Jessi, this is for you: A funny story about Granny

This happened when I was a teenager in Palm Springs High School.  My sister and I were allowed to date, not single dates, just group or double dates.  We were never really told why we couldn't single date but we assumed it was because they believed we were more likely to have sex if we were on a single date.  My brother could do whatever he wanted.  I guess it was up to the parents of the girls he was dating to save them from the perils of single dating.  In any event, my sister had permission to go on a planned double date to the movies one Saturday night and the other couple had to cancel.  My sister was pleading her case to be allowed to still go on the date even though she could not find another couple to double with her.  Finally she whined, "Why can't I go?. . . I'm not going to go all the way or anything."  To which my mother replied, "All the way to where?  San Bernardino?"  

How We Stopped Being Gypsies

We stopped being gypsies in 1948.  I was going to be a teenager the next year and my brother, Ron, was already a teenager.  The two of us got together and decided we did not want to move around any more.  We saw signs that the job in Death Valley was drawing to a close from overheard conversations around our "gypsy" camp composed entirely of employees of the paving company.  We had loved being in the same school for an entire school year, even if it was in Trona, California.  We roped our little sister, Patty, into our scheme.  We wrote up a "legal" petition to be put up for adoption in the best legalese we could muster.  We all three signed it and "served" our parents one Sunday morning after Sunday School. (I will do another post later about our religious education.)  They read it very seriously and asked us some questions about why we wanted to be put up for adoption.  Of course, it was all about not wanting to move around anymore.  We wanted to stay put during our teenage years.  It didn't matter where we were, even Trona, as long as we could stay in one place until we all graduated from high school.  We had never before expressed any objection to our life on the road.  We were always sad to leave our friends at school but our mom kept us focussed on the great new friends we would have in the new town.   It was true that as we got older it was harder and harder to make those new friends in the new town or to feel any connection to anyone but each other.  My best friends were always my brother and my sister.

Our parents listened very seriously. After a brief conversation outside, they told us they were going to go alone on the Sunday drive in order to consider our petition.  They told us they would give us their answer when they returned.  One of the women in our group would be home all day and we were to go to her if we needed anything.  So they left.  They were gone all day.  We had eaten the lunch Mom had left for us and now it was supper time. We proceeded to eat the supper Mom had left for us.  We had talked all day about who we thought might adopt us in Trona.  We thought one of our friends' parents or even a teacher might adopt us.  We were sure we would be split up since adding three kids and a dog at once to a family would probably be too much.  We decided that Rusty, our dog, would probably go with Ron.  We thought there was a chance that someone would adopt both of us girls together, but just in case it did not happen, we began talking about who would adopt Patty and me separately.  At this point Patty began to cry and said she didn't want to be adopted.  We convinced her that since she had already signed the petition she could not back out.  She cried all during dinner and finally went to lie down on our parent's bed.  When we finally heard the car on the gravel outside I was filled with dread about being adopted.  I was scared to admit that to my brother so I held my breath and put on a brave and determined face.

We got Patty up, still crying, as Mom and Dad came in.  Mom held Patty and told her it was going to be okay.  I assumed she meant that they would find nice families for all of us.  It was all I could do to maintain my determination and not burst into tears and pleading.  Thankfully, Daddy did not prolong the misery.  He immediately announced that he and Mom had decided that we would not be put up for adoption and that when the company moved in a few weeks we would all be moving with them.  I was so relieved but instead of expressing my relief I joined my brother in protest, exclaiming we would run away.  My sister was clearly not on our side and was only relieved and happy and just kept saying she was not going to run away.  We then had a lesson on compromise.  Daddy said we would move with the company and wherever that was, when the company moved on again, we would stay in that place until all of us graduated from high school.   That place turned out to be Palm Springs and so it came to be that we did stay there until all of us graduated from high school.  My parents had put down roots of their own by that time and they continued to live in Palm Springs after we all left the nest.

Years later, Mom told me they had decided what they were going to do fairly quickly.  They just took the day to go to San Bernardino, a drive of several hours, take in a movie and have a day to themselves.  I think they also took some pleasure in letting us stew for the entire day.  Mom denied that.  

   

How we became gypsies

We became gypsies when I was four years old, my brother was 5 and my sister was 3.  This would have been 1940 after my sister turned 3 in May and before my brother turned 6 in June.  My father got a job as heavy equipment mechanic on a road paving crew.  This crew travelled wherever there was a road to be paved.  We all lived in little trailers.  Ours was a 16ft. Howard trailer.  We pulled it with our old Chevy 2 door sedan.  My father worked nights on the equipment that the crew used all day for paving.  We had to be very quiet children since my father slept in the daytime.  My father was the only man on the crew with children.  Some men left their families at home in regular houses.  Others were married and their wives were with them but had no children.  Some were bachelors.  There were not really very many trailer parks in those days.  The first time I remember staying in a trailer park was in Modesto, CA.  I must have been 8 or 9 by then.  Each space was delineated with rocks painted white.  Each space had an old tire in the front, painted white, serving as a flower bed.  There were no patios, no trees.  Pretty primitive and yet we were not allowed to keep our dog, Rusty, there.  Yes, we had a dog.  Rusty was a yellow lab, a puppy we found in the middle of nowhere in the California desert.  Someone had dumped him on the side of the road in a cardboard box.  He lived long enough to spend his old age in an actual house when we finally left the gypsy life.  In Modesto he had to be tied up where the crew parked all their paving equipment.  So my father was there all night and the rest of the crew was there all day.

Mostly, we just stayed in city parks or some vacant area of whatever town and the city officials provided water and electricity for our use.  Water came in a water tank truck that belonged to the company.  Electricity was really a very long and heavy duty extension cord from the nearest place with electricity. The city usually took care of that.  Sometimes there was no electricity but we all had kerosene lanterns, sort of like camping.  The trailers must have had propane tanks, I don't remember.  I do remember our cooking stove was gas.  If we stayed in a park, there was usually a playground, which we loved.  Some parks had bathroom facilities, most did not.  The city would actually dig a big hole in the ground, put an outhouse on top of it and that was our toilet.  Baths were accomplished in a big galvanized tub.  Each trailer had one.  This tub also served for washing clothes.  My mother washed clothes every day so we did not need many.  They were dried on a wooden, collapsible clothes dryer thing.  Once a week, my dad strung a line for her between the trailer and the car for drying big items, like sheets and stuff.

My parents slept in the bedroom.  My sister and I slept on the fold out couch in the living room.  It was the kind that simply folded out flat and the seat and back of the seat were the mattress.  Our couch sat upon a big box.  You could lift up the seat and that is where we kept our bedding, clothes, toys and canned food.  My mother did her own canning.  I can't believe she was actually happy with a positive attitude under these circumstances.  My mother baked a pie every day of her life except when there was a birthday.  Those days she baked a cake.  She baked cookies daily also.  She had a little Singer sewing machine and made all of my dresses and my sister's dresses.  She often made dresses to match for our dolls.  By dolls I mean my sister had one and I had one.  Our possessions were very limited.  There were built in "night stands" on each side of the couch.  Each had two little drawers.  One was for my sister and one was for me.  We each had our own flashlight in the top drawer.  Our treasures were kept in those drawers.  No one was ever allowed to look into them.  Our books rested on top.  

My brother had a canvas room that snapped onto the side of the trailer.  He had a big oil cloth that served as his floor.  He slept on an old wooden army cot.  He had another army cot that he used to keep all his stuff on up off the floor.  His room, floor, both cots, bedding and all his clothes and stuff fit into the trunk of the car when we moved.  When we were really little we all shared the couch in the living room.  When he got into the stage where girls had cooties, they bought the room for him.  He was thrilled.  My sister and I were so jealous.  He seemed to have so much privacy and room!  Never mind that everyone had to enter and leave the trailer through his room.

Dishes were kept in shelves behind the table top that swung down and rested on a single hinged leg when the table was needed.  Pans were kept in the oven and bottom drawer of the stove.  When my mother baked, all the pans were temporarily put on the swing down table.  There were 6 hooks on the one long wall.  These hooks held each kid's towel and their coat.  My parents had an actual closet, very tiny, in their room and some built-in drawers.  As children, we were never told we could not have something or that we could not afford something.  We were simply asked, "Where are you going to put it?"  If we were willing to part with a toy or book we could have whatever it was that we so wanted.

One special shelf behind the table was for games.  Every night after dinner and before my father went to work, we played board games or cards.  Mom taught my sister and me how to play jacks on the trailer floor.  We made paper dolls with lavish wardrobes out of the Sears catalog.  Mom usually popped corn after my father went to work and we would all eat pop corn and listen to the radio if there was electricity available.  If not, we read books by the light of our lanterns.

The men worked six days a week so Sunday was always the day for a drive when we explored the area around us.  Whenever we took a Sunday drive my father made it an educational experience.  We prepared during the week under our mother's guidance for what we were going to go see on Sunday.  My father seemed to know everything there was to know about wherever we were.  At least that is what we thought.  We just assumed that Daddy is the one who told Mom these things when she told them to us.  She always started every piece of information with "Daddy says."  My mother always took us the the library of whatever town we were in.  She had this huge collection of library cards.  She didn't finish her 10th year of school, so she was uneducated.  She always talked to us about how smart our father was and that he had finished high school.  She always said he could have gone to college, he was so smart.  She learned things so she could teach us.  Years later, when I was in graduate school learning to administer IQ tests, I gave one in secret to my mother.  This was when we were living on the ranch.  She didn't want anyone to know she was taking the test because she was so sure she was not very smart.  She cried when I told her her IQ was 132 and what that meant.  That was when I began to look at my mother in a different light.  But back to our Sunday drive, we all had to write a little essay about what we saw on Sunday, including whatever historical marker we went to visit.  We changed schools so often our "Cum Folder" could never keep up with us from school to school.  We changed schools as much as five times in one school year, sometimes less often but on average 3 times a school year.  So my mother began getting our folders from the school before we left and carried them to the next school.  Our family was always the last to arrive at the next job site because we stopped at every historical marker, petting zoo, reptile museum and scenic turnout along the way, sometimes even a little out of the way.  We missed so much school that I think my parents thought that would help our education.  We always had to write our essays every night on the road.  Route 66 was the best road to travel as far as we children were concerned - museums and oddities at every turn and we stopped at them all.  Growing up I always gave my father credit for everything and looking back I realize my mother was our home schooling teacher.  And she did a good job.  We were never behind in school, in fact we were always ahead no matter where we went.





          

My Mother Proved We Were Not Pitiful

My family lived in Argus, a suburb of Trona, California in 1947-48. Argus consisted of a gas station and a big water tower. We went to school in Trona. Trona was, and still may be, a company town. The company was a potash company that made 20 Mule Team Borax and other things. Employees were paid in company script and did their shopping in the company store, attended church in the company church, saw movies in the company movie house. Well, really it was a movie tent. Trona is in the same area of the California desert as Death Valley. In fact we were there because the paving company my father worked for was paving the road into Death Valley. We were there for an entire school year (a rarity) so I have lots of memories of my time there. I truly mean a school year, not a calendar year. I don't remember being able to attend any school for the entire school year until we moved to Palm Springs. We were able to shop and get things in Trona because people in Trona sometimes wanted cash they could spend in the nearest big city, San Bernardino. So we traded our cash for their script. All three of us kids learned to swim in Argus in the gigantic water tower with its mossy sides and no shallow end. My father would tread water and took turns holding us while we learned to swim. It was the only way to get cool. I trust this water was somehow filtered before it finally reached our little trailer home but I can't worry about that now. We were the only kids in Argus and had to have special permission to go to school in Trona with the company kids. None of the crew that traveled around the U.S. with the paving company had any children except for our parents. We learned to play poker at a very early age in order to have something to do with all the adults in our world. There was always someone to watch out for us and always some adult willing to play some silly game with us. It was a strange childhood but of course we knew nothing else.

To get to the point, my teacher that year was doing a social studies unit on the lives of itinerant farm workers and their children. She described their very sad lives of never staying in one place, sometimes not even long enough to bother to go to school. When they did go to school, they had a hard time making friends and by the time they did, it was time to move again. They couldn't really participate in any school activities because they were never there long enough to learn and play a part in any school plays or anything like that. This story of these pitiful children went on and on, every story a reflection of my life. Finally, she told how sometimes they could not go to school because they had no shoes to wear. Naturally, I went home that day and told my mother that we were pitiful children who lived sad lives. I knew it was true because my teacher said so. My mother listened patiently until I got to the part where these pitiful children had no shoes and she calmly said, "Well, Bobbie, you have shoes so you are not pitiful." She asked me if I felt sad and I said no, so we concluded together that the teacher was not describing our lives and we were not pitiful. What a relief.

Homemade noodle recipe

When I was first married I asked my mother for her recipe for homemade noodles that she always used whenever she made chicken-noodle soup. She laughed and went to retrieve her recipe. Thus I became part of a multi-generational joke. When she was first married, she asked her mother-in-law for a recipe for homemade noodles and was given the same piece of paper my mother handed me that day. She said Grandma Newlin laughed also when she gave Mom that recipe. The recipe was the same recipe that Grandma Newlin was given when she was a young girl. Mom didn't know whether it was Grandma Goff or Grandma White who first wrote down the recipe, but she thought it was Grandma Goff.

Make a pile of flour, as much as you want.

Make a hole in the flour and put an egg in it.

Fill up the small half of the shell with water and put it in the hole.

Mix with your hands.

This recipe was full of very quaintly spelled words. I kept it and all my other recipes from Mom in a gray department store shirt box. The last time I remember having my box of recipes was when I lived in Mountlake Terrace in Washington. Whatever happened to the box during my move I cannot say. The spelling was something this: "Mak a pil of flowr, az mutch az yu wunt." I had always intended to have that recipe framed to hang on my kitchen wall. Just one of the many things I intended to do and never got around to doing. The memory of it still brings a smile to my face.

Grandma Goff

I may mean Grandma White, but I am pretty sure it is Grandma Goff. Jenny has both of the marriage certificates for Grandma White and Grandma Goff so she can check on which is which for sure. Anyway, assuming I am remembering correctly, Grandma Goff is Grandma Newlin's mother and Grandma White is Grandma Goff's mother. I have pictures of all these people and wish I knew how to scan them and add them to these posts. If ever I figure it out, I will add the pictures to the appropriate posts. In the meantime, here is what I remember.

Grandma Goff stayed on the family farm in Iowa until her death when she was in her nineties. She came to visit us in Palm Springs when I was in high school. She took the train and we picked her up at the train depot in San Bernardino. She looked absolutely ancient to me dressed in her "good dress," overcoat, hat, gloves and 4 buckle galoshes over her sensible shoes. Galoshes are those black rubber boots that people used to wear to protect their shoes from the weather and keep their feet warm. It was winter in Iowa so they were necessary when she got on board the train. She was afraid to take her galoshes off during the journey because she was sure someone would steal them.

We lived on Indian Avenue in Palm Springs in a house that we rented. Grandma Goff used to lecture us kids about taking care of our teeth and not eating too much candy. She was proud that she still had her own teeth. I remember she did not have many of those teeth, but what she had were her own. Mom kept a clear glass, carved candy dish on the coffee table full of hard candy or fudge. Mom made the candy herself and we had that candy dish for all of my childhood. I don't know what eventually happened to it. I can see it clearly today in my mind's eye. And I remember Mom making her fudge or hard candy. Anyway, that dish had a lid and all the time Grandma Goff was visiting we could hear the clink of that lid as she helped herself to candy all day long. Mom made a lot of candy during that visit.

Grandma Goff was feisty. You can imagine what an adventure it was for her to take the train from Iowa to California at her age. She wanted to see her only child, Grandma Newlin, and her California grandchildren (my dad and Aunt Shirley) and her three California great grandchildren - me, my brother, Ron, and my sister, Patty. Aunt Shirley's two daughters had both died, one at age 7 of kidney disease and the other as a teenager from a fall off the mountains surrounding San Bernardino during a family outing. My cousin's name was Dolores and I am not remembering her sister's name who died before.

The story my mom told me about Grandma Goff was that she never left the family farm while she was married to Mr. Goff. Remember he was the one who would not allow Grandma Newlin to marry the man of her own choice. He was so jealous of his wife that he was sure if she ever went into town some man was going to steal her away from him. So he did all the shopping in town. He died when they were both old, I'm guessing in their seventies. Everyone thought Grandma Goff would die shortly after he did since she was so dependent upon him. Well, she didn't. Instead, she had electricity and indoor plumbing brought to the farm. She had always wanted to have electricity and indoor plumbing but Mr. Goff would not allow it because it meant bringing men to the farm. Did I say he was very jealous and controlling? She started driving the horse and buggy into town every Sunday to attend church - another thing he never allowed. People started visiting her at the farm. She became what my mother called a social butterfly, fluttering around town and her house always full of visitors.

Grandma Goff died not too long after her visit to California. Mom said she fell off the ladder while wallpapering her dining room, broke her hip and never recovered. I'm glad she had those years of freedom and finally living her own life after Mr. Goff died.

It is sobering to think about how women were so subjugated, even during my lifetime. Think about this: When Mandy was a baby, I had to have my husband's permission and signature to open a charge account at Sears (which he declined to allow) while he could and did use our home as collateral for a personal loan from his mother without my knowledge or signature, resulting in my ultimate eviction from our home after Alan was born when she foreclosed on the house. Of course, she ultimately returned the house to him and forgave the loan once the divorce was final. I'm just saying, we women were still legally under the control of men as late as the 60's. It makes me want to cry when I think about my great grandmother finally being able to be her true vivacious self only after her husband died. My grandmother on my mother's side, Baba, told me the last twelve years of her life after my grandfather died were the happiest of her life. But that is a story for another blog. I am inclined to forgive myself for all the really stupid things I have done in my life regarding men which I did not have to do. We have come a long way legally and the ingrained sense of being dependent on men will take a little longer for women of my generation and my daughters' generation to overcome.

To be fair, men were also trapped in these circumstances and a product of the times of their lives. Even though my father was a loving, hard-working man who took his responsibilities seriously and those responsibilities did not allow him to pursue his dreams either, still the world was a much better place for him than it was for my mother. His mother, his wife and I have been very affected by the control he exerted over our lives. (For example, he refused to allow me to accept a 4 year scholarship to Stanford because the student who came in second for that scholarship was a boy who would need that education to support his family. Luckily, I was offered another scholarship from the Univ. of Calif. where the next student in line was another girl so that was the one I took. Also, it was understood that the reason I was going to college was to "make a good marriage" to a college educated boy which I did during my freshman year. Mission Accomplished. End of school. Start of children and family. Mind you, I bought this whole plan and felt my life was proceeding as it was meant to be and as I wanted it to be. I do remember my mother being a little sad that I married so soon and did not finish college. She always felt that not being educated or able to work forced her into situations not of her choosing. She certainly felt that way about living at the ranch. Ah, the ranch. Now that is truly a blog topic all it own.

The Story of Grandma Newlin

This is what my mother told me about Grandma Newlin and what I remember about her. She graduated from high school, which was a rarity in those days. She was considered to be very smart. She was an only child and her immigrant parents relied on her for things requiring "book learning," like reading and doing figures. She fell in love with a neighboring farm boy. Her parents did not approve because he was not Irish. So they ran off to get married. The Justice of the Peace stalled them at his house and sent word to her father who promptly retrieved her and put her under "house arrest." They quickly married her off to Mr. Newlin who was from the old country and worked on their farm. He was much older than she. (I think my mother said he was 20 years older, but I'm not sure.) They had four children, 3 girls (Shirley, Mona and Lila) and my father, Grant, second born. When my father was 8 years old, Mr. Newlin had a stroke. He was downtown and people around him thought he was drunk. A friend of his said, "That is Mr. Newlin. He does not drink a drop. He must be sick." He was brought home in the back of a wagon, paralyzed from the neck down and unable to talk. He lived another 40 years in that condition. I remember visiting him as a child.

Once, my father told me what he remembered about that day. He said that he always worked along side his father on the farm. When the lunch or dinner bell rang, they would go to the pump and wash their hands along with the other farm hands. He saw that they worked the bar of soap back and forth to lather it up. He could not do that as his hands were too small, so he rolled it around and around in his hands so as not to drop it. He complained to his father that he wanted to be able to rub the soap back and forth in his hands like the men did. His father told him that he did not need to worry, that he would be able to do that when he became a man. When they brought his father home after his stroke, the doctor took my father aside and said very gravely, "You are the man of the house now, Grant, and it is your job to take care of your mother and sisters and this farm." After everyone left and it was time to get the children in bed, Grandma Newlin went looking for my father after dinner. She found him at the pump. He had been practicing working the soap back and forth for hours. His hands were red and raw. Soap was not gentle in those days. He refused to come indoors until he had mastered this skill. He had to be a man. My father was so somber when he told me that story. From that day forward, he worked on the farm and at paying jobs to bring in the cash his family needed. His mother insisted that he continue school as well. He never "played" again. He said that was when he became a man with responsibilities. My father was hard-working and responsible his whole life.

Grandma Newlin did sewing for paying customers. She taught me how to sew and do needlework. She taught me how to darn socks and do embroidery. She taught me how to tat and crochet. She had cancer of the larynx when I was a young girl. She lived the rest of her life with a tube in her throat that she had to put her finger on in order to speak. I always thought that was fascinating. She worked at Goodwill when I was in high school and she always brought us kids interesting stuff from work. (Mandy, that is where she got the old clock you have in a box upstairs.) She had that clock for years and as far as I can remember it used to work.

When I was in high school, Grandma Newlin would often drive to our house in Palm Springs from San Bernardino where she lived. Her car was always covered with dents and scratches. She often complained about what terrible drivers people in California were compared to drivers in Iowa and Nebraska. Once, when she was visiting, she took me to a friend's house to spend the night because my parents were gone somewhere in our car. When my father came to get me the next day I told him about my harrowing drive with Grandma. She thought that if you turned on your signal, that gave you the right-of-way to turn and oncoming traffic was supposed to stop. She pointed out to me all the terrible drivers in California who just had accidents all around her. My father took a ride with her that afternoon and that was the end of Grandma driving. I don't think she was as old as I am now, but she was very confused about the modern turn signals. She learned to drive with arm signals and attributed too much power to the new electric signals. Grandma protested that she would stop doing that now that she understood, but my father was still the man of that family and she had to do as he said. I don't think Grandma Newlin ever forgave him for that.

Eventually Grandma Newlin's cancer returned in her throat and she had to go to the hospital for an operation. She "died" on the operating table and the surgeons had to revive her heart. She was very angry when she finally awoke from the surgery. She described a very typical near death experience of peace and complete happiness, a white light she was drawn to and no wish to return to her body. She was ready to leave this life. Shortly she took her own life by an overdose of insulin that she injected daily. She was a woman of her time. Her father had control of her and who she married. Her husband had control of her until her son assumed that role and kept it for the rest of her life. Her last act on this Earth was to take control of her own death. I admire her for that.