s on those programs happened. People’s lives. But sometimes I wonder if the first of all, it all did happen.

00;55;16;28 - Unknown: You know.

00;55;20;21 - Unknown: You.

00;55;24;05 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Kind of lost some to like we have. We usually watch The Waltons, Gunsmoke. And, right now we watch Sanford and some Good Times, Chico and ma’am, those kind of programs.

00;55;43;17 - Unknown Interviewer: Do you think the walk ins is very realistic? Yeah, I do.

00;55;48;01 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Think it’s real good for a large family. And they used to years ago, when Grandma and grandpa got. So they couldn’t take care of themselves. So they live with the people nowadays. They put them in nursing homes, you know, but they used to be that grandma and grandpa was in the home until they left work.

00;56;11;01 - Unknown: You’re in my house, Ruth. I remember watching.

00;56;15;03 - Unknown Interviewer: Crystal and I was watching soap operas. I just went, that doesn’t happen in my family pictures. For my fathers and for my mother’s side. And a whole lot. There’s only one floor. Oh, and nothing else. It happens. And then I, you know, I got older and I was around more variety of people who could make it with Parkinson’s.

00;56;42;19 - Unknown Interviewer: I felt really.

00;56;44;17 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Pretty bad for no back hurt or like back in the several years back, you know. Because it’s, it’s supposed to be along the line of, then growing up on Walton’s Mountain.

00;57;01;13 - Unknown: You know, the.

00;57;06;05 - Unknown Interviewer: I know family that could just. But, you know, I could see.

00;57;09;06 - Unknown: That would happen. I think when you.

00;57;16;14 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Passed on down from one generation to another generation, you know, of course, nowadays, people don’t do that the most because everything is, so far advanced studies improve, you know, their farm different and their way of life. It’s a lot different.

00;57;37;21 - Unknown: One more. You preciate.

00;57;43;27 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: and then my washing machine. Iron. We didn’t have an electric stove for years and years.

00;57;56;13 - Unknown Interviewer: what’s the one that you really hate for them?

00;58;02;05 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: It’s only the upper part. To this side, I’d say my stove. My work is.

00;58;11;09 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah. I was thinking last night when everybody was talking that I really would hate to do that. A washer.

00;58;20;07 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: No, we of course, we still have our own wood stove. Who range? You know, Coke. We could get by. We could get by with. We still have our old conventional war machine too. But how? They do have to go back. Either one of them.

00;58;39;02 - Unknown Interviewer: you think of. You think modern TVs. All the modern conveniences are good. Are there some things that you’d rather do without.

00;58;50;28 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: You know, I think they’re all real good. Repair. You know, for older people, it’s real nice for him. I think.

00;59;05;02 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I don’t have any. I’d like to get rid of any.

00;59;11;05 - Unknown Interviewer: When you were raising your children, did they have certain chores that.

00;59;20;28 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: No, I don’t think so. Really? They, They all. They have to learn to do all this stuff and everything, but no one had any special thing that they had to keep doing every time. You know, that’s one thing. With my aunt, she gave me a job. cleaning upstairs and more steps every weekend. And I got so disgusted with that.

00;59;46;27 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I said, I’ve never lived in a house that has an upstairs or downstairs, and I never make my children do one task over and over and over until they get. So they couldn’t stand it. So we never everybody had to work together. And, maybe one time one of them would do one thing, and the next time the other ones do it that way, they would learn.

01;00;09;28 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And, nobody got so disgusted with it they couldn’t stand it.

01;00;15;23 - Unknown Interviewer: What do they do for recreation? They were going.

01;00;20;02 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well. They went to Sunday school and we went to the dance for three parties. But since we did, in fact, we went with them a lot and, who they go, they got when they got older, they could go in Garfield to the shows every once in a while. It took quite a few rows and.

01;00;45;28 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Ballgames, things like that. For about the same what we do of course, now a lot different.

01;01;02;00 - Unknown Interviewer: Works.

01;01;02;11 - Unknown: The most common things that you have to do is kind of go for it. You have them.

01;01;10;16 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Just like you did there a while ago. If you get them home.

01;01;13;29 - Unknown Interviewer: Let’s talk.

01;01;16;01 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: About all I know.

01;01;17;28 - Unknown Interviewer: Here. If there ever any big decisions to make, the most involve either you or the whole family who made this decision.

01;01;28;00 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, we generally talk it over and everything. Like I told his sister one time, she was always finding fault with this mammoth thing, and I don’t know what she was doing to her kids. Different muscles. Well, I’m trying to raise my children in the way your brother wants and raise so I guess we really have to say. But he was never out of reason about any.

01;01;53;19 - Unknown Interviewer: having base in Alaska.

01;01;54;27 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah, but, one thing we did, if he told him something, I didn’t change it. And if I told him something, he didn’t change. Man, that was a lot of times talked over when they weren’t pressed. And what would that take place, you know, so we started new, but they were unexpected and tried to carry it out.

01;02;17;06 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And my girls were just ecstatic when they come home to help. If we have a big meal or a big get together, right. I don’t have to worry a bit because they’ll just come in and take over that. Their daddy always said, what you get in camp, mama? That’s what they do.

01;02;36;09 - Unknown Interviewer: Do you get together with your family?

01;02;38;16 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh yes. We always have our birthday meals and our Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter. So. And the girl from Spokane, she always managed to make it. So they’re all to come here this year for Christmas. When they all got married. Well, we were having Christmas dinner every year. We have it every other year. And, other year, the, the year from the year they have, like with us, they go to his folks to go custom these folks, but, they always, you know, get together when,

01;03;22;06 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Out of us first married. Right. We have the Christmas at our place for the first time every Christmas at our eight Christmas dinner with his folks or with his mother every Christmas until she passed away. And then we start having our Christmas dinner here. And, that year that Allen was married when she came home for Christmas in our house.

01;03;51;22 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: And then, of course, then on Friday is her husband’s folks include him. That way we could all be together. Oh, yeah. Makes her their daddy feel real good when the girls come home. And if they don’t come pretty often, they hear about it.

01;04;07;16 - Unknown Interviewer: It’s part of this tournament.

01;04;09;17 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah. And the other one missed. And then this other one lives up here. Oh, six, seven miles.

01;04;17;07 - Unknown Interviewer: What about grandchildren?

01;04;19;12 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, I have seven grandchildren. Four girls who, for our three boys, three for three grandsons and four granddaughters. And then we have four great grandchildren, one great grandson, three great granddaughter.

01;04;36;12 - Unknown Interviewer: Are they really close?

01;04;40;18 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: the one little girl is down here in soccer, and the other three are in Spokane.

01;04;48;18 - Unknown: The previous home. Great.

01;04;51;27 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: If we can get to see him quite often, several times a year in the.

01;04;57;27 - Unknown Interviewer: If some if you know someone is planning on moving into especially some of our younger, into a rural community, is there any parents here we can actually get?

01;05;13;17 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Not much. Yes, some.

01;05;15;24 - Unknown Interviewer: When she’s, you know, I, I just like to know her because they have, you know, back to the more mean because.

01;05;27;10 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: They’re hard. So I think she’d make a pretty good school, I really do.

01;05;33;04 - Speaker 4: I.

01;05;36;27 - Unknown Interviewer: Last night, y’all were talking about, fact that people coming in and buying up big acreage. Is there anything that y’all could do about that?

01;05;49;21 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I don’t think so. That places high prices for the land and everything. We wonder whether they, make it or not. but I don’t think there’s anything that any of us could do about it.

01;06;00;27 - Unknown Interviewer: Do you ever find yourself part of your life?

01;06;04;02 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: No, I don’t think so. my husband said at one time that when it got to be $1,000 an acre, then he’d sell out. That was going to be two and $300 an acre, you know. And when it got up to $1,000 an acre. So. Well, if it’s work that my students are so worth, that must be me.

01;06;24;07 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: So he’s just keep it.

01;06;28;00 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Back. It was 3000. I think it was the price of land then for the 60. Then we bought another place, 40 acres down here for $2,000 and. And another 40 for 5000. And then later you. Yeah, but now it’s worth a hundred and something thousand dollars.

01;06;49;18 - Unknown Interviewer: Lost the house.

01;06;50;12 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah. So it’s really changed a lot.

01;06;56;04 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah. Was it very hard to get into farming? Real started there?

01;07;03;16 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: no, I wouldn’t say that. It was so hard then because you farmed resources. when we bought the place bar, we have three horses, and then we had 14 before the, But it’s so hard to get started then, because the machinery and things, you know, wasn’t near the hard size that it is nowadays.

01;07;27;24 - Unknown Interviewer: Of the year. Or have you officially farmed it by yourself?

01;07;32;17 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: We farmed it ourselves until I was 67, and then he rented it out. So we, and we had a real good renter. And Cassie has taken care of it since till this year. He’s old enough, he’s retiring, and now we have run the trigger for for children, boys who are.

01;07;54;22 - Unknown Interviewer: Renting it some from all over.

01;07;57;12 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: No, I don’t think that works very good.

01;08;02;20 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: If you had a son, it might make a difference, you know?

01;08;05;16 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah.

01;08;06;13 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: But of course, we have one son in law that’s in farming. But he’s had two heart attacks, and I think he’s got all he can do. the other two boys, son in law, they don’t farm. And none of the grandsons for, So if they did, we might consider adding them.

01;08;29;11 - Unknown: You know, if if they don’t farm.

01;08;34;21 - Unknown Interviewer: Would you like to see them get involved in farming?

01;08;39;01 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: If they could care enough that they could make a good living out of. I think it would be nice. And I think they all would like to do it, but it just doesn’t work out. So I think, you know, if it start.

01;08;52;24 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I know the youngest grandson, I’m sure if you’d like to farm, if we thought it’d swing it, you know, we can’t too much money.

01;09;02;25 - Unknown Interviewer: Was it family? Pretty good farming.

01;09;06;01 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh yes. And we thought it’s around 4050 acres and start out and keep you all right.

01;09;17;02 - Unknown Interviewer: What happened to your husband’s parents,

01;09;22;18 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: They sold that to him just beginning. That was quite a mess when they settled that up. Because his folks would like to see it. Stayed in the family, you know, and, and there was a couple of hundred with a little bit home to work out that way.

01;09;45;10 - Unknown Interviewer: So they were, like, in the library.

01;09;47;11 - Unknown: And around to.

01;09;51;08 - Unknown: Is there anything else.

01;09;52;10 - Unknown Interviewer: You’d like to add?

01;09;54;21 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: No, I don’t know anything. I can’t think of anything. Maybe after it’s all over. I love that it.

01;10;01;18 - Unknown Interviewer: I know we do that all the time. I’ll turn off the tape recorder. We’ll start back home.

01;10;07;05 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: But right now, I can’t think of anything.

01;10;17;02 - Unknown Interviewer: You only. You’re right. With the one third time they’re having orange crates for furniture.

01;10;21;15 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Yeah. When we first started out.

01;10;25;04 - Unknown Interviewer: Oh. Like that? Where?

01;10;26;11 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, those days they didn’t have showers. Nobody got a shower like they do nowadays. You know, you had to get everything yourself. And, Well, Armistead was first running this store, and so he had ordered us a new stove. And, bedroom set and, our table and chairs and things, you know, but it took about three months for him to get there.

01;10;53;17 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: So we just got along with, like I said, we set, dynamite boxes because they were no heavier than the average box. then his mother gave us some old dishes and, silverware and stuff like that and carried that on. And about three months after she got there and what we had.

01;11;17;22 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, how long did you have any planning to get married before you actually did?

01;11;22;23 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Well, not very long. We you. I figured we we kind of out, you know, but, he got scarlet fever and I got scarlet fever. And so his mother sent him down to the breakfast to take care of. So we just said, well, why not get married? Forget it.

01;11;47;04 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: we didn’t, we hadn’t figured we’d get married till fall anyway, although I’d had my room for about a year.

01;11;58;18 - Unknown Interviewer: So what you got? Well, you got married.

01;12;01;25 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Know well back. We got married before he got, we got completely. Well, we we still formed in those days. You had. We felt okay, you see. But the minister came over and we walked out on the porch, and he was married outside because he didn’t want to come in the house. My aunt Grace Sturgis, because he be afraid of getting the scarlet fever.

01;12;27;04 - Unknown Interviewer: He was there. When you’re.

01;12;30;03 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I guess not. So George was our witness. And then, there are two boys.

01;12;35;00 - Unknown Interviewer: So going back home?

01;12;38;10 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: No.

01;12;41;05 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah. What kind of dress?

01;12;44;12 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: Oh, I had a blue sort of like that. My. My youngest daughter, who’s now.

01;12;50;18 - Unknown Interviewer: My mother, got married and.

01;12;52;16 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: I used to say married in blue. Always true.

01;12;55;13 - Unknown Interviewer: That’s all I said. And I didn’t know. Yeah. You know, I just thought with her white dress, I forgot her figure. Not very.

01;13;03;04 - Pearl Gaynor Choate: You have to work around quite a bit. All right.

01;13;06;21 - Unknown Interviewer: Okay.