Interview with Zenna Mae (Schmid) Bridges, June 12, 2004

Nevada Test Site Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas Interview with Zenna Mae and Eugene Bridges June 12, 2004 Las Vegas, Nevada Interview Conducted By Mary Palevsky © 2007 by UNLV Libraries Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews conducted by an interviewer/ researcher with an interviewee/ narrator who possesses firsthand knowledge of historically significant events. The goal is to create an archive which adds relevant material to the existing historical record. Oral history recordings and transcripts are primary source material and do not represent the final, verified, or complete narrative of the events under discussion. Rather, oral history is a spoken remembrance or dialogue, reflecting the interviewee’s memories, points of view and personal opinions about events in response to the interviewer’s specific questions. Oral history interviews document each interviewee’s personal engagement with the history in question. They are unique records, reflecting the particular meaning the interviewee draws from her/ his individual life experience. Produced by: The Nevada Test Site Oral History Project Departments of History and Sociology University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 89154- 5020 Director and Editor Mary Palevsky Principal Investigators Robert Futrell, Dept. of Sociology Andrew Kirk, Dept. of History The material in the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project archive is based upon work supported by the U. S. Dept. of Energy under award number DEFG52- 03NV99203 and the U. S. Dept. of Education under award number P116Z040093. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in these recordings and transcripts are those of project participants— oral history interviewees and/ or oral history interviewers— and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U. S. Department of Energy or the U. S. Department of Education. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Zenna Mae and Eugene Bridges Conducted by Mary Palevsky June 12, 2004 Table of Contents Introduction: Mr. and Mrs. Bridges each trace their family histories from Europe to the western United States. Both connect their narratives to the larger context of the Mormon migration to Utah’s Salt Lake Valley. 1 Mr. and Mrs. Bridges reminisce about their courtship, marriage, and the birth of their son Lonnie Bridges. 11 Lonnie Bridges began to suffer from a mysterious illness. Doctors performed surgery to remove lymphosarcoma, but Lonnie continues to ail. 20 The death of Lonnie prompted grief and questioning of the cause of illness. 29 Mr. and Mrs. Bridges explore their family’s genealogy. 32 Forty years after Lonnie’s death, news of similar illnesses in southern Utah led Mr. and Mrs. Bridges to re- examine the circumstances of Lonnie’s death. 36 Academic and government scientists reached conflicting conclusions regarding the long- term health effects of radiation released by nuclear testing. 42 Lacking adequate information about possible consequences, residents of southern Utah initially supported nuclear testing. Mormon doctrine quelled opposition by encouraging trust in governmental authority. 47 Mr. and Mrs. Bridges discuss the nineteenth- century Mormon migration from Nauvoo, Illinois to the American West. 53 New research supported a connection between Lonnie’s death and the residual effects of radiation from nuclear testing. The government’s compensation program did not adequately recognize the damage inflicted upon Downwinders. 57 Radioactive fallout from the Nevada Test Site spread beyond Utah to other sections of the country. 64 Conclusion: Government programs must more effectively identify the illnesses caused by radiation from nuclear tests. The ongoing debate has raised fundamental questions regarding the relationship between the federal government and its citizens. 65 UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Zenna Mae and Eugene Bridges June 12, 2004 in Las Vegas, NV Conducted by Mary Palevsky [ 00: 00: 00] Begin Track 2, Disk 1. Mary Palevsky: OK, so why don’t you begin, Mrs. Bridges, by telling me something about your family background, and I’m curious to know the history of how your people came to be in this part of the world. Zenna Bridges: OK. My father was raised in Switzerland, and they decided to come to America. They wanted to come to Zion. They had been converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints [ LDS] And first of all they sent one son— no, they sent two daughters over. One was eleven and one was sixteen. They stayed with people in the area of Bern, Bear Lake [ County], Idaho with different people until their family could get enough money to come themselves, because this was what they wanted to do. And the next year they had a seventeen- year- old son that they sent to the United States. Then the following year the missionaries wanted to have my father go. He was just ten years old, and his mother said, No, I have three children that have gone. I may never see them again, and so I am not going to let Robert go. But somebody put money in the perpetual immigration fund, which was a way that they were helping new converts come to the United States and come to Utah and Idaho. Enough money was raised so that the rest of their family could come. And there was Mom and Dad and I think three children that came at that time. About what year approximately would you say that was? Zenna: That was 1886. Eighteen eighty- six, because he was born in 1875. A lot of your Swiss people settled in this little town in Idaho called Bern, Idaho. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 2 Were they generally the Swiss converts? Zenna: Yes, they were all the Swiss converts at that point in time. My father didn’t come from Bern [ Switzerland], but a lot of the people did come from Bern; that’s where they got the name of Bern. He came from Berg Am Irschel, which was by Zurich, I believe. And he was a cowboy. His parents were worried that things might not be good for them to just live in the little town that they were at, so they bought a place out in the mountains called Slug Creek, and it’s still there. These boys stayed there with their parents for many years, growing and doing the things that boys do, but then finally my father was asked to go on a LDS mission back to Switzerland, and he did go. He was about thirty- four- or- five years old. They usually go at nineteen. Yes, that’s what I thought. Zenna: Yes, but it was 1914 and it was the First World War, so he was only there just a very little while and then they sent him to Montreal, Canada to finish his mission��� also Burlington, Vermont and Sharon, Vermont areas there. Then he came back home to Idaho, and he was very soon called to be a bishop and go and reside in Bern, Idaho instead of Georgetown. But he wasn’t married and President [ David O.] McKay, who was not president at that time, asked him, What do you have against marriage? And he said, Nothing except I just haven’t found the right person. And so he told him he needed to think about it seriously. And my father went down to general conference which was in Salt Lake, and at that point he was introduced to a young woman by the Seagull Monument on Temple Square. They shook hands and acknowledged each other and when they went home they both felt inclined that they wanted to get married. Now he had never talked with her, he had never dated her, but they corresponded for about six months and she indicated that— and he did also— that they had fasted and prayed UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 3 and they felt that it was the right thing for them to get married. So that winter in terrible snowstorms she went by train [ 00: 05: 00] up to Soda Springs, Idaho. He met her there and then they traveled to Salt Lake where they were married in the temple in Salt Lake. And I think that would be really hard to do! But the following year she had our oldest half- sister, and then the next year she had twins, and the twins and she all died. My father was very devastated, but they didn’t have a lot of help for people in those days. Lots of moms died. My father tried to fool her as to, you know, both of the children being alive— one had died— but she was pretty smart. And for a year he was so devastated. He wrote about seventy journals, and at that point in time he didn’t write much in his journals. I’ve got fifty- nine in here. [ gestures to study] So anyway, at that point in time he had heard about a lady whose husband had died in the First World War, and he wanted to know more about her. He said, I have a feeling when she comes home from her mission, that I will marry her. And my mother was told this by my aunt and she said, There’s no way that I’m going to marry that old man. He was forty- nine years old and my mother was twenty- eight. But when she came home they were married within six weeks. Now, what was your father’s first wife’s name? Zenna: Conra. And your mom’s name? Zenna: And my mother’s name was Nellie. But her first husband had died in the First World War with dysentery. They had only been married six weeks. There were no children involved. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 4 And so anyway my parents started their life in a little four- room house with an attic in Bern, Idaho. And there were ten children born to that union. I had wonderful parents. They were very, very, very good with us. That’s great. And so you were born in—? Zenna: Nineteen twenty- eight. That’s great. Well, you’ve given me some great background. And where are you in the family? You have an older half—? Zenna: I have an older half- sister, and I’m— Anna, Bobby, Alice, Dorothy, Zenna— I’m five. You’re the fifth. Zenna: I’m the fifth, in the middle. So Anna is the half- sister or your whole—? Zenna: She’s a sister- and- a- half. OK. All right. That’s great. OK, why don’t we sort of do the same with you [ Eugene Bridges] up to when you come into the world and then we’ll take it from there. Eugene Bridges: Well, you want me to start at the furthest end or start with my parents and work back? I’m curious about— although we didn’t get this part of your story, Zenna, of your mom’s family. Zenna: I know. I know we didn’t. Let’s do that a little bit. Zenna: Shall we do it now? Yes, let’s do that now, because that’s just your dad’s family. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 5 Zenna: OK. OK. In my mother’s family, her father and mother came from England in about 1895. My mother was born in 1896 in this country, and she was the oldest child. But they also had come for the Church [ of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints]. So they were in England— her father was in England. Zenna: Her father and mother. Were converted and then came. Zenna: Yes, and his parents, my great grandparents, and their children came. I think there were about twelve children in that family. And they settled in a little town called Lanark, which was about eight miles from Bern in Bear Lake County. They were all converts to the Church. And I think Mother had about nine brothers and sisters. And it was a good family. Their mother died when my mother was about thirteen, with cancer, with liver cancer, I believe is what they said. They didn’t live a long ways away from us. But we didn’t have a car. We never had a car in our home until a sister whose husband was killed came back to live and she had a car. So then we learned to drive and get around without the horse and buggy. Amazing. It’s amazing. Zenna: I know. Can you believe that? [ 00: 10: 00] Good. OK, that sort of fills that out. I’m just fascinated by these kinds of stories, so we have our historical purpose connected to the historian’s curiosity, so yes, sort of how the family got here. Eugene: So shall I start with my parents or—? Well, let’s go back to the immigration to the country. That’s interesting. Eugene: My first ancestor to migrate was a young man, he was twenty- one, I think, wasn’t he, Zenna? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 6 Zenna: You mean—? Eugene: Charles Henry Senior? Zenna: Yes. Yes, he was twenty- one. Eugene: He and his family had been converted to the Church. They lived in Birmingham. And he came by ship from Liverpool to the New York area. Zenna: Alone. Eugene: Alone. About what year was this? Eugene: This is 1856. And the interesting thing was that we knew nothing about him until we started cleaning out this little old house in Dingle and we found an autobiography, just a two- page, very synoptic autobiography, about him that he had written. But he made it to Iowa City. And at that point in time in Mormon Church history they had decided that there were so many people coming from European countries and migrating that were on their way to Zion or Salt Lake City and most of them had no funds of their own. And it just got to the point where the Church didn’t have the funds either to buy wagons and supplies and horses and oxen, all of that. So at that point in time they started what was known as the handcart companies. Have you ever heard of those? No. Eugene: No? OK. What these were is they were literally a handcart, the two- wheeled handcart. You were allowed, I think, seventeen pounds of luggage, food; everything that you had could not exceed that. And there were usually five people assigned to a handcart. And they pulled and pushed those from Iowa City to Salt Lake City. We had not known this. And he recounts a couple of experiences he had as they came west, which I won’t get into here. Anyway, UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 7 he came with the first handcart company in 1856, and they arrived in Salt Lake in September. They left in June from Iowa City and arrived in September. And there were two handcart companies that came later. They got caught in storms and many of them died. But fortunately my grandfather’s company had good weather for the most part. And how old of a person was he at this point when he���s—? Eugene: Twenty- one. He’s twenty- one when he’s doing this. Eugene: Yes. So he was really my first ancestor. And he lived in Salt Lake for about ten years and then he moved to Bear Lake into a little town, the main little town in Bear Lake, Montpelier. And bought some property and had some I guess you’d call it farm ground back in those days. It was arid country and so you relied on Mother Nature to provide the rain, the moisture that you needed for your crops. So it was a gamble every year, but anyway he settled there. One of his sons was Charles Henry Jr. He and his wife, they bought a piece of ground out in Dingle. And he built [ 00: 15: 00] a house there which is the one that we have renovated. That was in 1889 and 1890. And he built it in two stages. The first stage was just the front part of the house, the way it stands now, which had a bedroom and kind of a living room and an entranceway. Living, sleeping, eating, everything took place in those two rooms. He had two children, and in the spring of 1891 one of those children passed away. At that point the Church called him on a mission to Samoa. And by the time he left, well, they discovered that his wife was expecting another child. So in this short, compressed period of time in 1891 he lost a child, they still had a child, and another child was coming. And he was called on this mission. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 8 Another treasure that we found in the house up there were his missionary journals, and we have transcribed those. And that’s quite an interesting insight into him as a person and into the people of Samoa, because at that point in time things were still very primitive in Samoa. Just as a sidelight, it was interesting that often back in those days they went without purse or scrip. In other words, they didn’t have any funds. They relied on the members and on their own abilities to secure food and lodging, and it was very interesting then that many times they would bathe in a stream coming down out of the mountains or they’d have to bathe in the ocean. A lot of times their food was coconuts, bananas, or oranges which grew naturally on the island there. “ Without purse or scrip.” That’s what you said. Eugene: Yes. In other words they didn’t have any funding provided like the missionaries do now. Correct. Yes. You just would—? Zenna: Not even a second coat. I mean they just basically had just a few clothes and that’s how they went. Amazing. Eugene: But it’s quite an insight into the history of that period, since he was a very meticulous record keeper. Kept track of every penny that he received and every penny that he paid out and for what. And suits I think were what, about five or ten dollars? Something on that order then. Things like that. And that was just—. Had the house been empty for a while or—? Eugene: No, his wife continued to live there. And the theory was— the concept was that the members of the Church in that area would help provide for her, for her and the children. The UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 9 downside of that was that those people were just about as worse off as Grandfather and Grandmother. And so there was some help provided, not a great deal. It was a difficult time. So she’s there with two children, the one that she was carrying and the one that had survived. Eugene: Yes. And then my father was the youngest of, let’s see, eight? Zenna: Ten. Eugene: Ten? Ten children in that family. Wow. And he was born when? Eugene: And he was born in 1906. He, for early years that I remember, he did odd jobs, and this was during the Depression time and jobs were hard to come by. And one of the main sources of work [ 00: 20: 00] in that area was the railroad. Montpelier was a terminal for the Union Pacific Railroad. And he applied for a job there and he got a job. But it operated on a seniority system so it took a few years to build up to the point where he had fairly steady work. And what was his name, your father’s name? Eugene: His name was Aldon Marcell Bridges. And then my mother’s family: if you go back to what would be my great or great- great- grandfather, her line was the Nebeker line, which came out of Germany. Nebeker. N- E- B— Eugene: Nebeker. N- E- B- E- K- E- R is the English spelling of it. The German spelling is a bit different. OK. All right. That’s fine. Eugene: But there were five sons in the Nebeker family that were converted to the Church. And that was in this country. They were very instrumental in the initial migration of the Mormon people to the Salt Lake Valley. One of them was heavily involved with the second company that UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 10 came into the valley, and then they were— two or three of them were heavily involved in going out and rescuing wagon trains when they got caught in winter storms. But they were kind of “ up and at ’ em” people. My great- grandfather was asked to go to the south end of Bear Lake in Bear Lake Valley to settle there, and that area was a trading area between the Indians and the fur trappers. So my grandfather became— he could speak the Ute language just about as well as English because he grew up with Indians, his friends and playmates. His father, my great- grandfather, I don’t know how these people did it, but he was then asked by the Church to take his family and to settle in an area called Shelley, Idaho. A little place up south of Idaho Falls. And after several years then he was asked by the Church to go settle in Rexburg to help build that area. And then several years later they brought him back to this little town called Laketown on the south end of Bear Lake. And then they were starting to settle Wyoming, and so they asked him to go to Star Valley, Wyoming to settle over there, and that’s where my grandfather and grandmother settled then. My memory of course is going back to visit them occasionally. Our first trips there— Dad had an old Model T, and you’d go over mountain roads to get there. And it’d take the better part of the day to get there because you were traveling like ten or fifteen— sometimes you could get up to twenty miles an hour. Very different. But that route, I can still remember that there was a what they called a halfway house which was halfway between Star Valley and Bear Lake Valley. And there were wagon trains that still traveled that route and they would stop over at the halfway house to sleep and eat and then they’d travel on the next day. But it was a two- day trip for the wagon trains. [ 00: 25: 00] My mother’s family, I think that catches some of it. Yes. It does. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 11 Eugene: I could tell you some real interesting stories about my mother’s progenitors but I don’t think you—? You know what? If we have the luxury, we can go back and do that. Nothing would make me happier than to sit here and talk to you about that. But we’ll try to sort of stay focused on how you came together and then your family, you know, grew and how we’re related to what happened at the testing. But this is all wonderful information. Eugene: That’s background on both of us. How we came together, you want that? Yes, let’s talk about that. Now just before we do that, so you are where in a family of how many children? Eugene: My mother and father had two children. Me, I was the oldest. Nine years later they had a daughter, and so she’s nine years younger than I and she lives in Idaho. Nampa, Idaho. And your mom’s name? I can’t remember if I asked you your mom’s name. Eugene: Her name is Estella Evelyn Nebeker and she was born about 1908. Zenna: After your dad, yes. And so if I knew more about Mormon history, Nebeker would be a name that I would recognize? Eugene: Yes. Zenna: To say the least, yes. OK. So now I know a little more about Mormon history than I did when we sat down. OK, so yes, why don’t we— and you can talk at the same time if you want, as long as we try not to talk over each other, of how you met and where you both settled. I mean I guess you settled in Salt Lake together. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 12 Eugene: Well, I want you to know at the outset that it was all her fault. It was interesting. I worked in a grocery store while I was in high school during the Second World War. I knew her father and I knew two of her sisters, but I’d never met her [ Zenna]. And on the first day of high school we were in our orientation room and it was pretty filled, and all of a sudden here comes this gal waltzing through the door, cute white blouse and red slacks, wasn’t it? And she had her hair braided and then brought up and fastened on the top of her head. Sparkling brown eyes, vivacious, just alive. And I thought, Man, I’ve got to find out who she is. So even though it was scary, I located where she had her locker. A dance was coming up fairly soon, and I asked her if she would go to the dance with me. And that’s what kind of started it all. That was in our freshman year. And this is where? You’re in—? Eugene: In Montpelier, Idaho. You’re in Montpelier, Idaho. OK. Eugene: At the Montpelier High School. We ended up going together all four years of high school, and then I gave her an engagement ring the night of our graduation and she accepted it. And then my mother and father— there were several things that were staring us in the face. One was going away to school because—. Zenna: No money. Eugene: No money, yes, military— these were all considerations. My mother and father had had— each of them had had a kind of a heartbreak in their early courting life and they just didn’t want to see us separated. And in September of ’ 47, they had taken me down to Salt Lake to go to school. I’d registered at a business college down there, and so they said, Well, we’ll help you out for a year if you want to get married, and so we did. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 13 That’s great. Zenna: That was really nice of them to do. They were just so afraid that we would have a [ 00: 30: 00] heartbreak like they had, and that heartbreak seemed to stay with them all through their married life, and they just did not want that to happen to us. And we had $ 145 and the promise that they would help us each month, and so we—. Eugene: And no work for either one of us. Zenna: And no car. We had friends who drove us to Salt Lake and we were able to get into an apartment with a cousin, because apartments were just nonexistent. But we didn’t like that relationship and so Gene went out and found us a room. It was about— well, it held a three- quarter bed and a table and a chair, and you did your cooking out in the other part of the house on a hot plate. And we said We didn’t care. We just wanted to just be by ourselves and make our own decisions and not— their lifestyle was just not ours. We needed to do—. This apartment, you were with other people in the apartment. Zenna: Yes, and we needed to do what—. Eugene: It was a large apartment. It was a double apartment. Zenna: It was nice but—. Eugene: So we had privacy and things like that but everything was geared to their life. Zenna: To play. An awful lot of playing. And we just had things we wanted to do that were more important to us, so we didn’t care if it was one room or a half- a- room. And then we made about three moves within the year and finally ended up at 520 First Avenue in Salt Lake City, and that’s where our first child was born. Eugene: That’s where Lonnie was born. Now were you in school for a while, or how did that work? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 14 Zenna: Fifteen years. Eugene: Oh, Mary, as I look back on it I don’t really quite know how we did it. I had gone to work for First Security Bank in May of 1948. I soon realized that if I wanted to do anything in that career, that I needed more schooling than what I’d had from the business school. So I started classes and for several years I had a class early morning before I went to work at the bank. I had a class at noontime, lunchtime, and then about three days a week I had an evening class, and then I started working part- time on off- nights between school. So it was a pretty full agenda, but we were optimistic people and we felt like we could do it and we did do it. And the thing was we both felt that it was very important that Zenna be home with our children. And when we first went to Salt Lake— well, you tell them about your work. Zenna: Well, when we reached Salt Lake his parents had said they’d really like to see us both continue in school, and as we checked things out we could see that that was not going to be an option. I had a sister in Salt Lake and she worked for Firmbuilt Clothing, and the next store to that was Zinik’s Sporting Goods and Zinik’s Sporting Goods was looking for a secretary. And so my sister talked with them to see if they would like to interview me and so I got a job right away, which was helpful. And I was able to keep that job until I was four- and- a- half months’ pregnant with Lonnie, and then you had to quit. You couldn’t keep working. But that was really helpful to us and it was a growing experience for me. I had done other work but this was a real growing experience. And we were just happy to be together. Sure. A “ growing experience” in what sense? That you had more responsibility or—? Zenna: Well, I had never really done very much as a secretary. I had taken the classes in school. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 15 Eugene: But on the other hand, if I may interject, she did court reporting, shorthand court [ 00: 35: 00] reporting in Montpelier when they’d had a case come up there in the, I guess in the county really. They would call over to the high school to get someone to come record the proceedings, and they didn’t have the recording machines like they eventually got but—. Zenna: Well, and Gene had more confidence in me than I had in me. We were not very old. We were nearly nineteen. Eugene: But did an outstanding job. She was a very accomplished recorder. You know, I wanted to ask you something I’m just curious about. This is 1947 and so it’s just a couple of years after the end of the war. I’m wondering, you were both too young— you were just too young, you told me at the table, to have been able to fight in the war. Eugene: Missed it by a week. You missed it by a week. But in 1947 in Salt Lake, was there a sense, a certain sense of energy or relief— I don’t want to put words in your mouth— but postwar, I’m very curious about that era right after the war. You must have known people that had fought in the war, had families—? Zenna: Yes, who had died in the war. Eugene: Fought and died. Zenna: And we were really thankful that the war was over. We had been— you know everything had been rationed: shoes and clothing and sugar and gasoline. And I can remember we’d go months without buying a stick of gum or an all- day sucker or candy bar or anything because if we had ten cents it went into our— into the war stamps. Eugene: Savings stamps. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 16 Zenna: Savings stamps. But I think it felt really good to have the war over because it had been a really dreadful time. Because for a long time we didn’t know exactly where we were going to end up— the country, that is. Eugene: I think in an emotional, psychological sense that whether it was real or not, I think the people, at least in the area where we lived, and I think it was pretty much across the country, felt that it was a “ do or die” war. You either won or you were going to lose big. And it wasn’t just property and things like that. It was lifestyles. What you held dear on a personal basis was no longer going to exist if we lost. And so there was a sense of total commitment to the war, recognizing that it was possible that death could be the outcome. It was just accepted. Zenna: People were so united. Eugene: And they were. Zenna: They were so united. Eugene: As the war ended there was great jubilation because now we could start living again and experiencing and having some of the things that we hadn’t been able to have during the war, but there were still kind of unknowns. I remember— as somebody just entering into the workforce in 1947— I felt that there was a heavy competition in two ways, because I was competing with a lot of servicemen that were now out of the military, going to school. They were getting their schooling paid for; I was having to pay for mine. And these were still the people that I was going to be competing with for jobs, and there was a bunch of them. And I really didn’t have any idea what it was going to take to get a job, and I had great concerns for that. But sometimes things work out, you know. Zenna: Yes, they usually do. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 17 Eugene: I went to interview at First Security [ Bank] through a job placement program that the business school had, and they had two positions open. I interviewed for both of them and decided I’d like to try the Trust Bookkeeper position. But it was literally entering into a whole new world of [ 00: 40: 00] education again because how they kept their books was just the opposite of what I had learned in business school— because you were on a fiduciary basis instead of an owner basis— and it took me a couple of months to get into that. One day I heard one of the Assistant Trust Officers remark to the Manager of the department, and I just happened to be close enough that I heard him say, Oh, I don’t know that he’s ever going to make it, and I thought, Yes, I am going to make it. And that really motivated me. And I did. And in short order, well, I was starting to even receive promotions, so sometimes you need to be jarred, I guess, a little bit. “ Be jarred,” yes, I think so, especially at that age, don’t you think? Zenna: Yes. Eugene: Yes. Like the real world starts presenting itself to you. Eugene: Yes. But that was a big concern. Yes, and I’m curious about one thing. Back to the war, when you’re saying “ the way of life,” are people thinking concretely, if the Germans, for example, win the war, that they wi