<Begin Segment 23>

RM: Yeah, I guess my last question that I had, jumping around again, you just told this wonderful story about Father Crowley and the Wedding of the Waters and how he had involved Inyo-Mono Association at that time, which is now Inyo Associates. And I was wondering if you've been involved with Inyo Associates as somebody in the hotel business.

KP: Yes, we were, we were very involved in it, and my husband was president a couple of times of Inyo Associates, and we went to those meetings. And like I said, we went to Anaheim and other trade shows, too, representing the valley for tourism, for tourism reasons, because I really believed in advertising more than he did. I believe in advertising very strongly. And no, I haven't gone for several years, but we did for quite a few years, we went to a lot of the trade shows, travel shows.

RM: Do you remember what years he was president?

KP: Oh, let's see. It would have been probably early '80s, probably early '80s. But when I first went to Inyo Associates was about the second or third year that they even had women involved in it. Because the early Inyo Associates was all men, it was all men, so they didn't have any women in it. They didn't encourage the women, businesswomen, because there weren't that many businesswomen then, you know, at the beginning of the Inyo Associates meetings. I was very impressed and happy to be involved with Inyo Associates because it was the whole valley, because we're all in the same boat, because we all depend on tourism. And I thought we should work together, and I was really happy to know what the Forest Service was doing, what the BLM was, that leads to the BLM question. My father worked for the BLM for a number of years and he built, he built Tuttle Creek Camp for them (above Lone Pine), and put in all the piping and planted the trees, and put the piping in to water the plants and the trees that they put in. And he installed the fireplaces and the tables, and he also did the camp at Crowley Lake, and also another one out of Bishop close to the prison. What's that canyon up there? I can't remember. But there was another camp, the BLM camp, back up in there. Bishop Creek maybe, I'm not sure where that is.

RM: Did he have other tasks when he was working for BLM?

KP: I'm sure he did. Rangering, whatever needed to be done. I had to work with BLM (Federal Bureau of Land Management) and DWP (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power) when I was putting that (white stone and brass) marker for the film festival on Movie Road, because that land is right on the edge of DWP land where we put the marker. It's on the border between the BLM land and DWP land which was right along Lone Pine Creek. So I had to work with two different agencies, three different agencies. E Clampus Vitus put that stone in there, and that's another historical group.

KL: Tell us about that process of working with that federal, that city agency.

KP: It was very interesting.

KL: What did it consist of?

KP: Well, a lot of letters and a lot of talking, and a lot of questions and a lot of, "Let's get this done." And then DWP actually brought their truck down and they brought the (white dolomite) stone down but they didn't want any advertising about it, because they didn't want people to be encouraged to think they could do everything for us, you know, for nothing, practically. So they didn't want a lot of recognition for that, but they did bring the big stone down and set it there for us, which I thought was great.

KL: How was DWP involved during your time here in the valley, their role or their philosophies or how they do business?

KP: Well, I can tell you that we worked with them, we needed a (small) piece of land behind our motel. And because we had been going to Inyo Associates, we knew them personally and they knew us personally and they knew that we were on the up and up and we weren't trying to pull anything to get a piece of land, a small piece of land behind our property, sort they released it to us. Of course, we paid for it (...). But I have been grateful personally, I have been grateful that the city took the water, because I would not like to see this valley full of factories and factory smoke and a million cars and a million homes. I think it's much better off the way we are to depend on tourist dollars to come up and recreate and enjoy the outdoors. And I'm not an out-and-out environmentalist, because I realize people have to live, we have to survive somehow or another up here as well as other places. But it can be done carefully; it can be done carefully. I don't get on the bandwagon, I'm kind of a fence sitter. [Laughs] But like I said, personally, I'm very glad that they did take the water, and the way they did it was pretty tough, but they did it honestly, they did it straight out. They didn't explain how it was going to be down the line, but nobody knew, nobody really understood what was going to happen to the valley. But we've survived, and a lot of it has been because of tourist dollars, of course, but working with the ranchers and the few farmers that we have, the farms are coming back now. Yeah, a lot of home garden type of things going on, it's wonderful.

KL: What about another big, sort of, presence in this valley obviously is Inyo County government. How have you seen that evolve, or how have you worked with Inyo County government and how is that been different at different times?

KP: Well, you brought that to my mind because I was going to say that the, when I was working with BLM and DWP I had to go to the county to get some money and some support from the county for the Film Festival. So I had not ever spoken in front of supervisors, so I took the pictures from the movies, one location had four different movies in one location. I took that to the board of supervisors and I showed 'em all of these pictures that said these were all taken in one location. This is what we're talking about, these are the movies that were made in this area. This is why we want to celebrate it, and they were stunned, they were amazed. So that was what I did to get them on board to help us with the road closures and the police and so forth and so forth and so forth. So that was one. They have a hard time. I think the supervisors have a, they have a huge job. I would never want to be involved with that and politics that way. I think they're doing the best they can with what they've got to do, and on the whole, it's okay. It's good enough. [Laughs] Like I said, it's a tough job, somebody's got to do it. Somebody has to be in charge, same as with our hospital surviving all these years, somehow or other just barely surviving, but it's still there, and it's just enough to keep it going.

RM: Have you noticed in your career as a businessperson or just your involvement with Lone Pine events, big changes in county government over time and different supervisors?

KP: Not really a whole lot of big changes, because we've seen, we've seen agencies try to take more, we've seen that. But they're just doing it try to protect the land, trying to protect things, but that's government. Government has to grow somehow or other, it's not going to stay the same. I think we're through.

KL: Okay. The one last thing I wanted to ask is about your parents' lives and just sort of what the latter part of their lives was like, and you said your dad worked, you talked about his work with the BLM, but could you kind of finish out the story for how they spent their time and what they valued in their later years?

KP: Well, they pretty much carried on with their children, school and the church and the fishing and the visiting relatives and that kind of thing is pretty much what they did with the rest of their lives. And he was working with BLM when he died, he had a heart attack and he died. And I was with him, which was very fortunate, took him to our hospital (here) and he died there. He died really when I got him there, so that was the end of that. (...) As I said, they weren't involved politically and Raymond and I, we were involved in the whole valley and everything that was going on in the valley. I'm retired from that now, but I was involved with the Chamber of Commerce and all those different things for many, many years, doing our work, brochures, designing brochures and murals and all kinds of things like that to keep me busy.

KL: Well, I see those all the time in sunny weather, so I'm really glad to have a recording of you talking about them and hear more of the story.

KP: Yeah, it's been really fun, kind of keep your hand in. It's amazing that I can still do it.

KL: Well, thank you so much for agreeing to this, and for letting us keep you tape after tape and sharing with us.

KP: Okay.

KL: I appreciate it personally and Manzanar National Historic Site does, too.

KP: Oh, yeah. Oh, well, it was really interesting. It was fun.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.