Early Memories

8 Jul 2010

It seems like I have written all this before, but I don’t know when. My early years were not too exciting, but I will try to remember and put it down on paper while I can write. My hands are numb and I never was very good in penmanship.

My first recollection of early years I think I was in a big store in Minnesota with Grandmother Swan. I was 3 or 4 and was crying. She bought me a large toy ice delivery truck, all steel, black and yellow. I kept it for about 70 years. My son, Steve, has it now.

I remember my dad, always a butcher (meat-cutter), working for Safeway and others. We moved a lot as he opened new stores and stayed until they were stable, then on to another. Delano, CA—Pomona, CA—Green River(?), Palms, Highland Park, Ave 42 and Figueroa. We lived in Fairview, UT with Grandma and Grampa Christensen for, I guess, a year. I went to school there in 1^st or 2^nd grade. I remember this because the teacher was going to teach us to use water colors and keep the water clear—but we left before I learned. I went to several other schools, but they never did teach me; as a result I never became a great, noted painter—except for fences and flat walls.

My sister was crippled with arthritis, so we carried her always, and she spent many hours with a large cardboard box over her stretched-out legs that was heated with a couple of light globes. Heat seemed to help. She never completely recovered, but went to handicap school until high school—still has some problems. There is a 5 year difference in our age, so I must have been 6-7.

When we lived in Palms, near the old Helms bakery, I got scarlet fever and was quarantined then developed mastoiditis and was sent to General Hospital, LA, for surgery, then got nephritis, so was in the hospital for some time. I remember mother coming to visit me; I was resting in bed. She saw me in bed, thought I had a relapse, and fainted to the floor. She had a lot of tension. I may have been 8 or 9.

While in Palms, there was a large earthquake (1933) in Long Beach. The kitchen stove just walked to the middle of the floor.

When we lived on Ave 43, we lived in a court which was very popular for the time. Usually 6-8 houses on a lot in a U-shape—no garages. One car per family was the rule. We were near the train tracks that followed the Arroyo Seco, near the Lamas Adobe. The arroyo usually had water and a stream; we dammed it up and made a small swim hole—no fish, but frogs and pollywogs were fun. There were big boulders near the train tracks, so big we could have a hideout with
candles—a clubhouse. I walked to the Latona Ave School in the 5^th grade. They put me in the opportunity room program, which was supposed to be for advanced students. I don’t think it did me a service—we put on a play about Lewis and Clark, and I did a research paper on Franklin D. Roosevelt. I think it was more fun than learning.

I spent my summers with Grandma Christensen, with Steve and Elsie, in Fairview. Summers, grandfather always gave us work to do when I went to visit. I don’t know how old I was. I remember putting the hay away with a hay wagon and a couple of horses. It was the boys’ job to tromp it, jump up and down and make it more compact. We thought it was fun, but Grampa told us it was work. In the back of the lot was a hay barn for feeding the animals, and the corral. We had to put the hay up in the loft. We usually had one cow we’d bring in from the meadow. The hay had to be stacked on the second floor with a rope and a pulley with a fork on the end. The rope was hooked to a horse who walked about 25 yards. My job was to sit on the horse and walk him the short distance. I was maybe 5 or 7.

The sleeping quarters at grandma’s house was a sheep wagon with a bed and a stove. The bed was big enough for 3 boys. We could get up and go to bed whenever we wanted. The bathroom facility was an outhouse—a 2-hole wooden structure. The girls could use indoor plumbing, but the boys went outside and used an old Sears catalog for paper.

I remember my conversation with RJ and Jerry [cousins] in the sheep wagon. I had seen several airplanes since I lived in Los Angeles, and they had never seen one. So I got to tell them about it and they were quite amazed. Times have changed.

One of the problems with the hay wagon was that I was afraid of snakes. Grampa warned us that there were rattlers around. I don’t remember seeing any, but I was always a little apprehensive…but it was part of my duty to tromp the hay.

[The photos above are Grandmother Laura Content and Grampa JW Christensen.]