Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Phyllis Fechner
Narrator: Phyllis Fechner
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Visalia, California
Date: December 15, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-fphyllis-01-0007

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RP: Did you have much of an outdoor life with your father and mother?

PF: Yeah, we went, we went camping. Went hunting with my dad later, when I was older. And my brother got a buck. [Chimes in background] That goes again, that's a quarter-hour. And it was a nice one, too, and he, he never went hunting again because it bothered him that he killed something so beautiful. And fishing, we tried it, but we didn't care for it much. 'Course, we didn't catch anything and that might have been why. And not much that way. Not with my, my parents. Well, they took us to the snow and I didn't like the snow. It was too cold, a crybaby. But, swimming up at the gorge. And I remember learning to swim in Bishop Creek in ice water.

RP: What was that like?

PF: Oh...

RP: Cold?

PF: Yes. And it was, it was flowing very fast. We could walk there. It was just across the pasture and we were at Bishop Creek. And it was flowing fast enough that it kind of carried you along and so that you only, just had to move your arms and you were swimming. [Laughs] And it was very cold. But we had a swimming hole that was kind of sandy in the bottom. And I had a friend who visited. He had a cousin who lived in Bishop. And he came swimming with us and he had a false tooth. They called it a flipper. He lost that thing in the sand. And he said, "Oh, my mother is going to kill me. That cost forty dollars." [Laughs] And we were all swimming around in the bottom trying to find that thing and all we did was stir up so much dirt. There was no way we were gonna find that little thing. And that's, well and then the horseback riding. Yeah. I would rent a horse. I did babysitting, so that I could pay to rent a horse. (...) I can't remember the name of the people now. (...) My other friend, my best friend, Betty, her brother had a horse that she and I used to ride. So, I got my horseback riding when I was oh, teenage, in high school. And that paint horse with my brother that time.

RP: You have a favorite place you liked to ride?

PF: Well, my favorite place to ride was when we moved to Yerington. That was recent. (...) I remember Betty and I rode out to the Beacon. The Beacon was not there anymore. It was some little cabins and we rode out there one time. She was on her brother's horse and I had a rented horse. That was one of my favorite rides. And then another time we went on a trail ride and I can't remember where it was, where we went. So, no, just to be able to ride was my favorite thing. Didn't care where.

RP: Tell us about the Beacon.

PF: Oh, yeah. The Beacon was the hotspot. Yeah, all kinds of things went on there. Dancing and good food. That was the, my first steak dinner with my first date with John, big date with him, was at the Beacon. And I had a filet mignon. And I think they had real music not jukebox. It could have been a jukebox later but I believe they had a band. And I would go out there and we'd dance and New Year's. (...) He and I went there for New Year's Eve. And we were married then, though. And Art Chelang owned it at that time, when we were going out there, and when I remember it. (...) But it disappeared after I was gone. So...

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.