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Leata Wigg Pearson

Narrator

Virginia Hyvarinen and Susanna Frankel Interviewers

April 19, 1988

Duluth, Minnesota [Note: I had trouble distinguishing the voices of Virginia and Susanna, so speaker identifications may be inaccurate, also there are moments in the interview when all three spoke at the same time, and at those points the transcription is not strictly verbatim - Barb] LP: Which now, this is supposedly, this is before the McCarthy period, this is during World War II, this probably...

VH: During World War II.

LP: ...this is probably 19, when they came to my dad's house, this was probably 1943 or the fall of '42.

VH: What was the, we gotta get this on tape, okay. Is it the 19th today?

SF: Yeah.

VH: Are we on now, taping? This is April 19th, 1988, we are interviewing Leata Pearson, interviewees are Virginia Hyvarinen and Susanna Frankel.

SF: Give the address.

VH: The address is...

LP: 802 87th Avenue West.

VH: 802 87th Avenue West, Morgan Park.

LP: Okay, I have been the secretary of the Duluth branch of the American Youth Congress which was the big conglomerate youth organization, wasn't even considered, we never thought that radical. It had delegates, it was a congress so it was a delegate organization so that you had delegates from YW groups, from church groups, from unemployed, from unions, etc. I was a delegate from the Business Women's Group at the YW. And so you know you don't think, now there was left, I presume the YCL probably had delegates too, I can't remember now in Duluth, they probably did. Anyway, Glen has gone to the service, I mean he'd been, yeah, and so it has to be the winter probably of '42-'43 and I was living with my, I had gone back, Patricia was a baby, I'd gone back to live with

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my dad. And knock on the door and I go and here these guys come and they say they're from the FBI and they show me you know identification and so on, I can't imagine what you know...

VH: [Unclear] shakey...

LP: And they said well I understand that you were you know an officer whatever of the American Youth Congress, do you have your lists, membership lists and meeting notes and all this kind of stuff. That really blew my mind, now if they'd asked for the YCL I would have understood but when they asked me about the American Youth Congress I just couldn't figure it out, and I said oh who can save stuff like that, my husband went to the service, I got married and I got this or that, and I had to move to my...I mean ah who would save stuff like that, I threw it all out. So okay they finally left and of course they weren't gone 20 minutes and I was down, we still had a cold furnace and I just picked up all this stuff that I had and I burned it.

VH: Well what had happened before that would make you react like that?

LP: I don't know, people, there was, hey, I don't know, people were, during when those unions were organized, did Glen tell you about the meetings that they had of the one person and his union that was a, turned out to be an informant up at the St. James church and stuff.

VH: Yeah he told us [unclear]

LP: Yeah okay alright, there was and at the steel plant all the times they tried to organize and there was all of the people that then lost their jobs and never, were blackballed and never could get another job and all that, well okay. And so that, and you don't want then to have some names that then they're going to give a bad time to.

VH: Yeah, what instant would have been going on in 1943 did you ever just make the connection of black...

LP: I never made a connection except that it seemed odd. Later of course then they came again.

SF: Well that had to with the war and internal security and all that kind of stuff.

LP: I think, I personally think that there were groups way back then that were getting ready for the McCarthy era, I mean this didn't just come out of the blue you know.

VH: Yeah, it's something we'll have to check out.

SF: We were allies with Russia at the time so it kind of confuses me at 1943.

LP: But I don't think that everybody probably felt that way, I think there was a lot of differences of opinion and well, just like in more modern times the FBI has been into things they had no business into and not necessarily the, supposedly the government policy so anyway.

SF: Plus it was close enough to the '30s where plenty of activity had gone on in Duluth.

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LP: Yes, yes, yes, so why they wanted those names and things I, well I don’t' know.

VH: Do you know if they went to others? Anybody else that you were working with that they harassed?

LP: I don't know because so many people, you know when World War II came so many people then went and they were just completely scattered...

VH: Oh, it was a lot of movement, right.

LP: And lots of people you never saw again because they never came back to the same area. It was a terrific interruptions in all kinds of people’s lives and there was friends that you never saw again, all kinds of them.

VH: Well we probably should go back in the beginning, it's an interesting story to kind of set the focus here. I think we'd like to first have you tell a little bit about your own background, where your parents came from, you know what, what effect that might have been their politics or their beliefs on what you did, or if there was any, and just a little you know background of your [unclear]...

LP: My father and mother were surely not political, my mother was from a small German community, she wasn't born in Germany nor was her mother, it was her grandmother and grandfather, but it was a German community and the German Lutheran church that they went to had services, still had services even when we went back to visit, in German and in English so my father was, worked for, was a train dispatcher, started his father had been a telegrapher and was a agent and so on and worked in different places and he was actually born in St. Paul but spent most of his childhood in many different places but ended up with the most of it in Iowa. And then he came here for work and then went back, he had met her when he was agent in the little town she lived in and went back and then she came up here and, but she died when I was 15-1/2 and then my father's, didn't, though he was old-fashioned in many ways, however he didn't for those times feel that girls should just stay home and I got to go to college and took care of the home and the younger ones in the summer, but in the, and after a year or two of college I went down to the main U and of course in those days it was cheap.

VH: Right, big difference.

LP: Big difference. It was $20 a quarter...

VH: Right, right, for a mother...

LP: Yeah, and all, et cetera and that's where you, the University at that time was a marvelous place, there was a big progressive movement on campus and...

SF: When were you there then?

LP: I, let's see I graduated high school '35 and '35-36 I was at Duluth Junior College and then I was there '36-37, '37-38, '38-39.

SF: Exciting years.

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LP: Very exciting years and first I got into the Farmer Labor Club, back then, you know that's another thing that people are so different from now. Almost every organization had a women's branch and a youth branch, you know like the Farmer Labor and I think, I don't know if it was because you didn't vote until you were 21, although in the Junior Farmer Labor, or whatever they called it, I can't remember, there were people on up to 35, you know, they stayed quite a while, but they did then get people that weren't able to vote yet involved and then there was American Student Union, that was more left then and you got involved in that and there was constant things going on on campus and then finally I did when I was at the University, I joined the YCL and that was a growing busy organization. There were a lot of students from the east at that time at the University because in those days it was cheaper for those people from New York City, most of them were from New York City, to come to the University of Minnesota and pay out of state tuition than, and find cheap places to live, than it was to go to NYU.

VH: I suppose. [Unclear]

LP: And so there was a lot of people from the east that were at the main U at that time and everybody was, there were interesting things to be involved, everybody was working on, well we had parades, I remember a big parade down Hennepin Avenue on, against the Japanese on buying Lyle songs that you sang to the tune of I forget what anyway, don't wear anything Japanese, buy Lyle be in style, etc. etc.

VH: Oh right, yeah, don't buy silk buy Lyle, alright.

LP: And then there was all the activity around the Spanish Civil War and all the things on that, Benson was governor then cause he'd been elected in '36 and he was over on campus and we worked on his re-election down there, Glen did up here and there was, if there was somebody that was on strike and needed pickets hey us kids was over there, or we went door to door getting people to register, we did all, you know, everything and were, and very involved in the whole community and there was lots of, that was before everybody got so shook about being even near somebody like Clarence Hathaway and all that sort of thing, so that he would come to speak and you'd have the Minneapolis Auditorium full, full, thousands and thousands of people and then us kids from University usually then acted as ushers or something like that, they had us for the ushers etc. And it was just a completely different time, it just was a completely different time, it sure was.

SF: Were there a lot of Duluth people down there?

LP: No, I didn't, I knew, I don't remember but a very few Duluth people, there was a lot of people from the Twin Cities and then you know people from the east, I don't remember very many from Duluth. Red Azine, I don't know if you ever heard, I think he's, a lot of these people are gone, you know, I think he ended up in Chicago.

VH: What was his name?

LP: Red Azine. He had red hair.

SF: Interesting name though.

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LP: But there wasn't very many, no I don't recall many from Duluth no, and the, and they tried to get across that Hitler, you know the danger and the big thing was trying to get the popular front, get, and so you worked in all, had people in all the campus organizations trying to encourage that kind of thinking. That you know, it was, I suppose it was infiltrating in a way, but it was trying to get some of those kind of ideas across which were perfectly logical at the time, they made a lot of sense and then in the summer of '38 I even went to a YCL camp that was in, held at a, in New York in the Hudson River Valley at what was a Jewish fraternal camp and then they just rented part of it for two week period and there were kids from all over the, and there was all college kids from all over the country, and the reason I got to go is because my father worked for the railroad and I had a pass, I got to do a lot of these things because everybody was poor, nobody had a dime, nobody, you didn't have any money to raise so if you had a way, and nobody had cars, in those days, goodness knows nobody drove anyplace, but I had a pass...

SF: So you got to go.

LP: So I got to go..

SF: Yeah, that was nice.

LP: And that was, that was under, and it's hard to remember a lot of things, oh you know it was one of those deals where you went over everything from dialectical materialism and looking at history, Marx, Engels, you know all this kind of stuff and then more current things but actually the kind of things you remember now are some of the more personal things, really.

VH: Right, it was your youth, I mean...

LP: Yeah, you know really some of that stuff, and the other thing that they were big on was this business of self-evaluation, that was really big.

VH: Around again.

LP: That was really big and I remember, and then you were supposed to help them evaluate themselves, each other directly, your strengths and your weaknesses and all this stuff, that was very big.

SF: That was very big.

LP: That was very big. And then when we came back to New York they were having huge gathering at I'm trying to think, some great big outdoor arena, Randall Island...

VH: Well, there's a Randall Island in New York, there might be some...

LP: And at that time and it was huge and it was thousands and thousands of people on the Spanish thing, now this was the summer of '38.

VH: [Unclear], what a time to be in New York.

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LP: And we all went and it was, oh, it was very exciting, very dramatic and then we all walked, people walked a lot in those days.

VH: Well right, yeah.

LP: There wasn't buses, everybody walked all the way back you know across the bridges you know, singing all, there was wonderful songs in those days, both from, that had come out of Germany and had come out of Spain, plus the old labor songs and so on and singing you know, and these thousands of people marching, going across the bridges all singing and you know you remember, it was just you felt so upbeat and so hey you were gonna be able to do it, the world was going to be a marvelous place, you were going to make all these fabulous improvements, everything was going to go. So and I don't, I don't know if anybody's ever had a chance to really feel that positive and that sure since. I don't know.

VH: Yeah, well, probably not.

SF: Well I would think especially coming out of the Depression, you know to feel that after...

VH: There was some hope.

LP: But you know people had hope in the Depression, you see, everybody was poor, so it didn't make any difference, now I wasn't as poor cause my father worked, he didn't make much, but he, you know, he always said he made more after he retired than he ever did you know while he was working. But at the University it was cheap and the big thing was getting on NYA, an awful lot of the kids were on NYA and that wasn't something you had to pay back then, like this student loan, no, it was like being on WPA or any of the rest of it, and most of, an awful lot of the kids were on that program and I didn't qualify cause my father worked, but they were and it made a big difference because there was a lot of them that were able to go then.

VH: Oh sure, never would have gone otherwise.

SF: So were you going back and forth much or were you pretty much staying down...

VH: Oh I would come home but I didn't see anybody politically here cause when I came home it was a question of seeing my younger brothers or sisters, I had this pass so I could get on a train...

SF: Oh, that was pretty nice.

LP: There was all kinds of trains at that time, there was like four or five trains a day each way.

VH: Oh, I can imagine, you could commute if you wanted...marvelous huh?

LP: So then, so then when I did come back, and I just, see I don't remember being involved in the Youth Congress in the Twin Cities, somebody else must have gone, I just remember being involved in the student, the American Student Union which was real big and Farmer Labor and the YCL. When I came back here then and then I got a job and gone to the [unclear], then here the Youth Congress was very big. I guess it was down there too I just didn't go. I was too busy with other

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things, I didn't go.

VH: Where did you work when you first came back?

LP: I worked at the Woodruff Lumber Company as a secretary for $60 a month. And the Youth Congress did a lot of things because they were working to see that the NYA wasn't disbanded, but they also worked on the whole gamut of social issues and then one of the big deals, Glen probably told you too, American Youth Congress had a big national meeting in Washington DC in February of 1940.

VH: I don't think he talked about that.

LP: Yeah, and he was a delegate, the Coolerator paid for him to go, but I mean the American Youth Congress you know in Duluth sent so many people, and I got to go because I had this, I still had this pass.

SF: So when did you meet him?

LP: Well I met him at Youth Congress meetings, at, because he was a delegate from the Coolerator Union there and I was a delegate from the Business, that's where I got, and I met George and...

SF: Right, that's when George and Rhoda met each other too right...

LP: Right, right.

VH: At the American Youth, the same Congress?

SF: Well I don't know about...

LP: Well but no, they weren't at the, they weren't there but I mean at the meetings in Duluth.

SF: At the meetings, [unclear]

LP: Yeah, yeah, a lot of people...

VH: Must have been a vital group.

SF: Yeah right, [unclear] that helps when people are...

LP: And it was interesting because they, most of us, they put us up in people's houses, like I say, nobody had money, they didn't expect you to stay in hotels and all this kind of junk and I stayed in Backracks and I wouldn't doubt a bit, when I think about it, it was a lovely apartment, that it was some relation to what's, to Bert Backrack, his parents are...I wouldn't doubt it a bit. And there was a fellow there from India that was a delegate and one of the reasons I got to stay there cause that's where he was staying there and they needed somebody that could do shorthand and typing to help him with his notes and what he was going to say and all this kind of junk and so on, so it was a nice place, most of them didn't get as nice a place as that to stay.

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SF: Oh so you had another advantage, you knew shorthand.

LP: Yeah, then I took, you know I did a few months of that when I came back and cause I figured I was never going to get a job, I had been in taking education in junior and senior high to be a social studies teacher and I figured oh God they'll hear about that I belonged to YCL, I'll never get hired. I may as well forget that.

VH: Was there a lot of criticism in Duluth against this group, I mean did you feel that people thought they were too radical.

LP: Well usually, at that time I think School Boards were a little bit more fussy and more cautious I figured, and what some of those school boards at that time still didn't want married, you know, I mean they were much more fussy so anyway I took up a fast course in typing and shorthand and did that and that was a very exciting conference. And I can't remember who all spoke, oh legislators, what was that guy from New York at that time, Vito Marc Antonio.

VH: Oh, Vito Marc Antonio, oh, he was really [unclear]. He was seen in the newsreels.

LP: And FDR came out and spoke and we were all in the yard on the balcony.

VH: This was 19, what year again?

LP: This was Feburary 1940 and we weren't sure about [unclear], but there was a lot of things he did that were, you know some were good and some were questionable. And then one person from each delegation got to go to the White House for a tea with Eleanor, so I got to that.

VH: You got to do that too.

LP: I got to do that which was very exciting and fun, and of course she was more, she was always more progressive than he was anyway.

VH: Right, right.

LP: And Joe Lash was there and of course Joe Lash was, came over, I think he is, when they had the YCL camp I think the American Student Union was having a camp nearby because he came over to our camp and we went over there, etc. And then, and then we went to, you know, you went and just like they do now, then you also went and lobbied your...

VH: Your congressmen...[unclear]

LP: All that kind of stuff you know.

VH: Who was [unclear], who would have been from Duluth then.

SF: Pittinger.

LP: Pittinger, William Pittinger.

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VH: Yeah, I've heard about him.

LP: Because he beat, in 1938 he beat Johnny Bernard after he had been the only that voted on the Spanish thing and then he was congressman until John Botnick beat him right after the...

VH: [Unclear] a long time.

LP: Well yes cause he'd been there a long time before and then the American Youth Congress had, and I can't, I was asking Glen do you remember what that was about, the summer of 1940 they had a camp, you know a conclave, at a camp at Lake Geneva.

VH: Right, which George and Carl Ross were at that.

LP: And in, I've got Kodak pictures that show the ones that rode in Glen's car, Glen had got this '40 Buick Super and there was, I can remember some of them, there was George Dizard and Glen and I and Ann Hargrave, Grilovich then of course, and two other people and I can't remember who they were, I don't know if George can remember who they were if he saw the pictures or not, but I cannot remember who they were and while the rest of them slept we drove that thing over 100 miles an hour. Then after they woke up we told them and then they didn't sleep anymore.

VH: 100 miles an hour in those days.

SF: Really, yeah, that was something.

LP: And they, there was people from all over, one of the guys was Michaels was his last name and he was, now he, I think he was also in Washington and he was from one of the church groups, national, terrific speaker and real good and he was, I don't remember if it would have been the Methodist, if he would have been, I, you know, this I don't remember, all I remember that he was real good looking and he was from some...

VH: Some church.

LP: Some church group.

SF: And what was the focus [unclear]

LP: And I asked Glen, do you remember what the focus of that was. Heck no.

VH: [Unclear], well there was always that part of the gatherings you know [unclear]

LP: Well there was, and I know that it had, that there was a purpose and...

VH: And an agenda that was very important.

LP: And it had an agenda that was pretty important, and I'm sure we all talked about it and studied it and took you know took notes and all this to come back and report with. But, I guess you'd have to go and look up what was, what were the crucial issues in the summer of 1940.

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SF: But it's just as important what you remember, you know cause that's really your impression that stuck with you.

VH: Yeah, ah ha, yeah.

LP: And then of course it wasn't that long after that then you see that then things changed a lot and then you have the war coming and so on and everything then changed terrifically.

SF: Glen told us that he didn't tell you when he went down and enlisted.

VH: Right, it was [unclear]

LP: Well I mean, we talked about it that he was going to do it, because otherwise they were going to draft him and so he decided he'd rather go in the Air Force than...

VH: [Unclear]

LP: Yeah and so.

SF: But then he complained that he wasn't sent overseas...

LP: Oh yes, he spent his life being, going different parts of Texas, the whole three years.

SF: Yeah that's what he said, he fought the battle of Texas.

LP: And actually he always wondered...

SF: [Unclear]

LP: Yes, when he was in Oklahoma there was one little field that he was at that was in Yukon, Oklahoma, which I'm sure is now a suburb of Oklahoma City. It wasn't then but I'm sure by now it is, and they didn't have enough room for people to live on the base and so the married guys were given a stipend to live off and, otherwise I couldn't have come, cause I think I was getting $60 a month and things were cheaper then than now but that still did not buy an apartment and food, and so I had to go get that green Buick out of storage and I had a cousin that did retread tires, cause that was big then, retreading the tires, because you couldn't get tires, so he checked all the tires and retreaded, and then I had to go to the board to get an allotment of gasoline.

SF: Um hum, right, yeah, the gas rations.

LP: And a ration thing of gasoline to get down there and Glen's mother went with me, Patricia was 10 months old or something, and we piled that thing, it was a big car, God, we had everything in it, the crib and you know...

VH: The whole thing, huh.

LP: Right, and got there. We never brought it back, because then when, then then finally he was supposed to go, after I was there a year and a half, he was supposed to go overseas then so we didn't

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know how we'd get the gas, so we sold it for [unclear] dollars. And you saved, and then after the war, then things were a lot, a lot different and things really went downhill, the Farmer Laborites and so on, after, well in the meantime in the 1940 election, because everybody was worried that Roosevelt wasn't going to make it, and that if Roosevelt didn't make it that then the United States might play a poor role in the war and they were very concerned about that and so that's when the Farmer Laborites joined the Democrats and became the DFL, back then because, to help Roosevelt get elected, and if you remember John L. Lewis came out for Wendell Wilkie and that was real.

SF: Yeah, Wendell Wilkie was a passionate man and a lot of people probably might take it.

LP: And you don't, yeah and whether he'd have done it, well there's no way of knowing, what he'd have done, what he would have done if he'd been elected, there's no way of knowing, but people weren't going to take a chance, cause they just didn't, because however he did, and at that time, that's the one thing that people forget is that there was still a pretty big pro-German pro-Mussolini movement in this country.

VH: Yeah, they were very strong in Detroit.

LP: And in parts of Wisconsin, the German [unclear] was very active and so on and the Father Coughlin bunches and all that sort of thing so there was a lot of...

VH: Father Coughlin was not one of Detroit's greatest assets.

LP: No, and I know there was, there was friends that Glen's mother and father had had, that they had all their growing up and the families had gotten together and all, and over that they broke up and never did because the one was from German background and still thought Hitler was pretty okay.

SF: [Unclear]

LP: And the other one was Italian and they weren't so sure that Mussolini was too bad, and that was the end of you know that was the end of it. And, and then you see it wasn't that long after, you came back and you thought everything, you were gonna go ahead with the same kind of things and work like heck for Henry Wallace [unclear] and stuff and then when you came back and that was just, oh God I'll never forget some of those first DFL meetings after that in which you were thrown out.

VH: Now where was that here in West Duluth?

LP: Yeah, one of them was down in the old Redman Hall which is torn down, there was a lot of meetings that went on there, it was on Central Avenue, right were that video store is now, it was a big two story...

VH: You went upstairs. Okay, I never knew it was called the Redman Hall.

SF: That was a nice hall.

LP: And...

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END TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE

TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO

LP: And at each convention everybody was thrown out, and never came back to another DFL precinct caucus until '68.

VH: Really.

LP: Most people never showed up again ‘til '68.

VH: That's what I'm, that's kind of digressing, but I'm seeing that right now with the Jesse Jackson, people who've never been to a caucus since '68 coming back in the Party now. Very interesting.

LP: Right, yes, yeah.

SF: So that was an organized effort by the more reactionary groups.

LP: Oh absolutely, and people were asked to leave.

VH: Just told to leave.

LP: Told to leave and...

VH: Was there any attempt to outvote them or it was just...

LP: Oh yes, oh yes.

VH: So it wasn't, just walked out, but that you just didn't have the votes.

LP: Didn't have the votes.

SF: So who were some of the people involved with that? You want to say?

LP: I'm trying to remember, well, one of the people [unclear] I don't like to have to tell you about this but Willard Munger had a very bad past.

VH: That wouldn't surprise me.

LP: Glen wouldn't speak to him for years.

SF: That's interesting how he's flipped, right, he's, in his old age.

LP: In fact if you asked Anne Gurlavich Hargrave I think that he didn't play a good role in that union either in those [unclear] cause he worked at the [unclear] in the Clarflax[? Clear Flats?] and she did too back in the '30s.

VHF: I came across a couple of names this fellow that worked for the Clarfax[?], he ran for, well I

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don't know exactly, we came across a folder up at the northeast Historical Center and it says vote communist and it has two names a Charles Strong, and a Margaret or a Myrtle Strong, did those names mean anything to you?

LP: No.

VH: Okay and he worked for the Clarfax when they started to jump around on him, nobody seems to know who they were.

LP: Nope, nope, don't mean a thing to me.

VH: Well he was living in the Duluth in the '30s through to the again like the war, you have a lot of people disappear then.

LP: Disappear, um hum.

VH: Then about '43 he disappears from the City Directory, but he worked out or lived for a while in the Duluth Peoples Center, does that mean anything to you?

LP: Well I would assume, you...

VH: It was, no it was downtown.

LP: Oh okay, it wasn't the old Finn Hall School out here.

VH: It's 17 East 3rd I think is where it was.

LP: 17...

SF: Across from Central High School, on the upper side.

VH: Yeah it would be gone now...

SF: You know where the playground ends [unclear]

VH: Yeah, 17 E. 3rd. And his name was Charles and then he was with a woman named Ottilie, o-t-t-i-l-i-e.

LP: No, it doesn't mean a thing.

VH: Or August Rasinen?

LP: Rasanen?

VH: Well, r-a-s-a-n-e-n, he was the secretary of this Duluth, of this Duluth Peoples Society, ever hear of them?

LP: Oh God, it couldn't have been a relation of Vienna Rasanen, Ellis' wife.

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VH: Well, there was a Kazia and August Rasanen, and they were both from Finland and they were both from Finland and he worked for the Water and Light Department in 1931 which became the Water and Gas Department. And she later on, after he died, she marries a man by the name of Wallace.

LP: No, then that's not, that's a different family, maybe Rasanen's a common name in Finland.

VH: Well it could be, there was also a Joseph, there were, oh there were several them I guess that lived around here in that time, but you don't know what that group was either.

SF: Would you mind backtracking...

LP: Sure.

SF: When we talked to Glen he didn't say a whole lot about his father who's really seen as kind of central person...

LP: Figure.

SF: A lot of people said that they were really moved you know by Ernie Pearson and that his organizing efforts were really, and I know...

LP: Yes, yeah because he was...

SF: And I know Carl Ross sees him as like one of the central figures in the movement.

LP: Right, right. Yes, he goes, he went way back, was involved in the IWW, and was a Debs, Eugene Debs socialist. Because his father was probably born, must have been born in 1894 and his father was 10-12 years older than she was so that puts it a long time ago.

SF: What was his family background, he told us about his mother that goes way back.

LP: His father's, he was born in Worthington, then they came up and were on a farm near Mattawa. His father was an interesting character, but he drank and I guess he got ornery when he drank, so at, when Ernie Pearson was 16 or whatever he threw his father out of the house. And his father lived to the 90's up, oh had a little acreage up hear Deer River or up in there someplace, okay Hill City or someplace up in there, and he was a person that, and he'd said he'd have lived longer if he wasn't so interested in wine and women, but...and Ernie did see his father after you know occasionally but anyway so then he kind of helped, they ran, you know run the farm and all this kind of stuff and he started out, he was real good with animals, and he oh, then when they came into town he drove horse and hauled lumber for Scott Graff and he drove, he was not a big man but he was wiry and tough and for at some of the lumber camps up the Shore he would, he'd never make a lumberjack, but he drove teams that hauled the logs and stuff like that because and he was real, always real good with animals, always was and he always had dogs and was real good, knew how to train them and you know, and so on, and did and so he was involved in some of the early IWW stuff and socialist stuff.

SF: Among timber workers?

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LP: Way back when, and so then and then he worked at the Carbolite, at the steel plant, I don't know if he got, what, how he, and then he was at Western Paint and so he was in on the organizing of a heck of a lot, all of the unions around here, yes, he was very involved in the organizing, everybody came to Ernie Pearson and for help and advice and all that sort of thing and Herman Griffith was also, now how they got, because you know the backgrounds are so, and, but I know that...

SF: Herman Griffith was the designer...

LP: Decorator, yeah, yeah. But he was involved in peace stuff way back because I can remember when I was in Central High School in '35, I graduated in '35 and in '34-35 we had a peace thing, what were we worried about peace, what was the deal in '34-35.

VH: It could have, let's see when was the Abyssinian, the Italian, that was I remember...

LP: Earl, anyway, and trying to get people to still go along with League of Nations I suppose, and stuff, anyway we ended up having, being allowed to have a peace demonstration and one of the speakers was Herman Griffith. And he was through but he wasn't that, you know he was still you know quite young. And he was one of the speakers, so I suppose it was through some of those kind of things.

VH: Was he a native of Duluth, this Herman Griffeth, [unclear]

LP: Yes, his father was an interior decorator, and so...

SF: So they were friends.

LP: Yeah, yeah and I presume it goes way back to some of those you know those peace activities etc. way back when and probably the, some of the early Norman Thomas whatever you know, I mean I know that Ernie was around for Debs, but Herman wasn't old enough for that.

VH: Well Debs came here more than once, so it must have been an active group that he came up here.

LP: Yeah, yeah, so I think they were a very active group and he was also tough in that he didn't mind fighting anybody, in those days people did more physical fighting than they do now because Glen talks about it you know.

VH: Yeah as I think back that is true in my own...you can see that on the street.

LP: If he was walking down Central Avenue and somebody wasn't treating their horse right and he, I don't care how big they were, he would take them on and...

VH: Just take them on.

LP: Yeah, oh yeah. He was noted for that, being very feisty and usually coming out.

VH: [Unclear]

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SF: Is that what made him a good union man?

LP: Probably, well yeah, did Glen tell you about the time that the International came and were going to, what were they gonna do with the Coolerator, what'd they want...oh take over their negotiations and they opened the windows...

VH: Oh yes.

SF: Right, right.

LP: It was a lot of, you see in those, this business, and some of them when they went to their international conventions, and I don't know if Ed Drill told you about this, he talked about some of them where if, they had goons around, if you weren't gonna vote the way they wanted you to vote you were in big trouble.

SF: And they really [unclear]

LP: Yes, yes. So, that stuff isn't...

VH: No, that has changed...

LP: That's not new.

VH: They do it with different tactics now.

LP: They do it a little differently now. Now nobody even bothers to go they don't care enough.

VH: Yeah, that's the other...

LP: That's the other sad thing and I don't know why.

SF: Can't get them out to their meetings at all.

LP: But I don't know what other kind of things you want to know.

SF: What was your impression of him?

LP: Of Ernie?

SF: Yeah.

LP: He had a terrific sense of, he had an interesting sense of humor, kind of biting, it could be in some ways and he was, he was an interesting person. I was sorry afterwards, there's two things that I was very sorry about afterwards, because I love history and there was two things that I was terribly sorry about, or three, that he would, he was a marvelous story teller too, he could tell just fabulous stories about some of the early days and the things people did and all that sort...

SF: What was his ethnic background, Swedish?

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LP: No, English.

SF: English.

LP: English. His mother and father had a oh where the stage changed down by near what's now Paddison Park, that's, and her name, maiden name was Day, that's English, right, and his father was born in Canada but I, not his father, his grandfather, Ernie's father was born in Canada but I think was from actually was probably from Ohio or something, moved up there and then came down in here and in fact there's one story that the grandfather went so he wouldn't have to serve in the Civil War, I mean, you know...

VH: Well, that happened, yeah.

LP: And whether that's true or not, who knows, you know, who knows that. And so, no, he was English but it's too bad we didn't tape those or, because obviously he was in this area then all those years and there was a tremendous amount of history that he could have, the other person was Glen's grandmother.

SF: Right, right, right.

LP: Who also had all these stories, who came over like in 1890 or maybe before that the first time, well her husband came before that and he was working on the building of the piers and then sent for her to come and my grandfather. I mean there was a lot of those kind of things and it's a shame when I think back, it's just pitiful that we didn't record all those things and talk, even just talk to them and then go back and write and write it down, it's just pitiful, really it's a shame that you can't. They used to, his dad would tell about where back of the Peacan Cafe which was on Central Avenue right about where that, right across from the Gopher you know, little, down just a half. They used to have pit bull fights, you know...

VH: How 'bout that.

LP: Yeah, and cock fights, but pit bulls too.

VH: Yeah, somebody told us about crap games on the street, was that Glen...that was common, do you remember that [unclear]

SF: Maybe that was Joe Paczak.

LP: Yeah, that could have been Joe Paczak. But his dad would talk about, the other thing, the early days in West Duluth back you know, back of the Peacan, they had a pit and they had pit bull fights...

SF: Do you remember now that [unclear]...

LP: Yeah, yeah.

SF: Do you remember that coop store that was in...

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LP: West Duluth?

SF: Yeah.

LP: Well, sure, it was there when we got married, yeah, yeah, down on Central Avenue near Irving School.

SF: Right, right.

LP: Right across from Irving School, yeah, we used to buy all our groceries there. For a long time I still had a few spices...

VH: From there.

LP: Then I decided oh my God these are getting pretty old.

VH: Was it a real coop? Or was it...

SF: Yes, oh yes.

LP: Yeah, ah ha.

VH: [Unclear] among the people [unclear]

LP: Yeah, yeah.

SF: And there's not much about that, so I, I just saw a pack of picture of it.

LP: The, I'm trying to think who are the people that, I can't even remember their name [unclear], that acted as manager, gee I can't remember their names.

VH: But it was just a group of people out here that owned it?

LP: Yeah.

SF: Also about Glen's gran...mother who just died, it seemed like, I know Glen said that she wasn't really all that involved until the CIO Guild, but then...

LP: She was involved in, well, you know, she was involved in Farmer Labor stuff, but she was...

SF: She looks a lot like Kate, doesn't she, I saw a picture of her that Anne Hargrave has, seemed like...

LP: Gee, I never thought of that, no. To me she doesn't, because she had a broader face, Kate has a narrower face. But she has hands, Kate has hands like here and the narrower shoulders like she had. [Unclear] she was interesting in that she was one of the first, Glen's dad was big on this business of that people shouldn't have big families...

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VH: Oh, planned parenthood back then.

LP: Because that kept the guys too busy and then they couldn't work for the union or the...

VH: He was neat.

LP: Or the Socialist Party, or the Farmer Labor Party...

SF: At least he was assuming the man made, at least taking some part in the...

LP: Or any of this kind of thing and so anyway, yeah, that was one, lots of the people in those days though had this whole business about moderation, he was, he didn't like people that overdid anything, drank too much, ate too much...

VH: Too many children...

LP: ...too many children, anything. But anyways so they had the two kids and then and so she took, she, her first art classes, I don't know why she quit painting, but anyway were during the days of the WPA and they had...

VH: The WPA Art Projects were [unclear]

LP: Right, right so she took classes with Van Rizen, in fact we've got a couple of Van Rizen paintings that she had.

SF: Have you, oh, they're worth a bit.

LP: Well, one of them I gave to Marilyn because hers was the nicest one that Mamie had I gave to Marilyn because yeah, it was big and you had to have a big enough wall for the colors so I Patricia bring it down, Patricia's still got the other one, it's a watercolor...

SF: Check that out, huh.

LP: I better check that one out, but it, and so she was, I think she was, cause she was quite a bit younger than he was so I think she was shy and, it doesn't seem like it but I think she was, I think she was shy to begin with and but, the principal got her going you know to be one of the people organized a PTA in the Franklin School and then Ernie got her coming to the Farmer Labor meetings. And they had a women's...

VH: A women's part of the Farmer Labor.

LP: They don't do that anymore, but hey that used to be big.

SF: Yeah, [unclear]

VH: [Unclear]

SF: Maybe they got more done.

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LP: Well, well, I think, the whole deal was...

SF: It also developed leadership I would think...

LP: Developed leadership, the men had all the officers in the regular Party, wasn't this business supposed man, woman, man, woman then at all and then the women weren't working so then they could do all this work, they could have their own, and they did tremendous amounts of work.

VH: I remember being involved in...

LP: Sure.

SF: And then it was also a social thing and a way to get out of the house.

LP: Yeah, but they did do a lot of work.

VH: There wasn't a campaign that would have succeeded without them, [unclear].

LP: No, no. And I can remember we used to have booths on the corner of Superior Street and, any number of times for different, when different things were, issues were on and you, and hand out, I suppose, why did they let you do that, gee I don't, you know...

SF: Cause I remember handing out things on Superior Street, now there's not enough people to make it worth your time...

LP: I know, I know, I know...But this was a permanent booth we set up.

SF: Oh, oh, an FLA booth.

LP: Something like that, yeah, yeah. Or Youth Congress, [unclear] and I remember being down there, I don't know if they'd even let you do that anymore.

VH: Don't know either.

LP: Yeah, right on the, you know, right by the bank there, across from the [unclear], that was the busiest corner.

VH: And you just handed out all the [unclear]

LP: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And got and took signatures and you know on petitions and all that kind of stuff.

VH: [Unclear] see it work [unclear].

LP: And then when the CIO when they organized and then they had the, it was mostly men that worked and so then they had the CIO Women's Auxiliary and then the women could belong to that if their guys worked in any CIO plant in town and then they took up issues that were of particular interest and had conventions and all this kind of junk and they [unclear] went all over on that stuff.

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VH: Was the brother involved in the labor and political activities?

LP: Not was much, not as much.

VH: What was his name.

LP: Ellis.

VH: Ellis.

LP: Not as much. He was to begin with as far as in some of the Farmer Labor junk, but then he was out of town a lot in that period, he was running to California and working and heading back and stuff like that and so he wasn't around you know in a steady way like, like Glen was. And he used to make money, you'd go to Detroit and you'd get a couple of cars and you'd drive them to LA and then you could sell them.

SF: Right.

LP: And stuff like that and so, so he wasn't as you know serious as [unclear].

SF: Getting back to Ernie, let's see where were we...from what Glen said it sounded like he got more radical as he got older which is interesting.

LP: Um hum. Well you see I think you see I think he joined the Communist Party and I think then he became more rigid then in what, on what was acceptable and wasn't acceptable and what you were supposed to do and you weren't supposed to do and all this kind of stuff and then was going to give everybody a bad time that didn't you know follow along on the line as he saw it. Which is not the way, my understanding is not the way he was when he was, you know when I first knew him and in back in those days. And I thought that was...

SF: So was he into recruiting you or recruiting others, was that, did he have a missionary zeal?

LP: [unclear] he may have others, but I think, and that's when, and that was too bad, because that was, because then Glen had some big arguments with him then over some of that kind of stuff and about what should go on at Coolerator and how it should go and all this kind of things and, which was too bad, but there was some, and some real hard feelings over some of that and some of the people that were involved then in those kind of arguments as to what should happen and what they should take up or shouldn't take up or do or different or not do and so on. And because it was, it was a handy group to exploit then, actually for more than was logical and so that was, that was...that was too bad. And you know that, that's also then when, because he died in '51 so that's right in the middle of the McCarthy stuff.

SF: Oh yeah, he must have been affected by that.

LP: Well, he, then he was, see he didn't want to backtrack a bit, because he, that wasn't his reaction and so he didn't want anybody else to play it cool either and although in some of the unions then if you didn't then you had big divisions of, because you had a lot of people that didn't, weren't interested

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in going along then, so then you were going to get your leadership thrown out if you do that and of course that is what happened in a hell of a lot of unions is that, and in fact that was a bad, at Ernie Pearson's funeral which had huge, everybody coming, of all, because he'd been so involved in so many different kinds of groups and so on and so on. And, so there was a poor little Methodist minister that, cause the guy hadn't been religious, gave the poem [unclear][unclear][unclear] you know, you're familiar with that, I don't have to go on with that, which was actually made good sense, fit very well. And then Herman Griffith gave the main talk and talked about the fact that even though these were these kind of times that, I've still got it, I saved it, I got it from Herman, copy of what he said and saved it, [unclear] and saved it, that who was still had an open mind about [unclear], here's how we all put it anyway, it was a big shock at the time to a lot of the people...

VH: They didn't want to hear that.

LP: Big shock to a lot of the people, didn't want to hear, big shock. My father didn't speak to me for six months.

SF: Really.

LP: Well, what I didn't also know is that at, that the FBI at that time, I don't think it had [unclear] it hadn't had so much to do with actually with Ernie Griffin but the FBI came to his house and talked to him.

VH: Oh, I suppose, right, that was really...

LP: About me having been at this YCL camp, and I told him I was at an ASU camp.

VH: [Unclear]

LP: And all, what the hell, my dad didn't know a God dang thing, why hassle him. My dad had been a person that had worked hard all his life and been just as straight and I mean, this is traumatic then. In the first place for the FBI come and visit you is traumatic.

SF: How many FBI people were working up here, it certainly was a [unclear]

LP: They had a big office I guess.

VH: Put a lot of people to work, that's about all you can say was good about it.

LP: But going, I thought that was the living end, didn't, this point, they didn't ever, they didn't come, in the '50s they never came, did they come in to see me in the '50s, I forget when it was. Anyway they came and hassled my dad which was just, I never even heard about it til for years afterwards...

VH: Oh, he couldn't even tell you about it.

LP: No, no, he was so upset. He was terribly upset and I thought that was, you know that was quite unnecessary. He didn't know anything, they told him things he didn't know.

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SF: It's like everything you do as a teenager that you don't want your parents to know about, right...

VH: That was an incredible times, I don't know if it'd ever get to that again, but...

LP: In fact, no he never, he never told me, one of my brothers, he talked to one of them and they told me. Couldn't figure out what he was...

SF: Well Joe Paczak said something interesting that when the FBI did go around and talk to people that he said that it was some of the people that were the most radical that actually talked the most. [unclear]

VH: The funny thing then when they did finally come and talk to me, Glen went out and talked to them, he said aw heck I'll just go and talk to them, what the heck I ain't gonna wait ‘til they come to the house. Well they came to the house then to talk to me during that time. Then they wanted to know about all the people that were in the YCL back at the campus back then, and they asked me about these names and the truth of the matter, the people they asked me, I told them all [unclear] people I knew were dead, died in World War II. I can't remember who they were now, but at that time I knew all these people that were dead. And then they asked me about some other people and you know the funny thing is the people they asked me about I didn't even know. The only thing I could figure is that they were there, they maybe had come to the U while I was still there but they had got active after I had left and they didn't mean a, you know, they...

VH: Yeah, well I think it's hard to remember, you know, you might have remembered faces but names...

LP: And well so one of them they tried to describe and I couldn't even remember any that looked anywhere near who they were talking about, I don't know if they thought I was lying or not but they never came again.

SF: So there was nobody out there who was informing on you that, and then it got back to you.

LP: I don't think it would have been that hard for that because you know at that time in the '30s nobody was, the only person I didn't tell was my father.

VH: He was the only one that wouldn't have understood.

SF: He was more the victim than...

LP: But as far as you know on campus and so on I mean there wasn't being, nobody who tried to be secretive or anything like that at that time at all, in the first place people felt that there was big difference between the YCL and the Party. Now I don't know if the FBI thought there was.

VH: No the FBI had different ideas.

SF: So they were actually more interesting in the youth...

VH: Well, I'm sure they went around as far as the adult things, but I mean they were checking

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everything and maybe these people were somebody that were trying to get a job someplace or something, I don't know, I don't know, and somebody, they were on somebody's list and so they came to ask. I didn't know who the heck they were, had no idea. But I did know the ones that were dead.

VH: Well that closed those files for them anyhow, it saved them a little work.

SF: Oh you were talking about Ernie Pearson's funeral and...

LP: Yeah, well that was traumatic, there was a lot of people that were very upset and, I should get you that, what Herman said because you know you read it now, it doesn't really sound that radical, but believe me in December of 1951 it was considered...

VH: That would be interesting to see.

LP: It was considered too much to have said.

SF: Too much.

VH: Yeah.

LP: Yeah.

VH: "I promise you beloved comrade I will carry on for you", that's really very moving.

LP: Isn't it though.

VH: [Unclear]. When did Herman Griffith die, because I think he...

LP: Not that long ago.

VH: He was, did I, he was [unclear]

LP: One thing that we all felt sad about, I don't know if it was his decision or his second wife's, it may have been partly his decision too, there was no memorial, there was no anything.

SF: Nothing.

LP: And I said oh God that just leaves you so empty. I still love a memorial service so that then everybody that knew him can get together afterwards and talk. I even like visitations so that everybody gets together and you talk about the person, not just you read in the paper they're dead and that's it. Then there's no celebration of what they all lived for.

VH: Yes, yeah and he was so involved in the city.

LP: And he was so involved for so many years too, just real involved and...so I don't know, I thought that was sad, that was real sad not to do something. That's why we did for Manie and I was real happy that Kate and Pat were willing to speak because though her, these last years you know she hadn't done anything for a long time, but it's still fun to go back to the earlier years when a person

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was...

END TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO

TAPE TWO, SIDE ONE

LP: Actually with what, if people had been paying more attention to what he was saying in the fall, he had showed evidences of heart disease and I'm sure, but you see, people, Hank Paull, Irene Paull's husband, and he was in his late, only in his late 40's for heaven’s sakes and he knew something was wrong, and he went to the doctor and he went here and he went there and they couldn't come up with a thing.

VH: What it was. Well they just didn't have the skills that they do now.

LP: Well I don't think they had some of the testing equipment either...

VH: With the testing they just didn't know. [unclear]

LP: ...they didn't you know, and sometimes and so then he started doing more physical exercise, tried to make you feel.

VH: That was probably just the wrong thing.

LP: Oh the worst thing in the world because I think what he was doing the day he died then was he was, had one of those great big heavy roller things that you roll your yard with, you know one of those big you know...

VH: Oh, and he was pushing it...

LP: And then he quit doing that and was going up Superior Street and was going to catch a bus or do something, I don't something, down he went.

SF: So you were friends with the Paulls.

LP: Oh yeah, yeah.

SF: Did you know her or either of them in their earlier...

LP: No, I'm sure Rhoda did but I didn't. I didn't meet them until Glen and I were married. I knew Rhoda, Rhoda's the only one that, well I guess about the only, well and Hanna Grovets are the only two people I know from back before any of us were married, which is kind of funny, actually a lot of times you don't know anybody that's still around. So... No, I didn't know them. Well I think Irene's family was vaguely related to Rhoda.

SF: Right, they're cousins.

LP: Yeah, yeah, yeah, cousins or something like that. But Glen can remember his dad sitting [unclear] when they were kids and telling them all about what was, trying to teach socialism to them

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as kids, sit them on the piano bench or the chair and lecturing them...about all this stuff and so on way back when they were kids. And so I think he was pretty well, but he was also the kind of person that everybody, that anybody in the whole area that had trouble came to for help too. So that, cause he was willing to tackle most anything.

SF: Well it's kind of like when labor and social welfare were kind of one and the same.

LP: Yeah, like Glen talks about them taking the union down to see that the guys that were unemployed...because a lot of those places never worked twelve months a year anyway...

SF: [unclear]

LP: They were always about nine, always seasonal, they're always being laid off and so then they, they wouldn't give them any help and they wouldn't be able to pay their rent and they'd be kicked out or they'd lose their house or whatever you know, and marching down to try to get them help and stuff like that, and so, Ernie was always good at any of that kind of stuff too, he was very good at that. Didn't mind tackling anybody and anything on those kind of things so people used to, looking to him for help. And I think that was the kind of thing that then Glen got a lot of that from his father I suppose.

VH: Did you know Newton Freedman, was he much involved in some of [unclear]

LP: I can remember him in old Farmer Labor things you know, way back when.

VH: I guess they left here though come to think of it, that's right.

LP: Yeah, and so...

VH: And then he came back to...

SF: So kind of with the '50s and '60s that's when you were raising your family and...

LP: Right, right, and everybody was kind of...

SF: That was [unclear]

LP: Everybody was kind of out of it anyway, cause things weren't, you weren't welcome.

VH: Well what about you know all the DFL stuff you know with kind of the Humphrey crew and Haney and all those people.

LP: Well there was, you know that Judge Haney got, after Ernie died and Manie was still, you know, cause like I say he was 71, she was 12 years younger, so she was, so she decided, and she'd always wanted to be a nurse and stuff so she decided she was going to get, go to work and one of the places she was going, could get on was at Nokeming, because at that time it was still a TB deal and they paid well and they only hired people that had been exposed to TB and didn't have it and so she, and she tested positive as everybody in their family did because she had a brother that died of TB and that,

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that's what they wanted and so she got, she was hired and was working there and everything was, and she enjoyed it and everything was going fine and Haney got her fired.

SF: Really. Because of politics.

LP: Absolutely, cause he hated Ernie Pearson so.

VH: My goodness, how terrible.

LP: I think he got her fired from a couple of jobs, [unclear]...

VH: Women were blacklisted too.

LP: Sure, sure, sure. Yup, he got her fired.

SF: How did you find out?

LP: Somebody told them, I, you know, they heard, you know, I don't think he minded [unclear] people knowing, I think he probably thought that was fine if people knew. I think you see, Frenchie LaBrosse, Francis LaBrosse [unclear], who had been an officer of the union and who was also a musician and had a dance band for years played at our wedding, and anyway so when this guy that had been state senator for years, Homer Peacar got old and retired or died, I don't know what, anyway Willard and Frenchie were the legislators, so Haney is going, wants Willard. Willard's still considered an organization guy that will do. Haney controlled the machine tight.

VH: That's what I've been told.

SF: And it's true, huh.

LP: Oh, and, [unclear] Willard and Glen says we'll run Francie and that's [unclear]. '50, '52, I don't remember now but after [unclear], I don't know if Glen could figure it out and remember, go back and get those [unclear] which year that was, '54, I don't remember, anyway that was quite a campaign.

VH: So Frenchie ran against Willard Munger.

LP: Right, right. And they, and Glen, with his men, was Frenchie's campaign manager and a lot of it hung around, they tried to have Humphrey tied to, cause he was popular, to Willard but Glen called him up and there was some kind of, anyway so that loused that one up, anyway Frenchie won and Harold Haney never forgot that either, that was a real...

VH: Oh that was...

VH: Against the son too then.

LP: Well yeah I'm sure he was always against the whole family.

SF: It's funny now that Willard is such a champion conservation [unclear]

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LP: They weren't speaking, they weren't speaking, in those days you know Glen and Willard did not speak, you know, oh, that was a, violent campaign, that was a tough campaign, oh my God they did it, and anyway and Willard and Frenchie then was state senator til he retired and Willard was in the House and Willard didn't get to be a state senator until Frenchie got sick and...

VH: I think that must have been after I came in the '60s cause I [unclear] remember that.

LP: And actually Frenchie wasn't great shakes...

VH: Was he good?

SF: Oh, after all that.

LP: Because he worked for Blue Cross Blue Shield then, Coolerator then in the meantime had closed, that's why I figure it's probably Coolerator closed in about '53-54, so I'd think it was around in there probably.

VH: But nobody would say that he was [unclear]

LP: Well I think Glen would privately but not...

VH: Not out in the public.

LP: Not out in...that he just was nothing, that he was more worried about doing a good job for Blue Cross Blue Shield than he was about a lot of...

SF: That's too bad isn't it.

LP: Glen didn't care, he beat Gerold Haney, he didn't really give a darn.

VH: At least didn't have a tool of Gerold Haney down there, so that was good probably for the city.

SF: Any more Haney stories?

VH: Yeah, Haney [unclear]

SF: Crossing your path.

VH: [unclear] background.

LP: Let's see if I could, think of any other ones.

SF: Any Hubert Humphrey stories?

LP: Oh, nobody had any use [unclear], no I can't... No, Haney really, really, he pulled all the strings behind the scenes for years and years and years. I don't know, maybe he still...

VH: I have a feeling that he's still doing that, I may be wrong. But when I go to these conventions

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nobody [unclear] power [unclear]

LP: Oh I'm sure that he isn't, although he's getting older. We ran into, oh a couple of years ago, they spoke politely at some restaurant in Ironwood, or some weird place that you never expect to see anybody and in comes Gerald, Dean and some of his family, but...

SF: Well how do you think things might have been different if the FLA hadn't merged with the Democratic Party and if they had continued to...

LP: Oh, I think things would, I, it's, you know you can't, I don't think it helped the Farmer Labor [unclear], although interestingly enough in the Farmer Labor Party back then you had a left wing and a right wing too. Hjalmar Peterson was the right wing of the Farmer Labor Party so maybe it [unclear] then that, the big thing that I think might have been different was that the CIO, CIO joining the AF of L. Now that I think was a mistake but I suppose I don't know other people might argue about that cause it seemed like that conservatively you went, those big conservative craft unions then dominated...

VH: Right, they really dominated after that...

LP: After that, so I think that might have made a difference. And I don't know, those original, when the original CIO unions were formed, not all of them but most of them, they did a lot of educating of the membership, they had frequent meetings and not just for to elect officers, but with education of the membership and so and so on and which the craft unions had never been interested in and, but of course they threw everybody that would have done any educating out of the unions anyway so...

VH: Yeah, well yeah I think they didn't want any educating.

LP: So there you are, you know, and that was when the unions started losing effectiveness and going downhill too, actually.

VH: Yeah, and we're seeing the effects today.

LP: And we're seeing the effects today, we're suffering the effects... but when you think about it, cause actually at that time the Democratic Party was just, was not much in Minnesota you know...

SF: Yeah, that's true.

LP: If you look at those votes on like Pittinger and Bernard and then the Democrat you know...

VH: It was really small.

LP: It was really small, so I don't know, it may not have made as much difference, I don't know. The Progressive Party in Wisconsin never joined the Democrats, it didn't seem to make much difference over there did it.

VH: No.

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LP: So I don't think it necessarily does have any. Hi, dear. Oh I was going to show you the picture of the bunch of us going to that... [ Tape clicks ] ...Then he married and had some children and then he got...

VH: What was she like?

LP: The first wife?

VH: Or...

LP: This is not Signe, this is the first wife, can't remember what her name was now, Sybil, Sybil MacGraw, she was pretty. And, but then he got more and more involved in union activities and left wing activities and DFL, everything you know, everything. And when you were involved in the Coolerator, hey they were busy.

SF: Sounds like it, yeah. [unclear]

LP: They were into everything, and he was, secretary, I think [unclear], anyway, and he was terrific also at negotiations and helping figure out stuff and so on as far as they had you know and this thing went down in '53 and they had a medical plan where they had, where you had way back then all your doctor's visits, everything is covered.

VH: How about that, before the... Great, great.

LP: It was a fabulous plan, hey we were all in terrible shape when they went down, and it didn't go down because of that kind of stuff, it went down kind of like with the Diamond Tool where the original family gets old and tired and they sell it and then one person after another, company after another just tries to gut it and get what they want out of it...

SF: Yeah, just like Diamond [unclear]...

LP: And I know when Glen came back and, from the war and he went around to see some of the other, the union people went around then to see some of the other refrigerator plants, Kelbanator and some of those other. He came back and said this plant is not going to go because these people are spending money building a warehouse, we have the same assembly line we had in '35 and they're, you know, and we do a beautiful job but it's too slow we can't compete with all this automation and...

SF: Kind of the story of Duluth isn't it.

VH: Isn't it.

LP: And so sure enough, which was a shame because like I say they'd had this fabulous medical plan way back then and one of the people that worked on a lot of that stuff and helped look up the, cause he was very intelligent and looked up all, a lot of the research on the insurance stuff, on some of that kind of stuff was Pat MacGraw. And...

SF: Oh.

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LP: Yeah, and he did a lot of the you know, Glen was real good negotiator but Pat did a lot of the research then [unclear]

SF: But Pat actually worked in the Coolerator...

LP: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. There was all these...

VH: [Unclear] all this other.

SF: Yeah right in his spare time.

LP: Isn't it, I mean the television caused this change, that people, you know I don't know, who does that kind of thing anymore, very few people see will do [unclear]

SF: They do if they get paid...

LP: Well...

VH: Everything's for pay, they wouldn't do it just to help their fellow man.

LP: No. Yeah, yeah. And so, but his wife then stayed religious with the church, his first wife Sybil, the mother of the children and just got very resentful about you know all the time you know and all this kind of stuff, so then they were divorced and then he married Signe and that was quite shocking back then. I mean...

VH: Oh, [unclear] I see, Catholics getting divorced and remarried.

LP: Catholics getting divorced and remarried, I don't think she ever did and...

SF: So she had been part of your group.

LP: Signe? Yeah, she'd always been in the, and she'd never had, well a lot of people back then didn't ever have much of a job because, I think she was a waitress and I don't what else, she was a perfectly intelligent person but I mean you might hear, you have people like Pat MacGraw or some of the rest of these people who were on like an assembly line in a factory and their intelligence didn't...

VH: No, was no indication...

LP: Was no indication, so anyway, then when the Coolerator went down they ended up buying a farm down by, in the Nabagaman area cause she had been brought up in a, you know she was from a Finnish family that was very liberal and, coop, radical, whatever, I don't know what their background all was, anyway a farm person, and they had cows and everything.

VH: So they became farmers, oh [unclear]

LP: Yeah, yeah, and then he got cancer of the lung and he didn't last too long. They gave him, oh God, the treatment, they gave him mustard gas treatment, gees...

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VH: So when did he die?

LP: I'd say early '60s. I'd say you know in the '60s [unclear], late '50s, early '60s. My kids remember the funeral, don't remember the funeral, they remember the party at the house after it.

VH: So he was living in Wisconsin at the time he died.

LP: Yes, and we did a neat memorial at Bell Brothers and everybody came and Leo Geovanini did the memorial, I don't know if you...

VH: That name doesn't ring a bell.

LP: He's from the Range and then he was down in the cities, and I think he's dead now and, although he was younger than Pat, but I think, and did a you know, and then everybody came up to our house and had a great party, all going back over all the old times. And my kids still remember that.

SF: Yeah Kate told me she remembers.

VH: She remembers that party.

LP: Pat McGraw's party, and so it couldn't, so it had to be late '50s, early '60 for her to, cause she was born in '47 so...

VH: Oh, for her to remember it so well.

LP: Well it could have been late '50s I suppose, I don't, anyway she does remember that, but he was a neat guy, he was an interesting guy, real neat guy. Tall, thin, wiry, Irish obviously and I'm sure was active on anything that was going along. But everybody went, he went and now a lot of people I think that they had labeled as leftists that you know, Glen was sure that's why he never got...but then Pat MacGraw did so...and Joe Paczak got to serve overseas. Now Frenchie of course served overseas but that doesn't prove a thing.

VH: Isn't that something.

LP: But anyway who knows, you couldn't decide. And maybe it just depended on...

VH: Where they thought you were more useful.

LP: I don't know that the service is like...

SF: Yeah, that's right, they're not that, yeah right, I shouldn't say that...

VH: Well that would be [unclear]

LP: Or whoever handles the files you know I mean there's so many...

SF: That's probably what it was...

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LP: You know so that who knew. Well I think some of those guys then you see they were all just in, they were in the army, not in the...

VH: And that might have made the difference too.

LP: And that might have made the difference too.

SF: Right, yeah right.

VH: He was in the Air Force?

LP: Glen, yeah.

VH: So that might have [unclear]

LP: That might have made a difference, I don't know, and...

SF: Thought he was worth more...

LP: And I know one of the guys from the Coolerator that had been the, who wasn't a big liberal but was a very loyal union person, was the treasurer and works real good with money, Ralph Voreys and he ended up for years in the, he was in the Air Force in a prison camp in Germany, one of those prison camps, you know one of the, he wasn't a pilot, he was a navigator, he was a very intelligent guy and...

SF: But the war really does seem to be a dividing [unclear]

LP: Oh, a tremendous dividing line...

VH: Nothing was the same after that.

LP: Nothing was ever the same.

VH: Right.

LP: People were shifted all over the place, they and when they served they served for three years, four years, whatever, five years, they never came back, it wasn't like Viet Nam or Korea or any of those, when you went that was it.

VH: That was it, yeah you never knew when they were coming back...

LP: And there was times when you thought the war was going to go on forever, that it was never going to end and so I, yeah, I don't think it ever was the same. I had a lot of, like the college friends that I had been very close to and after I got, even after I was married and stuff, and kept up with and we wrote, but then...

VH: Yeah I think that happened to everybody, just lost track of people.

LP: And then you never knew whatever happened to them afterwards.

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SF: And then to regroup when, with all this political repression and...

LP: That came pretty fast, you know, really that came very fast, cause people were just getting back, late '45, I think Glen got back in November of '45, someone of them didn't get back until 1946. When he got back Coolerator was on strike, he was madder than hell at them cause he said hey these are, you know the one, this isn't going to be the same, they're not going to have any more defense contracts down there, are you guys crazy or what?

SF: Right, it does seem like there was a lot of money flowing through Duluth that hasn't been seen since.

VH: No, that was it. Big years, but...

LP: And...and then everybody still made the big push, well and, for Wallace and then that was the end of it. [Unclear] end of it. Although not that I think that that was a mistake because my feeling is if there hadn't been a push for Wallace, Henry, Dewey would have been elected.

VH: That's right, so that's one good thing that Wallace...

LP: And not that Truman was, Truman was terrible, but on social issues he wasn't a Dewey anyway.

VH: No, it would have been another step back, yeah, so...

LP: On, on, obviously on international issues he was reactionary as could be. Because then you have, that's when you have all of this stuff starting in, so I think it would have happened just the same with Dewey, except you wouldn't have had some of the social things would have been in worse shape, some of the social legislation and so on would have been in worse shape and so on and I think what happened, you know you never know [unclear] people are gonna vote for, Wallace and when they got in the booth they thought oh gees we don't want that Dewey though, and then at the last minute pulled the lever for Truman instead of Wallace, I really you know...

VH: Um hum, no I think that's what happened, that was a...it's like what they're saying now, he can't beat...

SF: About Jackson, right.

VH: Can't be elected, but we've got to have a Democrat in there and I think they you know, they just were a little, yeah...

LP: Well after all these years of Republican you do get a little worried.

VH: Yeah you do, yeah [unclear]

LP: And when you think of somebody like Bush...

END INTERVIEW

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