1
Peggy Cook Tape 1
Q. Did you feel, how did you feel about her when she was living?
A. I was ashamed of her. Which in turn made me ashamed of myself
alot. I didn t want people to know that she was my mother. Then I
compensated for that by being nice to her.
Q. We re talking about your raising as a child and messages that
you got. Men had power, men had much more opportunities.
A. The also had more freedom in what they choose.
Q. And you recognized this. More able to give it a name or
categorize it. Was it a general sense, we all have a general sense,
but
A. No I don t think I was able to verbalize it then. I just
knew it.
Q. You would say you were a tomboy, right?
A. From the word go. I had fun doing that, it wasn t a burden,
I liked it. It was not gee whiz I got to be a tomboy. It wasn t that
at all. Not at all.
Q. Can you tell about some of the things you did?
A. Well I thought nothing at all from about the age 8
was taking some of the Indian kids into his canoe down the
Columbia river 20 miles away to stay for four or five days, I thought
nothing at all of grabbing some biscuits and going. That was great for
me. And then when I got older, I thought nothing of taking the row boat
and rowing 8 or 9 miles up and down the river and just being gone for
days. There was much more freedom for children in those days too.
Q. There was much more opportunity for kids growing up.
A. To have that kind of freedom. That kind of freedom today sounds
dangerous for a child, you have to remember that if you've been raised
2
Peggy Cook
on the land or in a tent or on a houseboat, you have acquired the skills
that allow you to survive out there, you know what to eat what not to eat.
You know where to be where not to be. And for a child today to go out
and do that they wouldn t make it because they don't know.
Q. What, did you have any other hobbies other than your rowing
and your walking miles?
A. Reading. I love music and that's one reason why I started going
to Salvation Army because someone told me that hey if you go to that
church they give you a horn, teach you to play it. So I went, and they
did.
Q. Did you really?
A. Sure, and that was the reason why I got religious.
Q. I-Jhen?
A. Twelve.
Q. Did you go through a period then where you were much more
religious?
A. Oh yes, I was going to save the world. I even took my mother
once to church, so she could get saved. I was horrified when she laughed
and said this is the silliest thing I've ever heard of, I was horrified.
That poor lost soul. But you see that s youth.
Q. What made you become disenchanted with the church, organized
religion, and what time was that?
A. In my late thirties. I'd been married a long time then and I
met a lady and I became a lesbian. My husband decided I needed more
church. Which was interesting because he's the one who made me stop
preacher
going to church. Because your only going so the ^KXSSX can look at
your legs, that kind of idiotic jealousy, and I hadn t gone to church
Peggy Cook 3
in years, and he drug me from one preacher to another and each one of
them told me quoting the bible how terrible I was and I became totally
disenchanted with the compassion that religion is suppose to have.
Q. Also, having such a difficult time would leave you with certain
scars that even though possibly, I don't know how you felt
possibly you felt guilty and that added to that guilt. And felt that
was something and abnormal.
A. You bet ya, totally. Not only that, but I disobeyed my marriage
vows, but I had totally gone against God s word for what a
should be. Which left me way out and no place to go. No place to go.
Q. What did you find to subsitute for this or didn t you.
A. Well, I went to college, took a GED test and got my high school
diploma, that was when my oldest son went into the air force. Went to
college, and that helped alot. Stayed married to my husband, he died.
I don t know, I began to write. And I would say that was a damn good
for me, I just wrote and wrote and wrote. Some of it was
dribble but some of it not bad.
Q. You started rafting at 13, can you tell me what that was like?
A. I loved it, it was outside, it was on the water, I was with
my grandfather and my uncle whom I liked anyway. It was, we had good
comradary, and I felt good about myself there and made $10 a month
grandma took $9-1/2, but she took the same from him. Although Ed and
I did the same work, Ed made $20 a month, we did the same work.
Q. How did you feel about that.
A. I thought it was fair. He had been doing it long than me, why
shouldn't he get any. You see. Today I wouldn t think it s fair. Then
I thought it was fair.
Peggy Cook 4
Q. It was unusual for a women to be doing that kind of work, you
didn't know any other women who were rafting.
A. No.
Q. And how were you regarded by other people for doing this
work?
A. Well, I was laughed at alot when I was going to school.
But when it came out in the paper and it went world wide in the paper that
I was doing this, all of a sudden the school wanted to do an interview,
and this, I felt very ^_^^^^^^^^ about it. I didn't want to do it.
I didn t want to be known for that. Something inside said Peggy,
you re more than that. I don t know what that really meant. But
that's how I felt.
Q. You say a newspaper interviewed you, how did that happen,
why did they
A. Well, this river winds like this, this is Kelso, this is
west Kelso, this is Longview, they re all connected. And I guess, when
they were doing some big company was doing a big newspaper photo
contest, and this reporter happened to be driving up the river and saw
me down there, saw that it was a woman and came down and asked if he
could take a picture and do a story on me. And that's how it came about.
Q. And so you got a lot of ___. for this.
A. Yes.
Q. How long did you do rafting?
A. About two and half years.
Q. Was it hard work?
A. Oh yeah,
Q. What did it entail?
Peggy Cook 5
A. Well first of all you had to have no fear of water and a damn
good sense of balance. And you had to be physically sound, it's alot of
pushing and pulling and leaping from boomstick to boomstick, and that
kind of thing.
Q. I'm lead to understand that when you say you're rafting you're
moving a log down?
A. No, this is a stationery raft that is anchored to the bank
and they have a log dump up on the bank and the trucks come there and
dump their logs into the holding thing. Into the log raft itself you
have four or five openings, because maybe five guys will be dumping
their logs into that bin, and at the end of a log they have a stamp
on it saying whose it is, you have to sort it out and put in to the right
one and dog it down which means tie it down, just keep filling up the
log raft until they re ready to go and then you put a new log raft in.
Q. That took alot of physical strength?
A. Oh yeah.
Q. How did the other men treat you?
A. Well, it was a good thing. There was my uncle and there was my
grandfather, and there was two other guys. But these other fellows, I
think their names were Bar, they were brothers. They were friends of
Ed's and so, besides I was one of the guys, I mean.
Q. You were never treated differently?
A. No, I can't say that I was.
Q. You felt very much a part, was the quality of your work as good
as the mens?
A. Believe me, in those times, if it hadn't had been, they would
have got somebody else. That s right.
Peggy Cook 6
Q. So would you feel that you were better than any of these men?
A. No.
Q. But you felt you were quite able to do the job?
A. After a month, I think I was as good as anybody there.
Q. You said you did that for two years,
A. A little over two years.
Q. You were 15 then, what made you stop,
A. Well my grandfather died, my grandmother moved.
Q. How did your grandfather's death affect you?
A. Very traumatic. He, they had dumped a load of logs, I think in
November, and a log flipped up and flipped him into the river and he
caught and I pulled him out and three or four days later they
took him to the county poor farm, which then was the hospital too.
And every day after school I would stop and see grandpa. And I stopped
in this one afternoon and the bed was empty and I asked the nurse where's
grandpa, she said he died. And it was pouring rain, and I was just
wandering around, and an uncle came and found me, late at night, and
that really hurt, because they had come to school and got Ed and didn't,
that really hurt me, that really hurt. I'm going to cry. That was a
toughy.
Q. Did you feel just that,
A. Like I wasn t important. I really felt that.
Q. But the hospital people made the decision that you were not to
be told?
A. No, grandma and the uncles were there when grandpa died, and one
of them went up to the school and got Ed and nobody came and got me.
And that, how can you cry over some thing that happened over forty years
ago, I guess you do. That was hard.
Peggy Cook 7
Q. And even though, were you closer to your grandfather than Ed?
A. Yeah, I think I was.
Q. Did the family know that you were, you and he.
A. I don t think that it was taken into account, this was the son.
And I m not them for that, I'm just saying that are hurts
that happen to people throughout life that are down through a lack of
knowledge not a definite thing to hurt you.
Q. How did your grandmother meet his death. How did she feel about
your grandfather s death?
A. She was really broken hearted, they really adored each other.
Her names was Alice, his name was Albert, they called each other Al,
they were close. They were very close.
Q. So you had a good role model for marriage with them.
A. Yes, I did.
Q. Did your grandmother remarry,
A. No, she never did.
Q. She remarried a few years 1SXSSX after.
A. No my grandmother never did remarry.
Q. I meant, did your grandmother die a few years after your grandfather?
A. Yes.
Q. What did she do during this time?
A. First time in her life she ever had a job, she ran the laundry and
cleaning thing on the navy base on Indian Island, during World War II. For
the navy people.
Q. What did she, did she like that.
A. She liked.
Q. Why?
Peggy Cook 8
A. Well, she had never been out, never had good clothes before,
never been on her own. She enjoyed it.
Q. Did she have any other jobs?
A. No, that was it.
Q. Were you with her when she passed away?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you there predominately or
A. Her and my aunt.
Q. Whom you don't like.
A. It's not that I don't like her, she's a very crusty old dame.
You know, a very crusty old dame. VEry narrow minded and bigoted lady.
Q: Was your grandmother and your aunt close?
A: They were a lot alike ev^n; except that grandma was warm and Jack
was not and is not.
Q: o.k. She sounds like a real...
A: Tyradin, that's what she is.
Q: What is that?
A: A...gosh how can I explain tyradin...That's an old-fashioned word
isn't it? Well, today you would say a "holy terror."
Q: o.k. Tyradin...o.k. I'll have to remember that one. Ah...so
your grandmother died and what kind of work did you do then after you were
15 years old and you said you worked in
A: o.k. After I spent that hear at Kelso, almost a year, till the
spring, I moved to Port Townsend and I worked in a brush plant.
Q: Doing?
A: You pick huckleberry brush and salal and fern and make them into
bundles and send them to florists for sale, and that kind of stuff.
Q: How did you like that?
A: Well, I didn't like it because it was in the building but if it
Peggy Cook 9
..if the work had been outside doing the same thing, Id have loved it more.
It was a good job. It was all women doing that...it was all women.
Q: O.K. Now, was this one that continued on after the war?
A: Oh, yes, that s been there for 50 years.
Q: And who...and women were predominantly...
A: The workers were the women and the owner was male naturally.
Q: Was it considered skilled work?
A: No, it s piece work.
Q: Yah, that's why women do it. And pay? What was the pay?
A: 2(? a bundle. And at that time...
Q: How many bundles could you?
A: About 160 a day.
Q: So that's about 3.20. $3.20?
A: That's right. But for a kid that was good money.
Q: That s right, I forget that you were only... And you did that for.
you were born in 1924...o.k., then when you were 15 that was 1939...
A: I did that when I was 16.
Q: o.k., 1940. For how long?
A: Oh, for 7 or 8 months I guess. I was going to school too.
Q: O.K., you dropped out when you were 13.
A: Yah but when I came to Quilestine, I went to school. Quilestine is
Port Townsend, the same thing. And I went to school there and did that and
then I got married.
Q: Did you get your high school degree then, or what? You just took
classes?
A: Just took classes. Crazy.
Q: Oh, no. Did people think that was crazy?
A: Well, what I did, I went out to the principal and told him that
I would like to come to school so that I could read the books and he looked
Peggy Cook 10
back at me and said "you haven't been in school", and I said "no". He said,
"I don't think you can read these books." I tell you what, you come on Saturday"
and he let me attend classes. I read everything they had.
Q: Did you like him?
A: Yah.
Q: Did you have any particular friends growing up?
A: No.
Q: You were alone?
A: You bet.
Q: Even, well, did you play with or spend a lot of time with your
uncle?
A: A lot of time with him. Fishing and..
Q: So he was your...?
A: Yah, fishing and whatever...backpacking. Then we called it just
camping, we didn t call it backpacking.
Q: Did you also feel that you were...that something was wrong because
you didn t have friends; that you were lonely and...
A: Huh, uh ....I don t think so. It was easier to be alone than it
was to be with people that I didn't feel part of. I had enough of not
feeling part of in my own home without going out there and trying to fit in.
Q: Did you know ...this friendship...can you tell me anything about
your grandmothers or your mothers friends. Did you know any of them.? I
assume that...
A: I think my grandmother s friends were all her...either sisters or
sister-in-laws. I mean it was pretty thin for her.
Q: Yes, and your mother didn't, you know, it was mostly men... men
that she devoted her time to.
A: That's right.
Peggy Cook 11
Q: o.k. You went to school and you didn't get a degree but you took
classes and after a period of time which was about eight months...eight to
ten months... In this factory what did you do?
A: I got married.
Q: O.K. Now can you tell me something about how you met him?
A: My uncle was a rigger over on Indian Island...
Q: What is a rigger?
A: A rigger is a fellow that...like if you re down at the docks, you
know, and they're having all these things being swung from the dock to the
ship, he rigs all this thing. And he met this young sailor and brought him
home to dinner.
Q: Was he intentionally trying to...
A: I don t know. I guess so. We played cards that evening and my
grandmother asked him back for the next weekend and told me in the meantime
"you're going to marry that man because.." it wasn't that he'll keep you off
the Greets, but.. I forgot the term...but it ended up..."so you won t be
like your mother . 12 days later I married him. That s how I married
my husband.
Q: Oh, my god. And you were 16?
A: Not quite, just pretty near 17.
Q: How did you feel about that?
A: Well, I tell you, I just don t think I made any decisions for
myself ever until after my 30s. I just did it.
Q: Can you tell me what life was like for you...how it changed?
A: I think it was difficult for both of us.
Q: How old was he?
A: 19.
Q: How come he married you in 12 days.
Peggy Jacobs 12
A: He must have been desparate that s all I can figure. He was
probably homesick for Alabama, I don't know.
Q: He s an Alabaman?
A: Uh huh. I remember the night we got married we sat on the bed and
talked to each other. It was really the first time we talked to each other.
Deciding what we were and were not going to do in our marraige. I wasn t
going to drink because that s what my mother was, and I wasn t going to be
married and living with guys and all this kind of stuff. I had never talked
to anybody before, you know, and I talked to him that way. And he said
that he would never drink because that was what his father was. That s how
our marraige was based. But we did other things just as bad or worse. Self
destructive things, you know, we didn t love each other and we stayed together
32 years and that is tough on kids, and the other person, and you. That is
a toughy!
Q: What made you stay together?
A: Because I... something said, you are not going to be like your mother.
I could never make the move. I wasn t... I didn t have the courage.
Q: You felt that once you became not married you would....
A: There I'd go... Yah.
Q: You both did not drink?
A: No. I began at 39.
Q: After his death?
A: no. No. I began at 39 after I met this woman.
Q: He died in what year?
A: 1973.
Q: You were how old then? I'm trying to get this thing together.
A: 73 was 8 years ago...I was 40 when he died.
Q: o.k., so you started drinking about 9 years then.
Peggy Jacobs 13
A: Yah. 39.
Q: Can you tell me some of the other self destructive things that
you two did?
A: Well, he became a gambler and a womanizer...and I mean a gambler.
He lost everything we had every other year...you know, that kind of thing.
Q: What kind of work was he doing?
A: He was fire chief in civil service.
Q: So he made an o.k....
A: He made an o.k. salary but he went to REno four and five times
a year and then he began picking up women and taking them, you know, and
we were just always broke or in the hole about to lose stuff.
Q: Were you living in Port Townsend then?
A: We were living in Port Townsend.
Q: Where was he from?
A: He was from Alabama. Birmingham.
Q: And he didn't want to go back?
A: Oh, yah, he would go sometimes to Alabama to see his folks.
In fact, for several years, every other year we drove back to see them,
but he didn t go back there to live. No.'
Q: What was his family like?
A: Well, there's ten kids, eight boys two girls. Five of the boys
are in the Ku Klux Klan. That's his family.
Q: Was he bigoted?
A: Total. So much so that we had one of the first TV sets in Port
Townsend and if like Sammy Davis Jr. or Lena Home or somebody came on, he
would turn it off. You can't watch those people. That s the way it was.
Q: How did you feel about that?
A: Oh, we got in lots of fights. We got in lots of fights, we really
did.
Peggy Jacobs 14
Q: O.K. Can you tell me what the first years of your marraige was
like. Was there a time...?
A: Well, that was war time and he was away a lot. In fact...
Q: You seemed always happy...
A: Oh yah. In fact, our first son was 14 months old, he saw him...
about 13 months, he saw him when he was born and was here for a month;'.and
then he was gone. And when they are in the states, they are still on duty.
They re not home that often so I would say that the first five years of our
marraige we probably didn t even spend a year together..or it probably
wouldn t have lasted that long then.
Q: How was it when he came home ?
A: Well, he liked to have a lot of people around. He liked to play
cards especially with money on the table.
Q: Was he a gregarious kind of a guy that you could get along with?
A: He was as long as something like that was going on. But, he was
rigid, totally demanding, and extremely jealous, really. Seven years I
didn t go out of my house to get my own groceries. It was that bad. I
almost went insane.
Q: What happened.
A: He just .. he was just jealous. I don t know what happened.
Q: Psychologically so.
A: Oh yah!
Q: And he in the meantime was going out with other women.
A: But you see that s southern male with that double standard and
it still exists there. That's the way they think and that's the way they
operate. That's just the way it is.
Q: So are you saying that you were housebound for seven years. . .
that you never went out of your house?
A: That's right.
Peggy Jacobs 15
Q: For anything?
A: I did not go anyplace. I had to stop church and I couldn t go get
the groceries. I had one friend then and if it hadn't been for her I would
have gone bankers. She would come with her kids and visit me.
Q: How old were you when this was going on?
A: 31 to 38, something like that.
Q: 30 to 38.
A: 37 or someplace in there.
Q: And you married when you were 17.
A: 17, um,hum.
Q: So, you were married for a good 14 or 15 years before...
A: Before it began.
Q: What, why...he was not jeolous before that time?
A: He was jeolous but it wasn't on that kind of a level or with that
intensity.
Q: What made it?
A: Well, I think a lot of it had to do...he was injured in a fire and
became impotent...so. #1...that s a biggie for a guy. And he couldn t
believe that I could not want Sex. That s as blunt as it became, so every
thing I did no matter what it was, in his mind, was sex oriented. In fact
I ve been told by doctors several times, if you don t leave, he s going to
drive you crazy, but I couldn't leave. Coming from my background I couldnt
do it, I just couldn t do it.
Q: Ummm...Hello!
(Someone comes into the room)
Q: Well, if you were at that age of 31 or so, you still weren t
making decisions fo-i? yourself. Did you in anyway protest this imprisonment
virtually.
A: No, not really. I did thingp^e had a house and acreage and I did
Peggy Jacobs 16
things that kept me busy.
Q: What did you do?
A: Oh, raised 200 chickens every year. A big garden, had eight fruit
trees and that kind of stuff.
Q: How many kids did you have?
A: I had three and I had my brother for awhile and my sister for awhile
too. In fact, at one time another I had all the family living with me. My
aunt that I can t stand, and my grandmother, my mother....wonderful years.
Q: How long did all those people live with you?
A: I think I've figured out that the first 20 years of our marraige
we weren't alone...just my husband and my kids,...for more than three months
out of every year. It was really something.
Q: And these people that would stay with you were relatives. Would
they be very disruptive?
A: Most of them nonproductive...sitting.
Q: How did your husband feel about this?
A: Oh, he liked them, they gambled and...he didn t feel like. Oh god,
Q: He didn't feel like, Oh, god, he had to take care of your alcoholic
brothers....?
A: No, because he sent and got two of his brothers to come up here
which didn't last long because that s one time when I said "No way...No way
because the way they talked to me was unbelievable. It was terrible.
Q: What?
A: You a———, I don't like to swear, you know. Get up and get m
this , get me that and I finally told him, I said look, I will take on any
responsibility but I am not going to be ordered. I can't stand that. And
they left on the bus.
Q: It seems like quite a contrast; your married life and your life
before hand where you had had a lot of freedom, and it seems some happiness
Peggy Jacobs 17
and your marriage was totally...what is the word...stifling.
A: Yes, it was, but it must have been for him too.
Q: Why?
A: I know but I think every human being has a potential for growth
and I think our being married under the circumstances we were married under
stopped his potential and my potential so in that sense it must have been
a terrible thing for him too. Although he may not have relized it, I
think it....
Q: Were you angry with your grandmother basically arranging this
wedding?
A: It took years for me to get mad. YEARS. IT TOOK YIAES...
Q: So did you ever work after you were married?
(End of Side 1)
^Ade=^