Carolyn Terteling-Payne Interview

NARRATOR: Carolyn Terteling-Payne INTERVIEWER: Brandi Burns DATE: July 1, 2010 LOCATION: Boise, ID PROJECT: Boise Mayor and City Council Members Project START INTERVIEW START TRACK ONE BB: This is Brandi Burns of the Department of Arts and History, and I am talking to Mrs. Carolyn Terteling-Payne. Today is Thursday, July 1st, 2010, and we are in Mrs. Terteling-Payne’s home at 2050 Table Rock Road, Boise, Idaho. Mrs. Terteling-Payne will be talking about her experiences as a member of the Boise City Council. So, I thought we could started by talking about your background first, and could you share some of your early experiences in Boise? CT: Well, having grown up here, I have loved being in Boise, and of course when I came here at three, the fun thing was, to look back now, and remember what it was like then. So I’ve seen a lot of changes in this community over time, and once, I have raised four sons, and while they were all in school, I started volunteering. And I became very involved in the community—in the schools and also in many other volunteer activities. So, when I applied for the Council, I used that as sort of my stepping stone, from volunteer experience into public service. And probably my primary focus over most of these years of volunteering has been St. Luke’s, where I sit as a trustee. I was the first woman elected to that board, served on the board until I became mayor, went off the board and now I’m back on again. So one of these days they’ll have to make me leave. But that’s been a terrific experience because health care is so important in a community where we are somewhat regionally isolated. So that’s been very interesting to see the growth there, too. BB: So you were born in Buhl, and I was just curious, where did you and your family live when you first moved here? CT: We lived in the North End. We lived on Sixth. Actually, I did have one year at, I guess, it’s Roosevelt? No, not Roosevelt. What is the school? Longfellow! How could I forget? And then we moved to Thirtieth, which is very close to Lowell. So I was raised essentially in the North End. BB: Do you remember what your house looked like? CT: Oh, sure. In the North End, it was an older home and a little too small for us. There were four of us in the family and we bought on North Thirtieth and that, I remember thinking, was just a huge house. I drove by recently and looked at it, and it was just a teeny, tiny house on a corner. But it was great growing up in that part of town, and I’ve laughingly said, since then, I’ve always lived north of the river and I have no idea what the significance of that is, except that when you have grown up here, the North End is the older part of town, the North End and the East End, and it was a great place to grow up—very close to Camel’s Back Park and lots of outside activities. So, North End, believe it or not. BB: Perfect. I was just curious, what did your parents do? CT: My father was a groceryman, and he had always been in the grocery business, and I’m thinking that when we first came here he might have been with Safeway. And then later he went into business with a Basque man named Murelaga [Transcriber’s note from City Directory, 1966: Corner Grocery, 2919 W. State St.; Carl Edwards listed as clerk.] and they became very best friends, and he worked there a lot. My mother, on the other hand, was a career woman. She had graduated from high school right about, really, the beginning of the Depression, in Buhl and it was a very difficult time. Her family lost their farm. So when she graduated from high school, she came up to Boise and lived at the YWCA and went to business school. So, later in life, she worked for many companies around Boise—Olson Manufacturing, then later Gate City Steel, where she became personnel director. She was a very high achiever, and that was a great thing. It was a good experience for her and they had a kind of a nice balance. After the war, however, they were divorced, and my mother then became the single provider for my brother and myself. BB: So what elementary school did you attend again? CT: I started—I had one year at Longfellow and then I had the rest of my years at Lowell. So the nice thing about that is, because I lived in the North End on Thirtieth and we always walked to school, the fun thing was, I had another friend on Twenty-Ninth, so she and I would start the big walk and by the time we got to Harrison Boulevard there would be about eight of us, and then we’d walk to North. It was really fun, and it was easy to do, you know—either that or, cold winter days, we rode the city bus. There weren’t any school buses in that part of town. And North was actually the only grade school [Transcriber’s note: junior high school], and by the time I got to high school, that was the only high school, too, before Borah. So my class was the last class to go all three years at Boise High. After that, some of them moved to Borah and it became, you know, they mixed it up and eventually both became three years again. [Whispers] Strange. BB: So your junior high was basically North. CT: Yes. Yes. BB: Do you have any other memories about either elementary or North Junior or high school? CT: Well, you know, the nice thing about growing up in a town the size of Boise is that you do very often have the same friends for years and years and years. So some of my friends from grade school are still my friends, and many of us, by the way, after we went to North and then Boise High, the year I graduated there were six or eight girls that went up to Idaho [Transcriber’s note: University of Idaho] when I did. And then later, those women and myself are still friends and have raised our kids together. So that’s a unique thing about a town like Boise. The other things that I think is unique is that people who go away to college still come back. They want to come back. They may not come back right away, but a lot of them still come back. So, three of my four boys continue to live in Boise. One lives in Seattle, but it’s an attractive place to be, and it was that way growing up, too. The only difference was nobody had a door key. You didn’t have to lock your doors. And very few of us drove. We learned to drive at the same early age that kids do today, but nobody really owned cars. A few of the boys did, but most of the girls did not, but it was a very easy time—no drugs, none of the kinds of issues that the whole community and the nation has now with growth and drugs and all that—but it was a great time to grow up in Boise. BB: Wonderful. CT: I still know some of my teachers, as a matter of fact. BB: Oh, really? Do you remember their names? CT: Oh, yes! The day that I became mayor, the first phone call I got was from my seventh-grade homeroom teacher. And the weird thing was, he was also all of my boys’ homeroom teachers, at North. So there’s that thread of continuity that we can be rewarded with when we live here long enough. So, yes, I remember several of my teachers. Many of them are no longer alive [laughter], but, yeah, I remember actually a woman that died not too long ago, maybe within the year, at 100, was our gym teacher and then dean of girls. So, you know, I think that, I’m repeating myself here, but I think that’s the beauty of growing up in a fairly small town and staying here and then being fortunate enough to come back. It’s a super-good thing. BB: Great. Are there any major events that you remember growing up that happened in Boise? CT: That happened in Boise? Well, I can sure remember being in junior high and listening to General MacArthur’s speech, and I can remember in Boise, it was pretty quiet. I mean, I can remember one of the policemen, Gus Urresti, was also on the ski patrol at Bogus, and so we—nobody ever really got in trouble because he was everywhere we were. [Laughter] And we had a youth center for awhile that was out near, on Gowen Field property, and that was fun, but it was really a quiet time. I think it was a time of discovery in a way, because the city was still so small, but it was beginning to take on the aspect of being a regional center. And that took awhile. I mean, it took twenty-five or fifty years. I remember when I first went on Council, we used to lament the fact that we hadn’t had a really good old-fashioned city plan that would have allowed us to have gateway highways and gateway streets, so we had to retrofit a lot of things. And, but I think that Boise itself has grown fairly, fairly effectively. I mean, obviously, we have some transportation issues but, when I was growing up, we either walked or took the bus. That was it. But there was no mall. There wasn’t any place to go south of the river. So it was simpler. But I don’t recall any major events. I mean, I think that I was still in junior high or high school when the Korean War occurred, and by the time we went to college, a lot of people were coming back from that war. And, of course, my life was truly affected by the Depression because it affected my mother, and the war affected my mother, too. So, and her, the stability of her marriage. So, I think those were factors that were occurring but they were more national than local. BB: Were you in Boise when redevelopment of downtown started? CT: Yes. In fact, I remember my former husband coming up with a plan for a super-block, and then there was a lot of debate about where the mall should go. Yes, I was very aware of all of that but not politically active at that time. It was a huge cataclysm of opinions, however, and for a long time after, when the mall went where it went, there was a lot of discouragement with local downtown people, and now we’re seeing some of those issues resurfacing as the growth goes to the west and the east, that affects the downtown. But we got a lot of accolades for our downtown, but that really was a major, major traumatic time. And then, of course, with the redevelopment and all of those buildings being removed and then nothing happening for a long time, and that’s a little similar to the Boise Tower [laughter], so, I mean, history must be repeating itself. Yes, those were big issues. My husband was politically pretty active. He was on some of the blue-ribbon committees and that kind of thing. But I was still raising my children, being a home mom. And volunteering a lot. BB: I guess, as a citizen, what were your feelings towards the redevelopment? CT: I was very concerned about the identity of the city and the historical part of Boise. I hated it when things came tumbling down, even though in many cases it was totally necessary. But I was concerned that it was going to create a schism and a split, but now that we’ve grown westerly, you know, it’s probably been okay. I think our downtown has retained a lot of character, but there were some things that were removed that probably shouldn’t have been. And Boise City then had, I think at that time may not have had a historic preservation committee or a council, and we didn’t have historic building codes and that kind of thing. So, I remember, as a little girl, the old police station, which was right almost where the city building is now, when that went down, I was just appalled. I couldn’t believe it. And even now I look back and think, “Gee, it would be fun if that were still there.” But there is some sacrifice with growth, and you have to accept that. I mean, we can’t keep everything the way it once was but we can do a lot of work to hopefully contain the deterioration and the tear-down. So, the other thing I think about Boise at that time—and I’m thinking maybe when I was in junior high, it might have been around twenty-five thousand, and I don’t know what it was when I graduated—but, I mean, State Street wasn’t even paved all the way out of town. And the fairgrounds was where Chandler Masonry is now. So things were much closer together. And when everything is closer together, you all know each other. You know each others’ parents and they know you, and if anybody’s into mischief everybody knows. So it’s a very different way to see your city as it was then than the way it is now. But I do think that we have a viable, interesting downtown. It’s just that we lost some tradition along the way. Some history. BB: Was there any particular buildings that you remember that you were sad or, you know, disappointed to see go? CT: Yes, well, I mentioned the old City Hall. I just thought that was so sad to see it go down. And the Eastman Building was a very interesting building, too, but probably the old city hall—or I guess it was a police station, it was everything. That was a huge loss, and I’m trying to think, there was a block opposite, let’s see, it would be on Main. It was opposite where the Idanha is, and it’s where One Capital Center is now. Yes, and that was, that was a series of theaters. There was the Rio, the Rialto, the Boise, the Granada, the Pinney, and the Ada. Those were all downtown. And so we could go downtown, you know, go to the movie for a quarter, and we could maybe go to two or three movies. And the whole, that whole side of the street from One Capital Center—I’m mixing these buildings up—the Simplot building, all the way down those couple of blocks, I’m sorry, on Main Street. It was just like a B movie set. There were pawnshops, the Trailway bus depot and Greyhound were right on Main. So it was, it was fun even just to walk around downtown, and I don’t think there was any Friday night, whatever they do, driving down— BB: Oh, the drag-racing type thing? CT: The drag races or whatever. There was none of that because not many kids had cars, but it was fun to have all those old theaters right there a block or so apart, and a lot of kids their favorite job was being the usher at the theater, you know. This makes me feel really old [laughter]. It sounds like such a long time ago, but the street was very interesting. The buildings had interesting facades, and most of those are gone, too, which is too bad. But I can see what’s there now is grand and gorgeous and serves a beautiful community, provides a wonderful service, so. BB: Do you have any more memories of being downtown, like maybe what movies you went and saw? CT: Oh, my word. You know, the funny thing is, the Granada was right about where the Bouquet is right now. And the Rio and the Rialto were side by side, as I recall, and they were opposite the Idanha. The Pinney was, of course, over opposite McU’s, and the Egyptian or the Ada was there where it is now. So I remember, well, actually, at Boise High, everything that occurred in the community was in that theater, the Ada or the Egyptian, because there just wasn’t another place to do anything. I don’t remember many of the movies. I do remember that some of them were serialized. So you’d go on Saturday and see like a chapter of the movie. Then you’d go the next Saturday and see what happened. So it was, but it was great, and, you know, we also always took the bus all the way down Warm Springs to the Nat. And that was fabulous, and I am sorry that that’s gone. I’d forgotten about it, but that’s where I took life-saving and I remember I was a very tiny person. When I was in the seventh grade, I weighed sixty-nine pounds, and I was about four foot two, and about the eighth grade I went to the Nat and took the Red Cross swimming lessons, life-saving, actually, and it was just a joke, because there’s no way at my size I could have rescued anything—you know, a basketball maybe. But that was fun, but the Nat was the center in many ways of summer existence. That was just it. We went there all the time. It was great fun. BB: Great. CT: And it’s gone. BB: Yeah. CT: But the pool is still there, so that’s good. BB: Yes. Do you remember anything else about redevelopment that you would like to share? CT: I do recall that it seemed to take a long time and that there were a lot, as I told you, a lot of issues. Some really good thinkers were involved in that, and it wasn’t long after that—and it would be interesting to check and see when this happened—but the Boise Futures Foundation was formed. And some of the leadership in the downtown redevelopment and the location of the mall and all of that, those very people were involved in the Boise Futures book. So, there were a lot of founding fathers, so to speak, that really did look at the long-term issues related to development, and all of it was controversial. And, I mean, I remember Pete O’Neill, who’s been a wonderful developer in this area, and I’m trying to think, I think Pat McMurray, there are a lot of bankers, everybody in the downtown as well as people from Boise State worked on the Boise Futures, and that was a roadmap for a long time and probably wouldn’t be too bad an idea to take a look at that again because I think it was pretty far-reaching. So, during those years, the ‘80s and into the ‘90s and really through, through into the early 2000s were the years of enormous growth, enormous growth. So all the things that were on the public plate had to do with growth. And there were lots of ongoing arguments between people who wanted to keep it the way it was and people who wanted to develop. And that was really mostly what was on my plate when I came on Council in ’93. It was all those issues about how do we grow, how can we do the best, and it was a very difficult time, but it was exciting. There was lots of money to spend on doing things right. BB: Yes. There’s also, there was the recession in the ‘80s. Do you remember much about that? CT: Yes. Yes. That had a lot of impact, but I don’t recall in my own personal life that it was as serious as this one. But I think it was very serious. It just—I think it may have been my age, home raising a family. I think by the mid-‘80s all my children had graduated from college, but it didn’t seem to have the ripple effect that this one has had. And Boise, I think, survived it in many ways better than other parts of the country. We were still the haven. We had a huge ingress and a very small egress at that time. Okay? BB: Okay. What did you enjoy most about Boise when you were growing up? CT: Well, you know, I can remember when we were developing the Foothills Plan, and we would go various places—the Council members—and walk all over. And one day, Anne Hausrath who was from the North End, solidly smart growth, anti-growth, Council member, said something about, “Well, I’ll bet some of you Council”—and I don’t mean this in a bad way, it was kind of funny, really—“I’ll bet some of you Council members have never even walked these foothills.” And I almost laughed, because that’s what we all did. We walked all over the foothills when we were growing up. And even after I lived in the country, my boys and I covered every inch between here and Stack Rock, you know, so we were always outside. And that’s what I remember because there really, I don’t, nobody had TV until into the mid-‘50s, I think, and even if you did have it, there wasn’t anything to watch. So we all were outside riding our bikes and swimming and hiking and it was wonderful. And I had some friends that lived near Lowell School and their parents were great fishermen, and so I probably fished every little lake and reservoir around. So, I was really outdoorsy but it wasn’t exactly as organized. I mean, it wasn’t, “Let’s go hike this trail.” It was, “Let’s go play in the foothills,” you know. So it was much different in that regard, but we, I can remember spending a lot of time at Camel Back, and that was kind of isolated. The Highlands didn’t come until a little bit later. We used to have picnics there and hang around there and we’d sometimes go up to the Barber Flats, and there was just a lot of outdoor time and it was a great, great, great experience. But, as I said, it wasn’t like, “Let’s take Bob’s Trail,” because, you know, “What?!” It was just, “Let’s go explore. Let’s see how high we can climb.” And “Let’s take a picnic and do that kind of thing.” It was a great time, very little development in the foothills at that time. [Whispers] I feel old. [Laughter] What’s the next question? Get me into this century. BB: Yeah, we’re still pretty early here. Could you tell me about your experiences at the University of Idaho and then Arizona State? CT: Yes. Well, you know, there were a lot of people—Boise State was still BJC [Transcriber’s note: Boise Junior College]—and most kids that could go away, we had a few kids that would go to Stanford and other colleges but a lot of people went to the U of I. And of course probably—I don’t know how many lawyers there are in Boise now that went to the U of I, but I’m guessing four or five thousand, maybe more. But there were a lot of us that went up there. Some lived independently but a lot of them went through rush, and I did that as well, went through rush, was a Gamma Phi. It was the perfect school for me. I was the first one in my family to go to college, and the notion of being very far away from home was a little frightening to me and very frightening to my mother, who had raised me by herself. So it was a perfect place for me. It was just the right size—about four, five, six thousand at the time, reasonably, very reasonable to live in, even living in a sorority it was very reasonable. And because there were so many kids from southern Idaho, we always had great carpools going up and going back. Before I went up there, they had, originally there was a train that went from Boise up to Moscow, but that was before my time. But we would carpool up, a lot of us, and it was a perfect place for me. I majored in English with a minor in psych and French and I got a teaching certificate. And my husband-to-be was in a six-year construction engineering program at Arizona State, and when I applied for graduate school they offered me a job as a graduate assistant teaching, so I was a professor of English while I was there, and that was great. And then we came back after a year, and then I started my family up here. So I didn’t really go back to teaching, but it’s sort of indirectly a part of my life with my grandkids and my own children. I probably, in my heart, I’m a teacher. But that was a good thing. Arizona State was about three times the size of Idaho, and the temperature was about a hundred degrees higher. I’m laughing; that’s not true. But that was very difficult for me, because I’d come from four seasons, where you have four seasons, and to me down there the only season was hot. So after my husband graduated, we came home, and I’ve lived here ever since. And someone would have to take dynamite to make me leave, blow me up, because I’m not leaving. So, you know, I raised my children here. All four boys went to the Highlands School and to North and to Boise High. They all went to different schools, but it was a great, great city, even then a great city, as it still is. It wasn’t too much bigger then, so it was a great place to raise a family. BB: Well, great. Do you remember what year you came back to Boise? CT: Yes. 1960. BB: 1960. CT: Yes. Graduated from Idaho in ’59, spent that next year at Arizona, and came back. BB: Was there any particular reason that you came back? CT: Well, my husband was, of course, a native Idahoan and born in Boise and his family had a company here. And my family was all here. I don’t think I even contemplated not coming back here. And I remember thinking, well, all my children will always be here, but it just wasn’t an option. We always knew we would live here and, you know, I think if you know it, you don’t even think about not living here. You just know it—it’s in you. But, of course, business and all of that were the underlying reason, but both our families were here and grandparents and everybody. BB: So, what made you start to volunteer? CT: You know, I think it’s, that’s a question I sometimes ask myself, but, and I don’t know the exact answer but I started really at the school. I had children in school. And actually then, fairly early on, I’d joined the Boise Junior League and was very, very involved, one of the founders of the Boise School Volunteer Project, which is now in its, I don’t know how many years. And in doing that, in joining the League, it also provided what they called a period of community training. And I had already been volunteering at St. Luke’s and I think that was just a fluke. I felt comfortable with it, I kind of liked helping people when they needed that kind of help, and my children had been born there. So, really, I started through PTA and all of that and then later with St. Luke’s. And, but I probably was involved in everything. That’s what I said when I applied for City Council: “I think I’ve been on every community board there is.” And I think it makes you a more satisfied person. I didn’t necessarily want to go to work, and I didn’t have to, thank heavens, so I could go out and volunteer and give something back, and it’s extremely satisfying to me, and it turned out to be my stepping stone to public service, although I didn’t know that at the time. So, but that was extremely important to me, and it also allowed me to be out of the home and continue my own education in that way. So, I’m a real believer in lifelong learning and my volunteering taught me a lot. And it was a way to give back. So that was good. BB: I thought I read something that you first started volunteering at St. Luke’s when you were seventeen? CT: I think I was fourteen. BB: Oh, fourteen. CT: Actually. I’d forgotten that for a minute. One of my best friends’ father was a doctor, and she lived in the East End and I lived in the North End, and one summer she said, “Well, maybe we could get a job at St. Luke’s,” for twenty cents an hour or whatever. So we did and we worked in the laundry, folding, one summer. I think we were about fourteen. And then the next summer we delivered trays, food trays, and it’s lucky we never caused somebody’s demise [laughs] because, you know, you have to be pretty careful about that. But actually, you know, I’d forgotten that that was really one of my very first volunteer experiences, long before I was ever married. And then after that, when I came back and my children were a little older, that was what I did again was volunteer there. And then later, of course, was president of the Auxiliary, and then went on the board. And now I’m still really involved there. It’s been very satisfying, and as I say, it is a continuing education. I mean, selfishly, I could say that that’s true because there is a lot to it. It’s not just standing there. You’re busy all the time, you’re meeting people, it’s been a great experience. Fourteen—I think I, I think we got twenty cents an hour and then later one of my first jobs was at Strawn’s Office Supply, and I started there and I think I got twenty-five cents and then I got fifty cents and then—it was pretty exciting. [Laughter] But everything, it’s all relative, you know. Maybe that fifty cents today is really five dollars, you know. But it was great. It was fun. And it was easy to take the bus and go down to St. Luke’s or later, when I was in junior high or high school, take the bus and go to Strawn’s, which was right across from Macy’s. So, there you are. BB: What was Strawn’s again? CT: It was an office supply—big Hallmark card store and, they’re still in existence. They’re office furniture now. But they had a retail store there, and it was fun. I mean, I remember just waiting on people and selling certain office supplies and not having a clue what most of that was, but it was fun, it was very good for me. You know, go to work at nine and go home at five and make, you know, maybe five dollars. Big deal. But, you know, if you’re saving money—I was always a great saver, so, I’m still kind of a saver—so, it was my way to start my savings account and begin to think about what I was going to do someday. So that was a good deal. BB: Yeah. CT: I don’t know if very many kids work at thirteen and fourteen today. I mean, I have a granddaughter that’s that age and she does work a little bit, babysitting, that kind of thing. But it was a real job at St. Luke’s. Probably only got it because of my friend, you know. Her father said, “Take pity on these two girls. They don’t have anything to do.” And now, of course, hospitals have junior volunteers. So that would have been an effective way to participate, too, but they didn’t have it then, so— BB: How neat. CT: Yes, it was fun. BB: So, I’ve got a whole list of some of the places that you volunteered. And I was just wondering if you wanted to tell me about your favorite volunteer moments or organizations. I know St. Luke’s is probably one of them. CT: You know, it would be very hard for me to say—I mean, obviously St. Luke’s has been a continuing part of my life, and I think that would always be the one thing that mattered the most to me. I did some volunteering for the University of Idaho, too. I was on the Foundation there. When I look back, I like to remember the kind of formative things that came out of those experiences, and I think with the Junior League, for example, I was president but also pretty strongly behind the establishment of the Boise School Volunteers, which, you know, I would never take all the credit for that in any way, shape, or form, but I’m so proud to think that I was part of that because it’s a huge effort now, all the schools, many of the schools have school volunteers. And at St. Luke’s I can remember very early on we started something called CARES, and I was very involved in establishing that. And CARES is the Children at Risk Evaluative Services. And that was begun so that a child who perhaps had been molested or abused could go there and be interviewed once, and we had physicians involved and everything. And that now has been modeled all over. And it’s now part of another entity called FACES, but CARES was established at Luke’s and the first one ever. So that I feel, having been involved in that, I would never have had that opportunity had I not already been involved at St. Luke’s. So I’m thrilled to think about that. And when my second son was injured badly when he was eighteen—he fell forty feet and was electrocuted, it was a terrible, terrible accident—but because of him and some other folks, we started something called Alternate Mobility Adventure Seekers. Has a different name now. But it was to find recreational activities for people who were physically injured, as my son was, or impaired in some way. And it started—it began with a ski program at Bogus and then ultimately it was absorbed by Boise State. So I’m very proud of having been a part of the establishment of that, and it meant a lot to my son, who after his accident was an amputee. So that allowed him all kinds of avenues, but it wasn’t just for him. It was for all the people that we became acquainted with while he was recovering. So, you know, you look back and you think, “Did I, did I do anything good? I think so. I hope so.” And now at St. Luke’s I’ve helped establish two brand new committees. They’re each about two years old, and one is Women’s Forum and it’s obviously composed of women because I believe they make most of the medical, health-care decisions, and it’s just a purely educational thing. And we meet quarterly. And the other one is the Meridian-Eagle Advisory Committee for St. Luke’s, and that’s to allow people who live in Eagle and Meridian to participate in decision-making and to be involved and made aware of what’s happening at St. Luke’s Boise and Meridian. So, over time, I’ve seen things come to fruition that have meant a lot to me. They don’t have my name on them. They’ll never have my name on them. But I know in my soul that I’ve made a little bit of a difference there. So, but other organizations: The Junior League was very important to me because I met so many people. And I joined in probably the early ‘70s, and so I still have a lot of friends through that group. And because I lived in the country, by the way, I didn’t have a neighborhood, you know, so volunteering also took me into the city as a neighborhood and that was good. I remember Philharmonic, the Art Museum, the Learning Lab—that’s another one that I was very involved in the founding of that, and that’s the teaching literacy to older adults. It’s located now at the Boise Public Library, and they have their own place in Garden City. And I’m still on that advisory board, and that’s just been wonderful. And every year they have a big luncheon, and one of their students remarks about how learning to read has affected his or her life. And so those are things that I maybe made a footprint on, but that’s about it. But very, very fine volunteer efforts that were worth every moment, you know. And you look back and go, “That was a good thing.” So that’s something that I can reflect about, although I don’t have much time for reflection, but you made me do it. [Laughter] BB: Do you remember some of the things that you did at the Boise Museum of Art? CT: Well, you know, we went through some interesting times there. You may not know this but the old, there was an addition—that building, by the way, was a WPA project and it belongs to the city and the Art Museum rents it for a very small amount of money, I believe, unless they’ve raised the fees. But the issue that I recall when I was involved was the remodeling, and the historic preservation people had just begun to become active and they didn’t want the original big beautiful front doors and all of that façade to be gone. So it was a challenge how to build around that and expand. So I do remember that, and I also remember that in the ‘70s there was concern about the private collection in that museum. And we had to do, we had to do some work about that, because some of the private collection had come from a doctor named Pittenger—this is way more than you want to know—but it was unusually, incredibly wonderful, and it was primarily Oriental art. And because we had a Chinese community here—a lot of it was Chinese and ivory and so on and it was stored in the basement. And the old building had, I think, an oil furnace or a coal furnace or something. So, through the League, we went through an enormous project of inventorying everything. Unfortunately, one of the executive directors along the way, unfortunately—and, good news is, I don’t recall who it was—decided to part with some part of that collection. But it was during that—that was a real time of growth because expansion was being considered and what kind of art do we want to display? And subsequently in probably the mid-‘70s a group was established called Collectors Forum, and that group is still there. They decided that the Western and Northwestern art would be the focal point and the members would pay additional money, and when the money was built up, then the museum would buy something. And that was a good thing, and that was sort of an outgrowth of a program called Sun Valley Arts and Humanities. And they, in association with the Boise Art Museum, went through some major changes. And now, I think, the Boise Art Museum is right up there with a lot of really fine smaller museums, and they’re growing and they’re doing well, last I heard. [Laughter] BB: The other one that I wanted to talk to you about was the, your work on the Historic Preservation Council. CT: Yes. And, you know, I wish I could remember when that was but it was really important. Along about the time of the Bicentennial, which would have been, let me think a minute, let’s see, Idaho is ’82 so it would have been in the mid-, early ‘80s. Part of the Bicentennial effort was to decide and discover and reinforce what our legacy was, historically speaking. And I think historic preservation became very much more important during those years. And, you know, we didn’t want the character of the city to be changed. But that was really the beginning because, after that, we started establishing historic districts. And one of the forerunners of all of that was a woman named Ann Erstad, who doesn’t live anymore, I mean, she’s deceased but her son is an architect here now and Theresa’s in the mayor’s office, Theresa McLeod. But, anyway, it became apparent during all this urban renewal and everything, that we were losing things, and so historic preservation became quite strong and sort of determining what things should be named as worthy of historic preservation, and the first district, I think, was, I don’t know if it was Warm Springs or the North End, but now they’re five or six districts and within that district then certain conformity is expected. And I think that was all very, very healthy. It wasn’t popular at first, and people didn’t like going before the Historic Preservation or before design review. But it’s now a pattern, and I think it’s been effective and helpful. You know, it prevents some of that cookie-cutter stuff and it prevents some of the willy-nilly development, and it helps, it helped us look at traffic impact in older neighborhoods. So I think it was a very fine thing. I don’t remember how long I served, but I think I was still serving through the Bicentennial and the Lasting Legacy thing came out of that—and actually it also was, that phrase was also used when the Olympics were coming through, where we they, Salt Lake, on that. So I could be getting my title mixed up, but it was apparent that we had to do a better job of saving what we had and making people understand that they needed to conform where they could when they’re in a district, like Old Boise and the Basque District and those kinds of things. [Whispers] That’s all I remember. BB: [Laughter] Did you contribute to the historic preservation plan? I think that was drafted in ’79? CT: Yes. I think that that was something we started working on. I don’t remember when it, I don’t remember that I was part of bringing it to that final conclusion. I could have been. In ’79, I had—let’s see, yeah, I probably was. I think, I think there were a lot of people who were all for it by then but, you know, it was, as you said, we were entering into a slight recession during that time. I just remember being, you know, “Boy, I’m on that list. I’m for that.” And I think it’s been a very healthy step to take. People used to say, “Well, there’s nothing much here over a hundred years old.” Well, there really wasn’t. But that doesn’t matter. It’s our history, it’s our legacy. I can remember being very active with the Depot, saving the Depot. In fact, I chaired a fund-raiser up there. But by then I think I was on Council. That would have been more in the ‘90s, I think. We have had some historic district efforts that were, for example, the Spaulding Ranch, do you know, on Cole Road? BB: Yeah, I think. CT: That one was really because the owner did not want Glenwood extended through her property, and she had twenty-four acres there. And it was the first residence of a first doctor out here and it has the only, one of the few standing, remaining wood silo barns, and it’s still there. But it was a big ripple over whether or not, if something has historic standing, her home was on the Historic Register and the ranch was the Historic District, does that prevent ACHD from drafting a road through there? And that was a big issue for a lot of years, and that—the owner of that property—is still living. She’s about ninety-eight and she ultimately sold all the property, but she regretted, I think, later that she’d had it made into a district because she couldn’t sell it as two parcels and it probably would be difficult to develop. But whoever bought it said, “I’m, whatever I decide to do, you know, I still want it,” so. But those issues become confrontational and you have to be very careful, because there are people who didn’t want that ranch named an Historic District because she had cows there and cows bring flies, you know. [Laughs] You can understand how those arguments go, but I think it served her well during that time. But other districts are more like an actual physical district divided by streets and that sort of thing. BB: Were there other signature projects that you remember from that time? CT: As a volunteer, you mean? BB: Yes. CT: I’d have to look at my own resume. I think through, I’m trying to recall, the things that I had a real impact on are probably the things I’ve already shared with you, but I do think that that was a period of time when more people were able to volunteer—not as, there weren’t as many dual-income families, there weren’t as many women working outside the home. There were a lot—and I don’t mean to put that down—but not very many people said they didn’t have time to volunteer. People did, and I can remember a lot of, it was the beginning sort-of daycares springing up and that sort of thing, little schools where kids could, you know, go for their two or three hours a day and be secure while Mom did her volunteering, that kind of thing. And there were some organizations that didn’t have any volunteers that were working women. Nobody quite knew how to do that. And I remember about the time I was president of the Junior League was when we started saying, “We’ve got to, we’ve got to have projects at night, you know, we have to open up our arms to these really talented women who want to volunteer, too, but aren’t going to be able to do something at ten o’clock in the morning.” So, you know, the glass ceiling was still there but things were changing a lot, and I think just promoting volunteerism through general efforts was maybe, I suppose, a signature event for me—at least it felt that way personally. The other thing I remember at the Highlands School, it was PTA and we went through a little revolt and turned it into PTO and that was in order, that was sort of a way to secure the dues that came into the school for that school. And so that was a kind of an important time and I think—I don’t know, there are still lots of schools that are PTA, but—in those days we felt that we had a fairly diverse student body and we needed things for the teachers, and so we wanted our dues to go right to the school. So that was sort of a little controversy. I seem to have stepped in a few of those over the years, but a lot of my more recent memories have to do with my early years on the Council and the things that were happening then, you know. BB: Okay. CT: Is this a good stopping point? Is that what you’re thinking? BB: Yeah, I’ve got about a good five more minutes or so. CT: Okay, okay, good. BB: And really, I guess, one of the last important ones that I wanted to talk to you about was when you served as president of the Boise Public Library Foundation. CT: Yes. Yes. I’m glad you brought that up. I’m really fond of libraries, and I visit them whenever I go to another city. In fact, I was in the Seattle library recently, which is just fabulous. But I felt, there was a man named, is a man named Bob Hendren and he was sort of, I think he began that library foundation. He asked me to come on, and he said, “We need to raise money. We’ve never really—we’ve just been supportive, but we need to raise some money.” So we came up, this was my brilliant title, Bucks for Books. So we went out and started just asking people to donate and then we had three or four major events at the library. It was—they were masked balls, is what they were. And because Hendren’s was close to the library and Bob Hendren had been involved, they helped us kind of decorate the library. So we’d close it down a little early and have a big party in there, and we gave out paperweights. I remember mine said, one year I did it, I could show it to you, it’s kind of fun, maybe it belongs in the Archives, it’s “A Night at the Boise Public Library, a Novel Experience, First Edition, or something like that.” And, oh, they just closed the library down. It was huge, labor-intensive, but it was so fun, and that group of people that came to those events, we had two or three of them, I think, realize that the library did need money, because people think that if it’s tax-supported, you don’t need to give to that. Well, that’s just not quite true, you know. And it’s an asset, so that was really fun, and that generated a real list of people who would support the library. And then we expanded the numbers and we had, last I heard, a little account, probably around a hundred thousand, it may be less, maybe it’s gone by now, but some really good people have continued to serve on that. And I think I resigned as president about, along in the middle years on the Council. I felt that it probably wasn’t appropriate for me to do that. But that really began that, they’ve always had Friends of the Library, and that’s a wonderful group that does the book sale and all that. But when we needed the big dollars, we had to go after some big donors, and I can’t remember what all we earned but we did very well with that. If nothing more, we raised awareness that people need to give to the community amenities, like parks and libraries and swimming pools and all those things, because the taxes never do it all. So that was just a great experience for me. And I, actually, when I resigned, I had managed to get some really super-duper people and I think they’re still serving, many of them. So it wasn’t something where we met all the time, but we kept our eye on the dollar and that was good. But, you know, there were two people that I remember that—and I can’t come up with their names—but their idea was the exclamation point on the library. And one of them was on the Foundation with me, and they just, you know, a variety of people brought new ideas and it was a very helpful thing. Having events in the library, we finally stopped doing it because it was too intensive, labor-wise, for the staff to expect them to do that. But we had three or four of those masked balls and they were just great fun and earned a lot of money. So, I think that was probably the first time the library had really, with that Foundation, had really gone out and asked people, and it was a good step for the Foundation to make, and I think they’re very much stronger now. And they’ve had to be, with opening of branches. But I was on the Council when we bought the properties for the libraries and when we opened the Towne Square Mall, and we were just astonished at the usage. You know, people really want that. So, there’s nothing like a good book to hold in your hands is my theory. And a place, you know, a library is, serves multi purposes I think, too. And the Story Hour—I used to take my kids down for that. And, oh, it was so much fun! And reading to the kids and I think that, now I have grandchildren that are great readers, and I hope that I’ve affected that a little bit, but—A library is a gathering place, and it’s a community center, and we need that, and now we’re on the way, finally, which is good. But first we had to get the land and then we had to get the public to agree, and so it’s been a good thing. BB: Definitely. CT: Is that it? BB: Yep, yep, thank you very much for your time. CT: Good! Oh, I just feel like I’m a rambler. END TRACK ONE END INTERVIEW Transcribed by Marlene Fritz on February 21, 2012. Audited by Abigail Hoover on February 22, 2012.