Oral history interview with Helen G. Rees

Collection

Identifier: SR2004

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This oral history interview with Helen G. Rees was conducted by Anne Cummins at Rees’ home in Fairview, Oregon, on December 13, 1995. The interview was conducted as part of the Rural Telephone Operators Oral History Series, which was a series of interviews about telephone operators in rural areas in the early 20th century, conducted by Anne Cummins in the early 1990s.

In this interview, Rees discusses her family background and early life in Sherman County. She also talks about the family background of William A. Rees and his early life in Shaniko. Rees then discusses her life in Shaniko after her marriage to William A. Rees. She speaks at length about the telephone system in Shaniko in the 1930s and early 1940s, describing how the system worked and the equipment used, and she talks about some of the telephone operators. She closes the interview by talking about the different ways the operators served the community beyond the job of answering and directing phone calls.

Dates

Creation: 1995 December 13

Creator

Rees, Helen Guyton, 1910- (Interviewee, Person)
Cummins, Anne (Interviewer, Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society. Use is allowed according to the following statement: Creative Commons - BY-NC-SA, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.

Biographical note

Helen Josephine Rees, nee Guyton, was born in Kent, Oregon, in 1910. She grew up on the family farm in Sherman County, Oregon. Most of her education took place in Wilcox. She attended Behnke-Walker Business College, graduating in 1928. From August to December of that year, she worked as a secretary at Kerr Gifford Company in Portland. In 1929, she and William Adelbert Rees were married; they later had four children. She also worked as a postal clerk. She died in 2008.

Extent

.1 Cubic Feet (1 audiocassette (54 min., 13 sec.) + transcript (26 pages))

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Oral history interview with Helen G. Rees conducted by Anne Cummins on December 13, 1995, as part of the Rural Telephone Operators Oral History Series. Rees describes the telephone system in Shaniko, Oregon, during the 1930s and the early 1940s.