TETON ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM Ricks College Idaho State Historical Society History Department, Utah State University TETON DAM DISASTER Bettie Francine Fullmer Interviewed by Alyn B. Andrus September 15, 1977 ---- - Project made possible by funds from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Idaho State Legislature through the Idaho State Historical Society and National Endowment for the Humanities
A) AA UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY & RICKS COLLEGE HISTORY DEPARTMENTS COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT THROUGH LOCAL HISTORY ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM, INTERVIEWER AGREEMENT In view of the historical and scholarly value of this information contained in the interview with (nae, m t16 please print) (in erviewer, print) knowingly and voluntarily permit the Milton R. Merrill Library at Utah State University, the David 0. McKay Library at Ricks College, and the Idaho State Historical Society at Boise, Idaho, the full rights and use of this information. Interviewer's Signature tit Date
Al' A UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY & RICKS COLLEGE HISTORY DEPARTMENTS COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT THROUGH LOCAL HISTORY ORAL HISTORY PROGP,AM INTERVIEWEE AGREEMENT You have been interviewed in connection with a joint oral history program of the History Department, Utah State University, Ricks College, and the Idaho State Historical Society. The purpose of this oral history program is to gather and preserve information for historical and scholarly use. A tape recording of your interview has been made by the in- terviewer. A verbatim typescript of the tape will be made and a final typed and edited transcripts, together with the tape will be made and a final will then be filed in the Milton R. Merrill Library Special Collections, David 0. McKay Library at Ricks College, and the Idaho State Historical Society in Boise; This material will be made available according to each of the depositories' policies for research be scholars and by others for scholarly purposes. When the final transcript is completed, a personal copy will.be sent to you. * * * * * In view of the historical and scholarly value of this information, I, ji- ic P- V,)11Ctrie FL,LIAltr, do hereby assign full (please print full name) and all rights of this material to the Merrill Library at Utah State University, to the Library at Ricks College, and to the Idaho State Historical Society at Boise, Idaho, for scholarly purposes according to each of the institutions governing policies. ) jrtcy.: Interviewee's Signature 7/15-/ 2 Date
ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWEE: Bettie Francine Fullmer INTERVIEWER: Alyn B. Andrus DATE: September 14, 1977 TETON DAM DISASTER A: Will you please spell your full name for me? F: Bettie Francine Fullmer. A: What is your birth date? F: March 1, 1920 A: Where were you born? F: Ashton, Idaho. A: Do you have a family? F: Yes, four children, one boy and three girls. A: Do any of them live with you? F: No. A: They all live outside the home? F: They all live outside the home. We have a college girl living with us. A: What is your current address? F: 113 South Center, Rexburg, Idaho. A: Were you living at this address at the time of the flood? F: No, we weren't. A: What was your address at the time of the flood? F: We owned a motel at 222 North 2nd East, Rexburg. A: When did you buy the house-that you are living in now? F: April 1, 1976. A: You hadn't lived in it before the flood came, even though you had bought it? F: No, we had two parties here before the flood came. A: How long have you lived in the Rexburg area?
F: Since 1965, although we lived within fourteen miles of Rexburg all our lives. A: What do you do for a living? F: Since the flood all we did was clean and do bookword. A: Before the flood you owned a motel? F: And a farm. It missed our farm by two blocks. A: But it wiped out the motel? F: Right, it's gone. A: Would you mind explaining your feelings about the construction of the Teton Dam? F: My feelings and my husband's are a little different. He feels bitter. He was on the Water Board. He has been president of the canal and on several water boards. He was against construction of it in the first place, except for flood control. He thought it should be for flood control. Last spring, as he would go to the farm, he was so upset because they weren't letting any water down the river. He was really concerned. Friday, the week before the dam broke, we drove up to Green Canyon and drove across the top of the dam. It was full. The reservoir had debris on it and they had tugboats tugging it off. Yet, when they told us that the dam was breaking, that we may have two feet of water in downtown Rexburg, we believed them. We put our drapes up and set stuff on tables. We weren't too smart after seeing the water that was there. We didn't do what we should have done for ourselves. A: Did you favor construction of the dam? F: We didn't. In fact, he had some letters to the editor that my son went down and got from the Post Register that he opposed it. He didn't oppose it for flood control, he opposed it for irrigation purposes. A: Did you or your husband have a premonition of the Teton Dam disaster?
FULLMER -3- F: No. That makes me feel so dumb because we went up there and watched the big trucks working at night. We had so many people living in the motel and the trailer court that had things to do with the dam, we were in contact with it so much. I had a friend that said, "I didn't go to sleep one but what I worried it would break." It never entered my mind once that it might break. My husband was concerned because they weren't releasing any water. He was concerned about the irrigation factor and the safety factor. It makes you feel stupid now. A: You didn't know anymore than anyone else did what was going to happen. F: No, I never even dreamed that would happen. A: Where were you the day that the dam borke? F: I just had my hair done. I was taking my aunt to her sister's 60th wedding anniversary and I handed the lady the money to pay for having my hair done. They said, "The dam is breaking. If you live near the banks of the Teton River, you had better move." I knew the motel was one block from it and we were in trouble. My husband was out watering the lawn. The next door neighbor came over and said, "You'd better turn it off because it's going to get watered." A: Did you have any difficulty in believing the news? F: None at all. We had so many people's lives in our hands, we had seven trailers in our trailer court. We had a group of tree planters and their wives in the motel and so we had to let them know. We were so concerned about turning the gas, electricity and everything off that we all we walked out with was our bankbook, our genealogy books, and no clothing. A: You weren't able to save any household items? F: No, that's all we saved. We could have saved more but they told us not to stay home. I don't know if we were dumb or smart. We bought 1000
dollars worth of silver coins. We payed 1825 dollars for them and we had them down in the basement of the motel. My husband ran and got them and set them on a table inthe garage. When we came back, the garage was gone. The silver coins had tipped over and we picked them up, scrubbed them off, counted and washed all but a 100 dollars worth. I would get so upset. My husband, instead of helping me work, was down scrounging the coins out of the mud. A: Did you have any idea that the flood would get as high as it did and be as devastating as it was? F: None at all. We stood by friends of ours up there and we laughed and talked. We stood by President Forsyth's wife and daughter. She said, "Marion stayed home as long as he could to help the cattle." There we stood and we could have been down there doing something for ourselves. I told her the other day, "The next time a flood came I am going to stand by someone smart enough to tell me to go home and get to work." A: Did you see the flood coming? F: Yes, we stood up there and watched and waited a long time before it did come. When it came, it didn't come the way I thought it was going to. We saw this big could of dust that came first. We didn't have any idea how bad it was going to be until it came around the corner and we saw these granaries, trailer houses and the houses floating. I had no idea it could have been that bad. I don't think the people in the area that saw it thought it would be that bad. A: Had you ever seen the Teton-River flood it's banks before? F: Yes, our farm is in the north Salem area. We would go to the Wilford way many times in the spring. We would go to the Teton highway through Wilford and some of those farms would have water up around their granaries. Their potato cellers, they would have to sandbag. My daughter-in-law
FULLMER -5- figured out that it could have flooded for 600 years and it would never have done the damage that this did. A: You didn't have anything except the previous floods to measure this one against? F: I thought floods were of nice clean water. I never thought of mud in a flood. The only water that I saw was the water that we used to clean with. By the time it got to us, it was mud and we didn't see much water. A: Did you see the flood hit your motel? F: We couldn't. We stood down here on the corner by Sherry Winter's house. We tried to see where the motel was and all we could see was our sign. We could see something burning and we hoped it was ours because we did have fire insurance. It was the Real Estate across the street. We had water insurance, but they don't considered that flood insurance. A: What were your feelings when you saw the water coming and knew that it was going to be as destructive as it was and that you would perhaps loose your motel? F: My feelings were, "I sure wish we had gone down the Thursday before and had papers drawn up to sell." My feelings were, "I wish I would have hurried faster." It would have been his headache. A: You were in the process of selling your motel? F: Yes. Whenever you sell something you clean it. We had recarpeted it an dhad it all newly painted. We had the roof repaired and repainted and given the man 600 dollars to do it the Monday before the flood. My husband had cleaned around all the shrubs, it never looked better. I remember my husband sold our car one time, and the only time he cleaned it was the day before he sold it. I had been buying things, nice things to put over here, like rugs and nice towels. I had them all in the back bedroom. I never even found them.
FULLMER -6- A: Did you see any animals trying to escape the flood? F: In front of the First Ward church, there was a big longhorn steer, and it was caught in a lot of debris and wood. The med had to go and get a chain saw and saw some of the wood and wire away from it to get out. There was a dead cow in our trailer court. We had a pig outside our basement window. I cleaned that basement until I was blue in the face. It still stunk, and all the time it was the pig outside the window. The animals I felt sorry for. A: Would you tell where you and your husband stayed during the first days right after the flood and what you did and how you went about cleaning the motel? Go into as much detail as you care to go into? F: We stayed the first week at Ribgy Hall at the college. We ate there. The first night after the flood we went down to my daughters who lived in Garfield. Her two neighbors got together and gave us a nice supper. Her neighbor's father had died and they had the funeral. He wore the same type of clothing as my husband. He had a beautiful wardrobe and she gave his wardrobe to my husband. He's better dressed than he has ever been in his life. Wasn't that a nice thing to do? The Garfield ward adopted us. They sent us frozen bread and eggs. They kept us in groceries for a month. They sent their truck up and left with dirty stuff. My daughter and her neighbor washed it out. Some of the clothing cost them $35 at the Rigby laundromat. They put it through many times. The Garfield ward couldn't have been better. My son from Pocatello-dame and got all their friends from their church Saturday after the flood. They worked twelve hours helping us clean. Friends of my son's pulled a travel trailer out one week after the flood. We parked the trailer out here and commuted into the bathroom. We lived in the trailer. We could get more done than living at the dorm
FULLMER -7- when we were right here with it. We left our room for someone else. The help that came in helped us better than we could alone. I was so emotionally involved in looking at my stuff that was ruined, I couldn't decide what to do with it. Every person that came saw a different thing that they could do. They went and did, it. I just got confused. I worked all the time, but somebody else had to direct me. I don't think I would have even known enough to go ahead and do something. When somebody isn't emotionally involved, they can see more what to do about it. It worked out well having outsiders come in. I know my husband said he and I had different views on it. If I had something I liked well that someone had given to me and it was ruined so I'm going to throw it away. He has a moldy box out there because he says, "I'm going to use it someday." He said, "You're sure funny. Things people gave you don't mean a thing to you." They did, but after they were ruined, you might as well throw them away. It affected people differently. My husband came from a very poor family and they've always been frugal. To see the waste and the things that were thrown away, he couldn't hardly sleep nights over it. It really hurt him. Having the scrubbing and cleaning to do was the best thing that ever happened to us. It kept us going emotionally. I was so tired at night that I went to sleep and slept like a log. As long as we were cleaning, it was fun. The minute I started on that bookwork, I would figure all day and then I'd go to sleep and in ten minutes I'd wake and start figuring again. The hard physical work was a blessing. The bookwork has been a terrible headache. We were blessed that the University of Idaho sent bookkeepers down, Mr. Fred Lewis came to help me. He knew the price of all motel supplies
I and what it cost to furnish your room. When he got through I said, "I don't know what I would have done without you. You knew all these prices." He said, "Should I tell you something? My wife and I built a motel at Pullman, Washington this spring." Our appraiser said, "Boy, everything is right?" He didn't conflict with one thing the man wrote down. I could never have done it, because I didn't have the knowledge of building things. I knew how much sheets and pillowcases were but not building supplies it was a great help. The trailer that the people pulled up for us was fully stocked: groceries, linen, cleaning supplies. We did not have to go to town to buy a thing. The Saturday two weeks after the flood my husband decided he needed a haircut. I decided that I needed my hair done so we drove down to Idaho Falls. We got to Rigby and were both dead to the world, we were so tired. By the time we made the Falls, we went to my mom's and both laid down and had a nap. My sister came and she trimmed his hair and mine. We came home, we were that tired. You were bone weary. It was weariness, maybe not a physical weariness, but more of a mental weariness of what had happened to you. A: What was the extent of the damage that the flood did to your property? F: At the motel we could see how bad it was. We came to the house first because it was the least bad. We got it cleaned and dried out. Nine days later we went to the motel. Before that time we had taken our clothing. Our freezer floated and we saved our beef out of it. That's all we took out of that house. We went back nine days later and had a beautiful field of green grass clear thrtingh- the house. We had 300 pounds of feed grain and it exploded and mixed with the mud. It was in the cracks and the ovens, beautifully green. We didn't attempt to do anything there when we saw how bad it was. They measured the waterline and said it had to be torn down. We did not waste any manpower there. It didn't look bad
FULLMER -9- on the outside but it had cement floors and it heaved them. It raised them up and there were cracks the same as in the house. We were working in the yard one night and some tourists drove up and the lady said, "I need a room for eight." I said, "Go look through the window." She came back and said, "I'm so sorry, but it didn't look that bad from the outside." It really didn't. It didn't crack of anything. We cleared off the trailer court and put the trailers back into operation because they were badly needed. That's all we did because manpower was too valuable. A lot of people cleaned things up and it had to be torn down anyway. We didn't do that. A: Did you tear it down later? F: Yes. A: How high did the water get in the motel? F: There were places over there that got as high as eight feet. A big wave seemed to have come in. In fact, we had some men from Wasatch Electric staying with us and the one man had two cars there. He brought his old car up andhis wife brought the new car up and went to a funeral. He found one car hanging in a tree in front of Rexburg Lumber, which is about two block west from us. His new car he found hanging on the side of the highway in front of the airport. That's how far things went. The thing that I felt bad about was when we put in for our loss of income, we put in for loss of revenue. We have been good to some people and let them run bills by paying us a little bit monthly. All our records went, no names and addresses, so I figured we had about $300 on the books. I asked for $150. They said, "No, that's a normal business loss." A flood was never normal business loss, unless there's something wrong with me. That's the only thing I didn't agree with them on. I thought everything else they did was fair. We didn't fight over that.
FULLMER -10- A: What did the flood do to your home? F: We had a full basement and the kids who were living in it, their father came with his truck because he knew the flood would get their basement. He came with his truck and they took out their stereo, their TV, and all their drawers. They saved quite a lot of their stuff. They didn't even come back to help us clean. They left the rest up to us. I think they had a lot of wedding gifts and pasteboard boxes. We had firewood that we kept under the downstairs basement for our downstairs fireplace and that was swollen up. A doctor who was helping us one day, took a chisel and chiseled that wood out of there. We stripped the basement except for the outside walls and the floor. Like I said, my husband is frugal and he wasn't going to let us take the cupboards down. He knew they didn't have to be torn down. A stake president was helping us one day and he said, "Brother Fullmer, I'm sure there is mud wadded between the ceiling and the floor and that insulation. let's take down one section and see what's up there." They took that section down and water poured out. Then my husband let us take it all down. It was hard for people who were frugal. We had no idea we were going to get reimbursed. We went to our savings and got the things that we needed to live with. They told me I had to have receipts for everything to replace all that stuff. I can show them I took my savings out and used it. We had no idea the government was going to give us anything. We didn't go on that premis. A: When did you finally decide that the govenrment would reimburse you? F: It was about the first of August. We got our basement cleaned out and had moved kids back into it by the 23rd of August when school started. We used some flooded furniture and some old carpet from the motel. We
FULLMER -11- did not buy anything new at that time. We put the basement back while we lived in the trailer and we lived in the house while we repaired it. We tried not to ask the government for naything we didn't have to. A: Did you deal with the government agencies such as the Small Business Administration? F: No, when I went to them they wanted to know too much of our business. We haven't borrowed money for years. We've always been independent. It's been twenty years since we have borrowed money. They wanted to know our income, our savings, our farm, and we wanted to be self-sufficient. I did do one thing. I went to each bank we had money in and got a verification certified copy from each of them about the money we had before the flood. I wanted them to know if they said, "Look what we did for you." I wanted to prove what we had. I think when you're frugal like us and you haven't bought a lot lately, you're surprised at the prices. I thought, "That didn't cost very much so I won't put in for it." Little things like bottle caps that screw on. They didn't cost much. Patterns that I got for 35c are now $2.00. It's a rude awakening. There's many things like that. A: You mentioned that some of the help you received in cleaning up your home was volunteer help? F: Yes, it was all volunter help. Except we got the basement cleaned out and then HUD came and said these people would come and sanitize it and they came and spent one day. I have never seen people work harder or clean better. I've heard-so many criticisms of HUD, but we must have got a very good crew. Our basement smelt so good and clean than it ever had since they've sanitized the heat ducts. They did a super-good job. That's all that I've had to do with HUD except at the trailer court. The government didn't seem as well organized as the church was.
FULLMER -12- A: Did you receive help from the church in cleaning up? F: Yes, we really did. All our sisters and brothers took vacations and came. The fact was they couldn't just help us because they had all these other relatives too. A: What were your impressions of the volunteer help that came in through the church? F: I thought they were super-good. The ladies would come and would say, "What can we do?" I had no idea what to do or where to even start. I know I told my daughter I couldn't go down in the basement. I couldn't face it. She had on a pair of hip waders and went down first. I don't think I'd have ever dared got down in the basement. Our carpets were big and heavy and we had to cut them in pieces. They hooked a log chain on them and; pulled them out the door with the pickup. Mr. martin from Martin Interior of Idaho Falls came and helped us and a Mr. Glousneck from Allen's Finishing Shop came and helped us. In return, I tried to buy my drapes from Mr. Martin and got Mr. Glouseneck to do the wood working. Mr. Glouseneck had a water pump that pumps under pressure. He cleans trailer houses. He worked down in our basement for two days with that. First we used a sump pump and then a manure pump. We were kicky to get our basement cleaned and dried early. We let our furnace run the full month of July and two big fans down there. The kids downstairs say there is no odor. I think we were luckier having a basement under a house in the flood than not. Not for the work part but for the after part of getting it dried out. A: Then the flood must not have damaged your furnace. F: We're still using it. A nephew-in-law of ours and a Lenox furnace man from Ogden worked on it for two days. It's working perfect. When the appraiser came I said, "We won't put in for the furnace. It's working."
FULLMER -13- He said, "I'd advise you to put in for it. It may work and it may not." We did put in for this furnace. We won't put a claim in and we'll try to fix our fireplace, because the fireplace man couldn't think of another way that could ever be cracked like that. A: Your fireplace was cracked as a result of the flood? F: It's cracked as a result. Maybe the drying and having the fire settled it somehow. The downstairs one is not, just the one in here. A: How deep did the water get upstairs in your home? F: It got twenty-nine inches on our top floor. We did not have to replace our walls. All our neighbors did, but I think here is seemed to run out fast. In fact, this is the same wallpaper. There was a water stain but the floor was pressed wood. When it got wet, it got soft and we did have to replace the floor. A: You pulled up the carpets and pulled up the floor and replaced both? F: Yes. A: What about your appliances? F: We're still using them. My stove was up high enough, but this refrigerator we have not replaced. The man said, "Put in for it." We have not replaced it. We will probably pay tax on the money. Everything downstairs was replaced. The furniture downstairs we had to chop us and take out the window. It was beautiful antique furniture. Mr. Hamilton's mother's mother's furniture. You couldn't buy it for any price now and it had to go. A: Let me ask you a few more questions about the government and how you dealt with the government? Did you deal with any other government agency besides HUD? F: HUD did come in and clean at the trailer court. They came over and were super. They were fair on everything but one thing. I can't remember
exactly the amount, but I think they allowed us $500 for shrubbery, blacktopping and sidewalk. We couldn't agree on that and we went back and they gave us a fairer amount. We had spent $1500 to blacktop. A: By over there do you mean over to the motel? F: Yes, when we went back they were fair. That wasn't even a third of what it costs to blacktop. Other than that, they were fair. We didn't get what we should and it way my fault because I didn't realize how much things cost. We're not going to cry about it. We're not the type that wanted to make a lot of money. After the flood what we couldn't decide to do was whether to rebuild or go ahead with our plans to retire. If we had to rebuild, we felt that we needed to build a little bigger. Utilities are so high, you've got to have more rooms to come out the same. We would have borrowed the money to put with what they gave us. They only allowed us $2300 to put the house back over there. I don't know of a house we could have built for that. Theo was 65 and we planned on retiring. We decided to pay the tax and see how we came out and to go ahead with our plans the way that we had planned to do. I hear all these rumors about someone is not going to build what he had, he's going to build what he wants to. He's not going to pay the tax and it got to me. We went to Marvin Eld of Interfaith and he helped me fix our tax. He is the best guy. He's getting this award that Norman Vincent Peale is coming to give. He helped me with my bookwork and then he said, "I've gone as far as I can. Take it to John MacCracken at IRS." In fact, our CPA who is Randy Schwindeman said, "Your tax will be $40,000." We took it to John MacCracken and our tax came to be a little over $20,000. When John got through with it, he said, "This is right, they can't question it." When I sent our tax check in I said, "We tried to get them to make a variance because in the wintertime we rented as apartments." We were
FULLMER -15- open all year and we tried to get our variance because of that, to see if they would let us buy an apartment house. They said, "No way. You build a motel or you pay taxes." If we bought an apartment then we would pay tax on the money and buy the apartment. We went to several different people. I paid their tax. I wrote a letter and said, "We're paying our taxes. You say we have to build the same thing, but I think you should treat everybody the same. If you don't give variances to us, you shouldn't pay anyone else." Do you think that was terrible? I was only trying to stick up for us and keep our money in an apartment house where we wouldn't be so involved in the managing of it. They said, "No." I don't like rumors. I hear somebody say "You're crazy for giving them that money." They ought to keep it for things. Mr. Eld explained it, "No matter when or even if we rebuilt the motel you would still have to pay capital gain tax when it was sold or your children would. This way you paid it in advance." I feel good about it, if they treat everyone the same. The man who was going to buy our property is building condominiums on the north. He lost five old houses. He told me the other day on the phone. "I'm not paying taxes. I put the five old houses and the condominiums in." He has no more right to do that than we did to buy an apartment house. It's interesting, but we tried to do what we thought was honest. Speaking of men from other churches, I think Marvin Eld is the greatest guy I've ever met. You met so many good guys in this thing. A lot of good contacts came our of all this. A: Then you sold the property on which the motel had stood? F: Yes. We had a sad thing. Our son-in-law has been running our farm thinking he'd want to buy it. He came to us this year and told' us he'd decided the job was too demanding. He doesn't want the farm, so he turned
FLLLMER -16- the farm back to us. We though we would sell the farm too. We went and talked to Mr. Eld and he said, "You can't. There's no way you can sell the farm and the motel both in the same year. They would tax you to death." We're going to hang on to it. We're losing money on the farm this year. We're going in the hole but I guess land is going up and money is going down. That's the only way we'll make it. We had our life and retirement all figured out. We knew how much money we were going to get out of the moetl and how much we had coming in a month. Now I feel like we put all our finances in the mixmaster and turned it on. That's about where it has left us. I never had trouble sleeping before in my whole life, but after I started figuring the claim, I had a horrible time. I would wake up every morning about three and couldn't go back to sleep. I'll cook or sew and I threw the stuff away myself. It was ruined and I threw it away. I used it for forty years and I still go to look for it. I can't get it through my head that it's not there anymore. I suddenly was wearing my sister's clothes, because they all brought me a care package and you have a new address and new telephone number. I wasn't sure who I was anymore. Can you see how? The other day I wrote my telephone number down on the check and I forgot it completely and put my old telephone number on. I knew a lady in Sugar and she said they went for a ride the other day and they went home, back to their old spot. They had rebuilt a new spot. The day of the flood, I was dressed up with high heels. I never dress-up. I had to stay dressed up for one week and it was the most miserable thing. A: Have you received your claim money? F: Yes, we've received it and we have paid the government back. A: Have you had to amend that claim for any reason?
FULLMER -17- F: No, the only thing we'll amend is on our fireplace we're going to talk to them and see if we can use the money that we claimed for the furnace to fix the fireplace. It would be about the same amount of money. My husband, he doesn't like to ask for anything, but the man that looked at our fireplace said that he was sure that this is what made it crack. We havenpt replaced everything yet and John MacCracken advised us to replace everything here because our tax would be great if we don't. The tax is greater on anything you haven't held for six months. That makes it bad. I know Mr. Hamilton was a man who honored his wife. He told us at this funeral and how much he appreciated us buying it from him. He did not have this to worry about, because with his heart she said, "I didn't think he could ever have stood it. A: Do you feel that any who assisted in the recovery operations took advantage of you or the govenrment in getting a lot of money without really earning it? I'm not asking you to divulge any names. F: No, I don't. There were a few people who contacted us that I think maybe were this type of people. In fact, one of the men that bought the motel tried to get us to let him take our claim money to replace the motel. Go and get a variance. He said, "I'll go to an IRS man and get a variance where you couldn't." I wrote that in my letter too, because that burns me up. I think if anyone should have got a variance we should have done. Not a promoter from out-of-state. We were careful of them. Phil Bair Real-Estate moved up from Burley and then moved out on our property over there. We had good credentials from them. Ray Ribgy and Cy Young were contractors on our house. We were their first job when they came to town. They did good work because they wanted to bring people and see. We had been told to watch out for out-of-state people. They did us a good job.
FULLMER -18- A: Do you feel there were people who were damaged in the flood who filed fraudulent flood claims? F: I'd hate to say that. I know a lot of people are building much more elegant homes and having much higher type of furniture than they had before. Maybe they are paying the differences. It's not for me to say. It bothers me when my relatives come and say. "How would it be to be in the flood and get all this new stuff." I wish they knew how it would be. I lost three winter coats. I paid $30 for my winter coats. I put down $30 for winter coats and I got one winter coat for what I put in for three. I wasn't accustomed to the high prices. We belong to a dinner club. There are fourteen couples and everyone else is from Sugar. That's where we lived before we moved here. I don't like the competitiveness it's made. Everyone seems to say, "Who can outdo the other one?" We're not as close as we were before. I think it did something. I'm glad we moved in our new house before the flood, sothey couldn't say, "Look what they did." I think it's too bad. It's not the same feeling as there was before. Maybe this is what money does to people. I don't like it. I like my own things. I've tried to clean up quite a few of my old things and I've got the money to buy the new things with. I like my old things better. My grandmother's old sewing machine meant a lot to me. I'd rather pay tax on the money and have what meant something to me. A: What were some of the cherished items that you lost in the flood? F: I lost things that were my mother's, like clothing and things that I kept as keepsakes. Pictures can never ever be replaced. That's the sad part. I went down and brought the photograph albums, Treasures of Truth Books and Book of Remberance for my husband. I said, "If I just could find the things that was already in them, I'd have it made." To replace what
FULLMER -19- you can get from relatives, is going to be a heck of a headache. There are some that never can be replaced. If I had to do it over again, I would have sold the motel the way we planned and gone on with our retirement. I'd know I did it on my own. Somebody couldn't say, "Look what they got out of the government." We didn't pay the contractor off on the motel because it was 5% interest. We still owed $15,000. It was an assignable loan and the people who bought it, took it as part of the down payment. The owners were really mad because they wanted to be paid off. They thought we made a lot of money on the flood. It's too bad. I think, it's too bad some of the feelings it caused. A: Do you feel then the flood had a bad effect on the community in some ways? F: I do. I don't like people who come up to me and say "How would it be to get all that money?" In fact, when our check came, I left it in the post office three days. I didn't dar cash it. I never did feel like it was ours. We put it in a separate bank account and used it out of there. Until we paid the tax, I felt like it still belonged to them. Nobody ever gave us anything. When we farmed for years, my husband wouldn't even take soil conservationpayments, he didn't believe in them. Finally he got so he would do that because other people did and our taxes went to other people. We weren't used to taking them from anybody else. When I went to get Marvin Eld to help me out with our bookwork, he said, "There are some sad cases." A man from Blackfoot called him and said, "We are in dire circumstances. He said, "I'll be down to help you fill your claim out so you can get some money." He said, "We filed our claim. We've got the money and spent it." They took their family on a long trip, bought them a camper, four-wheel drive, and there set their hole where they had torn their house down. They had spent all their money.
FULLMER -20- If you were frugal before, you didn't change one bit. It's the first time some people had money, they didn't know how to manage it. It's too bad. There are people, I'm sure that have taken advantage of it, but I still would have rather not had the flood. We were financially secure and nobody could say the government helped us. We had always worked hard. We ran a grade A dairy for thirtyfive years. After milking cows we bought the motel and he milked the young stock for seven years. We didn't know how to do anything but work. It was an upsetting experience. It made my husband mad. He said, "They had not right to dabble with our life and they did." They really gambled with our life. We stopped at the Minadoka project when we went down through Twin Falls the other day and went through it. It's the oldest project in the state of Idaho. It's a historical valley. It was interesting to see it. That man down there told us, "Ron Robinson was one of the best guys that ever worked for the Bureau of Reclamation. No one felt worse than he did." He said it was not his fault anyway. He had to do what other people told him to do. It was hard not to take your frustrations somewhere. Our friend works in the Bureau of Reclamation and he came up and is now working on the dam. He called us last night and he said, "I knew I had a place to stay when I got to Rexburg, I was going to pull right in your motel. Where is it? I'll be over to see you Sunday." I said, "My husband isn't very friendly with Bureau of Reclamation people." It's just a joke. I hope I never know how much money has been spent up here. I couldn't stand to think of it. Could you? We were up to the dam the other day and it's absolutely scrapped dry on the side it broke. I don't ever want to know how much they spent. I probably would be a tax protestor.
I FULLMER -21- A: Would you like to see the dam rebuilt? F: For flood protection I would. I don't think they need it for other than that. We had the well drillers stay at the motel and they drilled all these wells. They were going to pump water out of the aquifier and put back in. They are going to reactivate those wells and use them. My husband was to a meeting about that the other day. How can we get along without flood control? If we hadn't had a drought this year, what would have happened when we had no banks on the river? I think that we need flood control, but I don't think we need it for anything else. My husband works for him, and we've always had all the water we needed except for this year. A: Would you want to see the dam rebuilt in the same place? F: That would depend on where that dam would need to be built first for flood control. It doesn't look like they are going to leave any of it. If they left some of it up there would be a saving and they could use it to build on. It doesn't look like to me that there is anything to build on to. My mother was buried at the Wilford Cemetery so we drove up there the Sunday after. That was the most devastated place I ever saw. There was a new grave right next to hers, and it had washed the vault out and set the vault down. They found the sealed casket quite aways from it. They found all the plans of the cemetery in a steel box and the water hadn't gotten into it so they were ablt to put it back. It was amazing. I would never dream that they could get it back that good. It didn't miss anything, not even the dead. A: Do you feel that the flood was a divine punishment or a man-made disaster? F: It was a very definite man-made disaster. My bishop's mother, Merle Jeppson's mother, went to church one day, and they kept getting up and
FULLMER -22- saying it was a blessing from heaven. She walked out with men, and said "If they call the damn flood a blessing once more I'm going to jump up and scream." I think it was a man-made disaster. Lots of blessings came from it by the blessing of meeting all the nice people that we did. I always felt independent that I didn't owe anybody anything. Now I owe so many people, that we could never pay them back. All the things that they did for us. They came and brought us food. We made a lot of good friends and good people. A: Do you feel that God perhaps intervened to save lives during the flood? F: It was a miracle Saturday afternoon. All those people that were out away from radios I couldn't imagine that more people weren't killed. That part could have been a miracle, but the dam in itself I feel was a man-made mistake. A: Is there anything else that you would like to say before we end the interview? F: I would like to say that we saved I guess the most important things. We saved our last two year's books of the motel. We were able to average our income, which really helped us. We saved our genealogy records which really meant a lot to us. There were a few pictures and keepsakes that we would have liked to save but the most important hting we got out with was our lives and those two things. If we didn't have our bank record it would have been hard. The only thing that I don't like about it is I feel mixed up. I don't feel like I'm who I am anymore. I was a little confused in the first place but it has been mixed up. Some people say in a joking matter to me, but it's no joke, "Boy how would it be to be in that flood and have all that money." It is no joke and if they would have gone through it they would know it. It's like joking about putting a bomb on an airplane.
I FULLMER -23- A: You mentioned that you haven't been able to sleep well since the flood. Has the flood affected you physically or emotionally in any other way? F: No, I don't think so other than that. I haven't been ablt to sit down and see what we got. Maybe in awhile I will feel more secure. I don't feel the security that I felt before the flood. Right now we have more finances than we had before but there isn't the same sense of security. Maybe a lot of the rumors have something to do with that. It's too bad the government doesn't come out and say this is the guildline. When the developer came to me and said, "I can tell you the district director of IRS is a good friend of mine and I can take him out to dinner and he will do this," it really got to me because they shouldn't. I said, in my letter, "We've always been honest and we are going to be honest. Everyone should have the same guildlines. Somebody else shouldn't say 'I'm going to put up this big elegant thing.'" It isn't fair, but some of it isn't fair. A: I want to thank you for the time given. F: It's been fun, I've enjoyed it. I don't feel revenge or feel bad. It was a mistake I'm sure, but in time, maybe it will take two or three years you will get feeling like you were before. You were used to your own clothes. They weren't that great but you were comfortable in them and you go buy these new ones and they are much more elegant but I don't feel like it's me. A: As I told you before we started the interview, Utah State University will receive a copy of the interivew for its library and Ricks College will receive a copy and the Idaho State Historical Society will receive a copy and then you will receive a copy as well for your own personal use. F: Well that's real I enjoyed that. A: Well thank you very much. F: Well, I appreciate it.