Densho Digital Archive - Phyllis Fechner Interview (denshovh-fphyllis-01-0012)

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RP: To return to your school experiences, you were going to Bishop High School. Did you, had you formed any, a sense of any aspirations about what you wanted to do with the rest of your life? Or were you just having a good time?

PF: I just I thought at one time I wanted to be a nurse. You know, every little girl seems to want to be a nurse. But as I got older, not really. I wanted to get married and I did. I got married at seventeen. And I had my first son at nineteen and that was my life from then on. Well, I did, too. I wanted to finish high school. And so I went back, I went to adult school and I got my high school diploma in '63. (...) I had my senior year to make up. It took me two years to do it, to get my diploma. (...) And I was the speaker of the class, yeah. So, kind of a big deal. [Laughs] I had a good bunch of teachers. They were, they were nice. And it was kind of hard though. I had four kids and a husband. (...) But I hung in there.

RP: How did you meet John?

PF: When?

RP: How and when?

PF: How. Oh we met (when) I was working at the Jack's Waffle Shop, and he came in, one day off of the truck I guess. And he comes in, he takes his jacket off and he goes like that to hang it on a hook and there're no hooks there. [Laughs] And I thought, "Oh what a character this guy is." Oh boy. He won me over, yeah, made me laugh. I was kind of having a tough time there at Jack's Waffle Shop. Well I told you I started on opening day of deer season. And, oh my goodness, I look out there toward the door and there's just a sea of red hats. Never saw so many red hats at one time in one place. And, my first day (...) I had worked as a waitress before but it was in a little like a home cafe, home type cafe. And this was a counter and breakfast. And I hadn't ever served breakfast before. And oh my goodness. That was a, just a horrendous time. Then to have him come in and hang his coat on an imaginary hook made my day. And that was in 1950, and it was very meager pay, like seventy-five cents an hour at that time. That was, whoa. And I had a babysitter for my son full time because I was on every shift. I was on the night shift and I was on the graveyard shift and I was on the day shift. And I never knew when I was going to be home. And I was staying with Mom and Dad in the big house. I had the bedroom upstairs over the kitchen. So, that's how I met him, and where.

RP: Then, in 1951 you left Bishop?

PF: Uh-huh. We got married. We ran off to Las Vegas, Mom and Dad came over there. It was the twenty-seventh of November so right around Thanksgiving. Mom had a whole bunch of turkey and stuff for us to eat. And they stood up with us, and Mike, my son. They, the three of them stood up with us. [Laughs] And then we never got back to Bishop, except to visit. Wanted to retire there and that just wasn't feasible. So we wound up in Yerington, Nevada. Loved it, loved it. Had my horses finally. We had six at one time. And then when he got ill, we sold our place. We were there almost twelve years and we sold our place and moved back here where we have sons to help us out.