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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Janet Askren Brown 
April 16, 1987 
Cassette 1, Side 1 
 
 
Janet Askren Brown  00:01 
Why didn't you go where [laughs]. 
 
Deborah Gates  00:03 
Why don't you tell me when you were born and where you were born? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  00:06 
I was born in January 26, 1918, in Swedish Hospital, Seattle. 
 
Deborah Gates  00:16 
Were your parents born here in Seattle?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  00:19 
No.  
 
Deborah Gates  00:21 
Where did they come from?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  00:24 
My mother born in Chicago, and my father was born in Iowa. 
 
Deborah Gates  00:35 
Did they know each other for a long time before they were married?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  00:38 
No. About half a year, I think. 
 
Deborah Gates  00:49 
Did you have any brothers or sisters?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  00:51 
No, I didn't.  
 
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Deborah Gates  00:53 
Why don't you tell me a little bit what it was like when you were a small child in Seattle? Where 
you lived, and did you have a large family, aunts, uncles? Were you close with your 
grandparents? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  01:09 
No, they... We lived in East Madison in a very small house, right-- not too far from Lake 
Washington, and we... That was after we lived a while with my uncle, over by the Yacht Club. 
 
Deborah Gates  01:45 
Why did you live with your uncle? Did your father not have a job at the time? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  01:49 
I think he was looking for one, something, but he did finally get a job with Swift and Company 
Meat Packers. 
 
Deborah Gates  02:04 
And then you moved to your own home with your parents.  
 
Janet Askren Brown  02:07 
Yes, I went-- I was in Seattle, in this small home till-- through kindergarten. I went to a local 
private kindergarten somewhere in East Madison, and then we moved to Everett when I was in 
first grade. 
 
Deborah Gates  02:35 
Why did you move to Everett? Did your father get transferred? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  02:37 
Yes, he was in the meat packers still and they wanted him to go to Everett and take us. He 
became manager of the store in Everett. 
 
Deborah Gates  02:54 
What was Everett like-- was-- probably in those days, there weren't very many people there. 
 
Janet Askren Brown  03:01 
It was a really nice place. I went to several schools there because we always rented homes. We 
never really had enough to buy a home in those days. But my dad did like cars, so about every 
second year we'd get a different car [laughs]. And yeah. I remember going to the-- down to his 
meat packing plant, and he'd let me go in his big walk-in refrigerator and give me some hot dogs. 
I liked that real well. 
 
Deborah Gates  03:39 
Did your mother work outside the home? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  03:41 
No.  
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Deborah Gates  03:43 
Will you close with your mother? Did you-- she give you traditional women values? Did she 
teach you a lot of housework, and sewing, cooking? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  03:56 
Well, not too strong in housework herself, because she'd always had a maid at their house, and 
they didn't have to do too much of the work, because they had such a big family. They had a 
live-in lady that helped them all the time.  
 
Deborah Gates  04:12 
So, your mother, when she was growing up, they had a maid. 
 
Janet Askren Brown  04:14 
Mm-hmm. But, I mean, she didn't know too much about cleaning house, and so I don't know too 
much about it myself. 
 
Deborah Gates  04:22 
Was she from a more affluent family growing up? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  04:25 
Well, they would have been if they hadn't had such a big family, I think. What was-- eight kids? 
They were, you know-- the money went around, not as easily as if you had a smaller family. 
 
Deborah Gates  04:43 
Did you have a lot of friends in Everett as a child? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  04:46 
Oh, yes, we were always been real active in the church, and we had many church friends, and my 
mother was in charge of the young, junior-age children. They had something like a Girl Scout 
deal in the church, and always gone to things like that. And later on, my-- when I was in high 
school, my dad was the advisor of the young people, and we went on many things. He was real 
active with me in that. 
 
Deborah Gates  05:27 
What church was this?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  05:29 
Presbyterian. 
 
Deborah Gates  05:30 
The Presbyterian Church. So your mother was a volunteer in the church in the girls' group. 
 
Janet Askren Brown  05:34 
Oh yes. 
 
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Deborah Gates  05:34 
And then you were very-- what kind of activities did you do in it as a young girl? Do you 
remember? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  05:46 
Well, I know one thing I did when I was a-- when I was three years old, Mother taught me 500 
Bible verses, and I've always been thankful for that, because now, when I go to memorize 
anything, I have a difficulty in memorizing it, but if I had something I learned when I was a 
baby, I remember. Yeah. With just a little prompting, I can say them right off, which I think was 
a very good idea.  
 
Deborah Gates  06:21 
Did you recite these verses in church, or did you teach them to the other children?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  06:26 
I don't think so. I think she was wanting to do that.  
 
Deborah Gates  06:33 
Were you close with your father? You mentioned that you were in the church organization. 
 
Janet Askren Brown  06:39 
We were very close. We're real good buddies. He took us everywhere in the car, and helped the 
young people at parties and everything they did. We used to have skating parties with different 
churches from Everett and Tacoma. There was one at Green Lake and then one downtown, and 
we all, from our church, would rent a skating rink, and, you know, have a big night with skating. 
And it was really fun. 
 
Deborah Gates  07:32 
Sounds like fun? Did your mother-- you said your mother wasn't too big on housework, so then 
I-- did she cook a lot? Do you remember mealtime and cooking being a big part of your life? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  07:44 
Not particularly, but she always wanted me to eat good. That's how I've always been fat. 
 
Deborah Gates  07:56 
And were you real active? Do you remember-- was it-- did you make real big things at friends' 
weddings? Do you remember going to a lot of weddings or funerals growing up in Everett? I 
guess I'm trying to get to the kind of traditions that you had. 
 
Janet Askren Brown  08:19 
I don't really remember too many things about it, but I'm sure if there's anything at church, I was 
there, I've been going to church ever since I was two weeks old. 
 
Deborah Gates  08:34 
Did you go-- tell me a little bit about your schooling? Did you go to school from church? You 
mentioned you did in kindergarten, but did you go to public school? 
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Janet Askren Brown  08:42 
Oh yeah, [?that was?] public schools. But I went to several schools, even in Everett, because we 
moved. We rented houses, and I guess maybe they sold them or something. But anyway, I 
remember there were-- I went to... 1-2-3 grade schools in Everett that I know of. And then later 
on, I went to several high schools, so 13 schools all together that I went to. So always-- 
 
Deborah Gates  09:20 
--this is just in Everett? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  09:23 
No, all through my life, but I, many times, I felt like an outsider because I didn't really have a 
chance to get acquainted. You know, like a person would if you go to same school forever and 
ever, and... It was a little hard, definitely. 
 
Deborah Gates  09:45 
And then, did you move out of the Everett area? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  09:50 
Yes, in-- right in the Depression time. We went down to California when my Mom and Dad went 
to the Bible Institute of Los Angeles for schooling, and they were there two and a half years, and 
my dad had quit his job. I had to give up my dog. I had to give up my dolls. I think I could take 
one doll. I took a little Negro doll with me, I think. But I had to give everything else up because 
we were moving clear down to Los Angeles. So when we got there, Dad looked all around but in 
Depression time, he just couldn't get a job, he went back to Swift and Company and asked them 
if they'd let him come back and worked for them, and they did, and so they patched his 
employment records so that he didn't really lose anything by quitting and was able to get a 
pension, I guess, later on. 
 
Deborah Gates  11:13 
So now, I'm just wondering, why did your father go down during the Depression to Bible 
School? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  11:20 
Well, he felt that he should get some schooling, and he thought he might either be a missionary 
or do more work in the church, and he wanted to know the Bible better. 
 
Deborah Gates  11:38 
But he was-- was he able to then get work in this field, or did he not try? But you said he went 
back to Swift. 
 
Janet Askren Brown  11:43 
Mm-hmm, he went back to Swift. 
 
Deborah Gates  11:43 
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Do you remember much about living in Los Angeles? It must have been quite different than 
living in Everett for you. How old were you at this time, around? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  11:53 
I was in the sixth grade. I went down there. Everybody else was wearing bobby socks, and I was 
wearing knee high socks, and everybody made fun of me. And I couldn't see the board very well, 
and the teacher called Mother in and said, You're going to have to do something. She's not going 
to make her grade if you don't do something. So they got me some glasses, and they got me some 
clothes that look like California clothes, because they were, you know, their style was ahead of 
ours at the time. So when I-- I was able to get bait-- B's after that. But kind of traumatic time 
there. But I went to a school, I think it was a junior high school in Eagle Rock, and right across 
the street, they had a nice swimming pool, so they were able to-- I was able to take swimming-- 
learn swimming there, which was good. I never was athletic, but... 
 
Deborah Gates  13:14 
Did you make friends down there in Los Angeles? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  13:17 
Pretty well, all these church friends, usually.  
 
Deborah Gates  13:23 
And that was the first time in your life that you became athletic, was down in California? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  13:26 
No, I didn't say that. I just learned how to swim [laughs]. I don't have any tendency toward 
athletics much. 
 
Deborah Gates  13:38 
Did you like school?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  13:44 
Yeah. I wasn't too happy in high school, somewhat, but when I went to college, I really liked it. 
Very happy there. I went to a Christian college, I went to Seattle Pacific. And it was just when-- I 
guess it was the baby boom or something, because before that, they had only had about, maybe 
300 students. But when I went there, they had around 500 or 600. But we knew everybody, you 
know, by name, and it was so much fun to know everybody, and fit in with them, and have good 
professors that were real caring. [Inaudible]. 
 
Deborah Gates  14:37 
I want to just backtrack a little bit. Did you date when you were living down in Los Angeles? 
Did you have [inaudible]-- 
 
Janet Askren Brown  14:41 
--oh yeah, I had a boyfriend there. Was really funny, the way I-- I liked him real well, and we 
were in the car, and he put his arm around me, and somebody made fun of it, so I batted him 
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away and quit going with him, just because of that. And so then I told my best friend about it, 
and she started going with him then. So it's kind of silly.  
 
Deborah Gates  15:11 
How long did you go with him? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  15:11 
About a year, I guess.  
 
Deborah Gates  15:11 
Did she end up going with him for a long time? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  15:27 
For a while. But he didn't get married for many, many years. I don't know whether he felt bad 
about it or not. Was kind of a first love. 
 
Deborah Gates  15:38 
Did you date much?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  15:39 
No, just that one boy. Well, then when I came up here, I had two boyfriends that both liked me. 
But I chose the one I married, but-- and I went with him for a long time, many years.  
 
Deborah Gates  16:03 
Where did you meet him?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  16:04 
At church.  
 
Deborah Gates  16:04 
And were you still in high school when you met him? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  16:11 
I was 13, and I went with him off and on until I was 25 and got married. 
 
Deborah Gates  16:21 
Did you finish high school up here, then? You came back up to Seattle?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  16:25 
We were in-- came back up here for just-- from September to January. I went to Queen Anne 
High School. Then we move up to Everett for a year, and then we were helping a lady on a farm 
in Monroe, and so then I got to go on a school bus to Monroe High School for--  from September 
to January. Then we came back to Queen Anne, and I was here a year and a half, and graduate 
from Queen Anne. And in those days, you would-- if you were born in January, you started 
school in February. And so I was-- I had an extra year. I got out in January and couldn't graduate 
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till June. So we call it post-graduate, did PG, for one-- half a year. So I really went four-and-a-
half years, I guess, to high school.  
 
Deborah Gates  17:41 
And did you have many friends when you were going to school up here? Were they-- were they 
still mostly your church friends? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  17:51 
Just my church friends mostly.  
 
Deborah Gates  17:52 
And most your activities were centered around the church? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  17:55 
Mm-hmm. 
 
Deborah Gates  17:56 
What kind of activities did you and your boyfriend met-- who you married-- what's his name? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  18:03 
Bruce.  
 
Deborah Gates  18:03 
What did you do? What kind of activities? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  18:06 
Well, we did these skating parties. We liked them very much. And every... every Sunday at 6:30 
I think, we would have our meetings, and we would take turns who was going to lead them, and 
different kind of committees we called them, and who was going to plan the parties, and things 
like that. And I liked planning parties, was one of the things I liked to do.  
 
Deborah Gates  18:43 
Were the parties at the church or different people's homes? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  18:44 
Well, mostly at the church. We did have another lady advisor who had us out in her backyard 
once in a while... We would have-- quite often went to Easter sunrise services together, and then 
we'd have a breakfast afterward, we'd do some-- have some kind of party every month. 
 
Deborah Gates  19:14 
Did you do the cooking for that, or the refreshments? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  19:17 
No, I like the games part. Not too much of a cook, [laughs] more of a... 
 
Deborah Gates  19:24 
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And did you get along during this time pretty well with your parents, pretty calm [?part of your?] 
life? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  19:35 
I was never a rebel. One of my girls has been a rebel, and the other one was calm and ordinary, 
and that's the kind I was. [Inaudible] rebel type. 
 
Deborah Gates  19:52 
And then you went to SPU, you got a scholarship there. How did you how did you win a 
scholarship? Was it based on need, or was it based on academics, or both?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  20:01 
Well, kind of combination of both, but also because I knew the principal's daughter, I think 
helped too [laughs]. She was in charge of our-- well, it was a little Christian club that we had 
after school in the-- where KOMO used to be up here on the avenue, it's where the tower is now 
for the KOMO, but it was a building there, and we would stop in there after school once a week 
and have a little club there. And she was the advisor of it, and she knew me. I'd known her for 
quite a while, and so she probably put a good word in for me. I don't know. I imagine that 
helped, but I was on the honor roll, but then, yeah. I've never been a genius. You know, B's. 
 
Deborah Gates  21:19 
Did you live at home when you went to SPU?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  21:21 
Yes. I never did live in the dorms, but I was just a few blocks from the school. We were, I think 
it's four blocks. So I would come home at noon sometimes, but other times, I'd take my lunch 
and we had, oh, maybe five or six girls of us would all eat together every noon in one of the 
rooms. And I had good friends that way.  
 
Deborah Gates  21:48 
So these were friends that you made in college, or were these people that had also been in your 
high school, a combination of both?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  21:57 
I think it was college, only one I knew before. No, two of them I had known in high school, but 
they were my special friends in high school. 
 
Deborah Gates  22:10 
And when you started out in college, did you know what you wanted to do?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  22:25 
Well, I didn't exactly decide. Mama decided for me, sort of [laughs], she thought that being a 
teacher would be a good idea. So, I went into that. 
 
Deborah Gates  22:36 
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And you just listen to your mother? There was no conflict. She said that and you agreed with 
her? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  22:46 
I guess that's right. Never thought too much about it, but I guess that's right, because I didn't 
really decide what I wanted to do.  
 
Deborah Gates  23:01 
Were there any subjects that you were particularly drawn to? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  23:02 
Always liked foreign language; French and Spanish. I took Latin too, but not too keen about that 
one, I liked the French and Spanish. Down in California, they started us out with Spanish early 
because so many Spanish people around there. So, I had had it in the sixth grade, I think, and I 
kept on when I got here. So I joined the Spanish club, French club when I-- in high school, and 
then French club in college. We would have parties sometimes too. One time we went out to the 
ladies' farm in Bothell. She had animals. Had a real good time up there with the professors. 
 
Deborah Gates  23:59 
And all through this time you continue dating your boyfriend, was he going to the same college?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  24:03 
Mm-hmm. 
 
Deborah Gates  24:05 
Were you able to spend a lot of time with him? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  24:07 
No, he was working and going to college. Well, we'd meet in the halls and things like that. Of 
course, we were in the same church, so we went to same young people's things together. 
 
Deborah Gates  24:27 
And all the time, you continued being active in your church? And did you-- at this time, did you 
still swim? Or did you have time to skate? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  24:38 
Well, when we had our skating parties, you know, that would be maybe twice a year or 
something like that. 
 
Deborah Gates  24:46 
You didn't work when you went to college, did you? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  24:50 
Not really. I did get paid for washing dishes for a lady when she had a party. I guess two or three 
ladies. But... And I babysit a little bit, too. They didn't do too much in those days. Of course, my 
dad didn't wanted me to. He wanted me to study instead. 
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Deborah Gates  25:16 
And was it just expected of you that you would get married when you finished college? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  25:21 
Mm-hmm. I think [inaudible] back in those days. 
 
Deborah Gates  25:24 
Okay. And then when you finished college, what happened? Did you get a job teaching? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  25:32 
No, I went to work at Sears because I went all over the state. Dad took me all around and applied 
every place you could think of, but in those days, it's very hard to get a job. Very few of my class 
got teaching jobs right that year, it was a bad year for teachers, but yeah... And the ones that did 
get them, got maybe all six grades or three grades in one room or something, you know, very... 
Not any good jobs, really. 
 
Deborah Gates  26:18 
What did you do at Sears? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  26:20 
First three months I was there, I helped pick out-- they'll fill mail orders for Christmas, things 
from the Christmas catalog. Then, after that, I got in the order department and wrote letters to 
order offices and made adjustments for the complaints that they had. I had to write my own 
letters and things like that, kind of interesting work. 
 
Deborah Gates  27:07 
So you enjoyed it, even though it was a far cry from what you really wanted to be doing. 
 
Janet Askren Brown  27:11 
But you had to-- glad of your education, though, that you could write the letters, and get the right 
spelling, and wording, and things like that. 
 
Deborah Gates  27:23 
How was the pay? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  27:27 
Seemed good to me at the time [laughs]. I hadn't had a job before, so. 
 
Deborah Gates  27:31 
And you were still living at home.  
 
Janet Askren Brown  27:32 
Yeah. 
 
Deborah Gates  27:33 
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It was just your money. And then what happened? Did-- where was your boyfriend at this time? 
Was he still in Seattle? 
 
Janet Askren Brown  27:49 
After Sears, I went to the Pacific National Advertising Agency and helped the buyer there to 
tighten things for her. And while I was there, my boyfriend was... Applied to many medical 
schools, but he got one in St. Louis, in a Catholic one. Um, St. Louis School of Medicine. And so 
he went back there. And then when he came home in May, he gave me a ring. On May 30. And 
then by December of that year, I went back and married him. So I had to have all of my-- I think 
I had 12 showers here before I went. But everybody was so good to me.  
 
Deborah Gates  29:16 
So you had quite a load to take with you. 
 
Janet Askren Brown  29:18 
Yeah [laughs]. Big-- great, big trunk full of stuff that I took back there. Then it didn't come right 
away, either. It took about a month or some before we got it, but anyway, it worked out alright. 
We got married on that... real bad snowstorm. Yeah, I was late to my own wedding because we 
kind of couldn't find our way in the snow, and we had to stop for the bridesmaid and give her the 
dress to put on. And the organist was playing about 10 or 15 minutes before we got there 
[laughs]. But anyway, we made it. 
 
Deborah Gates  30:15 
So the wedding was in Seattle.  
 
Janet Askren Brown  30:16 
No, St Louis.  
 
Deborah Gates  30:18 
So did everyone come from Seattle to St.-- 
 
Janet Askren Brown  30:20 
Nobody. I didn't know anybody.  
 
Deborah Gates  30:23 
So who were the bridesmaids and things you mentioned?  
 
Janet Askren Brown  30:26 
Well, it was my husband's classmate's wife, and then a cousin that I'd never seen before, came 
from-- well, he was living in St. Louis at the time. And then the sister of the other boy that I'd 
gone with and said no to. And she was a bridesmaid, also. And afterward, we went to the 
organist's house, and she had the--[tape cuts off]. 