05222011 Interview with Glen Tarbet.2-4

Date:  2011-07-12	File:   05222011 Interview with Glen Tarbet.2-4
Keywords:	Childhood years, 1930s, 1940s, Salt Lake City years, Chesterfield, Navy, building a testimony, Boy Scouts, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Aaronic Priesthood, Carol Cornia, Glen E. Tarbet, Howard Coté, World War II, music, Cornia family, Tarbet family
People:	Jami Bernards (JB), Glen Tarbet (GT), Ann Tarbet (AT)
GT	[singing]  Oh, the boson’s mate was very sedate Yet fond of amusement too. He’s play hopscotch with the starboard watch While the captain tickled the crew. And the gunner we had was apparently mad For he sat on the after rai-ai-ail As he fired salutes with the captain’s boots In the teeth of the booming gale. [chorus] [JB joints]                 Then blow ye winds, heigh ho!                 A’sailing I will go.                 I’ll sail no more on England’s shores                 So let the music play–ay–ay!                 I’m off on the morning train.                 I’ll cross the raging main.                 I’m off to my  love with a boxing glove                 Ten thousand miles away.
JB	So, I always had the impression that you knew that song because of your service in the Navy.
GT	Oh, no.
JB	So, there was no connection with that, huh?
GT	No.  [chuckles]  I’d sing it a lot of times while I was in the Navy.
JB	But, do you think it might have influenced your decision to join the Navy?
GT	Oh . . . Maybe subconsciously.  There might be something in there, but I doubt it.  I think what influenced me most to join the Navy was the fact that I had two cousins that were in the submarine service —  Howard Cornia and Maurice Cornia, his older — Howard’s older brother.  Both of them were sailors.  And, Howard went to Officer’s Candidate School and mustanged — that means he was an enlisted man that became an officer — and he retired as a full Commander in the Navy, in the submarine service.  He was a skipper on an atomic submarine for so many years.
JB	Were you hoping to get into the submarine service when you joined the Navy?
GT	When I joined the Navy, I had the promise from them that I would be in the submarine service, but, I also had the promise that I’d be an electronics technician.  And, when I was in electronics school, they decided that I should go to a special equipment school for airborne early warning shipboard equipment.  Then, I did that.  Then there were only a couple of submarines in the service that had that electronic equipment on them, and they already had technicians to take care of them.  So, they put me aboard an aircraft carrier — the USS Boxer, that didn’t have trained technicians on their airborne early warning radar.
JB	Was there just one person on the ship with that training, or was there several so you could trade off.
GT	No, I was the only one aboard the ship, and I was assigned to take care of the shipboard airborne early warning equipment.   Actually, what it was was kind of a glorified television receiver that received signals from airplanes flying around with radar equipment that scanned the ocean for enemy aircraft, and also just special mission radar.  —  ‘scuse me.  I need a drink.
JB	‘scuse me.  I need to find Max.  He’s got to be at the church at five. [end]
	[begin 05222011 Interview with Glen Tarbet.3.mwv]
JB	Were there any other — anything else you want to tell us about your school years?
GT	Well, let’s see —
JB	I think we talking — you had moved in with the Tarbets, and then you went to three different schools.
GT	When we moved in with the Tarbets, I went to Grant Elementary which is where President Monson went.  He went there and graduated from elementary school at Grant Elementary.  And then we — there were a couple more places we moved to for very short periods of time.  One place we moved into was called Whittaker Court, and it was between —  oh, let’s see —  between West Temple and First West, on Third South, right next to the Sweet Candy Company — Sweets I think it was —  Candy Company, which was a very large candy plant.  I think it’s four stories, if I remember right, with a big water tank on the top.  We lived right next to that, and I walked to the Grant Elementary from there.  And, then after that . . .  we moved to a place up on Third South between Fourth and Fifth East.  Is that right?  I think so.  I can’t remember the name of the court we lived in, but it was really a ramshackle place.  We were only there for a few months.  And, I remember — oh.  We were — I can’t remember who we lived with.  It seems like it was with Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Fred.
JB	Who was that?
GT	That was Glen E. Tarbet’s — one of Glen E. Tarbet’s sisters and her husband, and their kids Jeanie and Patty.  Patsy was the older, and then Jeanie, and then I think they had Donny by then.  And we were in the same house with them for a few months.  Then, they had whooping cough.  I remember that.
JB	Oh boy.
GT	And then, we, uh — And then we moved to Moffatt Court, which is between Second and Third East, and it runs off of Fourth South, and it’s still there http://bit.ly/qBm92f , but it’s mostly gone.  I think there is only one house in it that was there when we were there.  And when we were there, there were, oh about five or six houses, and an apartment house.  But, it’s all office area now.  But, while we were living there, I was going to — I started out while we lived there going to Lafayette School, which was on the corner of North Temple and State Street.
JB	What grade was that?
GT	I was in the third grade.  . . .  Yeah.  That’s right.  I went to — I think I went to part of the second grade, and then the third grade there.  But that’s — that’s — I would walk from there to Moffatt Court, which opened up on Fourth South, between Third and Fourth South, it was, but that was quite a walk.  But, it was a fun walk.  I would go by Regent Street, and had the Deseret News newspaper was printed there, on Regent Street, and also the Salt Lake Telegram.  The big printing presses had windows opening onto Regent Street, and you could watch the printing presses printing the newspaper through the windows.  And then, I also liked to go into the Royal Crown Cola bottling place, which was on — let’s see —  it was on Second South, between State Street and Third East — Second East — State Street and Second East.
AT	It was [0:05:47.0]
GT	Oh, it was Royal Crown [emphatically].
JB	So you were pretty much a city boy.
GT	Oh, yeah.  And, also I liked to stop at the Salt Lake Library, which was on State Street, just off of South Temple, and I’d often go into the elementary library which was in the basement of the Salt Lake City Library, and get books and take them home and read them.  And, one of my good friends at that time was also one of the bell ringers at Oquirrh Elementary — there were two of us.  And, he lived in the uh — Oh.  What’s the name of that hotel?  He lived in a hotel on State Street, just next door to the library.  I can’t think of the name of the hotel, but his parents owned a hat shop on State Street, and he took me up to his apartment a couple of times, and I played with him and he — I remember he fed me — His parents were Jewish, and of course, he was too.  And he fed me pickled herring.  [laughter]  That’s the first time I ever ate pickled herring.  I remember I got the heartburn from eating his pickled herring.
JB	Was it the last time you ate pickled herring?
GT	No, I’ve had some since then, but not much [chuckles].   I liked it.  But he was a little chubby boy, and I was too.  We were quite similar.  It’s interesting that the principle, who was Mrs. Forrester, picked two boys that looked as much alike as we did to ring the bells.  One thing that happened there — I had a little girlfriend that lived on Third East, that I got acquainted — after we moved out of Moffatt Court — Mom and I and Dad Tarbet — moved into an apartment house on Third East.  It was about, oh, 228 South — no.  Yeah, that’s right.  About 328 South Third East.  It was on the west side of Third East.  We lived in a one-room apartment with a shared bathroom.  It was upstairs.  We shared it with the  upstairs apartment, and another apartment on our floor.  But, I — I uh — This little girl I started to tell you about was named Valerie Hawkins.  She lived right across the street, and we used to walk to school and back together.  And, one time we were coming back from school on the way home, walking down Fourth South, and the school was on Fourth East — [thunk] What was that?  . . .  Something fell.  The school was on Fourth East, we walked around the corner and down Fourth South, and there was a house there with pipes around the lawn that — The pipes were about two feet off the ground, to keep the kids off the grass —
JB	For a little fence?
GT	For a little fence.  And, it was a temptation for kids to walk on those pipes.  And, Mrs. Forrester, the principle of the school, got all the kids together, and one of the things she told them was to never walk on those pipes.  And, anyway, Valerie and my best friend, Ronald Franz, and I were walking down Fourth South, and some newspaper reporters from the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper stopped us and said, “We want to take you kids’ picture walking these fences.”  [chuckles]
JB	Oh no.
GT	And, they persuaded us and I got up on the fence and walked it.  And, I think the picture I took shows me walking the fence with Valerie and Ronald helping me balance on the fence.  But, that picture got in the newspaper and Mrs. Forrester called us to the office to give is hob for violating her rules.
JB	Did she believe you when you told her the newspaper man wanted you to?
GT	Yeah, oh yeah.  She believed it, but she was still upset that we did it.  But, she didn’t stop me from being a bell ringer.
JB	Uh oh, uh oh — Carol, don’t let him spill those.  [GT laughs]
GT	Isaac just came by with a bucket full of —
JB	Little tiny beads.
GT	What are they?  Beads?
JB	Yup.  With no lid.
GT	And, it wasn’t long after that that World War II started.  It was right — very close to that time.  I remember very clearly hearing newspaper boys out in the street calling “Extra!  Extra!  Extra!   Japs bomb Pearl Harbor!”
JB	Wow.
GT	And, I had no idea where Pearl Harbor was.  Not many people did know.  But, uh, we soon found out that it was a very important harbor in the Hawaiian Islands that were important to the United States, and President Roosevelt declared war on Japan because of the Japs bombing Pearl Harbor. And, it wasn’t long after that before we moved out to Chesterfield.  We had moved from the one-room apartment house to an apartment behind a little restaurant called “Izzy’s Chicken Inn”.  And, we moved from there out to Chesterfield.
JB	Was that moving out in the country for you?
GT	Uh, yes.  That was moving out west of Salt Lake City, just east of Redwood Road, is where we moved, on 2495 South, which was Chatham Street.  And uh —oh, wait a minute  2495 South [is] Whitlock Avenue, as we lived two blocks east of Redwood Road.   http://bit.ly/p5xUwz  The reason we moved there is, Mom and Dad Tarbet had these friends named Godfrey, who had bough themselves an acre of ground there for a hundred dollars ($100) —  No.  They only paid fifty dollars ($50) for an acre of ground.
JB	Wow.
GT	In Chesterfield.  And, they sold half of their acre —the Godfreys sold half of the acre that they bought for a hundred to dollars to Mom and Dad Tarbet — I mean, they paid fifty dollars for it, and they sold half of an acre to Mom and Dad Tarbet for a hundred dollars.  [chuckles]
JB	Oh my.  They made a good deal.
GT	So, they doubled their money on their acre of ground —
JB	Plus, they got their own half-acre paid for.
GT	Well, I they had already paid for that.  It only cost them fifty dollars. But, when we moved out there, we moved in with the Godfreys.  The Godfreys had built themselves — had started their house, and it had three rooms — kitchen, bedroom, and living room — but it was unfinished and — we moved in with them and started a house behind that, laid a floor, and, as I recall, the floor was — what was it?  I think it was ten by twelve feet (10’x12’) to accommodate a war surplus tent that they bought for very few dollars.  I don’t know how much, but I know it wasn’t much.   And, they pitched the tent on that floor, they got the tent built, and it turned out it was full of holes.  [chuckles]
JB	Oh.  Darn it.
GT	But, rather than move into it, Uncle Ken — I don’t know if it belonged to him or what, but just behind his house — which was on Sixth Avenue and B Street in Salt Lake City, up in the avenues — Just behind his house was this old pioneer barn.  It was a small barn, but it was, I guess it’s foot print was about the same size at that ten would have been, as the floor for it was built.  But, Uncle Ken arranged for Glen Tarbet, my step-father, to tear down that barn and salvage the lumber from it.  And, they took the lumber and build a house on that floor.
JB	With the barn wood?
GT	With the wood from that pioneer barn.  [chuckles]  And it was pretty cleverly built, I think.  They had stringers from it to put the floor on, and they used planks from the barn for the floor.  Come to think of it, I guess they must have laid those planks on top of the floor that they had laid for the tent.  Either that, or they had put the tent up on a dirt floor.  I can’t remember exactly how they did that.
JB	Which came first?  The tent or the barn wood floor, huh?  [discussion of plans for the rest of the evening]
AT	K.   I probably had my mouth open.
GT	No, you didn’t.
JB	I didn’t notice.
GT	You didn’t.  But, they built the house on that floor, and the floor was just a few feet behind the Godfrey’s house, and so our house was just behind the Godfreys’ house.  And, that made it convenient for us to use the Godfreys’ flowing well for our water — to get our water, and to use the Godfreys’ outdoor toilet — which was nearby also.
JB	So, how old were you when you moved out to Chesterfield?
GT	I was ten.
JB	[getting James out the door.]
GT	No, I guess I was eleven.
JB	[more discussion of seminary graduation]
GT	And I was eleven because I started the sixth grade at Plymouth Elementary, after we moved out to Chesterfield.
JB	I’m sorry.  I think I’d better —
GT	Take care of your kids. . . .   . . .  It wasn’t long, just a few months before they “finished” the house behind the Godfrey’s place — finished in very bold quotation marks — and we moved in there —there was just room in it for a double bed and a washstand, and a table, and a stove, and a kitchen range.   And, that’s where we lived for several years.  As I recall, I was eleven years old when we moved in there, and I got acquainted with several neighborhood boys, but I was thirteen before I started going to church.  I had been baptized when I was eight years old.  When we were still living in the one-room apartment house on Third East, I had become acquainted with a boy my same age in the other apartment on the bottom floor in that apartment house.  His name was Ronald Franz, and he was active in the Church.  And he persuaded me to be baptized at the same time he was.  But, I was very sporadic about going to church.  I had nobody to go with.  The Tarbet family didn’t go to church.  The girls — as I recall, the girls were members, but Glen E. Tarbet had never been baptized.  I know he had never been baptized.  But, I’m just kind of half-remembering that the girls were — his sisters.  Anyway, out in Chesterfield, I was thirteen before I decided that I wanted to be a Boy Scout, and the Boy Scouts were also members of the Deacon’s Quorum. And, since I was a member of the Church, I started going to priesthood meeting, and became active in the Church and became a Boy Scout, and was ordained a deacon when I was thirteen.  I recalled my first attendance at a Deacons Quorum meeting.  I was called on to offer a prayer, and I said the Lord’s Prayer, which I had memorized, just because I was interested in it.  And, I — even though I wasn’t particularly active in church, I liked to listen to “The Light of The World” radio broadcasts which were Bible stories.  And, on that I heard the story of David and Solomon.  And, for some reason, I can’t remember why, I had memorized the Lord’s prayer.  I think it must have been my Uncle Virgil’s and Aunt Edna’s influence somehow, that I did that.  Aunt Edna was really good at promoting the Church.  And, I think she may have persuaded me to memorize the Lord’s prayer, and maybe my mother did too.  I can’t remember why, but I was prepared to offer the Lord’s prayer at my first Deacons meeting, and of course, they convinced me that I should not recite a prayer from memory —that it ought to be something that I spoke from my heart.  And, I didn’t know to say “in the name of Jesus Christ, amen” at the end of the prayer, either.  And so it was easy for me to start participating in the Deacons Quorum.  And there was an outstanding group of boys, I feel, that were really well-parented in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints religion.  And, I managed to be friends with them.  There was Gene Cook, and the Pederson boys — the ten children in the Pederson family — and — let’s see.  I think there were seven boys in the Pederson boys in the Pederson family — seven of the ten children were boys, and they were all very active in the Church.  Their father had been the bishop just before we moved out there.  And, in fact, I guess he had been the bishop up until the time that I became active in the Church.  I think that it was just after I started being active that they made Oliver Pederson —I  mean, Oliver Pederson was released as bishop, and Franz Alguyer(sp) became the bishop.  But, Franz Alguyer’s boy and I were very good friends too, and did a lot of things together.  His name was Don Alguyer. Keith Pederson was the same age and in the same grade in school as I was.  And his brother, Kent, was in the next grade beneath.  He was in the fifth grade when I was in the sixth.  And, I was in the sixth grade when we moved there, so I transferred from Oquirrh to Plymouth Elementary into the sixth grade.  And, it was only a few months that I was in the sixth grade before the school year ended.   Then, of course, I finished junior high school and high school while we lived there.  And, Plymouth was also besides elementary, was also the junior high in the Granite District, there for that area.  And, when I became a Boy Scout, it was only a short time before they made me a patrol leader, so I got several friends because of that.  I remember — I think, as I recall, several of my friends in my patrol were Gene Cook and Kay Levett, and I can’t remember other people’s names offhand . . .  spontaneously . . . like this.  But, my patrol took the assignment to provide popcorn for the ward movies, and I popped the popcorn and we sold popcorn for our patrol fund, until Bishop Alguyer decided that it should be a ward thing to sell the popcorn, instead of my patrol.  But, we managed to get a little bit of money that way.  One thing that happened was, we elected a treasurer.  The treasurer was Benny Gambol, and his father appropriated the treasury funds from Benny.  I think there was four or five dollars in the fund, which disappeared because his father spent it.  But, we managed to salvage a little money.  As a patrol, we went and picked cherries and put some of the money from what we earned picking cherries into the patrol fund.  And, we picked apricots.  The first place we went to pick cherries — the way you did it was, you went to West Temple, between North Temple and South Temple early in the morning in the cherry season, and trucks would come there and pick you up and take you to the cherry orchards in Bountiful.  And, I think the first time we went as a patrol doing that, we made the mistake of going to a pie cherry orchard, and that was really, really slow picking.  And, we decided that we didn’t want to do that, and we left, and as we left the poor owner of the orchard told us that he would have us blackballed —that we couldn’t pick any place else, but we did anyway.  That wasn’t really a very Boy Scout kind of thing to do, I guess.  But we did find another orchard not far away, where we were able to pick a lot more cherries than we could have done in the pie cherry orchard.  We also picked apricots, and I did quite a bit of that in those days, just to earn a little bit of money, that wasn’t given to the Boy Scout patrol fund.  We had lived in the house we had built right behind the Godfreys’ place for several months, and Glen —my step-father, Dad Tarbet —made arrangements to have a farmer that lived a few blocks away —a black man — who had horses, had some big Clydesdale horses — and he arranged with him to come and move our house for us.  And, he moved —  they put planks down and got some big pipes to roll the house on, and they rolled it from right behind the Godfreys’ down to the property that they had bought from the Godfreys —the east half of the Godfreys’ acre.  And, that’s where it stayed until I — until after I had returned from the Navy.  It stayed there for oh —I guess it was about 1943 when it got moved down there, and it must have been about 1960 or so before my mother moved out of it with her husband then.  She had divorced my step-father Glen in 1956, and [end]
	[begin 05222011 Interview with Glen Tarbet.4]
AT	Should we have our scriptures really quick?  We haven’t had them for several days.
GT	Let me finish this statement I was doing.
AT	Okay.
GT	Let’s see.  Where was I?  . . . . . .  The house stayed there clear until my mother married Howard Coté, and it was there for many years after that.  Then, we got some news just maybe — oh, I guess it has been ten years ago that, it had caught fire and burned down.  No, it wasn’t.  My mother was alive then, so it was just before we died that we got the news that it had burned down.  [end]