'57 Hudson Wasp

This is our brand new Hudson that we bought in 1957. The seats folded down and made a full-size bed. We took it on a trip to Oregon and used it as our motel. We stuffed a folded mattress in between the seats and the kids used it for a bed. That was way before seat belts were invented. The front seat was 60 inches wide so it was the roomiest car we ever had. The rest of the time Peggy & Patti were hauled around in their folding beds in the back seat.

We Add to Our Family

Carl was born three months after my 19th birthday and two weeks after our first anniversary, on August 11 1955. Notice our new clothes dryer, the wooden rack in the background.

Two weeks before Carl was born I answered a knock in the mid morning to two suited young men my own age. With hats in their hands their ties neatly covering the buttons of their white shirts they announced “We’re ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” My new mother-in-law had told me that the Ward Teachers would soon come to visit and they would check on us to see if we were doing ok. Each month for nearly a year she had said the same thing. I was pretty tired of telling her they hadn’t come.“I don’t understand it! I told your Bishop, I told your Stake President” I asked the two young“What church?” as I had been subjected to a long “visit” by the JW’s. When they told me I replied “Well it’s about time you got here! I’ve been waiting for nearly a year.” Later I was told their meeting down the street had cancelled and they were “hit and miss” tracting on the way back to their bikes which were chained up at the corner. I still thought they were the Ward Teachers and didn’t know they were missionaries. The Ward Teachers never did come but the missionaries came back again. John knew who they were and set me up with questions to ask them: “Where are your horns?” Without a change of expression Elder Clegg replied “I’m a muley m’am I just got dehorned come Spring.” I didn’t understand. John however cracked up and laughed til he nearly cried when I recounted the tale. Six weeks after Carl was born I was baptized.

When Carl was seven months old the Mare Island Apprentice Blue Devils basketball team, on which John played, went to Washington for a series. The trip lasted a week. As the train pulled out my tears flowed like rain. I didn't remember the difficulties we’d been having getting along nor how much I'd looked forward to having a week to myself I just felt all alone in the world.

It seems we hardly had room to be proud parents when we announced the birth, fifteen months later, of our second AND third, identical twin girls. Exhaustion blacked out most of my twenty-first year but I do remember having told my mother-in-law I would never want to live my life over, once was enough!

When I did the laundry (which was nearly constantly!) The playpen kept the twins safe from harm or Carl who liked to pick them up. They grew as fast as weeds and were soon trying to crawl. They kept me hopping.

For identification purposes information was taped on each twin so no mistakes could be made.

Our First Move

Our first move was into an old house in on Avilla Street in El Cerrito that had been turned into two “flats.”The bathtub was so short we had to draw up our knees to sit in it. At $12.50 a week we didn’t want to stay long.

Thanks to John’s GI Bill and $350.00 of his savings bonds (+ $10,000 @ $68. p/mo) we were able to purchase a house in Castlewood Gardens in the foothills of eastern Vallejo which we watched grow from a field of hay to a bustling community of several hundred homes. We drove 25 miles every night after work to count the 2x4's and nails put in each day then drove home again to our dinky apartment in El Cerrito. We were so sentimental!

John planted the lawn after digging the whole front yard up with a shovel then he had to mow it when it grew with his new push mower, the only one in the world that had been shipped without a handle!

Marriage

We wanted to get married right away but postponed the wedding twice, for two weeks each time.

I made my wedding dress but Jody’s mother finished the piping on it. I made my veil. The Bride’s picture was taken at Jody’s house about 6ish pm.



Daddy & I had to cross the multi-purpose room (basketball court) to get to the ceremony site. They wouldn’t let the marriage take place in the chapel. Someone notified us they were ready for us so we started the long trek. I kept urging Daddy to hurry but he said “You’re the bride. They’ll wait for you.” Later John said he got very nervous when Here Comes the Bride began to play for the 3rd time! Everything finally came together and we were married in the lounge of the Claremont Chapel in Berkeley on the 24th of July 1954.

We Are Wed

My First Blog

Welcome to my blog. I'm new at this. Technology isn't for old dogs. I am going to attempt to reminisce happily for me, I hope not tediously for you.
Wish me luck!

My Story

On my 18th birthday my friend Jody Scott invited me to go roller skating with her. She was a pairs dancing Silver Medalist. At the time I didn’t know what that meant or that she could dance circles around me, literally! The rental skates were so bad the fellow in charge of renting them took pity on me and gave me a brand new pair to try. I ended up buying them and told Jody “I’m gonna catch my husband with these.” Less than a month later on 2 June 1954 I started to work in the mail room at Shell Oil Development Company in Emeryville, California. After work I went home to the government housing apartment in Richmond I shared with my father. I was excited about my new job and wanted to share that excitement with someone so I went to the local “hole in the wall” skating rink. After changing into my very short skirted skating costume I rolled out to the benches where Zeke, a friend of mine was lacing up his skates. “Hi Zeke!” The fellow next to him said

“You didn’t say hi to me!”

“I don’t know you.” I replied.

That was the beginning.

It was love at first sight but it wasn’t a whirlwind courtship like the love stories you read about. We didn’t have a courtship at all.