Evan Lindemood:My name is Evan Lindemood, a student in the history department of the University of Idaho, here interviewing Joanne Westberg for Dr. Scofield's class on the 1960s. So to start, will you give us some general information on your background - how you - when you grew up, where
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Joanne Westberg:I was born in 1949, I'm 73 I was born and raised in Moscow. My family has been in Latah county since since 1883. I was raised to our farm southeast of Moscow, and Moscow was, there wasn't a lot of diversity. We had, the Lees were Chinese, the Griffiths were black, Hiroko Hayashi was Japanese, and I was so unaware of history at that time that I didn't even know about the internment camps. And so, only at a reunion five years ago probably did I ask Hiroko "where was your family?" and they were not, actually they were living in Japan during the war and her father had been in the United States.
JW:At any rate they were not. But I was so unaware of history of really I mean World War Two seemed ancient to me which is pretty amazing because I had an uncle who was a POW in Germany, I had an uncle who flew suicide missions, an uncle in the Coast Guard, my father was in the army; you would have thought that I would have been pretty aware but not at all. Not at all. So, went-graduated Moscow high school, went to the University of Idaho my freshman year, joined a sorority.
EL:And what year was this?
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JW:I graduated high school in '67. So, went to the U of I from the fall of 67 spring 68, joined a sorority; we were allowed to wear pants until noon on Saturday. So that's how conservatively I grew up. I went to the university-so I went-all my schooling here in Moscow through my freshman year of college. Went to summer school at the University of Oregon in Eugene, which was just an awakening for me, was like wow, I mean so...a different world from Moscow ID. And then I went my-I decided to go into pharmacy, which is why I went to Oregon for summer school and get pre recs, and then I went to the University of Pacific in Stockton, CA, my sophomore year. Private school, affiliated with the Methodist Church, but I can remember a debate between Hugh Hefner and a nun, I can remember the guy who wrote the population book spoke, I mean it was entering a different world for me. University of Oregon, definitely, but that was more like summer camp for big kids or something, I don't know, it wasn't-I didn't have the classes that challenged me like they did at the University of Pacific. The culture challenged me in Oregon, but the classes in Stockton were a real challenge and I decided I don't wanna live in California, so I transferred back to Idaho State to go to pharmacy school there and just to tell you what a different world we lived in in 1969 - I called my boss in Moscow who was on the board of pharmacy for Idaho, and he had been irritated that I didn't go to Pocatello. And so I called him on a Thursday afternoon and I said "you know I'd kind of like to go to Idaho State." He said "what do you want me to do? Do you want me to call the school?" And I said "yes please," and he called back that afternoon and said "Be there Sunday." Now I had applied to Idaho State the prior year and I applied to WSU and I ended up going to Stockton so they did have-but I mean really - "be there Sunday."
That's how much...that is how different the world was, and Idaho State was very conservative, so while I was at Idaho State I looked kind of like a flaming liberal because it's easy to do that in Pocatello. I didn't protest the war, I did write to Nixon against the war and I like to think I made his enemies list, but I didn't do any protests. The pharmacy school was very conservative, the Dean was very conservative; not that that - I wasn't a firebrand by any stretch of the imagination at all - but it was a very traumatic time. It was a very traumatic time. And I think the summer of '68, in my opinion; the summer of '68 was a watershed summer, and the world shifted. The world shifted in the summer of '68 and I certainly was-it changed me. It changed me. And I am now, I've been divorced for 21 years - happily divorced - but my guy, who grad-we were in 3rd grade together so you know, knew him forever and got together with him five years ago - he was drafted into it and went into Vietnam and his worldview, his world experience and his worldview is entirely different than mine. Grew up together but ended up totally different experiences, and really very different outlooks in life, on life. Yeah.
EL:So you mentioned that '68 was a turning point; some people would attribute that to a lot of the social movements happening at the time. I'm wondering how you or your parents or community-you-you mentioned the Idaho State University was pretty conservative; how did you feel about them? How did they feel about them? And their leaders?
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JW:One thing I would say: when I was a junior in high school - so this would be the spring of 1966 - I was chosen to go to youth legislature in Boise; they sent four of us - one was a senator, one was a representative, one was-I think I was lobbyist, and God only knows what the 4th person did. But we presented a memoriam - I think that's what it's called - a memorial? Memoriam? At youth legislature in the spring of '66 in support of the war in Vietnam, because it had started to be a little controversial and we presented this - and it passed unanimously. That's where we were in the spring of '66. And by certainly the summer of '68, the world was different, the war was much more controversial, but it was a pretty rapid change. You know, not that Idaho was ever a progressive state, but this was-these were kids from all throughout Idaho and it passed unanimously. Somebody said "it's like voting for motherhood and apple pie," so that's how quickly the world view changed. Yeah. I had a first cousin and we were fairly close, he grew up in Pullman, he graduated in 68, he joined the marines, he was badly, badly wounded in May of '69, and came home really really disillusioned and angry. Angry, he, and his dad was the one that was the POW. But yeah it was a pretty rapid shift across the nation.
EL:And it became even controversial within Idaho?
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JW:Oh, it became controversial everywhere. Everywhere. It became controversial in homes. You know, I mean, my mother was...I mean yeah. Yeah, it...Idaho was probably a little slow maybe, overall, but definitely it was quick, yeah. Yeah they blew up the armory in Moscow, I think they burned down the navy building on campus; there was a fair amount-in fact, I was a freshman in history at the U of I, and our professor, who would have been in his 50s, he had a son my age; he protested the war and got a draft notice. You know, there was stuff going on that most of us were unaware of, but, yeah.
EL:What would you attribute - because you said that the shift from basically supporting the war to it becoming very controversial - it happened very quickly. Can you point to anything that would have caused that so quickly?
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JW:I think we were starting to understand that we had been misled. That, you know I think going to Vietnam, I think they really did believe, you know we're stopping the domino effect, we're stopping communism, but we were beginning to see that we were being misled, and the war wasn't going the way they implied it was going. And some soldiers were coming home and telling their experiences, and yeah, we were starting to see that it wasn't the way they had represented it, yeah.
EL:So did it change how you felt about America as like a global power?
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JW:You know, it made me-not as a global power, but it led me to distrust Nixon especially, but people who were blind to what was happening and staunch in the "this is America," well you know, there was a backlash to the hippies, for instance, and so they're kind of just categorizing, I think, young people. I thought in my heart, my generation will never go into a bad war, and then George W. I mean I was stunned. I did have a classmate who went to Canada, and my brother has such a soft heart, if he had been drafted it would have killed him. And I felt like my classmate had a good reason to go to Canada but Bill, having been drafted, doesn't think that there ever should've been amnesty. And it's just interesting how with different life experiences we come out with different philosophies in a sense. I mean I really think if you're interviewing me you should interview him because whoa. We don't talk politics at all.
EL:So it might be a good resource for a different...
JW:It would be a very different, very different perspective. And you know I can't discount that because he had a very different experience in life, yeah.
EL:So, staying on this interview for now,
EL:You mentioned a lot of people supported the war in the beginning because it-for the idea that it would stop that tide of communism.
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EL:What were your thoughts on communism and other people's thoughts on communism?
JW:Well I thought it was evil! You know, it was the '50s, the Red Scare. It was interesting, my mother, who is also a pharmacist, and we didn't understand then, but there was a TV show called "I Led Three Lives," and he was a double agent working for Russia and the United States, and then he was a citizen so that was I guess his third life, but my mother wouldn't let us watch it and now I realize she felt like it was propaganda and Red Scare. And at the time of course, we just knew we weren't allowed to watch that show, but looking back on it, I think my parents, my mother especially, knew there was a lot of propaganda going on, McCarthy and all of that, and she kind of sheltered us from that a bit.
EL:Just want to clarify: the anti-communist propaganda?
JW:Well right, the Red Scare propaganda, yeah the Red Scare. She sheltered us from that a bit. But I mean, we're hiding under our desks because they're gonna bomb Spokane, Fairchild, you know, we're hiding under our desks in Russell school, you couldn't help. The Cuba crisis! I was scared to death! My mother's response was, "We don't want to survive a nuclear attack," you know, people are building bomb shelters and storing water food and my mother's response "we don't want to survive" and that is not a comfort to a 10-year-old.
But we happen to go visit my uncle in Pullman, and he was working on a project and I went down to talk to him for a minute and it was just the two of us and he said "No one will start a nuclear war. It would be too disastrous, nobody's gonna do that, don't worry it's not gonna happen," which was much more comforting. I'll always be grateful that he took the time to listen to me and my fears and...my mother just wasn't that empathic she you know she was, "we don't want to survive that!" well you know, I'm not really ready to die either. [chuckles] She said, "go to the fruit room, there's food down there and there's no out, and it's all inside walls, in the basement." But yeah, it was, it was scary, yeah.
EL:So in school you did some of the duck and cover sort of things?
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JW:Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah.
EL:And did you kind of see through that from the beginning, that in the event...
JW:Oh no! No! Dear God, I'm sure I hoped it would work. You know, I mean clearly. First of all Russell school is very old to start with and the school would have collapsed [chuckles] but those little desks, they weren't gonna do much for us. But no, absolutely, I hoped, you know. Yeah. In the '50s, I had a classmate who was telling me that there were skylights in the 1912 building, they ended up covered and they didn't rediscover them until not that long ago, but there were skylights in the top floor, and her family would take a picnic and sit in the stairwell where they could see out the skylights. And this was a stairwell, it wasn't even really open it was kind of just a closed in, but they could see out the skylights and watch for Russian planes. It was a frightening time. Yeah.
EL:So you were just kind of on the lookout for that
JW:Well I certainly was not looking for Russian planes. But I was worried. Afraid of the Russians.
EL:So how would you describe yourself in the 60s? How would you characterize your values at the time? And have those changed?
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JW:Probably not I don't think your basic values ever really change. I mean, I think, I don't think you really change in your basic values. I was oblivious, you know, a farm kid in Moscow, ID, fearful of the Russians, but pretty much oblivious to most things. College was a gradual awakening, I mean the U of I where my history professor got a draft notice and he was way too old, and Eugene, where they were just a much freer culture, and then the University of Pacific, where they really challenged you and made you question your own values. I don't think my values changed I think I gradually became aware of the world around me, and that made me see my values more clearly.
EL:You were able to apply them.
JW:Yeah, I was able to really evaluate what they were in and the impact they had on me, yeah.
EL:So you mentioned that going to Oregon was kind of a culture shock for you
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EL:Can you go a little more in depth? Like what was shocking?
JW:I'm at the U of I - we can wear pants until noon on Saturday, that's it; wear dresses the rest of the time. We had pledges, we had to be out of the house, but very regimented in our in our tasks and our study table and all of that, and I go to the University of Oregon, and it's a co-ed dorm to start with. It's a very free campus, it's... I fell in love for the first time... there were blacks I can remember this group of black girls and they were laughing and saying "Commie snowflake! [inaudible] tar baby" you know, they were, but I hadn't seen that at Idaho really, we didn't have much, not much diversity at all. You know, the football players who had Ray McDonald and Gus Johnson and, but there really wasn't much diversity on campus, and so that was very different at Eugene. I loved it. I loved it, it was like breath of fresh air, yeah. You know, you didn't have curfews, I had curfews in the sorority. It was wild, in a way. I met a guy from California who would have been a big mistake, but just dodged that bullet and stepped into another one so there you go. [laughs]
Did you ever witness or maybe even participate in forms of discrimination at the time?
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JW:You know, if there was a bias when I grew up - and it wasn't anything that my parents ever said, in fact, I can remember my parents buying my brother a book about Chief Joseph that was very expensive, I can remember them discussing whether they should get this book or was it just too expensive, and so I never...my mother said that her father used a lot of ethnic slurs, but her mother was raised in Chicago and lived among many different ethnic people, and would never use an ethnic slur.
So, but growing up I did see Native Americans that, when we went to Lewiston, I did see Native Americans that were clearly drunk, and it did affect my feeling about Native Americans, and that was only that I hadn't seen that before and I was shocked by it and it colored my my view. But because there was no other cultural diversity, I didn't have any bias towards any other group, you know? We had Gary Lou and Hiroko and the Griffiths and we - I'm gonna take that back. So, the Griffith that was in my sister's class, three years ahead of me asked her on a date, and my parents said "you cannot go because that could lead to love, that could, and that is very complicated and that is too hard if you had children it's just it's too hard" so that was the only, and it was never "we don't like him" it was only "that's not a good idea."
JW:Yeah, and I'm not the only one, I had a good friend who asked Hiroko out -- wanted to, wanted to - and his parents said no for the same reason and I know Brent's parents, they were lovely people, I mean but there was that fear of what that could lead to. So I did experience those two things yeah.
EL:So I guess with those asking-asking Hiroko out or asking somebody out, it was less about the people themselves?
JW:Everybody loved Hiroko
EL:It was more about the outside pressures of this...
JW:It was more about the possibilities of falling in love, yeah that's really what it was about.
EL:Particularly about the different racial backgrounds?
JW:Well just the mixed cultures of children, yeah. Yeah so those things I did experience.
EL:What big cultural changes did you see between the 1960s and 1970s?
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JW:I got married in 1972 and started family and was oblivious for several years, and I've talked to other friends who said the same thing, you know, we're not even sure we saw the news I mean we were raising kids we were working full time and raising kids and I have to say... And I was with a very conservative... I was living in Kellogg, ID. That's a culture of its own.
JW:Well, very redneck, very lawless. They had open gambling everywhere. I actually thought - and this is how naive I was - I'm a pharmacist I'm 23 I've you know I go to Kellogg ID and there's slot machines in the entryways of restaurants, these aren't bars, these aren't gambling halls, these are restaurants, family restaurants. And I guess I thought it must be a county thing, but it wasn't legal and I didn't know that, I just saw it everywhere and thought it has to be legal. I can remember asking my ex about this board we saw one place and he goes "We'll talk about it later," and it was a gambling thing, and he didn't wanna talk about it, yeah. But you know they were eventually in maybe '92, the FBI swooped in on a Sunday morning and closed all of that down, but the brothels were running, the gambling was open.
So that was another, very much another culture shock for me, you know, people would say I've never seen a woman pharmacist before - well my mother was a woman pharmacist - but it was, you know... I think cultures are handed down through the generations, and in the silver valley, there was a mining community and that "the law doesn't apply to us" carried on for generations. I just talked to a pharmacist last Friday, who moved to Kellogg a few months ago and I said well God bless you and he said yeah it's and he said it's still kind of that lawless mentality you know logging and mining and yeah. So that was you know I did go through yeah it was interesting, it was interesting.
EL:What do you think has changed the most since the 1960s? Probably the easier question, because there's a lot that's changed, is what things are more or less the same?
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JW:Well what I fear is that it's not so much that it's changed as it is it's more out in the open. So when I see the state of politics today, my fear is the racism is always been there. The... it's just been somewhat endorsed, that's my fear. It's much more divisive. It's so much more divisive. And even in this house, I will come in here and sit down and watch PBS NewsHour quietly. My parents - I know that they voted for Adlai Stevenson in '52 because being the leader of the army does not make you a good president of the United States, and they voted for Nixon - God bless them I'm sure they regretted that - because they didn't want the Pope to run the country, John F Kennedy being Catholic. So they would go back and forth and really were truly... but thoughtful about it and really I think always reasoned it out together, in a way. And now it's, it's just so much harder, you know. And it isn't-you know, I think I grew up in an era of you don't talk sex, politics, religion; so I don't know that we didn't have the same differences of opinion, but we didn't have this angry divisive thing going on, and my fear is we've just brought... we've just made it okay to be racist and to be anti immigrant and to be angry at everything and distrustful of our government and think it's okay.
For January 6th. OK, now I'm gonna say this, I'm gonna say this - so Bill was seeing... oh I know what it was, he get-I'm not on Facebook, he's on, he's a veteran and he's on Facebook, so he gets the veteran Facebook stuff. And he said "boy there's a lot of resentment of Pelosi going to Taiwan," and I said "oh wow," I said "well what did the veteran Facebook say about January 6?" and he said "they don't talk about it." So you know I mean, what in the world? And it, and it's hard. It's hard, and he is a good man, but he's getting propaganda, and it's very sad when we're feeding our veterans propaganda. And I respect him, and I told you about my dad and my uncles and I respect that bill went to Vietnam when I was in college writing letters to Nixon, and that he did fear for his life, he was sent to Cambodia when they entered Cambodia; he thought he would never live through that. You know, I can't-I respect what he's been through but I feel so sad that he is getting propaganda by way of the veterans.
EL:Do you think propaganda is more pervasive today?
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JW:No. No, look at McCarthy, look at the Red Scare. No, I don't think it's more pervasive, what I think is more pervasive is social media, so now it's more available. We, you know so I guess in a way I would say it is more pervasive, it was always there, but it-now it's everywhere.
JW:It's changed. It's changed, it's more directed, it's easier to hide. It's harder you know, when the senators said to McCarthy "have you after all no shame?" You know, there were people who could stand up to it and you'd get that on the Evening News; now it's so under the radar and so pervasive and so hidden that I think, yeah I think that's much worse, yeah.
EL:We've been talking about some pretty heavy topics. Just to close it out, I have one more big question for you - what music or artists were you listening to in the 1960s? Do you think music was primarily, or the music at least that you were around - was it primarily about celebration or about these new social changes?
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JW:Oh I think it was about the social changes, yeah. No I definitely think the music was, yeah, it was about social change, yeah. I wasn't a fan of The Beatles, I kind of grew to like them maybe way later on in the Abbey Road album, but I-and I wasn't really, you know, when I was in college I didn't have a lot of time for the music and I'd never really been into it much anyway but I didn't have a lot of time for music or for any reading beyond school, you know, and so I can't say I was greatly aware of... was it Bread? I liked Bread, which, you know, nobody even knows about them. Paul Revere and the Raiders, and they were an Idaho group, and I wasn't into Led Zeppelin and that, I didn't get that, just noise to me. So yeah, I would say... but I was struck by the music that was culturally relevant, yeah. I discovered the Eagles later, they would have been probably in the '60s but I didn't really find him until probably the '90s, yeah I wouldn't say I was very musically observant.
EL:You mentioned that Paul Revere group what did you call them?
JW:Paul Revere and the Raiders.
EL:What kind of music were they, just curious?
JW:Well they were rock, they were rock, but they weren't the wild wild, they were, yeah.
JW:Yeah. And I did like that, I liked you know music from the 50s I listened to more, and I loved, you know, the Supremes and Bobby Vinton and that music, but in the 60s I would say what was relevant to me was the social music, yeah.
EL:[laughs] Well, I appreciate that, I suppose.
JW:How do you know I'm not?
EL:Are you? You said you grew up Methodist, I believe?
JW:No, no, I actually grew up American Baptist. The college in Stockton was a Methodist college but the Methodists then disowned them, because of all the political that they were doing.
EL:What kind of political...?
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JW:Well like I said they had Hugh Hefner debating a nun, and I can remember being out on the lawn, and you know, I was this kid from Moscow ID I'm pretty naive, and we had a class that moved us out onto the lawn, and they said "now close your eyes and make love with your hands to the person next to you," which you know I didn't know these people, but it was just a much more challenging yourself and your beliefs and, you know, I can remember I wrote a paper and I said I don't like the idea of someone telling me how many children I can have, and the professor really chastised me for it and I thought, you asked me my opinion, you don't get to chastise an opinion. You can say, you know you can disagree with it, but don't chastise it, you asked for it! But anyway, it was a school where they really were challenging you, yeah.
EL:I think I'll close with this one question because I think it's pretty pertinent and important right now.
EL:What changes have you seen as a woman from the 1960s to today? Do you think it's better or worse for women today?
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JW:It's so much better. It's so much better. I don't know a woman my age who hasn't experienced "hashtag me too." My father - and I loved him dearly - he was watching the news one night, and there was a woman that claimed she had been raped and he had three daughters and I was the middle and he said "I think they just make that stuff up!" And I said you know we've never told you but Gail and I were both raped, and... It's good that they're talking about it. It's good that they're talking about it. And I heard a man last week talk about how overdone "hashtag me too" is, well you know why it's over done? So many women experienced it! That isn't overdone, that's pathetic! Anyway, it's much better today, it's better in our jobs. My first job, my husband was a pharmacist and he was moved to a different store and I was moved into his position. This was 1972, $200 a month with big bucks; I was paid $200 a month less than him. So, I decided to go to the boss and I told my dad "I'm going to go talk to the boss," and my dad said "Don't rock the boat. Don't bite the hand that feeds you." So my dad was saying "accept this," and I went anyway and he said it was just an experiment. Yeah, yeah I mean what justification is that? No, it was-it's much better now. And I didn't experience um... you know there wasn't a glass ceiling for me or-because as a pharmacist I could always get a job and I was respected in my profession but there was a lot of... there still is a lot...
What's the word for men my father was... and I loved him dearly, but he was a farmer and the girls were not allowed to drive truck or drive tractor. A lot of girls my age were, but my father wouldn't hear of it. And yet, this is a man who said to me "You can do anything you wanna do, you can be anything you wanna be," so in a lot of ways he was a very supportive, loving, encouraging man but he was still sexist because and I grew up in that culture, I mean we didn't really think twice about it, quite honestly. Yeah, it's better today yeah, yeah. He was a chauvinist, that's where I was trying to come by. In some ways, he was a chauvinist, although he married a college-he met my mother in a veterans hospital and she was already a pharmacist, so he did have a lot of respect, but he still had that chauvinistic view, in a way. Yeah, yeah. Interesting, I mean to me that's interesting, I look back on it and I think he was protective and maybe that was really the reason, I don't know, I didn't question it, my sister just butted heads with him constantly. I would watch how she butted heads and I would just avoid that, you know, I mean okay we're not gonna win that one, so I'm not gonna fight it. So in a way, you know but that's part of the acceptance too, you know, okay that's the way it is, yeah.
EL:Alright, I think we've gotten through a lot of lot of good stuff today.
JW:I hope so I hope so, yeah.
EL:So I think that'll be the end.
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