An interview with Gladys Anna Monson Gutke (G) by her grand daughter, Deniane Gutke (D).
D: It's Friday, October 20th, 1989 , and I'm at Grandma Gutke's house and she is going to tell me about how she and Grandpa met, since I don't even know.
G: Is that where you what me to begin?
D: I don't care. You can start anywhere! I just don't know much about you!
G: I can't even remember where we left off last time.
D: You were telling me about the gypsies . . . I think we got to about the fifth grade.
G: Well, fifth grade was when we moved down on West Temple. It was a new street that they had just built. And you know what that house was like because you lived there. You wouldn't have known then, because you were a baby, but you've been by there, haven't you?
D: Yes, so that's the house in the picture where my mom and dad are standing and my dad is holding me?
G: When you were born, they were living there because I had Viola out here and somebody had to kind of watch the house.
D: Now Viola, is she your sister?
G: Yes, she had some trouble, a little bit before she retired. She had a little, oh I don't know if it was a stroke or not, and they changed (modernized) all their business. She worked for Western Union , and it was hard for her to comprehend any other way of doing it. But she made out all right after she was retired. Mother was there, and they got along just fine. After Mother went, she had a hard time. She thought that she was supposed to still go to work. The neighbors said that they found her out there one time about 11:00 at night, waiting for the bus. They asked, "Viola, what are you out here for?" She said she was waiting for the bus. She'd always gone to work really early in the morning when it was dark. They said, "Viola, you don't go to work now." She said, "But they called me up and told me to come in." So they reasoned with her, and got her back in, and then they let me know about it. That was the first we had known that she was that serious. So then I took her out here for a couple of years until I couldn't take her any longer. She had had several strokes then. And she'd get up in the middle of the night and get dressed, and none of us could sleep. She'd go out the door, and I didn't know where she might try to go. We put her in that rest home; oh, I hated to do it. But anyway, we're way ahead there. How come we did? Oh, you asked me who Viola was. That's how I got on her.
We moved down there when I was in the fifth grade. And I was really the belle of the fifth grade! I don't know why; I've never been much, but anyway, I moved down there and they were going to have a great, big Christmas program. They had me be the French doll. Mother had make this great, big box, you know, and all this fancy dress. And I had to dance with the tin soldier who was in the seventh grade.
D: Oooh.
G: So, that was really something! I really guess I had kind of a crush on him. But it was a fun time. We had a little old teacher who seemed like to me that she was 75 then, but of course I guess she wasn't if she was still teaching. But we learned from her, we really did. Have you ever had those speed and accuracy tests? Maybe they don't give them anymore. They were great, big, long columns of figures that you had to add, and we had to do it real fast at the speed of accuracy. I got so I could add so fast! I still add faster in my head than I can with a computer--you know, one of those hand computers. But we had fun, and I stayed there through the fifth and sixth and seventh grades. We'd go to these parties and play all these games. I don't know whether you ever did "Post Office" or "Wink" or all those. Did you ever do those?
D: Huh-uh.
G: Oh, they were kind of fun. Of course, we were always supervised by somebody. But you'd sit in a circle, and it would be one boy's turn and he'd wink and you'd have to chase him. Or in "Post Office," you'd have to go out and then when you got out there you could get a kiss. And oh, "Spin the Bottle," and lots of others. Kids don't play, they just watch television now. One little boy used to come down on a bicycle and take me to the store that was down on 21st south--we lived on 19th--just a little grocery store, and buy me a candy bar, you know, and drive me back on the bike. It was a big deal, in fact, he became a very important person! But we had a lot of fun.
We had all the lower grades--five, six and seven. I remember my teachers there so well. We had a principal who was a great, big tall, heavy-set man. He taught us music, and he'd come in "Bang! Bang! Bang!" with his foot, you know, keeping time (laughter). I can just see him now, leading us and banging the floor with his foot. But it was interesting, and I had a lot of friends. Harold got a lot of friends too.
Then I went to junior high school. Oh, and I had really good friends. . .really close. Especially Rene Cunningham and I. We had all of our classes together. I remember sitting in the back seats and not listening. But we were good students: we got A's, and we took Latin the first year. The next year we took Latin and Spanish!
D: What grade was this in?
G: Eighth grade. Eighth and ninth. Of course, junior high was a lot of fun. I didn't date; we weren't allowed to date very much, but we went to parties, you know, where all the boys and the girls were there. One time we had such a good party up to Rene Cunningham's. That was just up one block and then over a block. I had, we used to call it a hickey. What do you call it now, a zit or something (laughter)? Oh, but it was right on my nose. Have you ever had one when you were going someplace?
D: Plenty.
G: I was so conscious of that. I'd go in the bathroom and couldn't do anything with it, so I decided I was going to go home. I wasn't going to be where anybody could see that great big thing on my nose. This boy, whose ring I was wearing--a fun ring, you know--was so upset because I wanted to go home. But he walked me home, and I was sorry I didn't stay for the party. But I was too conscious of it. But we had a lot of fun in junior high. That's when I started to play tennis. We go over to the park and play tennis, Lorraine
D: We have a picture of you at our house playing tennis. About what year do you think that would be? Would have been just about when you and grandpa got married?
G: Probably.
D: You're in a long tennis dress and you're holding up a racket kind of like this.
G: Do you have one of Clyde , too, playing?
D: Yes.
G: I played lots before Clyde . I taught Clyde to play. But, anyway, we went to high school. They were trying a new program. After we graduated from junior high—I went to South Junior High—they were only going to have two years of high school. So, instead of having tenth, eleventh and twelfth, we just had tenth and eleventh. I went through with just two years of high school.
D: And you graduated in eleventh grade.
G: Yes.
(tape stopped, turned over.)
But we just had the two years in high school. I took a third year of Spanish there. I took two of Latin and two of Spanish in junior high, and I took a third year of Spanish. Oh, and we had a new teacher come. He was just out of college, and he had a little mustache . . . We all lined up for his class. That was when you could choose your teacher, and there was a great, big long line to get into his class. I had him for English. I didn't think he was such a hot teacher, but we thought he was special because he was kind of, you know, grown up and different from the kids we were going with. (laughter)
I had very good grades all through high school. School was easy; I never had any trouble at all. The only thing I hated was biology. I used to HATE to cut up those crayfish. I had a friend, a boyfriend, that used to cut them up for me. That was the only class I didn't get an "A" in. Other than that, I got straight A's in high school.
D: And you probably had boyfriends all through high school, too.
G: Oh yes. But we went in crowds a lot. We didn't just go in two's; we went more maybe two or three couples together. Then we had all of these parties at our homes. There were big crowds. We had lots of fun at the dances, and at the football games, and the tennis tournaments. I played tennis in school.
D: Did you travel around to play?
G: Oh, no. We just played there. In fact, that's where I learned to play. We had--her name was Ruth Croft, and she was a very experienced player. She had won a lot of contests and had been all over. She taught us how to play tennis. She wasn't our gym teacher, but she came in to teach us tennis. That's where I learned to play tennis. I had gone before, but I hadn't learned the correct way to return serve, and to serve and whatnot. We had a lot of fun with that.
We were in a whole lot of plays in high school. I was in so many plays!
D: What were some of the parts you had?
G: I remember one; it was kind of a crazy one about a boy that wanted to ask a girl to marry him. The old grandmother insisted that he had to ask by getting down on his knees just like in her day. I was the old grandmother. I really got a lot of compliments on that and it was fun to do. Later, when I was teaching the young girls, I put that same play on.
D: When did you teach?
G: I taught the Beehives when I was only a Junior--we called them the Juniors then-- but this was when I was a little older and we had this group and they put this on. They did a good job, too. Of course, I had seen all the parts played, so I could really tell them exactly how to play them. We put on a lot of other plays too.
In our oral expression class one time we had to do something that we thought people would remember. I can't even remember what I did to tell you the truth. But there was a girl in our class, and she wasn't very popular. I was skinny, and she was a heavy-set girl, kind of tall. But she was wonderful in her oral expression. Oh, she was good. She said, "I'm going to give you two poems today." We all had to give a poem. "I'm going to give one funny one, and then one a little different. See which one you remember. You know, to this day I can't remember the comical one that she gave at all. But the other one was about a little girl whose mother wouldn't tell her good night, because she had done something naughty. And you know, I can still remember that. I've often thought I'd like to tell her, "We do remember that one that you thought we'd remember." But we had a lot of fun in that class. I had a GOOD teacher. Her name was Howel. H-O-W-E-L. She was so good in drama.
I graduated, of course, before. . . let's see, I wasn't sixteen! I graduated in June and I turned sixteen in July. I was valedictorian.
D: Now which high school was it again?
G: West High School
D: When did they change graduation to the twelvth grade?
G: The year after I left.
D: So were you the only class that went to just eleventh grade?
G: Well, I think the class before did, too. But they found out, I guess, that it didn't work too well. It worked fine for me! I think to this day I know a lot more than the ones who graduate from high school now. I help Tonya and lots of times she'll say, "Grandma, how do you know how to do that?" And I think, "Oh my goodness, it's been a long time." Some things stay with you if you're taught well. We had teachers that really explained. I don't think Tonya has had teachers who explain well enough or else she doesn't listen carefully! But she'd come home and have all this homework that she really didn't know how to do. Did your teachers explain?
D: Some did and some didn't. I had a really good math teacher, but others weren't that great.
G: I loved math. When I took geometry, though, I was out with my tonsils. Oh, I had a terrible time. I was out for six weeks. So when I went back, you know it's just memorization, and I didn't like it. I soon caught up, but I never did like it. Algebra was kind of a fun thing, except the way they teach it now I can't help anybody with it. Kent
I had pretty well-rounded education, and I should have gone on to college. But that was 1930, in the Depression, and there just weren't any jobs to be had. Even after you got out of school. I could have got a scholarship, but Mother was struggling along, trying to raise us kids without a dad, and it was really hard.
D: What happened to your dad?
G: He died when I was only two.
D: That's right. You talked about the red shoes . . .
G: Yes, and Harold was just a month old.
D: And your mom never remarried?
G: No. It was hard for her. And then I got this chance to be a dental assistant for 15 dollars a week, which was better than anybody was EVER paid then! We worked for eight and nine dollars a week. I thought it was too good to pass by, and so I went to work there. Mary, his [the dentist's] daughter, was going to learn to be a dentist. When she went to school, I don't know what made her change, whether she decided that it just wasn't for her or what, but she decided just to be a hygienist instead. So then she came back, and I was out of a job.
Then, trying to get to another job . . . I should have then gone back to school.
D: What colleges did they have then?
G: They had the University here [University of Utah
D: And you were what, seventeen by then?
G: I was about eighteen by the time I got out of that job. And then I met Clyde when I was nineteen. I went out with a fellow, and Clyde was with another girl. Oh, Clyde dressed just, oh. . . . and he was older, and I liked older . . . I'd always gone with older men.
D: How much older is he than you?
G: Nine years, almost ten.
D: I've seen early pictures of Grandpa, and he is DANG good-looking.
G: Oh, he was. Before he started losing his hair, he was just really good-looking. And he had a nice car, and had all these nice clothes and everything.
D: What kind of a car did he have?
G: Well, at least I thought it was nice. It was a '28 Oldsmobile, so it was pretty old then! But, I really though it was super. Of course, by then, I knew how to drive. That was when you could just send in an application for 25 cents, and they'd send us a driver's license.
D: Really?
G: Yes! (laughter) That's all we had to do, was just send in our quarter. And you didn't have to be a certain age or anything, so I sent mine in when I was about fourteen. Noreen, one of my girlfriends who lived down the street not very far from me, went with a boy by the name of Dale. He had one of those roadsters. Do you know what a roadster is? It had a rumble seat that would come up in the back. Do you know now what I mean?
D: Yes.
G: So, Dale would let Noreen take his car. She couldn't drive of course, and I hadn't had too much experience driving, but I learned to drive that Ford. I knew how to drive long before I was sixteen. Now you couldn't drive without a license; if you did you'd get caught pretty quick. So, I was out on a date with this one guy, and Clyde was on a date with someone else. And after he asked me out. Later I found out he had been married. And oh, then I didn't want to have anything to do with him. His wife had died, right shortly after they were married, of a brain tumor. That discouraged me, you know, and I didn't know if I could go with him for quite awhile. And then he called me up again, and we went out a second time, and another time, and another time . . .
D: Where were some of the places you went?
G: Well, in those days we just didn't have too much money. He was working and making pretty good money for Rio Grande—oh about thirty-five dollars which was wonderful in those days. We went to movies, and we went to dances, and we went to parties that friends had, and I taught him to play tennis. I went with him, well I stopped going with him there for about six months . . .
D: Okay, tell me about your first kiss.
G: Oh, our first kiss. I can't remember our first kiss, to tell you the truth.
D: Was grandpa an awesome kisser?
G: I guess he was, but in those days we didn't go in too much to that kind of petting. We were kind of prudish or something. Oh, we always had a good night kiss. And then, of course, it lead to a little more after that. (laughter) But, we really had a good time. We had two friends who were married and we went to their home quite a bit.
D: Before you were married?
G: Yes. Especially this one, Roy and his wife, Lola. Oh, we were such good friends with them. He died about two years afterwards of cancer. But anyway, we did have a good time with them. And then there's one friend, I had known her and gone through school with her, but I never . . . Now, Rene and I were really so close, and Rene married early. And there she left me, because they went right out of state. I can't imagine how come she married so early. She was only seventeen, not quite eighteen when she got married. I was just at a loss without her. Anyway, I started going with Noreen more and more, and with Dale. Noreen and Dale and Clyde and I went everywhere together. We had so much fun. We used to come out here to Holliday to the dances out to Union , and they really had some fun dances. (laughter) I think most of them were drinking or had been drinking or something because it was pretty loud! But we had a good time there anyway. There were several places you could go to dance, Rainbow Gardens
D: We have some places that are fun, like The Bay . . .
G: But these were really fun. But Clyde wasn't a very good dancer, so I had to teach him to dance. He got so he could dance really well with me, but then when he'd take somebody else that he didn't know, he just walk them around. So they didn't like to trade dances (laughter). I said, "Why can't you dance with them like you dance with me?" I don't know, he was a bit bashful or something. He'd just walk them around, not very much fun.
Then a tragedy happened when we were going together. [My sister Alice got in a car accident with her kids. Harold was out there too, and they were going to go to Liberty Park Clyde ; he helped me so. There was little Ruthie with her head all cut open . . . Clyde held her and I stood there while they sewed it up. She had broken her arm, and by the way, they didn't set it properly, and the next day, they broke that child's arm and reset it. They didn't even give her anything. I was so angry at those doctors. But that night we sat with Alice Clyde had to go--he was working a late shift or something--and I sat with her.
(Tape interrupted by phone ringing)
D: I want to know how Grandpa asked you to marry him. You know, this is a serious time in my life. (laughter)
G: Well, we need to finish what we were saying.
D: Yeah, where were we?
G: We were talking about Alice Alice Darwin Darwin Clyde helped me through it. He'd been out with me to see Alice
D: How many kids did she have?
G: Five. Except the baby was killed with her, so she had the four and Darwin is dead now. And her husband is also dead. He married again later, and the kids had a really rough time. She had about five kids and he had these. It was pretty hard, you know, to get along. It wasn't just Annie's fault. She tried hard, but these kids didn't cooperate very well. But, Clyde and I started going together quite often, and he loved Mother's cooking. He was there to dinner almost all the time. Mother could make a good dinner out of practically nothing. Oh, she made the best gravy and the best roast and things. He was there a lot. You know how it is, you've probably got Lorin there quite often too. We saw each other a lot.
We didn't talk too much of marriage for quite awhile, but then one time, he gave me ring. We were in the house, not in a romantic spot at all, but we were there alone. We were sitting on the sofa together and he brought this box out. I didn't know for sure whether to take it or not! I didn't know for sure if I loved him. I thought I did! But sometimes, you know . . . I'd gone with him a long time, and so I should have been sure. And I hadn't been going out with anyone else since I went with him, that is, since I went steady with him.
It was a little Depression ring, but it was surely pretty. It was yellow gold, and it had three diamonds that went step up, step up, step up on the side and one in the center.
D: What happened to the ring?
G: Oh, that's a long, long story. Well, many, many years later he bought me a new ring and had the diamonds taken out and set in a new one. We were going to have that one--the engagement ring and the wedding ring--put together . We left it at the jewelers, and they lost it.
D: Oh, no.
G: And I felt so bad. Of course, I've loved the one he got me, too.
D: Where is it?
G: It's in on my dresser.
D: Can I go get it and look at it? (leaves the room to retrieve it)
G: (Looking at the ring) He was going to reset that and give me a great big one there. That's just the little one that came out of my other ring. That was the size of it.
D: This part is the engagement ring and this part is the wedding band?
G: Yes. I've had a lot of compliments on it.
D: I like it.
G: But anyway, it was on a Saturday night. When I went to church the next day, I had that ring. All my friends, they were so excited about it. Of course, two of them had rings. And they were all so excited. "When's it going to be?" This just would have been in February. We didn't really know ourselves. We had to kind of wait until we got enough money saved up. We hadn't planned on saving, and we'd been spending a lot. We didn't have much in savings either, and every penny I made I gave to Mother. So, I didn't have anything saved. But, we decided on June. He hadn't been going to church for a long time, and was just a priest--he'd never been made an elder. But my bishop was willing to give us both a [temple] recommend, but Clyde didn't think it was right. He felt as though he hadn't really been doing the things he should to go, so we decided we would wait a little bit for the temple. We just had a simple marriage at home; Noreen and Dale stood up with us. The bishop married us, he lived right down the road.
D: At your house?
G: Yes. My house. Mother had a dinner for the family. We didn't have a big reception or anything.
D: When did you go to the temple?
G: We went to the temple, oh, quite a few years after . . . in '55. We had this little place rented up on 50th South and about 2nd East. It was a duplex, and we rented it for $15 . . . and fixed it. The woman that owned it did all the floors over . . . Here she is. (Tonya walks in. We were going to BYU Homecoming.) You have to remember that these were Depression days! Really Depression!
D: Well, sure, but . . .
G: This was '29, you know when the stock market fell and people jumped out of the windows and everything. There were no jobs and no nothing.
D: You still had LOVE!
G: Oh sure, we had plenty of that. But, we didn't go away. We got married on a Friday, so we had Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That night was the hottest night in whole summer. I think it was a hundred and I don't know what, a hundred and ten or something. We sat out on the porch the whole night long. The whole night we sat out on the porch! (laughter) Everyone thought we were going to Yellowstone which we didn't do, so nobody knew that we were there at the duplex. We had fixed it all up. Clyde 's mother and dad gave us a beautiful rug, and we had bought a new living room set, a table, and quite a few things for the living room. And a beautiful four-poster bedroom set. And a nice linoleum for the kitchen, and then we had a nice new kitchen set, and Clyde had painted the bathroom. He even painted all the little buttons on the water heater black! So we had it all fixed up. And we had all nice new curtains and drapes. It was really . . . everybody just loved it. We used to have everyone there. But this one girl that I hadn't gone with very much, she used to come every night, every night, until Clyde got a little perturbed. She was there every night, until he said, "My goodness, we're still honeymooning!" But it was fun. He'd come home from work, and I'd have dinner all ready. We'd do up the dishes and go to the tennis courts.
And we'd play tennis until they turned the lights out. We did that practically every night. Except on the weekends, we'd go out with these friends. We'd go to each other's homes and have dinner and play games and whatnot. Nothing that cost a lot. We'd go to a movie. But we had many fun years. We didn't have Robert until after we'd been married just about five years.
D: Where had you moved in that time?
G: Well, we lived there for two years, and then we built here. While they were building, we lived over with Clyde 's mom and dad over down here about four or five miles. They were almost through. And then just before we were ready to come into the home, I had appendicitis and they thought I was pregnant in the tube. So they cut me from here way down and it was just appendix. Now that was a shame. When I came out of the hospital, the kids had come and moved us in here. So we came from the hospital right to the home here.
D: Now, who moved you in?
G: Oh, Lucille and Wid and Harold and Laurel. And we've been here ever since! And really had many fun times.
D: That's great. I have always wondered where your china cabinet came from.
G: That was Viola's. We sold everything there after Viola died, and nobody wanted it. Of course, nobody had room for it, they all had everything else. But the thing I wanted I did get. Mother's old fashioned chiffonnier that's there in my bedroom, that was the one thing I really wanted, and I got that. I had all the work of taking care of Viola.
TRANSCRIPT ENDS.
Note from Deniane 2/26/03 :
I don’t remember if there is more to this interview?
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