Abby: What do you remember about using the media when you were little? Did you guys have a radio?
Margo: We didn’t have a radio till I was about 10 years old.
Abby: Ok.
Margo: The first telephone that was available was because the family ranch was in the mountains there, the Huachuca mountains area and the forest service, U.S. forest service, had the first telephones that they had out there. And, uh, so all of the rancher s had a phone because if there was a fire in the mountains they could get a hold of someone. So they had a phone out at the ranch before we ever had one in town. We had one in town but everyone didn’t have telephones.
Abby: Right.
Margo: I was 10 years old, I remember, when we got a radio, our first radio, and I guess probably we had a telephone about that time. They were uh, they were, not just your telephone. The line had 3 or 4 people on it so you could get the phone, somebody was talking and you could listen. But the radio, it was a big, we got this big radio and it had a, it had doors that opened and uh then that’s where the dials and things were. And then there was this scene painted on this, this like a canvas there and you open it up. So I’d sit there and listen to Amos n’ Andy and…
Abby: What’s Amos n’ Andy?
Margo: Amos and Andy was one of the first little sitcoms, you might say. And they were 2 black, supposed to be 2, black men and their life.
Abby: On the radio?
Margo: On the radio. Amos n’ Andy. What the heck were some of the others? Bert and Marge. And uh, I don’t know, there were several that we just oh boy I tell ya, that time of day you just turn the radio on and there you were. And I could sit there and imagine (I had a terrific imagination), I could imagine all those scenes so when television came along it was, course a lot of those, because Amos n’ Andy were not black so when television came along they lost their following and their jobs.
Abby: Really? When did television come along?
Margo: Television, well after we moved back up here from the ranch. In the fifties, in the fifties, yeah. I was married in 1943 and in 1950, ‘45 when the war was over, we came back of course to Ontario and then we went out and found this ranch that was for sale. It had been a guest ranch before the war. During the war, they had all closed of course. It was remote, it was not in town, it was out in the country, a ranch. And so we bought this place and had to fix it up because for about 10 years it was closed. So we had a guest ranch from 1945 or 1946 I guess to 1951 and then we uh, we sold it which was the smart thing to do because after the war and everything settled down, then, and if you have anything that is successful, somebody else is going to have it too, they’re gonna to get one. We found that later too, with the driving school. But so there were dude ranches poppin up all over the place and we said, you know, it was a working ranch we just run 100 cattle but that was enough for the guests to feel like they were on a real ranch, you know. So we sold that and moved back up here to Ontario. And uh, then we, well then in ’51, then our son was born in ’52 and we bought a house in Ontario and then we started the candy business later, but I don’t know where the heck was I going before I started on that route?
Abby: You were talking about television.
Margo: Television. Yeah, yeah we were here in Ontario when television popped up and then I don’t know, it was in the 50s, the early 50s, maybe ’53 ’54 when we got our first TV.
Abby: How big was it?
Margo: It was, uh. Well it was hm, I don’t know, it was fairly good size, that one. But you didn’t have one in any room, you know, you didn’t have one in the car. And uh, it was black and white of course. And that killed a lot of radio shows, like The Shadow, I remember and all of these…
Abby: What was The Shadow?
Margo: It was a mystery show, you know, like Alfred Hitchcock type thing. You know anything about Alfred Hitchcock? Well, he had all these really weird movies, he was a director. But yeah, there was, and then Lucy came along. Lucy was one of the first comedy things and…
Abby: Did you watch it?
Margo: Oh yes, every week! It was on once I week. I remember I went, after I joined the Church, I was teaching Young Women or whatever. Boy, we had to get home at 9 o’clock ‘cuz Lucy was on. And so there was no color TV. I don’t remember when color TV came in because I don’t remember when we got our first one.
Abby: So you didn’t know she had red hair?
Margo: No. Well, no, I didn’t. Well, they said she did, you know. No, you didn’t know, sure didn’t. Huh-uh. But we saw Lucy and, what’s his name? Arnez. Her husband, what’s his name? Rick! Ricky Riccardo. Dezzi Arnez, was his name. And he had an orchestra and when we were still out at the guest ranch we went to Tucson one time to see a show he was in. I mean, it was a live performance at the University of Arizona. He and his orchestra, so, I’d heard of him. And Lucille Ball, no, hm-m. I know she was a dancer and she’d been in lots of movies but we didn’t know who she was til she popped out as Lucy. They were the pioneers of that sort of thing, too. So, the media then. I remember the first media I saw that had anything about televisions, it was before televisions, and it was a, I think it was an English picture and they could talk back and forth and see each other on this thing, you know. I thought, “Wow.” So when television came along, I thought that’s what it was gonna be, you’d have it in your home and you could call. Now you can on your computer, you can call people and see them, you know, talk to them.
Abby: They did this in movies?
Margo: It was a movie about this television, but it was not was not television like we have now. It was like a telephone, but you could see each other when you talked, yeah. It was the first inkling that anything like that could possibly ever happen. And then of course, we were living out in the mountainous area there so it was a long time before those people could get television. I don’t remember what years, but in those years things just started out and boy now, my word, every week, there’s something new, and the media area, or your telephones. Look at all these cell phones and things.
Abby: You have one.
Margo: Oh, I do. Can’t live without this stupid thing.
Abby: You used to.
Margo: I know! I know, isn’t that…actually when we went on our mission in 1991, we had a camcorder before that. It was this big. We didn’t take it with us, they said don’t. Well, hey you can take pictures on this stupid thing [holding up her cell phone].
Abby: What other programs did you like to watch?
Margo: Well, Lawrence Welk was big.
Abby: What’s that?
Margo: Lawrence Welk was uh, an orchestra leader. They still show his reruns on some of the stations. It was just good dance music, you know, and “I Love Lucy” and uh, I can’t remember! When the news got so big on TV, I don’t know, you just keep it on and you just roll with the punches, you really don’t pay attention, you don’t say, “Oh I’m going to write this down so I can remember when this happens,” you know, but I do know it was in the 50s when it really got going.
Abby: So when TV came along, did radio change?
Margo: Oh yes, oh yeah. In fact, my mother and I were in New York when I was 12 years old. Her arthritis was so bad and we heard about some doctor, you know, they’d tried everything to cure her arthritis, and this doctor in New York, he was a German man, and he had developed something, something to wrap, I don’t know, some process where he’d wrap their legs and they also used leeches to take out the bad, you know, the bad blood. So, anyway, we went back. My dad said we’ve gotta try everything to get your mom well. So we went back there, we were back there 12 months. We lived right down, practically on Times Square. We were on 49th and Broadway in an apartment hotel, and uh, of course, all you had was the radio. So we were just a few blocks from Rockerfeller Center, which was a very, about 55 stories, I guess. Here’s I’d come from what, 2 or 3 stories were the biggest building I ever saw, and it took 4 days to get there on the train, so my aunt went with us and got us settled, and then she came back home and my mother had to walk from 49th Street to 54th, where the doctor’s office was. And they wanted her to walk as much as she could. We walked over to Rockerfeller Center when my aunt was still with us because that was a little far for my mother to walk. And I can remember standing there and looking at that building. I couldn’t see the top of it, and here I was a 12-year-old from Arizona, you know, and I didn’t want to stand there and go, “Ahh.” And if I could look and try to see the top of that building and I couldn’t see it. Finally I was like this where you could see 55 stories. Well, the Empire State Building is what, 98? I mean it’s really tall and it was in walking distance of where we lived so. What did you ask me?
Abby: I asked about when TV came along, if radio changed.
Margo: Oh yeah, well ‘cuz back there. At that time in the 1938, this was ’37 to ’38 we were there, so everything was radio, I mean all the shows and all the sound effects and everything, natural sound effects, they had to make them. You know, like, clap or they drum something or they whatever, and so we went to see lots of radio shows produced. And the little Oscar Meyer guy, he was along then. And uh, everything was just uh, pretend, and just like everything still is, only people get caught up in it to where they think it’s real, in your media. No, but a friend of my mother’s, who, the preacher who was in the church where my mother was, his daughter was with the um, oh my goodness, what do they call them? Well anyway, she was uh, she was a quite beautiful vocalist, and so she got us a lot of tickets to go to this show, to see them perform and it was radio, where they were performing, and you were there, in the theater. So we got to go to a lot of those and that was interesting and of course, I was star struck, you know, being in New York. I thought I was gonna be an opera star someday or something. Anyway, it was quite an experience, but I will never ever eat Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant, because we had to that year. And, as a child, 12 years old, I had a terrific imagination. You’d see in the restaurant’s window there, where they were advertising whatever they were serving and you’d see this turkey and all that and I thought, well that, you know, big turkey. Well we went to one of those restaurants and they just bring you a plate, with turkey and all that stuff. And here we were 3,000 miles away from home. My mother was very depressed that day and so was I, so I said, ‘cuz I had imagined sitting down at a table with a lot of people and having this turkey and here I was, so I said I’ll never eat, I’ll have soup at home rather than go out to a restaurant for Thanksgiving, and I never have. So we got home just before Christmas and uh, my mother hadn’t really improved very much at all. We were very disappointed and it cost a lot of money for my dad. Anyway, then we got back to Nogales and then a few years later he got cancer and died, so we moved back up here. And that’s the extent of my touring around before I got married. And after I got married, we were up and down the east coast and then came back to Ontario and didn’t know what to do. Of course, he was an officer, he was a Major. They got pretty good money and he’d had 2 years of forestry is what his major was in college and he realized that there was not too much of a place where you could make any money in forestry, if you were just a forest ranger. And so he just, he didn’t want to go back to school at that time, so we found this ranch to buy and uh, we saved some money from the service and the pay they gave him and her got out. My mother sold her house here in Ontario. We bought this ranch and we were there for 5 years and then we came back up here, been here ever since.
[we got off track for awhile]
Margo: we got a cell phone because we figured we should have it out in the car you know, especially if they were, infirm for some reason. It was about the size of a regular phone. Now look at them. My gosh, they’re just so, and that is, well that’s been about 14 years, where does the time go? That part of the world has just changed so much so fast. When we went on our mission, we had a computer but there was no Internet at all. And we used the computer for, you know, making out statements and keeping track of things, and I wrote the Sunday school lessons on it, copied them because uh, we were teaching Gospel doctrine class. And then when we got home, course that was a pile of junk because that’s when the Internet was brand new. The cell tower had been put up in our backyard, which was nice, but uh, cell phones were completely different then. And then since that time, it’s just like every week or something. Just like this year, my gosh, everybody’s got all these stupid things for Christmas and look, what’s that? Oh, that’s a palm pilot, that’s a this, that’s a that. And so of course, I have a computer and it’s not my best friend. I’ve just decided that when you get my age, you don’t really want to know all this stuff. It’s too much, up here [pointing to her head, I think].
Abby: It’s too much for me.
Margo: And every day now, how do you keep all the junk off your cell phone, or uh, off your internet? There’s no way, things pop up. Once in awhile, I have to have somebody come in and clean it out, ‘cuz I don’t know how to do it. I certainly don’t want to poke that and see some porno stuff, which there’s a lot of that! In fact, I heard that the day that the Church put their Web site up and they got a million hits. And the next few days porno got in there and they got a million hits.
Abby: Because was the address really close?
Margo: I have no idea, I don’t know what it was, but the adversary was right on top of it. In fact, the printing press was invented so the scriptures could be printed way back in the 1500s, ok? The Lord allowed that, but then what happened to the printing press, all the garbage that comes out of that? Just like the computer, and stereo. All that was allowed to be invented by Heavenly Father so that we could progress and yet, the adversary’s right behind Him…and I really worry about the youth of the Church, and the older ones too. ‘Cuz, you know that they have a PSAG program right here in our ward, on Thursday night? That’s pornography support thing. And then they’ve got AA meetings here and there, the Church has those, and NA meetings.
Abby: I don’t know what that is.
Margo: Narcotics anonymous. It’s all the same, overeater’s anonymous, narcotics anonymous, alcoholics anonymous. The 12 steps are the same. The Church now has a 12-step program exactly like the 12 steps for alcoholics, except it’s Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father is the higher power and when you’re life’s out of control, you reach for the higher power, and if people would just do it, but things are so addictive, you know, and there’s so much of it and it’s, it really is frightening to see how many people coming up with little children and all this is right there in front of them, but the Gospel is gonna prevail and the Church, and here’s another thing, when we started building temples, President Hinckley said by 2001, we’re gonna have 100 temples and we did. Now we’ve got 129 and several, one in Rome. That’s another whole story I’ll have to tell you some day about the Pope, but we didn’t think that’d ever happen. But as soon as the Gospel gets into every country, He’s gotta come. He just has to, and it’s getting there. Fast.
Abby: What about the TV and the radio and the newspaper. Do you use those much?
Margo: I take the newspaper just because. Because once in awhile there’s something. I check the obituaries.
Abby: You’re in the newspaper today.
Margo: Oh, really?
Abby: On the front page?
Margo: Did you bring the paper here today?
Abby: Uh-huh.
Margo: Not my picture.
Abby: No, not your picture. They were gonna come take my picture yesterday. My mom said there was a picture of you, though, inside.
Margo: Oh, really? [she goes to look]…So what else did you ask me?
Abby: Just about how you use the newspaper and the TV?
Margo: Oh, I use the newspaper to use that sort of thing and the obituaries. The good news. The TV, I watch Fox news one hour a day. Lately, I’ve been watching it a little bit more. Hannity and some of those. I mean, they’re all more conservative. It’s balanced, because they have the other 2. But I don’t, I limit, I don’t ever watch the local news because it’s all bad. If I need to know about it, somebody’s gonna tell me. Like somebody kills somebody, I’m sorry, I don’t need to know about it. And I think the way they badger the, the reporters they just drive people crazy that are having problems. They want to magnify it. Anybody, if it’s somebody that I know or that I can help then I want to know about it and I want to help, but I don’t need to know all that because it’s too depressing. And most of the movies are not worth seeing.
