Transcription of Vivian Louise Officer (Broughton) 1928

Grandpa and Grandma Broughton (My great great grand parents)

John Broughton-1st Generation was born in England

John was married to a lady in England, they had 3 sons, He and his 3 sons (almost grown),  Traveled by ship over to the states, The father was separated from his sons when they arrived and for some reason they never found one another and they all went their own ways.

Charlotte Broughton- John married Charlotte after coming to the states

FATHER -Percy Vere Broughton- Born June 1890, (Middle Child) Clarence (Oldest) Naomi (Youngest)

MOTHER-Emilie Watts Broughton (Heaton), Married Dec 18, 1912

Moved from Kansas to Washington in the Kelso/Longview area,

After moving to Washington, her father’s friend who had also moved from Kansas to the Kelso/Longview area worked for a lumber mill and was able to get her father a job, Her father was working there for quite sometime when he was asked to take a new and dangerous assignment, which another worker had recently been killed doing. Having five children and a wife depending on him, he turned down the job and quit the mill. My grandmother remembers very vividly that he had told her  ” No I don’t believe a man with 5 children has any business doing that job.”  This is before she was born.Vivian was born in 1928 a year before the Great Depression had started, in a large one room shack in the Kelso/ Longview area on a small farm outside of town, After a new larger house was built, the one room shack became the chicken coup. She does not remember the shack but she does remember the new home being built. She explains with a small chuckle that the new house seemed quite large at that time, even though large back then was nothing compared to the houses now a days. She describes the house as having two bedrooms upstairs and two bedrooms downstairs, a wood “heating” stove to keep the home warm that was located in the dining room and a wood cooking stove that was located in the kitchen. The house did not have running water so in order to supply water, their family would pull water by the bucket from a well and carry it into the house. The well was located outside the house quite a ways, she laughs when explaining how tricky it was to get a full bucket of water. She makes a flicking motion with her wrist when describing how it took a certain flick of the wrist to acquire a full bucket of water. The house also did not have electricity. Until later, after her dad dug the post holes for the electric poles. Dad was a farmer in Kansas on a very large farm, then after moving to Washington her father bought and settled on 15 acres. Her father did not have a job due to the Depression so they grew lots of strawberries and Vivian remembers planting and selling these to the Washington Co-Op Cannery when she was a young girl.  After she was born she remembers her mother and father planting lots of strawberries, filbert trees, she said their was 2 types she remembered one type which was shaped more like an almond but it was a filbert and she explained how you need both for cross pollination. She had a Jersey Cow and a yellow “sweetheart” kitten named Patsy when she was 6. One Christmas her sister’s had bought her a doll buggy and a Shirley Temple doll. Instead of playing with her doll she remember’s taking her kitten Patsy, putting her in the doll buggy and riding her into the pasture and down and all around. She also remembers throwing darts with the neighbor boy who was biracial part white and part Philippine. When asked about grade school she laughed and said “honey it was a two room country school 4 grades in each room!” one mile from the house, she walked everyday to and from it. When asked about the discipline in her home, she said their was very little, it was just understood and expected to behave. She remember there was absolutely no alcohol or smoking aloud around or on the premises. When asked about the relationship with her siblings she laughed and said she was spoiled, she was the baby the next sibling up was 8 years older. When Vivian was in grade school she became friends with Gloria, Wanita, Shirly, Bobby, Preston all started the 1st grade together, in the 3rd grade they met Wanda, when she graduated the 8th grade their was 5 boys and 5 girls she had all become good friends with, After each person was grown and married they started meeting for annual picnics in which all students from Baker Grade School were invited. All of the girls in this group are in their upper 80’s and still alive and are still close friends, meeting annually for the picnic or reunions. Before 8th grade she had been working hard in the different strawberry, young-berry and raspberry fields picking fruit for Bushman’s Farm, She saved every cent in order to buy her dream bike. When she had enough saved her mother and father took her all over to find the perfect one. Looked at Montgomery Ward, then went to Portland to Sears, ending up returning to Montgomery Ward and getting one there. She was 2 dollars short when she went to pay the 29.00 for the bike. so her father covered the remaining balance. She described the bike as “top of the line bicycle” it had a basket, it had a place over the back wheel to tie luggage. When she entered high school   Everyone was white that attended her grade school, it wasn’t until after WWII started and she started going to Ridgemont and Vancouver High School her Junior and Senior year that she was introduced to multicultural people other then the one neighbor boy. She remember’s one black girl who was very nice named Valerie when she was in high school.The popular and appropriate type of clothing she wore growing up were dresses, skirts, sweaters and anklets (socks) and every once in a while she would wear a neck-less. She remember’s riding a Gray Hound bus which she took to high school each day and seeing a lady named Yvonne Percy a little older than her and how she had a nice pair of earrings. She also remembers Shirley’s mom’s ears looping downwards because she wore heavy earrings. When she describes her saddle-backs and how they didn’t have Nike shoes back then with a small giggle. She said they were oxfords then her face lit up and she exclaimed how beautiful they were. You could get a pair of nice brown or black ones. During the war things were rationed, shoes were rationed and you could only use ration stamps to buy them. The oxfords which were made mostly of leather became rationed because leather was used in the military and they needed to reserve it. You were only able to buy 1 or 2 pairs of shoes a year because of the rationing so instead of buying the saddle-back shoes, her family would buy her wooden shoes which were made in Holland, She had a pair of these wooden shoes when she was a senior but when she started working for the telephone company they did not allow wooden shoes and they were a safety hazard. On December 7, 1941 my grandmother was sitting on her back porch with her sister Ruby looking out across the pasture, when a man who came from Portland to purchase chicken eggs told them that Pearl Harbor had been hit that morning. Ruby’s husband Clive, his brother’s Cal, Bob and his cousin Tom all enlisted together on the stipulation they would all be kept together, they were Army Engineers and they were all stationed oversees on a Mediterranean island when his brother Cal came down with Typhoid fever. Around the same time the ship with five brother’s went down and the Army made new regulations denying family to be stationed together.

Her triggers for memories are rooted in family, family specifics like ages, birthdays, anniversaries all seem to be rooted in her memory the deepest.

Grandma Officer had 6 siblings- Glenn Albert Broughton (oldest)-DOB: Oct 13 1913, Merrial Evon Broughton-DOB: March 19, 1915, Grace Broughton-DOB: NOV 17, 1916, Mary Elizabeth Broughton DOB: July 13, 1918, Ruby Eleanor Broughter-DOB Feb 12, 1920.