Dorothy Dannis, PhD, Clinical Microbiology

Oral History Transcript of Dorothy Dannis

Interviewers: Aubrey Jaap and Clark Grant
Interview Date: August 24th, 2018
Location: Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives
Transcribed: March 2020 by Adrian Kien

[00:01:29]

Jaap: All right. Are you ready, Dorothy?

Dannis: I guess I am.

Jaap: All right. It's August 24th, 2018. We're here with Dorothy Dannis. Dorothy, I'd like you to start. Would you want to tell me a little bit about your grandparents? Were they from this area?

Dannis: No. My grandparents, both dads and moms were in Europe. My mother was Swiss and my father was Danish. And my mom came to this country, traveling with an aunt and her husband who were coming to the Big Hole. He had planned in the Big Hole and she came with them. So she did not have to go through Ellis Island. And my father was Danish and he left home when he was 13. He signed on as cabin boy on a sailing ship. And I don't know how long he was on the ship, but he landed in New Orleans. And when Dad was telling me the story, he said, "I just left it." And he wandered across, which was then in Mexico through Texas and New Mexico and Arizona and landed in / ended up in Bisbee, which is now Arizona, obviously. And I don't know how I never...I was too young to think to ask him. I never thought about it. How he met up with the brother of his who had come to the country and ended up in the Big Hole sometime before. It never occurred to me that I was going to wonder about this my whole entire life.

Jaap: But how you ended up there? Yeah.

Dannis: So I know absolutely nothing, really about my grandparents. Or my mother, well, I do know a little bit. Mom, mom's father, who would be my grandfather, was a watchmaker. And if you're familiar with the Tissot watches. His name was Tissot. But we have found out more recently from a book written by the Tissot watch company. The part of Switzerland that she was from, about 75 percent of the people there, their surname was Tissot. And he was a watchmaker, but most of them were. That's what they did in that part of the country. So I don't think we can lay claim to the Tissot watch company, but it's kind fun. It's a good story. Yeah, it's a good story. And we know very little.

[00:04:16]

My grandmother, Dad's mother was in a concentration camp in World War Two. But it wasn't as a prisoner, they took people that needed to be cared for. And she was there and she died in that camp. And all we know is that, well, one of my brothers, my youngest brother, who was a Marine in World War Two. He got money from her estate and he figured that the only reason he got it and nobody else did was they traced him by the military records because he was the only one of the family that was in the military. And other than that, we don't really know. One of the sisters, my sister-in-law, was quite into tracing your family tree and so forth, and she had communicated with Salt Lake City. I think the Mormon, whatever you call it, and they gave an entirely different story for Mom.

And until I read this book, which was published by the Tissot watches, so many of the people there, their last name was Tissot, that they just got the families mixed-up. So my story right from mom is obviously more accurate then. But they had the wrong names and they had the wrong number of children and that sort of thing. So that's that. And mom lived to be 90. Dad died. He was 75. But they were older when they were married.

Jaap: What are your parents’ names, Dorothy?

Dannis: Matt Christiansen, M-A-T-T C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N-S-EN. Danish. And mom's name was Elvina-Marie. And her maiden name, I believe was Whinger as near as I can tell.

Jaap: About what year did they meet?

Dannis: It had to be in roughly 1905, 1906 somewhere in there.

Jaap: Do you know how they met?

Dannis: No. No. Mom was when she came with her aunt and uncle. He had land there and she came with them. And there was a letter saying that there was a job opportunity for her. And in a rural community like that, you know, there's dances and there's whatever. But I don't know exactly how they met.

Jaap: What year were they married?

Dannis: 1910.

[00:07:33]

Jaap: How many kids did they have?

Dannis: Well, actually, they had six. They had a girl and then they had three boys. When the kids were old enough to start school, Dad just said, there's no way from where we live to get them to a school regularly. And they moved to, through the winter, they moved to Long Beach, California. And that was 1919. While they were down there, it was the big pandemic of influenza. And the girl, Rita, the oldest, and Leslie, the youngest, the boy, died that winter. I'm sure it was influenza. The history that mom had. And being a microbiologist, I kind of put it together. But those two died. And then my youngest of the three boys that they have, Roland and I were born after that. And he died just about a year ago. And he was 95.

Jaap: What year were you born, Dorothy?

Dannis: 1924.

Jaap: So what did your parents do for an occupation?

Dannis: Dad was a rancher who was a rancher.

Jaap: Did your mom work or did she just take care, kids?

Dannis: Mom? Yeah. She stayed at home. She refused to teach. She spoke very good French. She refused to teach the kids foreign language. She wanted them to speak English. And she had a hard time with learning English, as I understand it. And she never did. She counted in French. She did a lot of knitting. So she was counting. And it was always in French. And she. Well, she had French words to The Star-Spangled Banner, so she sang it in French. Other than that, she was pretty straight-laced, I guess you'd have to say. This is a little out of your historic thing, but it fits as an example.

When I was in high school, I got one of the grants. Montana got so many land grants. You're aware of that I think. And I was going to high school in Anaconda and I got one of those. I was fourth in the class. And so that night at graduation, I didn't know this, they announced the four winners. And I was one of them. Driving home, Dad said something about which school I would go to. And Mom said, "Well, it really doesn't matter. You know, nice girls don't go to college." But Dad convinced her. So I got to go. But she was pretty straight-laced. We kind of got around her.

Jaap: So what was life like in the Big Hole? What did you guys do for fun? Did you have a lot of neighbors around?

Dannis: Well, as a child, I didn't do anything. I mean, I was the only girl. I was the youngest. And we lived a considerable distance from anybody else. So I was pretty much a loner. Dad took me with him a lot when he could, and he made sure that I was home to dry dishes and, you know, helped mom when I could. But I spent quite a bit of time with him. But the boys, the three boys, my two oldest brothers were ten and twelve years older. And then Roland was two years older. So and he did his best to keep up with the boys. He didn't want anything to do with me.

[00:11:49]

And I didn't play with dolls. I don't know. I thought they were terrible. Mom, I got a big doll buggy for Christmas one year and it was pretty drab. So I took my crayons and the inside was like corduroy, you know, sort of stripy. Well, mine turned up orange and green stripes. And Mom took it away from me. And I never saw it again which was fine with me, because if you don't play with dolls, you don't need a doll buggy.

But my life was pretty much me. I walked a lot. I never...I stayed away from the water because I knew if I got wet Mom would know where I was. I had specific instructions to stay away from the slough by the house and the river. The Big Hole river went right, oh a half a mile from where the house was.

Jaap: And where was your land at? Where was your family's land?

Dannis: Are you familiar with the Big Hole?

Jaap: Somewhat.

Dannis: OK. There's a bridge that crosses the big whole river about halfway between Ralston's and Wisdom. It's called the Squaw Creek Bridge. That's where my dad's ranch was.

Jaap: OK. So did your dad, did he have cattle? Is that what?

Dannis: Oh yeah. Dad loved horses and he got, I don't know how, but he got some working deal with the army for the horses that they needed back then. Of course, they used horses a lot more. And he would get stallions, both saddle and workhorse stallions. And then he would he sell horses to the New York Police Department. A lot to the army, some to, I don't know which country, but to Europe. They went to Europe and it was interesting because the Army didn't want any pinto's or grays; they wanted solid colors. They could have white feet, ankles, whatever. But I don't know, he was always wheeling and dealing. We had we had the best horses in the country. And back then, you know, everybody, horses is what they used. And I remember after Dad died and the two older boys, Wallace was not married yet, and they decided that they would have a horse sale. And I think they had over a hundred horses that we owned, that the sold and they sold all of them.

Jaap: So after your dad died, did your brothers continue the ranch then?

Dannis: Yeah. My oldest brother, Lawrence, stayed on the ranch and took care of Mom and he ran the ranch as long as he was alive. And Wallace married shortly after he finished high school and they had a ranch, a small part of the property, which now it was his farm, he and then his family that took it over. And my nephew has been...it's his property now. The whole thing.

Jaap: And is he still today ranching out there?

Dannis: He's still there. The ranch has been in the family over a hundred years. Which is pretty good. And from there on, the kids scattered. I've got nieces and nephews and on down the line from Virginia to Seattle.

Jaap: So, Dorothy, where did you go to school then?

Dannis: Fish Trap Grade School which was right at Fish Trap, but that's on the main road in the Big Hole. And then I went to high school in Anaconda. And I went to Montana State, which then was a college, not a university. I was in the program that, I can't remember the dean of the sciences; I can't remember his name; but he started the medical technology program and he kind of handpicked girls. You got called into his office. You know, you wondered what you'd done wrong or something in there. They were probably out of our class, there were about 10 girls that he thought he was talking us into something. Most of us jumped at the chance. You went to the school in Bozeman three years and your fourth year you had to work in a hospital laboratory. Actually, hands-on work. And of course, that was back when there was no computers. So you actually did the work, not push buttons and that.

[00:17:31]

But it was a great opportunity for me. And at the same time, I was always kind of, as I said, a loner. And three of the girls that had gotten in on this, they were real good buddies, you know, and they were kind of nasty, I thought, but they all went to Spokane Hospital. Sacred Heart, I think it is. I'm not sure. But I wasn't gonna go there.

And I ended up in San Francisco at University California Hospital. Primarily because my brother at that time, Roland, he was active duty Marine. And they had one real bloody battle that he was in. He ended up being the senior survivor. He was a corporal, but he was senior at that time in the Marines. And they put him in command for, I don't know how long, and not too long after that, they offered him the chance to go to officer's candidate school. And he said, yes, of course. And he didn't have any college. So he was at the University of Washington for a short time. And then he was in Berkeley at University of California.

And I thought, well, San Francisco's here and Berkeley is there. Maybe I'll see him once in a while. And so I wrote to them and I was accepted. And I spent my year of training there. Except my year of training got extended by six weeks because one of the ladies that ran the microbiology section of the lab had to have some kind of surgery and they had to find somebody to work in her department. And she said the only person in this building I trust is Dorothy and I was still a student. But anyway, I got to work for six weeks and I got paid for it.

Jaap: That's pretty nice.

Dannis: Yeah, it was. Except when my year was up, I was short those six weeks to send back to the school. So I had to scout around and find a place where I could pick up. It was in histology, so I had to find that particular specialty. I didn't find it out until after I'd come back to Montana and I ended up in Great Falls, working for a private lab. But I got my six weeks in. So I graduated a little late, but I graduated. And then after that is when I went to Washington. Well, no, that's not true either. I worked at the air base for almost two years.

[00:20:50]

Jaap: In Great Falls? What did you do at the air base? What was your role there?

Dannis: I was in the laboratory at the medical building. It was right after there was a big exodus of soldiers, people that fought in World War Two that were leaving. And we were doing like 30 a day. I think everybody from the Pacific War Zone went through Great Falls, to the base there, when they were being discharged. I guess it was the closest base to the Japanese. To that, I think, going over the curve of the earth, that was the shortest. And it was interesting. The fellows that were in the medical center. They were a great bunch of kids. And of course, we were about the same age. They were always playing practical jokes on me. Like a gallon jug of what I thought was just plain dirt, I found out that there were 12 baby rattlesnakes in there.

Jaap: What?! That's not a very nice joke at all.

Dannis: Well, it sat in the lab and I couldn't put the lid on tight because they had to have air. And one day they were cleaning the cage or something, and they were only eleven instead of twelve. And I made those boys clean. Every drawer came out. I never did find the twelfth one. But anyway, little things like that.

Jaap: What did you have the rattlesnakes for?

Dannis: They were just digging them up. They had the weekend off. And I don't know where they went to get them but around Great Falls it's not hard to find rattlesnakes. It wasn't then. I don't know about now. But.

And then I had two years of, I got married and I was...I thought we were having a pretty good marriage until I found out he'd spend every cent of my money. He'd forged my name on my savings account. He had loans. Loans with every loan shark in Great Falls and he'd forged by name. So when I found out about it, which I went to the bank, they notified me that something was...I couldn't have a savings account with less money in it than a certain amount. There was not that much. I knew there should be. And it came to light exactly what he'd done. And I told him to get out. And I was working at the Great Falls Clinic and the man who ran it, I think he was part owner in the business. But I said, I don't know what to do. And he was very helpful. And he scouted up a young lawyer that was just out of law school. He had to do so much pro bono work. So I was one of his patients. I don't know what they call them legally, but clients, I guess. So it really didn't cost me a cent for all the legal work.

And that's when I decided that if you're nice to people, that very often they'll be nice to you. You know, it was real. It was a real blessing. The job in Washington, in Yakima, there was a sales rep that came through in Great Falls and I didn't tell him, but I think the manager did about my situation. And about two weeks later I got home from work and there was a telegram stuffed in my screen door and it was in essence offering me a job at Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital. And we had a few cordial phone conversations and I said, I think I'll do that. So I did. And that was my first job that I was the senior tech.

Jaap: About what year was that, Dorothy? When was this?

Dannis: It would have been 1952. And I was there till 1955. Three years and I just got kind of restless and I thought, I think I'll take a look for something different. I had corresponded with want ads in the papers, in the medical journals and that. And I had thought from what the letter said and everything that I had a job waiting for me in Los Vegas. Well, I got down there and it turns out they'd hired somebody else. So, you know, I'm kind of glad because I couldn't have stood the heat. I don't think. You know. It was about 110 the day that I was crossing the street and I got in the middle of it. And some nice young man said, "Are you getting sick?" And I said, "I don't know." And he helped me off, out of the street and got me in the shade. And I thanked him. And pretty soon I felt OK.

So I was going back to the ranch to recoup my losses. Whatever you want to say. And I stopped at Crater Lake in central Oregon. And it was absolutely the most beautiful lake I have ever seen in my life. And I saw in one of their papers that there was an ad for a medical technologist in Tillamook. So I investigated and it was just part time or a short time. They had techs, but they needed a vacation. And so I was filling in and I was there about four or five months. And then I went to the ranch for a couple of months and I did some sewing for my mother.

And the first thing I did when I started working; the first thing I bought was a sewing machine. And I've had one, I just wore one out. I did just buy a new one. But I made billions of things but that comes back later. But I did some sewing for my mom and I saw an ad for the chief technologist in Columbus Hospital in Great Falls. And I went up and interviewed with them and took the job. And I was there for about five years.

[00:28:08]

And I did a lot of things besides my job. We started a credit union for the hospital and I was one of the people picked to do it, to work on it. I had a few extra, you know, things that had come in and nobody knew what to do. We had one girl that dropped a big, three-gallon thing of hydrochloric acid on the floor and down her front and everything. And everybody was just standing around screaming and nobody did anything. So I don't know what prompted me or what made me think I knew what to do, but I got. I said, "Get some water, get buckets of water. Call the janitors," and down the line. And the girl lost her shoes and her socks and she had pretty bad burns. But I just took her and stuck her in the, they had a big sink, a deep sink in the janitor's closet. And I just put her in there and turned the water on. And I guess she almost froze to death because the water was cold. But she didn't get any scars. I called the smelter in Anaconda area in Great Falls. It was still Anaconda Company. And their safety department said, "I don't have the vaguest idea what to tell you." He said, "I don't know what we do. We don't spill acid."

But anyway. I don't know, the pathologist I worked for, he wanted to be a big shot and he wanted his name and everything and he wanted a school for doing the year of training. And he said, "Dorothy, set it up." Well, I did. But I thought it was a little bit unusual that he just turned it over to me and didn't do any of the work. But he was going to take the credit for it. And I was pretty good friends with Sister Peter Claver, who was, I guess they just call them administrator. But she was it for Columbus. There was a meeting in St. Louis, at St. Louis's University, that was for techs that were in the position I was in. And Sister Peter Claver said, "Do you want to go to it?" And I said, "Well, yeah." So I went and that's when I got to thinking about going back to school. And when I got back, I talked to her and she encouraged me to go. And I said, "Well, I'll give you back the money." "No, you won't," she said, "you earned that and you aren't going to pay for it."

So I went down to Bozeman and asked if I could get in their master's program. And the man that was in charge of the micro department there had been a new hire when I was an undergraduate, so he knew me, sort of. And he didn't hesitate a minute. He said, "Of course, you can start." And from that up to there, I was on the grant that I got in high school. It carries through. And after I took the college entrance exam, he came and he said, "If you're interested, we have an NIH grant that you are eligible for. And would you like to use it?" Dumb question. I said, "Yes." And it went with me all through that time and all the time I was down at Baylor in the medical school. So I had help, financial help without even looking for it. That was five years at Columbus. And that's when I went back to school and I did my masters there at Montana State and they wanted me to stay. And I told my advisor there wasn't any point in me staying there, that I knew more medical microbiology than anybody on the faculty. Of course, he turned around and told the whole faculty that I had said that, but they all laughed. They thought it was funny, but agreed with me. My advisor said, "Well, you pick five schools and I'll help you write your letter of application." And I picked five schools: UCLA, University of Washington, Colorado, Temple in Philadelphia and Baylor. And I was accepted at four of the five. I was finishing my masters at Christmas and I wrote to each of them and asked if I could start mid-year and Baylor was the only one that would let me. And I'm so glad. That was a wonderful experience. Being down there.

So I was there from 1962, I got my PhD in 1967. And I stayed another couple years to finish up some projects that I had been working on. And my nephew Paul, who was in the veterinary program, he got his DVM from Washington State the same day that I got my PhD down in Houston. So we laugh, we still laugh about it. Then I was living with a lady that I had met. She was a teacher when I was in Baylor. She'd rented a house and she had room to let. And it sounded good to me to have, you know, my own place. There was a yard and there was a dog. And it was close to the medical center. And it was right across the street from the Astrodome. And it was when Astrodome was, it actually was finished the year that I went down there. Everything just kind of fell together.

I don't know how many stories you want me to tell.

Jaap: Keep going, Dorothy, you're doing great.

Dannis: I learned more from people that came through as invited guests or whatever you want to call them at the medical school. I had an opportunity to meet doctors Watson and Crick that got the Nobel Prize for their work with DNA. Dr. Watson was there for a week and you'd meet him in the hall and he knew you. He talked to you. I remember one time. I don't know what he asked me. And I said, "I don't know that," or something equally dumb. And we were standing on the stairs. He sat down right there and he said, "We'll sit down and I'll explain it to you." And, you know, it was just, you were a human being. Where most places, when you're a student, you're kind of a second class citizen. But I wouldn't trade it for the world.

[00:36:28]

And then I moved back to Phoenix, or moved to Phoenix. I'd never been there. And that was just kind of coincidental but the lady, the same lady, had been offered a job with blood services and they had moved her. Lock, stock and barrel from Houston to Scottsdale, which is right next door to Phoenix. And they moved me too they didn't know it, but they just picked up everything in the house packed it. And whether I wanted to be or not, I was in Phoenix. And. Oh, I forgot one detail. I must tell this. We had a little dog. I had to take her to the vet every once in a while. And this one Saturday, we had been at the vet's and we were driving home and we didn't pass this football stadium. I said, you know, I think today is the day that they do the Pop Warner drawing for the Pop Warner car and fun football and selling raffle tickets for six for five dollars and so forth. And sure enough, it was. And two little boys had come to the door and the big boy had the tickets, but the little boy was a salesman of the two. I got six tickets, filled them out, gave them the stubs. That Saturday, I didn't think any more about it. In the afternoon, the phone rang and this gentleman on the phone said, "Had I been at the football game?" And I said, "No, I hadn't." And he said, "Well, did you buy tickets for the Pop Warner?" And I said, "Yes, I did." And he said, "Would you get them?" And I went and got them and came back to the phone. And he said, "Now, do you have this number?" And he read off the number. I looked and yes, I do. And he said, "Well, young lady, you just won a car." So I won a Camaro convertible, was brand new. It was 1967. And that was when they were brand new. So I had a bright red convertible.

Jaap: That must have been pretty fun to drive around in.

Dannis: Oh man, I couldn't find anybody to call up and tell them that I had won a car. My family, I didn't know where they were.  And I called three or four of my friends. Nobody was home. So we stopped at the liquor store on the way. And I said something to the person at the liquor store. Man, he shouted out so that everybody at the liquor store knew that I had won that car. And there were a 167,000 tickets. They picked my name.

Jaap: I love it.

Dannis: And about 3 years and 5 months or something, I was driving from Spokane back to the ranch, I decided I'd take the...I wouldn't go on the freeway, I'd take the road that had been the main road back when I was going to Yakima. And it was kind of a rainy day. And on this one curve, one of those big 90 degree curves, I met an 18 wheeler on my side of the road. So I thought, I think I can get past him. But I didn't. I hit his back wheels, back tires, pushed my car around. And the only thing that stopped it from going over the edge was there was kind of a ridge at the edge of the road. And it caught the underbody of the car. Pushed the motor right back, practically on top of me. I didn't get hurt.  I had a little cut on my elbow. And that was it. My car was demolished. That was my convertible. I left it in Idaho. But I had had it for about three years. I had great insurance. They took care of everything. All my transportation back to Phoenix, all my stay in the hospital, which was probably about twelve hours. My oldest brother came and got me immediately. I guess it was about five o'clock in the morning when they called him. And he was on the road very quickly because I was in Missoula. That's the closest.

[00:41:31]

But. And that was. That was it. Then I didn't have a job. I had looked in Phoenix before I went on vacation. But I went to...I got a list of the hospitals and I started with what I thought was the biggest and most likely to be interested in. Good Samaritan, they said we don't need anybody with your qualifications. Next place I went was St. Joe's in Phoenix. The administrators said, "Can you write an infection control program?" I said, "I think so?" "Well," he said, "if you can and you think you can put it in effect. We probably have a job for you." And he said, "I gotta do a little wheeling and dealing." And he said, "You go ahead and take your vacation and check in with me in a few days and see what I got to say." And I was hired partly for the infection control part of it. And to run the microbiology lab, in the main lavatory. It was a great job. It was good. I had a good crew of workers in the bacteriology section, and I got along with everybody in the hospital. Some of the nurses didn't like me very well. But that's because I found things that they shouldn't be doing that they were doing, and you know. But, I was there from 1970 to 1980, at the end of 80s, 1986, when I retired. I was 62. I took early retirement, I was exhausted.

The last, roughly the last five years, it was the AIDS when AIDS just came on the scene and it was so hard because we were ready to take care of them and we had a special unit all set up and we were the only hospital in Phoenix that did at that time. And, you couldn't convince people the parents, the families of patients, you couldn't convince them that you didn't get AIDS by walking down the hall. And then when the patients would be ready to leave the hospital, but they'd still need care. There were a couple of the nursing homes, they had it all set, they could do perfect jobs of taking care of them. And the one fella said the families of these other people say they'll take their patients, their family out, if we bring in an AIDS case. So I spent as much time on the radio and TV and talking to different groups to try to convince them that it could be done. And I was just worn out. I was just simply worn out. So I decided that I would take early retirement.

And I wanted to stay in Arizona. The hospital, as a going away, they'd given me tickets to the Fiesta Bowl, which was played at the university across the street basically in Mesa. And so that was kind of fun. Penn State beat Miami Dolphins who came in, in combat boots and big, tough guys, you know. And they made themselves hated in the city of Scottsdale and Phoenix. They didn't ever want them back. But Penn State beat them in the ballgame, which was fine with me. I looked around for about six months. I wanted to stay in Arizona. I liked it down there. And I found this valley much like the Big Hole. Mountains all the way around. And it was cattle country. A very active realtor found a house that was on five acres of property. Couldn't resist. And so in the fall, I was ready to move down there.

And I got an invitation engraved yet from the hospital that Pope John Paul was going to be at St. Joseph's Hospital to visit the children's ward in the nursery. And I was invited to the greeting ceremony. I'm not Catholic and I wasn't working there anymore. But Jack was nice enough to send me the invitation, and I sure as heck wasn't going to pass it up. So I was about from here to the other end of the table from Pope John Paul. And that's as close as I got, but it was, you know, he's human. He's human. He had his Popemobile. And the employees, I don't think all of them, I don't know, but that we're sitting in the front row. They could go down to the Popemobile and kiss his ring or whatever it was, the greeting. And there were a couple of them that were pretty good friends of mine. They said it was kind of a strange feeling you had. I don't know because I'd never been in that situation, but it was quite an occasion.

And then I went down to a little town south of Tucson. Town about the size of Wisdom. If you are aware of that. And it was about three or five miles from this property. And while I'd been retired, but still up in Scottsdale, I got kind of restless and a friend of mine who was a professor at ASU, which was in Tempe, called me one day and he said, "What are you doing with your time?" I said, "Well, not much." And he said, "How'd you like to take on a little project of reading and recording textbooks for a blind student?" And I said, "Well, that sounds interesting." So he and I technically put the girl through college. She was a junior when I started and I got an announcement when she graduated the next year. But we read all of whatever textbooks for the classes she had.

[00:49:02]

We used to flip a coin to see who had to read the chemistry ones because neither of us liked chemistry. But we got through it. But, you know, it made me feel that there were things you could do, volunteer, that were worthwhile and don't grump about not having anything to do because there were a lot of things.

And so I moved down to Sonoita. And the house, the man that had had it built, was an architect, and apparently they'd spent a lot of time in Mexico because it was like the Mexican haciendas. You know, it had courtyards and lots and lots of big windows. It was a beautiful place. So I had five acres to play with. He had a garden. He had been hurt, badly hurt in a car accident. He and his wife were driving back from Tucson after they'd had dinner and I think he'd probably had a couple of drinks, too many. Because they indicated that alcohol was involved in the accident, but he lived about a month, I think. But he was...They knew he...He was an elderly man. But the house was just a beauty. And so I was there from fall of 1987 till 2012, when I came back to Montana.

Jaap: And what brought you back to Montana?

Dannis: I just decided that I kind of miss Montana and not working, in Sonoita, doing volunteer work, I just thought, I think I need a rest. And family is still here. Although, I don't see much of them. But, they had a reunion last summer and most of the day stuff was outdoors, you know, I couldn't keep up with them. Anyway, but they did have a dinner and it was too many people. All the girls look alike. My mother was very good looking. And there are three would be her great granddaughters. I swear they're the spitting image of pictures of her. Dark hair, tall, slim. And I couldn't tell them apart. My nephew Paul, who I think more than anybody, understood my background because he kept in touch. Pretty good. And he said, "Why don't you just go home and sleep it off or something?" But I saw them all and they saw me. I've been where I am since.

And as I said a little bit earlier about my sewing machine. I'm a quilter. I've sewed my whole entire life. You know the old treadle machines? My mother let me sew, but I already had it figured out pretty much as soon as my legs were long enough to work the treadle. And a sewing machine was the first thing I bought when I was getting a paycheck. And I've made clothes. I made down sleeping bags. I made a tent for backpacking. I made all kinds of stuff. While I was still living in Phoenix, I took some quilting lessons. And I went from there. I think I've quilted about 40 quilts or something.

So I wore out a sewing machine. It was all metal. I had it serviced about a year ago. The man put a note on it that said the metal on some of the units is wearing. "Never saw that before," he added in parenthesis. He said it's not going to do everything you want it. And one of the things it didn't do was adjust the stitch length. They were real tiny little stitches. And I decided that maybe I needed a new one.

Jaap: Have you gotten your new one yet?

Dannis: Same company. It's not all metal, though, but it's heavy as heck. And that takes me up to today. I've been at Springs, which was a different name, until a couple of years ago. It's nice. I've got a cottage. It's two bedrooms, but one of them is my sewing room.

And that in very brief form is pretty much it. I've got a lot of ancillary things; I don't know if you want me to talk about them.

Jaap: Yeah, we'd love you to. If you have a specific story or you'd like to share anything, please.

Dannis: I'm always early. I think it started when I was little. And once in a while the boys would agree to take me, but you gotta be ready. So I would be ready a half an hour early, you know? And it's become a habit. Yeah, I am almost always early to wherever I'm going.

[00:55:15]

Like today. But sometimes it gets you in trouble, too. You get too early to...I was living in Phoenix, and you've heard of the Heard museum. They were having a big show art show. And I think it was all Native American art. I'm not sure about that, but I went early. And I had been by Sedona. We'd go up there camping, once in a while. And I went into this gift shop and I bought a pot. It was yeh-high and about this big around. Just gorgeous. That was made by a potter in, I think, it was Santa Clara in New Mexico. But she was...it had been her mother and or grandmother, and they had been potters. And they had taught her and her name was Blue Corn. And she was quite famous. And I bought this pot and my cat loved it. I had a little kitty. And it was it was just about the right size for her to sleep in. I had it on a shelf that was about three shelves up from the floor. And she could climb up there and get in that pot and sleep. And I was scared to death she was going to knock it off, but she never did. But anyway, at the Heard museum show, Blue Corn was there. And being early, I got in and I had to go back and buy my ticket because I was there before the ticket taker. But I was walking around looking at things. And I saw this pottery booth and I saw the name Blue Corn. I thought, that's the lady that made my pot. So I went over and was standing, looking at her things and she said, "Are you a potter?" And I said, "No, but I have one of your pots."

Well, she just beamed. She invited me to come into her booth and sit down which was on the floor and talk. And she told me about her grandmother starting her in doing pottery. And went through a whole bunch of story and she had something in her hands while she was doing this and kind of working it. She held it out to me and she said, "This is my soothing stone." It was a polishing stone and she said, "Would you like to hold it?" And I said, "Yes." It was about this big and quite flat. Smooth as a mirror, just absolutely beautiful. Well, I had that in my hand. She never took her eyes off of it. I got it safely back to her. But she told me a little bit about growing up in New Mexico and learning to pot from her grandmother. And about two weeks later. Three weeks later. Somebody put a Wall Street Journal in my mailbox down at the post office and put my name on it. And I wondered what the heck's going on. Well, back then, The Wall Street Journal was running a series of articles on Native American art and featured a lot of the Indian work. But this one paper that was in my box had the article on Blue Corn, which I promptly cut and saved it. And when I moved up here, I gave it to a good friend of mine because I knew nobody in the family would appreciate it. And she practically broke down in tears when I gave it to her and I gave her the article as well, because I had kept that. And but I don't know, I guess I was just in the right place at the right time. The Nobel Prize winners and Blue Corn and the Pope.

Jaap: The Pope. A car.

Dannis: Why does it all happen to me? Not that I objected to any of it, but sports-wise, it was great to be in Houston, where you had the pro team was just starting the football team. The baseball team had just been a couple years. The Astros. I saw Willie McCovey and Willie Mays as rookies. They were with San Francisco and they came and played in Houston, and I got to see them. The Astrodome had so many things, and it was within walking distance of where I was living when I was in Phoenix.

[01:01:00]

Life got pretty dull. But I really it's almost a charmed life. Health wise, I've always been healthy. I backpacked. One trip, 1976, we drove to Durango, Colorado. And we took the train. Between Durango and Silverton, there's a little passenger train and lots of tourists on it. Well, we took that train and about halfway up. They stopped and let us off. I guess there were about 10 of us. And we were all backpacking. We had a 10-day trip. And we hiked east from the west side of the continental divide over the divide down into the next valley, and we went down that valley about five miles and hiked back across. Caught the train which had regular stops and got the train and back to Durango. It had been in July and there was snow on the top of the pass. The first time over and we were enough south, I guess, I don't know. Then the second pass was a lot easier. But that was probably my biggest outing that I actually had to exert myself too much.

Jaap: How many miles was it?

Dannis: I have no idea. I think that one of the fellows had a pedometer, but I don't remember. I know, remember. I rode the raft trip from Page down to the big lake on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. That was about a twelve-day trip. And one rapids...we were sitting on the edge, the rim, which was a big tube. I happened to be right at the front. And I don't know what happened to the motor, but the motor died. And we were going through this rapid whose name was "Upset" and the raft went down and everybody slid forwards and they just kind of pushed me off. So I was in the water in front of the raft. Everybody else was still on the raft. And I heard this one guy said, "We're going to lose her." And I thought, No, you're not. I hung on with everything I could. And they pulled me back. I had this sorest arms for about a week. But they didn't lose me in Upset Rapids. But that was a good trip. It was fun. It's a beautiful canyon. The geological. You have a layer of this, layer of that. One would be black and one would be red. All these golds and oranges. My pictures didn't really do it justice. You got to see it.

[01:04:36]

Well, let's see what else did I do? While I was in Houston, I did a lot of, had to do a lot of traveling. The students had to give papers at every national meeting which was yearly and they were pretty liberal with giving you a little extra time. At least they were for me. I could talk them into it. But Boston and New York and Washington, D.C. and Miami. I got to see the herpetarium, I guess it is, where they keep the snakes. And they were milking this big king cobra. His head was, oh lord, it was huge. But they get that saliva which had the venom in it. And we saw them milking it. Being that it was a scientific meeting, they let us, the group I was with, go back to the lab and kind of see the processing it went through. And that was quite interesting too.

I saw, just in those trips, I saw probably 35 of the states. And got to get out and see something that was worth seeing. And the nice part was that I didn't have to pay for very much, you know. I didn't have any money. I mean, I worked. Being a med tech, I was able to get a three to eleven hour shift and I could work two or three evenings a week. And it was good. It was helpful. But I still had the NIH grant to pay the main stuff.

After I retired, I didn't really do much traveling except on my feet on hikes and that. There was quite a group of older folk in Arizona in the winter. But there was quite a group that had congregated around Sonoita. There was Sonoita and then Patagonia was about 10 miles away. Patagonia had a reputation for kind of an artist winter home, so to speak. And they had some things to do, but most of it I didn't really pay much attention to. I was pretty well into quilting and volunteering. I volunteered at two libraries at different times and the fire department. It was a volunteer rural fire department and I was an EMT. I took the class and was an EMT. Then we had been getting dispatch by Nogales, which was the county seat of that county. And they got too busy and said we had to do our own and nobody wanted to set up the dispatch program. And I finally said, well, I'll give it a try. And so I set up the dispatch program. That was kind of different. So the library volunteering was great because you got all the new books when they came in. You know, right away. I did a lot of reading. I don't do so much now. Because my eyes are getting old. I have a hard time remembering. If I read in bed and you go to sleep, I have a hard time remembering what I've read.

[01:08:57]

Jaap: Yeah.

Dannis: Well, it is at my age. You haven't got that excuse. But I knit too. Some of my volunteer work up here. I knit caps for kids for winter. I don't know how many I was up to. About 18 the last I counted. But it's kind of fun. One of the chefs down at Springs where I live. He said, "Well, when am I going to get one?" So he's going to have one come fall another couple months. I'm going to make him one.

But, I don't know, life is worth living.

This doesn't need to go in anything printed, but it could. People forget to laugh. Laughter. And we had no laughter at home. I don't remember laughing. And my niece said, I asked, her about it. And her dad was my second brother. And he didn't like me. I knew he didn't like me from the time I was little. And he was very, oh, I don't know. But Judy said when Dad's at the dinner table, we don't laugh. But if Dad isn't home, she said, we laugh. But he frowned on laughing, I guess. I don't know. But. Laughs are great. A great thing. And I try every day to make somebody laugh.

Jaap: Yeah, that's a pretty good thing.

Dannis: I think it is. I think it's important. You feel different when you're happy. You know, if there's some. I think so. I am not computerized. I hate computers. And I know I miss a lot. But, you know, to be very honest, and people, you know, we don't need to have our pictures taken. We've got all these. You can't see anything in most of them. And they don't care. They don't last well. If you have a print made. I had several of my quilts that I forgot to photograph. And people would take whatever they had on their whatever machine it is and send them to me. And about six months later, they'd fade. They fade quite a bit. So I quit asking for them.

Ask me questions.

Grant: When you were a kid on that ranch, being the youngest girl, were you part of the routine at all, taking care of the animals?

Dannis: No, I wasn't allowed in the barn for a long time. I mean, I was a little kid like five and so on. They really didn't want me because our animals weren't all trustworthy. You know, you didn't know when one of them was going to bite you, kick you or push you into the wall or whatever. But routinely, I had to help Mom with meals, set the table and pick up and put things away and do dishes. I didn't have to help her with the washing. She had a gasoline powered washing machine. And well, it was great compared to having to use an old scrub board. And, you know, for a family of six people, that's a lot of scrubbing and drying them in the winter when you put them on the line and they freeze immediately. My mom says if you leave them about three days, they do finally dry. But those things I had to do, carrying in wood for the stoves. The kitchen wood I could carry, but I didn't have to carry the bigger pieces for the stove. The furnace stove. And they really didn't want me using an ax. I was chopping wood before they knew it. I wasn't supposed to be.

But basically, until I hit my fifth birthday, I got a horse. My own horse, she was five and I was five. And Nancy and I when they would get her in for me, she was in a different stall right at the end of the barn. And I could go in that stall, but I couldn't go any further. But my oldest brother, particularly Lawrence, he looked out for me. He didn't do it too, obviously, but he did look out for me. And he was a great, great guy.

The minister at the church, at his funeral said that the congregation for that service was the biggest congregation he had ever had. Everybody knew Lawrence and he was Hunk to everybody in the whole valley. Uncle Lawrence is a big mouthful. It was Hunk. But he was riding in the car with his wife. She was driving and right in the middle of a sentence, he dropped dead. Obviously had a coronary. And that was it. Heck of a way to go, but probably after the first shock, it's easier on everybody. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go to bed and go to sleep.

[01:15:34]

Jaap: What did your mom think about your career? Did she support you because she was so into, you know, these traditional roles? What did she think about?

Dannis: I think she was very proud of me, but she wasn't gonna admit it to other people. She, I gather, she was quite expansive what she'd tell. And I wrote home regularly. I rarely got a letter from anybody. But I wrote home and I wrote regularly to my brother in the Marines. Many of the letters I'm sure he never got, but I wrote them. I think, and she lived with me part of the time I was in Great Falls. Lawrence had gotten married. They were both in their mid to late 40s. And Mom just couldn't quite cope with another woman in the house. You know, she was kind of on the second level now and she didn't parlay. So she came to Great Falls and lived with me for a while. And she was there when I made the decision to go back to school. And I had bought a house, so there was a lot of moving. Lawrence came and moved her back to the ranch. And I think she was more proud of me than she wanted me to know. She did, when I went down to Houston, it was winter, you know, between Christmas and New Year's. And Lawrence didn't want me driving alone and Mom volunteered to ride with me, which shocked both he and I. You know, we didn't think Mom would ever do it, but, and she enjoyed the trip. And I think, yeah, I think she was pretty proud of the fact that I was going back to school.

The year she came to visit me, they had a tremendous, it was another influenza problem in Houston. And I'd been sick. The only reason I wasn't in the hospital was they weren't any rooms left. But she got there just about the time I was up, but still not feeling good. But the group that, Amantadine is the drug that they give people to keep them from getting influenza was, at that time, the only one. And the men that were doing the research on it had moved to Baylor. So they were at the medical center. And Dr. Knight. I had been home, I hadn't been in, but he came and gave me the amantadine. And he said it's in the trial stages now. And he said, we'll just put your mom in as one of the trial people. And Mom couldn't figure out why I was the one that was sick and she was taking the pills. But when she didn't get sick, she realized, you know, that that's what helped her. But. Yeah, I think she wouldn't admit it out in public that she was proud of me, but I think she was.

She and I never, never really were close. I was too much of a loner, and so was she. I guess that's best way to say it. But if I wanted, like, sewing, she taught me everything I know. And she let me do it. If I made a mistake, she'd make me take it out, take the stitches out and get it all pressed and ready to do again. And then she'd make me leave it and go away and then come back fresh to do it again. I still do that. I still do that.

But it's just, you know. It's kind of...I only know pretty much about one of her brothers and one of her sisters. One of her sisters, Mom always said that...and she was a dressmaker, that I took after Aunt Otti. And she had a brother, Jim, who came to the Big Hole. She never talked about him. I don't know. He didn't. He died very young. He had some...I suppose it was pneumonia, I mean, tuberculosis. But he had some kind of a lung problem.

[01:20:31]

Grant: So the beaver slides give us the rundown on that if you would.

Dannis: Okay. Let's see.

Grant: What's the purpose of it?

Dannis: To get the hay from down here to the top of a stack. And a stack of hay when they're harvesting in the old days before they used the binder. Whatever you call them. It was easy when it was just a little bit of hay, but those stacks got to be, what, 40 feet? At least 40 feet high. And what the stacker did, it was built on a slope. OK. Like this is the frame. This is on the ground. And this piece is put in and there were struts here to keep it solid. You know, it had a good solid frame. And out here in front was one big piece of a separate unit that had teeth and a big solid bar here that was attached on each side to the top of this piece and it's through pulleys and everything. What it did, you had either a motor, early on, it was a team of horses that they would be hooked those cables that held the thing together and they'd pull this. This. What did they call it? Apron. Up and it would come up this way. And then it would drop the hay off. So it didn't matter how big, how high the stack got. It's like you couldn't go any higher than this, but maybe a few loads to round it off. But that was the purpose of it.

Grant: I always thought they went like that. Like a teeter-totter.

Dannis: Oh no. It was a separate apron. They had the buck rakes that went out in the field and they'd pick up the hay. And when they had a load of hay, they'd come in and they'd drive up and the teeth on the buck rake would fit between the teeth on this apron. And then they'd back off on the apron. The first thing it would do would be to tip it up. So it's not going to fall off. And then it would go up.

Grant: How do you retrieve it from the top of the stack?

Dannis: Well, somebody climbs up on top and pitches it off. Yeah, that's it. And they settled so they're not as high when winter when they go out. Or the elk eat around the edges until they collapse, which we had a lot of that too.

We had elk meat all year round. Oh the forest rangers loved to come and eat at our house because mom was a good cook and they knew. Mom just called it Uncle Sam's beef and they never objected a bit.

Jaap: Did your dad hunt, then?

Dannis: My dad could find game. But Lawrence said, if he started trying to shoot it, you got behind a tree.

Grant: What was it that made Lawrence so renowned?

Dannis: He was my kind of guy. Everybody was a friend. He did. If somebody needed help, Lawrence was there to help him. He had a nice personality. He wasn't loud or brash. He was easygoing. He loved kids and he had one daughter who was a brat. But don't quote me. It was his personality and the fact he made people feel good. He made people feel, and even with like, with me, I would do things for Lawrence that I wouldn't do for anybody else just because of the way he was. Uncle Lawrence. Unk.

When dad died, I was in college. And Mom told Lawrence, Lawrence told me this later, Mom told him that now that Dad was gone, I was gonna need some advising about things. Lawrence said, "What?" I could just hear him. "Well," she said, "like drinking." And Mom didn't disapprove of drinking. And, of course, being Swiss, why wine was practically the table. You know, we kids would get wine. I mean, three quarters water from the time we were about four years old, which gradually got less water and less water. But, Lawrence said, "Well, drinking? What do I tell her?" "Well," she said, "I don't want her to be a drunk." I think it was the way he put it. And then he came to me and he said, "Well," Mom says, "I'm supposed to tell you about drinking." And he said, "You know how to do it." He said, "All I'll say is, don't drink that damn carbonated water. Drink whatever you're gonna drink. Drink good whiskey and mix it with water." That was his advice.

[01:26:40]

Jaap: I love his advice. "Avoid the carbonated water."

Dannis: And I stuck with it. I drank Black Velvet and water.

Jaap: Hey, there must be something good to that because you're doing OK, Dorothy.

Dannis: Oh, I haven't drunk too much, too many times in my life. Swore I'd never do it again, after each time.

Jaap: Right.

Dannis: Yeah, but I think that I had a great education. And I firmly believe, you know, what was...I probably could have done it without the help, if I wanted to bad enough, but I never had to make that decision. And knowing me, I probably would have not gone as far as I did go. But I would have tried.

But...I just...I like life. And I'm ready to die. I mean, I've done everything that I can think of that I need to do. The family history now. Of course, mine isn't history yet, but I need advice on what to do to put it all together. But I think you have a copy here of the first part of it.

Jaap: We do.

Dannis: But there's two brothers in there, their writing...They're not in there. But my brother that was in the Marines, he wrote too much. And, you know, he went into lots more detail than talking about counties in California and this and that. It's irrelevant. And I've got to talk to his daughter and see if she doesn't agree with me that I can cut out some of it. Because it all ought to be put together. And unfortunately, there aren't many pictures. There are some very early on before Roland and I were born. One house they were living in, burned to the ground, and I think that they lost the camera in that fire because it chronologically it fits and they just never got another camera. They weren't rich people. They were relatively poor at that time. But that's the way it is.

I don't like having my picture taken. I don't take good pictures and I don't think I've got more than. There's one hanging on the wall, in the hallway, at Baylor. And I think Montana State has one. That's about it. I don't like having my picture taken. And they know it down it at the Springs. It's interesting because the young man that is always around snapping pictures, he's heard me say that. And he knew I meant it. So he doesn't take my picture.

But here I am still quilting. I make everybody laugh at the main building. The trip is wasted if I don't make somebody laugh.

Grant: Would you mind explaining your shirt?

Dannis: These are brands. These are cattle brands. And on the back it says Arizona ranches.

Grant: Oh it's from Arizona.

Dannis: Yeah. The Cow Bells organization, they found that this was a great seller. They made a lot of money on these. And nobody has ever said, where are those brands from? I hate to shop. I hate to shop. And actually, I have bought very few things in the last six years. Butte doesn't have a great variety of places to shop.

Jaap: No.

Dannis: Like none. But until my clothes wear out, I'm OK.

Grant: When you were a kid. Would you guys come to town?

Dannis: We would to Butte. It was a several day occasion. We would come in the fall before school started. Mom and Dad and I would come in. Mom would do shopping stuff for school and whatever they needed.

Grant: Would this have been in the 30's?

Dannis: Well, no, that would have been in the 40's. Well, let's see, '46, '47 in there, I started school. And we stayed at the Leggott Hotel. And Hennessey's was a merchandise store, the same building. And I think at that time, that Anaconda, ACM, had the two upper floors. And I can't remember much more than that. I don't remember any place that we went to eat that's still here. I can remember there were some that in high school we used to come to Butte after parties.

Jaap: Do you remember which ones those were?

Dannis: If you named them, I could probably say, yes, we did. No, we didn't. But I can't think of the names. There were a couple of them that. We never got into any trouble. I mean, nobody got in a fight. It was pretty calm. But Butte and Anaconda were terrible enemies in sports. I was one of the ushers. I guess it was my senior year and we had these outfits, you know, short skirts and blue corduroy and it was lined with satin. And I tell you, on a real cold day that satin is just like sitting on an ice cube. That was Thanksgiving Day of my senior year, I think. I don't know.

[01:33:55]

Grant: My final question, do you have any recollections of the smelters in Anaconda or in Great Falls?

Dannis: Well, of course, the smelter in Anaconda, when it was still running, we could smell it in the Big Hole. And Dad said for a number of years, he could see where the trees were. Some of the trees were already damaged. And that whole drive from where the road turns off to go to the Big Hole. You know, whatever that road is called, that was all bare. Those hills had nothing on them all the way over to Ralston. And some of the trees on the west side of that creek. What is it? Deep Creek? Some of them were damaged, but they didn't die. But everything on the other side of the road, it was all just completely bare. It was terrible. And I never saw it. I was gone for quite a spell and I was amazed to drive when I drove back and saw that there was green. It was starting to come back. It really was great. But the odor, that was the prevailing wind, went that way. And the odor sometimes was just so awful.

Grant: Was it acrid? Or, how would you describe it?

Dannis: Acrid would be a good word.

Grant: And was it a dark black smoke?

Dannis: More yellowish than black. But it wasn't real dark, but it had a tinge of yellow. My father did not like that. But.

The house that we had when I was growing up after that fire. There was a roadhouse down right at the side of the road that went from Ralston up to Wisdom. And a man had, for a long time, for years, some years, a saloon. He had liquor for sale there. And the property was part of Dad's property. But the roadhouse had been there before Dad had purchased it. And he just let it go. And he started having trouble with keeping a hired man because they'd get drunk all the time, and then they wouldn't be able to work. He finally closed. Had the man close up and move out. But the house stood. And when they had the big fire in the house where they were living, which was about a half a mile or maybe a little more off of the main road. When the house burnt, he moved the family up to that building and did some remodeling. And that's where I grew up, in a roadhouse at the side of the road. I don't tell many people that. It had a big room like what would have been their dining room and a bar saloon in half of it. And as a little kid, I can remember Roland and I looking for bullet holes in the in the bar. And we never found any, but apparently there had been some shootings there. And that's what they lived in. They put some insulation in part of it. But upstairs, nothing ever happened. That's where my bedroom was. There were two bedrooms that the boys used except in the winter. They went over and slept in the bunk house because it was warmer. But I got to freeze. No. I didn't freeze. Some of the pictures and there were a few pictures, but none of them really showed the whole building. They'd show the front. And it had one of those false fronts, you know, the big high ones. Every once in a while, I'd tell somebody that I just met, that I grew up in a roadhouse.

And let's see, what else did I do? A lot of little things that happened. Just coincidences, but you know. I met a lot of people. I can't say that they didn't have some influence on my life. Set an example for whether it's a matter of working harder, matter of drawing blood without hurting little kids which I was pretty good at. I could use my laughter to get the kids to laugh and relax. Duck soup. One little boy had steel-tipped shoes, his mother would bring him in to where I drew the blood. This was at the clinic and he'd sit there and swing his feet and he kicked me a couple times on purpose. I know that he wasn't accidentally, too much power behind it. And this one day. I hadn't even got the needle out yet. I said, "You know, Jimmy, if you kick me again, I'm going to kick you back." Boy, he didn't move a muscle, but I didn't hurt him either. He didn't cry.

[01:40:37]

The only person with a name of any importance was one of Joe DiMaggio's brothers. Dominic. The first IV puncture I ever did was on Dominic DiMaggio.

Jaap: Really?

Dannis: I was a student down at California, the UC hospital. Nice, good looking young man and the tech that was with me, she said, OK, it's your turn. I'm shaking. I said, "That name is familiar, but..." And he said, "But I don't look like Joe." And I don't know what I said, but I did that one night. I was so excited. You know, somebody that I knew the name. But I like people. There's something about everybody, even the two of you.

Grant: Even us, huh?

Dannis: Yeah, well, I formed opinions. And I'm wrong once in a while, but not very often. I don't admit it anyway.

Jaap: Yeah. There you go. Never fess up to it.

Dannis: No, from the first time I came up and ask about, you know, what you did. Would you be interested in the family histories? And I had a good impression when I left. And people were kind of laughing. You haven't spoiled it a bit.

Jaap: Oh, thank you.

Dannis: So now tell me what's going to happen now.

Jaap: So we'll keep this recording here. We'll get you a copy of the recording and then would you like a copy of the transcript as well of it written out, what you've said.

Dannis: I would if I could. OK.

Jaap: It will take a little bit of time because I have to type it up and listen to it.

Dannis: There's no there's no hurry on that at all. There are an awful lot of people through various parts of the country that know I'm doing this and want to read a copy. And I thought I'd just send them. It's the last thing that I hope to get done. So now I can just fritter away my time.

Jaap: Yeah. So we'll get it all ready for you.

Dannis: I can add if I want to add something else, but I don't. I did. It can get so dull. I look at some of the obituaries and I just think what in the world are you thinking when you put in all of this stuff, you know. I have in my will. I want to be cremated. I do not want an obituary. There's another one, too, that I put in there. I have a quilt. I started the quilt group in Sonoita, and when I left, the girls that were in it from the beginning, made a quilt and gave it to me and I want that cremated with me. And there's something else that I want put in there. What is it now? I can't remember. Oh, they fixed a framed statement about what I had done. Because nobody deserves it. And that's the best way to do it. And one of my nephews is going to my spread my ashes on the hill by the house. Big, big hill right behind where our house was. And every spring, the bitterroot made it pink. And that's where my ashes are going up with the bitterroot. Which, of course, you know, is the state of Montana.

Jaap: That'll be nice.

Dannis: Did you know that? Good. You passed your tests.

Jaap: I didn't know we were having a test.

Dannis: Yeah. I'd hate to say what period of my life I enjoyed the most. I couldn't, I couldn't. I don't think.

Jaap: That's not a bad thing. It means you had a lot to enjoy.

Dannis: Yeah. I don't know whether I deserved it or not, but somebody had a good word to say for me.

Jaap: Well, Dorothy, thank you.

Dannis: You're welcome. Thank you. You're doing me a real favor.

I just...I can't...Sometimes I just can't believe that all this happened to me. You know, it just. And I read. I don't read all the obituaries, but I just can't see how...I'm sure the families had to do it. It wasn't there for them. Oh incidentally, I'm not going to read this, but, I'm going to have this at the end of it.

Jaap: "The crossing the bar"?

Dannis: Yep. At least the first and third verses. I don't know about the other two, but yeah.
[01:46:54]

Jaap: Oh, that's nice.

Dannis: I think that that just says it all. I wish I knew somebody my age to compare notes with. Well, but seriously, though. Well, so many of the people have never been anywhere but Butte down at the Springs which is amazing for me. But, I have not found anyone that. I won't say I'm superior to them, but I'm so different from...And of course, as far as I'm concerned, Butte is just another mining town. I wish they'd do better with their progress. Progressing than to live in the past. Don't you think that's appropriate?

Grant: Absolutely.

Dannis: I don't know where I first saw that, but I've known for a long time. I don't want all that stuff. When I'm gone, I'm gone. So how long is this? Gosh. And I still have a voice almost.

Grant: Nearly two hours you spoke.

Dannis: Probably, driving home, I'll think of something that I really want to say.

Grant: That's always the way it is, isn't it?

Dannis: Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's just great that you do this.

Jaap: Yeah. They've been really fun and interesting.

Dannis: And you were in charge. I mean, this is your department and this is what you do or do you?

Jaap: Yeah. Clark and I are doing this. Yeah, I have my hands in all the pots. I don't know what my job is.

Dannis: What's your background?

Jaap: Well, my background. You know, I actually just got my degree. I didn't get a degree. And then I did the online schooling because I have two kids and don't have time to go to school. So I got it in public relations, thinking it would be useful for here and it's useful just for whatever. But I don't have plans on leaving here anytime soon. But, you know.

Dannis: What about you?

Grant: I went to school in Missoula. I have a degree in French.

Dannis: Grizzly.

Grant: I don't identify with one mascot.

Dannis: I do. Since Butte is such a University of Montana as opposed to the Bobcats, I've got two different coats, one is a vest that is Montana State University, which I wear frequently.

Jaap: Do you watch sports still?

Dannis: Yes, I do. As far as television is concerned. It's sports or it's reruns of MASH. I love that program. I loved it the first time. A lot of them I remember. But too many commercials. What's your background? Photography?

[01:50:43]

Grant: No. Recording, primarily. That and construction. I do a lot of construction work and in Butte a lot of renovation. So ever since I've lived in Montana, I've worked in radio, noncommercial radio. I hate commercials. I can't stand commercials. Nonprofit radios is basically my profession at this point.

Dannis: That's good. What's the Mai Wah Society.

Grant: This is a Chinese museum here in Butte. This is one of my many work shirts. They're another nonprofit.

Dannis: You're the one that copies the bag lunches on Wednesday, then aren't you?

Grant: I record them. And then we've made some use of the recordings. But yeah, we're working on. This is a multi-year project. This grant that we got, speaking of surviving on grants.

Dannis: That's great. Well, you might get a few more calls from folks down there, because I've spoken very highly.

Jaap: Please. Let us know because we have a list, but there's so many people out there that aren't on our radar. So if you have anyone, have them give me a call or.

Dannis: There's quite a group that come to those.

Jaap: You guys do have a nice group that comes.

Dannis: Some I really, really did enjoy a couple of years ago. They had a man who makes fishing poles, Glen Brackett. Yeah. Oh, he was just great. And I asked him afterwards about. Did he ever make the pole vault poles? And so he had to explain to how long you had to get your bamboo. He would go to pick out the bamboo. But then they'd cut it for him. He picked his own raw material. And he said that to do one of those pole vault poles. It took roughly 50 stocks of bamboo. And they cut them into tiny little pieces and put them together. He went into real detail. This was after the talk was over.

Grant: You know his shop burned in Twin Bridges. Yeah. And then he moved to Butte. He is a big supporter of our radio station, which is nice.

Dannis: That was fascinating.

Grant: Very skilled. That guy is very skilled.

Dannis: Well, some people are.

Jaap: I don't have those skills. I don't know the patience. It's probably that I don't have the patience to imagine cutting.

[END OF RECORDING]