Densho Digital Archive - Susan Brown Phelps Interview (denshovh-psusan-01-0010)

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RM: I was curious to know a little bit more about the trajectory of your father's life. I think we got to where he moved to Tacoma, Washington, in order to work for Caterpillar. What happened from there in his career and where he moved?

SP: He worked in Tacoma for several years, I can't remember exactly how many. And then I don't know exactly why, but he had an opportunity, I guess, to transfer to a Caterpillar dealership in Phoenix, Arizona. And he had moved there, I think he moved there probably around... I don't remember whether it was the late '50s or early '60s, probably the late '50s. And he worked there until he retired. He retired probably, maybe even before he was sixty-five. His health began to decline, he had heart problems, and so he worked there until he retired. I know he enjoyed living in the Phoenix area and he got involved with, up at Lees Ferry with some kind of historic property that, again, he was interested in history always, too. So I remember going up there with him and seeing this place.

RM: Did he remarry?

SP: Yes, he did. He left my mother, actually, to marry Charlotte Hayhurst, was her maiden name. And they were married for a long time. I think they got married probably around 1951, '52, and were married until he died in (1976). And she lived on, she only died a couple of years ago in her nineties. I kept in touch with her 'til the end.

RM: How did they meet?

SP: She was working here at Manzanar, I think, in like a secretary, administrative kind of job. (Narr. note: This is not correct. She worked for a government office in San Francisco that administered the Relocation Centers.) She was a young woman, again, the wartime, a job opportunity. She came from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and somehow got involved in a civil service job, was transferred somehow to this place, I don't know exactly how it all happened.

RM: Do you know, did your father, when he was either in Phoenix or any of the places he lived after the war, did he ever come back up to the Owens Valley for any reason?

SP: I was thinking about that last night. I don't... he may have, and I didn't know about it. I know he kept in touch with many people that he knew here. But I don't remember hearing any stories of coming back here. And I am puzzled about it, and wondering why he didn't want to come back here, because he was clearly enamored of it at the time that he lived here with my mother. It may have been an emotional issue, or it may have been that Charlotte didn't want to come to the place where he had lived happily with Marge, or who knows. Or maybe she didn't want to come to a place like this, I don't know.

RM: But your mother did continue, you mentioned returning back up here. Did she do that all of her life?

SP: She didn't do it after she married my stepfather and they moved east. Then eventually they moved to Sedona, Arizona, where they lived the last ten years of their lives. And I don't think they ever came here.