Marjorie Hoyer-Smith

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Interviewee: Marjorie Hoyer-Smith

Interviewers: Alexis Lund and Tahlia Smith

May 8, 2024

Tahlia Smith: This is Tahlia Smith. I am accompanied today by Alexis Lund and we are pleased to welcome Marjorie Hoyer-Smith whom I am interviewing on behalf of St Helena Historical Society’s Oral History Program. We are conducting this interview at 3:54 pm on May 8, 2024, at Silverado Orchards. Welcome Grammie, can you begin by telling us when you were born and when you first came to St. Helena?

Marjorie Hoyer-Smith: I was born in Oakland, CA on October 1st, 1938, and lived there until I was about 11 years old (the sixth grade) then our family moved to Corvallis, Oregon. I lived there until after I went to college, got married, had a baby, and then we [Marjorie, child, and husband, Lowell Smith] came back to California. We moved to St. Helena in 1965.

TS: Why did you move to St. Helena?

MHS: Well, we moved to St. Helena because we had heard from friends of ours in Oregon that the A&W business was really hot.

So, before we came to St. Helena we looked in on it for a couple years. The first year they [friends] drove down and they had opened their own A&W and told us what a great business it was. The second year, they flew down and visited us and said what a wonderful business this was, we really outta get in it. The third year, they flew their own airplane down and said “This is really a great business, you gotta get into it!” [giggles]

So, your grandpa [gestures to Tahlia], Lowell Smith, looked into the A&W business. There was a piece of property right across from the high school. It was empty. He went before the city planning, commission, and the city fathers didn't want any franchises in St. Helena but somehow he talked them into it.

And we built the A&W and had one of our own.

TS: Oh, well that’s wonderful! I was interested, honestly, in why Grandpa first built the A&W. So, when you came to first came to St. Helena, what was your impression of the town?

MHS: Oh, we loved the town! My sister Virginia and her husband Ed brought us up here. We were looking for places to open an A&W; the franchise had strict rules for where you could build, and Saratoga and St. Helena were available cities. Eddie said St. Helena was just wonderful; he’d gone to Santa Rosa Junior College and used to come over to St. Helena for wine tasting. [chuckles] And so, we came and saw this little town.

We’d lived on the peninsula in Mountain View and came up to St. Helena. As you just come over that little bridge into St. Helena, seeing the [inaudible] that are from, I think it was Treasure Island, the World Fair or something like that at Treasure Island, they bought them for St. Helena,

it was so cute. We went up and down Main Street and we went over to look at the Elementary School, because we knew we were having kids, and wanted a good school system. Everything looked neat and tidy and small and adorable. We said, “This is it!”

TS: [chuckles] Well, correct me if I’m wrong, I believe the first house you lived in was the one right next to the RLS here in St. Helena.

MHS: That was the second place we lived in.

TS: Ohhh.

MHS: We lived on the Silverado Trail first, we rented a house there until we purchased the house. And-

TS: Could you tell me a little bit more- sorry to interrupt. Could you tell me a little more about what the neighborhood life was like around there?

MHS: Well, the house was right across from the RLS school so there was a big playground for the kids to play on, and the dog too, to run around.

So, everything was walkable. You could walk to town if you had to, you could walk to school. The people were friendly.

Alexis Lund: Ok, kind of taking a step back about your early life before you moved to St. Helena, what do you remember most about your early life?

MHS: But, I’ll go towards the dance. Before I even entered kindergarten, I knew how to create dances. That’s pretty small when you’re four years old, or something like that. I knew how to make up dances, don't ask me how, but I did! And my mother would sometimes take me to the movies, Mitsi Gaynor was a movie star who danced and Vera Ellen was a movie star who danced.

I would watch their dances and then come home and recreate them in the backyard.

We had shows for the neighborhood starting at a very early age. So that’s probably what I remember most. But, I walked to school. It was about six blocks, I guess, long blocks to go to school, in the Glenview district in Oakland.

AL: So, you walked to school. So, obviously a pretty small neighborhood. Can you describe the area a little more, like the landscape and the environment you grew up in before you moved?

MHS: There was a park that was about- on the other side of the school, it was down this way [gestures to the right], the park was over there, Diamond Park. So, we had to park to go play and if we wanted to, there were neighborhoods with kids. So, I had a lot of friends and we were all in elementary school together. The Park Boulevard Church, we had to go up a hill and down more than several blocks to get to church. That's where we went when we went to church.

AL: What was your childhood home like growing up before you moved?

MHS: It was really a nice house. It was a two-story, had an upstairs. I had a room with my sister and then as she grew older, I don't know the ins-and-outs of it, but I’m sure she wanted me not in her room anymore. So, they had a back porch that was on the second story of the house and that became my bedroom. My brother had the other bedroom and my folks had one. There was only one bathroom in the house, so five of us using one bathroom until my dad put in a small one downstairs by the kitchen.

TS: Obviously you had siblings, do you mind repeating their names, and [inaudible] as you were, you know, growing up with them, did you get along with your siblings, or did you guys fight or whatever?

MHS: Well my sister [Virginia] was eight years older than I was, so that’s quite a distance, and I just idolized her. She was really pretty, and she was an artist, and she could draw and do beautiful things, so she was my model. My brother Richard was five years older than me so they [parents] had a baby, and then three years later another, and then five years later a surprise-

TS: [Chuckles]

MHS: -which was me. And then [inaudible] let’s see, did we get along? My sister and I definitely but she was so much older. It was not until I got into my 20s that we became friends as well as sisters and we developed a great relationship. I have some pictures that have been snapped of us over every time the family gets together and we’re just talking like mad. And we can't catch up fast enough. My brother, we got along okay, but I think I was an annoyance to him,

TS: I think that’s all with little siblings. [giggles]

MHS: He was five years older than me and I was this little girl who would tag along and so forth. I do have an interesting story about that time if you wanna hear it.

My brother collected animals, wild animals, snakes, and lizards

He would set traps for birds on top of the garage. He grew up later to have a pet raccoon, had falcons, and became a falconer. You know, he just liked wild animals and so he taught me to handle snakes and lizards and so forth. One day in the backyard… well in the living room of our house my mother was having tea for her women’s club and there were card tables and tablecloths, tea cups and cookies, and everything. There were a lot of women sitting having tea, and Richard gave me this snake (he tells me now it was a dead one) . I don't know if it was or not. But it was a long one hanging from my hand, dragging along the ground, and I was this little girl you know, and he said “go show Mom” so I carried this snake into the kitchen and went into the living room holding this snake and you should’ve heard the women scream!

MHS: Not only that they ran up the stairs!

TS+AL+MHS: [Laughs]

TS: Oh my goodness. I bet your mom was probably like-

MHS: [laughs]

TS: -“what are you doing with a snake?!”

MHS: -“take it outside honey”

TS+MHS: [laughs]

TS: If you don’t mind my asking a little bit about your parents, what were your parents’ names?

MHS: My mother was Helen and my dad was Fredrick, or Fred. And she was one that always went by Helen Forscythe-Wood, and then when she got married it was Helen Wood Hoyer. And that’s how I got my name changed after separation, Marjorie Hoyer-Smith. I followed in her footsteps.

TS: Do you mind telling me a little bit about your father? About Boppa?

Both my mother and father were musical. My mother was an opera singer before she got married and my dad played the piano by ear.

He could play anything. You’d ask him to play a song, he'd just sit down and play it. Both of them met in college, at Oregon State and they both had dance bands. My mother was the only woman that ever had a dance band. And she had about five or six guys and she was the piano player. And my dad had a dance band. He was a piano player so that’s how they met. And then they eloped.

TS: Oh.

MHS: Two weeks later!

TS: Oh really? Wow!

MHS: They never told their parents. She went back to live with her family and it wasn’t until a year later.

TS: Oh really? Wow.

MHS: I think she got pregnant.

TS + MHS: [laughs]

TS: Oh my goodness, I did not know that!

AL: That’s pretty crazy! So, kind of on track as you grew up, what was your high school life like? Because you said you moved in sixth grade to Oregon.

MHS: Right.

Al: So, how was going to high school in Oregon? What was that experience like for you?

MHS: Well, it had its ups and downs. I never wanted to move from California. In California they had the low-first, high-first, low-second, high-second [grade system]. So, terms were divided in halves. I was going into high sixth and I was going to be in Special Rhythms, which was a dance group [that] I’d been looking so forward to it because I loved to dance all the way up until then. And so, I didn’t want to move to Oregon. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t going to like it. And because I was in high-sixth when I moved there, the school department had to decide whether I was going to go ahead to the seventh grade or be put back to the beginning of sixth. They put me back because I was young, and I hated it ever since. So, I had to repeat what I already knew and it was kind of a downer. It took me a long time to figure out how to navigate going on into high school.

Because high school was- started with the eighth grade; eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth. But I got into dancing, I got into singing, I had my own trio, I was in the choir. Chorale group, triple trio. I did drama, dance. We had assemblies where you could use our talents and do that, so I made the most of it. But it was always that I wanted to come back to California.

AL: Do you remember the name of your high school?

MHS: Corvallis High. [laughs] And we were the Spartans, blue and gold- no. Blue and- [pause]. Blue and maroon, maroon and blue.

AL: If you could remember if there were any clubs you belonged to since you talked about drama, choir? Did you have any favorite classes?

MHS: [pause] I liked all my music classes. I did things that I was supposed to do, in those days you kind of had it channeled. You know, become a secretary afterwards, so you have to learn stenography and I took that, typing, things you were supposed to learn how to do.

AL: And then, continuing through your education, where did you go to college and could you describe your experience in college?

MHS: Well, I went to Oregon State. I wanted to go to UCLA because all the dance was down at UCLA and I wanted to do that. But, because I lived in Corvallis, and Oregon State was there, and because of costs, of course, I became a townie and I went to school. But, Oregon State was more into pharmacy, forestry, sciences, industry.

The only thing they had for women was Home Economics or teaching

And, I didn’t want to become a teacher so, I thought “Home economics! Besides I’m going to get married and have children and home economics will serve me well, right?” So, that’s what I did.

But there was a dance teacher, Betty Lynd Thompson, at Oregon State who was a “Martha Graham” trained dancer and so I took all her classes and got into Orchesis, a dance honorary. That was on campus and learned more about modern dance and choreography through her which was fabulous. And then I took as many music classes as I could, music theory, choir, piano, I did all kinds of music. I was in a play; I had to dye my hair red to be a person in the play which was kind of frowned on in those days. I made it work for me even as I did the required home economics but I only went two years because I met a fellow on campus and we fell in love and got married in 1958 and that was two years into my schooling.

I went ‘57, ‘58, then quit school thinking I would never go back to school again.

TS: [laughs]

MHS: I was going to get married, I was going to have children and that was the end of it, you didn't need your education.

TS: So, I’m guessing you both moved back to St. Helena, or California, I suppose.

MHS: We moved to California. He got a job. I had been working in Corvallis, he had to finish school. I went to work. He finished his senior year and then he wanted to get a Masters, so continued to work so he’d get his Masters. He went to Oregon State first and then graduated from there and went to Eugene, U-of-O, the Beavers and the Ducks and got his Masters. And after he got his Masters and Laurie was born, my daughter Laureen was born in Corvallis, and then he got a job down on the peninsula in California [San Francisco Peninsula] I had told him, and I knew this with anybody I was going to marry, they were going to have to move back to California. [laughs] So, that’s what I wanted to do.

TS: Well, happily you were able to move back to St. Helena. So, as you began raising at first Laurie, Auntie Laurie, what was it like raising kids in St. Helena?

MHS: It was fabulous. [pause] Yeah well, we’ll back up a bit. We lived in Mountain View that's where I had Stuart and then I had Jennie and when we moved up to St. Helena, that is when we had Andrew. And so, he was born at the St. Helena Hospital. So, Laurie in Corvallis, Stuart and Jennie down in Mountain View and Andrew, your dad [points to Tahlia]-

TS: How was raising kids in St. Helena-

MHS: [inaudible] Well, it- getting really involved in the school system probably [not] as much as your parents but going to all the events that happened, being a school aid, you know, in classes just one right after another.

The kids were born ‘61, ‘63, ‘65, and ‘67, so every two years it was a new child

I would just go through the elementary school district, one after the other, after the other. Getting involved in bake sales, you know, puppet shows, anything that- the teams they were interested in. The boys did sports, they were in Carpy Gang. So-

Oh, one thing about Jennie she liked basketball too when she got to junior high age, but they didn't have basketball for girls. So, she tried out for the boys basketball team, which was unheard of and she didn’t make it, so Grandpa went down to the principal and really gave him what for and the coach let her and another girl on the basketball team.

MHS: The opposite of that, since I’m talking about breaking barriers, your dad [points to Tahlia] there were barriers for guys too.

Your Aunt Laurie became a “Tram Girl” at Sterling Winery

That was one of her jobs she was working at, during the summer. So, she was the “Tram Girl” for a while, and when Andrew got old enough to get jobs we wondered if he could be a “Tram Boy”, and so he went up there and applied and became the first “Tram Boy” [laughs] at Sterling Winery.

TS: I think I remember my dad telling that story to me.

AL: Just for me, can you explain what a “Tram Girl” is, or a “Tram Boy”?

MHS: Well they have- okay at Sterling Winery, they have a tram that goes up to the top of the hill from the bottom of the hill, you know, it’s like a ski thing, and the “Tram Girl” or “Tram Boy” opens them up [the trams] gets everybody settled, closes, makes sure everything is locked and settled and pushes the button so they can begin to go up.

AL: I see. Thank you.

TS: [laughs] So being such a small community here in St. Helena, what did you enjoy most about this community, and how does, you know, community life differ from then to what it is now?

MHS: Well, I probably don’t know as much about what it is now, but I can guess. When we moved here, it’s like everybody knew everybody else.

It was so wonderful going into Steve’s Hardware and you knew everybody there and they’d help you out.

There was Sprouse Rietz. Sunshine Market used to be Piggily Wiggily, and then it was Purity before it became Sunshine. But, Sprouse Rietz was like a 5 & Dime store. I could go into that store, and let’s say I wanted a rug for the bathroom or something like that and I’d say, “ I don't know which one to buy, this one or this one.” And he [imaginary store worker] said “Go take them home and look and then come back and let me know!”

So, you could take things home without having to buy them and then you’d bring them back and say “No, I don't want this one, but I want this one”.

People were friendly when we came into town and [when] I went into all the stores, they were just so welcoming.

And what I noticed about the wine industry and they still may do this, I don’t know, but if anything went wrong, like [if] there was a frost and people needed help, they used to have fires that they’d put around cause they didn’t have the sprinkler system yet. But, they would help each other out if somebody had a truck that failed, or they needed help with bottling, somebody else from another vineyard would go and help- very helpful with each other in the vineyards, they weren’t as in competition as much as they are now.

Oh, and to begin with, in the wine country, you could go wine tasting [and] it was all free.

AL: Interesting.

MHS: Yeah. So, all the wineries were open and you had free tasting.

TS: That’s definitely not how it is nowadays [laughs].

AL: Definitely not.

MHS: It changed when they had that tasting in France and Grgich’s Chardonnay was sent over there, and they had, of course, the blind tastings! And the California wine won the competition. And that changed how they looked at California wines versus French wines.

Anyways I’m getting off the track. You can see I can go many threads. You want to know how the town was. It was very “downhome”, lots of friends, friendly people, people helping each other out. What it is today, it seems to be now, it’s a little more oriented toward the tourists, and what the tourists would like. There's few stores where you can buy the things you could buy at Sprouse Reitz, or something like that. Oh! They had a bowling alley, by the way, down-

AL: Oh, really?

MHS: -Down by where Dean and Deluca was. Yeah, there was a Tripoli Market and a bowling alley. And families could go there and bowl.

TS: I think I remember you mentioning that in your questionnaire. And I remember reading it, and I was like [gasps] “what?!” [laughs]. MHS: So the town [was] family-friendly, you know.

AL: So you talked about the bowling alley and I’m sure you frequented that quite a lot, but what were some of your favorite stores in town or your favorite places to frequent, and do you still frequent them or are they still the same as you remember them being when you first were living here?

MHS: One of the stores, I can’t remember the name, uh, Goodman’s Department Store, originally, so it had linens and clothing, glassware and, you know, it was like a regular department store, not in the place where it was, but it’s further down. I frequented that a lot. The store that’s next- was next to the bicycle shop, that’s the one I can’t remember the name of, but it was a clothing store, and I frequented that a lot.

Vasconi’s was in the place of Reed’s on Hunt and Main. It still has “Wonderful Pharmacy” written in the concrete.

It was a small little pharmacy that then moved up to Main and Adams, but now that’s no longer here. There was a New Way Drugstore, across from the theater, that was fairly new, it wasn’t there when we first moved in. There was a shoe repair store right on Main Street, we frequented that a lot with the kid’s shoes.

TS+MHS: [chuckle]

MHS: Steve’s was always there, Steve’s Hardware, we still frequent that, and I’m glad that it stayed there.

The banks have shifted around. The bank that we- one of the banks that we go to, which is West America, it used to be Citizens Bank, and it was started by a fellow from Corvallis, Oregon. We knew him, when he started the bank down here, and we started going there, to Citizens [Bank]. Which then changed to West America.

TS: Like a small world [laughs].

MHS: I know, it is. So, Vasconi’s and Smith’s- Smith’s had been- I mean, Safeway wasn’t there at the time either. We had, um [pauses to think] Keller’s, another grocery store on Main Street. So, those are the stores I remember.

AL: So, religion is obviously a very big part of your life, can you tell us about your church and the roles you’ve played in it over the years as you grew up, so maybe in Oregon and then also in St. Helena?

MHS: Yes. My grandfather was a Presbyterian minister and a physician, so my mother took us to Presbyterian churches when we were kids.

And that just, kind of, was the church of choice. Along with dance, the thing that really caught my attention was things of the divine. Things you can’t see. Things that happen and you don’t know how they happen. But I was always curious about that, so all my life I’ve been drawn toward the ways of the spirit. And so that started when I was a child as well, so, I’ve just [been] following something that was part of me. And, women couldn’t be ordained in the church, so that wasn’t anything that I thought of for a long time, even though I joined the church in St. Helena, and I was on Session, which is the governing body, and a lot of committees and just involved in the worship life. There was never a thought that I could be anything in the church. And that changed.

My daughter, Laureen, went to Harvard Divinity School and became an ordained pastor, and while she was at Harvard Divinity School, I had to make a choice from being in the wine industry, [to] what I wanted to do next.

And I decided to go down to Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, just for a semester to see what it was like and that started me, but I have to back up a bit, I had- I went back to school in 1979, I was almost 40 years old. I went back to school and got my BS degree in Human Relations and Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco, which had an outreach program for adults in Napa using life experience as classwork. So I went for a year and a half, and completed my studies, and got my degree, which pleased me [to] no end because I thought I’d never go back to school.

Well that then opened the door for me 10 years later to be able to go to Seminary and I went back to school again and became ordained too, like my daughter.

AL: So, being ordained much later in your life, was religion and faith always really important to you as you were growing up-

MHS: Faith was part of my daily life. It was important to me. I was always drawn by what people would call “God”and the sacred unseen. Those instances and [pause] happenstances, occurrences, synchronicities that happened in life that make you kind of wonder, “What was that about? There has to be something more than just what you see.” So, that’s what I was drawn by.

I had a faith in God all my life, all of my adult life. Pushed me to Seminary, became a pastor.

But I have to say, I was in a pastorate for 5 years. (not in the St. Helena Church) I was in the church at Windsor. It was a new church development so I helped start a church in Windsor while I still lived here in St. Helena. [I] traveled to Windsor to be there in ministry for 5 years. Then I went back to school again. So, notice the going back to school thinking I never would do that after I got married.

I received a diploma in the Art of Spiritual Direction and became a spiritual companion to people for the last years up until now. I just retired last year.

TS: With dance being a huge part of your life also as well as religion, I know you created the dance group here in St. Helena Presbyterian Church, Dance of Life.

Could you explain to me the intention and meaning behind why you created the group, and why it was so successful, and why you enjoyed sharing that sort of art with the community?

MHS: Well, who ever heard of dance and worship?

MHS+TS: [giggle]

MHS: So here I was in St. Helena, a dancer in 1968. I started dancing with the Kiwanis Kapades, an annual show put on by the Kiwanis Club to raise funds for high school scholarships. I became the choreographer for about 8 years, plus director of the show with Lowell early on for a couple years. I also became choreographer for three or four high school musicals, including Grease and Oklahoma and also for the Napa Valley Theater Company at Vintage 80 in Yountville, and for the St. Helena’s hometown show, Valley Pie Jubilee.

While I didn’t have a degree in dance, due to my dance and choreographic experience I was given a lifetime teaching permit to teach dance through Napa Valley College.

And here I was in church. I never thought of putting my dance and my faith together until one day my pastor says to me, “You know, there's a retreat happening at Asilomar this summer where a pastor from San Diego, the Rev. Michael Taxer, a presbyterian minister and also a dance is presenting a dance in worship workshop, and I think you should go.” So, I went for a week-long conference and learned about dancing in worship. Michael encouraged me, saying “Marjorie, you have to go back and start your own dance group. None of this Kiwanis-Kapades-once-a-year-thing. You need to have an ongoing group.”

So, upon returning home I started to choreograph with Judy Collins’ “Amazing Grace,” and asked four members of the congregation to learn the dance for Advent Sunday.

We went before the Session (governing body) to ask permission, coordinated the colors of our skirts with the decor of the sanctuary so we would look appropriate. The church was a little bit on edge, not knowing what dance in church was going to be like. But we had nothing to be frightened of as the dance expressed a part of our faith, “I once was blind, but now I see.” That was the first dance. On Easter, we presented our second, “Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord) and after that began creating dance after dance.

We were known as the Dance of life Choir and danced for over 10 years, meeting twice a week without fail, with extra rehearsals when we danced in other places.

We made our costumes, went on retreats together, and had no idea about how it would grow - it just burgeoned - we started being asked to go everywhere. Up north to Eureka and Fortuna, down south to Occidental, La Canada, throughout the Bay area and beyond to San Francisco, Lafayette, Marin County, San Jose, Watsonville, Pleasanton, Sacramento and more. And then one Sunday, at the Montclair Presbyterian Church in Oakland, not far from where I used to live, a pastor from Aberdeen, Scotland, Rev. Jones was visiting the congregation as we presented a whole worship service in dance. He asked us to come to Scotland and dance in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and go on tour to churches in Scotland - if we could find our way there, he would set up the itinerary! We laughed, said “Thank you!” [That’s] wonderful. We’d love to do it but sorry, we can’t.”

But, the following year I created the Seven Days of Creation in dance and we gave concerts at the Napa Valley Theater, the St. Helena High School, and venues and churches in the greater Bay Area and made the seed money that took us to Scotland. Rev. Jones made the arrangements, along with the chance to present dance in worship on the Scottish TV program, “That’s the Spirit!”

TS: So, the community responded quite well-

MHS: Yes, we were supported. We had bake sales! We gave concerts.

TS: -I’m assuming.

MHS: It was amazing! The dance choir danced in St. Helena. We had concerts for the community at the grade school, at the church, the high school. We did Seven Days of Creation at the high school and down in Yountville. We choreographed and danced to Craig Bond’s Jazz Mass and presented it to the St. Helena community and beyond. You know, I’m wondering if my voice is actually recording.

AL: I think it's okay.

TS: I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to be heard.

MHS: Am I taking too long in describing everything?

AL: Nope, not all.

TS: No, not at all. Do you have any fond memories of when you were with your dance group? Of course, being invited to go to Scotland, but were there any small little accomplishments that you made within the community?

MHS: The community of St. Helena or the community of dancers? Well, what I realized as I was choreographing more and more, making up dances, I actually needed more training. So, I went down to Berkeley of the Shawl-Anderson dance studio and I took dancing for years. I joined the Sacred Dance Guild, along with people who danced in churches. So, not only did I have my own group, I went out on my own and taught dance and worship myself like Micheal did with me.

And I did Discovery and Motion workshops which had to do with embodied learning

Not just head learning but a learning through movement you do with your body. Much like you do in Drama, these kinds of exercises that you do that open you up more. I called these workshops Discovery in Motion. [pause]

The retreats that the dancers went on just bonded us totally. We went through all life circumstances, weddings, funerals, divorces, children getting in trouble, children having good times. We “lived with each other” and knew each other intimately. That was a big plus of a group like that.

AL: You spoke about Reverend Michael Taxer, who got you back into dancing and how it prompted you to do it full-time. Were there any other more influential mentors in your life or anybody that you looked up to as you went through this journey of rediscovering dance as a full time passion?

MHS: [pause] Well other dancers I knew in the bay Area were Judith Rock, Cynthia Winton-Henry and Phil Porter. I took classes from them as well. But mainly I was on my own road, kind of plowing ahead in new territory, doing things that had not been done before. This was the 70s when dancing in church was not even thought of, and here we were in our leotards, of course covered with tunics or skirts and such, but still moving bodies in churches.

This eventually led me to bio-spiritual focusing, which is a practice of interior contemplation, that humans are spiritually embodied

It was a time when most people thought of the only mind when thinking about spirit, leaving the body behind. What I found out through movement and dance is that we are biologically inspirited beings and there is something sacred in that. The fullness of humanity is to know the body, mind, heart, soul and spirit as one. The whole package and the traditional church was a place that separated body and mind. The body was depicted as earthy, sinful and lustful and the mind as lofty, spiritual and uplifting. My main thrust was to bring body, mind, and spirit back together.

AL: You said you retired last year. So, how long were you a pastor or minister at the Presbyterian church?

MHS: Well, I was a pastor at Windsor Presbyterian Church for five years. Once ordained, you remain a minister. I also did a stated supply for 6 months in Calistoga, taking the place of their pastor who went to South Africa to help with voting during Apartheid. Immediately after those five years I entered San Francisco Theological Seminary’s program in the Art of Spiritual Direction to become a spiritual director. Upon graduation I joined the Bread of Life Center for Spiritual Formation in Davis, CA.

Seeing people one-on-one I became a listener to their stories, allowing them to move more deeply into their life to find joy and meaning in their spiritual life

Graduation in 1998 and retiring in 2023, I was a spiritual director for 25 years. On staff at the Bread of Life Center for 12 years in Davis and Sacramento, the last 6 years I was on faculty for Bread of Life’s Internship Program in the Art of Spiritual Direction. Also for 23 years, I was on staff for two Companions on the Inner Way week-long retreats, one at Malibu and one at Tahoe. Ruthanne Svedsen [gestures to Tahlia - Tahlia’s piano teacher] was our musician, she was part of staff as well.

AL: Kind of backtracking a little bit. You mentioned working in the wine industry when you guys first moved here so, can you talk a little bit about what your main role was in the wineries or winery that you worked at?

MHS: Yes. There came a time- I don't know if we want to put this in Oral History or not, I had to decide. –

My husband and I decided we were going to separate and I knew I needed a job

One night, I had a dream. One of my dancers had just started working at a new winery and the dream was that I was to ask her to give me a job and she was going to give me a job. I woke up and I called her, and she did need someone to help her out. I had never worked in the wine industry in my life. We didn’t even hardly drink wine when we came to St. Helena, and wine certainly wasn’t very tasty to us so. I had to learn everything from scratch.

I went to work for Markham Winery, when they were about six months into it [opening of the winery]. My dancer friend had been there from the beginning, and she taught me how to give sensory evaluations of wine. And that’s what I did almost daily. In addition to pouring wine and giving tours, I’d offer sensory evaluations of wine and teaching wine education and wine and food pairing. When I left Markham, I went to Rutherford Hill Winery and did the same. I managed their hospitality room and gave sensory evaluations of wine and tours. And then, when I was in seminary, I worked for Domain Chandon and learned about sparkling wines and Don Perignon and the Good Life. [laughs]

TS: Balancing raising kids and working with the church with the Dance of Life, I learned that you started the Co-op [Cooperative] Nursery. The one you see right as you're heading out of St. Helena.

MHS: It’s down in Rutherford.

TS: Oh, sorry! [giggles]

MHS: It’s that little white schoolhouse, in Rutherford.

AL: Right by White Hall Lane, I think. Right? Somewhere over there?

MHS: White Hall Lane [pause] Well, it's a little farther down, it's right in Rutherford. Yeah, it’s on the right-hand side as you go down Highway 29.

AL: Alright. Got you! Got you!

TS: So with that, do you mind telling me a little bit about why you started the co-op nursery?

MHS: Well that was in the very beginning of moving to St. Helena. The first thing I did was join the Junior Women's Club which I had belonged to the Junior Women's Club in Corvallis. I wanted to do something to give back to the community and they had service projects and things like that and that’s where I met some other women, Sue Harrison, being one of them, who had children, and we talked about “is there a nursery school in town”.

There was only one at the Presbyterian church, but it was expensive, and so we talked about having a co-op nursery school. We spoke with- we worked with Mel McDonald, who was the principal of the elementary school, and “Dick” Roche, Richard Roche, who was the superintendent of schools, and the parents, I being one of them, just a handful, talked about how to put together a nursery school. We had early childhood education classes, people coming in to give us attention, how to do a quality nursery school where parents would participate to have parents involved so there was teachers and parents and everyone getting their early childhood education.

It would be for three years old to five years old before going to school. I was involved for six years - let’s see Jennie, Stuart, Laurie was already in school - so Jennie, Stuart and Andrew went to the nursery school.

I started out just being one of the parents and became vice president of the nursery school, became president of the nursery school, then I became the teacher. We expanded it to have two classes for three years old and four years old because they’re very different. The three years old, it’s parallel play. They don’t play with each other but alongside each other, four year-olds begin playing with each other. In nursery school, they learn all the social skills, and learn to pump on a swing, cut with scissors, ride a tricycle, they’re so adorable.

TS: [laughs]

MHS: So that was a big part of my life before I ever got involved with all the dancing, was the nursery school.

AL: And then, so you mentioned the three of your four children went to the Co-op Nursery school-

MHS: Yes. AL: And then as they grew up, I’m assuming they went through the St. Helena school system?

MHS: All of them.

AL: Got you. So, as they grew up through the school system, were they involved in any afterschool activities? Like you mentioned Carpy Gang and-

MHS: Yeah for the boys-

AL: -The activities we know best, and then were there any other activities that the girls were more participant of-

MHS: Jennie was a basketball player, like I said, but she also played baseball, I think she played travel ball. I wasn’t involved in that. We relied on other parents for rides because I had so many kids, I couldn’t cover all the bases, so friends took her down to Napa to play and so forth. Laurie was into acting, I mean she was an actor from the very beginning, so whether she was in elementary school or junior high or high school, she was in all of the dramas. Singing, the girls sang - the boys played sports and the girls went and did the arts.

AL: And then, in your experience, who do you think was the toughest, or who gave you the most trouble out of your four children?

MHS: They all gave me trouble.

MHS+TS+AL: [laughs]

MHS: And when- when they turned fifteen, that was a hard year. It was like “Oh no! Here comes another one, it’s going to turn fifteen!”

MHS+TS+AL: [laughs]

MHS: Stuart was a little rascal. They were all so adorable in their own way, but he was a rascal. And the normal way of getting children to do things, you know their chores or what have you, never worked on Stuart. I had to figure out new ways. He always had his friends doing his chores for him. He was like Hucklebe- no Tom Sawyer, “getting everybody to paint the fence for him.” Yeah. I had to tell him he had to do his own work-

TS: [laughs]

MHS: He was crafty.

AL: And then, as you were raising your children, were there any longstanding family traditions that you had when you were a kid that you passed down to your kids, and then your kids passed down to their kids [gestures to Tahlia].

MHS: I think Christmas-

MHS+TS: [laughs]

MHS: Yeah, our family, [during] my growing up years, we always got together [for] Thanksgiving and Christmas.

That was in Oakland. We had relatives around and cousins and so forth, and so when we moved to St. Helena, my sister Virginia and her husband and my brother Richard, if he could, he was in Oregon, but sometimes he would come down, but Christmas, the family always got together. When Virginia and Ed could no longer have it at their place, we had it at our place, and now Christmas is the one celebration that we have every year. And sometimes everybody can make it and sometimes not. But we at least try, that’s the major time that we get together as a family. Can you think of any others? [gesturing to Tahlia]

TS: Umm.

MHS: That have been passed down?

TS: I mean, I would-

TS: The only thing that I can really think of is probably birthdays maybe?

MHS: Oh that’s it! Yeah, celebrating birthdays. My family always celebrated our birthdays. Lowell’s family did not. He never had a birthday in his life, a birthday party.

TS: [laughs]

MHS: So we were a family that had birthdays galore! And he had none, and he didn’t think they were important, and yet, I continued the tradition and gave birthdays to all my kids, so they all had birthday parties over and over, and the way we do it now is that we get together at [Pizzeria] TraVigne, [and] we celebrate. We don’t necessarily have birthday parties but that’s our party, getting together at TraVigne for family birthdays.

TS: Well, after your four kids have grown up, [laughs], what were some of the things that you liked to spend doing in your free time?

MHS: Well, I filled my free time with being a spiritual director, and doing retreats and conferences and traveling. And you know, I started out here in St. Helena, gave all my effort into the school system and to the church and to the community events, and the- you know being a part of the community here and then as I went off to school, it broadened my horizons so that then I began to travel. I traveled the United States giving Discovery in Motion workshops and showing people how to dance in worship.

TS: [laughs]

MHS: Yeah, so there was a lot of travel involved until I went to the Bread of Life and then Companions on the Inner Way.

And I’m still trying to learn how to have some free time. Here in my free time I’m giving an interview to two young women. I read more for pleasure.

MHS+TS+AL: [laughs]

AL: Okay, is there anything else that you would like to mention that we did not touch on or that you want to delve deeper into before we wrap everything up?

MHS: Well I thought of another Christmas thing. We read the Christmas Story of Mary and Joseph traveling to the- because of the Census, and we give different parts to different people to read, so that’s a serious part of our celebration. We have lots of Christmas carols that we sing throughout the story, so there’s some words that are spoken and there’s a Christmas carol and so forth. And then we sing the Twelve Days of Christmas, and we start really slow, [sings] on the first day of Christmas-

TS+AL: [laughs]

MHS: -my true love gave to me- [normal speaking voice] really slow and we do it slow and then we gain a little momentum, and you come to the [singing] five golden rings! Louder [normal speaking voice]. Then we get faster and faster but we come to “five golden rings” and it’s loud and-TS+AL: [laughs]

MHS: -and it’s full and it’s slow and it’s big, and then we get faster and faster. By the time we get to the twelfth day we’re just zipping through them.

TS+AL: [laughs]

MHS: And your mouth is going so fast that, but then we stop at the “five golden rings”. Oh my gosh! And we’re hysterical by the end of it.

TS: [laughs] It becomes a tongue twister almost.

AL: I can imagine.

MHS: Yeah and it’s [inaudible] and sometimes we’ve had accompaniment to it when Richie Carl [Marjorie’s sister’s son] came for Christmas. Yeah we opened Christmas to all the relatives if they’d come or not come. We always have turkey, and Andrew’s cooking the turkey now these days, really nice.

And the thing I may have wanted to convey about those years, I was a Spiritual Director, offering retreats and conferences, I pulled out all the stops, regarding embodied spirituality, using movement, dance, drama, art, soul collage, music, song, and chant. So I used the arts for eliciting people’s spirit and life. That was my part.

TS: Well, we thank you very, very much for your time.

MHS: Thank you.

TS: Our ending time is 4:50, thank you very very much Grammie, this is Tahlia Smith and Alexis Lund.