Alba Libera Marra Interview Audio [transcript]

00;00;00;00 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah. They dirty July 3rd.

00;00;04;16 - Alba Libera Marra: Yes. They took very, very few of the stories out of here. But this is an excellent I feel it here as a part of the fourth grade social Studies review about our area here. See that blood curdling strike? One of the teachers wrote that, sister Rose Frances, we had close correlation with the sister school when they were here on the Catawba mission.

00;00;29;29 - Alba Libera Marra: well, here is a spirit girlhood recollections by a Kellogg pioneer. That was Mr. Conover who died recently. Stories of the gold rush government girl that’s out where, where I was born. The great Idaho fire. That’s the story I’ve told you about that. Mrs. Meyer’s dad. And here’s some more. See, and here are some more experiences of Mr. Fault.

00;00;52;25 - Alba Libera Marra: So if you’re interviewing Mrs. Myers.

00;00;54;28 - Unknown Interviewer: You’ll get information. Here’s some history of early,

00;00;58;24 - Alba Libera Marra: Kellogg. And it gives you, so much information that that you may enjoy just.

00;01;04;27 - Unknown Interviewer: Looking at a lot more meaning for students. Yeah. Yeah. For her community. The people I know know. So we.

00;01;13;07 - Alba Libera Marra: we compile that and tried to work,

00;01;15;23 - Unknown Interviewer: Work it up. if useful, of course.

00;01;19;23 - Alba Libera Marra: So you you can have that copy if you want to. Yes.

00;01;23;02 - Unknown Interviewer: You can take that I that. No.

00;01;24;27 - Alba Libera Marra: Because as long because that may give you something to, to work toward.

00;01;29;14 - Unknown Interviewer: Some.

00;01;29;20 - Alba Libera Marra: Background. Yeah. That background that just. Yeah. Oh, and our.

00;01;33;04 - Unknown Interviewer: Area for home. Oh, look at that and put it with the other material.

00;01;37;19 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s right.

00;01;39;06 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, the first thing I want to do, we fill out a personal data on you, and, as I usually record that, because usually when people begin to talk about their family, they digress and give a lot of interesting information. If I don’t recorded it a lot. That’s right. Okay. So that’s what your full name is. However, do you have a middle name?

00;02;05;08 - Alba Libera Marra: Libra is just as bad as all l I b e.

00;02;08;26 - Unknown Interviewer: R a Mara and a r r a I blank for. Great, right? You haven’t changed. no. Have you ever had a nickname? No. When were you born?

00;02;23;00 - Alba Libera Marra: July 15th, 1912.

00;02;28;11 - Unknown Interviewer: And you’re pregnant at one.

00;02;30;09 - Alba Libera Marra: 27 West Riverside.

00;02;38;12 - Alba Libera Marra: Park. Stuart. That’s, Silver King, but it was called Stuart. Then you e w r t. But it’s really silver Queen.

00;02;49;04 - Unknown Interviewer: and now I never hear her or in.

00;02;53;18 - Alba Libera Marra: Government Gulch, but it sort of changes name.

00;02;58;02 - Unknown Interviewer: Every town in Earth Valley.

00;02;59;22 - Alba Libera Marra: Yes. It’s there where the zinc plant is.

00;03;03;27 - Unknown Interviewer: In your phone.

00;03;05;04 - Alba Libera Marra: Seven, eight, 66834.

00;03;11;10 - Unknown Interviewer: Now of course, this doesn’t. Some of these will apply for your first residence across Great Harrison. So if it could make for people who have a great, like your mother’s maiden name, even Mara.

00;03;25;15 - Alba Libera Marra: She didn’t change her name.

00;03;30;00 - Unknown Interviewer: When she was born.

00;03;31;07 - Alba Libera Marra: July 14th.

00;03;32;22 - Unknown Interviewer: 1885

00;03;36;22 - Unknown Interviewer: University.

00;03;37;21 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, I should have been,

00;03;40;24 - Unknown Interviewer: And where was she immediately?

00;03;43;25 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, how superior at me, Alice. Superior. And all I see is just personality superiority CPR. I o r that put an e of the answer priority. Okay.

00;04;00;08 - Unknown Interviewer: And when did she die? August the 3rd, 1971. one time passes. you know what year she was married? I think seven.

00;04;17;19 - Alba Libera Marra: April 25th, 19, seven.

00;04;24;03 - Unknown Interviewer: she was a housewife for her. She had her doing here, you know, her? Brother. That’s right. your father’s name? Dominic D or am I in? I think.

00;04;38;23 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s the American I don’t.

00;04;39;26 - Unknown Interviewer: Medical. It was my. For a time.

00;04;48;02 - Alba Libera Marra: no, it just, there were distant, distant relatives, I guess I did, and there are a lot of memories.

00;04;57;10 - Unknown Interviewer: Over. Because that could be considered. Try and, you know, date of.

00;05;02;16 - Alba Libera Marra: Birth if you were 18. Before brother.

00;05;11;04 - Unknown Interviewer: Okay. Pretty good for her for seven. And.

00;05;18;01 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah, for her for the age of 77. I could look it up and.

00;05;23;02 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah. That’s right. Or her coconut and he requirements. Yeah.

00;05;27;03 - Alba Libera Marra: For her I think in the same town.

00;05;34;19 - Unknown Interviewer: When the people.

00;05;37;27 - Alba Libera Marra: January 25th, 1952.

00;05;43;18 - Unknown Interviewer: And public intoxication. Well,

00;05;47;08 - Alba Libera Marra: He was a custodian. because it was a spell. A watchman. And he was a miner.

00;05;55;23 - Unknown Interviewer: Smelter.

00;05;56;14 - Alba Libera Marra: Smelter?

00;06;01;20 - Unknown Interviewer: And a miner.

00;06;03;04 - Alba Libera Marra: Originally he was a miner.

00;06;05;22 - Unknown Interviewer: okay. Yeah.

00;06;07;01 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s what he came here because he came in a. Yes. Because he came in about in the 1890s.

00;06;17;18 - Unknown Interviewer: that would be interesting to find information on. Parent. I think that’s right, because they, they came directly to this area. Yes.

00;06;25;29 - Alba Libera Marra: Dad did. Whenever dad was in Butte, first.

00;06;33;18 - Unknown Interviewer: And your mother came here?

00;06;35;13 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah. Came here first, then he he he went back in 1907 and they were married. And they came to to Burke. He came to Burke first, and then from Burke they went to Canada and then from Canada. Then they came back here.

00;06;50;18 - Unknown Interviewer: To this area, tried out, that’s right, Right. And he came from behind the home and probably picnic here.

00;06;59;15 - Alba Libera Marra: And, their dad was in about 1897 or so. Okay. And mother was 19, seven. She was married.

00;07;12;29 - Unknown Interviewer: then they came by ship. Yeah. They traveled.

00;07;17;20 - Alba Libera Marra: By.

00;07;18;13 - Unknown Interviewer: Train. And they came. Your father came along her.

00;07;25;12 - Alba Libera Marra: First, and then he went back and her. And they were married.

00;07;35;24 - Unknown Interviewer: All right. I think I’m glad that got married. Down to back in. Better get.

00;07;39;17 - Alba Libera Marra: Here. The best food for children of immigrants.

00;07;43;06 - Unknown Interviewer: And we have no competitors?

00;07;44;27 - Alba Libera Marra: No. That goes.

00;07;45;27 - Unknown Interviewer: To stillborn. I can think of it. I think it should. It was, it was.

00;07;51;09 - Alba Libera Marra: In the camp.

00;07;52;26 - Unknown Interviewer: Your mother did all that effort that.

00;07;55;25 - Alba Libera Marra: I think it must have been the RH, you know. Negative.

00;07;59;07 - Unknown Interviewer: With that problem with, you know, they don’t recognize.

00;08;02;26 - Alba Libera Marra: I suppose maybe that we have to.

00;08;04;27 - Unknown Interviewer: Revert back to the after.

00;08;14;19 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, I see we don’t have the answer that you found.

00;08;17;18 - Alba Libera Marra: No. Children.

00;08;18;28 - Unknown Interviewer: Children. Now your education. You have graduated from,

00;08;23;24 - Alba Libera Marra: From Lewiston Normal.

00;08;27;18 - Unknown Interviewer: 1931

00;08;32;05 - Alba Libera Marra: And done that. And then I went to the University of Washington. And then from the University of Washington, because it was the war years, I, they said that if you wanted to stay in elementary education, that you weren’t to stay here at university. So I went on to Central Washington at, Ellensburg. I got my degree from there in 1942.

00;08;59;25 - Unknown Interviewer: But I’m a.

00;09;01;11 - Alba Libera Marra: B.A. from Central Washington College of.

00;09;03;15 - Unknown Interviewer: Education. And then I,

00;09;08;03 - Alba Libera Marra: This was always during the summertime. So the first two years were constant, and then all the rest of my education was in summer. And then I went to the University.

00;09;17;00 - Unknown Interviewer: Of Idaho.

00;09;18;13 - Alba Libera Marra: And got my master’s.

00;09;19;14 - Unknown Interviewer: In education.

00;09;21;27 - Alba Libera Marra: But no major mass.

00;09;23;28 - Unknown Interviewer: Education.

00;09;26;05 - Alba Libera Marra: With guidance as, Major, interest then I’ve attended the University of Montana and WSU as well. No longer called WSC, I guess.

00;09;41;23 - Unknown Interviewer: Is that, Pullman. Pullman. Oh.

00;09;44;07 - Alba Libera Marra: At WSU now and then I’ve taken, work beyond that, that, correspondence of extension courses. So I have more than a sixth year now.

00;10;03;08 - Alba Libera Marra: They kept going.

00;10;05;15 - Unknown Interviewer: So your main school teacher teacher know, and I.

00;10;10;06 - Alba Libera Marra: Was the elementary, I was an elementary principal for, in 1941, I became the elementary principal for Sunnyside. Year. And then I taught, you know, a regular grade as well. I was a teaching principal. Then during the year of 1947 48, I went to University of Utah and was the, the the lab teacher there.

00;10;37;13 - Unknown Interviewer: Which we.

00;10;38;00 - Alba Libera Marra: Had, a for, for student teacher, student teachers in the morning and two student teachers in the afternoon to supervise. That was a different experience.

00;10;48;24 - Unknown Interviewer: I would be very.

00;10;50;01 - Alba Libera Marra: Good in that exact right. Yes. And going to a huge city do. Yeah. No. And then all the implications that were involved. And then my dad became ill. So I decided to come home. Right. I didn’t realize I thought they were going to come over there and move to Salt Lake, but I decided my place was to come home with the family.

00;11;11;16 - Alba Libera Marra: And, I at that time, I received, I was supposed to go to Ellensburg. The teach was supposed to go to Montana to teach, but I chose Kellogg, and I came back then as elementary coordinator in Kellogg. That was before consolidation. and then besides the, being the elementary coordinator, I did, special reading, the remedial reading and the speech work and then the testing, the IQ test did.

00;11;43;08 - Alba Libera Marra: Then in 1950, consolidation took place.

00;11;50;00 - Alba Libera Marra: And, no, I’m sorry, 1950. Then, the principal resigned the last, the last day of it of August. So then I became Sunnyside principal again and kept on with my elementary coordinator job. I did that for two years, and they gave me a secretary to take care of the office during the time that I had to go to the other building.

00;12;16;20 - Alba Libera Marra: And there were four other building, three others besides mine that I had to visit. And then in 1952, consolidation came in, and that when we consolidated that I had 13 elementary buildings to, to visit. And I did all the intelligence testing and then supervised the teachers. And I had to stop my remedial reading and speech because it wasn’t possible.

00;12;44;11 - Unknown Interviewer: You had some.

00;12;45;04 - Alba Libera Marra: I had read to you. And then gradually, after consolidation, then different buildings were eliminated. Until now, there were just five elementary buildings this year to supervise. But then air added duties came on. Then during the summer of 1955, I taught at Bozeman at Korea and MSK. It was called in Montana State College, and I taught guidance and, reading courses to the teachers.

00;13;18;24 - Alba Libera Marra: And I continued teaching from 1931 to 1944. So in 1975, 44 years of teaching there. And I taught all grades because it served when I first, my first four years were Silver King, and I had first and second grade and then, when I got through, then in the morning I had seventh and eighth grade penmanship. I got through in the afternoon.

00;13;45;00 - Alba Libera Marra: I had the office work to do because I figured at first and second grade teachers didn’t have, things to do, and so they had to keep you busy. And then from there, I moved into town. I had, my salary out there was going to be $180 a month, but I didn’t like the community. And so I came in and took $115 a month, and I went from two grades down to the one grade.

00;14;10;28 - Alba Libera Marra: So the money wasn’t everything. They and then getting good grades. And I taught third grade. And then in order to transfer over to a bigger school at Sunnyside. Then I took second grade, and then I went on and I taught third and fourth and fifth, and then as elementary coordinator and as principal. So I had a variety of.

00;14;32;22 - Unknown Interviewer: Of experiences and experience that’s about that for, information I filled in and of course, I haven’t tried to I it all.

00;14;42;24 - Alba Libera Marra: Of the time. No, you just can’t do.

00;14;45;21 - Unknown Interviewer: All right. Let’s talk about your other interests and hobbies and talents. You started doing more.

00;14;51;29 - Alba Libera Marra: So I like sewing and reading and reading and, I like to visit, of course, and talk. and visited. And then I visit the, the ones of the two nursing homes, the elderly and volunteer.

00;15;16;29 - Alba Libera Marra: And I enjoy the organizations that I belong to, business and professional women, UW University women and Delta Kappa Gamma. That’s the honorary education association. And then I was a member of a life member of the NEA. I belong to the IEA, of course, and star the life member of the Parent Teachers Association.

00;15;54;28 - Unknown Interviewer: I just that’s about it and quite.

00;15;57;19 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, and then church.

00;15;59;24 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah.

00;16;00;03 - Alba Libera Marra: And the church active in the church, handy circle. And, I’m going to join the ladies afternoon group now to work with them.

00;16;15;14 - Alba Libera Marra: I keep busy, I don’t know, I just maybe I just putter around with the sewing has been keeping me busy. I I’m not the world’s best, so I sew some work. So, that’s the end result that counts. Know, just like I showed you that things stand out and it will end up looking all right. Maybe we hope.

00;16;37;06 - Unknown Interviewer: That it’ll be for your unique work. That’s so cool.

00;16;41;01 - Alba Libera Marra: But I had, the strangest experience. Hey, I made another dress and, a jacket out of this pina jersey. Have you tried sewing on there? No, I haven’t, and here’s the that, blending type of interfacing and ironed it on, put the dress in my bedroom. Walked in that evening, and I couldn’t walk into the bedroom. There was such a smell of natural gas.

00;17;07;06 - Alba Libera Marra: I think it was the interaction. And I’m still it’s still hanging in the pantry trying to get rid of some of the odor. Saroj, before you buy Queen a jersey.

00;17;15;22 - Unknown Interviewer: That that you.

00;17;17;23 - Alba Libera Marra: Something to find out. So so that’s that was it arrived back in the. I raised off of the tape quickly today.

00;17;27;22 - Unknown Interviewer: Don’t ever make.

00;17;28;14 - Alba Libera Marra: This to the back. Yeah that’s right. Well yeah.

00;17;31;17 - Unknown Interviewer: If someone buys this 50 years from now that’s that’s.

00;17;35;04 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s just yet not clear for.

00;17;38;14 - Unknown Interviewer: Fabrics and products we had to deal with today. And the growing pains went through. All right. There was something.

00;17;45;09 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah, yeah.

00;17;46;13 - Unknown Interviewer: Your award, your bags and ribbons. Now, that.

00;17;49;19 - Alba Libera Marra: Was just, the T-shirt.

00;17;51;18 - Unknown Interviewer: Here for sure. I know what it was back 1963.

00;17;56;29 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah. And then I was awarded a life membership in the PTA. That and I don’t. Yeah. So that’s just an honorary award.

00;18;07;17 - Unknown: I think what? Oh.

00;18;12;29 - Unknown Interviewer: And bring up. If we think of something else, we’ll come back.

00;18;15;23 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah.

00;18;17;05 - Unknown Interviewer: Long. You’re back. now we have a list of questions that we asked more or less, to stimulate, your thought and to remind you of things. and if you, certainly if there’s some there that you don’t want to answer. Okay. But if you think of something else, it reminds you to go off and on one area.

00;18;37;28 - Unknown Interviewer: Please feel okay. Find them. All right. First thing, we sometimes ask, what do you do for yourself? The advantage of living in a rural area or does it it.

00;18;50;17 - Alba Libera Marra: you get to know your neighbors much better. It’s, it’s a better place. I always found a, a better place for families to raise their children there. As we said last night, there’s more security that we, we have good security. There’s, call it, I’ve lived in, she believed in the farm when I was, as I told you last night when I was in the third grade.

00;19;24;01 - Alba Libera Marra: And it’s her. It’s fun. It’s, I still correspond to some of with one of the girls that, from Yakima that, I’ve used to run across the street, to her place, and she’s written and she has a pen pal in, in Italy, in Torino. Now that she walked me to look up when I get there.

00;19;46;16 - Alba Libera Marra: So that’s interesting. I think you’re just, It doesn’t make any difference where you are. It’s that you can make. You can make friends whether you’re in the city, whether you’re in the country, but you’re a little bit freer, I think, in a smaller community.

00;20;04;03 - Unknown Interviewer: And you can I really appreciate the fact that you’ve lived in a large community. That’s right. Have you had that right? Yes, I have something.

00;20;12;15 - Alba Libera Marra: Now, like here in the schools. You feel, you know, the teachers feel important. You know, they each each teacher has, has a niche where as you get, like, you know, when I went to University of Utah to teach, I always felt like I was just. I was, you know, an important cog here. And you get down there and you’re just like, a little screw down at the bottom of the barrel.

00;20;35;01 - Alba Libera Marra: There’s this, that loss.

00;20;36;06 - Unknown Interviewer: So you really don’t feel like you don’t it?

00;20;37;28 - Alba Libera Marra: No, no. That’s it. It’s just, you have more of a chance to, to get ahead in a smaller community. They appreciate.

00;20;46;17 - Unknown Interviewer: You more. Yeah.

00;20;47;28 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s. Yeah. Like, I got a letter from my cousin yesterday, and she said we didn’t know we had such an infant. I said we read it the way she wrote it. Such an important relative who got, the newspaper for free in a bigger city. You wouldn’t that you wouldn’t make the right. You would make the newspaper.

00;21;08;02 - Unknown Interviewer: Come and go over here for.

00;21;10;28 - Alba Libera Marra: Figuring it out. Right. That’s and it’s embarrassing. I mean, but then it. And when, Jeannette Young came, you know, and wanted to interview. You don’t know what to do but tell it’s still part of, you ought to society if you can, help out. That’s the way to do it, right? That’s the way I grew up.

00;21;30;29 - Alba Libera Marra: I told you the last night, you know.

00;21;33;19 - Unknown Interviewer: A lot of, just modeling for for children coming up.

00;21;37;16 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s right.

00;21;38;10 - Unknown Interviewer: How to succeed as a key.

00;21;39;22 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s right.

00;21;40;27 - Unknown Interviewer: They’re observing.

00;21;41;19 - Alba Libera Marra: No, that’s just, you know, that’s what you have to.

00;21;44;05 - Unknown Interviewer: Witness for for children and people. I recommend how well you’ve already gotten into it, comparing the life. And that’s the significance.

00;21;56;24 - Alba Libera Marra: You know, when we when I was five, my parents went to California, to Sacramento. They had decided that, we wanted to get out from, you know, under in the mines and, in the smelter, and he’d try a new life. So they went to, Sacramento first, and then from Sacramento, after six months in Sacramento, we went to Stanford, Cisco, and then we came back to see everything.

00;22;24;25 - Alba Libera Marra: They had not sold their home there. So then they still we still had a home. Then again, he got the urge in, mother wanted to go to Italy to see her folks, but he decided that he, that he wanted to not have to work anymore. He was going to, make a living off of the farm.

00;22;45;10 - Alba Libera Marra: So they went to, Washington, to Prosser, Washington. And, while there on the farm, they we had, an apple orchard and, he broke his leg. So it was up to mother to take care of the farm. It was up to mother to, to milk the cows. I had chickenpox when I was there. It was, that was, my first experience in, they had lunch program.

00;23;14;16 - Alba Libera Marra: I mean, I’m digressing here, but you get it. You got into that hot lunch program, and, I can remember that even then, some youngsters were getting free lunch. The children across the street, their income, because they had lived on the farm longer and were gradually losing everything. They were allowed to have free lunches, whereas my parents had just come in, I had to pay for my lunch.

00;23;42;10 - Alba Libera Marra: And, you know, I often wondered about that. And when, when I grew up and so working in just a little room school there and there, we had we brought soup to school. It was our turn to bring soup. And then we youngsters took turns cooking the soup and making the soup for the rest of the youngsters to eat.

00;24;02;02 - Alba Libera Marra: And that was, you know, the contrast between, going to a two room school. And then I went, you know, to the what we called. Well, it’s a farming community, but it was a city to me.

00;24;14;26 - Unknown Interviewer: But that was good.

00;24;16;02 - Alba Libera Marra: But it’s just good experience. Just the just to see the differences.

00;24;19;13 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah. Oh, so you’re traveling through there? Oh. what? How old were you when you went through the where you brought soup and prepared for others for that?

00;24;30;07 - Alba Libera Marra: That was, when I went to silver cooking school from grade one through, 36. But I went to Prosser in the third grade, and I, made the. So I missed the fifth or sixth grade I made in one year. So we just took turns as the older children, you know, would make the soup on the big, pot bellied stove.

00;24;56;12 - Alba Libera Marra: You know, you you heated your soup on there. So that was the beginning of a lunch program, but a hot lunch. But you had your you brought your own sandwiches, but you had then your hot soup.

00;25;09;00 - Unknown Interviewer: Very, very.

00;25;09;29 - Alba Libera Marra: Worst I could picture. I wish I had a picture of that school. Yeah, that was up the upper Dalton. So pretty.

00;25;16;22 - Unknown Interviewer: Good. Each child I have don’t bore us.

00;25;20;14 - Alba Libera Marra: We have really, took care of and took care of, washing them all. So we got some housekeeping duties in there, and then the teacher, my very first sewing experience was when I was in the fourth grade down there. And, the teacher had us, so towels and work and towels and do things like that.

00;25;42;12 - Alba Libera Marra: So in the early the earlier time teacher, you know, brought in more the domestic, aspects than the that you don’t get in the schools nowadays.

00;25;52;24 - Unknown Interviewer: But it was related to something that was neat.

00;25;55;01 - Alba Libera Marra: Work that was needed to.

00;25;56;12 - Unknown Interviewer: Motivate.

00;25;57;00 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s right. And we had the towels and we had the towels and then the towels were used for, wiping our dishes and all.

00;26;05;15 - Unknown Interviewer: That, that we.

00;26;06;10 - Alba Libera Marra: All had to do something.

00;26;09;00 - Unknown Interviewer: I like to work. Go back a little bit to the time your father broke his leg and your mother took over that work on her arm. there’s. That’s one thing we want to get recorded. How the women came here. Yes.

00;26;22;16 - Alba Libera Marra: Absolutely.

00;26;23;01 - Unknown Interviewer: That’s right. And there was no question then about her not being able.

00;26;27;04 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no. There. And our farm was divided when, she talked about the jungle area. The, the one speaker last night and our farm was divided, a half of our farm was on one side of the railroad track and the road, the tracks that went to Walla Walla and the other, the other side was the other part, the ranch.

00;26;49;29 - Alba Libera Marra: The trees were on the other area. And that, in in Sprague, this one incident, what? Sprained. a mother would always see the snakes. We believed there was a canal on this side of our farm. And right across the canal were all the rattlesnakes. But rattlesnakes somehow or other didn’t cross the canal and come to our area.

00;27;17;15 - Alba Libera Marra: But the. But, mother, I. Every time she went out to the orchard, she always saw the snakes. The dad didn’t see yes or no one else did. So one day they were out there and screen and, mother’s head was helping to spray, and she grabbed the cane and started hitting. And the fellas go break my cane, don’t break my cane purchases where there’s a smell.

00;27;41;13 - Alba Libera Marra: And they really believed it. Them that she was seeing the the snake.

00;27;47;05 - Alba Libera Marra: And then now and, going back to the jungle, there there were that, that was my, recollection of being afraid. The, the bandits or the tramps, as you know, the the other speaker spoke, we’d go by, the, on the railroad tracks, and then they would knock at the door. And many a time we would just close the door and just run and hide and just be real quiet, because mother would be alone, and mother and I alone.

00;28;16;05 - Alba Libera Marra: And she was afraid, you know, to to let anybody in.

00;28;20;20 - Alba Libera Marra: So excessively.

00;28;21;19 - Unknown Interviewer: Asking.

00;28;22;01 - Alba Libera Marra: For asking for. They were asking for food dances in because they were hopping the trains there. There was the station just down below, and then they’d get off and then hop to, get food and hop the train and go off.

00;28;34;28 - Unknown Interviewer: So anybody who lived near her got a lot.

00;28;37;07 - Alba Libera Marra: Of time and I, I don’t know, this would go into the record and then this Farm Bureau, they didn’t have an outhouse, but the, the outhouse was in the, was it under the covering in the in the shed and yet. But, if you had a bucket, you had a bucket in this, under the hole there.

00;29;02;06 - Alba Libera Marra: And then my dad, emptied it and it was entered into the canal. But when dad became ill, then it was mother’s, duty that she had to take that and go and empty. But that’s that’s see, because now it’s so recurring. We had the outhouse there, but, yeah, we had the modern facility, but we went from there to the to the more primitive.

00;29;29;14 - Unknown Interviewer: Now, this canal was used for irrigating irrigation.

00;29;32;08 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah. That’s that this was the huge canal that went through. And then the people, you know, took, got their water that that came on in for irrigated.

00;29;42;11 - Alba Libera Marra: But I read for just isn’t that horrid. A person goes back into their old memories.

00;29;49;21 - Unknown Interviewer: But I think that’s it.

00;29;51;00 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s it. Because that’s different.

00;29;54;03 - Unknown Interviewer: I think with that. Do you think they did that in Italy?

00;29;57;10 - Alba Libera Marra: I don’t think most of this was the the farm. That was something. Oh no no oh no, oh no no, this was the farm that this was the way the farm was when we moved here. And we stayed there just for one year doing this. Yes.

00;30;11;11 - Unknown Interviewer: That’s right. When you had a.

00;30;13;05 - Alba Libera Marra: Pet right up there, left, right. Because you couldn’t, you couldn’t dig there, see, because of the water that was. See. Yes. See, there was no your there was no way that you could, you could dig down because there was, there was the water in your.

00;30;29;05 - Unknown Interviewer: Table where.

00;30;29;21 - Alba Libera Marra: The water came. And so you couldn’t. And until that was the one way this, whoever had the place before we bought it had, and whoever had the other place did anything.

00;30;42;23 - Unknown Interviewer: Boom. We lived in Taiwan, and that.

00;30;46;01 - Alba Libera Marra: Was that, too.

00;30;47;11 - Unknown Interviewer: We had, a woman. Well, actually, we’re nearby. Farmers came in and took it back, and they’d have kids ready, ripe and get prepared.

00;30;56;07 - Alba Libera Marra: You know? No, this was just wasted here. We went to home and we were right on the road so that it was easy just to go up on the bridge and,

00;31;08;03 - Unknown Interviewer: Got it. So. But your mother pitched in.

00;31;11;03 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, yes. Oh.

00;31;12;17 - Unknown Interviewer: Oh, yeah. Along with your father incapacitated. Oh, I don’t know.

00;31;16;19 - Alba Libera Marra: Must be 2 or 3 months, you know. Then with the broken me.

00;31;20;27 - Unknown Interviewer: So that was.

00;31;21;29 - Alba Libera Marra: And so that after a year, he decided farming was good for him. And he came back here again. And luckily for us.

00;31;30;04 - Unknown Interviewer: That farm.

00;31;30;29 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, yes, we, we they had paid the majority of it, but then say because of, the crops fail that year, the apples froze the, the everything, the everything went wrong. And so they just didn’t make any more payments. They weren’t able to make any more payment, and they had just enough to rent a boxcar. You know, in those days, the trains were prevalent.

00;31;56;27 - Alba Libera Marra: They rented the boxcar in order to put all the furniture on, and came back and back to the house that they had never sold. They started out from scratch again.

00;32;08;20 - Unknown Interviewer: So they went away two times.

00;32;10;09 - Alba Libera Marra: And and came back.

00;32;11;22 - Unknown Interviewer: Again. Really, just like mine or mine was.

00;32;15;07 - Alba Libera Marra: Where he was. He, was no longer in the mine work when he came back. Then he was in the in the smelter. And he, like, work for a health reasons, you know, a miner can work in the mine just so long. And he had been laid it, you know, prior to the time that he went back and got mother, he had that letter.

00;32;34;28 - Alba Libera Marra: So he had to be there.

00;32;38;05 - Unknown Interviewer: Well.

00;32;38;22 - Alba Libera Marra: Being married is when the, there’s let it hear from in the mine who you get. the, the letter goes into your lungs and then you get a shortness of breath. Your ankles swell. And in those early days, you just had just just rest. Nowadays they have modern medicines that they’re able to get.

00;33;01;21 - Unknown Interviewer: And this happened before you can before he was married.

00;33;06;03 - Alba Libera Marra: So they were very long. Oh, it doesn’t take long. No. It’s dangerous. Okay, so he didn’t, you know, couldn’t go back in again, which was lucky for him. Yeah. And he was a, flower fancier, like when he was the smelter custodian. He had, you brought, you know, gardenias and all, exotic plants he would send for.

00;33;30;03 - Alba Libera Marra: And then he had made, cement out of cement. These, fishbowl the fish tanks. Yeah. And he had trout in there with running water and along with the clams that found on the ports. But I proceeded to room this summer with the remains of one of his night blooming serious. But I’ve had it at school, and I brought it out, and it wasn’t used to the outdoor weather, so I think it’s gone.

00;34;00;21 - Unknown Interviewer: Now that you think that’s it. So it couldn’t have gotten in the greenhouse.

00;34;04;05 - Alba Libera Marra: So that’s the area that he had. Lobster Raccoon. He had his own little, greenhouse. and it when I think, you know, you have to go and you pay so much now for a and plant. And he just gave them away by the dozen people came from town, came from everywhere. And he always had a surplus of everything that he gave.

00;34;26;04 - Unknown Interviewer: Away so that he had.

00;34;27;17 - Alba Libera Marra: The green thumb. Now his daughter, but he has the green thumb.

00;34;31;16 - Unknown Interviewer: Oh, I can see why you want to try to get into farming.

00;34;34;14 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh. That’s it. Oh.

00;34;37;09 - Unknown Interviewer: I know, well, let’s talk about maybe your you mentioned some things about your family life and you were tough, financially. Did you feel restricted as a child with your family and to garden when they leave?

00;34;51;15 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah, yeah. How did the garden out? It goes over.

00;34;54;01 - Unknown Interviewer: Here. So.

00;34;54;28 - Alba Libera Marra: And then we’ve had we had the financial straits when, when they lost everything, you know, they had put thousands and thousands of dollars into the down payment and then came back with absolutely.

00;35;07;09 - Unknown Interviewer: Nothing that represent long here and.

00;35;09;11 - Alba Libera Marra: Long years of savings. And, you know, the, like, dad would get maybe, you know, in the early days, but it was 2 or $3 a day that you work for. So it took and it took a long time. And then, during the depression, also, there was, we, we had, we had moved from, from Silver King.

00;35;32;15 - Alba Libera Marra: We moved, I think was in 1924, and my parents were buying the home, the new home, and they were buying the car, and I was always to go to school. So they mother didn’t have a radio they couldn’t afford. They felt, you know, they wanted to pay cash for everything. They hated to, other than the house favorite.

00;35;53;07 - Alba Libera Marra: And so therefore, she would leave her windows open in the summertime, because the neighbors had a radio so she could, she could get the music. And when I went to school, I worked part time. I got $0.35 an hour working for the the women doing secretarial work. So you some that was, you know, I, I had to pay.

00;36;17;24 - Alba Libera Marra: And then, I tried to pay some of it back, you know, and I got out of school. I was always taught, you know, they they were thrifty and tried to save and tried to do what was best.

00;36;30;02 - Unknown Interviewer: And your mother did all kinds of things, I’m sure, about canning.

00;36;32;27 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, yes.

00;36;34;01 - Unknown Interviewer: Supplement. That’s right. Yeah. Everybody.

00;36;36;19 - Alba Libera Marra: Everybody did. And in the early days out at Silver King, before I was born. See, I was, there were very five years before I ever came along, and she used to wash and iron. There were the the boarding houses, you know, the for the miners that worked up there. And so they would bring their washing down and she was washing.

00;36;57;26 - Alba Libera Marra: She never did, keep a boarding house like so many, you know, kept boarders. But she did the washing and the ironing, and she said that she used to iron by, by candlelight and way late in the evening. And all there was, was just the candlelight and maybe there were just 1 or 2 candles, because candles are expensive in those days.

00;37;17;27 - Unknown Interviewer: And she would have had to keep going.

00;37;19;14 - Alba Libera Marra: And, and did the iron on the stove. And that would still work. And then, you know, I can think of the cold nights even as I grew up. It then that same iron was wrapped, you know, in a towel that was heated in the daytime, wrapped in a towel, and went into our bed at night so that we kept warm.

00;37;39;02 - Alba Libera Marra: Because, you know where the cold Stone was? There. Yeah. So the old German heater that we have.

00;37;46;03 - Unknown Interviewer: And get your fabric out and cut wood.

00;37;48;24 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah, they they cut.

00;37;49;22 - Unknown Interviewer: Wood for a while to go out. That’s right. so what did you do for recreation or for family? Did you have time for. Yeah.

00;38;03;19 - Alba Libera Marra: Well, my parents read a lot. Dad was an avid reader and tell stories. I can just remember. They’re just some wonderful stories that he told. All these. All the great fairy tales, all the fairy tales I’d heard over and over as a youngster because dad would, would repeat them. Okay.

00;38;24;24 - Unknown Interviewer: Did you get together with other families?

00;38;27;19 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, yes. There were all the families all around the area there.

00;38;31;13 - Unknown Interviewer: Picnic?

00;38;32;00 - Alba Libera Marra: Yes.

00;38;34;03 - Alba Libera Marra: She did. dad didn’t do that, but, but some of the others did.

00;38;40;16 - Unknown Interviewer: Did you, have get togethers with other children?

00;38;44;12 - Alba Libera Marra: Yes. There were the, there were the neighborhood children there for a while. And then the Silver King died down, and then we were the only family there.

00;38;54;22 - Unknown Interviewer: Oh, for.

00;38;55;15 - Alba Libera Marra: About a block there for a while, our Silver King school got down to so that there were just eight students there, too. So that was. Yes, there were eight. Like, say, in one room and maybe eight in the other room. So, it, it went down and then went back up again.

00;39;15;19 - Unknown Interviewer: But the families would get together.

00;39;17;13 - Alba Libera Marra: Would get together.

00;39;18;14 - Unknown Interviewer: And how do you put it a contrast. You see, with children nowadays, that’s the thing they do for fun for family.

00;39;24;29 - Alba Libera Marra: Or they need they need so many more toys. They need to be entertained. They have to have their radio room, their TV. But we were we could make up things and, you know, work and do things. And, I didn’t have a piano. And I can remember we had, an old writing desk, you know, that came down, you know, like piano.

00;39;46;27 - Alba Libera Marra: And I would put and use it there and pretend like I was playing the piano and sing, and I can’t carry a tune. I don’t know what more, but they were soft. But, I mean, we just we were able to, to do the thing. We hypnotized each other. I can remember breaking one of my friends and I broke one of our old fashioned, you know, leather covered chair because, you know, hypnotizing.

00;40;12;04 - Alba Libera Marra: And, you know, you get your messages, and we’re. It was just fun. Oh, and we walked, every Saturday, we walked the three miles from Silver Key. We walked the tracks and part of a part of the road walk from. So Ricky would come in and do the shopping and go to the matinee. To me, was the one important thing.

00;40;34;23 - Alba Libera Marra: Go to the bat, May, and then go back home again. Some of the time we walked part of the way, some of the time we were, we’d take the train and we’d have to walk from. Silver came down to Bradley, which is about a mile or a mile and a half, and then we’d get the train from Bradley, come into Kellogg, and then go to our show and able to catch the train back.

00;40;57;10 - Alba Libera Marra: Go back again. Okay. That’s all. The Chautauqua is the early time Chautauqua was. We always came in whenever they had the Chautauqua would come to town. And, you know, the day up in the in, 10 to 10 and we’d get to come in and watch and watch that.

00;41;15;23 - Unknown Interviewer: I was wondering what the kind of things you had in Chicago top the lecture. Well.

00;41;20;28 - Alba Libera Marra: Or, slapstick. comedy. Yes. The dancers, the singers, similar to the TV programs.

00;41;29;23 - Unknown Interviewer: Were similar to some of the same things they had in Bartell.

00;41;33;15 - Alba Libera Marra: I think so, yes. And like the like there. Yes. And then, the, those some of the plays would come to the Liberty Theater, to the theater and we’d get to watch them.

00;41;46;15 - Unknown Interviewer: I think the Chautauqua was a traveling show. So their talents.

00;41;50;22 - Alba Libera Marra: Their talents and their,

00;41;52;28 - Unknown Interviewer: Would come in for.

00;41;55;01 - Alba Libera Marra: wonderful nights or day or great have their matinees because we could get a we had no car seat and we lived way out on the country, and we had to depend, for a while. There used to be, stages. Yeah, the horse and buggy. And then some other people ran, the, the busses, you know, or stages, as we call them.

00;42;17;28 - Alba Libera Marra: They would be big, touring cars and we’d get a chance to come in or then the rest of the time, or sometime when there would be mail delivery. across with your livery and when the grocery delivery truck came in, then we’d get a chance to ride, into town with them, too. But every Saturday, I think we we never missed a Saturday.

00;42;44;09 - Alba Libera Marra: And we we didn’t think anything of Rocky. It was just fun. And the neighborhood I could remember, the Yankees lived there, and we would walk in with the Yankees and and, we had other friends that that, lived here in town that came out to work out to see us and just stay out there and and summer.

00;43;05;28 - Alba Libera Marra: And you just didn’t. You didn’t pay any attention. You weren’t afraid of anything. Our winters were bad, though. The winters sometimes. Our, snow was 5 or 6ft high. It the drift saw em. They would be just as high as the as the woodshed. that it, and all the shoveling. We don’t have snow. We complain about our winters now, but they’re nothing like they used to be.

00;43;33;10 - Unknown Interviewer: and it was also by hand.

00;43;34;27 - Alba Libera Marra: By hand? Oh, yes. there weren’t, all your there weren’t any power, more power tools of any sort. Everything was hand work.

00;43;45;08 - Unknown Interviewer: The city, the community plowed the main streets. Good horse.

00;43;48;22 - Alba Libera Marra: I suppose so,

00;43;51;18 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, there’s a lot of information here. one question I wondered about, about what would be admission price to a car. I don’t care if I was very.

00;44;03;24 - Alba Libera Marra: Inexperienced, so it must have been because the wages were so small them that they did have to be.

00;44;10;28 - Unknown Interviewer: But when that show would come to town.

00;44;13;07 - Alba Libera Marra: However, everybody came to see. Yes.

00;44;16;00 - Unknown Interviewer: So it was tractor. And then they still went from one small.

00;44;19;02 - Alba Libera Marra: Part, one small community to the other, and other circuses came. But I didn’t see a circus. I just tried.

00;44;28;12 - Unknown Interviewer: To see.

00;44;29;25 - Alba Libera Marra: The graves. Took me in to my first circus, and that was up at Wally’s. We had to go clear to Wallace that they had a car, and so they came and got me, and I went. I don’t remember if my mother went with me or I went alone with them, but, you know, we didn’t grow up there. The children have, many more opportunities than we have, but they grow up too fast.

00;44;54;29 - Alba Libera Marra: They just, they’re living their lives much faster than we ever did.

00;44;59;20 - Unknown Interviewer: And there’s a certain amount, of course.

00;45;02;10 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s right.

00;45;03;00 - Unknown Interviewer: Become a dog.

00;45;03;21 - Alba Libera Marra: Yes.

00;45;05;04 - Unknown Interviewer: So,

00;45;06;09 - Alba Libera Marra: Things that weren’t that. Things that were done in our days and high school days, the junior high’s are doing. And what junior high youngsters did the elementaries are doing now. Right. So they’re just. Yes, they’re there and they’re there. That’s why they’re expecting more and more in the way of entertainment.

00;45;26;14 - Unknown Interviewer: TV yes.

00;45;27;20 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s right. The internet has a big influence.

00;45;32;26 - Unknown Interviewer: so that, it’s very interesting to see the changes. that program, your parents then saw it as equally important to relax and have fun. Oh, yeah. That’s right. So that must have been basic news.

00;45;50;02 - Alba Libera Marra: News about you.

00;45;54;29 - Unknown Interviewer: talked, you talked about how your mother supported some kind of a family. Whole family would depend on your mother. And you supported yourself and your parents for a long time.

00;46;07;21 - Unknown Interviewer: Do you see the role of women as having parents? That that kind, that some people think that, that people got more among the women, became more dependent and not as capable in some maybe in urban areas. you recognized that it can happen where you consider.

00;46;36;15 - Unknown Interviewer: It like it was coming through, that the women were pitched in and we were in the older days.

00;46;42;14 - Alba Libera Marra: In the older days, they they had their own type. type of work there. In the old days, the women didn’t go out and work. They the woman’s work was mainly in the in the home or helping the neighbors. Now, that’s one thing we didn’t mention, like in Prosser. Yeah. A mother not only, had to had to do her own irrigating and do her milking and take care of the chickens and take it, you know, do the farm work.

00;47;12;28 - Alba Libera Marra: But then when the, when it was haying time, then you went across the street and you helped the people across the street, hey, are you and a half a mile down and you help the others.

00;47;25;28 - Unknown Interviewer: hay.

00;47;26;18 - Alba Libera Marra: Or do whatever had to be done? In other words, there was that they had their own type of, of, cooperative, a cooperative work. And then, every, every Sunday you got into the horse and buggy and either neighbors came in from all around the area that, there were a group of of Italian. There was the Goodyear on those on the border, you know, them, the Yankees.

00;47;53;14 - Alba Libera Marra: And there were a group, but they didn’t. And the parties, the parties live in car, and one of them live in Spokane now. But, and I hear from all these different people, but we just, we would go to, to run farm or the other and all the others would come in and everybody would bring food, and you just have, you know, a general picnic and just to share their, share their, their, ideas of what they had done.

00;48;23;11 - Alba Libera Marra: But of course, there was always the time that you had to plan to get home early enough in order to feed the animals, because the everything else on Sunday, everything else could, go by the wayside. But, you know, your animals had to have the food.

00;48;40;15 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah. Or that this was, Italian got together with other ethnic groups. Were you aware of that? Yeah.

00;48;49;24 - Alba Libera Marra: Well, it was. Yeah. We had some of the some of the farmers were it always, you know, some of them know their neighbors. It was a mixture. It was a neighbor. Yes. The neighborhood or the area.

00;49;00;07 - Unknown Interviewer: So it wasn’t,

00;49;01;26 - Alba Libera Marra: No, no, no, no. You ever lived around there?

00;49;06;19 - Unknown Interviewer: and the other area had had, had.

00;49;10;07 - Alba Libera Marra: I had their similar group there.

00;49;12;22 - Unknown Interviewer: And that’s kind of changed. Yeah.

00;49;15;00 - Alba Libera Marra: I, I just don’t know what they do out in the, in the farm areas now. They’re just moved now. Like I haven’t been back to Prosser for years because all the people have gradually they’re just one family. They’re left that I know and the others are just they’ve died. You know, as you get older, the, more and more of your friends disappear and you have to make new friends.

00;49;38;03 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah, but in town, it seems as though people stay together in their new career. Family.

00;49;44;12 - Alba Libera Marra: Family, yes, more. But you move more in towns to your area, you know, changes.

00;49;51;07 - Unknown Interviewer: So you don’t build up.

00;49;52;19 - Alba Libera Marra: Your own build up the the friendship, long, long term friendships as much.

00;49;58;13 - Unknown Interviewer: So that someone. Okay.

00;49;59;22 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s right. And the women in in towns or in, in areas like here have an opportunity to go to work, let’s say for the smelter or there are opportunities, more office work or more, types of work that they can, they can do.

00;50;17;23 - Unknown Interviewer: And it seems, though, when they have more money, well, they could talk last night about how people come in and help in times of disaster. That’s right, that’s right. That’s that’s still.

00;50;27;19 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s still up the other happens over.

00;50;30;08 - Unknown Interviewer: At some other areas. I think that they there’s some realization that people have more money and they can go by whatever happens back to you. In the old days.

00;50;39;22 - Alba Libera Marra: You had demand.

00;50;40;17 - Unknown Interviewer: And left on the money.

00;50;42;00 - Alba Libera Marra: Yes. And you had to make things work better.

00;50;45;11 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah. So, did the next question was, and of course, you’ve kind of answered it, I guess. Did your mother ever worry about what would happen if something happened to your father? Oh, yes. It,

00;51;02;13 - Alba Libera Marra: Yes, that that was hard. And how are you living? No, no, no, like I can remember when we were. It’s over. King dad had pleurisy so bad and the doctor came down and didn’t think that, you know, he would live. Oh, it it was hard there for days. Now you have your Social Security. The the money goes in for social Security.

00;51;24;22 - Alba Libera Marra: And something happens to the breadwinner. The widow and the children are taken care of. And then there was absolutely there was nothing to, nothing to take care of you. And so therefore, you had to save. You tried to save. So for an emergency. And that’s what worried mother. So was when they lost. Absolutely everything where they went to prosper and then so they had to start trying to build up to save because you had to, for your insurances.

00;51;55;06 - Alba Libera Marra: You had to, there wasn’t the health insurance is there weren’t the health insurances that there are now for the families. Yeah. Yeah. If the companies had insurances. Yeah. The only one that was carried was the, the person that was working. And if they were injured, then they were taken care of. But the rest of the family there was, there were weren’t any hospitalization, any doctor, anything that took care of them.

00;52;25;22 - Unknown Interviewer: There must have been some women who were left widowed over.

00;52;28;06 - Alba Libera Marra: There were many. Yes.

00;52;29;13 - Unknown Interviewer: That’s correct. What what kind of work would they go into?

00;52;32;05 - Alba Libera Marra: The, so many of them are, Well, now we have there’s the one of our good friends. Her husband was killed in the mine disaster. And so then she started taking in boarders, boarders and rumors. That’s, Now I can think of two. I can think of three different families that, they that’s what they did. And cook seized by taking in the borders.

00;52;57;18 - Alba Libera Marra: And that was then. That was the one, steady income that they had.

00;53;02;29 - Unknown Interviewer: So there were a lot of single men.

00;53;05;07 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s right. yes. There were single men.

00;53;09;07 - Unknown Interviewer: do you think there was a certain pressure to get married again, if you could possibly do it?

00;53;16;08 - Alba Libera Marra: I just I suppose so if somebody said yes, we’ll make them see that they have to. Yes.

00;53;22;09 - Unknown Interviewer: Especially if you had young.

00;53;23;11 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah. If you had young children, that’s it.

00;53;25;23 - Unknown Interviewer: So they’d Yeah.

00;53;26;26 - Alba Libera Marra: They’re go get. That’s right.

00;53;31;18 - Unknown Interviewer: so they did not, you know, search for the.

00;53;35;03 - Alba Libera Marra: I do not know. Yeah.

00;53;37;05 - Unknown Interviewer: someone here and there.

00;53;38;01 - Alba Libera Marra: Were, there were more men than, you know, we saw all the single men and the people working there were. There were more opportunities.

00;53;46;20 - Unknown Interviewer: Did you have any pressure put on you to get married?

00;53;50;07 - Alba Libera Marra: No, I didn’t, I was just I was no, no. And I was always, I was always been an independent person. and I just did, if I please, I waited for Mr. Wright to come along, and maybe the Mr. Wright would came along, but I didn’t recognize it.

00;54;06;24 - Unknown Interviewer: So your parents didn’t really.

00;54;08;05 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, no. No, they, you know.

00;54;10;16 - Unknown Interviewer: No grandchildren.

00;54;11;16 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, no.

00;54;12;28 - Unknown Interviewer: That’s I think, many women didn’t have that freedom.

00;54;17;06 - Alba Libera Marra: No, that’s just.

00;54;18;02 - Unknown Interviewer: After, no. In some other. But, no.

00;54;20;25 - Alba Libera Marra: Well, in recent years, mother always, you know, I did say, well, I never did have any grandchildren, but that’s. But she did. But she didn’t. Correct all that. Just.

00;54;31;00 - Unknown Interviewer: Yeah, that that was her.

00;54;32;01 - Alba Libera Marra: No. yeah. I think I, I realized I had, well, I like, I had a Carol came down when I was a little girl. She was a schoolteacher. She was, maiden schoolteacher. And I just idolized her. I idolized miss, Dustin when I was at Lewiston. Who is the dean of women, and she was a miss.

00;54;57;12 - Alba Libera Marra: I think now, as I, you know, go back and look at it. I, that was my idea that, I’d. I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to have contact with children. That was my satisfaction that I. That I was able to help others. But still, I wanted to have my freedom and do as I please.

00;55;17;24 - Alba Libera Marra: And I figured that as long as I was single, that I could go and come and there wasn’t anybody to boss me.

00;55;26;12 - Unknown Interviewer: You must.

00;55;27;04 - Alba Libera Marra: Slip. I was an early bird, you know that.

00;55;30;16 - Unknown Interviewer: You must have observed other families in the area, and they probably had more children.

00;55;34;25 - Alba Libera Marra: More and more children than they wanted and more problems. They they weren’t independent. They,

00;55;42;19 - Unknown Interviewer: You sought treatment?

00;55;43;28 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah. The treatment that some of the women received. I just said that wasn’t going to be for me. So that’s.

00;55;51;03 - Unknown Interviewer: Enough.

00;55;51;26 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. And just let me do as I please, then.

00;55;55;27 - Unknown Interviewer: And you feel pretty good about.

00;55;56;28 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah.

00;55;57;04 - Unknown Interviewer: That’s right.

00;55;58;22 - Alba Libera Marra: I still independent.

00;56;00;23 - Unknown Interviewer: You.

00;56;02;23 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s what somebody said to me you early last fall said, well, you’re single because you want to not not because you didn’t have chances.

00;56;12;09 - Unknown Interviewer: So even that now, that’s right. With your work, you anticipate other things.

00;56;18;28 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah. Just I just I up to this time, I’ve always never had to worry about, what I was going to do. There’s only one thing, the married people have more chances. As we were talking in the discussion, you know, with that young girl that didn’t have work, it’s true with all of us that married people have more of an opportunity to go out more and to, to have maybe a better way and a better time, maybe in their own way of, of doing things.

00;56;52;20 - Alba Libera Marra: Well, I say they, they go to, Beer halls, hotel. I went to nightclubs. You know, they have there’s always somebody there to take that. Whereas the, the single person is, restricted in their activities.

00;57;09;00 - Alba Libera Marra: Well, I, I specially when I, and I don’t drink and I don’t smoke, so it’s,

00;57;13;25 - Unknown Interviewer: And our social customs are kind of geared to couples together.

00;57;17;13 - Alba Libera Marra: They’re a couple. That’s right.

00;57;19;23 - Unknown Interviewer: So your your get more or less has to be other single.

00;57;23;15 - Alba Libera Marra: other single people or widows or or go off on your own, like, so I have dinner,

00;57;30;22 - Unknown Interviewer: For, for women who have become widows at. It’s a religious.

00;57;34;10 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s right. It makes a quite an adjustment.

00;57;37;02 - Unknown Interviewer: Because they can’t go on. same relationship. I.

00;57;41;12 - Alba Libera Marra: Know that, too, you know, so they, And I noticed that in my cousin, you know, she notices it now, too, as, as a widow. It’s different when she had her husband in, you know, places to go to, and you don’t you don’t go some places just as a person alone.

00;57;59;07 - Unknown Interviewer: so that’s just part of.

00;58;00;15 - Alba Libera Marra: That bad part that you ever. But I just I just take off, I mean, and make my own entertainment and keep busy as long as I’m able to drive the car and can feel independent, it. I take others that don’t have cars. I try to take them out as much as possible.

00;58;22;08 - Unknown Interviewer: You mentioned briefly the depression, the effects of the depression on the area. and we haven’t talked about the war years with, with the, the war time, you took her to war under certain horrors.

00;58;39;20 - Alba Libera Marra: Or if you remember. I’m sorry I didn’t. Yes. And, that was that when we were in Prussia. So that was in about 19. 80? No, I started school in 1980. So that was between 18 and 21. Okay. So that, in the war years and then in the, in the Second World War, I was going to go away into the service, but, I, my duty was, was, teaching because there was such a scarcity of teaching teachers that, it was just as important.

00;59;17;08 - Alba Libera Marra: They persuaded me that it was just as important to stay as as a teacher, as it was to volunteer my services in another area.

00;59;27;10 - Unknown Interviewer: Must have been a temptation.

00;59;28;19 - Alba Libera Marra: Okay. Yes, yes, that’s just it. And now I regret it. That’s the one regret that I do have in my life, is that I didn’t leave and go into the service, and then I would have, had more opportunities, maybe for further education, whereas all my education, I paid every bit of it on my own. Whereas now do you would they, the GI Bill with the GI Bill, they were able to, you know, get, more of that.

00;59;58;07 - Alba Libera Marra: The one regret, I guess, that I if I have any regrets of what I, what I do differently, that’s what I would have done. I would have seen the world instead of having to go out and and see the world now on my own, I think I would have I would have, profited maybe. And that in a way, maybe I would have profited.

01;00;17;26 - Alba Libera Marra: Maybe, who’s to know? How can we can’t look back? we have to look ahead. I think.

01;00;24;10 - Unknown Interviewer: but that was a time when your parents were pretty well taken care of them. That’s right. Freedom. That’s right. have gotten away with that, too. There are many things that you.

01;00;37;10 - Unknown Interviewer: how did, Which do you think had more affect on this community or similar? Excuse the depression or the war? Was a different were there any comparisons there?

01;00;49;25 - Alba Libera Marra: I see that during the depression, I that was, my latter high school years and then that and then I went the two years that I think the depression was really the at its worst that, I was going to school at Lewiston. So I just, and, you know, you’re cloistered, maybe one. But you’re in school, you live in a dorm, you’re locked in at 8:00.

01;01;13;22 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s the difference between now. We were locked in every night at 8:00. We were locked in. Can remember our room got up to 117 at, at the dorm, but we weren’t allowed out after 8:00 at night. That was, after all, that red bell,

01;01;33;02 - Unknown Interviewer: So the weren’t restricted?

01;01;34;24 - Alba Libera Marra: No, although the men were very strict, but we were all,

01;01;38;11 - Unknown Interviewer: Cloistered with that every night.

01;01;40;18 - Alba Libera Marra: Every night except, you were allowed to stay out until either 10 or 11:00 on, Friday and Saturday night.

01;01;49;01 - Unknown Interviewer: You probably a psycho.

01;01;50;09 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah. You had. Oh, you had to sign out where you were going and you had to sign in when you when you came in and who you were going with after school.

01;02;00;13 - Unknown Interviewer: And did you ever come over one week here?

01;02;03;02 - Alba Libera Marra: No. The only time I came home was at, Christmas time. And see, we went, we went to Lewiston by, by train. There weren’t busses when, when I went to school there. So we would we went, took a train. We had train service out of, out of here and went into Lewiston. And in a way, we were better off.

01;02;27;02 - Alba Libera Marra: Then we had more bus, more busses that took us into Spokane or we had the trains. In the earlier days, we had trained, I think it was twice a day. And you had better services than you have now. Now you have very, very poor, busses and very poor bus connections. You get very, very limited. And it’s getting and it’s getting worse and worse because people have cars now and they’re not supporting the public transportation.

01;03;00;03 - Unknown Interviewer: That they have. And they have to choose to.

01;03;02;11 - Alba Libera Marra: Do something where they have to be that.

01;03;05;15 - Unknown Interviewer: I think it’s interesting because.

01;03;07;10 - Alba Libera Marra: Like, now I leave, when I leave for Europe, the bus leaves at 750 in the morning. Well, I’ll either and I don’t want to drive my car and leave my car down there for six weeks in Spokane, so most likely I’ll have to go in. Unless somebody takes me in. I’ll have to go in and spend another night in Spokane at the hotel, rather than making the connections.

01;03;32;27 - Unknown Interviewer: when you were growing up, do you have impression of your parents making decisions together, or were there things your your father could make decisions?

01;03;41;04 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah, I think they worked on quite a bit together.

01;03;45;13 - Alba Libera Marra: But clearly there were some things that, that,

01;03;52;06 - Unknown Interviewer: we, I went into one which gave me a chance to look over some of the questions. That’s good. I appreciate that. what, as a result of living through the depression, compare yourself with your attitudes toward money and work with some younger people who didn’t think through their differences.

01;04;11;23 - Alba Libera Marra: I think it, it built in me a sense of frugality that I’ve, I walk, I watch what I spend, and I, I still have a tendency to think twice before, before I get something that, some sometimes I’m fine. So.

01;04;35;25 - Alba Libera Marra: I’m. I’m fine. Sometimes I go overboard. But, I mean, your, when when you’re, frugal, you, you don’t lose that that sense of balance. You don’t lose that value.

01;04;50;28 - Unknown Interviewer: And you get credit back. Credit. Yeah.

01;04;53;25 - Alba Libera Marra: I do buy on credit. I do it because they say that that you should establish, it should establish credit, that if you pay cash for everything, then you are just lost. So I have a Bank America card, and I have credit at, at the crest of an appendage because then by, and using that every so often and paying regularly, then you have that as a reference, because I’m very surprised now that when you go to cash a check, they say, well, now what?

01;05;27;26 - Alba Libera Marra: like the other day they said and it was, it was in Cart Lane, a present, your present, your driver’s license and two credit cards before you cash the check. so we have been.

01;05;40;05 - Unknown Interviewer: A lot of abuses.

01;05;41;05 - Alba Libera Marra: I know it behooves a person to, know that you want it. Yes, I and I watch it very, very carefully and not, not for a large amount. And I try to get it paid off, you know, within the next month. That’s why right now I’m having a little bit of difficulty, because going to Europe, I don’t want to have any, any debts outstanding.

01;06;02;28 - Alba Libera Marra: So I’m trying to get everything taken care of.

01;06;07;08 - Unknown Interviewer: And I’m sure you mentioned the fact that your parents, bought only their home, a large purchase. credit, payment.

01;06;17;13 - Alba Libera Marra: And then the car, the the car.

01;06;19;22 - Unknown Interviewer: They call that was a.

01;06;20;17 - Alba Libera Marra: Strong. Yeah. That’s right. And that was hard to be paying for a home and to be paying for a car when the wages were, is, as low as they were.

01;06;30;18 - Unknown Interviewer: And then saving up this.

01;06;32;17 - Alba Libera Marra: And trying to save up a reserve and trying to help me to just send me to school, that took. Really? Yeah. That’s a thing in my budget in order to do it.

01;06;41;25 - Unknown Interviewer: Your mother did all right. No.

01;06;43;25 - Alba Libera Marra: I mean, mother, it had, to have serious surgery, you know, during during that my high school days and that had taken, and of course, they had that the dad insisted that had to be paid for in cash. So they had, or stand, you know, and so all that was all cashed in and everything was cashed and all the reserve that they’d had was cashed in for the, for the operation.

01;07;11;26 - Alba Libera Marra: Whereas now you pay into insurance and then the insurance helps you out. Okay.

01;07;18;27 - Unknown Interviewer: how do you feel about work if helping children mature? Did you have duties at home?

01;07;23;13 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, yes, I had the regular, yeah, the chores, the dishes and, dusty. Them not got anything too strenuous that would hurt me. But there was the regular duties that had to be done.

01;07;35;19 - Unknown Interviewer: And the kids just went outside work later that.

01;07;39;06 - Alba Libera Marra: I did very little of that with.

01;07;41;21 - Unknown Interviewer: Their.

01;07;42;19 - Alba Libera Marra: I did, but you know what? We could, what was available there? or going back, you know, you talked about recreation. There was the Playhouse. My dad had built me, out of the old dynamite, boxes. And he had gotten land, lumber, and then out of the dynamite boxes he’d built, this huge playhouse was just like.

01;08;07;21 - Alba Libera Marra: It was just like a regular room. And my friends always, you know, could come in when I was at So King, we had fun there, played. Okay. That’s it. You know, you did. You did. You made things with your parents, took care of you.

01;08;24;19 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, another change that we have mentioned only in passing, the fact that there was a time when people seemed to have more children than they really.

01;08;32;11 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, yes. That to.

01;08;33;07 - Unknown Interviewer: You and I’m sure as a teacher, you’ve observed how.

01;08;35;26 - Alba Libera Marra: You.

01;08;36;10 - Unknown Interviewer: Might have been better off if they had.

01;08;37;24 - Alba Libera Marra: If they had.

01;08;38;29 - Unknown Interviewer: Have you allowed that, the option now women have for limiting their family?

01;08;44;15 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, I think it’s wonderful for them to, to have that opportunity. Except except a response.

01;08;50;24 - Unknown Interviewer: That’s right. In that area. Well, I’ve asked you quite a few question, and I’ve gotten an awful lot of interesting information. Is there anything else you’d like to add or discuss a maybe about as you plan your future? Now, you retired a little early.

01;09;07;21 - Alba Libera Marra: Yes, I retired. I took a retirement two years early.

01;09;11;02 - Unknown Interviewer: because you admitted.

01;09;12;08 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah. I enjoy is what I enjoy. It. And then, as I mentioned offhand, that this friend who had cancer last year, she was teaching school, and in June, she, developed cancer, went in for surgery, came home for a week. We put her in the hospital the 16th of July, and she stayed there until Palm Sunday. And and I just decided that she was good.

01;09;37;10 - Alba Libera Marra: She was to just retire this August and she would have been 65. But I decided that if I was going to do the things and relax, that I might just as well retire early. And while I still had my health, because you never know from day to day, you don’t know what’s going to come up next. So you just try to do your best and and being alone.

01;10;02;24 - Alba Libera Marra: As to it’s it’s unusual being an only child, not having brothers or sisters, not having not having married. It’s just, a unique situation that not very many are in.

01;10;15;07 - Unknown Interviewer: That this is your first time to go to Europe.

01;10;17;18 - Alba Libera Marra: Yes. That’s right, I had I was going to go there and then the war broke out before and I was unable to go. And now my cousin, the one cousin that I’m going to be visiting mainly is 79 years old. And you know, when she’s getting older that I might just as well do it now.

01;10;36;16 - Unknown Interviewer: I shouldn’t be safe and out.

01;10;38;01 - Alba Libera Marra: So I’ll visit, I’ll visit her for the three weeks, and then from there I’ll leave there and, go to London and then make my other tour on this TWA getaway tour.

01;10;51;29 - Unknown Interviewer: Which corresponded over the years.

01;10;54;13 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, yes. and more. More so since mother’s passed away, I think more than any other time.

01;11;01;26 - Unknown Interviewer: You took over your mother.

01;11;03;04 - Alba Libera Marra: Did it? Yeah, my mother did before. It’s funny. See, mother had, mother as mother or grandmother had raised for me. And so the mother and Billy grew up together.

01;11;14;16 - Unknown Interviewer: Did she ever have a chance to go back?

01;11;16;14 - Alba Libera Marra: No. She wanted to see. That’s what I said. She didn’t get to,

01;11;21;27 - Unknown Interviewer: Do you correspond in Italian?

01;11;23;29 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, yes. I have to do there. Except for this Cornelia. The, the the bunny step granddaughter. And she was a French teacher in Italy. And so then. And, so when she was married, she continued teaching. But when her husband was transferred to United States for the Olivetti company, then she came here and she called me one Sunday morning, I got a telephone call, but I didn’t even know there was a Cornelia.

01;11;54;17 - Alba Libera Marra: And she said, I’m your cousin. And so from then on, we correspond. But she writes in English and I, I write to her and I write to her in English. But, Tiffany, I have to write in Italian, and I had to keep up on my Italian. I’ve had to look up words that I don’t know how to spell.

01;12;13;16 - Alba Libera Marra: And maybe it’s been good for me. But I don’t know how I. I’m going to get along three weeks and speaking nothing but Italian. And because now when I if I can’t or what I was speaking to my mother, if I couldn’t think of the Italian word, I could always swing back into the English manufacturer word.

01;12;34;06 - Alba Libera Marra: And what am I going to do? Now that I have a few qualms? I’ll tell you what I come back. Oh, I got along well.

01;12;41;22 - Unknown Interviewer: I think you you may you grow tired.

01;12;44;24 - Alba Libera Marra: I guess I’m afraid. Yeah. Because now, you know, I go out with people, and then I think it’ll be so nice to get home if I have peace and quiet. But I would have be peace and quiet. I’m just wondering. So I do have some qualms.

01;13;00;20 - Unknown Interviewer: That it is a strange. That’s right. In another line, I don’t hear how.

01;13;05;05 - Alba Libera Marra: To be able to speak and not.

01;13;06;23 - Unknown Interviewer: Be immersed in it, but it. And at three weeks I was right.

01;13;11;18 - Alba Libera Marra: And then I’m worried. And when I get to the other countries, although there will be the guide and that will help where,

01;13;20;13 - Unknown Interviewer: I think you’re going to have some doors open to do.

01;13;23;24 - Alba Libera Marra: That to the others side. I was with her.

01;13;26;21 - Unknown Interviewer: At the area. Oh, now, because there are children now.

01;13;30;20 - Alba Libera Marra: That’s just it. So. And another retired teacher will join me in, London. She’s, She’s not leaving the first. She will leave about the 15th and go to Oslo, and then she’ll fly in on the, 22nd of September, and we’ll get in the day before the tour starts, because the people fly in from the United States on the 22nd, but don’t get in until the 23rd.

01;13;57;28 - Alba Libera Marra: And so we’re going to take it an extra night there in London, so that we’ll be there and hope that we’ll get in on the tours and not miss out. So it’s just in a way, it’s too bad that I’m not going from the United States with the tour and coming back, but I’ve wanted to. This is the chance of a lifetime, and I wanted to visit the relatives as well.

01;14;22;20 - Alba Libera Marra: Yeah. Otherwise I could have taken this wrong bear tour. That would get really wonderful. That’s, you know, made up of mainly Inland Empire people. This. Now we all have any idea who will be on the tour.

01;14;35;10 - Unknown Interviewer: And you’ll have an opportunity up for new.

01;14;37;10 - Alba Libera Marra: To for new experiences. I can see.

01;14;39;03 - Unknown Interviewer: Sometimes when you go with hometown people, I haven’t visited them. You’re going in in Italy or someplace talking about hometown.

01;14;46;22 - Alba Libera Marra: I know what that’s just here.

01;14;48;15 - Unknown Interviewer: And, so you’ll be.

01;14;49;27 - Alba Libera Marra: Oh, so this will be interesting. At first they had me book going into Amsterdam and then from Amsterdam down to Milan, but now they have me so that I go directly from New York to Milan. So I think that may be better. I didn’t like the idea of landing in Amsterdam and not knowing the language at all at the beginning.

01;15;12;29 - Alba Libera Marra: I better get used to it. And the many, many changes I’m has me a little bit perturbed now, too. Yeah.

01;15;23;01 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, it’s gonna be an exciting.

01;15;24;16 - Alba Libera Marra: It’ll be something different, as I say. You know, I say that I haven’t retired, I’ve just graduated into something different. Right? This is, this is another graduation.

01;15;36;08 - Unknown Interviewer: And I imagine if you come back, gonna. Here of numerous occasions when you get your talents.

01;15;41;18 - Alba Libera Marra: And you get well and then it well and then and, vocation took care of cleaning the house and weeding all these years of collect should care so much to do that. I know that I. I won’t be lonesome for the first year or two now. So then we’ll see.

01;15;57;21 - Unknown Interviewer: Well, to, that,