INTERVIEWEE: Rhoda Johnson Winkel

Sevier County Oral History Project

INTERVIEWEE: Rhoda Johnson Winkel
INTERVIEWER: Bethany Bean
DATE: December 5, 1997
PLACE: Richfield, Utah
SUBJECT: The Great Depression in Sevier County

Bethany Bean: This is Bethany Bean and I am interviewing Rhoda J. Winkel on her remembrances of the Great Depression. The date is December 5, 1997, and the place is Richfield, Utah.

First some background information. When and where were you born?

Rhoda Winkel: Elsinore, Utah. February the twenty-fourth, nineteen twelve.

Bethany Bean: What were your family circumstances at that time?

Rhoda Winkel: Well, I think they were good (laughs). We were not poor, that's for sure. Probably not wealthy, but my father had a good living as a farmer and he was a good farmer. We had a good living.

Bethany Bean: How did you live? In what ways did you and your parents earn money for your family?

Rhoda Winkel: My father was a farmer. He had about sixty acres. He grew hay and potatoes and beets.

Bethany Bean: What did you do in your spare time as a child for fun?

Rhoda Winkel: Oh, there were a lot of us girls, about twelve of us, and we used to have a lot of fun playing. We had a Model-T Ford and we used to go all over in it. We'd ride to Monroe and sing. We used to sing . . . I can't remember now, but it was lots of fun. We laughed and giggled a lot.

Bethany Bean: It sounds like fun. During the Great Depression what were some of the ways as a teenager that you felt the influence of it and maybe went without some things?

Rhoda Winkel: I don't remember really going without anything, but, you know, a nickel in those days was like a couple of dollars now. We had a nickel on Sunday or something; you could get a nut sundae for fifteen cents and a banana split for twenty-five cents. Of course that was just a Fourth of July celebration. Usually the nickels we had, we'd put them together and buy gas. Gas was twenty-five cents a gallon.

Bethany Bean: (Laughs.) That's pretty good. What did your mother do to save money?

Rhoda Winkel: Well, mother had a garden and she used to can vegetables. I can't remember what was from her garden. The peddler at that time would come around selling peaches, pears, apples and she just bottled those things. Always lots of fruit.

Bethany Bean: Did the peddlers just grow their fruit around here and come around town?

Rhoda Winkel: They came mainly from up north, Logan and that area. Came down and sold apples.

Bethany Bean: Did your parents teach you anything important that you still remember?

Rhoda Winkel: Yes, we weren't taught about the scriptures like you are today. But we were taught honesty and health. We were taught tithing. But we were not taught the scriptures; which I regret because I do not have the background.

Bethany Bean: Did they have L.D.S. Seminary?

Rhoda Winkel: Yes, there was Seminary in our high school.

Bethany Bean: Did you receive a high school or college education?

Rhoda Winkel: I received both a high school and a college. At that time, one could teach school with two years of college but during the summer I went to summer school and took some correspondence courses up at the University of Utah.

Bethany Bean: And then did you teach school?

Rhoda Winkel: And then I taught school in Elsinore. Fourth grade in Elsinore. And junior high in Richfield. And then I was in Salt Lake teaching junior high.

Bethany Bean: You said you lived in Elsinore. How are things different from how they are now?

Rhoda Winkel: There weren't as many cars, of course, and so when I was teaching school, we'd come over here every day just after school. Elsinore was in the Monroe Stake, it was called. I recall it was called the South Sevier Stake. We were within that stake.

Bethany Bean: Were you happy growing up?

Rhoda Winkel: Yes, I was. I was always happy. I had three brothers and one sister. Two brothers older and one younger and then my sister was older. We were a happy family. We were a close family. We were taught to be a close family. We stayed close and we have always been. My three brothers have all passed away and my sister is still living in Richfield. She's been there for a little over a year.

Bethany Bean: When and where were you married?

Rhoda Winkel: We were married in Las Vegas on the twenty-seventh, nineteen forty-eight. And then in sixty-three, we went through the temple and were sealed in the Manti temple.

Bethany Bean: Did you worry about your husband getting a job or did you have any problems?

Rhoda Winkel: No, my husband raised turkeys; we had a ranch in Monroe called Brooklyn. We had a ranch out there and raised turkeys and chickens. So we really didn't have any problems as far as finance was concerned. It gave the boys something to do also, which when they were on their missions both Cory and Bryce were so grateful that daddy had that ranch where they learned to work. So many of the elders that come out it takes them six months to learn how to work. They come from cities where their fathers were doctors and they never had an opportunity to work. We were appreciative of that.

Bethany Bean: What things did you teach your children later on in life that you learned from the Depression?

Rhoda Winkel: John and I both, I think that we taught them about love. The most important thing in our home was to love one another and to be close. At our family home evenings we taught the Gospel. John was very well versed in the Gospel and we taught it in our home, so they were really well informed on the Gospel. We used to teach that. After Mary Jan and Bryce were in college, and Jack was married at that time, he was working down at the gas station, he'd come home on Monday night. I'd have his dinner all ready, and then John would have the lesson . . . and we agreed to make things shorter. About nine o'clock. Then they'd get home (laughs). John taught the Gospel. They all had seminary school and then in college also. I always said that I knew the least of any of them. (Laughs.)

Bethany Bean: If you could change anything about that time, would you change anything?

Rhoda Winkel: I guess if I could have changed anything, I would have had John stay a little longer. John passed away in '71. That's quite young. We had a good marriage. When he died, the bottom dropped out on my world.

Bethany Bean: What advice would you give to people now?

Rhoda Winkel: I'll say this . . . Graduate from high school and college. I have a grandson at college right now, and I hope he'll go on a mission. I don't know that I'd change anything right now.

Bethany Bean: Do you have anything else that you want to add?

Rhoda Winkel: That's about it.

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