Joe Richey oral history transcript

              Subject/USFW Retiree: Richey, Joe

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Interviewed by: Dorothe Norton

D. Norton:

So Joe, the first thing I want to know is where and when you were born?

Joe Richey:

I was born November 13, 1922.

D. Norton:

Okay, where?

Joe Richey:

In Minneapolis at the Swedish Hospital.

D. Norton:

Where?

Joe Richey:

The Swedish Hospital in Minneapolis.

D. Norton:

Okay, and who were your parents, what were their names?

Joe Richey:

Elmo and Ethel Richey.

D. Norton:

And what were their jobs and their education?

Joe Richey:

My mother was a teacher at one time.

D. Norton:

Oh, good.

Joe Richey:

Way back when. My dad had various jobs; he worked with the railroad and he was a mail carrier, horse and buggy out in the country delivering mail.

D. Norton:

That's different than today's method! Okay, so where did you spend your early years?

Joe Richey:

I lived in Osseo. D. Norton:

Osseo, sure, yeah, just north of Minneapolis.

Joe Richey:

I grew up there and went to school there.

D. Norton:

Did you have any hobbies or games you liked to play?

Joe Richey:

I was in sports a lot, quite a bit of sports.

D. Norton:

In high school?

Joe Richey:

Yeah, football and basketball.

D. Norton:

Good for you. Okay, did you ever hunt or fish when you were a kid.

Joe Richey:

I liked to fish, but I never did much hunting.

D. Norton:

Did you ever have a job before you graduated from high school? Paper route or...?

Joe Richey:

Oh yeah, I worked out on the farms during the summertime, back in the '30s and '40s, for 10-cents an hour sometimes!

D. Norton:

Something fun to do, though.

Joe Richey:

I made enough money to buy clothes for the year.

D. Norton:

So, what high school did you go to?

Joe Richey:

Osseo High School.

D. Norton:

When did you graduate? Joe Richey:

1940.

D. Norton:

Okay, from then, after you graduated did you go to college?

Joe Richey:

Yes, well, I went into the Navy. Well, first of all I did start at the university in 1941 and then in '42 I joined the Navy, in July of '42, and I was in the Navy until November of '45.

D. Norton:

Okay, so you were three years in the Navy?

Joe Richey:

Three years and three months in.

D. Norton:

What were your duty stations in the Navy?

Joe Richey:

I was overseas, the Gilbert Islands and the Marshall Islands, I was at Alameda Naval Air Station before I went overseas.

D. Norton:

Where is that in California?

Joe Richey:

That is in California, right near San Francisco.

D. Norton:

Did you ever get any decorations from being in the service?

Joe Richey:

No.

D. Norton:

Just an honorable discharge?

Joe Richey:

Yes, honorable discharge.

D. Norton:

So your military service didn't relate in any way to your coming to work with Fish and Wildlife Service?

Joe Richey:

No, no.

D. Norton:

Okay.

Joe Richey:

So I went back to school and got into civil engineering, and I graduated in 1950.

D. Norton:

With a degree in?

Joe Richey:

Civil.

D. Norton:

Okay.

Joe Richey:

So I started working with the Fish and Wildlife Service actually before my graduation; they interviewed me the week before.... Well, I got a funny story to tell you. On June 17 of 1950 we were married, and it was on June 10th I graduated from university, and on June 5th I started with the Fish and Wildlife Service. So, in a period of twelve days, there I was: started my career and married within 12 days. That was a busy time!

D. Norton:

That was a busy time! So, can you tell me how and when and where you met your wife?

Joe Richey:

I met her at the prom ball in St. Paul. While I was in school I worked for the post office downtown part-time; a bunch of the guys one Saturday night said, "Well, let's go over to the prom." So we changed clothes and went over there, and I found this good-looking gal there, I asked her for a dance, and that's all it took!

D. Norton:

That's all it took --- ah hah! Well, that was fun. So then you did get married, where did you get married?

Joe Richey:

We got married in Minneapolis at St. Bridget's; it's in north Minneapolis on June 17, 1950.

D. Norton:

How many children do you have?

Joe Richey:

We had six children, three boys and three girls. The middle girl we lost, she died at the age of 46, two years ago.

D. Norton:

Oh, that's sad.

Joe Richey:

She was in the Canary Islands, she met a man. She graduated from St. Paul University, and at that time they could do their teacher's training all over the world. She decided to go to the Canary Islands, where she met Juan, who's our son-in-law, and they had two children, this was in 1983 they went over there. So, she had been there since 1983 to 2003, twenty years, and she had a pulmonary embolism, she just went like that at 46 years old.

D. Norton:

That's sad.

Joe Richey:

Yes, it was a shocker. We didn't get over there, our daughter and our son went over. By the time they got there, she had already been cremated, not cremated, they put her in a crypt over there, and after so many years, because of the lack of space, they take them out of the crypt and cremate them so somebody else can take that space.

D. Norton:

Oh boy. I know friends of my, she was my daughter-in-law but my son divorced her, but her fiance now, his parents were the two that got killed in Hawaii by the car that was driven by some people that lived in Hawaii; it killed them too, but that's so sad. I'm going to that tonight, so. Anyway, so your other five children, what are they doing now?

Joe Richey:

Okay, my oldest son just left this morning. He travels all over the worlds, he's in stress management, he's into yoga and that type of thing. He just left for London today and then he's going to India, he will be there until March and then he's coming back.

D. Norton:

Is he married?

Joe Richey:

He was married; because he travels so much his marriage broke up. He comes back and in May he's going back to China and Korea, so he's on the road a lot. Our oldest daughter lives in Andover, she works in electronics and is semi-retired right now. Our youngest daughter works at Our Lady of Grace in Edina. She has the afternoon programs where after school they take care of the kids from 3:00 until 6:00 or whatever, so the parents are... D. Norton:

That's the church Ede Donovan belongs to.

Joe Richey:

Who?

D. Norton:

Ede Donovan.

Joe Richey:

Oh I know Ede, yeah!

D. Norton:

She belongs to that church. And then the other two boys?

Joe Richey:

Our other son, John, works for Mesaba Airline down at the airport as a baggage handler. Our youngest son lives in Boston, he's been there for 20 years, and he has been very successful, he has been working for a large commercial bank there, he's one of the vice presidents there.

D. Norton:

Well that's good. So, you have a bunch of smart children, so that must mean there are two smart people with smart kids, right!

Joe Richey:

Well, we're very proud of them.

D. Norton:

You bet. I'm sure you are, that's good. So you have lots of places you can even go on vacation.

Joey Richey:

Yeah, we have even been out to Boston.

D. Norton:

Is it difficult for you to travel?

Joey Richey: Oh yeah, yeah.

D. Norton:

But you still get to go?

Joey Richey:

Yes.

D. Norton:

That's good.

Joey Richey:

We are limited now. For 22 years we went to Arizona every winter, we rented down there in Sun City, Arizona, and that's where Walt Shafer, (Umberger), and Ed (Stevenson) were all down at Green Valley. We would get down to see them every January; we would go down and see them and have a good get-together, but all three of them have died and all the wives are still living.

D. Norton:

Yes, I know that I have some friends too, and they've lost their husbands now, two of them died on the golf course, heart attacks on the golf course. They would just go down in the winter right after Christmas, and stay until about the first of May.

Joey Richey:

Yes, we would come back at the end of March.

D. Norton:

I would miss the snow and cold though. I don't like to be gone more than about ten days, but you have to do what you have to do and what you want to do.

Joey Richey:

Yep.

D. Norton:

Okay, now we'll go to your career, okay.

Joey Richey:

I started in engineering in 1950.

D. Norton:

Was there any reason you wanted to work for the Service?

Joey Richey:

Well, at that time the times were kind of tough right around 1950, and I got this job with the Fish and Wildlife Service, and I thought that was great.

D. Norton:

Well, that's good.

Joey Richey:

Did you know Art Hughlett? D. Norton:

Yes.

Joey Richey:

He was our regional engineer way back then.

D. Norton:

Art who?

Joey Richey:

Hugh...

D. Norton:

No, I didn't know him.

Joey Richey:

He went out to Portland, but he was the regional engineer that hired me.

D. Norton:

Okay. So, you thought the pay and benefits were pretty good when you started?

Joey Richey:

Yes.

D. Norton:

Okay. So, you started in downtown Minneapolis, and then out to the Buzza Building?

Joey Richey:

Yes.

D. Norton:

So you didn't have any other duty stations other than the regional office?

Joey Richey:

I was always in the Regional Office.

D. Norton:

That's good, and did you have promotion opportunities after you started?

Joey Richey:

Yes, I was 13 just before I retired.

D. Norton:

What did you start as?

Joey Richey:

As a 5.

D. Norton:

That's good.

Joey Richey:

$3,100.00 a year when I started.

D. Norton:

I went to work for the Navy Department in 1948, and our annual salary was $2,982.00!

Joey Richey:

So you know what I mean.

D. Norton:

Yes, I know what you mean! And people make that much a month now and have a hard time living! Okay, did you do anything for recreation with some of the people you worked with, like the ball teams and...?

Joey Richey:

Oh yeah, Ray and I were avid baseball fans, and we always went to the opening days of the Millers when they were a minor league team, and the Twins when they began (unclear), and that was kind of an annual event, the opening day. Ray was funny, he always would say, "Well, I don't know if I'm going or not;I am going to wait and see what the weather is like," and he would always go.

D. Norton:

Did you socialize with any of them?

Joey Richey:

Oh, we socialized a lot with people in engineering and all the others; we went to the Christmas parties and the picnics.

D. Norton:

That's good. Okay, and so did your career have any effect on your family?

Joey Richey:

Well, because I was traveling so much, Margaret was at home with the kids and that had to have an effect, but I had to put bread on the table, you know. I wouldn't have gone any more than I had to be, but I was on the road a lot.

D. Norton:

Okay. So, what kind of training did you receive for your job after you came to work for Fish and Wildlife?

Joey Richey:

Well, (Gray Wright) was my mentor more or less and I trained in under him, and the regional engineers that I had, (Dave Umberger) was the last one, or no it was (Ed Stephenson) was the last one and Dave Umberger was before him.

D. Norton:

So, was this was more or less on the job training, you learned as you...?

Joey Richey:

Yes.

D. Norton:

So you just worked the regular hours. How about if you were out on a project, did you have to work extra hours?

Joey Richey:

Oh yeah, I would work on weekends and I didn't accept any additional pay for that.

D. Norton:

So what were your day-to-day duties then when you were an engineer?

Joey Richey:

Well, if they were working on a Saturday I would go out and be the inspector on what's going on.

D. Norton: Did you help develop plans when something new was coming, did you help develop the plans for it?

Joey Richey:

Well, usually it was contract work, under contract, construction contracts. I did a lot of office work, drew up plans for future projects, which then I worked on out in the field too.

D. Norton:

So, did you have any special tools or instruments you had to use?

Joey Richey:

Well, we had the surveying instruments, transit levels and that type of thing, but they are archaic now compared to what they have now.

D. Norton:

I'm sure. So, did you ever witness any new service inventions?

Joey Richey:

No, nothing. D. Norton:

We didn't invent anything, huh?

Joey Richey:

No.

D. Norton:

Did you ever work with any animals?

Joey Richey:

No. I have to tell you about several close calls I had while I was working. We had a fish hatchery at the Garrison Dam in North Dakota, and we were making the final inspection on it, and we had an 18-foot deep manhole that the water meter that measured the water coming into the hatchery from the dam was down at the bottom of the manhole. Well, it being the final inspection, I went down to see if it was working as specified, and all of a sudden, (Ray Wright) was up on top with a couple of other of our people, and they heard a scratching noise and looked down there and I was passed out. There was methane gas down in there, which I didn't know about, and they hauled me out, an engineer by the name of Wally Anderson hauled me out of there, and I had the worst headache I ever had in my life. They took me to the Garrison Hospital. I was only there overnight, but that was a close call. Let's see, there was one other time; we were doing a job up at Red Lake for the Indians and I was out making a survey, it was March 17th, they called it the St. Patrick's Day Blizzard, we were out there, I had a station wagon, we knew just about where that station wagon was. Well, we were out there, and the snow was getting more horizontal all the time, and finally we said we'd better get the heck out of here, and we got out of there. It really turned out to be a heck of a blizzard! So, that was a kind of a close call.

D. Norton:

What support did Fish and Wildlife receive locally or regionally, like when you were working on projects and all? Do you think if you were...?

Joey Richey:

The local people usually accepted them pretty well.

D. Norton:

That's good, we needed that.

Joey Richey:

Yeah.

D. Norton:

We still need it. So, how do you think the Service was perceived by people outside the agency? Like were we goods ones or bad ones?

Joey Richey:

In those days, Fish and Wildlife was pretty well thought of. Later on, working for the government, they kind of looked down on that, you know what I mean.

D. Norton:

Yeah. Did a lot of people realize what Fish and Wildlife Service even was?

Joey Richey:

A lot of them didn't, no.

D. Norton:

Because I know people always to this day still some would say, "Well you work with DNR."

Joey Richey:

"You work with DNR." Yeah, that's a typical reaction.

D. Norton:

And you just have to explain to them. Isn't that something!

Joey Richey:

I have to tell them it's the Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service.

D. Norton:

And it's U.S. Not State of Minnesota, not State of Wisconsin. Okay, so agency-community relations were pretty good, huh?

Joey Richey:

Overall I would say yes.

D. Norton:

Good. What projects were you ever involved in?

Joey Richey:

I was involved in a couple of pretty good-sized ones. I was the resident engineer at Gavins Point Hatchery in South Dakota, in Yankton, South Dakota. That was a pretty big, that was over about three year, I think, when I worked in there. Just before I retired, down at La Crosse they had a fishery research building.

D. Norton:

Yes, Dr. Lennon.

Joey Richey:

I was involved in that.

D. Norton:

Did you ever meet Dr. Lennon, Robert Lennon?

Joey Richey:

Oh yes, right.

D. Norton:

He's going to be 87 the 16th of July. I interviewed him a couple of years ago, very nice, and could he ever play a piano!

Joey Richey:

What's his last name?

D. Norton:

Lennon.

Joey Richey:

Lennon, Dr. Lennon, yeah, right.

D. Norton:

You should hear him play a piano! His wife is ill with a brain disorder, and they can't do surgery on it, so she had to go into a nursing home, and so he moved to an assisted living place. He gets notes in his basket outside his door every day, women wanting him to play a certain song! But very, very nice. So, when you told me you worked there....

Joey Richey:

So, does he still live in La Crosse?

D. Norton:

No, he's in St. Charles, I think that's what it's called, not far from Winona. He was a very, very nice man. He mentioned La Crosse, and that was a big project for him.

Joey Richey:

Yes, that was a big project.

D. Norton:

Were there any major issues that you had to deal with?

Joey Richey:

No, I can't recall any major ones.

D. Norton:

Probably you had let the boss take care of those! Did you ever feel there was a major impediment to your job or your career, anything that would hold you down?

Joey Richey:

No, I was always treated pretty well.

D. Norton:

That's very good. Who were your supervisors?

Joey Richey:

Well, like I said, I started with Art Hughlett was my first regional engineer that hired, and Bob (Dugal) was the next one, and he was transferred out to Portland. Then Dave (Umburger) took over, and when Dave retired, Ed (Stevenson) was on there.

D. Norton:

When you were saying Ray Wright before, I can remember Ray now; wasn't he kind of short and had kind of white, curly hair, wavy?

Joey Richey

Yes, this is him here (photo).

D. Norton:

Oh sure, that's him. Okay, who did you feel were any individuals who helped shape your career with Fish and Wildlife, just your supervisor?

Joey Richey:

Like I said, Ray was really my mentor; he took hold of me when I was just out of school, you know, and he did a lot to help.

D. Norton:

That's good. Who were some of the people you know outside of the Service that you felt were good buddies to know and to work with and...

Joey Richey:

Outside of the Service?

D. Norton:

Like states or different agencies or anything?

Joey Richey:

I didn't really have any...

D. Norton:

Do you remember who was President when you started, or Secretary of the Interior?

Joey Richey:

Okay, let's see.

D. Norton:

1950, I know who that was, those two ladies.

Joey Richey:

No, no, who was President? Truman.

D. Norton:

HST, yep.

Joey Richey:

Harry Truman, yes.

D. Norton:

That's who was in when I went to Washington.

Joey Richey:

That's one of my favorite Presidents.

D. Norton:

Do you remember who the Secretary of the Interior was, or Director of Fish and Wildlife at that time?

Joey Richey:

If I hear the name I would remember it!

D. Norton:

Yeah, I know it, because it's a few years ago! Did changes in the administrations affect the work?

Joey Richey:

Yes it did, the funding would go up and down, as you well know.

D. Norton:

So you would have something like planned, and then you would have to cut back on it?

Joey Richey:

Yes, or a lot of times we would do what they would call “force account work” on the refuges, where they would take if from their funding that the refuges have themselves, and we would go out and help them with any engineering problems they had. That's when times were kind of tough.

D. Norton:

I know I used to have to go sometimes on bended knee and say, "We're out of money, we need help!"

Joey Richey:

Yeah.

D. Norton:

Refuges was usually our rescuer, they would help us. Ede was my mentor when I started. They had a girl working in permits that transferred out to Portland, Oregon. I worked one year part-time for Bill Edelbroch.

Joey Richey:

Okay, I remember Bill.

D. Norton:

(Unclear), and so Ede said, "Well Dorothy, we got a job over here, why don't you come over here and work?" I said, "Well, okay." She was always there for me, because after they took her out of Law Enforcement, I could always find her, and we're still friends; I see Ede about every three months.

Joey Richey:

You do! Say hello to her for me.

D. Norton:

I sure will.

Joey Richey:

She'll remember me.

D. Norton:

So, what was the high point of your career?

Joey Richey:

Well, (unclear).

D. Norton:

Any one that stands out more than any other?

Joey Richey:

Well, when we would get a promotion, of course, those were high points.

D. Norton:

Any of the projects that you worked on any one more special than the others?

Joey Richey:

Well, that one at La Crosse was always a special one, and at the end of my career. The one at Yankton, I really like it out at Yankton. Yankton is a nice, small town, and very friendly people in South Dakota and North Dakota. I got a map on the wall in there that I want to show; my daughter was coming back from Portland, and she stopped at a rest stop in North Dakota and they had a map of all of the wildlife refuges in the Midwest Region, but I highlighted in yellow every one I worked on. It shows how much travel I did.

D. Norton:

And so like now too, do you ever go through or drive out to South Dakota ever or do you drive by Yankton to look at what...?

Joey Richey:

We have been there, yeah.

D. Norton:

That's nice, you feel kind of proud don't you?

Joey Richey:

Yeah, right.

D. Norton:

How about a low point, did you have a low point in your career?

Joey Richey:

Well, that one time there were rumors that we were going to go to St. Louis, that wasn't really a low point, but... I don't know if I would have or not, I don't know. I had a chance to go to Albuquerque and Portland both, and even Boston, but I wanted to stay here.

D. Norton:

Well that's good, Minnesota is a good state. That's how I feel too. I know when I was working for the Navy, I got married meanwhile, of course, and had a child, and my husband was sent to Korea, and he wanted me to go home with the child. She was only about a year and a half, and my mother wanted me to come home. Well, when I went in and told the Admiral that I was going to leave, he got kind of upset. He said, "Dorothe, we all have children, and we raise them here and they're fine." I kind of wanted to stay but I didn't. I like Minnesota, and Washington in the summer would be so hot and sweaty, you could hardly breathe! But I like Washington too.

Joey Richey:

Yeah, so much going on there.

D. Norton:

Well, you told me about two of your dangerous and frightening experiences; how about a humorous one? Did you ever have anything really humorous that you could remember?

Joey Richey:

I had several of them.

D. Norton:

I can see your wife is shaking her head, so yeah!

Joey Richey:

Do you remember any humorous incidents?

Mrs. Richey:

Some of those dinners where they came into town for the refuges and fishery...

Joey Richey:

Oh, the regional conferences we used to have, those were highlights.

D. Norton:

Nothing specifically though, some of them remember really funny things and they would say, "This could have been dangerous but really it was so funny when it was all over, we just sat and laughed," you know. Every day you could have something that was kind of fun to laugh at you know.

Joey Richey:

Who is the refuge manager down in Winona?

Mrs. Richey:

Gray.

Joey Richey:

Don Gray, do you remember Don Gray? He was one of my favorites. He said, "I got the most colorful staff in the region." Gray and Green, Doc Green.

D. Norton:

Oh yeah, and Gray is still....

Joey Richey:

Is he still living?

D. Norton:

Yes, and you know...

Joey Richey:

His wife died though?

D. Norton:

Yeah. I asked him one day what the "V" stood for; do you know what it stands for?

Joey Richey:

Vernon? D. Norton:

He was born on Valentine's Day, and his mother would have named him something different, well "V" for the first name, but for a guy she just gave him that for an initial. I think he'll be 93 next week.

Joey Richey:

He was a great guy.

D. Norton:

What a memory too, he had an excellent memory, he did an excellent...

Joey Richey:

He had a beautiful voice. He used to sing at these conferences.

D. Norton:

Oh did he? I was happy to get to meet him. What do you like to tell others about your career with the Service?

Joey Richey:

Well, how much I enjoyed working with the people that I worked with; they were all down to earth people, especially out in the field too. When you go out, the refuge managers would invite you in for dinner and they were just so gracious.

D. Norton:

The one thing I noticed about it was the fact that people really liked the work. They weren't looking at other agencies.

Joey Richey:

Yeah, I was the same, I liked what I was doing, I never got... When you like what you're doing, you're happy.

D. Norton:

That's right, I look forward to going to work because of the people I'd be meeting with and talking with and dealing with, and it's just fun. They still have good people. So, did you notice any changes all the time you worked there, like in personnel and in the environment from when you started in 1950 to when you retired? Did it change quite a bit?

Joey Richey:

Oh yeah, I would say so.

D. Norton:

Hopefully upgrading us?

Joey Richey:

The way the environment is now, I fear for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

D. Norton:

Yes, I know that I think all kids today should go to college. Don't think that at the 12th grade you're done because you'll never get a job that's worth it. Although I know a lot of secretaries work their way up quite a bit, Betty and Bobbie are two. Betty is down in Atlanta now, and she is a Grade 13.

Joey Richey:

Wow, good for her.

D. Norton:

Yeah, and she's only 54 years old.

Joey Richey:

Wonderful!

D. Norton:

Yeah, and Bobbie (Franz), I can't remember what her name was before she got married, but she has Ede's old job, and their daughter just got married a short time ago, and she says she can't retire yet because they still have to pay for that wedding! So, what are your thoughts on the future as far as the Service, which way do you think it's heading in the next decade?

Joey Richey:

Well, like I said, I've gotten away from Fish and Wildlife, but I think it's going to have some tough times under this administration; I don't want to get political here.

D. Norton:

I know.

Joey Richey:

But, I think that the environment, if they really don't clamp down on them and don't let them have everything they want, like the Arctic Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and drilling it, I think that's wrong.

D. Norton:

Yes, I guess we'll just have to make the best of what we can do with what we get. So, we're just about done now. Do you have any photographs or anything you want to donate or give to the Service?

Joey Richey:

No, I want to keep this. I can get a copy of it I suppose, and I can give it to you. I'll get one and...

D. Norton:

Do you ever go into the Regional Office at all?

Joey Richey:

I haven't.

D. Norton:

Okay, if you let me take that, my sister works in law enforcement now, Mary McCorkle....

Joey Richey:

Is that right? Why don't you take that, if you promise me that you'll send it back to me?

D. Norton:

Yes I will. Either that or I'll bring it back. That will be great, because this is just a very, very... and I will type up the names, because it's great to see pictures like this.

Mrs. Richey:

There was a little one of the engineering office.

Joey Richey:

Yeah, I don't remember what...

Mrs. Richey:

I don't know what we did with that.

Joey Richey:

That was back when I first started, our office, the personnel in our office, I'd have to dig that out, see where that is.

D. Norton:

But you know, you remember a lot about your work history, I think. I was cleaning through some things, pictures and stuff, trying to clean out some of my clutter, and I came across a picture of the Rear Admiral that I worked for, and he was the head of the budget for the whole Department of the Navy, whole Navy! And he was 52 the year the budget for the Navy was $5.2 billion! I had pictures of him cutting his cake. But the other picture, when I left, he signed a picture for me. I am going to get that framed now and hang it where I have my computer.

Joey Richey:

You bet.

D. Norton:

It was a long time ago, but he was just a very wonderful man to work for. Well, I sure want to thank you, and I'm glad I got to meet you instead of talking to you on the phone.

Joey Richey:

Margaret had a tough time last fall; we thought we almost lost her. She had a bowel obstruction, she went into the hospital at North Memorial on October 11th, and they went through a series of tests, she was sore, tremendously sore in her abdomen. Finally, they found a tumor the size of a baseball that was cancerous, and they removed that and the lymph nodes nearby they removed. Hopefully, her body is cancer-free.

D. Norton:

Oh, I hope so, too.

Joey Richey:

She was in the hospital for 29 days, and then she went out here to St. Teresa for rehab for another month. She was away from home for 60 days.

D. Norton:

Well, you sure look good now, you have good color and you just do look good, so let's just hope that that cancer is gone. Well, I want to thank both of you for your time.

Mrs. Richey:

Would you have known Polly?

D. Norton:

Who?

Joey Richey:

Polly Trost? She was a secretary, she was in refuges and she was in engineering. She's a member of our co-op.

D. Norton:

What's her name?

Mrs. Richey:

She lives in this building?

D. Norton:

And what's her name?

Joey Richey:

Trost, t-r-o-s-t.

D. Norton:

Polly Trost, she was a Fish and Wildlife employee?

Joey Richey:

Yes.

D. Norton:

Well, let's call her up.

Joey Richey:

Oh sure.

D. Norton:

Thank you.

Note: Names in brackets ( ) = unverified spelling

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