Ida Mae Cox Item Info
![Profile photograph of Ida Mae Cox smiling.](https://objects.lib.uidaho.edu/rwhp/thumbs/mg68-2-77-ida-mae-cox001_th.jpg)
Ida Mae Cox
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Item 1 of 4
- Title:
- Photograph of Ida Mae Cox [01]
- Date Created (ISO Standard):
- 1976-02-16
- Description:
- Profile photograph of Ida Mae Cox smiling.
- Interviewee:
- Cox, Ida Mae
- Subjects:
- portraits
- Location:
- Lewiston, Idaho
- Latitude:
- 46.39857459
- Longitude:
- -116.9969232
- Source:
- MG68, Rural Women's History Project, University of Idaho Special Collections and Archives
- Finding Aid:
- https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv42414/
- Source Identifier:
- mg68-2-77-ida-mae-cox001
- Type:
- Image;StillImage
- Format:
- image/jpeg
- Preferred Citation:
- "Photograph of Ida Mae Cox [01]", Rural Women's History Project, University of Idaho Library Digital Collections
- Reference Link:
- https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/rwhp/items/rwhp118.html#rwhp120
- Rights:
- In copyright, educational use permitted. Educational use includes non-commercial reproduction of text and images in materials for teaching and research purposes. For other contexts beyond fair use, including digital reproduction, please contact the University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives Department at [libspec@uidaho.edu](mailto:libspec@uidaho.edu). The University of Idaho Library is not liable for any violations of the law by users.
- Standardized Rights:
- http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
![Photograph of Ida Mae Cox smiling at the camera, reaching up to a rack of kitchen tools.](https://objects.lib.uidaho.edu/rwhp/thumbs/mg68-2-77-ida-mae-cox002_th.jpg)
Ida Mae Cox
-
Item 2 of 4
- Title:
- Photograph of Ida Mae Cox [02]
- Date Created (ISO Standard):
- 1976-02-16
- Description:
- Photograph of Ida Mae Cox smiling at the camera, reaching up to a rack of kitchen tools.
- Interviewee:
- Cox, Ida Mae
- Subjects:
- portraits
- Location:
- Lewiston, Idaho
- Latitude:
- 46.39857459
- Longitude:
- -116.9969232
- Source:
- MG68, Rural Women's History Project, University of Idaho Special Collections and Archives
- Finding Aid:
- https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv42414/
- Source Identifier:
- mg68-2-77-ida-mae-cox002
- Type:
- Image;StillImage
- Format:
- image/jpeg
- Preferred Citation:
- "Photograph of Ida Mae Cox [02]", Rural Women's History Project, University of Idaho Library Digital Collections
- Reference Link:
- https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/rwhp/items/rwhp118.html#rwhp121
- Rights:
- In copyright, educational use permitted. Educational use includes non-commercial reproduction of text and images in materials for teaching and research purposes. For other contexts beyond fair use, including digital reproduction, please contact the University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives Department at [libspec@uidaho.edu](mailto:libspec@uidaho.edu). The University of Idaho Library is not liable for any violations of the law by users.
- Standardized Rights:
- http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
![Photograph of Ida Mae Cox looking away from the camera.](https://objects.lib.uidaho.edu/rwhp/thumbs/mg68-2-82-ida-mae-cox_th.jpg)
Ida Mae Cox
-
Item 3 of 4
- Title:
- Photograph of Ida Mae Cox [03]
- Date Created (ISO Standard):
- 1976-02-16
- Description:
- Photograph of Ida Mae Cox looking away from the camera.
- Interviewee:
- Cox, Ida Mae
- Subjects:
- portraits
- Location:
- Lewiston, Idaho
- Latitude:
- 46.39857459
- Longitude:
- -116.9969232
- Source:
- MG68, Rural Women's History Project, University of Idaho Special Collections and Archives
- Finding Aid:
- https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv42414/
- Source Identifier:
- mg68-2-82-ida-mae-cox
- Type:
- Image;StillImage
- Format:
- image/jpeg
- Preferred Citation:
- "Photograph of Ida Mae Cox [03]", Rural Women's History Project, University of Idaho Library Digital Collections
- Reference Link:
- https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/rwhp/items/rwhp118.html#rwhp122
- Rights:
- In copyright, educational use permitted. Educational use includes non-commercial reproduction of text and images in materials for teaching and research purposes. For other contexts beyond fair use, including digital reproduction, please contact the University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives Department at [libspec@uidaho.edu](mailto:libspec@uidaho.edu). The University of Idaho Library is not liable for any violations of the law by users.
- Standardized Rights:
- http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
Ida Mae Cox
-
Item 4 of 4
Ida Mae Cox Interview Audio [transcript]
00;00;00;00 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I just took over by going to find information today for 15, then talking to a Saturday 1516. Okay. February 16th, 1976. And we’re in Lewiston. And the interviewee invited me, Cox and the interviewer is Kathy Nava. And that’s all we have to do for that. I think that’s five, 15 minutes. Where is it? Games, packed a lot of our stuff about what we could do every day, you know, about around the game.
00;00;40;06 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Let’s see here. We’ve got do we have the names? Right. the, And then money for Alamo. Yeah, yeah. Spelled right. your last name is Cox, and your name is Schmidt. ACH, am I banking? And, you know, things. So down Cox, the people call back. Everybody here in town. They call me Cox is a cookie company.
00;01;08;29 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: The cookie? Yeah. That’s right. The kitchen garden where you cook and school. Oh, yeah. That’s right. You did the high school for ten years, you know, and that’s when the kids called me. I put mine under there. Okay. That, you were born 1880 1st March and get. 1881 for this March, you’re going to be 95. Yeah.
00;01;35;03 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Wow. I’m impressed. 95. I just can’t believe it myself. Nobody. Nobody comes first when they see your pictures. Yeah. Oh, give me your crayons, I do. Oh, you take care of my mom and everything current and everything, right? Crap. All right. Yeah. Everybody about split it. You probably don’t know, I don’t know, when they burn, everything is dry.
00;02;03;25 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And whatever, there’s cooling, I did. I cut it up and, over broke. Wax your. Well, yeah. Well, it’s pouring out of some stuff that I get from plumbers. Plumbers? You say, but when I get a cream. Well, I had to treat cocoa. I sprayed all of that. I don’t know how you do that. I couldn’t work.
00;02;24;08 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I guess you can’t. Where you have to be used to. Yeah. You. Well, what? I was just going to write back one career. I got some really good job because I wanted to put hundred. I got a sticker. Was it hard working as a strategy which you wouldn’t take some. Well, where did you get work there. Yeah, yeah.
00;02;43;05 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: So I had a hard I don’t know what I’m going to do with them. Gosh. Okay. Work better.
00;02;52;12 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah. Let’s see. You’re born West Virginia? Yes. Just on the farm. I, on the farm. On a homestead. And I didn’t put your address down here last time. This address is 1117, 18, six 1664, 11 1764. What’s your zip code? Two zip code is 8350104. And your phone, do I have my phone installed? It’s A74 series.
00;03;28;22 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: 7385. You know, sometimes I wonder, but my mom really? Well, that’s what I mean. Parker, remember your own apple? So you didn’t first come to Idaho. You were already. You were born here. Born here. Immigrate. I can cross that out. My folks. And broken here from from Oregon. Woke him up. Oh, my God, he drove a streetcar in San Francisco when they first married.
00;03;59;15 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Right, right. With the horse. and I had rode in that kind of a streetcar in Spokane, Washington. Abraham hooked up to tracks two. Yeah, well, they have Cedar Market Street up here. Wow. That was the only street that had this car because it was level Spokane. No. Oh. Oh, wow. Okay. And he would go to the end of Market Street.
00;04;21;29 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: next door on the other hand, so one would go back that’s that was back and forth. wow. Well, let’s assume that was John John Schmitt. Yeah. And he was born in Germany. Yes. He was born in Germany. And you said he was he was born November 11th. And he I don’t know about you hear that?
00;04;45;23 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: He was born in there. Well, we’ve got he was 85, in 1932 when he died. Yeah. So perfect. Me too. I’m so bad at these things. we got 52 more room, so we’ll go. 47, 18, 47. Does that sound about right? Would it be? I think so, because he’s in that group. He’s a long time now. Yeah.
00;05;15;25 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And your mother was born and I have one that’s probably about right. Yeah. About three years old. Yeah, that’s about right. Okay. Well, he was born in 1847, in Germany. When did he come over to where he was 15. He ran away from home and got on the steamboat, stowed away on it in the cold. There we go, you know.
00;05;39;27 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Wow. And when they got out 20 miles or would come out because they couldn’t make it when they found it. Yeah. They’re talking to one of the workers because he was working like a Dickens traveler. And they kept him for about seven years where he was program equipment for trips, back trips. I, I don’t know, the different change, the different places he went to.
00;06;06;15 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: and then he finally landed in Virginia when he quit the ship. And he was, you know, the cool man. So that went so well when you went to Omaha. From there, that’s where I met my mother. Bluegrass. What? Married there? No, we got married. Normal. Yeah. And then he left mother there. So you got a job down in San Francisco.
00;06;31;16 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And this is where he got found? Yeah. So let’s see. We know what he was doing up to the time he got married. Well, then we got all the right occupations down. He was a project covert US merchant seaman. That for you? So I drove home. There was a student anyway. And, Street car. Conductor. Yeah, I think it the work.
00;07;07;22 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: What was he doing in, Virginia, you know, and I was gonna say there was. No, I don’t think so. I think he caught. They gave him wages, you know, very much. Maybe not. But that’s when you traveled with. I don’t know how it come that we never talked much about it. Of course, if he did it when him and mother talked about when I was little, I would know for sure.
00;07;30;15 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Don’t usually listen to them when they’re out there doing that. now, she was born in 1851, in Iowa, just across the river from Omaha. Right. It must have been, Council Bluffs. Yeah, yeah.
00;07;50;26 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: That’s right. Yeah. Right. We were. I was just talking about that before I was surprised, but we’re from system. Here’s a local Kroger. Clarkston went to different states. Just. Yeah, I thought it wouldn’t be that way. Yeah. Yeah. Right. so your mom’s name was Sophia. So. And so? So my guy I was part of. So fire. Yeah.
00;08;17;28 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Okay. And traveler Seidler. What kind of German? German? Yeah. And, what, did she stay in Council Bluffs for a long time? Well, I wouldn’t know. I think when she was two years old, she went through Omaha. I think if I remember right. Or one that you saw working mothers that she got in there all her life. Yeah.
00;08;45;29 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And they got married when she was 24. Yeah. So we’ve got that down. 1875 was when they got married and that was in Omaha. Then they went after 17. I think he’s got to two years. I can’t remember what they were here during when the Indian War was going on. At White Bird. Oh is that right?
00;09;15;10 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: So they left. And where was it? Oh my God, up my mother, down below Portland and procuring men for her. And then my dad came over and he stole away on that, broke the table together and covered coal and happened so close that he had when he was on the, on the train. they never knew what he was a worker.
00;09;39;16 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And he got a free passage way up here, and he took a a foot and went up that hill right up the girl. I remember the girl with no. Great. Well, and, he he wanted to find a place where there’s lots of water springs. And we found this place that we were going to see. Yeah. And then somehow.
00;10;02;05 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And when you have that complaint, you say grandmother and there were two children. Yeah. And and they, of course, they and my dad and I don’t mean he much. He got Indian ponies because I don’t know, he got me, but I know he got some Indian ponies. Yeah. Oh, you know how many Indian ponies it was running around here?
00;10;23;24 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I can only have some. Yeah, I got three something, a girl and I went up towards that river where there was a big herd we tried to get a shot at when, you know. And we get to a bunch where we see a good one and they all standing would run us all we women where every squadron had your third.
00;10;43;25 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Well, yeah, we had quite a time, but we would scare them up and more freedom and and he was here same. And I was riding around and he was riding a female. well, you could have. Yeah. Rolling up here. Yeah. Wow. Oh, God. And then and our oldest log log cabin, Moscow, my oldest and built that.
00;11;15;25 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Built the cabin himself with mother help. And she was in the same way I was looking down here. You had Previn, she, her brother and children. Eight all together. so. That’s right. So here we’re living in. Let little baby go now. But, he must have had that third baby right there in the third house, because that little babies almost got burned.
00;11;42;00 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Oh, I didn’t know that. Yeah, the baby got burned terribly. Was his name. He got burnt bad on top of it. He died in a week. Was right after it was born or shortly after. Oh, he was about. It was in a highchair. You must have been some eight months old. Yeah. And there was a fire in the house.
00;12;02;26 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: But what happened? Well, it wasn’t a house. It was a shock. Yeah. And you know how they built their kind of a mound? They there like a shower and then their camp and the hill for. And then they put logs across on top of it. Star struck. That’s the roof. And that’s where it log how, China is.
00;12;27;09 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And that left that carried in with him there where a mother was helping down over the hill. That would be as far from here to that house. I could see over there, I think. Yeah. And my mother happened to see the smoke, and they ran out because she couldn’t run cook big with me. and Bob got a head and he got up there and got the door open and it was shut for smoke.
00;12;51;27 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: You couldn’t hear a sound in there, but the baby was crying. We got the baby out first and then had it for the other two, and one was under the bed and one was under covers. Well, for that run, Yeah. They got, away from the smoke machine and you saved the trunk and some of the things, and that’s all.
00;13;11;12 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: They had to move in the wrong house. But once you finish, you’re gonna have door your windows in it. Oh, my gosh. And they got the stove. You didn’t burn it. Well. And that’s what they got along with overnight for a couple of days. And the neighbor heard about it and we’ll come and everything. Mother. So she never had too much in her life.
00;13;33;15 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Oh gosh. They brought food and they brought blankets. They brought everything and they helped put the windows in. So that was quite a wrapping. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the neighbors weren’t very close. I don’t want to go in there and they would say, well, it would be a mile and a half or two miles over the hill from us.
00;13;55;23 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: That would be the closest neighbor. Oh gosh. Well, and then the baby was just you see him around? mother would, take care of him in the daytime and get set up at night. And he cried all the time, and they couldn’t do anything for him. No doctors for a little bit. Yeah. And he kind of died for a little time.
00;14;15;12 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: He’s sorry. Uniontown. Okay. Yeah. How come Uniontown. Is that close? Well, that was their place, I guess I was. I went to Uniontown with this. I don’t know, maybe somebody. Well, they. Were they Catholic? No. rooting. Because I wondered, because Uniontown was down, you know, and. Your just as a Catholic. Yeah. Batter. How come they come down there?
00;14;43;02 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Went down there? Maybe they could get a kick. My I, my.
00;14;50;01 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Mother never talked to me about that. What she did you find right out from just from my sister. Really? She remembered where she wanted her time and she lost her baby. It was just a little thing about this long. Oh, you’re telling me about her? I, some mother have that in her, and, you know, and I was just a little kid, and I told I go.
00;15;10;03 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I must have been five. Maybe she said she was. You start throwing her five, and I was vomiting, you know, and I thought she to that. I told them, I said she vomited. Yep. That baby I and my sister wouldn’t. She said no she didn’t, she didn’t care. Right. She I seen it and I never knew the difference.
00;15;31;02 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: So after I got old enough to, Because I never knew about you, mama took that baby up, and you said your mom never talked to you about never, never, never. Nothing. Works. No kids ever knew the things. The kitchen. Oh, God. Wow. That is. We didn’t know nothing. Green of the fresh God clothes, if you don’t mind that.
00;16;00;07 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: But, when you said you and your sister went out. Oh, when we would come down to decorate my sister’s grave. Decorations and we got down here about 11:00, and we decorated the grave, and then we went downtown. We got some strawberries. It was ready for quarter. I’ll never forget that tree back there. I mean. And.
00;16;26;21 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Okay, that’s where the mill is. I don’t if was a park, I mean, the old grass was in pitch darkness and let them eat grass. And we had our lunch in the kitchen and rather strawberries. And, we stayed pretty late at that school, you know, and so we thought we’d better be getting home because the only thing I was afraid of was a man.
00;16;47;23 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I said. And, because I said, if they ever get the best of you, an old lady out here. And Mr. Henderson told me what to do. You guys break it, and I.
00;17;06;01 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Remember you good. Everything. I was 16, 17. I didn’t know the difference. You know, we clean our brothers, pee in a rubber bag and we thought they had bone in it. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think, yeah. Your sisters were, well, no kids going to school or, you know, we had a wall getting all them England kids to live in Bremerton, you know, very good kids.
00;17;30;15 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: They got what we call them big things. Yeah. Wow. What what would you say? You were supposed.
00;17;40;25 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: To say that that is the truth. Or would you get a hold of it and just give it a good bend and get back here? I think so, I think you’re right that you had reference to your. I figured it didn’t matter. What would you have to say? But I had to put.
00;18;03;28 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Them. Well let’s go. You’ve got you had them seven brothers and sisters and then Charlie didn’t. No. So he was a baby. Oh, that was the one before you. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know what his birth was, because he must have been born in that short house because they weren’t there when he was born. Yeah, they had the two already.
00;18;28;10 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And then he was there before the log cabin. And you, me, my Google that came over from Moscow, you know, horrible, horrible. It’d be way, you know, and make them fit, you know, he would have had a buggy dinner wagon that was clean, Harold. And he went up and got that mug to drink it with glass. You see, between the legs.
00;18;51;24 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I have to be just like classic. Plastic or whatever you call the parents or whatever, man with them. But this was mine, and you know, that had to be worked up like it was a wreck. Sure, granny had me mixed just like you mix. Remember her? So I took him out. You’re about to build that thing.
00;19;12;26 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Gosh. So you were born in it? Yeah, I was born. I’m finished slab camp. Yeah. Oh, that’s right, I was born in. And then there would be far more or more they do that. Gosh. any of your sisters were still living? Not anybody but me. That’s so good. Yeah, I when they’re all gone, my brother died four years ago, and that was the last one.
00;19;41;23 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: My brother, the youngest brother, her older. And my sister died too many years ago. My younger sister. Will you. Do you think you wrote that in the book? Tell when in your career I’ve never had any disease. I’ve had lots of headaches out again. Kitchen. Oh, yes. When I was a kid, I had gotten headaches all my life.
00;20;05;11 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: So I had to change your life, Well, we didn’t have just terrible headaches. I used to get away from the kids. Are not these headaches you get behind a barn or something where they wouldn’t find me in the shade. I didn’t want to talk or just sick. Grow up and just be so sick as a dog. They were at war time or not.
00;20;25;23 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: But we’re no. Okay. Just come over here certain time. I have watched a week study since I was married. When I was married, sometimes they lasted two days. Oh, God. Oh, I, my friend Mr. Member over here have.
00;20;42;04 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: What you’re going through? Yeah. Do you think of migraine headaches? Yeah, that’s what they are. That’s the only thing I’ve ever had. Of course I had. I was in an automotive accident when? 25 years ago and had my shoulder broke. that’s the worst thing I ever had happened to me. What’s wrong with you? I hope it’s a good record.
00;21;04;12 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah. In 95 years, you just have one. I’ve never had any or have had my arm broke.
00;21;13;15 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: That was just here about ten years ago. This one. What did you do? You were probably doing something right. We have turned off the water and just held Derek. When, What did you do? Was somebody around or. No, I went over to my neighbor’s there, and, And I knew that Mr. Hampshire had a sister or something, or, I don’t know, his sister, whether it was her sister that was a nurse.
00;21;39;17 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I thought she was there, but she wasn’t. So they. Your grandparents were living. There was a doctor. Davenport. And I think it was the damn porch. And he was going to take me down to the hospital. And I said, well, I’m back to have doctor, Doctor Bach. I said, And so we’re going call. Good. Didn’t call.
00;22;06;17 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I just it out in there. So we went down there. Mr.. And he was on a vacation. But then I said, well, I picked Doctor Scott. So we went over back to Scott. We were yeah, yeah, we were out of town. And Mrs. Clements, his sister, right across the street, and she saw us go in. I hear I’ve been going.
00;22;30;26 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: But her, she said, why did you want Buzzcocks? Well, I said, I broke my arm and I want a doctor. Scott just said it. Well, he said she doesn’t have arms. He said, but I’m going to go right in and call the house. But when you go down. So you can hear that Doctor Douglas seventh Ward around for an hour, right.
00;22;51;10 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Taken care of. And that was a whole week before that took care of. Wow. We couldn’t find what the matter was. Oh, I didn’t know why they find that brat with broken up with I over here. Over there. And, I see I was going over here to look at the girl. Oh girl and ran just accident. And we was in the hospital overnight there.
00;23;15;02 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Mr. Smith was driving and she got three get knocked out and both arms were brought up here. So I really wasn’t hurt too bad. But I heard rock. It was a big gash in my leg or hit me and and this arm, I couldn’t do a thing with it that was out of order entirely. And you know, I had lunch with her then.
00;23;43;00 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I hadn’t done it. Rehab type of therapy. And it was a hit and left and my go up the road, the everything was gone. My glasses and everything. Oh my gosh. And I don’t know what they thought when think we the hair of.
00;24;01;21 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: The driver happened to come along. I was just coming to him which came along and he said anybody hurt? And I said, I don’t know how bad we’re hurt. The man that was driving, okay, that’s all the matter with me. I can get hurt, okay? I would never hurt women. We got hurt and I sat in the back, you see.
00;24;25;27 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Oh, and I come to what? I happened. I was going to turn the ignition, and I read. You do that. And that’s when it hit something and threw me and knocked me out. Oh, gosh. And when, when I come to wrestling on top of them in front and and I thought he had died before. That’s why I was going to turn the ignition off.
00;24;47;29 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I thought he died. And by gosh, I saw your eyes opening up. I lay right on him like. And I raised up. I couldn’t do nothing with this arm. Not one thing, but I could do anything with it. I and I got off of him. We got over the same and I went, okay, my back. Everything worked up.
00;25;12;07 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: that’s right. That when they come and pick me up, I don’t know this. The patrol came along, he took her, and the police took me in this car. Her to the hospital. That trio. So then they left me lay on the bench and I in the hall and took care of her first. And the doctor hadn’t come yet.
00;25;36;04 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And then when he came, I examined me. Well, he says she and her husband, the other woman, and because I thought I could just. Yeah, they and I when they found out that I’ve hurt where she was. Oh, yeah. Both. I’m sure she couldn’t do that either. So anyway, my folks, I, I didn’t want to them. My daughter.
00;26;03;21 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: No. Yeah. I wanted to come home. To come home. Yeah. I wanted to come back to Lewiston, and. No, they wouldn’t let me. I said, yes, I can go home on the bus. That was it wouldn’t make you got you got to be notified. So they notified her and she said, by all means, we’ll come right over here.
00;26;23;26 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: So they came over and got me. That was the next day. Yeah. Jesus. That evening, what happened? So they gave me a shot and that’s where I went to see. Yeah. Oh, and I woke up just when we got to the big storage, and that woke me when they.
00;26;47;22 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Stopped the car. No, I that, you know, they they were nice clothes. I was your officers and they take the toll pole. It looked like a policeman that. Oh I said you burn. And are we in trouble again? Oh, no. He says it’s just the brigade. Oh, gosh, I so then he had to carry me upstairs. They say, you see, they left on the shoreline of Seattle, where you rest.
00;27;17;18 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah. Well, and I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t do nothing. He just had to carry me up that long stairs. Man, they must have been, long.
00;27;31;14 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And I thought I’d be home in a week or two, you know? And I got there, you know, as I’m sure he got released. Yeah. And when I had that cash, they got all that was worse than any break I ever had. That right. Oh, it hurt to have take it off. Fix me up. They took him so long to get that off.
00;27;53;24 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: It was an airplane. Oh, that’s the way I can vouch for everything. Was, Yeah. And that’s what hurt so bad when that was going into then. Oh, when they got through with me, it put me in the chair and I. I’m going to work at Irene’s. I was doing everything well, ironing and everything. All the washing I couldn’t do because I couldn’t handle the machine.
00;28;19;05 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I left and I scrubbed and I done cooking and done everything. And when I got that, that taken off, I was helpless. I couldn’t do anything. And I had learned to to go get my things to go. And I had a plastic wall, plaster wall, and I could get a hole. That’s where I could just get up above my waist.
00;28;43;06 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: That first. And every day I had to go to. And father, going over something. And I had been to hospital for four days and they gave me all that report work and every time one where if they give me another one, it hurt me so bad I couldn’t even let a mother wouldn’t touch me so tender. Oh.
00;29;07;03 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I want to ask about, Now, we were talking about your daughter. You just have one daughter on that one, so. Excuse me.
00;29;17;16 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I want to ask about, I think you and I might have talked about it before, but we didn’t do an interview about your husband and how you met him and why you got married and answered. Well, I you know, I worked out a lot ever since. And for him, certainly. But when and, you know, print every place I worked at all, I would try to get the best of me.
00;29;41;08 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Oh well. Oh yeah. And I just, I was just so soured on men that I thought I’d never get married, that I’m surprised I ever did get married. Well, so I’m going I met him, I met him up in Henderson. I had a threshing outfit. He was just about. That’s when the rock grabbed me. Just to do everything.
00;30;06;20 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Like we bring the water over water and they take the room to cook house. Oh, you everything. You get to work to the cook house and everything. We need. And you don’t have to buy the goose River. Anything like that. Got a up then? But anyway, that’s what he done. That’s how I met him. You were working for the Henderson?
00;30;28;21 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yes, I was working because I was about 17. And, that’s when I met you, and but I never I never went with him for her. But I met him there, and I. I got out there to overcome when I got to his job and went to his home. Caught me having to go back home because my dad was.
00;30;50;15 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I was scared. The whole Ingram’s what one of the first people home friend of mine was at work for them when she got across the river. Oh, that Ingram that was there was really two of these. Ingram and they had a cousin, George Whitney, that I went with. And I liked him up. Well, I thought we were going to get married, but he never asked me.
00;31;18;05 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: But he liked me off. Well, because I wanted to take, he went to school camp for the college. And during that time, I got going with chronic folks. So that’s how I come to marry. Well, there’s a lot of difference between those two. Yeah, both. One went to school, and. Yeah, Charlie didn’t know Karen and I.
00;31;42;14 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Neither one got no higher education. I had a little more than I had, but I never I got to the fifth grade that I ever got. And then by the time you went out, start working. Oh, it’s working all the time. I just got a few licks in where I work, you know, like school. Connie Kelly was interviewing me or one time, and I happen to have a good schooling.
00;32;06;00 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I was just I just hit Mr. Think, right? Right. Yeah, but you had already sometimes three months a year or sometimes four months a year you would go to. Yeah. Well, what happens when the kids get together? You you make fun of. Yeah. That’s right. do you think that discouraged you from ever going back? Yeah. Yeah. Kids being proud of me all the time.
00;32;28;07 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I didn’t want to go to school no more. Sure that you. You’d go to school from the coaches that you’re working so much. Well, yeah, some some hard work. And you’re going to work. What kind of things did you do? I forgot I had to be chaperon. No. Well, see, I work here in town. Cool. And here was your sister down here on 15th Street.
00;32;57;02 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: and I was working here in town, and we had nothing to go because it was no help from you. Take me to the green. You take me to the restaurant. Wait. Maybe we walk up Poplar Street Grill. We called it pop with Main Street with a boardwalk. Oh, Poplar trees. Oh, that was so beautiful. Yeah. And you, we walk, you know, go down the street.
00;33;22;29 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And then we’d go back court. So I always had to go back where I used where. Get supper, you know. Yeah. Now this was, we’re used to, working for people, doing the chores and take care of their work. Get. Morris family. Chris Morris worked for them. But before I ever knew Charlie, when I was about 15, I was 15.
00;33;49;10 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: When I worked for, of course, was okay. They had the Hirsh paper here in New Rochelle. Wheatley. Keller. The Lewis and Keller. and she worked with him down at the office, and I had no children for her, and I had the whole mortgage on my myself. Oh, gosh. You just I know we were done with cooking and everything, and I love cooking.
00;34;14;14 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Oh, gosh. Well, what I tell you, I worked all my life, so I’m still working, rapping I think. So. So you. I have the impression that you were always out in the country working for the families, but then you were trying times. We were never spoken a while. Oh my Brooks had property up there and he had to save a chair to work there or live on it.
00;34;37;08 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: That’s right. The kids would break the windows all out and just go to go. And, you know, and dad said, well, Andrew and I can run the farm and you go up there with the children and that’s with people that mother work or for people you were about. How old then was the rat? When we when I was about 4 or 505, I think I was five the first year.
00;35;02;20 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: and, you know, mother had just one go home in the house. And how many here? It was too cold. I feel like it was a raccoon. Lost it, and mother couldn’t find a comb. And she knew I was good at finding things. I do. You can. You can find that comb. I’ll give you something nice. Oh, I just did.
00;35;26;05 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I went through everything in and out of every place but in the wet. Baxter, I do all about this. Speaker. I found a comb and was I happy? I ran with a comb, mama. Well, I found the comb. I found the gold. I was going to get some nice cookies. Thank you. God, I was mad. I love them, I was so mad.
00;35;49;15 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: That’s not my. I were never home. Never kissed me, you know, or not getting. I was mad and I cried. She never had kissed you before. She made my nose a big rock. And. And if you’d only give me a nickel, I’d have been so happy, you know? But she kissed me, and that was it. Oh. That wasn’t.
00;36;09;23 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I wasn’t used to being kiss my dad. Ever kissed any of those kids? There wasn’t a lot of touching. And no. Kiss was unknown. Did you have that? Did you ever see your parents hug or. No. Never. Never. They never took. Right? Not unusual. I mean, not the way they were showing anything like that for the children,
00;36;34;25 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I don’t think I never seen any adults. We used to visit once in a while. The whole family would go, you know, you look at where they were honoring the man, and and he was just get one further up there. He was an older man. And that’s all we ever heard about. Did you did you, behave that way with your husband?
00;37;02;07 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I mean, did you know not touch your kitchen? Oh, your kids, are you? Oh, no. That comes naturally. You ought to know that. Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess, I mean, did your first go. I went because I couldn’t because guess what, Rube? You kept me there dance. And we had a buggy, you know, and I have I have helped you get out of it.
00;37;25;28 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And when you helped me down when we got home that night, you kissed me. And God, I never, you know, we never need to come back because I was struggling with it, man. But but it was it had something to you, but it. Yeah, I thought it was. I thought we’d been fresh. Yeah, because I never been kissed.
00;37;49;23 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I didn’t want no kiss. yeah. So I wish it well for you when we met. Charlie. Working out of the numbers? Yeah. you got married 19. Oh, run. Yeah. In Genesee? Yeah. We’ve been married. That our neighbors. The pains that we call him get pain, When I was there, when I was, I used to run with the girls.
00;38;22;00 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I said, if I ever get married, I’m gonna have your dad. Marius. Yeah, we did. Well, have you when you got married? When you were 20. And he was what? He was 28. He was 29. 29. So when we consider that he was born in 31, 81, he would be nine years older. So 72. Yes. I can say he was born in the 70s.
00;38;49;25 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Okay. And what did you do when you got married? Did you have a house or apartment or. No. We came. He got room big to come up and get me, you know, and we come home in and the sister lived down on 15th Street. I stayed with them and he was working at Henderson. Oh, well, yeah, he worked for a dollar a day.
00;39;15;06 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: boy. And when he got to move that fall, he had enough money to buy a wagon and a cane. Is that right? So they must have been learning. And, kitchen and kitchen. There were stoves gone long, but we’ve got three chairs and the kitchen stove and a table that this have no down on. Very well.
00;39;37;10 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah. we don’t have that move. So when we come up here, I used to cook our game after we had a cookout. We’ll. How long did you move down there? Well, I mean, was for when we moved up here. We’ve lived here ever since. And you, my brother and. And Charlie’s pregnant. Long. they’ve given in a week.
00;40;03;28 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Oh, gosh, I did this whole house. Well, if you just to heard, there was a petition here. it was for women’s. There was no bathroom then, you know, because they they had to run this outdoor. Yeah, we had to water had to do with work with you around. Or from the hydro surge? for a year before we got the plumbing for them.
00;40;28;14 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah. And then they put it in, you know, inside back then, you’re still. It’s still that way. No. For me, like, I guess I think I asked you before about. And, why you just had. I, I read what you just had one child. Your mom had had 7 or 8. Yeah, it just didn’t work. I guess it wasn’t.
00;40;50;19 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: You wouldn’t have more. She had a, My sister, she only had three. And my sister, mini has two. It ain’t none of us. I mean, and my brother had to move. She had four children. Did you ever talk with your sisters about. Do you think that was by choice? That they only had 2 or 3?
00;41;09;08 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Or you think they just read a book? We never talked about it. Never did. You know what? I have some we never talked about. And where did where did you have. I mean, we have it here in Lewiston. Yeah. Down at home. Down our little home that we moved in. Not in the hospital. No, no, we never, never did then.
00;41;27;08 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah. I never went to hospital. That’s what’s wrong now. Because you’re damn right I know, but they charge. That’s true. Like 600 or her baby became two years ago in April. Well, this is your grandmother. Yeah. Great. great. The doctor. Her doctor was in Seattle, and they just passed the ferry time, and they had to go to Tacoma.
00;41;54;24 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And what are you fabricating? All right, well, like that ever happened in a hospital there, and they charge them $500? Yeah. And besides that, $580 for the Mercury room. God, yeah. Did you have a doctor in attendance? Yeah, we have her. I had a doctor when I was born for her. And you said that you thought that the care you got was pretty adequate.
00;42;24;20 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Can you explain what he was? Well. Gosh, I had a midwife take care of me. She just come for three days, and that’s all she was. She go to when the baby was born out? I noticed Mr. Cox and the doctor, but I had her all day. what? Was Charlie there in the room when you had the baby?
00;42;49;03 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Sure. You had to have the doctor that went out for a while. I mean, it’s popular. Yeah, right. When you came out, Carol, you have a pretty well all right with the after birth, I can have a funeral. Oh, I’m buried in they they did with at home. I don’t see it. Well, I don’t know what it looks like, but I don’t know what a college looks like.
00;43;21;28 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah, because I’ve seen girls, I guess. And you said you’d seen a couple of births or right after births when you were, working it when you present. Right shortly after. Yeah. So it took you. I’ve been with that with a Reese’s. Well, I was just 13. Yeah, when she had her baby. This was the first time I had come to visit me.
00;43;45;16 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: You know. Oh, yeah. In the dark. Oh, okay. Work early morning and get here and rob practice. And then the other day. No, I didn’t see that because she had it. Yeah. Miscarriage. And I think we took care of it before I saw anything. But he had to go to the doctor, and I ever couldn’t ring, right because I wasn’t.
00;44;06;09 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I cried, so I couldn’t argue. I scared to death. Sure, I, I didn’t know what was going on, you know, I was 14 name and she was probably in and out of consciousness or. No, she was all right. And I just put a pillow under my, put it on my back to my feet or give up, she said.
00;44;23;26 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: So I won’t blink so much. And I kept putting these clothes under, you know, and bringing them out water and running from the kitchen to the bedroom and oh God, what a heck of a time I had. Was I glad when the doctor come and he didn’t want to time in the winter, you know. And I said, why don’t you get in up in that bedroom?
00;44;45;08 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I guess you know when you want. Sure. What? Him. But you wouldn’t think of that. No, no, I didn’t think of it. Oh, gosh. Remember the two bills that I had anything to do with? Here’s this is changing the subject. But I know when we wrote before, all we’ve got down for skills is cooking. And I know we’ve got all sorts of skills besides Brett.
00;45;10;20 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Well, what can you tell me about your skills? What would you say? Well, what would I say? Well, I’m better at my destiny. Like cooking and or catering. You did that for how long? Well, 40 years, 40. You know her? Got it. You know, they used to entertain the homes I’ve been in. All the big old general, catered, you know, and then I do anything they want me to do.
00;45;42;27 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And the real girls that care won’t do nothing but just wait on the table. I cook the meal and serve everything. Did you do the decorations up and everything? Did you do fancy decorating? I don’t know if they had any decoration in their favorite setting that they’ve done that. You know, I had nothing to do with that.
00;46;03;07 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: How about wedding cakes? Would you make those? No, I never knew that. Would you got me a bakery, you know, because I would have to take training on that. Yeah. Decorate. You know, I sent for catalog one time and didn’t give me much trouble. Yeah. No problem. I gave that up. So this would be because they make their own cakes, or bakers can make them.
00;46;27;01 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah. I made a wedding cake for. My son mother when she got married in Yakima. But the way I done that, I made the pound cake. that didn’t fall. You know, you could make it cold. And sponge cake from cake. And then we put it. We put. Whipped cream in between. And, I love that. And they.
00;46;58;28 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And then we took it over to Irene Woodward and the cream, and we took it in the creamery, and they covered it all with cream and frozen. Oh, that was the best cake we ever. Oh, these are all the sugar. Yeah, that sugar and shortening that they make the I forget them and the whipped cream. And that made the cake work that song and splitting road and.
00;47;25;07 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: You’re you concerned split your own would I want to put that down? Because I’m amazed at that. You probably. You’re so used to it. You don’t think I’m a skier, but, you know, a lot of times when I’d be in the house, get kind of nervous or something, I just grab them so I would or something like that.
00;47;43;08 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: That just gets me all tuned up and I’m all right. That’s me. Yeah. That’s good, but, yes. you could work it out. Yeah. Yeah, that’s that’s right. Yeah. Caring. Or are some of these ribbons here for are they for baking canning stuff. What are your ribbons from the fair for their for. Oh yes from canning and all kinds of canning.
00;48;06;10 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah. And pies and cookies. Oh bread. And that’s it. Rough. Yeah. That’s. You ever count up five rows? Given how many you’ve got? No, I they’re mostly from the. Drinking quite a lot. Then whenever you get about half do they. Come on and help you stuff out. I would. That’s funny. Yeah. He he was a good guy.
00;48;35;22 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I mean, you don’t ever have any Mormons over there. And, you know. There in in this project we’re doing, one of the things we’re trying to do is, is, you know, talk to women who live mostly in rural areas as opposed to cities. And one of the things we like to ask them is, what do you think?
00;48;59;18 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Well, what do you think the differences are between being a woman living in a city and being a woman living in a rural area, and what the difference in and the advantages of where there’s a lot of difference because you Kansas City women, they think they’ve got lots to do and they just got the house. Yeah, yeah, but a farm woman, she’s got the milk anyway.
00;49;21;10 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: All right. Yeah. They got the milk complete. The chickens and take care of the pigs. Two and here helping the film. Yeah. My mother did. And when, when we farmed, I helped her in the field. Even when you lived here and went out. Yeah. Had to go out. When I was in school, I always had to have some better stay with.
00;49;43;22 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I remember some folks here by the name of Leapers. I get the one little girl, she come stay with her. You know, there’s a front thing. She never was afraid to stay here either. The the girl wasn’t. Yeah, just like you were the friend when you were little. So that’s the way we got mom. And we had to make ends meet, you know?
00;50;03;15 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And I had my chickens out there, I raised turkeys. Oh. Up here. okay, I had I had my cows, I had six cows, and I kind of. Yeah, I was busy. Oh, I guess, and Mr. Cox was working too hard in the field, you know, before harvest would come, I’d take and clean the barn out for him.
00;50;24;03 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: All right. You know, when they done everything reports us, there was lots to do. You had to keep the harness up and you had to cover them horses. Yeah. And everything double up. Looks like a lot. And then all of a sudden, I guess I didn’t shift that very tight there. Yeah, well, I’m glad the wind has come up a little bit.
00;50;46;26 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Right. Things. But we have a nice rain here. And you had a nice snow. Yes. So the farmers, I always look out for the farmers. That’s what I started doing since I’ve been here. Well, what when you lived in Lewiston, have you? Since you haven’t been farming. There was when he was still living. You work well? There was for six years.
00;51;08;12 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: We took care of the golf course. Mr. Cox built that course. Is that right? Took him a year. Then we moved out there. We got the job caretaker. He was taking care of the house and building and parties and things. So that was your six year. What was that? Okay. 40s. We went out there and 20 600.
00;51;38;07 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: So at that time, you you were more. Do you think you’re more of an urban woman than you are? Well, than you were probably so, because I had all I had to do was take care of the parties and things and. Did you like that? Oh, you like it? Did you like more wood? Believe me. And I never thought that golf was a serious game to change that whole round.
00;51;59;05 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And, you know, I got to play golf. Did you mean got in the tournaments? Oh, this is it. I can’t play golf anymore. That are more than me. Well, they. Miller took me out one day and I can’t do it. I traded for some loose. Yeah, it didn’t get back into place. I know it didn’t, because I can feel it.
00;52;21;26 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Look, feel out there. Oh, yeah. That in play. That’s not like the you know, it’s not in the right place. You know I don’t know what you can get Reggie Bush I had a good doctor. Does it hurt you anymore. No I never got no answer. I just didn’t it either. Oh that’s great. Yeah, I think I tripped us up.
00;52;42;24 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Sun’s shining pretty bright behind the clouds. Well, what do you what would you say if you could if somebody said, should I live in a city. Should I live in the country? Which I think the gladly would? Yep. Fine. I could have a cow and I could have some chickens and keep busy. Yeah, maybe have a pig because.
00;53;06;05 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Oh, how I love pork. Yeah. Oh, I do too. I don’t never but. And I won’t pay no dollar for a pork chop. Well that that’s way over there. Moist. Yeah a pound do you. Most of your friends are maginn. Are they like you. Do they keep busy or do you have friends that just sit at home and feel sorry?
00;53;28;04 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Well, I don’t know. They’re. A lot of my friends are just. Just live in Russian or not here anymore in the years past, you know, and and of course, Mrs. Memory. I’m just a shoemaker. My a really good friend here in the neighborhood who she works in the shop all the time, and. Oh, and Mrs. Miller has that big house.
00;53;47;20 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: She takes care of that big house, and they own six houses when they get big. And she does all the painting and cleaning up and everything. Oh, wow. She busy all the time. Well, I’ve got, but we play pinochle together and have dinners together, which I enjoy. I’ve got a next door neighbor who I know isn’t your age.
00;54;09;29 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: She’s probably in her early 80s and she doesn’t. She’s she’s had some illness, but she stays in her house. She doesn’t have many people come to see her, and she’s really lonely when I go over to visit her. What do you think makes a difference in I don’t like what you do and I don’t know.
00;54;30;28 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: You know, I might know that if I had gotten an education. Do you regret that? Oh, I regret it. I used to say, Mr. Connors, I say, I don’t care what it’s going to cost. Irene is going to have an education, and she got it. You got it? Did she go to college? No, she went to business college.
00;54;53;24 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And she didn’t even get to finish school. They got her out already. Tried or. Or tried or he would let her go after he got her. He wouldn’t. He liked it too. Well, he liked a good work. Ever. Such a good hand. Oh, she’s quick and she’s smart. You know, when she was little. Just big enough to know anything.
00;55;18;03 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And you get her picture book here. Yeah. And and she sat on my lap and I read to her and just a minute we’d get the dishes. Then mama read to me, and that’s all. That girl doesn’t always read. Wow. Well, that brings up something else I want to ask you. You know, you mentioned that your dad was was gruff around the kids.
00;55;39;17 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah. And your mom didn’t kiss you. And then there was. Then you and I were different. Yeah. You you were. You figure out. My mother used to say. I used to kiss Irene all the time, you know? And my mother used to say, yeah, how can you do that? Well, I just I just love her. I would your mom.
00;55;56;28 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: She didn’t think that was appropriate, I guess, you know, I guess she said, you know, I kissed my babies when I was little, but then when another one come that that got to love, then. Yeah. Just waiting for that year that maybe I was a baby. Yeah. Maybe I got kissed. Of course I wouldn’t know that. Sure.
00;56;16;13 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I’ll never forget the first one I got. Oh, gosh. There was never anything about you on Nicole more. well, and then now you’ve got your your daughters, and then her daughters have got children. what do you think? There’s been a change in in why people have kids or what kids are for, you know, but at your time, there were thing where people got married, no matter how many kids, some had 12.
00;56;46;13 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah. There was a Jacob’s family up there around Uniontown. They moved up towards Genesee and they were our neighbors. They had 12. Oh gosh. And you know, food was cheap and they they raised big gardens and everything. It wasn’t nothing to raise the kids. But now you raise a child, though, it cost. You’re starting with it keeps the cost.
00;57;07;19 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah. And then what do you think? Kids and people don’t have the farms. They don’t have the cheap food, but then they don’t have the work. Well, every kid had to work. Yeah, that’s. What’s the trouble today with these kids. They ain’t got nothing to do, you know, they don’t even make make the bed. Yeah. They give them a meal and send them off to school and get them out of the house.
00;57;35;23 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: So there’s, been a change. That’s a big change. I think everybody should learn a children to do something. That’s my system. I don’t I don’t say that could work out in the feel like I. Yeah, but they learn to do things in the house. So it’s in the city. Of course there’s another difference too, I guess, that people can decide whether or not they’re going to have kids and how many I have.
00;58;00;12 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: They have pills, which I never heard up till it come along. Yeah, I think we talked before, but I’d be afraid. I’d be afraid to take them things. Yeah, I think they are going to cause trouble to the cancer and things. Yeah. Now down I went down and they had a great grandchild. I loved it got fixed.
00;58;22;09 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Why don’t the men get fixed? That’s a good point. All right? Yeah. Why don’t they get fixed? And I’d have the women have let you go through with it. Sure. If you’re living, you’re going to come on. Well, and that’s when the danger is. Yeah. If you work 17 days after your period, you don’t need worry. You can’t get in the family way.
00;58;42;23 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Is that. Did you have that information when. Yeah. No, I’m just I know from people that I work for I mean yeah. So that’s this is the kind of thing it was. Yeah. You don’t have to be careful in I imagine a lot of people just quit. Quit sleeping together then. Well, I times or other. Yeah. That’s right.
00;59;06;12 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Number of kids or you take the men nowadays. You, you, they wouldn’t sleep away from my wife and you know that what I hate over the TV. What’s that? All this sex business they talked about all the time? just on every movie or theater program. Now that it’s 12:00, it’s not for women. Not for women only Barbara Walters.
00;59;29;14 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Right. And they kill the whole thing there, right on the TV. Yeah. Then a man has got to have his deal every 24 hours. Is that, Yeah. There was a barber here, and nice looking. Barbara was married. He lived across from the store here where Mr. Worthington had a store. This is how I found this out. She told Mr. Worthington that he had to come home at noon for lunch.
00;59;59;03 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: You have to be in there. He couldn’t wait tonight. he must work that poor woman to death. Yeah, I think so. oh. And maybe. Maybe she felt the same way. That that’d be okay. But if she didn’t, you go in and take her home. How’s that? What do they call him? Yeah, and then he’s. If you got a dog, you’re going to take cash, right?
01;00;25;28 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Never. He’s going to be bumming around. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I don’t be that man, though. I see something I give you that I didn’t get the. Oh, no, that was. Well, let me see. What else do I want to ask you? Oh, I want to ask about the depression. What did that what kind of an effect did that have?
01;00;47;00 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Well, you and your family. Well, I can hear that. We found it more than this one. That first one that was in the 30s wasn’t, you know, 29, 30. I can’t it we was at the country club at the time. So I and you know that so many other people, they were just taking their money out of the bank.
01;01;12;10 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And I never made an effort to do that because I thought if it goes broke, it goes broke. What happened? And I had my money in the First National Bank. Actually, I kept mine. Shepherd. Did you? Yeah, I kept my my new shepherd. How did you decide that? Was that just something you. Well, yes. Because then I didn’t have to ask him all the time for a check or something like that.
01;01;34;16 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And I had done my own. I said, if I want to get me a dress, it’s my own money. Yeah. So. And the American bank, I didn’t have any in there, but I got I got checks from the boys. I did pay me. We had a dinner or something. You know, where the American bank. So every time I’d get American bank check, I had to go to the bank with it.
01;02;00;23 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And that bank opened in three days. And the other one didn’t know for three months. Oh, God. So, you see, if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t. I had no money to run. and when the three months was up, I, I didn’t do it. No, no money in that as a bank. I got it all. Oh, so it worked out all right with me.
01;02;20;11 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Well, know that when you were talking about you kept your money separate. That brought something else to mind that I want to ask you. What do you do? You notice a lot of difference between you and your women friends that are married? do you think you’re more independent? They’re more. I am when I had had my own money, I think.
01;02;39;20 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah, yeah. Do you think you would have done as much, be so active now if you were still married? Well, I don’t know. I think I’ve just kept on. And if he lived, I kept on just like I was doing catering. Yeah. When did you decide not to do that anymore? When they wouldn’t have me anymore. Oh, old.
01;03;06;14 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: They just say no. I don’t care what happened to me. Is it Mrs. Skillings? Every lady that I help all the time. she had a dinner partner for the doctors, and, I don’t know, I went around this back five years ago. I guess it must be about five years ago. And I had a hemorrhage or the nose.
01;03;31;15 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Oh, we’re just going to start doing a bit late having the dinner. They were drinking, you know, it didn’t. They didn’t. We were supposed to eat at 8:00 and they didn’t get ready for ten. Oh, I had to keep that food out. Oh, that’s got some. Didn’t get out and Miss Kevin come out. You judge. We’re fine. We’re going to eat, she says.
01;03;52;26 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I grabbed a plate and was put on a plate, and I felt my nose rip and I grabbed it with a towel I had there, and I ran outdoors and I thought it was dark, but I thought that was me going back out. I got to running and just ran, and she sent one of the doctors out to see you.
01;04;16;17 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Well, that was lucky, I guess. Yeah, the real doctors there. And Doctor Stein, do you know him? And he come out and he. Brother, he ran back in and got a bath towel and by golly, we showed that. No, I let it run on the ground. and friend, they got me in the house and put me on the bed and so.
01;04;38;23 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And my stomach got for the plan. Oh, really? It was going down the back. It was going down in my stomach. And they were trying to make an impression. I oh, well broke my teeth to pressure my lips to make. You know, and I said, that won’t work. I said, just full. And so right there, let me get up.
01;04;59;04 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I went outdoors and he went with me because I got his car out and took me out the hospital. And when I got out there, my mouth was full. I just got a hold of it and just come a big role. Come on. All over my stomach. A blood. Oh, my. Oh, yeah, just like I. Somebody’s been killed there.
01;05;19;08 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And, And the emergency hospital couldn’t take care of me, so they had to call from there to call doctor Ward. No, he’s an ear doctor. And he. We went over to the hospital and, not to hospital on fifth Street where the cop office is. And he came down right away, and he burned it. Cauterized, I see.
01;05;43;27 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah. That’s it. I quit bleeding then, but I had another one then. Oh, about ten days after that and he done the same thing and then I’ve never had it again. So that was quite an experience. And so they got afraid to have me I see. Yeah. Uncover that hemorrhage. So what what did you do then. You didn’t work.
01;06;09;23 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: That was after the cook’s job at the high school. Yes. So when I was working, was it hard? Was it hard not to have work to do after I quit the school job, I didn’t know what to do in my show. The catering was enough.
01;06;27;19 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: But I never went to the school job again because it just about killed me off there. Were you. Were you depressed about not having enough to do? Did you feel bad? Yeah, I got to keep busy. Yeah, I’ve just got to keep busy. I couldn’t croak, I used to crochet a lot, but that didn’t interest me. Yeah, that’s like that little thing that’s crocheted in there, but.
01;06;51;04 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: You ought to crochet those. no, I had one of them. Okay, well, let’s see, what about World War two? How did that affect you and your family? Oh, I can’t tell you everything I tell you. I got your story, and a lot of others come in here. Did you think everybody did? Well, you did have some, up on the coast to Washington, wasn’t there some?
01;07;15;19 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I mean, it was that close there. Yeah, a couple of. Well, I mean, you know, got scared cuz you can mama, we’re liable to come over Live Nation. Yeah. He was scared of it. I’ll never forget that morning after Pearl Harbor. I don’t know where Mr. Cox was working. He’d gone to work that morning and it was foggy that next morning.
01;07;38;24 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And you? That and I, I saw forms standing in the door. There was a like a policeman. It was a policeman. Drew forgot what he did. What he come for. It scared the heck out of me. I think it was just in ten minutes. I wonder about which one I wore, you know. Oh, it just scared me.
01;08;02;01 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah, but he come to ask directions for where somebody lived or something, and he had to call, but it just scared me. And. Oh, we were so afraid for a while. Yeah, that was something, wasn’t it? Oh, yeah. You know, even the trains that have all the coaches with a change down and for blackout. Yeah. Real blackout.
01;08;26;24 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: After something. I would ask you also about what do you think about, about marriage. Do you think it’s on its way out or do you, do you think that it’s still a good institution? What do you think? Well, you know, that’s the way it is. You know, we you were made to be together. And I think that every they should get married because a man raped too many years otherwise.
01;08;54;24 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah. You think so? They’ve got to have it. They’ve got to have a woman. You got. You don’t think that’s the same for women? Women don’t have the same. Well, yes. There is some women that can’t get enough. I know I have a friend that she’s just sick when she can’t have. Is that right? Is she? What age is she while she’s getting along?
01;09;15;29 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: She was born in 1917, so she’s 50, some 60, I don’t know, just now, the last few years since her mother died, I know nothing about her. She goes to Seattle? No, but if she is like she was then where she was married. You married an old man, and then she married that and get married against a guy that was stronger than she was.
01;09;41;24 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: She had to quit him. Oh, is that right? Like there was a bar, Brush Canyon. Yeah. and then she used to have the guys come to share their. But they couldn’t get upstairs. She she didn’t know what was going on. Yeah. Kind of an invalid. So she’s got to have it. So there is women as well as men.
01;10;07;13 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: But you think the institution of marriage is a good institution? I think so. It, I think it saves a lot of girls. Young girls. Well, how about, what do you think about that? Have you heard about the women’s movement of liberation? You know, I don’t know much about it. I don’t read anymore. I just read my morning paper and read all of it at that.
01;10;31;20 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: So, I don’t know. I can’t talk on that because I don’t know nothing about it. It sounds to me like you’ve never been. You’ve been a liberated woman. Well, first goal was, I. I tried to live a clean, decent life. Oh, I wish I. I think it’s so neat that you have your parties and your friends keep seeing, and I just I just always have a good time at whatever I do or wherever I go.
01;11;03;22 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: And I go for fun, I have fun. How about you? you don’t seem like you worry about much. Have you worried? Do you spend a lot of time? Oh, I do worry sometimes. I especially now with my daughter. I worry about her a lot, too. Yes, yes, it just worries me. Because when I don’t hear from them, I always think there’s something going wrong.
01;11;27;17 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: You know? It’s something to worry about when you know that she can’t make water anymore. That’s something. Oh, is that right? Oh, yeah. On a machine. Kidney dialysis, I see. I don’t think I understand. Just two weeks ago I tried two weeks ago to see that I’m going to grow into your arm. Yeah. And drink blood. Quit going to do so.
01;11;53;29 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: She had to have that taken out or redone. So you see that upset her and you. So where did you think, hey, I was a nurse, you know, that runs the machine. My chest. They take you to treatment three times a week. And that machine, when it peeps, there’s something wrong. Oh, I see, and even the nurse didn’t know what trouble.
01;12;21;28 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: That’s what it was. The blood wasn’t going through. And so, you see, it takes somebody to run that. Yeah, she could probably learn to run it, but she said I wouldn’t take a chance because I wouldn’t know what that meant. Yeah, yeah. So even that nurse didn’t know what it meant. Oh gosh. I suppose you never had. They had happened before too.
01;12;48;22 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Young fellow. She’s got a family, wife, two children. I don’t know which way he lives, but not too far from my dreams.
01;12;59;12 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I’m getting making you talk so much. You’re both probably dry. What get you into crawfish? I’m. I think I better put my sweater on. Oh, well. I guess. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That makes me laugh. Oh, that picture I know. I think that’s one of the best ones I’ve seen. That one. Yeah. I want to just ask you one more thing in that list.
01;13;26;11 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Do you have any advice that you’d that you would give them a woman say that was moving to a rural area that had been maybe from a big city? How would you what would you tell her? What if what could I tell her? What if she was apprehensive about moving to a small place and she didn’t know if she’d fit in and where she might not.
01;13;53;03 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Of course. That depends on the woman. Do you know? I wouldn’t know what to say, because it just depends on the person. Some wouldn’t be fit to move out. and the same way that farm woman move into town, you’d be lost. You think? Yeah. Yeah. She and I think we the same as a woman moving out.
01;14;15;28 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: She’d miss on her, activity in town. Well, I don’t know what else to say. Well, that’s okay, and then maybe just. But is there anything you want to say about your life? Do you say it’s been happy for the most part, or unhappy or. Well, I don’t know. I’ve been unhappy very many times and real happy at times.
01;14;38;00 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: We wish you were happy when we used to go to dances. Oh, yeah, I think that, gosh, I wish I would rather dance to the eight I do anything. Do you get to go to a dance? When I worked out, we danced all night to 4:00. Go on. Go. Go for the man. Stay up all day and night and get the next night.
01;14;57;05 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah, yeah, I’ve done it many times. We went in there ten miles out. Yeah. And you used to be a fairy up here with the is where we come. I came in the wagon. Did not the buggy and go to the dance across the house, across the. And when the when the when it was out at 4:00, we danced for 4:00.
01;15;24;11 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Then we’d start for home. Well, we’d be home right after daylight. Walk in the morning and in the fall, like, you know, that was a long trip. I know one time it rained and all was muddy, and, it was terrible cover over the well. Oh, gosh. Well, we should fix for it. And heavy coat, piano and. But then was it good old days?
01;15;50;15 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I always say them with the good old days, which they were. Yeah. So, yeah, I had a good time after I left home. And how about after your husband died? Did you please. Where am I going to that then? I didn’t have a partner. I never wanted to go anywhere. But I would never marry again because I never get another man like,
01;16;12;27 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: So I’d never try another man. I guess you had to make some adjustments. Oh, just a lot of adjustments so many times or something. You know, a man, wife have secrets or some things to talk about, you know. And I’d have some to tell him. And I couldn’t tell him because it wasn’t here. Yeah, I missed that more than anything.
01;16;35;29 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Well, I guess that’s why I’ve got to ask. You know, just, Thank you for lunch. That was so good. You’re welcome. And, I’ll be thinking of you Friday at your party. I picked a good time. Read at noon. How long do they usually stay? Well, we played bingo, then talked for. Usually 4:00. It’ll be a little later because it’s more daylight.
01;16;59;10 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: Yeah, I want to get in spring. You know, they probably stayed or for 30. Oh. How many of there be? Probably maybe about 12. Oh one times 14. You ought to call the newspaper. I think we’re back home. I have a lover. Well, yeah. Okay. This is nothing. Her daughter just came over to see me. Oh, they said you’ve got to have that in the paper, so they didn’t want to take that up.
01;17;24;19 - Cathy Naugle or Ida Mae Cox: I’m going to go keep my picture. But I like the people at the center. Take a copy of it.
- Title:
- Ida Mae Cox Interview Audio
- Date Created (ISO Standard):
- 1976-02-16
- Description:
- Audio of the interview with Ida Mae Cox.
- Interviewee:
- Cox, Ida Mae
- Interviewer:
- Naugle, Cathy
- Location:
- Lewiston, Idaho
- Latitude:
- 46.39857459
- Longitude:
- -116.9969232
- Source:
- MG68, Rural Women's History Project, University of Idaho Special Collections and Archives
- Finding Aid:
- https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv42414/
- Source Identifier:
- mg68_t124_t209_coxidamae
- Type:
- Sound
- Format:
- image/jpeg
- Preferred Citation:
- "Ida Mae Cox Interview Audio", Rural Women's History Project, University of Idaho Library Digital Collections
- Reference Link:
- https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/rwhp/items/rwhp118.html#rwhp123
- Rights:
- In copyright, educational use permitted. Educational use includes non-commercial reproduction of text and images in materials for teaching and research purposes. For other contexts beyond fair use, including digital reproduction, please contact the University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives Department at [libspec@uidaho.edu](mailto:libspec@uidaho.edu). The University of Idaho Library is not liable for any violations of the law by users.
- Standardized Rights:
- http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
- Title:
- Ida Mae Cox
- Date Created (ISO Standard):
- 1976-02-16
- Interviewer:
- Naugle, Cathy
- Subjects:
- portraits births family life depression (economic concept) health care homesteads marriage (social concept) rural communities
- Location:
- Lewiston, Idaho
- Latitude:
- 46.39857459
- Longitude:
- -116.9969232
- Source:
- MG68, Rural Women's History Project, University of Idaho Special Collections and Archives
- Finding Aid:
- https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv42414/
- Type:
- record
- Format:
- compound_object
- Preferred Citation:
- "Ida Mae Cox", Rural Women's History Project, University of Idaho Library Digital Collections, https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/rwhp/items/rwhp118.html
- Rights:
- In copyright, educational use permitted. Educational use includes non-commercial reproduction of text and images in materials for teaching and research purposes. For other contexts beyond fair use, including digital reproduction, please contact the University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives Department at [libspec@uidaho.edu](mailto:libspec@uidaho.edu). The University of Idaho Library is not liable for any violations of the law by users.
- Standardized Rights:
- http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/