Jacqueline “Jackie” Ellis

Jacqueline “Jackie” Ellis (1929-2025) grew up in Kemmerer and Green River, Wyoming, in the 1930s and 1940s. She graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1953, then moved to Casper, where she worked for Ohio Oil Company (later Marathon) during the city’s postwar oil boom. In 1955 she married Frank “Pinky” Ellis. Together they raised three children in Casper, while she later taught business and English at Kelly Walsh High School for more than twenty years. 

Interviews were conducted on July 5 and 21, 2021, by Anne MacKinnon at the Ellis home in Casper, Wyoming, for the American Heritage Center’s Prominent Wyoming Residents Oral History Project, 2021-2022, Collection Number 560007. This transcription balances clarity and readability with authenticity by streamlining interviewer comments while preserving Ellis’s storytelling.

Transcript

Interview One: July 5, 2021

Anne MacKinnon: So, you're Jackie, are you Jacqueline?

Jackie Ellis: Jacqueline. J-A-C-Q-U-E-L-I-N-E. And then my middle name is my maiden name, Nott—N-O-T-T— Ellis.

Anne: Have you almost always been known as Jackie?

Jackie: Except my dad called me “Jack.”

Anne: Were you born in Green River?

Jackie: I was born in Salt Lake. My parents, my dad's family were Utah pioneers, 1850s, in the south of Salt Lake. They had a water right on the Jordan River. My great-grandmother was a polygamist wife. And my dad's mother died when he was 18 months old in childbirth, and he was raised by his mother's family. His father lived with them all. But the aunt took care of him.

Anne: So the polygamy, which generation did that stop in?

Jackie: So my dad's mother was the daughter of the polygamist couple.

Anne: Oh, okay. And she herself was a single wife, your dad's mother?

Jackie: Yeah. And they were just married a short time, my grandmother and my grandfather.

Anne: Before she died. So she had had two children?

Jackie: My dad and then she had this baby, and the baby died as well. And that happened, I think, so often. And you wonder... So anyway, he grew up in Salt Lake and went to West High [School] and was a great athlete. And he met my mother there and she was a swimmer and they got married and had a baby that died with SIDS [Sudden Infant Death Syndrome]. And then I was born.

Anne: So, what year is that? And day, for that matter.

Jackie: 1928. 1927 or eight.

Anne: When you were born? 

Jackie: I was born in 1929. 5-21-1929.

Anne: And, so they were married in either ‘27 or ‘28, is that right? 

Jackie: Yeah, 1927.

Anne: So there they were in Salt Lake. And what was he doing?

Jackie: They had a farm south of Salt Lake. I don't know if they homesteaded it. I think they just went in and took it then. [laughs] Anyway.

Anne: It hadn't been his family's place?

Jackie: So it was his mother's family. Their name was Mousley. M-O-U-S-L-E-Y. And there were a lot of polygamists in that family. One of them even went and settled in St. George, Utah, Anyway, so interesting background.

Anne: And was he a pretty religious Mormon, your father?

Jackie: Not. No, the Catholics came through for contributions.

Anne: Well, some people are called “Jack Mormons.” Is that what he was called?

Jackie: I don't think he ever professed being a Mormon. I don't think he ran around telling everybody that he was. And so I grew up in sort of an interesting home. My mother was Catholic, and she was a Democrat, and my dad was Mormon, and he was a Republican. So I didn't know that people talked religion. I didn't know that they talked politics, because we didn't.

Anne: Oh, that's interesting. I mean, they could have, right? I mean, somebody in that situation might have discussions all the time, but they didn't.

Jackie: No. No. And I can't imagine. It might have been flame throwing. I don't know.

[laughter]

But they were both really pretty cool, kind of cool people, you know? They didn't yell and scream.

Anne: And there were siblings?.

Jackie: I had one brother, younger than I, seven years, and he died last year. He actually died in 2019, in California.

Anne: And were you guys pretty close, even though seven years?

Jackie: No. No. I was almost seven when he was born, and I had grown up kind of in the Kemmerer Hotel. My godfather—My mother had a hard pregnancy with my brother, and my godfather owned the Kemmerer Hotel, and so I lived with them while my dad was in Salt Lake with my mother, had this baby. So, interesting. [laughs] It was a great place.

Anne: Well, back up a little bit. So the godfather, how did he become your godfather and what was the Kemmerer connection?

Jackie: I don't have any idea.

Anne: He was a friend though, obviously.

Jackie: Oh yeah. A good friend of the family.

Anne: Did he always live in Kemmerer? So somehow there was this connection?

Jackie: I think they got connected somehow in Salt Lake.

Anne: And maybe he moved up there or something?

Jackie: Yeah, and then he moved to Kemmerer. My dad got a Conoco station in Kemmerer, and so that's how we got to the hotel.

Anne:  Okay. So, your dad was in Salt Lake with your mom for the birth.

Jackie: Right.

Anne: But actually they were living in Kemmerer at that time, or not?

Jackie: Yes, I suppose so. I don't remember. I remember living in the hotel. And I'm a name dropper. Bill Carlisle was my babysitter. The priest in Kemmerer got Bill Carlisle out of the prison, and so he had a cigar store stand in the hotel. It was kind of fun, I think. Man Mountain Dean was a wrestler who came and stayed at the hotel and wrestled professionally.

Anne: Man Mountain Dean. Wow. And just to back up again for a second, so your godfather owned the hotel?

Jackie: I think so.

Anne: Or ran it?

Jackie: No, I think he owned the hotel.

Anne: And what was his name?

Jackie: His name was Ben Petrie.

Anne: Alright. And, so you were staying with him. Did he have a wife and kids?

Jackie: He had a wife, and a mother-in-law, and a parrot.

Anne: [guffaws] It's a big part of the list.

Jackie: I was petrified of the parrot. It was a big part of my life.

[laughter]

Anne: Did you ever get adjusted to this parrot, or he was always a scary parrot?

Jackie: He stood on the top of the door and sharpened his beak, and I think he intimidated me. So the door would be open and he'd just... just like you sharpen a knife. It was really green. And I can still sort of visualizing.

Anne: He must have had a name.

Jackie: Polly. [laughs] And I remember that I used to go to the movie when they gave away dishes with the mother-in-law. So, anyway.

Anne: And the giving away of dishes was sort of like they do at the supermarket some time now? Like if you bought enough, if you went often enough, you earned it?

Jackie: Yeah.

Anne: And so your father and mother, had he been a gas station person before or was that a new venture?

Jackie: He had worked at a station in Salt Lake during the Depression, and worked on the family farm.

Anne: Dairy or what kind of stuff?

Jackie: Oh, no. All kinds of agricultural crops, but mostly tomatoes during the Depression. So, anyway, we moved to Green River and he had a better service station there.

Anne: And about how old were you?

Jackie: I was 12.

Anne: Okay. Actually, I don't think I know your father's and mother's name other than Nott.

Jackie: My dad's name was Henry, and then he went by “Ernie.” Henry Ernest Nott, N-O-T-T.

Anne: And she?

Jackie: Arlyne. A-R-L-Y-N-E Carpenter.

Anne: Okay. So, tomatoes and that kind of stuff during the Depression, but so they moved, obviously, before you were seven to Kemmerer. 

Jackie: Yeah, I would think so. And apparently we'd lived in Green River before that. My dad worked for the railroad. And he was hired to work on the railroad because he was a good baseball player, and they had baseball teams all up and down the Union Pacific, and he was on a baseball team for years. Traveled all up and down.

Anne: Did he actually work on the railroad as well?

Jackie: Yeah, when he wasn't... and he worked in the stuff where they dropped the ashes from the engines.

Anne: So, do you have any idea of the sequence? I mean, he worked for the railroad, he worked at a gas station, he was on a farm.

Jackie: Yeah. I think that I was about three in Green River. And they must—That's where the baby died.

Anne: Oh, their first one?

Jackie: Yeah.

Anne: Oh, SIDS, is that right? 

Jackie: He was... just two months old.

Anne: And was it SIDS?

Jackie: 1927. SIDS. I have a toy that somebody sent to this baby that had never been unwrapped.

Anne: Oh my God.

Jackie: It's still in the wrapping.

Anne: And you haven't wanted to unwrap it either.

Jackie: I unwrapped it. And it's a cute little thing. And I took it one time when we went to the Antiques Road Show and the guy  said, “Oh,” he says, “We get those all the time.” [laughs] We never talked about that baby. We went to the cemetery in Salt Lake where he’s buried.

Anne: So you would do that but not talk about him?

Jackie: I guess, yeah. And my dad had relatives, that some of 'em had been there since the 1850s, ‘60s and stuff in those cemeteries. And so we just went here and we went there to, yeah. 

Anne: Yeah. So, anyway, your dad was probably working for the railroad when that baby was born?

Jackie: Yes. In Green River.

Anne: And then maybe after that back on the farm, or we don't know?

Jackie: Probably from the, yeah, during the Depression. You're making me think, and it's good.

Anne: So, then up to Kemmerer probably from the farm, and sometime before you were seven. So, before 1936, more or less. And you were born actually in Salt Lake?

Jackie: Yes.

Anne: So, they had moved there and were at the farm before the Depression, or just at the beginning of the Depression, 1929.

Jackie: Yeah.

Anne: Is it possible they were living in Green River and just went to Salt Lake for your birth and then came back to Green River? Or do you think they were living in Salt Lake?

Jackie: I think they were living in Salt Lake on the farm. And then I remember, at the service station in Kemmerer, that I was down helping my dad shovel snow and when it was December 7th and Pearl Harbor Day. And the things that you don't comprehend. I had absolutely no idea what kind of a serious effect there would be.

Anne: Of course not. You were 11 or 12.

Jackie: Yeah. 12, I think.

Anne: So, he didn't go to war. Or did he?

Jackie: No. But I remember the day that he got notice that he was not going. And he came home and he told my mother—we had a cute little rental house in Kemmerer—and he came home and told my mother and he just flopped down on the bed. Just...

Anne: Thank God.

Jackie: Yeah.

Anne: Yeah. Okay, so he might have been 21 then, do you think? I'm just trying to guess how old he was.

Jackie: I think it was 35. Oh! It was so...so vivid in my mind. I just see him flopping down on this bed in this cute little two bedroom house we had. [chuckles] It was darling.

Anne: And your mother had been pretty alarmed? She'd been quite worried as well? They must have both been.

Jackie: Oh, I would assume.

Anne: Yeah. But what you remember is him.

Jackie: Oh, yeah. But he came home to tell her. So he must have got it in the mail.

Anne: Yeah. And this must have been maybe the next spring after Pearl Harbor. I mean, sometime in ‘42.

Jackie: Oh, and maybe even a couple of years.

Anne: Oh really?

Jackie: I think.

Anne: So he was owning and running the station at that point or were you—

Jackie: The one in Kemmerer.

Anne: So, you're still in Kemmerer then?

Jackie: Yeah. And then when I was 11 or 12, when I started the eighth grade, we went to Green River. He got a better service station.

Anne: Okay, so you start school in Green River, and was that wildly different from Kemmerer?

Jackie: Well, it was the difference between elementary and high school.

Anne: Oh, but not between a smaller town and a bigger town.

Jackie: Oh, it wasn't that much bigger. And we had friends in Green River and we'd been back and forth and I knew we knew people. I graduated high school in ‘47.

Anne: And he was doing gas station, but a better station, “better” meaning more pumps or what do you think?

Jackie: More traffic. Highway 30.

Anne: Isn't that the Lincoln Highway?

Jackie: Yeah, it's the Lincoln Highway. Sure.

Anne: And was there anything particular about high school? So this is still you during the war for half of your high school time, and was there anything particular about high school that you want to tell me that we don't wanna forget?

Jackie: No, no. It was just... it was, it was good. And I didn't realize that I had leadership quality stuff, so I just went ahead and be the “peep” who I was. Some people liked me and some didn't. But that didn't bother me. And I had one very special girl as a friend – Rosie. And she was just extra, extra special, and her parents were from Oklahoma. So, I didn't understand prejudice.

Anne: They were “Okies” or they were Black, or they were Indian, or...

Jackie: No, just like Okies. Like Appalachian Oakies. I didn't know Black people and I didn't know you were supposed to not dance with them, and I didn't know. So, I was indoctrinated.

Anne: So, you were indoctrinated by who and when and how?

Jackie: Mostly her parents. Rosie's parents,

Anne: Rosie's parents were Okies and they indoctrinated you to be prejudiced against Okies?

Jackie: Not against Okies, but other people, about Blacks.

Anne: Okay. So, there were some Blacks in the school or in the town?

Jackie: Yeah, like two. Two Black families in the whole town.

Anne: Right. And they worked for the railroad, probably? Or we don't know.

Jackie: I don't know what they did.

Anne: Yeah. What was Rosie's last name?

Jackie: Walker.

Anne: Walker. And they had come from Oklahoma, but some time before.

Jackie: To work on the railroad.

Anne: Yeah. So, they talked with prejudice about all kinds of other people?

Jackie: I would assume so. And they were really, really strong Baptists. We never had any religion problems or anything, Rosie and me. [laughs]

Anne: Are you still friends? Did you guys keep up with each other?

Jackie: She died. I moved to Casper after college. And she was killed in a car accident outside of Green River. Rock Springs, I guess. Closer to Rock Springs. And I heard it on the radio.

Anne: Oh, how awful.

Jackie: And she was just such a beautiful friend. And we had sort of our little group of five or six girls, but the she and I were together.

Anne: And she would've been in her early twenties when she died?

Jackie: Yeah. I was 24. And she married a jerk.

Anne: Oh, she had already married too. And you knew this jerk?

Jackie: Yeah, I'd worked with him on the railroad.

Anne: So you're in high school, and so how did your parents respond to you learning about prejudice or being sort of acculturated that way?

Jackie: At my dad's service station, I worked there when I was in high school. I could change tires and I could—

Anne: Afternoons and weekends?

Jackie: Mostly in the summertime. And he had customers, he had—There were a lot of Mexican people in Green River. There were a few Black people in Green River. There were people that came down through the Green River Valley, and they were rough farmers. Rough ranchers. And so, I didn't know anything about any of it. I mean, they were all people and they all had dogs.

Anne: And he treated 'em all the same, or?

Jackie: Oh, yeah, yeah. And his expectations of me and everybody else who worked for him was that you knew everybody's name. You know their dogs’ names. You knew if they were gonna stay overnight in town, where they were gonna be, if anybody was looking for 'em. You know, it was wonderful.

Anne: It is wonderful. It was sort of like this was your home base, his station.

Jackie: Yeah. It really was. I was a lot more fortunate than the other kids who didn't have that kind of an exposure.

Anne: Yeah, no kidding.

Jackie: Yeah. I loved him.

Anne: And sort of that, I mean, it was a home base for the people, for his customers.

Jackie: Oh, yes!

Anne: Did the station have a name? Was it Nott’s or something else?

Jackie: Yeah, Ernie Nott’s Conoco Service.

Anne: So, how did you juggle this sort of exposure to the Walker family who were...?

Jackie: Didn't never think about it, but I mean, just they said that. And Rosie couldn't dance with the Black kids.

Anne: But you could?

Jackie: I did. A long time after I moved to Casper, some of the Black kids that I'd known, their kids who went to Casper College, and they came and visited at our house.

Anne: So anyway, even though you ran into that with the Walkers, it didn't affect you, it doesn't sound like.

Jackie: No. Oh, no.

Anne: 'Cause you had this wonderful upbringing with your dad.

Jackie: Well, and always—These kids were all wonderful. They were clean. They were good dancers. [chuckles]

Anne: Okay, so you're working at his station, and then you started working on the railroad. When was it?

Jackie: Oh, I worked on the railroad after I graduated.

Anne: Before you went to college or in the summer or before...?

Jackie: Yeah. But in high school, I think the biggest, most important thing that happened to me in high school was I was chosen to go to [Wyoming] Girls’ State. And Rosie went, and one other girl and there we met fabulous women who are still are my friends. And yeah, it was... I was pretty sheltered. I figured later, many years later, that these girls from Cheyenne and the girls from Casper and the girls from even Buffalo knew more about what they needed to do when they got to Girls’ State and they knew how to get elected and they knew who to kiss [chuckles] and so, but anyway, a lot of those have become my very good friends still.

Anne: And did you guys get involved in the League of Women Voters?

Jackie: No.

Anne: I don't mean at that age, but ever?

Jackie: No. No.

Anne: Interesting.

Jackie: No, because I wasn't smart enough to know that I should have run for a bigger office.

I didn't go to college for two years after high school. My dad said to me, “Work for a while and see how you like it.” So I worked for the railroad for a year as a teletype operator. We did manifests, and they expected everything to be in columns. But it was on a tape, and so you had to be able to read the tape. And to make them line up in columns, you had to be able to count as you were typing, and I... I just did it. But anyway, it was a... it was a good job, except it was from five in the afternoon till one in the morning 'cause that's when the new crews came on and the trains were set up for the next bunch.

Anne: And was that, the manifest is of the cargo or...?

Jackie: It was the railroad. And that was the car number and some of 'em were like eight or 10 or 12 numbers and then what was the cargo was and then where it was going. And so, every station had its own abbreviation. So Laramie is K, and I still— [chuckles]

Anne: Think of it that way. [chuckles]

Jackie: Rawlins is RS, not Rock Springs.

Anne: Interesting. So it wasn't about the crews and who they were, it was about the cars.

Jackie: Right.

Anne: The contents and where they were going.

Jackie: Yeah, And then the crews were set up for the train. So they had 'em all made up to go to—Some of 'em went to Cheyenne. Some of 'em went wherever. And so they just made 'em up in the yards there.

Anne: The crew.

Jackie: They made up the crew. They had a dormitory kind of a thing for the crews. And some of 'em lived out in the apartments and stuff in town.

Anne: Did you still see all the different ethnicities in the crews?

Jackie: They used to call it “Greek River” and “Wap Springs.” [wry chuckle] And, um... I never thought about it. You know, they were just people and people I worked with and...

Anne: Yeah. But “Greek River” wasn't all Greeks. There had to have been others.

Jackie: Oh no, but they were the good cooks.

Anne: Ah, I see.

Jackie: Yeah. [chuckles] And it was a small town. You know, and because my dad had all these different customers, I never thought about that either. And some of their best friends were Greeks. My brother married a Greek. So... [chuckles] And there's a great book about the Chinese in Rock Spring.

Anne: Yes. And were there any Chinese left when you were there? Did you ever see any Chinese members of the crews?

Jackie: Yeah.

Anne: Good. So they hadn't all been wiped out.

Jackie: Good Chinese food. We always knew where to go for noodles.

Anne: Yeah. And I think of Rock Springs also as a coal mining town.

Jackie: It was a mining town.

Anne: Yeah. And Green River was more the railroad town.

Jackie: The railroad, yeah. So, of course, there was always the adversarial sports stuff.

Anne: Right. Did your dad keep playing baseball, speaking of sports?

Jackie: Oh, yeah! He played every time that there was any kind of an amateur team. He played a lot in Kemmerer, and he was really good.

Anne: Did he also play in Green River?

Jackie: A little bit.

Anne: And was he part of the competition between Rock Springs and Green River teams?

Jackie: You know, they played everybody and anybody that put together a team, I think. And he worked a lot harder in Green River, longer hours and stuff.

Anne: Yeah, sure. 'Cause more business and all that stuff. Did he like it? Working longer hours. I mean, was that okay?

Jackie: It had to be. Lots of times my mother took his dinner to him at the station... And he was a great mentor for kids. In fact, some of them from the “Out South,” as we called it, from in the Lone Tree and into Utah—Manila, Utah—those kids came and worked for him, and he was a really good example.

Anne: And was he kind of known, I mean, so their families deliberately sent them to work for him, do you think? How did that happen?

Jackie: I don't know. He probably just said, “You want to go to work?” And the kids say, “Sure.” His dad had said, “I'll send him in.” And a lot of those kids came in to go to high school, even if they lived in Utah. They were closer to it, a good school.

Anne: And their families would figure out a way to put 'em up in town. 

Jackie: Oh, almost everybody had a relative. You can sleep on the couch or...

Anne: So you had two years before you went to college, and one year you were working on these manifests?

Jackie: Yeah, as the teletype.

Anne: And then, another year also still for the railroad or not?

Jackie: No, no. After that, the 5:00 PM to 1:00 AM, and I got an ulcer.

Anne: At age 19 or 18 or something?

Jackie: Yeah, I was probably 19.

Anne: Wow. Just from the hours or from the tension of trying to figure out the—

Jackie: Not able to sleep, I think. And so the railroad doctors were in Salt Lake. So, I went to Salt Lake and lived with my grandparents and went to the railroad doctors. And I worked for ZCMI. Have you ever heard of ZCMI?

Anne: I have, but I don't know what it is.

Jackie: Well, it's the first American department store among other things. And it's Zion Co-operative Mercantile. And so I worked as a secretary in the secretarial pool. So we worked for all of the different buyers. So I learned all about China, and I learned about men's clothing, and I learned about—But they'd find somebody, each of the buyers would find somebody they liked. And then you'd get to be part of their, and so. So you had maybe sometimes three or four buyers that you worked with.

Anne: So you liked it kind of, but you still wanted to go to college?

Jackie: I just... I was in Utah and I knew that I could either go to the University of Utah or I could go to the University of Wyoming.

Anne: But why to university at all? He was saying maybe you just wanna work.

Jackie: Well, number one, I wanted to get outta Salt Lake.

Anne: Why was that?

Jackie: It was just too many people. I had a couple of cousins, the only cousins I have, and my grandparents were wonderful. We had a really good time together. But I just didn't... just didn't affiliate. So, anyway.

Anne: So you thought if you went to college, you could get away basically? You could get an out.

Jackie: No. No, I just decided I wanted something different. I was not too oriented yet. So we had property in Utah, so I could go to the University of Utah. We had property in Wyoming, so I could go there. So, so fortunate to decide to go to Wyoming.

Anne: Do you remember why you decided that?

Jackie: I probably called and said, “Can I come home?”

[laughter]

Anne: To him? To your dad?

Jackie: To my dad, yeah. And my mother.

Anne: But that wouldn't have been totally coming home 'cause you had to go to Laramie.

Jackie: Oh yeah.

Anne: So when you got to Laramie, did you have to choose a major right away?

Jackie: I knew that I was gonna do the secretarial stuff.

Anne: And that was similarly was called “Commercial” or “Business” or something?

Jackie: I think so, yeah. Commerce or Industry or something.

Anne: And you liked that. I mean, you're good at it.

Jackie: Yeah. And then the best part was that I aged out of all of the free stuff. And another thing that I had a scholarship from the county commissioners in Sweetwater County. So anyway, I decided that I'd go through Rush Week and so I called my dad and he said, “Oh yeah.” He says, “How much more does it cost?” and I said, “Well, probably a hundred dollars a month.” He said, “I'll send it to you.”

Anne: He was doing pretty well.

Jackie: The people that I had met at Girls’ State were the ones now who were two years older ahead of me in college. And so, I knew everybody important.

Anne: [chuckles] So it was really better than if you'd gone right away—

Jackie: Oh, yeah.

Anne: —because they would've been your contemporaries and they wouldn't have been important yet.

Jackie: No, and probably I would not have gotten into a sorority.

Anne: Interesting. Had you kept up with them? You just knew 'em again when you saw them?

Jackie: No, no. We traveled together.

Anne: In the two years that you weren't in school?

Jackie: After I graduated from college.

Anne: But, after you graduated from high school, had you kept up with those girls, State Girls, before you saw them?

Jackie: Kind of. Some of them.

Anne: Okay. Go back. So there you are. So you find them in Laramie and they help you get into the sorority.

Jackie: Yeah, and Kappa Kappa Gamma. And that was the second biggest decision I made in my life and the first one was not going to school for two years and then not going to Utah. So, anyway. So, I don't know, there's still six or seven of us and, oh, we've been all over together.

Anne: Great. All over the world?

Jackie: Not all over the world. But all over. We have a friend in Ithaca and we've been to San Diego and we've been to Pinedale and we've been to Estes Park. [chuckles] Casper.

Anne: So lifelong friends.

Jackie: Mm-hmm.

Anne: Yeah. So, four years, I guess, must have been of this Commercial stuff.

Jackie: Four years. Yeah.

Anne: And somewhere there you sort of knew Pinky vaguely.

Jackie: I saw him. I saw him. He had a girlfriend that lived in the sorority house next door. I saw him walking back and forth from there. [laughs] I knew who he was, but that was it.

Anne: Yeah. And did you have boyfriends then that you remember?

Jackie: Oh, yeah, but... [laughs] A football player and a... [laughs] But mostly nice guys. But it was scary 'cause there was a lot of drinking and I didn't understand that.

Anne: Your father never was a drinker?

Jackie: No.

Anne: Not at all, or not to excess?

Jackie: No. I remember one time that he came home and he was in the bathroom and he was throwing up and my mother said, “Oh, the visiting firemen have been here.” [laughs] And that's the only thing. I think he'd have a drink after work.

Anne: So then you get to college and it's like this thing people drink all the time.

Jackie: Yeah. And the kids... And I was... I was so sad.

Anne: So this was?

Jackie: I went to school in 1949.

Anne: This was your freshman year.

Jackie: Yeah. And so I just studied and played. Kept my grades up. Graduated with honors.

Anne: Was there anybody in particular, professor-wise or faculty wise, that you remember?

Jackie: Oh yeah. A guy named Dr. Heatherington, and he was a funny little man. He taught all kinds of English literature and American literature. And he liked the way I wrote. And he invited students, special students, to his home. And so if you did Moby Dick, why you got some kind of a big stew. If you're really good, he gave you a book that somebody must have given him. [chuckles] 

Anne: So, even though you're doing Commercial, you got to do things like—

Jackie: ‘Cause I had tested out of all of those classes. Out of the shorthand. Out of the typing.

Anne: And these were what we'd call “electives”?

Jackie: Electives, yeah.

Anne: And that's what you went for, was literature.

Jackie: Well, and music and art. I'd never had any exposure. I loved it.

Anne: You love history so much now. Did you do much in the way of history courses?

Jackie: Not. But my parents were into the Western history and they would do treks and knew lots of people, the old timers that were still alive.

Anne: Particularly Mormon or...?

Jackie: Oh, no, no, no. I don't think that they ever did anything just with the Mormons. Or with the Catholics. [chuckles]

Anne: Good point. So, but things like the Budds settling Green River Valley and things like that, or what kinds of—

Jackie: Oh, yeah. We knew all of them.

Anne: So they were interested in Western history, so you sort of inevitably absorbed some of that.

Jackie: And Pink has always been interested in history. And so we would go on Historical Society treks with my mother and dad.

Anne: So, okay, so you get through school, horrified at all the drinking or saddened by it, but not doing much of that yourself?

Jackie: None.

Anne: None. Did you even drink a little sometimes?

Jackie: I don't think so.

Anne: Okay. And so then you decide to come to Casper to find a job?

Jackie: I graduated from Laramie in June of 1953. My dad cried when he saw “with honors.” And he and I drove home in a pickup truck that he had come to pick up my stuff. And it was one of the winter-wet springs. And there was prince’s plume in bloom all along the highway coming home. And we just had a really quiet time. I remember it. And my grandparents came from Salt Lake on the train and it was—

Anne: All the way to Laramie?

Jackie: Uh-huh. For graduation.

Anne: Okay. Were you the first? Your dad went to college?

Jackie: No.

Anne: So, were you the first college graduate in your family?

Jackie: Yeah, I think so. I mean, that wasn't a big fuss.

Anne: What a lovely memory driving home like that. And you haven't talked a whole lot about your mother. Was he a more significant person in your life?

Jackie: Oh! They were so interesting. They were so different. My dad worked really, really hard. And my mother was sort of self-taught and she ended up on college boards. The Western Wyoming [Community College]. And she was a national flower show judge. And she was a PTA-whatever. I think the first woman on the school board in Sweetwater County.

Anne: And she had never been able to go to college either, right?

Jackie: No, but she belonged to Beta Sigma Phi.

Anne: Which is what?

Jackie: It's a sorority for people who don't have a, who didn't—

Anne: Ah, that makes sense.

Jackie: And they always had instructional stuff, and I think that's how she learned. And then she was so empathetic. She loved people and kids and... This is so good for me.

Anne: Oh, good. Well, and so even though you haven't, I mean, I just feel like I've heard more about your father. They were equally important in their different ways to you, it sounds like.

Jackie: Right, Right. And my mother traveled a lot, like at the flower show thing, she'd go someplace and I knew how to make macaroni and cheese and scrambled eggs, so that's what my dad and my brother and I got while she was gone.

Anne: [chuckles] Right. But it was not a box of macaroni and cheese, it was real macaroni cheese.

Jackie: It was the real stuff!

Anne: So she was not on that drive back in the pickup with you?

Jackie: No, no.

Anne: But she had probably come Was she on the train maybe?

Jackie: Oh, no, no, no, no. She always had to have a hot car. She had Thunderbirds [chuckles]

Anne: Oh, wow! So was she driving the Thunderbird back home at that point?

Jackie: I think it was probably a classy Studebaker. We always had new or newer cars.

Anne: Yeah. And so your grandparents came by train, and those were her parents, not his.

Jackie: Yeah, her mother and dad.

Anne: And then she came in a nice car and your dad brought the pickup up to pick up your stuff?

Jackie: I assume. Yeah. You know, everything was just so frantic at that time.

Anne: Oh, of course, at graduation. It always is. 

Jackie: And I still have the same chest of drawers that I took all the way to Laramie and back, and it's in my closet here. Probably got same stuff in it.

Anne: [laughs] Right.

Interview Two: July 19, 2021

Anne: This is the July 19th, 2021. We are now resuming when Jackie is about 22. She graduated from Laramie in June 1953 and drove home with her father in a pickup. A wet spring and it was very beautiful. Am I right, Jackie? Is that where we were?

Jackie: Yes. It was very beautiful. And prince’s plume flowers were blooming along the road, and it had been a really wet spring. And my dad and I had a wonderful, not forced, conversation. Just very, very comfortable and casual, and that didn't happen very often. He was really busy and I thought I was too  smart.

Anne: [chuckles] So, and you just talking about whatever you saw or whatever you were thinking.

Jackie: Yeah, yeah. And people that we knew. And he wanted to know about some of the people that I'd always written about and talked about, and he met some of them and he was pleased to do that.

Anne: When he was at the graduation, he met some of them?

Jackie: Yeah, yeah.

Anne: And I asked you earlier, I think, a little more about your mother. I remember you said she usually drove quite a snazzy car.

Jackie: Oh, it wasn't really snazzy. It was a Thunderbird, a Ford Thunderbird. And we were a little presumptive if you drove one, but not big. And she was a really good driver. And my dad always said to her, “If it'll fit in the car, take it.” So she did.

Anne: Like, what does that mean?

Jackie: Oh, clothes or anything that she wanted that you thought you might need on a car trip. And she traveled a lot. She came to Casper. She was on the Paintbrush Garden Club, I think it was. Anyway, it was nationally registered garden club in Casper, and I don't know if they still have one or not. There's lots of good garden clubs.

Anne: And it was called “Paintbrush” because of the state flower?

Jackie: Oh yeah. I'm sure that it was the flower thing. And so she came to Casper a lot and sometimes, oh, a couple of times I came with her. Didn't go to the meetings, just drove up and down the streets.

Anne: And you were coming to Casper to look for work?

Jackie: No. Oh gosh, no. Not then.

Anne: I mean, after graduation.

Jackie: After I graduated from high school, my friend in the business department had planned to come to Casper and she said, “Why don't you get a job and we'll get an apartment. We'll do all this good stuff.” So she came earlier than I did. I came in September and she'd already found a basement apartment on Ash Street. I can't... 10-something on Ash. And so, we had a fun apartment, but the little boy upstairs kept coming downstairs and going through our stuff.

[Anne laughs]

So we found an apartment in the Mayflower Apartments, which is at 8th and Durbin. Big old building, and in 2000 and whatever this is, ‘21, there are still apartments in that building and people still living there. And she'd made some friends and knew some people from Laramie, and I knew some people from Laramie and they played a lot of bridge in that apartment. I didn't. And just Casper was a great place to be. It was so fun!

Anne: Yeah, I would think so.

Jackie: Yeah, in the mid-50s. Early ‘50s actually.

Anne: And what job had you found? Just for a segue. We'll go back to how it was  fun.

Jackie: You know, this is a strange thing to say, but I've never applied for a job I didn't get. So I went to Ohio Oil and they said, “Can you take shorthand?” And I said, “Yes.” “Can you type?” “Yes.” “How fast?” So I told them and they said, “Would you come to work on Monday?” So that was all there was to it.

Anne: Had you seen an ad or you just went to—

Jackie: No, I just went in. But everybody was looking for secretarial work, workers.

Anne: That's what I was thinking of when I said in the ‘50s. So, I'm trying to remember when the Stroocks got here, but they lived for a little while in a house on Ash. It's a white house that was a bed and breakfast in the ‘90s. But before that, was it an apartment house. Anyway, they lived there. 

Jackie: I didn't know that. 

Anne: And the reason I know it is because I was running a lecture series at the Casper College, UW Casper, and Tom [Stroock] was part of one of them. I would have dinners there for the speakers before we went. And because the people who ran it, she’s a really good cook. So he comes in the door and goes, “I used to live here.” So, did you meet people like the Stroocks? I guess they'd be a little older.

Jackie: Not then, but after we got married. Somehow... I think it was Bill Mueller. Do you remember Bill Mueller? He had Judd Tire Shop.

Anne: Oh yeah. Right.

Jackie: And Bill and Nona and some of their “intellectual friends,” and somehow we got included with them. And so we were the very youngest end of that group. And that was such a privilege to know people like Tom and Marta, especially, and Bill and Nona. And, oh my gosh, Kathy... doesn't make any difference. Anyway, we were included and we had a, I don't know, by 1964, we had a nice house that we could entertain in. So it was... it was really a privilege. And now to think that some of their kids' friends are really good friends, like Sandy is a good friend, Sandy Stroock. And so, it's a privilege.

Anne: Yeah, I agree. It's a great group. Well, so to back up sort of before then. And before you got married, it was fun. Both of you guys, you and your roommate, met people and...

Jackie: Yeah. And she was sort of engaged to a guy in Sundance and so she was not out as much, but there were just fun people. And then, Pink and I both, we sort of re-met at a thing called the Antonian Club, and it was all, not all, a bunch of young Catholic singles. So it was a blast. People were wonderful.

Anne: It was run by the church, or what was it?

Jackie: No, I mean, it was sort of sponsored by the church. But we had our own officers and planned programs and had dances.

Anne: Oh, how fun.

Jackie: Yeah. And lots of marriages came out of that thing. 

[both chuckle]

Anne: And what space were you in?

Jackie: Oh, a lot of times we were in the basement at St. Anthony's, but we went out places.

Anne: Tell me the name of the club.

Jackie: Antonians. St. Anthony's Church's church, which I think that was the only Catholic church in Casper, or maybe Fatima’s was just getting started. And so, Jack and Pat Kelleher’s trip when he got married. And Don Bosco and his wife Judy and her sister, somebody. [laughs] And so, it was a matchmaking thing, and I think maybe it was sort of deliberate.

Anne: [laughs] And so that's where you really sort of meet up again.

Jackie: Yeah, we started to go together there.

Anne: So, you're doing all that and you're still working for Ohio Oil?

Jackie: Mm-hmm.

Anne: I always had the impression that, after the war and therefore into the ‘50s, there were new people coming through town due to the oil industry more than anything else.

Jackie: Oh, yeah. And you remember the story about the Life magazine where they had all of the eligible bachelors in Casper?

Anne: I think I heard that once, but go ahead. Tell me that again.

Jackie: Life magazine sent a photographer and they gathered up all the eligible bachelors in town, and I think the pictures from down at The Cheese Barrel... It was what? I don't know what it was called then. Blue somebody [Blue Bird Grocery]. So anyway, when you see the cover on that magazine—and it's a Life magazine. It's available someplace—and so here were all of these handsome men. And of course, then the good publicity brought great girls.

Anne: [chuckles] You were already here though.

Jackie: Yes. I think I was.

Anne: So it might have been ‘54 or ‘55 when this happened, this cover?

Jackie: ‘54.

Anne: So, Pink must have been in the photo?

Jackie: No, he wasn't. He was probably at the ranch. [laughs] I don't know where he was. But a lot of guys like Bill Barnard and Bob Pettigrew and...

Anne: Do you know how Life chose Casper?

Jackie: Oh, I think that just like the boom that you asked about. You know, it was the boom and here were all these single guys, and a lot of 'em back from the war and their first jobs.

Anne: And a lot of them had come from someplace else.

Jackie: Oh, yeah!

Anne: Like Tom from Yale and all over the place to work for the oil companies.

Jackie: I think Tom was already married.

Anne: Yes. He came married, he said. And Marta said she could live any place for a year. I can see that would've been a really fun time.

Jackie: It was. And then I knew some of the people from Rawlins who still worked for the Union Pacific. But they used to ski at Ryan Park, which is between Laramie and Rawlins. And so those guys, we would go there to ski. And so I knew them too, a lot of the railroaders, the young ones. So anyway, on April Fool's day one year I broke my ankle and had it fixed in Saratoga and ended up on crutches for a while. And Pink says that that slowed me down so that he and I could date. 

Anne: Was he there when you broke your ankle?

Jackie: No. No. It was the guys from Rawlins, and the ladies that I worked with at Marathon or after, we used to go together to Rawlins or to... wherever we went.

Anne: Ryan Park.

Jackie: Thank you. Anyway, so it was fun. And, it was just it was a nice world.

Anne: Yeah. It sounds like a wonderful place to come after college.

Jackie: It was.

Anne: But still in Wyoming. It's not like you had to go to Denver.

Jackie: Oh, so true.

Anne: And so, but then Pink was from a ranching family, on the ranch a lot. How was it for him to sort of meet all these people? Was it exciting for him too, to have people...

Jackie: I dunno. You have to ask him.

Anne: I will have to ask him. Yeah.

Jackie: ‘Cause I had lots of nice young lady friends who almost all worked for oil companies and some of us belonged to—Oh my goodness. What was it? Some kind of a club. But we went out in the field and learned all about oil and shale and...

Anne: So they wanted you to know this?

Jackie: And girls to the left and guys to the right. We were not really pushed to do it, but encouraged to belong to this club.

Anne: I see. Where you could learn things.

Jackie: And, but it was all, I don't know, I just... another place to meet nice people, I guess. Lucky, because it wasn't deliberate for that.

Anne: Yeah. But also if you learn something about the business that you were being a secretary, and that's always helpful.

Jackie: Yeah.

Anne: And so were most of the girls also from far away, or mostly from Wyoming?

Jackie: Well, most of the ones I knew were from Wyoming.

Anne: Yeah, I would think that would be how it would be because they'd come to Casper for work, but people wouldn't come from five states away for work, except the guys who were working for the company—

Jackie: Oh, I don't know [laughs]

Anne: geology, still. Did they?

Jackie: I don't know.

[Anne chuckles]

Jackie: And one of the interesting things that I thought was that this was like the division, not the head thing.

Anne: Right. Not the headquarters.

Jackie: Not the headquarters. So we were upstairs over the... it was a hardware store, I think, and in the same bunch of buildings on as the...  oh gosh, tell me the big bar that everybody wanted to go to?

Anne: Wonder Bar.

Jackie: Wonder Bar! To the Wonder Bar. And Pink's dad and the old country Irishman, always used to meet down by the bars on that same side of the street. And I was warned, “Don't cross the street. Don't walk up and down that side. [chuckles] Don't walk off of Center Street. 

Anne: Because they were drinking so hard or because they would think—

Jackie: It was wild. The bars, the doors were open and you could smell all the booze and Pink's dad and his friends would just kind of go lean on the trucks and lean on the parking meters and just watch the world go by when they were in town.

Anne: Now this is different from like the Sandbar, which was more—

Jackie: Oh, yeah. Not like the Sandbar at all.

Anne: This is more respectable folk, but drinking pretty hard?

Jackie: Oh no, no, no! I don't think they were drinking hard.

Anne: Okay. Just hanging out.

Jackie: Yeah. I just think the bars were on that side of the street. And there wasn't anything really productive, I think, except the hardware store.

[both chuckle]

Anne: And your office is upstairs?

Jackie: Yes.

Anne: Ohio Oil.

Jackie: Yes.

Anne: It didn't become Marathon until much later or during then? I can look that up.

Jackie: ‘Cause I was gone then.

Anne: So, for you, I mean, growing up, I know you, particularly in the gas station, you knew ranch people from the Green River who came down there, but still to be hanging out and possibly marrying into a ranch family must have felt like sort of a new thing.

Jackie: Not really.

Anne: It didn't. Okay.

Jackie: Because the people, we called 'em from “Out South,” south of Green River and Rock Springs. They were all friends and we did things together. We'd go out and not really help a lot, but be there. And my mother always took good stuff to eat. So it was not a new world a lot. 

Anne: Yeah. And so, let's see. So we were talking about the Stroocks and that group taking you on after you were married, and we've talked about you getting slowed down enough to actually hang out with him after you broke your ankle. But so, when did this proposal and actually decide to get married happen? And how was that for you? 

Jackie: It was fun. [laughs] And I think we really liked each other and have grown to like each other way more than that.

Anne: [chuckles] That's very nice.

Jackie: And so we knew we wanted to get married. And so we had to kind of rush things because Catholics can't get married during Lent. 

Anne: Oh, I didn't know that.

Jackie: So we got married as late as we could [laughs] in February and Lent started, I think, the week after.

Anne: And so, if your ankle slowed you down from April's Fool's Day—

Jackie: That was the year before.

Anne: —it must been the year before. So that gave you guys eight, nine months to decide to get married and get married.

Jackie: I guess. And have my mother make all the plans [laughter] and get acquainted with Pink's family 'cause he was gone a lot. I don't know if you know about ranchers, but anyway, when Pink's dad was alive, they went to the country for the week and came in for the weekend.

Anne: Yes, I bet.

Jackie: And so Pink was gone a lot. And then, I didn't know his dad very well 'cause he was gone a lot. And then, after that, we just decided we were gonna get married. And we didn't talk about finances. We didn't talk about kids.

Anne: Yeah. And you were, by then, is it 1955 maybe?

Jackie: Yeah. So I was 25 or 26. I would be 26 I think.

Anne: Yeah. So it was February-something.

Jackie: February 5th, 1955.

Anne: Did you get married in St. Anthony’s?

Jackie: No, we got married at Immaculate Conception in Green River.

Anne: Oh, nice. 'Cause your family was there.

Jackie: Yeah. And it had been my church. And then, I don't know if it was about the end of the weddings in that church and they built a new one, which is lovely. One of the best stories of the wedding is that my mother hired the photographer and the photographer came and took pictures of the wedding. And he'd already taken one for the newspaper. But he got drunk and he never printed the pictures. And when he was going out of business in Green River, my mother went down and went through his files and found the  negatives. And the only way we had wedding pictures, Pink's sister Ruth was a great photographer, but the ones that she was in as the maid of honor were... [laughs]

Anne: That's great your mom was on the case to get those photos.

Jackie: And then Pink's dad was killed in September of 1955.

Anne: Oh, this is with the train, right?

Jackie: Yeah. And one of the things I didn't know until we were talking with our kids about it the other day, that they put Pink, who was injured, on the train that hit his dad, that hit him and his dad. And I didn't know that until the other day. 

Anne: And that train, was it headed east already, or...

Jackie: No, it  must have come back. Yeah, it must have been headed east. And it was a...oh, this is too, too long. I was pregnant and we lived on Park Street near the commissary. You remember the commissary?

Anne: Yes.

Jackie: Yeah. And so, it was a real thunder and lightning, stormy September day. And so I'd walk to the store, just getting ready for dinner and stuff, I guess, and came home in the rain and somebody knocked on our downstairs door, and it was a little Irish lady in a black dress. And she said, “I don't know who's dead, but come with me to the hospital.”  And that's how I found out. [Jackie pauses] So, anyway, and it was so hard on Pink's mother.

Anne: Oh god. Gosh.

Jackie: She was wonderful. Really good friend. 

Anne: How old was his father? In his sixties?

Jackie: I think he was 62, but, yeah, I think so.

Anne: So she was about that age too.

Jackie: She was so funny. She finally admitted that she was older than she was, and so she was the same as the year, so she was born in 1900.

Anne: Oh, so she was only 55.

Jackie: Yeah. 

Anne: And how pregnant were you?

Jackie: About six months. Really fast. [laughs]

Anne: Yeah. But it didn't do you in with any kind of trouble?

Jackie: No, no. And my mother came and stayed for a while.

Anne: She came right then after the accident?

Jackie: Yeah. Somebody called her, or I must have. And to call from the hospital, you had to have a dime for the phone. I didn't have any money.

Anne: Yeah, sure 'cause you just had come over.

Jackie: And one of the doctors gave me a dime to call.

Anne: And was Pink in the hospital for quite a while?

Jackie: He was in a coma for about 10 days. He had a broken neck.

Anne: Oh, scary. 

Jackie: And all the little old Irishmen, most of them were related as brother-in-laws or something, were volunteering to take over the ranch. And Pink's mom went to bed for two or three days and then she gathered together her Irish verve and she said, “Frank, Frankie, and I will run the ranch. We don't need you.”

Anne: Right. Wow.

Jackie: Yeah. And some of 'em still didn't give up.

Anne: And he was probably still in a coma when she had to say that. How scary for you to have him in a coma like that.

Jackie: I think that I must have been in shock too. But I've always just had an attitude, you know? You can do it. My mother always said, “You can cry after.” And then she said, “When it's over, you don't need to.”

Anne: So that you never collapse.

Jackie: So, anyway.

Anne: So, he came to eventually in the hospital. Was there any thought of shipping him to Denver or anything like that?

Jackie: Oh, no. Dr. Stuckenhoff, he’d been a family friend and a family doctor. And  I said to him, “Don't tell him yet.” He says, “You've gotta know sometime.” And he went right in and he says, “Your dad was killed.”

Anne: This is soon after he came outta the coma?

Jackie: Yeah, a couple weeks after he was in the hospital. That probably was the best way.

Anne: Rather than have him...

Jackie: Yeah. People were so beautiful. The men from the Knights of Columbus of the church, they would come and stay all night with him. And he said to Wilbur Longbrake, he said, “I really like your tie.” And Wilbur took it off and hung it on the bed, and it was there until Pink went home.

Anne: So it wasn't everybody wanting to take over the ranch. There were also people—

Jackie: Just the Irish.

Anne: —who were really generous.

Jackie: Just the Irish. [wry laugh] The relatives. And when you talk to [Pinky], you'll find out about all these guys who came and the sisters who came and married somebody else and...

Anne: Yeah. As I said, that was my goal, was to hear about the Irish. So he came to and then was still in the hospital for a couple weeks more?

Jackie: No, I think that it was like at the end of two weeks total.

Anne: Wow. So if they had him on an IV and maybe some—

Jackie: Oh no, they didn't do that kind of stuff.

Anne: So they just waited.

Jackie: I think so. He was just in that bed. I can see the funny striped pajamas. [chuckles]

Anne: Oh, so you must have been there a lot too.

Jackie: Also, those are the kind of things that I must have shut out of my mind. I don't remember. And then he was well enough in November, so that he was doing the ranch stuff, and his sister took me to the hospital—

Anne: To have the baby.

Jackie: —to have Sean, so. 

Anne: And was he out for another few days or did he get to come in and see Sean?

Jackie: I don't know. And one of my friends from Kaycee—she's my college roommate—had her baby the same day, and she did not make it to the hospital. And so, she and I could not see each other because I was sterile and she wasn't. [chuckles] 

Anne: And so did they grow up a lot together? 

Jackie: Not at all.

Anne: Because Kaycee was too far away. But at least Pink was functioning again by November. 

Jackie: The Ellis family had a house in town and the men would go, or whoever was dealing with the ranch would go out. 

Anne: So it was never living on a ranch?

Jackie: No. And very basic sheep wagons. No place in the country.

Anne: Yeah. So you had Sean. How was he baby-wise? Was he relatively easy or not so easy to take care of?

Jackie: He was pretty skinny. [laughs] So, Bob Fowler was the pediatrician. Bob was just so good and he was worried about this scrawny kid and he started him on rice or something. Anyway, we had good advice.

Anne: And were they encouraging breastfeeding at that time?

Jackie: Yeah, except that I wasn't all that great. [laughs] 

Anne: It's not an easy thing to do.

Jackie: No. [chuckling] Well, you either got it or you don't, I guess. But he just grew and did well and walked when he was nine months old and Bob said, “Don't embarrass me.” He says, “Don't walk him in here.”

[laughter]

Anne: It's 'cause of all that great rice that he fed him.

Jackie: Yeah, I think so.

Anne: So, and then you had another. I don't even know how many kids you had.

Jackie: Yeah, we have three. Brendan and Sean are three years and three days apart.

Anne: So you had a three year break. That's a good thing.

Jackie: Sort of. [chuckles] And, when I was pregnant, girls didn't work that long. So, I think I probably worked six or seven months with—

Anne: When you were pregnant with Sean?

Jackie: Yeah. Then I didn't go back to work.

Anne: But sounds like you had friends, not only the one in Kaycee, but probably others who were having kids. So you guys were all contemporaries.

Jackie: Yeah. In fact, there are a couple other kids that were born the same day. Dan O'Brien, I think, was born the same day. And Jeff, whose mom and dad I've known forever. And so, there were lots of kids born on 11/11/55. [chuckles]

Anne: And so, what did you guys do? I mean, I found that having a one and a half and a 2-year-old, that sort of whole period, it can be pretty lonesome 'cause you don't, and Pink was out on the ranch—

Jackie: A lot.

Anne: —and it's hard work keeping a little guy like that going. So did you guys get together a lot, your friends who had kids the same age, or what'd you do?

Jackie: We spent a lot of time with Pink's family. His mom... I can't describe how she was. She was never a busy body. She was never telling me, or us, what to do and yet, if we needed anything or if we needed a sitter, whatever, she was there. She was such a good friend.

Anne: Oh, that's wonderful. Not an easy thing to have happen. I mean, both of you must have wanted to make that work, you and she.

Jackie: Yeah. I think so.

Anne:  But sounds like she was quite a person.

Jackie: Oh, she was. She was very practical. And, oh, she was a great saver of things. She was a money saver. And she was a fabric saver, and she was just a really practical person.

Anne: So, she'd be there a lot with you and Sean when he was little.

Jackie: But she didn't drive. She took lessons once. That was enough. [chuckles]

Anne: But why didn't she drive?

Jackie: Well, she’d not driven at home. She had a great story with the Irish and the IRA and all that kind of crap. So, they only had one vehicle and so if that vehicle was in the country—

Anne: Right. There wasn't a vehicle to go.

Jackie: And they lived on Milton, Ninth, yeah, on Milton, and everything was right there. She walked to the store.

Anne: Which store?

Jackie: Well, I think the commissary was part...

Anne: So, is the commissary where the “Commissary Mall” is?

Jackie: Yeah, yeah.

Anne: Okay. Had it been a military commissary, or why was it called a commissary?

Jackie: No, I don't think so. I think that was just a nice name.

Anne: Oh, I see. Okay. So it was a grocery store?

Jackie: Oh, yeah. It was an everything. Like a general store, except fancier.

Anne: Really? Fancier. Like just higher quality stuff?

Jackie: Oh my gosh! Don't you remember those things where they had the vacuum deal and you put your money in the vacuum thing and they pulled the chain and [makes shooshing sound] it up the stairs, upstairs, and made your change and sent it down? 

[chuckles]

Anne: I've seen that in another place—

Jackie: In a movie.

Anne: —but it wasn't here. No, there was a restaurant in Louisville when I grew up that did that. It was great.

Jackie: And she paid her bills, I think, probably in cash. And went to every one of them. They all knew her, 'cause she did that.

Anne: So, she didn't need a car really.

Jackie: No.

Anne: And her kids, of course, were grown, but when she was living, when they were growing up, they must've gone to nearby schools, so she didn't worry about that either.

Jackie: Yeah. The kids who went to St. Anthony's and NC, [Natrona County High School] so they're right there.

Anne: Was it a truck or a car that they had?

Jackie: A truck. But then they had a car. And I don't... I don't think... they may had two. They must have had, 'cause they had to have a truck. So at some point, so maybe by the time Ruth and Pink were driving, they got the car. It's strange how little I know. [laughs]

Anne: Well, I mean, you didn't need to remember it at the time. It was just true.

Jackie: And didn't question. Don't you wish that you'd asked questions, different questions of people? 

Anne: And did you guys try to put together a little nursery school or anything like that?

Jackie: Well, our kids all went to Mrs. Henthorn’s. And Sean's best, one of his best friends is still Charlie Chapin, who was his buddy at Mrs. Henthorn's.

Anne: And was that just in her house or did she have a—

Jackie: She had a yard, and it was in a house on Oak Street.

Anne: And so, she ran, I mean, for like starting at two or when do you think?

Jackie: I don't know. We didn't go at one, maybe two, maybe three. I can't remember.

Anne: Were there kindergartens?

Jackie: They didn't have kindergarten at St. Anthony's. We still lived on Hanway, and so he went to Southridge [Elementary School].

Anne:  So you, when first you were living someplace else, where were you living?

Jackie: Park. So he was about two and starting to get into things. And our landlord and landlady loved him, and it was the hardest thing to do was to move and take him away from it. But they were just, they were so beautiful and he was just getting pretty active.

Anne: And that's when you moved to Hanway?

Jackie: Mm-hmm. 

Anne: Okay. So then, St. Anthony's didn't have a kindergarten. So where did you send him to?

Jackie: To Southridge.

Anne: Oh, right, okay. I can see that. Yeah. And then to St. Anthony's, or not?

Jackie: Yeah.

Anne: So did that happen with your other kids, too? With Brendan?

Jackie: No, because by the time Brendan was ready, we'd built our house on Bonnie Brae.

Anne: Oh. So then,  yeah. So that would've been if, he was three years after Sean, so he was born in ’58.

Jackie: ‘58, yeah. 11/8/58.

Anne: And then by the time he was ready...

Jackie: But they still didn't have a kindergarten at St. Anthony's. So he went to Jefferson [Elementary School]. And we had a memory kind of a thing. Donna DeVore died—and they were our back door neighbor when they lived on Divine—and we were laughing about how Brendan and their daughter Janice went off to kindergarten together hand in hand, and one of those tear jerking pictures, where you see the backs of 'em. [chuckles] That block, I think Pink said there were 50 some kids without crossing the street.

Anne: Oh, wow! On your Bonnie Brae. Bonnie Brae and what?

Jackie: It was 1010. So Divine. And then, 11th Street. It was a big block, but Schutzes were there and Butlers were there, and Berks had been there and somebody named Lommers, Louvers, Lou-somebody. And then, as Pink says, there were a couple of “dry” houses.

[laughter]

Anne: But there were still 50 kids.

Jackie: I think he can sit down and specify 'em. [chuckles]

Anne: That's wonderful. I mean, and for the kids, how great.

Jackie: It’s wonderful. And our kids, each one of them had one of the Schutz kids for a best friend.

Anne: I knew mothers who were crafty. They made crafts all the time. And others who'd made cookies all the time. I wasn't any of those things.

Jackie: Me either.

Anne: So what were you doing?

Jackie: What was I doing?

Anne: Yes. I mean, you had by now three kids, but...

Jackie: Yeah. Maura was born in June.

Anne: In June of?

Jackie: 6/1/61.

Anne: So I don't mean like, [stomps foot] “What were you doing!” I mean, what did you, I don't know. Were you reading to them? What kind of mother stuff were you doing? Like I say, I didn't do any craft stuff or cookies.

Jackie: I haven’t either. When we moved to that house, that house was a—There was a lot of upkeep.

Anne: You had it built for you?

Jackie: Uh-huh. Oh, we designed it and had it built and had that lot for a long time before.

Anne: So you'd bought it sometime with an eye on it for the someday building house on it?

Jackie: Yeah. That's one of Pink’s stories, I think. And Maura and Carolyn Stearns were best friends. And so, I think we just had kids and neighbors and—I'm not a real neighbor. I don't want people to come and drink coffee and, if they call and say, “Can I come?” and I say, “No.” [laughs] I've done that. So, and then when Maura started kindergarten, and she went to kindergarten at Jefferson, I started to substitute teach.

Anne: So you felt like you could 'cause the boys were already at St. Anthony's. Where'd you substitute teach?

Jackie: Oh, just at Kelly Walsh.

Anne: So your degree was in business, were you teaching that kind of stuff? 

Jackie: Well, I didn't have a certificate to teach at all so I went one semester—this is after I started substituting—I was able to take one semester through whatever the University of Wyoming thing was here, and so I did all my certification stuff and student taught in one semester. Pink said I was so fragile that he was afraid if he touched me, I'd shatter. [chuckles] I just tried to do too much. So I did that in a fall semester and they said, “You wanna teach here?” And I said, “Sure.” And I substituted almost no place else.

Anne: And what'd you start to teach?

Jackie: Well, I started out with speech classes. They had mandated sophomore speech.

Anne: Like debate and giving speeches?

Jackie: Well, not the debate stuff, but then public speaking was a lot of it. And then I tried to work with voice modulation, but that was... [laughs] I really had never practiced it. So anyway, but that's how I got started. And then the business classes.

Anne: Yeah. And had you ever had a speech class yourself?

Jackie: Oh, I'd taken 'em.

Anne: You had? At the university?

Jackie: Yeah.

Anne: Or in high school?

Jackie: Yeah, both.

Anne: Okay. I just thought maybe you had to make it up on the job.

Jackie: No. And the textbook was terrible. [chuckles]

Anne: So you did something else or added to it or something like that?

Jackie: Well, yeah. ‘Cause it—Everybody had a job. Every kid had to finish so many things.

Anne: So did you teach speech and business for a long time?

Jackie: I didn't teach hardly for speech for maybe two semesters. And then, I can't remember if somebody, a speech, business teacher left. I don't know how it all worked. But anyway, then I taught, my favorite class was one called “Money Management.” And the funny part of the money management thing is that they could teach it because that was a title. But they couldn't teach personal finance because that didn't fit the category. To me, there was no difference. But anyway, so we called it “Money Management,” and I loved it, and the kids liked it, and I always had full classes.

Anne: Oh, it's an incredibly valuable thing to learn.

Jackie: But now I wonder, could I do it? I would have to have learned all of these things progressively as they went along. How do you keep your checkbook on your computer? Or do you have a checkbook?

Anne: Do you at all? Did you teach that for a long time?

Jackie: 20-something years.

Anne: Really? Oh, I didn't realize that. Wow! That and other classes, but that was your favorite.

Jackie: Oh, yeah.

Anne: Yeah. Well, that's an incredibly full-time job to suddenly start teaching. You still had little kids.

Jackie: Yeah. When we were doing an interview for this ski history book, the Casper Mountain Ski history thing, and somebody asked me ‘did I ski’ and ‘did I go on the weekends’ or whatever, and I said, “No, that's when I stayed home and graded papers,” especially the English papers.

Anne: So, you also taught English?

Jackie: Oh, I did.

Anne: So business and English ultimately?

Jackie: If they needed somebody to teach sophomore stuff, they always laid it on me, which was “Get vindictive.”

Anne: [laughs] But you liked English. You told me about your English teacher.

Jackie: Oh yeah. And I loved research paper, teaching that. But those were the days when you had to check sources. And they had all those magazines in the library...

Anne: So, you had to check the sources?

Jackie: Well, the librarians were wonderful helpers too. And some of them now are my best friends. 

Anne: So, yeah, I mean, that's the other thing. It was hard work, but it got you out and met new people, all that kind of stuff.

Jackie: Yeah.

Anne: Pretty important. So, I remember you talked early on about leadership and not knowing you were a leader, but you've since felt that you are one and had become one. So how did that happen?

Jackie: Not worked at it.

Anne: But it became true, right?

Jackie: Yeah.

Anne: Yeah. So tell me about how that happened.

Jackie: I don't know. Just the...

Anne: What kinds of things did you get involved in, where you began, where, looking back, you feel like you were a leader?

Jackie: [chuckles] Well, I hate to say this, but I have been the president or the whatever of almost everything I've ever been in. And so I think part of it is because when you're new, they're gonna to use ya. You know that.

Anne: Yeah. Yeah.

Jackie: So things like, in college, I was always the Rush Chairman—

Anne: Ah, for the sorority.

Jackie: —'cause I could remember people's names. You know, I told you about my dad,  how that was an expectation. And, if anybody wanted to get in trouble, I could help him. But not bad trouble, just little cranky things. But you could always get somebody to follow. And I was president of the Casper Service League and been Treasurer of the [Wyoming] Historical Society.

Anne: But when did you get involved in those things, like the Service League? What did they do and when did you get involved in them?

Jackie: Well, I got into the Service League before I went and did my accreditation stuff.

Anne: So, while the kids were quite little.

Jackie: Yeah.

Anne: And what did the Service League do?

Jackie: We... [short laugh] It had a consignment shop. It's called The Glass House.

Anne: Yes. I feel like I've seen it.

Jackie: Used to be on First Street, but it was a lot of places. Two or three places, anyway. And so it was supposed to be, you're supposed to be somebody special in the society if you belong to Service League. It sort of like Junior League in...

Anne: So it was like that.

Jackie: Mm-hmm.

Anne: And you were at the consignment shop raising money to do some good deed?

Jackie: Oh, we did lots of good deeds. We just provided all kinds of things. And some of them were, took money, and a lot of 'em just took service. We had, I forget what they called it at St. Mark's, and had lunch at least once a month for little ladies and we drove and picked 'em up and took 'em home. Learned other people's good recipes.

Anne: So these would be older ladies?

Jackie: Most of them. Or a little handicapped.

Anne: So, maybe not in the same social level somehow.

Jackie: Oh no. And it's so nice to see what turns people on. And sometimes it would be what we served. Sometimes it would be, like the lady who had the bakery down on, I think on Fifth Street, and if you had your kids with you, she'd invite the kids into the bakery and give 'em a cookie, and the smile as she gave with those cookies was so special. And so they were—It was a wonderful experience, and to get to know different people.

Anne: And you said you were president or treasurer or what?

Jackie: Oh, I was President of Service League. And every two or three years, we had a big cabaret and a director would come from New York. We'd have money to pay the director, and he'd always have a song and dance thing. The year I was president, it was a cabaret year. Ahhh... I did not realize what women were like. I thought, “I'll solve this. I'll have two chairmen. I'll have one for the cabaret, for the dance and all that kind of stuff, and I'll have one for all the other stuff that goes with it.” Those two fought!  Oh, I thought I was gonna solve the problem. [laughs] Anyway, it was fun. And people got to know each other, and the husbands were involved with the songs and the dances, and you found out so much about talent that people had. And they didn't know they had, some of 'em.

Anne: How about you and Pink? Did you have talents you didn't know?

Jackie: Pinky did. I didn't. I was sort of trying to placate and... [chuckles]

Anne: Keep it all happening. And what was the talent that he found?

Jackie: Oh, he was just like in a couple acts and they had sort of slap-sticky stuff. And they had some really good dance numbers.

Anne: And did that kinda stuff by the Service League go on all through, say, the ‘70s or so?

Jackie: Oh, yeah! And when we moved—I hate myself—I threw away the programs.

Anne: Ah, when you moved here?

Jackie: Uh-huh.

Anne: Yeah, they should be in the Casper College archives. 

Jackie: It was before the archives.

Anne: Well, when you say all that, it reminds me of when Pete and Lynne Simpson lived here in the ‘70s and she would put on plays involving the whole community. Did that ever...?

Jackie: Who was it?

Anne: Lynne Simpson. Pete Simpson's wife.

Jackie: Oh God. Yeah, Lynne's a good friend. Anyway, yeah. And she has so much talent, but they weren't here very long.

Anne: No, but she told me about when she put on Oliver involving the kids at the orphanage. Do you remember that?

Jackie: No.

Anne: She said that she got kids, when it was still an orphanage, she got them to be in the show as well as other kids as well as adults from all over town.

Jackie: Oh, I don't know that.

Anne: And it really integrated, I mean, it sounded to me that it just made the whole community know. ‘75, ‘76, ‘77, somewhere in there.

Jackie: Yeah. And see I don't remember their kids here.

Anne: I don't think I...

Jackie: Maggie.

Anne: I bet the kids were not there 'cause they're, well, maybe I'm wrong. Anyway. So, but yes, she put on other theater stuff when they were here. And did you all get involved in those?

Jackie: No.

Anne: But you got to know her?

Jackie: Oh, I've known her—I've known Pete for, oh my god, 50, 60, 70 years. Knew him in college. And then, Ann Simpson has been one of my good friends for 70 years, 60 years, something. We've traveled together.

Anne: I know her sister Nan.

Jackie: Oh, do you know Nan?

Anne: Yeah. Because one of my best friends lives across the street from her now in Sheridan—

Jackie: Oh, In that wonderful little house!

Anne: Wonderful neighborhood. Anyway, so I've seen Nan now off and on.

Jackie: That's one of our first out-of-town things is to go see Nan. And we have a couple of friends who have lived in Roswell, New Mexico, for a while, and their kids have brought them back to Sheridan.

Anne: And they're living there?

Jackie: Just this month. So, we need to go see them. But I haven't talked to Nan. Talked to Ann infrequently, but often enough so we know who we are. We used to have a lot of fun, six or seven or eight of us girls and somebody would organize a trip. So, once we went to the TE and we didn't... what's the name of their ranch? Anyway, the Simpsons. And so once we went there, and we've been to Phoenix a couple of times, and we've been to Pinedale and we've been to Ithaca, New York, and New York City and—

Anne: Oh, because you told me some of these, like you said, one of them invited you to something and it turned out to be in Ithaca, not here. Anyways, the same group of people that you knew.

Jackie: Yeah. We've been friends for a long, long time. Had some widows and some of our friends are gone. And some of 'em have had sad, sad things that you find out way later.

Anne: So, yeah, you kept up with all kinds of people. You had wonderful groups of friends for a long time.

Jackie: Yes. And that's one of the things that people compliment me on is that I really work hard at keeping us together and keeping writing. And when we went to Bondurant, to our Ithaca friend's party, her daughter is a friend of our daughter and they each have separate groups and kind of an overlapping Venn diagram kind of a thing of others, but because they wanna be like we are. It's a real compliment.

Anne: That's great. And it makes such a difference. Like you say, people have hard things happen and it's important to have a group of friends.

Jackie: And my mother was like that. She wrote letters and notes, kept in contact with lots of different people. Lots of different kinds of people.

Anne: It's important. I don't think it's only women that do that, but an awful lot it seems like the women help hold those kinds of things more.

Jackie: Yes. And I think they share better than men do. I don't know. My dad had men friends, but I don't know that he ever confided in anybody or anything.

Anne: Right. Do you think he confided in your mom? 

Jackie: Oh, I think they made decisions together. But I don't think that he probably told her everything, that he was... I don't know. What would he tell her? [laughs] I don't know. Yeah. They were great together.

Anne: So your kids were at St. Anthony's and then KW or NC?

Jackie: NC.

Anne: And even though you were teaching at KW?

Jackie: I didn't want to know what my kids were doing. And I didn't want anybody squealing on 'em. And I also knew that some of the classes were better at NC at that time, and so I was glad that they were there. Maura took a drafting class, and she couldn't have done that at Kelly Walsh. So, anyway. They did well.

Anne: And did they all go to UW?

Jackie: No, no. Brendan went to UW for a couple of years and he didn't like his major and so he came and worked on the ranch for a couple of  years, and Sean went to Creighton for eight years. And Maura went to UW for two years, I don't think the three, and then she went to Colorado Institute of Art in drafting.

Anne: And what does she do? What did the drafting lead to?

Jackie: When she went to Colorado Institute of Art, she took design.  And so she did a lot of that. And then she went to work for some kind of a drafting company and design thing and she liked it, and the people were great. And she got that job because she knew how to sail. [laughs] She said it was a wonderful conversation: “And mentioned sailing, and he says, ‘We'll talk about that.’” And so she worked for this company called Clip and Associates or something, and they did sail.

Anne: Well, so how did she learn to sail? On Alcova?

Jackie: Yeah, we had a little boat and then they got bigger boats with other friends.

Anne: Yeah. So now, did you and Pink, did either of how to sail before you got a boat?

Jackie: Oh, we were terrible. [laughs] We wanted to learn but we didn't. But the kids had a wonderful time. We had a little Sunfish. It's kind of a pontoony thing, and so that's where they started out. And Brendan got so good that he was off and on call when they had the big contests.

Anne: He was on call to for rescue or something, or what?

Jackie: To be a sailor on somebody's boat. 

Anne: You used to go out to Alcova a lot, it sounds like?

Jackie: Uh... [chuckles] Pink was there a lot.

Anne: Yeah, right. So, what did you do with the kids in the summer when Pink was not around? Or were they on the ranch, the kids as well?

Jackie: Sean has this story about how all of his friends went to tennis camp and he went to sheep camp.

[Anne chuckles]

Jackie: So, when they were little, little, they didn't go to the country. But as soon as they were house trained, he stuck 'em in the truck—and it was before car seats—and they just went to the country with him and, yeah.

Anne: So you were here by yourself?

Jackie: Well, not really. I mean, he would never take 'em for—I guess the boys, when they got older went, and they all went on the trail. Maura went on the trail, and she was about 13, I guess, or 14.

Anne: And did you do that?

Jackie: No.

Anne: No?

Jackie: No. And when my sister-in-law Sally went on the trail, I thought, “I must have missed all that.” But he never asked me. Never needed me.

Anne: So it doesn't seem to me like you felt like you had a ranch life. You weren’t a rancher, really, yourself?

Jackie: Not really. No. And yet I loved it when we went to the country and I always cooked and I was a great sheep docker, except I was the brander. 

Anne: So, you did go for things like that?

Jackie: Oh yeah. I liked it when I did. Just run a house and...

Anne: Teach. Run a house, teach, help out occasionally at the ranch. It's a lot.

Jackie: Yeah.

Anne: When did you get involved in the Historical Society?

Jackie: Pink’s always loved history. And my parents were great history buffs, especially my dad from the LDS side in the Salt Lake area, and it was just family stuff that he was interested in. But they loved the history around Green River and Rock Springs and belonged to the Historical Society. And so then they got us involved in the Historical Society. We started with them and we went all the way across Wyoming, hittin’ all of the historic things in southern Wyoming. The Historical Society treks. And it was fun. It was fun to be together.

Anne: Yeah. Because this was with your parents. And would you take the kids along?

Jackie: Not very often. They probably stayed with Mom, Pink’s mom. [chuckles] But just be like a weekend thing.

Anne: So, you were on treks, but you became, what'd you say? Treasurer? President?

Jackie: Oh, I've been, yeah, all those committee things. Been an officer and organized, oh my God. We've organized Oregon, California Trails, two national conventions. And so that was always a challenge, and then attended a lot of those. And Pink was on the National OCTA Board for a long time. So that was... just grows on you.

Anne: Yeah. So, you retired [from teaching]. Did you miss it when you retired?

Jackie: It was a strange, strange thing. I did not realize—and it wasn't diagnosed for a long time—I have seasonal affective disorder. And I would go to work when it was dark and I would come home and it was dark and I had heart palpitations and I had all kinds of strange things and my internist didn't recognize what it was, and I just couldn't handle it. I was exhausted. And so I quit a semester. And the interesting thing was that none of the administration was interested enough to make sure that I tried to find something, what was the reason? Didn't have any interviews. Didn't have any anything. And so, I quit at semester, and it was maybe two years later that the medical diagnosis was.

Anne: But, by then, you'd had a chance to be out during the light.

Jackie: Oh, yeah.

Anne: Were you feeling better as a result? 'Cause you had more sunlight and more...

Jackie: I don't know. I know that I didn't have a lot of energy. I didn't have a lot of dynamism, which was wrong. Just wasn't. So anyway, after a lot of reading and research and my doctor was doing the same thing. She was questioning. And so, anyway, that's that.

Anne: Yeah. And did you feel like were better?

Jackie: I don't know. I'm pretty unconscious. Have you noticed?

[laughter]

Jackie: But I think that the tipping point was when they gave me a sophomore English class that had 22 boys in it.

Anne: [chuckles] Any girls at all?

Jackie: I think I had two named Debbie.

Anne: After that semester, is when you quit?

Jackie: That's when I quit.

[Anne chuckles]

Jackie: Yeah, and I think that just must have been the [makes clicking sound] “Gotcha.” And I just stayed another couple of years. I loved it.

Anne: Except for that semester.

Jackie: That last semester. I love the kids.

Anne: Do you see a lot of the students around?

Jackie: Oh, yes. [giggles] Lots of 'em.

Anne: Yes, you must.

Jackie: And they still recognize me, which pleases me.

Anne: Yes, I would think so.

Jackie: And not too long ago, I had this lady in the grocery store, and she came up to me and she said, “Did you used to be Mrs. Ellis?”

[Anne laughs]

Jackie: And I said, “Oh, I still am!”

[laughter]

Anne: That's funny.

Jackie: But yeah, it's fun. And somebody at one of the funeral reception things that we've been to recently, came and she said, “Did you teach at East?” And I said, “No.” She said, “I remember you! You taught at Kelly Walsh, and you stood in the hall.” You know, you have to stand in the hall as the passing classes. “And you stood in the hall.” So she remembered me for that.

Anne: [chuckles] Well, it seems to me like you've had this wonderful network of people one way or the other, really, all your life.

Jackie: I really like people. And one of the things that I always try to do is, if you see somebody who's sitting alone, you can go and just sit with them and visit and the next thing  they know somebody you know. The last time we went to University of Wyoming rodeo thing, and so we sat with these people, and then somebody we knew came and sat with us. Well, the two women didn't know each other, but they both own Arabian horses. What a conversation. And I felt left out.

Anne: [chuckles] But you learned something about Arabian horses.

Jackie: A lot. A lot. And I think, if I weren't 90 years old, all the stuff I would've missed. So much to learn.

Anne: Yes. Always. So, since you retired, so that's about 23 years—

Jackie: A long time.

Anne: —from 67 to 90. And so, you've been doing lots of Historical Society stuff.

Jackie: Lots of stuff, and lots of research and just there's always something to do. And I feel sorry for people who don't. And I found out during COVID how many precious friends we do have. Kept in contact. We'd call and say, “Meet me on the driveway.” 

Anne: You'd meet in cars or how?

Jackie: Oh, we'd just get out of the car, stand outside, not even that far apart. [shows width with hands]

Anne: So it does seem like, yeah, that you have quite a network and, like you say, since you like people, you meet them.

Jackie: People are really important and I can't stand to go to any place and if there's somebody there, I know I have to go talk to 'em. That's sort of pushy sometimes.

[laughter]

Anne: Well, I have to say, I'm sorry I haven't known you more sooner.

Jackie: That's the way I feel. I've always not always known who you are, and admired you.

Anne: Well, thank you. And you, too. Vice versa. But it's great to actually confer, so it's very nice.

Jackie: Well, I'm anxious. Now, it's my turn to interview you.

[laughter]

[End of Audio]