Shirley Trevena & Lee Whitney

Oral History Transcript of Lee Whitney & Shirley Trevena

Interviewers: Aubrey Jaap & Clark Grant
Interview Date: November 30th, 2018
Location: Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives
Transcribed: December 2022 by Clark Grant

[General conversation and setup for recording]

[00:03:45]

Aubrey Jaap: Alright. So it's November 30th, 2018. We're here with Shirley Trevena and Lee Whitney. Shirley, can you start - I'd like you to tell me about your parents. Where did they come from? Were they born in America? Did they immigrate here?

Shirley Trevena: My parents came from Idaho and my mother was from a family of - there was 10 children in the family. They were farmers and they lived in Oakley, Idaho. My father's parents were farmers and they lived kind of all over Idaho. And they had 12 children. At one time, they owned a hotel, so they did different things. They moved around the state a lot, but they had 12 children and they did very well. The children did well.

Jaap: Well, what about their parents? How'd they get to Idaho?

Trevena: One was from - I'm sure - part of the family was from Wales and Ireland. And then my grandmother's parents were from Ireland too, I think.

Jaap: Okay. So how did they - so did your parents meet in Idaho then?

Trevena: Yes, they did.

Jaap: Okay. How did they meet?

Trevena: My dad was a barber - and I'm not sure how they met, but my mother was 22, I think, when they got married. So she had been working as a telephone operator before that, before then. And of course he was a barber. So he probably cut her hair at some point or other. Gave her a bob of some kind.

Jaap: So were you born in Idaho?

Trevena: Yes, I was.  I was born in Oakley, Idaho, in the same house that my mother was born in.

Jaap: Oh, really?

Trevena: On the little farm.

Jaap: Well, that's pretty neat. So you grew up on a farm, right?

Trevena: Well, I didn't - I was born there, but of course my family moved around, you know? 

Jaap: Yeah. So, where did they move after Idaho?

Trevena: Well, they were in Idaho all the time and they just were in - it was about the Depression time. So we kind of moved from pillar to post. I mean, we'd move to one little town and stay for a month or two and then we'd move to someplace else. So I think we were all over Southern Idaho. Pretty sure we were.

Jaap: When did you come to Montana?

[00:06:09]

Trevena: Well, in part of that time, moving around, we were in Boise, Idaho, and my dad was a barber there. I think at that time they had three children - my two brothers and I - and I went to six different schools in the first grade.

Jaap: Oh my gosh.

Trevena: Six different schools. And then - I don't know - at one time, they decided to - I think my dad was in search of gold [laughs] when we came to Montana because he heard about Virginia City and gold up there. So I think that's why he came. So we came to Idaho through Virginia City, Alder, and Laurin, and then to Butte. We came to Butte and about 1938.

Jaap: Was it still just you three kids in 19 -

Trevena: My sister was born in - we also had gone to Oregon for part of that time. My dad farmed for about a year. I forgot about that. He farmed for about a year and the crop - anyway the government at that time was giving people plots of land to farm on. And so he did. He had a wonderful crop of peas. He was out there and he was so proud that he had done that, you know, raised the peas. Then there was a violent storm and it ripped everything up. All the crop - it was gone. So that was, of course, one of the reasons that we moved. But anyway, we moved to Montana, like I say, in 1938. And at that time - my sister was born in Oregon, so she was just an infant when we moved to Butte. Then my dad barbered there in a little shop on Harrison Avenue where Ace Hardware is now. Then he bought a lot that's further down - it’s down by Angie's beauty shop. He put a building on it and gradually he opened up, you know, opened up his own barbershop. The other one was rented. So he opened up his own barbershop and had the barbershop for a long time.

And then he expanded. I think my brother, a younger brother, was born - Terry was born in Butte. Like I said, my dad kept working, and gradually he had a bar. He ended up having a barber shop and a beauty shop. And then he closed that and he opened up a bar. And I think on the other side he had the barber shop or something.

Jaap: Not a bad complex.

Trevena: So he did all kinds of things. He had a sports shop at one time.

Lee Whitney: And this was all where Ace Hardware is right?

Trevena: No, down from Ace Hardware, where Angie’s is, all in that area. He just kept changing, you know? And so like I said, he had a lot of occupations. My mother was a housewife. At one time, she did go to beauty school and tried that, but she didn't stay at it. And I think it was probably the pulls at home, you know. So she walked away from that. So then when my brother was about two, I met my husband Rich and we got married. I was 18 and he was 25, working at the smelter in Anaconda. I, of course, stayed at home. So, anyway, then we had Lee. And then about a year later, I had Bob and that was in 1949. You [speaking to Lee] were born in nineteen…

Whitney: Forty eight.

Trevena: Forty eight. And Bob was born in 1949.

Whitney: Forty nine.

Trevena: Forty nine, must have been. There were just 17 months or something between them.

Jaap: Oh gosh.

Trevena: Yeah.

Whitney: But what about when you were growing up? What did you do? What did you work at?

Trevena: That's kind of - oh, okay.

Jaap: Yeah, what did you do growing up?

Trevena: I worked at an ice cream store, across from Harrington's, an ice cream parlor. I worked there for a long time, and I babysat the kids across the street. I did that a lot. I babysat a lot of kids from Butte.

Whitney: She had these muscles from working in the ice cream store. I mean, when we were growing up, we'd just be amazed at my mom's - the muscles in her arm. Cause then it was -

Trevena: One arm. [laughter] Yeah.

Jaap: Dishing up the ice cream!

Trevena: Cold ice cream, just hard to scoop. Yeah. So I did that a lot. And then, I was older, you know, a little bit older, and still going to school. And anyway, my dad decided that I could work up at Rosenstein’s. And Rosenstein’s is long gone. It was on the corner of - let’s see, it was on Broadway. And I think it was, I don't know what street.

Whitney: Hamilton.

Trevena: Hamilton, Broadway, and Hamilton. And it was a great place. I had more fun working there. There were a lot of - there were stools around the ice cream, you know, in front. And then in back were ice cream chairs, you know, the chairs and tables, the real fancy marble top tables. And they had all kinds of things in that place. It was owned by Jewish - Rosenstein’s. His sister, Anna lived upstairs. And so did Jake. He lived upstairs too. But it was a great place to work. [I] got to meet some nice - a lot of kids from Central came there. So I met a lot of kids from Central. But anyway, how I met Rich was - I was going to work up at Rosenstein and I was walking… I had met him before, just casually. Then I was going to work and I was walking. I guess I was gonna walk or catch a bus or something, and I was on Harrison Avenue and it was raining. And so he saw me. He and his friend picked me up to give me a ride to work. It was a topless car. [laughs] It didn't do much good in the rain anyway!

So we went up and I said, ‘okay, for the ride up, stop in anytime and I'll give you a milkshake or banana split or whatever.’ So that's how we met. And then his family started coming in to meet me and all that kind of thing. So anyway, so.

[00:12:58]

I think we got - November 1st, 1947 is when we got married.

Jaap: And you were 18?

Trevena: And I was 18. He was 25. Yeah.

Jaap: Where was your family home? Where did your family live when you were younger?

Trevena: They lived on Harrison Avenue behind my father's barbershop. Then when he expanded everything, you know, did all the different things, he built a house on Marcia, just off of Harrison Avenue. But my mother never got to live in there. He had a little - we had that lot. At one time, my dad owned 18 plots in that block. And he lost them. He just gradually lost.

Whitney: And then he always said he lost it in a poker game.

Trevena: He did gamble. He didn't drink, but he gambled.

Jaap: Yeah, everyone has their…What was your father's name? I didn't get your parents' names.

Trevena: My father's name is Bill Colette and my mother's name is Roxy. She was a Collins. Anyway, the families were huge. When I was growing up, we spent a lot of time with my grandmother in Idaho. My dad would take us during the summer and take us down there and we'd stay for the summertime, every summer. So I spent a lot of time there and that's where most of my growing up was. I mean, the things I remember are from my grandmother's.

Jaap: Yeah.

Trevena: Yeah.

Jaap: Yeah. Where'd you go to school here?

Trevena: Well, I went to the Emerson school. We came from all the different moves and that, so I was in the fourth - I think I was going to go into the fifth grade and the teachers didn't really recommend that I go into the fifth grade, or they wanted me to go in the fifth grade. So I went in and so it was kind of a push, the whole school time. I just had to work hard to do anything after that because I was pushed further ahead. I should have been held back. I really think I should have been.

Jaap: Yeah. So were there a lot of businesses down there at that time, on Harrison Avenue?

Trevena: There were. There was that dry cleaning place across the street. I think on the corner of Marcia and Harrison, there was that Brown's Painting. I think that was there. They were a lot of barbers up and down Harrison Avenue at that time. I think there were three going from my dad's place, going towards uptown - three different barber shops. And there were a lot of bars, there were different little things. Plus then after my dad moved his shop down further, then Safeway put a building in there. And so that's where Ace Hardware is now. But there was a theater, the Harrison Avenue Theater, down where Great Harvest is, in that building. Downey Drug started down there, and they started in that building where the bakery is, on the end. And then they expanded and they moved across the street, Downey Drug did. And then pretty soon they moved down where Safeway was, because Safeway moved.

Jaap: Did you go to the Harrison Avenue theater often?

Trevena: No, no, it was a little early. I think they had closed. Yeah. I think they had closed before.

Jaap: Did you come uptown often as a young girl to go to the theaters or anything?

Trevena: Mm, yes we did. [We’d] take the bus ride. And then we went to Columbia Gardens, the day that they had the free rides and everything to go. We took that and went to Columbia Gardens a lot. But we did come uptown and we’d go to the 5 cent show and get a 5 cent hamburger across at Gus’s. You know, we did that a lot. Later on - because we didn't really have money. When we lived in Alder and Laurin, we were very poor. My dad worked. In fact, one time he went to Townsend to work because there wasn't any place to work. He sent - my mother didn't have any money and they were going to - I guess at that time they gave people food that didn't have any income. So they were getting ready to - my mother was very proud and she really didn't wanna accept anything, you know?

So anyway, they were gonna come and they were gonna bring some food. Well, my dad had sent some money. He had sent a quarter to my mother. And so my mother told the neighbors that ‘yes, her husband had sent her some money.’ So they didn't deliver the free food.

Jaap: Even though it was only a quarter.

Trevena: Only a quarter. So my brother and I went down to the store, I think that was in Laurin - and we bought a can of tomatoes and a loaf of bread.

Jaap: Yeah, hard times.

Trevena: We had nothing. It was really, really hard times. Yeah.

Jaap: Was it hard also when you came to Butte in ‘38?

Trevena: It was really the start of my dad being settled down, but it took a long time. It took - I don't know how many years, but it took quite a few years until he bought that other building. I mean, slowly, it just, you know, happened where he - and then he had a pretty good income, with the barbering and everything. And he did have a pretty good income, you know, enough to really say you could have food on the table and buy clothes and everything like that. So that was much better when they came to Butte.

Jaap: So in ‘47, you got married. Where did you and your husband live?

Trevena: We lived on Harrison - or not Harrison Avenue - we lived on Platinum, 71 West Platinum. And it had a neighborhood grocery on Montana Street, the Montana Cash was the name of the grocery store. And so I would walk over there and get food.

[00:19:11]

We had a - first, we lived downstairs, when Lee was born, we lived downstairs of that building. So that was the very beginning, and then when I had Bob, we were living upstairs, we had moved upstairs in a larger place, you know. We lived there probably for, I don't know, maybe two, three years. And then - Rich was a veteran, so he wanted to go back to Chicago to a welding school. They would send him back and he would stay there and go to school and everything like that. So he was there from - I think he went in January and he was there until I think April. Then I went over. So I had Lee - Lee was two, and Bob was just like eight months or whatever it was. And we went back on the Milwaukee railroad. That was quite an experience with two little kids. Two little kids.

And we moved everything. I mean, everything we had - we didn't have much. I think I took a crib and whatever else we could take, you know, on the train. So anyway, we went back there and I just - I just was, I was young and I said ‘it was scary.’ It was really scary going into Chicago because of the train tracks and everybody going back and forth and the noise and whatnot. So Rich was gonna meet me at the depot. He didn't come and he didn't come. It was so large, you know, the train depot. Anyway, this man helped me down off the, you know, helped me down. Then of course my luggage was - I don't know where it was - I guess it was in a different car. Anyway, they unloaded us and Rich came - and then we lived in Chicago for - I think that was nineteen…let's see if you were born in forty seven…

Whitney: Forty eight.

Trevena: Forty eight. Okay. So it was about ‘50, I think, 1950. And we lived in an upstairs apartment, a one room apartment. The bathroom was down the hall. The bathtub was down the hall. We had a little closet. I think at first, we even had Bob sleeping in a dresser drawer. [laughter] Yeah, it was really tough. And we had a little hot plate. The place was owned by a Jewish lady. It was - when they had the occupation, the Japanese, that was the house they settled the people in that were Japanese. That was one place they put them. So it was - I think there were only three white families in the building and we were one of them. It was all Japanese after that. I was scared to death. I mean, we had to share the bathroom with some of the people, you know. Maybe there were more than three families - white, you know, the regular white people - that lived there, but most of it was Japanese.

And the room - I didn't know anything about cockroaches [laughs] and it was loaded with cockroaches. It was horrible. So we talked to the landlady about it. So she had her son in-law come up and he put poison all around the room and he said, ‘don't let the kids down, keep the kids up, you know, keep them up.’ I had a crib. And so to do that, I mean, that was horrible. Anyway that was for the cockroaches - and the rats, the rats.

Whitney: Oh, tell the story about the rats.

Trevena: Oh, I had to go downstairs to wash clothes. Anyway, I went downstairs and I took Lee down, and she was waiting with me and we were doing the soap and putting everything in the washing machine to get it going. Lee was in another little room that was there. It was not clean. It was not a good place. Lee went in the other room and she said, ‘Mommy, the mousey ate my peanuts.’ I guess she had peanuts. And I went and there was a huge rat. So I grabbed her and I grabbed - I couldn't grab the clothes. I grabbed her and I ran upstairs. And that was the last time I washed clothes in that building. We went someplace else to wash clothes. It was horrible. It was probably the worst experience I ever had.

And then I didn't know what heat was until I got back to Chicago, heat or cold.

Jaap: Really.

Trevena: It could really get extremely hot, humid, because it was on the lake.

[00:24:30]

I did meet some people there and I used to go with them to the beach. We were on North Beach, I think. And we'd walk. I had borrowed a baby buggy and had the kids in it. You had to - I had Bob tied in the baby buggy because people stole kids. They would steal the kids right out of the buggy if you didn't tie them in.

Whitney: So why would they steal kids?

Trevena: I don't know. I have no idea. I had no idea, but it was really scary and we'd go to the beach and we'd stay there all day, you know, if it was nice and warm. Anyway, we'd come back. Like I said, after I met people, then I had someone to at least talk to. And they had little kids, so Lee got to play with the little kids and that. One day there was a black man that came to paint the apartments and Lee - he loved to talk to Lee. He was really a nice man. Very nice man. And she'd sit and talk to him. He said, ‘In another few years, she would not speak to me.’

Whitney: Oh, really?

Trevena: She wouldn't talk to him. That was strange, but he was very nice and we got to meet his wife and he had a nice family.

Jaap: Was that interesting for you - did you have to deal with that type of -

Trevena: Oh, we had never dealt with any blacks in Butte. Yeah, no. So it was a new experience for me too, but I found out very how very kind he was, you know?

Jaap: So how long were you in Chicago for then?

Trevena: Well, we stayed there until - let's see, we went in ‘49 right after Bob, or about ‘50, after Bob was born, and we stayed there for about a year and a half or two years. We moved to another apartment after that experience in the first one. It was a downstairs apartment and it was owned by a German. [laughter] So we went from the Japanese to the German and he said, ‘did your husband fight in the war?’ Of course he did, but we didn't talk about that. And we were in a downstairs apartment, and it was cold and damp and stuff like that, but it was better than the other apartment. So we stayed there. I don't know how long we stayed there, but anyway, it was a lot better. And that was where we moved from when we got ready to come back to Butte.

And when we came back to Butte, Rich's family lived on Summit Street -

Whitney: In the Dublin Gulch.

Trevena: In the Dublin Gulch. We stayed there when we got back, and after a while, they decided to sell us the house. You know, we could buy the house. So we did, and it was wonderful. It was just my first home. And I loved it. Really. I loved it. It was up on a hill and it had a nice yard. It was slanting like this - a nice yard and two apple trees and a little garage. It was only two bedrooms and a kitchen, front room, no dining room, just the kitchen table and all that. But I loved it. We were up high and it was great, so we lived there for a long time. Barbara was born when we lived in that house. But that was - it was nice. I think I was 22 when Barbara was born. So we continued and like I said, then Lee started school, of course. By that time, I think I had Patty and Nancy. No, maybe not Nancy, just Patty.

Whitney: She was born in the Gulch though.

Trevena: Yeah. Oh yes, she was. Everyone, all of them were born in the Gulch.

Jaap: Yeah. Mm-hmm except for Lee with her roots on Platinum!

Whitney: Yeah.

Trevena: Yeah, really.

Jaap: You don't talk about that as much. [laughter]

Whitney: I don't remember that, luckily. [laughter]

Jaap: So what did your husband do here then?

Trevena: He was a welder, a boilermaker. He worked down the mines for a long time, and then he got a job as a boilermaker. That was better because he was up - he was above the ground. But he worked underground for a long time.

Jaap: Did that make you nervous?

Trevena: Well, it did. Yes, it did. Because - I don't think you thought about it because everybody did it, you know? I think it was hard work.

Whitney: Well, and I do think, I mean - I remember as a kid, there were times when the cars that took the men up and down into the mine - they would stop and they wouldn't be running and then we would get scared. It was like, oh my god, what happened? Because when they were moving and they were doing it all the time, you know, up and down, up and down. So when it stopped, you were scared. It was like, oh my gosh, what happened?

Trevena: Yeah.

Whitney: So we'd kinda look out the window because we lived right above the Kelley mine. And we'd just sit there, looking out this window, waiting. Then eventually the car would start up and so then we'd know everything was okay, but that was scary.

Jaap: And is that where he worked, at the Kelley, did he work at the Kelley?

Trevena: He worked there. He worked there. He wasn't there at first, but he worked there later. We were there to watch them build the Kelley mine. We were there to watch them build that and they, you know, they had to move some houses. They moved houses down in the Gulch to have space to build the mine. It took a long time for them to do that. I don't know. That was during the time Barbara was born and all that, when they were building it, and it was interesting. We were up above and we could watch it and hear it. It was very noisy. I think the mine was very noisy because we lived pretty close. Like you said, you could hear the cars taking them, taking the men up and down. And then they'd have a whistle. They'd have a whistle for change of shifts. They'd have a whistle for different - the cart going down and everything.

[00:31:07]

So all these noises, I mean, it was just routine after a while. They would do the rigs - big, loud whistle, when the mine was working. But it meant work. Some of the toughest times we had during Rich’s time working were the strikes.

Jaap: Yeah.

Trevena: The strikes were bad. I mean, they just - one time I went down. They would give food stamps to people, you know? So I went down - and I think I had at least four children at that time - went down for food stamps and they wouldn't give them to me because I was $5 over. So I didn't get them. [laughs]

Jaap: Because that $5 is really gonna help feed your -

Trevena: Yeah, no, it didn't. I think there was some things that you could get, you know. One strike was - I think it was when, well, Barbara was a little older and Nancy - I think Patty was - I don't know how old she was, but Nancy was there. And anyway, we were gonna have a birthday party for Barbara. I think I said, ‘we'll have the birthday party when the strike is over.’ Well, it was an eight month strike I think. [laughs] So we did have a party. It wasn't her birthday, but we had a party.

Jaap: We’re gonna double the party next time!

Trevena: Eight months. So that was - that was a hard one. Rich went out of town at that time to find work, but he couldn't. He couldn't find any work. No.

Jaap: So did the grocers ever do credit? Did you ever get food on credit or anything?

Trevena: I'm not sure about that. I know my mother-in-law helped us so much. She'd have dinners and we'd go down and spend time with them. So they were very good. The family was good. I mean, they did all kinds of things for us and she was great. She didn't have any income herself. She didn't get anything from her husband when he died. So it was her sons that helped provide her living, you know. And she charged things at Hennessy’s and the grocery store and whatever, and she -

Whitney: And Butch Harrington's store up here on -

Trevena: On main street. Oh yeah, at Woolman and Main. Is it Woolman and Main?

Whitney: No, it's not. It's Copper and Main.

Trevena: Yeah. Copper and Main - Copper and Main Street. And he was good. I'm not sure if we charged. We may have. I can't remember, but we did get groceries there. Yeah.

Jaap: Sorry, I lost my train of thought. So during the strikes, do you remember - was it the ‘55 strike that there was the -

Trevena: The different things going on with houses - they’d made mark ‘scab’ and everything else on them?

Jaap: Mm-hmm.

Trevena: I remember that. I remember them doing that. I don't know. Now, it was kind of a scary time and I think they only did it to the bosses. The people that were, you know, that they thought were in charge - they would paint things on their houses. I think it made it hard for the kids going to school, their children going to school. If their fathers were involved, you know? Yeah. It was hard on them, I think. We were kind of above it and Rich was maybe out of town at that time, you know? So it was - it was not easy.

Whitney: Yeah.

Trevena: Not easy.

Jaap: Do you remember that Lee? Do you remember those?

Whitney: No. You know, I really, I don't. I remember a couple strikes, and I don't know which ones they were, but I remember getting food and I remember like - even through school, we got cheese or powdered milk or yuck. [laughs] Various things, you know. But that's about all I remember about that. I do remember my grandmother, who we called Nana -  it was my dad's mom. And she really did help us out a lot. We had dinner at her house, like every Sunday. She would buy us clothes, kid’s clothes for special things. We didn't have a lot of clothes. I was saying to somebody last night - we had a dress to wear to school and then a dress to wear to church. You know, we didn't have a lot. That's the way it was. All the kids who went to school were basically in the same boat. There were a couple kids who had clothes, but not many.

Trevena: Did you have uniforms at St Mary's?

Whitney: No. Didn't have uniforms until Girls Central.

Jaap: So all the kids went to St. Mary's for school. Did you guys go to church at St Mary's?

Whitney: Oh yeah.

Trevena: Everyone - all my kids were baptized at St. Mary's. We got married at St. Mary's and all the kids were baptized there. I'm trying to think about - yeah, all of them were, I think. Of course later, we had Mark. We were waiting for a boy. We had Lee and Bob and then Patty. Then we were hoping for a boy, another boy to even it out. And then we had Nancy. Anyway, she was born in ‘59. Patty was born in ‘55 and Nancy was born in ‘59. They were four years apart and they were born on the same day. [laughs]

[00:37:21]

And then Mark and Dan - and then in between all that, at the end, I think - before Mark was born - my brother-in-law, who was a priest, went to Korea. He was a chaplain in Korea. This little boy used to follow him around all over, this little Korean boy. And so he wanted, you know - he thought maybe he could come to America, you know? And so he talked to his - I don't know if he talked to his sisters or not - one had four children, and three children, and the other one had one. I don't know if he talked to them about, you know, adopting him. But anyway, I guess I raised my hand or whatever. [laughs] And so we adopted the Korean boy, Michael. Quan Yon Ki was his name - and he changed it to Michael Barry, which made it very difficult later on when he went to look for work. [laughs] Because he had an Irish name.

Anyway, he came when he was 12, and Bob was 12 years old. So they had - the two of them graduated together.

Whitney: And we were still living in the Gulch.

Trevena: Still living in the Gulch and still the little house.

Whitney: Still in the floor room house.

Trevena: Yeah. And then we had built a bedroom downstairs where - it was a little house, but we had a walk that went around the house down to - and that's where the bathtub was down there. There wasn't a toilet down there, but there was a bathtub. So we'd have to walk around the house, go down and take a bath down -

Whitney: Outside.

Trevena: Outside. So summer, winter, spring or fall.

Whitney: It was bad. [laughter] So we actually - we used to, in the wintertime, actually take a bath in galvanized tubs in the kitchen, in the kitchen, because otherwise we had to walk outside around the house.

Trevena: In the snow. [laughs]

Jaap: I love it.

Trevena: We did have a small bathroom upstairs, just the toilet stall.

Whitney: Oh, tell ‘em the story about the meter man.

Trevena: Oh gosh. Well, I went down to take a bath and I was down there. I don't know how many children I had. Anyway, I went down - our meter - we had to go in through the bath, or where the bathroom was, to go back in there to read the meter. And so I went down into -

Whitney: The dirt basement.

Trevena: Into the dirt basement. Anyway, that's where the meter was. I was taking a bath and in walks the meter man! [laughs]

Jaap: Oh no.

Trevena: And I screamed of course. [laughs] I don't know if you ever read another meter or not.

Jaap: He just said ‘that Barry household - they're good.’

Trevena: Yeah. Not gonna do that anymore. So anyway, I think the kids split their gut laughing because they knew what happened. That was crazy.

Jaap: So, did you stay in this house, this four room house on Summit? Or did you move to another bigger house?

Trevena: No, I think we stayed there. We had the basement fixed to another bedroom for Bob and Mike. And that was when they were 12-13.

Whitney: We were there till I was 16.

Trevena: Oh yeah. You were there, you were 16. So Bob had to be 14. And I think they graduated from grade school from that house. I'm sure they did - Mike and Bob. I'm sure Bob was in school by that time. And maybe Patty. So anyway, my brother-in-law thought that we should go to another house, get a bigger house. Now, the Anaconda Company was buying the houses up in the Gulch. They were buying all the houses. When they bought the houses, they bought the people nice homes on the flat, really nice homes on the flat.

[00:41:40]

And most of them moved to this new home on the flat. Well, if we'd have stayed - I don't know how much longer, not too much longer - the ore trucks were driving across our road down at the bottom. We lived, you know, on a dirt road, down the hill. They were crossing the road. Well, our kids were going to school and they'd have to, you know - that was really dangerous with those ore trucks going down. Anyway, if we'd have stayed, I'm sure we would've had a house on the flat, but my brother-in-law decided that maybe we should move. That was because Mike - it wasn't anything we wanted so he found this house over on Washington Street. And it was big, and it was cold.

I guess I was happy that we were gonna move, but we moved at Christmas time. I can remember buying a tree, taking it over, and putting it in the front room. Everybody moved after that, to get us in there. Dan was just a baby. Dan was an infant when we moved down there, and Mark. Before we moved, Mark and Dan were in our bedroom. So we had a crib and a bassinet in the room.

Jaap: How many kids do you have Shirley?

Trevena: Seven of my own and then one adopted one.

Whitney: So four boys and four girls.

Jaap: So you did make it even.

Trevena: Oh, yes. [laughs] We made it even, with four and four. Anyway, we moved to Washington Street and it was big. It had bedrooms, more bedrooms. I think there were two upstairs. The two young boys were in the one bedroom upstairs and then the other one - Rich and I were in it. There was one bathroom upstairs that had a tub and a toilet. And then there was a room downstairs that - I don't know if anybody really - there wasn't a tub or anything. It was just a toilet. And I don't know if anybody used that or not, maybe in an emergency, but it was not really great. And the walls in that house were like 18 inches thick and it was a three story house. I think there was a dirt basement. Then there was the first floor. It had been a duplex. I guess they'd had an apartment downstairs and then one upstairs. So it was actually a duplex that we moved into. So we had stairs going up from the outside, downstairs, down on the bottom, and then from the upstairs, going down on the inside to the downstairs. I think we had three bedrooms down there. And then two upstairs. So five bedrooms and that, and one bath with all these kids. We had one bath. Yeah.

Whitney: Because we didn't use the bathroom downstairs. The thing about that house though is that they built these stairs on the porch. So we had stairs to go downstairs on the inside. However, it was in a porch that was not insulated or heated, so you'd from the kitchen. You'd go into this porch, which was freezing cold a lot, and go downstairs to your bedroom.

Jaap: You guys had a thing with having to get cold to get where you needed to go.

Trevena: I know! [laughter] I haven't warmed up yet.

Jaap: Oh yeah, still. Oh no!

Trevena: And then the washer - we had one room down there that used to be a kitchen because it had been an apartment. That's where our washer and dryer were, down there. So it was a big laundry room, you know, where all kinds of clothes were down there and everything. So anyway, and then they had upstairs - they had a quad. And if you know what a quad is, it’s a stove. It's a little tiny heater.

Whitney: Quad heaters.

Trevena: About this wide, you know, about maybe 30 inches wide and maybe 30 inches high, but it's just a little thing. And you know, and it wouldn't heat anything. I mean, just maybe right in front of it, it would heat. And then downstairs was a great big monstrosity, which didn't throw any heat. I mean, it wasn't the furnace. We didn't have a furnace, not a furnace, just heaters. I don't know what the people did before we got there, but it was cold. A lot of times, I'd turn on the oven stove in order to warm up the kitchen and leave that oven door open to warm the house up.

Jaap: Oh gosh. Was it hard leaving the Gulch for you?

[00:46:35]

Trevena: I think it was - it was kind of hard. I think it was hard. I mean, not that I didn't wanna move. You can regret a lot of things. And I think I regret not staying there. But I didn't know anything, you know, I was young and I didn't really know anything like that. I think we were anxious to get into a bigger place, which we did. But it was - I think it was. I missed it. The house where we moved into on Washington Street was right on the sidewalk. You know, of course there was the stairs that went down to the downstairs from the sidewalk. So there was a little porch on top of that, but it was all dirt in back and everything. I don't think at that time they had a fence or anything around it. It had a garage that was down on the corner for storage and stuff like that, but it was all on rock, you know.

Jaap: And in the Gulch, did you have a garden and everything?

Whitney: The Gulch was great because we did have this fence yard with trees and bushes. And my mom always -

Trevena: Hedge.

Whitney: [She] had a little garden and stuff. It was beautiful. It was great. And this is in this little mining community, that area where there's slag piles and all sorts of stuff. But we had this little oasis that - it was great. It was.

Trevena: We had a hedge around part of it, and bushes. There was some bushes there, like you say, the lilac bushes and there was the bridal wreath, I think they call it - it's a little plant that has little flowers and it looked like a bridal bouquet. I think around that, around the bottom of the house, I planted flowers too, you know.

Whitney: And we also had pussy willows.

Trevena: Yeah.

Whitney: And pussy willows grow in wet areas. There was this one area that I'm sure there must have been an underground spring of some sort that went down because we had these pussy willows. Oh, it was just kind of a weird little thing. So it was really green. It was like a little oasis up there, you know?

Jaap: And were the neighbors close with each other?

Trevena: Oh yes. The neighbors were close. They taught me everything. They said, ‘we have to teach you how to do different things because…’

Whitney: They were far, not close, not close next door.

Jaap: I mean, right. I mean like a community, of the neighborhood community.

Trevena: Oh yes. Yeah. [We] got very acquainted with all of them. The kids all played together. And when we lived on the hill, the kids would go sleigh riding down. And where we were, it was pretty rocky. But we had a path and the mailbox was down at the bottom of the hill. So in order to get the mail or anything, you had to walk down this path to the mailbox and in the winter or whatever.

Clark Grant:  Cold.

Trevena: Yeah. Yeah. Cold again, cold. Then a lot of times, I'd go grocery shopping and I'd have to take a cab up. And the cab would stop down at the mailbox and drop me off. So I had to haul the groceries up to the house.

Jaap: Yeah. How about you leaving the Gulch, Lee? So you were about 16? Was that a hard phase?

Whitney: When I left the Gulch, actually it was a good thing because I wanted a bigger house. I was 16 years old and I ended up with my own bedroom in this new house. So that was good. And there wasn't much going on in the Gulch at that time. I mean, so many people had moved out. I don't remember who was left when we moved, but  -

Trevena: Maybe the Lees. Maybe the Lee family.

Whitney: The Lees, yeah. A lot of those people had moved, so no, it wasn't difficult for me. When I was 16, I wanted to do something new, you know? But I loved living in the Gulch. I mean, the Gulch was -

Trevena: You had one close friend there June - June Maloney.

Whitney: Yeah.

Trevena: And she was a little - I think she was a year older.

Whitney: She was, yeah. But we had this whole hillside to play on. It was amazing - between our house and the railroad tracks, it was vacant. It was empty. It was granite. It was decomposed granite, is what most of it was. And that's where we played. It was just wonderful. We just had this whole hillside to play in. It wasn't a farm or a ranch, but it was, I mean, you were out in the country sort of.

Trevena: And there was this huge group of rocks. There was a lot of rocks. They were real big rocks, you know, huge rocks. And the kids called them the TJ, they named it the TJ because it had kinda little places where you could go in - boulders, huge boulders. And they used to go there and play there a lot. Barbara was out there playing one time and the men from the mine used to put their things in a bag, a gunny sack bag and take them up to the mine, because they worked at the [Mountain] Con, you know? And so they'd be walking up and Barbara saw one and she said she thought for sure that someone had a kid in the bag, you know, a baby in the back. But they called it a turkey. Their bags were called a Turkey.

Jaap: Why’d they call it that? Do you know?

Trevena: I don't know.

Whitney: Because it looked like a Turkey in the bag.

Jaap: Really?

Trevena: Yeah. I mean, you know, it was kind of - with the neck on it. I don't know why they called it a turkey, but that's what they did.

Jaap: Interesting.

Trevena: Yeah, it is.

[00:52:57]

Jaap: Okay. So you're on Washington street. Is your husband still working for the Company at that time?

Trevena: Right. Mm-hmm, he is. He’s at the Kelley, working at the Kelley. And then I guess after Dan, well, before Dan, before we moved into the Gulch, I got a sewing machine and I did a lot of sewing. Oh my gosh. I sewed things for neighbors and started to make drapes and things like that for different people. I probably sewed some clothing for the kids.

Whitney: How did you learn to sew?

Trevena: My grandmother. When I was down at my grandmother's house - she lived about a mile out of town and she had a sewing machine. I was fascinated with the sewing machine. I really was. And I don't know how old I was, but anyway, she went to town one day and I thought, ‘oh my god, I’m gonna try to sew.’ So I'd start doing some. I don't know what kind of material I grabbed, something, and I was sewing away. I'd run to see if she was coming yet. She walked to town and I could tell - so she was gone probably a couple hours and here I was sewing away and trying to do something, you know, but I loved it. Kind of fascinating to start with.

Jaap: So you made clothes for the kids?

Trevena: My, yeah, and I made some later on. Probably not then, but anyway, I always loved sewing. I still have three sewing machines, although I don't use 'em. I gave one to my granddaughter and that's -

Jaap: What other hobbies do you have Shirley? [laughter]

Whitney: Well, I'm gonna just interject here. We had a garage sale this summer and, you know, we could have said it was a craft fair because my mom got rid of a ton of craft stuff. So yeah, go ahead, mom. Tell 'em what else you do.

Trevena: Oh, well, I mean I started crafts. Rich was out. He was gone. He was out a lot. So I did everything. I mean, I did all kinds of crafts. I was very interested in, you know, like sewing or doing things like that. But then as I grew older, and I do all kinds of different - I always did some kind of garden, even on Washington Street. I think I grew tomatoes on one side of the house, that kind of thing. But as years passed - I don't know if we've gotten to the point where all the kids were gone. I don’t know - do you wanna go to the next step?

Jaap: Sure. We can do that. That's fine. Yeah. Where'd you go after - how long were you in the Washington Street house?

Trevena: Uh, 15 years.

Jaap: 15 years.

Trevena: 15 years. And my mother-in-law died in January, and she had the house on Locust Street. It was nice. It was three bedrooms and a grassy area and tree, you know, big pine trees out in front and a blue spruce and a hedge. And it was a nice little house. Anyway, we decided we wanted to buy the house because, by that time, we had four children. Patty was gone to college in billings. And then we had Mark and Nancy and Dan. Of course, Nancy was in high school I think. And then the two boys were going to North Central. So anyway, we moved - we decided to buy that house. And so we were down there, we were down there. I've been down there for - I think it's 40, 45 years, something, in that one house.

Jaap: And that's where you're still at?

Trevena: That's where I will. I kind of, yeah, I'm gonna that's - I'm going to sell that.

Jaap: Yeah.

Trevena: Yeah. Anyway, where I learned all the hobbies was later on after Rich passed away. I got together with my childhood sweetheart and we used to go south a lot. And down south, you just learned all kinds of craft. You know everything. I mean, we did some - it's called zipper art. We did that with zippers, and you buy big zippers and you put it on - you do all this process and you end up with a painting, and you use paints and glue and all kinds of things. And so you're actually - you actually have something after you get through. Anyway, we did a lot of that and we did -

Whitney: Sand.

Trevena: Well, the sand was with the zipper art. We used the sand, he'd buy different colors of sand. And then oil painting. I've always done oil painting. I did a lot when Bill and I moved to Oregon. I did a lot of oil painting. I did some on canvas and some on wood. I loved the wood. I think all of my children have a painting, one or two paintings. I loved it. And then after Bill died, I stopped painting. I haven't really oil painted since then. So. That was one of the things that I got rid of. But I've always - and I've done furniture refinishing, those kinds of things. I love that. Did love it. [laughs]

Whitney: And sewing, sewing.

Trevena: Sewing, sewing, sewing. Yeah. Sewing a lot. Did a lot of alterations for my friends, you know, those kinds of things. I think I made two wedding dresses. I think I made Barbara's and Patty’s. I think I made their wedding dresses. And I did some bridesmaid dresses too. And then I [laughs] - when Dan was small, I went to work for a drapery shop. That was the drapery shop that was down by, I think, Unique Cleaners on Main Street. And so I worked there as much as I could - this was before Dan was born - and I worked there as much as I could until after he was born. I worked there up to probably a few weeks before he was born, and we had a table about this size that we put the material on. And so here I am, like this, trying to get around this table. So I worked there for quite a while. We sold - we made draperies for Osello’s and Hennessy’s. What was the store that was up on - there was about five or six stores - Penny’s. We made draperies for Penny’s and people would put their order in and then we would fill the order.

Jaap: Neat.

Trevena: Yeah. Mm-hmm, so there were three of us working in the drapery shop. We got out a lot of draperies. I enjoyed that very much.

Jaap: Mm-hmm, yeah. How has Butte changed over the years, do you think, to you?

[01:00:30]

Trevena: Um…I think it's changed a lot. I think that at one time, there were more people milling around uptown. There were more people in the uptown area, a lot more. Yeah. Because there were a lot of stores in uptown, you know. They had department stores like Symons or Burr’s or whatever, and Hennessy’s of course was huge. Hennessy’s had all kinds of things going on up there. And you had dress shops and you had children's play, you know, places to buy children's clothing and that too. So that -

Whitney: And then the five and dime, right?

Trevena: That's - oh yeah. The Woolworth’s and the five and dime. They were close. They were close together. Pretty close.

Jaap: How about now? Do you think Butte is in a good place, in a worse place?

Trevena: I think it's going to change. I think things are gonna start happening in Butte. There's a lot of building going on. There's a lot of building - they're out by Continental and Elizabeth Warren - they're building another big building out there. I'm not sure if it's gonna be apartments. There is one beside it that - there is an apartment beside it and I don't know if it's gonna be the same kind of a structure or not. The one that’s there, Meadow Lawn - I think it goes on your income, goes on your income, and it's mostly seniors. I think right now in Butte -  I think Butte is a place where people retire, and you wouldn't think it would be. But Butte has a lot of senior citizens. And then they have the Big Sky, and then they have the Springs. Then they have all kinds of different places where people can live, you know, senior housing. So I think if they figured it up, there's a lot of people that are, you know, seniors. I know there are. But I think there's gonna be something come into Butte. It probably will not be a mall.

Jaap: No.

Trevena: I don't see 'em all. I see some stores - and maybe another grocery store or some you know. Hennessy market - I think that's good, uptown. And of course the Safeways and Stokes. But I think things are coming to Butte. I really think they are. I hope.

[01:03:06]

Jaap: How about you Lee? Same question. How's Butte changed in your eyes over time, and what do you see for its future?

Whitney: Probably about the same. When I was growing up, as a youngster, when I would come downtown, which we called our uptown - at the time, we would go downtown to uptown because we all lived on the hill. But it was a busy, busy place. I mean, there were people all over walking the streets, you know, just shopping. It was just a busy, busy, crazy place. When I went to New York City, to Manhattan, the first time, I got up in the morning and was out in this little courtyard area and New York would start coming alive. The volume of the noise just kept increasing and increasing, and you'd hear this traffic and the horns honking and stuff. It just - I felt right at home because that's how Butte was at that time, growing up, it was huge. And of course it's changed a lot. Population has changed. People moved off the hill, a lot of people. And so, the flats expanded.

Butte has been - I don't know, it's been pretty stagnant for a long time, from the eighties is what I'm thinking. We're still fighting the same battles now that we were fighting in the seventies and the eighties and the nineties. Exactly the same battles. Trying to get businesses in, trying to get things for uptown Butte. I'm geared toward, you know, increasing stuff in uptown Butte. So the things I see happening now, and the things that people are talking about are really the same things as when I was with the Uptown Association, it was: how do we get more businesses? How do we fill these uptown or these upstairs places? Now we have to fill it downstairs. I mean, it's the same thing. We're growing, yeah. But in different ways, you know, and not necessarily in the way that I'd like to see. I'd like to see more retail uptown. I'd love to see that.

And the flats is gonna take care of itself. I think it's gonna be fine. But until we expand our population somehow, it's really not gonna change. We need people and we need jobs. Where are those jobs coming from? In Montana, the retail and service sector are the biggest employers. That's fine, but it doesn't create a lot of secondary type businesses.

Jaap: Right.

Whitney: So I don't know. I mean, and I'm positive about Butte. I love Butte. We keep doing the same thing and now I'm with CPR [Citizens for Preservation and Revitalization]. And so it's - here we are saying - here I am again, saying, ‘okay, we have to do this for uptown Butte. We have to do something with these buildings. We have to keep them, we have to tend them.’ Anyway,  I'm positive. I just wish it would happen before I die. [laughter]

Jaap: I don't blame you. Yeah. When nothing's changed over 40 years or, you know, very slow, same conversation happening over a long period.

Whitney: Yeah. I mean really? Yeah.

Jaap: Yeah. So Lee, how has your mother shaped you?

Whitney: Do you want me to cry?

Jaap: Yes, I do. [laughter]

Whitney: It's quite possible. Well, several things. And I've thought about this question. She just gave me this amazing love of reading, which is - I mean, it's one of my favorite things because she used to read to us when we were kids. That's one thing she did. And I remember when my dad was working at night, my mom would gather whatever kids wanted to. Now, Barbara doesn't remember this, so she must have been really small. Bob and I would sit there and my mom would read to us, Black Beauty, Robert Lewis Stevenson, all sorts of things. It was - it was important. And she always had books for me to read. So I got that love of reading from her.

[01:08:15]

Something else I got from her was my work ethic and this trying to please people by working hard. Because she used to say - when I would help her, I was always her right hand man. And so she impressed this upon me. When you're in a family of eight kids, how do you get attention? I didn't think about it at the time, but how I got attention was by doing stuff, you know, cleaning, ironing. I mean, I used to iron a lot. [laughter] I ironed underwear. We did! Well, we had to because we would hang our clothes out on the line. And you'd bring them in and half the time they'd be frozen stiff, so you'd have to bring 'em in and drape 'em over chairs and things to get 'em dry. So then they'd be kind of a mess. So, I mean, I did! I ironed underwear.

Trevena: I didn't know that.

Jaap: Oh see, you did it for nothing Lee. [laughter]

Whitney: Anyway, my mom gave me that work ethic by just doing that. And I was always so proud when she'd say, ‘she's my right hand man.’ And I got to do things with her that the other kids didn't. I could go places with her and go to baby showers, go to little things like that, so I was pretty special.

Trevena: Yes.

Whitney: And I'm still special, right? [laughter] So she gave me a lot. And a love for doing different things. I mean, my mother never settled for anything. She hasn't talked about her professional life too much, but I mean, she's amazing. My mother went to nursing school when she was in her fifties, late fifties, right?

Trevena: After I worked at Head Start for almost 20 years.

Whitney: Yeah. So that's when she went to school to become a nurse and I was like, ‘oh my god, what are you doing?’ But she did it and it was - we were all pretty excited when she graduated. It was great. It was a cool thing.

Trevena: Mm-hmm. it was. I wish I'd have done it earlier. I had thought about that when I was growing up because it was a wonderful profession.

Jaap: Mm-hmm, how long did you work as a nurse then?

Trevena: Uh, probably about - well, I worked about five years at the nursing home, and I worked in the Alzheimer's unit. But I did home care a lot after that. I did a lot of home care. It wasn't a long time, but I enjoyed it.

Whitney: And before that? Before you became a nurse, what did you do?

Trevena: I worked at Head Start. I worked at Head Start. I went to school. When I started working at Head Start, I didn't have my GED. I did not have my GED. I hadn't graduated from high school because I quit. I lacked some credit, so I didn't graduate. Anyway, I went to Head Start and they said, ‘you can become anything.’ And I thought, oh my god. I just couldn't believe it. So I did get my GED. I became an aide for Head Start, working with a teacher, and then I became a teacher. And then I became education coordinator. And then I was state coordinator for the CDA program. So I would go to workshops and come back and I would train the staff at Head Start. So I was one of eight for the state of Montana. They sent us on all kinds of trips and we were called the CDA eight. So we went on all kinds of trips and learned a lot of things. And like I said, it was - it was great.

After I got to Head Start and I found everything about children, I said, ‘oh, and I already destroyed eight of my children.’ [laughter] I didn't do the things I should have done for them.

Jaap: That's not true. That's not true.

Whitney: Not true at all.

Trevena: So anyway.

Whitney: But she also was assistant director then of Head Start.

Trevena: Mm-hmm.

Whitney: And then director.

Trevena: And then director.

[01:12:56]

Whitney: So yeah, it was quite a success story.

Jaap: That's really impressive, Shirley. Yeah, that really is.

Trevena: And I enjoyed it, you know. I lived Head Start. Everything I did at home was for them. And I mean, I enjoyed working with all the people and they all became very good friends and are good friends today.

Whitney: So that's where I get my drive and my ambition. Yeah. That's from my mom.

Jaap: Anything else you wanna add to what you were saying, Lee?

Whitney: No, I don't think so. I think that's about it. The nice thing about my mom and I is -  we're pretty close in age and we're mom and daughter, but we're just - we're good friends. It's great. So, me retiring was nice because I've gotten to hang out with her more often. So that's cool. It's great.

Trevena: You did. For me, it's such a comfort, to have the closeness. A lot of people have no one. And I have a wonderful family. I do. And I have Lee, especially.

Whitney: Because I'm special.

Trevena: She's my number one. [laughs]

Jaap: Oh, and that's recorded.

Grant: It's on the record.

Trevena: It’s on the record!

Jaap: We won’t tell anyone.

Trevena: I have to remember that in the will.

Jaap: Lee’s number one! [laughter]

Trevena: She is my executor, which you know. [laughter] So now I'm making a big move. I am selling my house and I'm going to the Springs. I rented a cottage at the Springs, so that's the next chapter.

Jaap: That is a big move. Yeah.

Trevena: That is a big move. Yep. And Lee's helping me. .

Jaap: So you guys - I just know this story. You guys have gone to where your house was in Dublin Gulch, right?

Trevena: Mm-hmm.

Whitney: Oh yeah.

Jaap: Will you tell me that story? Will you tell us that story?

Whitney: Well, we've gone there a few times and we've gone under the fence.

Trevena: Mm-hmm. Do not enter.

Whitney: Because it's all fenced off and it has been for quite a long time. But we've taken grandkids up there. My mom's grandkids.

Trevena: Gotten plants.

Whitney: My kids. Oh yeah. In this yard that we had, one of the things we had were irises that my mom planted. So we're up there one time and - you and me and Nancy were there. I don't know who else. Anyway, we found these irises that were growing by the hedge. And it was like - they were these little itty bitty, tiny, pale, yellow irises. So we'd dug them up and took 'em home. And my mom has some. I gave some to Carrie, my daughter. I had some in mine. I planted mine - my house on Antimony Street in the backyard. And those things shot up to three feet high and they were beautiful. It was amazing. But here they were in the Gulch - they were in this decomposed granite, and they were just so little.

Anyway, so when we moved - when I then moved to the flats, I gave some to Carrie to keep for me in her yard. She had some, so I transplanted them to my house now on Quincy Street. So now I have some of those still, which is pretty amazing.

Jaap: That's pretty special, I think.

Trevena: Yeah. Oh, it is.

Whitney: It is.

Trevena: Yes, it is.

[01:17:01]

Whitney: We love going up there.

Jaap: A little breaking and entering never hurt anyone. [laughs]

Trevena: Yeah. Then there is an overlook, you know, something that overlooks where we used to live. We go up to picnics up to the Con, yeah.

Whitney: The Mountain Con.

Trevena: Mountain Con, to the viewing stand. There's a viewing stand up there and we walk over there and we can look down and - of course it isn't - there's nothing the same and they've plowed over. There's all kinds of granite over it and everything else. And everything's changed. There is nothing, nothing really left up there.

Whitney: We did - I mean, one thing that we did for that neighborhood is we did our interpretive signage project. So there's a sign at the Mountain Con overlook. That includes a picture of my brother and I and a friend at the top of the hill, kind of where we lived, looking down into the Gulch and some more information about the Gulch.

So, doing that signage project helped at least interpret that area. So all the neighborhoods surrounding St. Mary's church have some signage in them.

Jaap: Which is nice, because you guys put up a bunch of signs to talk about it. And then you guys collected oral histories.

Whitney: Yes.

Jaap: You guys made a book.

Whitney: Yes, we did a book. Yeah, Butte’s Irish Heart. Yay. It was a pretty amazing three years after I retired. I was very busy.

Jaap: I don't think that's called retired. [laughter] You’ve never retired yet.

Trevena: Another thing about the Gulch that I hadn't really mentioned to anyone, and I don't really remember it - but in the Gulch, where we lived, way across to the other hill on the other side was called Hungry Hill. There were apartments and all kinds of things, houses and everything that were over there. And that was before our time, but I mean, it was called Hungry Hill.

Whitney: And at one time, there were a ton of houses up there.

Trevena: There were stores, and maybe a bar and yeah, all kinds of things.

Whitney: But not when we were up there.

Jaap: Clark, do you have any questions?

Grant: Yeah. I made a short list here of things that came to mind while you were talking. So they're not in any particular order.

Trevena: Right.

Grant: Flavors of ice cream at Rosenstein’s? We talked once with Irene Scheidecker, who worked at the ice cream store down the street.

Trevena: Right.

Grant: And they had all kinds of crazy drinks. And what was the menu like at Rosenstein’s?

Trevena: Oh, we had everything. We had all kinds of - we got the ice cream in the big, long cartons, you know, the big cartons that were all under a lid. But I used to make milkshakes. I loved to make milkshakes. And one was chocolate marshmallow malt.

Grant: Mmm.

Trevena: One time, like I say, the kids from Central would come in. And one time - you put it in a tin container and then you'd put it up on the beater to go. I filled it so packed full of ice cream that the beater would hardly turn. I was making it for this boy. And of course I was impressing him, you know. [laughter] And the boss came in. And so rather than pouring the milkshake into his glass, I gave him the silver container. [laughter] It was crazy because I didn't wanna be caught, because I stuffed it full. You didn't do that. You used two scoops of ice cream for milk, the whole thing, two scoops of ice cream. So we had all different flavors. And we made Sundays, or sodas or banana splits and all kinds. So we didn't really have - just all those different kinds of things, but not one particular specialty.

Grant: And that building was on Broadway? Would it be kind of near Beautiful Things?

Trevena: It was next door. Yeah. That's where that vacant lot is, is where it was. Yeah.

Grant: So that was my next question. How do the parking lots of uptown affect you, do they affect you? Where that building was is a parking lot. Just north of that, there was a big fire and all those buildings are gone.

Trevena: Oh yeah.

Grant: That lot -

Trevena: Always. I know. There isn't much there.

Grant: How does that affect you?

Trevena: Well, I don't know. I think it affects the whole town, and not me personally. But I think it's sad to see the parking lots and the empty buildings. I just - I really feel sad about that because the store fronts, you know. I know some people that have been there and gone and everything. I mean, I think it affects everyone with the parking lots, all the different things.

Whitney: And I have to say, I think it's sad too. We get rid of these buildings. I know the ones that are gone because of fire - we can't do much about. But the ones that we've torn down, it's just - to me, it's disgusting and it's narrow minded and shortsighted. You look at this building near the archives, the O’Rourke, that is now being renovated. The county wanted to tear that down so badly because they wanted more room for law enforcement department parking or whatever. And CPR stepped in, and CPR started paying the taxes on that building when the owner wouldn't pay ‘em, just so the county couldn't take it. And then the county required them to fence around it, which was kind of ridiculous. Never done before, you know? Yeah. So CPR complied with all these things and kept that building, boarded it up. And now today, two decades later or whatever the heck it is, somebody's renovating them. And it is so impressive.

[01:23:33]

The same thing with the Acoma - the Montana Power Company wanted to tear that down for a parking lot. So a bunch of us got together, CPR people, went in that building - we cleaned the pigeon poop and the pigeons out of there - there were a bunch of dead pigeons. It was horrible for me, Aubrey. As you know, I have a problem with birds. So anyway, we cleaned this out, we washed the windows. We went in and we tore down ceilings that were falling down. We cleaned out all this debris and made that building presentable so that people could walk in and see it without being in danger. And you know, it's beautiful.

Jaap: And they're viable.

Whitney: Yeah. So anyway, sorry. I had to do my commercial.

Grant: That's okay.

Trevena: Another thing, you know, we were looking for housing for the homeless. What is wrong with the existing buildings? That is amazing to me that they did not use a building that was existing, rather than trying to go do what they're doing, which they haven't really come very far with. It's possible. When are they gonna open? You know, because the homeless are not going away.

Jaap: No, they're not.

Trevena: Nope. They're not going away. They're having a big clothing drive now all over town and it'll be Saturday at the MAC - and they will give away clothing and blankets and whatever, but where are they gonna put them? You know, where are these people gonna put them if they get them?

Jaap: In December now.

Trevena: In December. Yeah.

Grant: Your husband's experience in the war - Did he see combat and did that affect your home life at all?

Trevena: It didn't really affect the home life because he wouldn't talk about it. He was in for four years. He was over - he was in Germany. He was in the battle of the bulge in Africa. He was in France when they were there - when they were taking back the city and that. So he went through that. And of course, when the war ended, he was still in and they had to go to Alaska, and he was in Alaska for I don't know how long. Because the Japanese had moved into Alaska, you know, so they had to route out all the Japanese from there. So he was in a lot of combat.

Grant: But he never spoke about it.

Trevena: He wouldn't speak about it.

Whitney: Even as teenagers, when we tried to get him to talk about it - because we really wanted to know - he just refused. And my mom had a bunch of newspaper articles and stuff about the war, and we'd get those out and have him look at 'em, but he would not talk about it. And I think it did affect him, I think.

Trevena: Oh yeah. It affected him a lot. Yeah, I think it did. Yeah, really. I think there were things that he saw that he could not - because he was a young man from Butte. He was young when he went in, you know. So he had just gotten out, well, probably two years before we met, so he had gotten out, so.

Grant: I had a similar experience with my dad - he was in Vietnam. He would just never talk about it, no matter how much I asked.

Trevena: Right, right.

Grant: Eventually, I stopped asking.

Whitney: Yeah. Whereas my brother who was in Vietnam, talked about it. He had PTSD - he had all sorts of issues.

Trevena: Lifelong issues.

Grant: I wrote here, you know, it seems there is a division, I think, between the uptown and the flat - economically, philosophically definitely the way the buildings look and are constructed. You don't see fast food chains uptown, you know?

Trevena: No.

Grant: So growing up, did you have that sense, even then, that there were distinct?

Trevena: No, I don't think so. No, I didn't think there was. I know the uptown was busier and that. And you went to places down on the flat, but that was before the mall, of course, and you went to different stores. They didn't have as much on the flat at that time. They just didn't. I don't think there were stores, you know, clothing stores or anything like that. There were gas stations and barber shops and those types of things, necessity things, but nothing -  and a grocery store, I guess, at one time. But I don't think there was that. I think it was uptown - uptown was the place.

Grant: I see. Now, do you feel that the flat is the place?

Trevena: It's scattered. It's scattered. I think that there are stores - for myself, there are stores uptown that I never get in. They open and then they close before I even get into them. And I'm not as active, you know, as some other people who are uptown and downtown too, down on the flat too. So I don't really get into the stores.

Grant: About the only one downtown for me is the Western Meat Block.

Trevena: Yeah.

Whitney: Yeah.

Grant: I love that.

Jaap: Oh yeah.

Trevena: Yeah. We go there too.

[01:29:05]

Grant: Well, I was curious if we could just speak a little bit more about the neighborhood groceries and which ones you liked and what you liked about them.

Trevena: Okay. Well, when we were on Platinum Street, I had the two children, like I said, there was the grocery store, the Montana Cash. And it was on Montana and Platinum. That's where we shopped. And I thought, you know, it was a great place. They were real friendly. They had all kinds of groceries. They had good meats and everything like that. But I think there were quite a few grocery/meat stores, you know, those kinds of things. I think there were a lot of those around, but that was the neighborhoods. I think there were things in the neighborhoods that - when you were in that neighborhood, you used that store.

Grant: When did that start to go out?

Trevena: Oh boy, I don't know. Let's see. We moved from that neighborhood - well, probably I would say in the late fifties, somewhere in there. I think so.

Whitney: Yeah, it started changing, but still, even in the seventies and eighties, there were neighborhood stores. The other day I was actually - I had to run and get one thing at the store. And I thought, ‘god, I wish we had those little stores.’

Trevena: Yeah, really.

Jaap: Yeah.

Whitney: It was because I didn't want to have to go to Safeway.

Trevena: Yeah. And they were great. I mean, I think the neighborhood stores were good. And even when they had Meaderville and stuff like that - I mean there were stores in those areas: McQueen, Meaderville and all those kinds of things. So over the years, I mean it's a big story with Butte. Really.

Jaap: Yeah.

Grant: And I just have a couple more questions. I'm curious about railroads in town. Were there railroads running right by the house? And did you take passenger rail trips from Butte to.

Trevena: I did.

Grant: When you went to Chicago, did you get on the train here?

Trevena: Yes, the Milwaukee Depot, where the KXLF. Right there. And that's where most of the men shipped out when they went to war. They shipped out from the Milwaukee. Yeah. And it was an electric train, you know, it was great. I did go to - I went on several trips to Idaho to see my grandmother. And I'd go on the Union Pacific.

Whitney: I don't remember taking a train ride, I don't think, but my mom.

Trevena: I remember. [laughs]

Whitney: When I locked myself in the -

Trevena: In the bathroom, on the train. Yeah, you did that several times. [laughter] Not just once. And you couldn't get out. Oh my gosh. No, she could get out, but I don't think she wanted to. So yes.

Whitney: The trains up by the Gulch and up by St. Mary's - I mean, that was a big deal. Right above our house, on the hill, there were train tracks that went from mine to mine or wherever. I don't even know where the hell they went. Yeah. Uh, excuse me. But then down below our house, the BA&P - it went from the mines to Anaconda. They were going all the time, filled with ore.

Jaap: Why don't you take a second to define where the Gulch is at, on recording? What are the boundaries of the Gulch?

Whitney: Alright. And there's some controversy about this.

Trevena: Anaconda road.

Whitney: However, I am the expert on this. [laughter] The 1918 city directory describes the Gulch as being above the BA&P railroad tracks and east of the water tower. Now the water tower is no longer there, but it was right up on Wyoming Street, the top of Wyoming Street, almost the top. Anyway, so I can show you on a map. I can show you exactly where it's at. Anyway, so that's where it was. However, I think that the boundaries were very fluid. When we were growing up, the Gulch was kind of this pretty defined area. However, I think before that, it wasn't quite so defined. So the people in Corktown, the people on Anaconda road and even the people in Muckerville, which is on the west side of Main Street, thought they lived in the Dublin Gulch.

Jaap: And they're just wrong.

Whitney: They were just so wrong! [laughter] Anyway, but then I read this thing. I think it was something that Dick Gibson did recently. It was talking about - oh, they were voting in Butte for city-county consolidation. 551 people from the Gulch voted ‘no.’ So, you know, when you think about that - Dublin Gulch had a lot of people. But the area that we saw as Dublin Gulch certainly couldn't have held 551 people. So I think it also included a lot of Corktown. So yeah, I guess they were right. They were from the Dublin Gulch.

Grant: That's kind of an area of town that - I mean like a person like me, who's lived here four or five years, I've never set foot there. It's all fenced off and you can't get to it anymore.

Whitney: And there aren't too many pictures of it, which is sad. The Archives has some because they have the pictures from when the Kelley mine was being erected. And so you can see some, but there were a lot of houses on. I mean, most of the houses were gone by then.

Trevena: And I may have a few pictures.

Whitney: People didn't have cameras. 

Trevena: Yeah, no, I didn't. No. I think Butte, at one time, had pockets of people. You had all different nationalities and they had a pocket and they lived all over Butte in different areas. You know, like the ones from McQueen or the ones from Meaderville or the ones from whatever - they all had pockets and nationalities. It was run by nationality.

Grant: Right, I know the mining is based on where the ore is, but it almost seems like the company targeted the ethnic neighborhoods to destroy Meaderville and Finntown and all the - that's where the pit expanded to, and displaced the ethnic neighborhoods.

Whitney: Well, and I don't think that was probably a conscious thing.

Grant: No.

Whitney: But I mean, at that time, when they started expanding, they knew where the ore was, and the ore was on the hill. That's where the hill, where the pit is now, those ethnic neighborhoods. Those were the - I mean, that was Butte at that time. There still wasn't much on the flats, you know? And so they had to displace those people.

Trevena: And people built - when the mines were starting to open - people built whatever they could near the mines, so they wouldn't have to go so far. Because they didn't have cars, you know, they walked usually. So they built right around the mines.

Grant: My final question - and I ask this to a lot of the folks we talk to - is do you recall any opposition to the expansion of the pit?

Trevena: I think so. I think so.

Whitney: Oh yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's why the courthouse is still up here. Yeah.

Trevena: You know, and with all the things that happened after the mines closed, like the holes that would, you know, sinkholes or whatever. There was a lot. I think moving people off the hill - there was a lot of opposition.

Whitney: There was. And you know, the Butte Forward thing - that's where they talked about the pit moving more west. And when they talked about moving the central business district to the flats. And that's when the opposition was pretty loud and vocal. It was amazing to me - the people who were for that. I mean, it's like really? Wow.

[01:38:11]

I was surprised. But luckily, people fought that and then - I don't know if the bottom fell out of copper or whatever.

Grant: But by the time Butte Forward was put on the table, thousands of structures had been demolished.

Whitney: Yes, oh yeah. And those neighborhoods gone.

Grant: Yeah. I've never seen a picture of someone in Meaderville chained to their house or -

Whitney: Well, people didn't do that, you know? I mean, really it, they just didn't do that.

Trevena: I think because of work. People worked and they couldn't oppose too much from -

Whitney: They acquiesced to the company. You still talk to people now who are so sad that they had to leave their homes, you know. And they never wanted to move out to the flats. They hated it. My dad hated it. Yeah. Oh my God. My dad died hating living on the flats.

Trevena: Hmm-mm.

Whitney: He did not like it. And still today, there are people who are just - they're out there, but they don't wanna be.

Trevena: No, that's right.

Grant: Well, thank you for that. That's what I had on my list.

Trevena: Okay.

Whitney: Okay.

Grant: May I take your picture? That’s my last one.

Trevena: Oh, a picture. Wow.

Grant: If not, it's fine.

Trevena: Sure. That's fine.

Whitney: She's fine.

Grant: We usually don't take pictures and I realize we ought to.

Jaap: I know, I guess we just know what these people look like. [laughter]

Grant: Thank you now. Alright. Appreciate it.

Jaap: Okay. Alright, guys. Thank you so much.

Whitney: You're welcome.

Grant: Very informative.

[END OF RECORDING]