Remember

Cars, Then and Now

2011-09-10T07:05:00.002-06:00

My granddaughter, Ashley, has an assignment to find out about "Cars: Then and Now."

She has to answer three questions about cars in her life, and she asked me to answer

the same questions about cars in my life when I was a child.

We lived in San Francisco in the 1940s and 1950s. Ashley lives in a city in New Hampshire.

I hope to post Ashley's answers eventually, too.

Five places we regularly drove to when I was a child:

1. The zoo

2. Swimming lessons at Fleischhacker Pool, which was then the largest swimming pool

in the world. See pix here.

3. The Safeway grocery store, which was around 12 blocks away

4. The Stonestown Mall, which was the first mall we had ever heard of.

You can see an old postcard picture here.

5. To our rich cousin's place in southern California for summer vacations. (He bought a

house once owned by The Beach Boys, and we loved taking showers in the Beach Boys'

bathroom).

Five places I regularly walked to when I was a child:

1. My school, Francis Scott Key (Annex). Pictures here. It was six blocks away.

2. Golden Gate Park. It was just three blocks away.

3. Playland at the Beach, a creepy/fun place. Pictures here.

4. Ocean Beach, just a block and a half from our house.

5. The movie theater, and the ice skating rink, both just a couple of blocks away.

How my childhood would have been different if there hadn't been any cars:

My childhood wouldn't have been much different. We could walk to lots of stuff nearby;

or we could take the streetcar, which would take us downtown for shopping, or to Fisherman's

Wharf to buy fresh crabs. I learned to take the streetcar up to the public library on 19th Ave.

by myself--a distance of about 30 city blocks.

The big difference would have been that we wouldn't have had a car to take annual two

week summer vacations, but then we would have taken the train, instead. In fact, my mom

took me on the train when I was just three years old, and we traveled from San Francisco

to Maine. I still have the menus. (You can read about it at A Train Trip With My Mother).

The Kids

2011-07-07T07:03:00.003-06:00

With our 30th wedding anniversary coming up later this year, it's fun to take a look at our blended family and think that we have been a part of all of their lives now. Some have been there all of those thirty years, and some came a bit later.

Left to right: Emily, Aimee, Karlie, Isabella, Rocket, Mason, Big Chris, and Little Chris

Ben at White Sands, New Mexico

Dee and her kids

Dee and Melina

Left to right: Ashley, Mike, Rebecca, Caleb, and Joey

Ashley and Rebecca

Easter Benny

2011-04-24T10:48:00.000-06:00

Happy Easter!

Ben, age 4

A Son Grows Up

2011-03-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

This is Ben in the 2nd grade. Our local school participated in a district-wide gifted program that was housed in a portable at a school several miles away. The kids got to be with Mr. Dugger in his wonderful Quest classroom once a week. Ben is in the back row on the far right.

This is a more recent photo of Ben (4th from left) hanging out with friends in New York City, where he has lived since going off to NYU quite a few years ago. He is an accountant by day, and an actor by night. James (far right) was a classmate from 3rd grade on.

Elementary School, San Francisco in the 1950s

2011-03-03T16:02:00.001-07:00

Kindergarten
I am in the front with the dark plaid dress, white collar, and ringlets
They told us that our teeth should show when we smiled, which accounts for our rather ferocious-looking expressions

After my family moved out West from Maine when I was an infant, I lived in San Francisco until I was 11 years old and about to go into the 6th grade. All of these photos were taken at my two schools in San Francisco's Sunset District, the Francis Scott Key School and its Annex. Information about the Annex can be found on this page under "Other Improvements and Neighborhood Amenities" on the extensive historical site, Western Neighborhoods Project; Preserving the History of San Francisco's West Side.

It was pretty surprising to look up my old school and find that my experience is considered historical! I can gaze at these photos for a very long time, looking at the rooms and the kids, and picking out details. Look at the formality of our school clothes--all the girls are wearing dresses, and everyone's "school shoes" were kept for "good."

I also like to see that the teachers in Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades set up hands-on experiences, like the play grocery stores. When you look at the third grade photo, you can see that we have pretty much put all that nonsense behind us in favor of sit-at-the-desk type learning. Nowadays, much of the school day is spent doing hand-on learning at all levels.

However, I really loved the structure and quietness of the structured school room. Those little desks in a straight row, with the books and papers lined up just so were very satisfying to me. When I was older, in 6th grade I believe, I visited the third grade class where my mother taught, using the new methods. I found the noise and apparent chaos quite disconcerting, with children moving all around the room from learning station to learning station.

First grade
I am on the left in the first row with the short kids
That Scottish-looking outfit was designed and sewn by my mother

Second grade
I am in the first row, just above "Scott" on the classroom sign, trying to keep Ronald's boy cooties off me

Third grade
Real structure has set in. I am in the back, in front of the boy (Danny) with the dark vest
I am amazed at how many names I can remember; in fact there are just a few that I can't recall
The short term memory, of course, is pretty far gone, as befits a historical figure

A Train Trip with My Mother

2011-01-04T04:00:00.003-07:00

This post first appeared on my other blog, The Zees Go West, in 2009.

I was born in Maine. When I was just three months old, my adventurous parents put my bassinet between them on the front seat of the car and headed west to a promised postwar job in the shipyard at San Francisco. Three and a half years later, in 1948, my mother took me on a train trip back to Maine to visit the relatives. Many years later, when I had a three-year old of my own, I took him on a train trip from Washington state to northern California, a total of 18 hours. We had lots of fun, but I can only admire my own mother's fortitude in taking me on a multi-day train trip across the entire country.

All I can remember about my train trip with my mother was the new brown and pink plaid dress she had sewn for me to wear. It had a little "built-in" pink apron, and my mom and I decided that the apron would be perfect for gathering eggs when we got to Uncle Murray's farm.

Reality was quite different from my imaginings. Yes, I wore that little dress out to the hen house but, as a shy and urban child, I could not make my peace with those fierce hens. I do remember feeling extremely offended when Uncle Murray offered me some fresh milk out in the barn. I agreed that a serving of milk would be a good thing, but was shocked when he delivered it by aiming at me with the cow's teat. It was a little too fresh for my citified taste!

Luckily for me, my mother saved the children's menus from the train trip. A little research on the Internet has helped me to piece together a few facts. Two of my menus are marked with the date and I found the same menus on eBay, so now I know that we traveled part of the way on the Union Pacific Railroad. From what I can tell by looking at old railroad route maps, I am assuming that we went to Omaha, and then to Chicago, and then on to New England.

Here are the breakfast, luncheon, and dinner menus for the well-traveled child in the postwar United States. They are an interesting glimpse into our past.

In Honor of My Mother's Birthday

2010-12-27T04:00:00.018-07:00

This post was first published on The Zees Go West on December 27, 2008.

My mother, Elva, was born on December 27, 1914, and died in 1997, although we would have sworn that she was immortal. In honor of her birthday, I'd like to share one of my favorite photos of her, which was taken in 1978.

I would like to pretend that she was an intrepid explorer who discovered a great many antiquities in Egypt, but I'm afraid that this photo is a little too revealing. Note the old gentleman in the background wearing a vacation outfit--a sure tip-off that this photo was staged as part of a retired teachers' tour of Egyptian sightseeing highlights. And, for heaven's sake, check out the purse (always referred to as a pocket book by my mother) she is carrying. It's a rare explorer who carries a purse when riding off toward adventure in the desert.

Still, she was a brave woman who had planned to see the world together with my dad when he retired. Sadly, he died before they could travel, so she just went ahead on her own.

Happy Birthday, Mother. I'll bet you are riding around Heaven, exploring on a camel.

Santa and Me, Part 4

2010-12-23T06:05:00.000-07:00

When Mason's Auntie Dee saw his terrified "Santa and Me" photo, she remembered a little Santa terror of her own and sent along this photo from her childhood.

This is certainly one of the more sinister Santas that I've seen!

Santa and Me, Part 3

2010-12-21T04:00:00.007-07:00

Well, you've seen Santa terrorizing my tiny little brother-in-law-to-be (see Santa and Me, Part 1 and Part 2). Now it's my turn. Here I am, in one of my mom's spectacular home-sewn coat and hat sets. I might not have been screaming my head off but, believe me, the fear is there under the surface. I am pointing out my parents, in the hope that they will remember to come and get me off. this. man's. lap.

A year or two later, I am still calling out to my parents, with hope and fear and thoughts of abandonment.

However, I continued to believe in Santa, as this corny staged photo shows. My dad got me to explain to my dog, Pete, how Santa was going to bring the presents to our house--right down the chimney, of course!

Generation after generation, we continue the Santa tradition, and I'll bet you do, too. Here are grandchildren Isabella, Mason, and little Chris. Mason does what all frightened children do--he grabs onto his ears, just in case Santa has thoughts of stealing them away.

Santa terrorizing Mason

Santa and Me, Part 2

2010-12-16T04:00:00.030-07:00

In the previous post, we last saw poor baby Ronnie looking at the bearded guy in fear and disbelief. This first photo shows his older brother, Billy (who became my husband much later), looking as though he is willing to give this business a try. He's not sure how the whole thing will work out, though.

Here we are, the following year. Although Santa is really trying--note the present little Ronnie is holding and the bells the Santa is jingling--the youngest brother is still showing the good sense to be very afraid of the red-suited guy.

Billy, who discovered that the presents he listed for Santa actually showed up under his tree the previous Christmas, is anxiously waiting to get a word in edgewise.

The same attitudes prevail a year or two later. Billy is starry-eyed, possibly thinking of a Red Ryder BB gun; while Ronnie looks like he is hoping that he doesn't get another darned bow tie in his stocking this time!

The last of the Santa pictures will appear next Tuesday. Stay tuned!

Santa and Me

2010-12-14T04:00:00.002-07:00

It's a firmly established tradition, the photo of the kids with Santa. It's also a given that the children in the photos will be scared to death, having been passed from loving arms into the lap of a stranger who looks like no one ever seen in a little kid's life.

I've been gathering up our family Santa photos from the 1940s and 1950s. Some are of Bill and his little brother, Ron; and some are of me. I'll show them here over the next couple of weeks.

The photo covers from Bill and Ron's Santa experiences were very retro. One was even done by Leonard Weisgard, who became familiar to me as a children's book illustrator when, much later, I became a children's librarian. Here are three of those covers:

And here is the first in a series of photos of the frightened children in our family, learning about this most peculiar of Christmas traditions. We start with poor little baby Ronnie, who can't believe his eyes:

I will show you more photos in a couple of days.

Family Nicknames

2010-12-07T04:00:00.112-07:00

I don't ever remember any of my grandparents; three of them were already dead by the time I was born. Although I might have met my maternal grandmother when I was an infant, my parents and I moved across the country when I was only three months old and she died before I saw her again. So, even though I don't really know what I might have called my grandmothers or grandfathers, I always felt a little jealous of friends and relatives who referred to their Mimi, or Grampy, or Memere, etc.

Recently, one of Bill's cousins sent some photos of a branch of the Mallozzi family to her daughter, along with the nicknames for her aunts, uncles, and grandparents. She was kind enough to send us a set, too. I was charmed by the names, and hope you might be, too. Here they are.

Aunt Annie, Noni, Meema, and Beebop

Beebop, Uncle Eddie, [Phil], Meema, Aunt Annie, Boompa and Uncle Jimmy

Boompa, his brother Jimmy, Jimmy's wife Kaye, Mooma, Donnasue

Meema, Beebop, Boompa, Uncle Jimmy, Mooma, Donnasue

Noni & Meema

Uncle Eddie, Aunt Annie and Noni

What do you call your grandparents?

*****

Key to the family shown:

Noni: Allesandra Mallozzi, who was Bill's grandmother (her husband, Vincenzo, is not shown). Bill's mother was a Mallozzi and was another daughter of Allesandra and Vincenzo; and sister to Frances.

Meema: Frances Mallozzi Tucciarone (Allesandra and Vincenzo's daughter)
Beebop: John Tucciarone (Frances' husband)

Aunt Annie: Anna Tucciarone Abazia (daughter of Frances and John)
Uncle Eddie: Ed Abazia (Anna's husband-to-be)

Boompa: Phil Tucciarone (Frances and John's son; brother of Anna)
Mooma: Lydia Tucciarone (husband of Phil)

Uncle Jimmy: Jimmy Tucciarone (Frances and John's son; Phil and Anna's brother)

Donnasue Tucciarone (daughter of Phil and Lydia)

Mallozzi-Zarges Wedding, Part 3: The Reception

2010-11-02T04:00:00.002-06:00

The wedding, Part 1 (The Beautiful Bride) and Part 2 (At the Church)

To wind up the story of the wedding ceremony for Delia Mallozzi and William Zarges, we have some photos that were taken at the reception and at the family home.

Left to right: Mary Mallozzi, Amalio Mallozzi, Alessandra (Noni) Mallozzi, William Zarges, Delia Mallozzi Zarges, Frances, Gennaro, Vincenzo (Papa) Mallozzi, Filippina (Pucci) Mallozzi, and Philip Mallozzi.

The bride, Delia

Getting ready to throw the garter

Such an interesting photo: An unknown sailor with Mary Mallozzi, and the bride and groom. Did Mary, who never married, once have a boyfriend? Sadly, there is probably no one left alive who would be able to tell us.

Mary Mallozzi, the maid of honor, dances with the best man

The wedding supper

Mallozzi-Zarges Wedding, Part 2: At the Church

2010-10-21T04:00:00.040-06:00

Part 1: The Beautiful Bride

The pictorial record of the wedding of Delia Mallozzi and William Zarges, July 1946, Stamford, Connecticut, continues:

Delia and her father arriving at the church

The bride and her father start down the aisle

A ritual farewell to her parents

Just married!

Maid of honor, Mary Mallozzi, with the best man (name unknown)

Mallozzi-Zarges Wedding, Part 1: The Beautiful Bride

2010-10-07T04:00:00.042-06:00

In Stamford, Connecticut, on a warm July day in 1946, Delia Mallozzi and William Zarges got married. Here are some of the photos from their wedding album.

Although our children were never to know Bill's* mother, Delia (their grandmother), I am sure that they will appreciate this glimpse into the beginning of a marriage that made such a difference to all of us who followed.

The home of Delia's parents remained in the family and will look very familiar to our kids. Much of the furniture, and even the arrangement of the rooms, remained the same until the recent death of Delia's sister, Mary Mallozzi.

The beautiful bride, Delia Mallozzi

Delia and her sister and maid of honor, Mary Mallozzi

Delia and her mother

The wedding party on the front steps of the family home on Wilson Street

Delia and her father arrive at the church

* The names get a little confusing. Delia and Bill (Sr.) were the parents of my husband, Bill (Jr.). One of Bill Jr.'s children is named Delia, for her grandmother.

Five Generations

2010-09-30T04:00:00.164-06:00

I've always thought that the Zarges men looked alike when they were little boys. Here is our chance to find out, as we are lucky enough to have photos of five generations.

We start with Christopher (Little Chris) Zarges:

2005

2007

Little Chris' father:

"Big Chris," 1980

"Big Chris," his wife, Aimee, and children (l. to r.) Emily, Isabella, and Little Chris, 2000

Little Chris' grandfather:

Bill Zarges, Jr., born in 1948

Bill Zarges in 1982

Little Chris' great-grandfather:

William Zarges, Sr. as a child, on the right, 1922 (?)
(Shown with his father, John Zarges, and sister, Trudy)

William Zarges, Sr. in France in 1945

Little Chris' great-great-grandfather:

I'm pretty sure that this is John Zarges (1877-1954), as a boy in Germany

John Zarges as a young man (you can see him with his children, a few photos above)

Do you think that there is a family resemblance?

The boys, left to right:
John;
John's son, William, on the right;
William's son, William, Jr.;
William, Jr.'s son Chris

The men (left to right):
John;
John's son, William;
William's son, William, Jr.;
William Jr.'s son, Chris, who is with daughter Isabella and son Little Chris

Family Stew

2010-09-28T04:00:00.048-06:00

When we lived in eastern New Mexico we met quite a number of very conservative folks. Because New Mexico shares a border with (old) Mexico, border issues are always of interest. In discussions about the border, many of the people we talked to seemed to be angry at any immigrants, whether legal or illegal.

In their minds, I believe, there was a clear separation between us (those of us who have been in this country for a while) and them (those people who have very recently arrived, or who want to come here). I found it a fascinating distinction, since we are truly a nation of immigrants, and there must be only a rare few among us, if any, who can claim a pure native American background. Of course, that means that we are all immigrants, or the children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren of immigrants; many of us were born outside of this country, and many more are just one or two generations removed from a beginning in some other faraway place.

Our family is a case in point. I was born in the U.S., as was my father. My mother was born in Canada and became a naturalized U.S. citizen when she was an adult. My mother's family came from early English Loyalist settlers who left America to go to Canada during the Revolutionary War. On my father's side, his fairly mysterious and unknown family came mostly from Ireland and Scotland, and I believe that his paternal grandfather was an immigrant.

America, Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland: My parents, Daniel and Elva Crabtree Harris

After those generations, however, the family stew thickens and gets ever more flavorful. There are infusions through marriage of Italians (Mallozzi), Germans (Zarges, Goldsmith), Dutch (van den Boom/VandenBoom, the spelling variations are legion), Mexicans (Rodriguez), and Cape Verdeans (de Sena). No longer is English the only language spoken at extended family gatherings. One might hear Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, or the Creole that is spoken in Cape Verde.

America, Germany: Ellen and John Zarges (my husband Bill's paternal grandparents) with their daughter, June

America, Italy, Germany: Uncle Gene Mallozzi, holding little Bill Zarges at age one year

America, Canada, The Netherlands, England, Ireland, Scotland:
Dutch boy with tulips, Ben VandenBoom

America, Mexico, England, Canada: Ernesto and Elva Crabtree Harris Rodriguez (Elva had been a widow
for over 10 years when she met Ernie)

Here is one of the most wonderful benefits of all this mixing and stirring of our family stew: The newest generation of children are a lovely coffee color, so beautiful!

America, England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Germany, Cape Verde: Rafa and Paloma

The Love of a Dog

2010-09-23T04:00:00.054-06:00

I have mentioned before that most of the photos of me as a child contained my dog, Pete. She was a cocker spaniel that my parents had gotten before I was born. When our family traveled cross-country from Maine to California in early 1945, Pete came along with us.

She was my guardian and faithful friend.

Always by my side

This is such an historical photo, documenting the times when people used the old wooden play pens
and still hung their laundry out to dry.

I am looking up to where Pete is still on guard. Look at that groovy old stroller!

Here we are with my dad and a neighbor girl named Laurie. All of these photos were taken at Hunter's Point in San Francisco. The housing there, strictly utilitarian, was built for shipyard workers during World War II and was pretty new when we lived there. It looks like they were just getting the landscaping going.

Pete loved me and I loved her

Pete was my first and best friend until the time I was ten years old. One day, while I was playing with her on the stairs of our house, she snapped at me. I couldn't understand why my friend would turn on me like that, and I cried and cried. It turned out that she was in great pain from cancerous tumors, the only reason that she would ever behave like that. She had to be "put to sleep"--the first time I had ever heard that phrase, and my first experience with death and grief and loss.

A Dangerous Childhood

2010-09-21T04:00:00.015-06:00

I first posted this on The Zees Go West, way back in 2007, but it really belongs here on the Remember blog. I've added a few photos from the family archives.

*****

When I was a child in the 1940s and 1950s, our neighborhood in San Francisco was noisy with the shouts and cries of the children who lived there. We rode our bikes, we roller-skated, we played dodgeball, and we played jump rope. We raced on foot, on bikes, on scooters, and on skates. We took our skates apart and used the wheels on various invented riding vehicles.

When we moved to San Francisco in 1945, we lived at Hunter's Point. My father worked at the shipyards and my parents saved up money to buy the house on 48th Avenue. Here I am, playing outside with my faithful companion, Pete. When no one was watching me, I ate dirt.

In quieter moments, we sat on stoops and played jacks and pickup sticks. We collected rocks and cracked them open on the sidewalk, always searching for that elusive geode.

We played every sort of game of “pretend” that we could dream up, most memorably something called Covered Wagon, where we used a sturdy wooden gate as a wagon seat for the lucky wagon-driver-of-the-day, while the rest of us hunched down behind him in the “wagon” bed as we traveled west. We took turns playing good guys and bad guys, riding pretend horses and shooting at each other with our cap guns.

Playing in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, probably around 1947

We ran, we skipped, we hopped, we jumped, and we turned cartwheels. We fell off our bikes, my sister’s foot got caught in the spokes of my bike when I gave her a highly illegal ride on the back fender, my friend Skippy broke his arm roller-skating, and Trudy’s little brother broke several things when he discovered that he couldn’t fly off a second story porch. It was an exuberant, vigorous, and yes, somewhat dangerous life, at least by today’s standards.

In those days it was just what kids did all day until called in for supper.

My first bike. This was taken at our house in the Sunset District of San Francisco, at 1323 48th Avenue. We lived just a block from the beach, but we kids weren't allowed to cross the street.

Funniest Wedding Photo Ever

2010-09-16T04:00:00.009-06:00

Okay, it was the Eighties. What a weird time, what weird styles, what funny hair. At the time, it seemed perfectly normal that we both had perms. It also seemed somehow right that I should wear a red dress to my own wedding. Who knew what we were thinking?

Bill and Clair get married, never realizing until decades later that
they looked they were wearing matching clown wigs

Our wedding was a very homemade affair with a budget that would have driven one of today's wedding planners right out the door. These kids today are spending more on their weddings than we spent on our little Craftsman cottage! We sprung for new outfits, made our own cake, and had the reception at our house with flowers from the garden. We weren't much on details--my neighbor and friend, Joan, was the one who scurried around to find a table to hold the cake, bless her heart!

The wedding program was typed up by the church secretary on an old-fashioned typewriter, which was all any of us had at the time. Here is the pronouncement made by Pastor Wert at the end of the ceremony (I've cleaned up the typos!):

May the vows you have mutually exchanged this day be for both of you, again and again, a source of happiness and life-giving strength. I now proclaim that Bill and Clair are husband and wife, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let all people here and everywhere recognize and respect this holy union, now and forevermore!

We have enjoyed happiness and have been strong for each other, and people have, indeed, respected our holy union these past 29 years. But no one could respect those 80s hairstyles!

Family Trips in New York

2010-09-14T04:00:00.058-06:00

As I sort through our family photos, I love to gather up small collections. These three are from various trips made by Bill's family. The first was from the honeymoon trip made by his parents, Bill and Delia. The photo is on a postcard that was mailed home to the family in July of 1946. Although the falls look pretty fake and the photo was probably done in a studio, they were visiting the real Niagara Falls at the time.

Bill and Delia Zarges

The second photo comes from a family vacation to the Adirondacks. Delia now has two boys, so that would put the date at around 1956-57.

Delia, Ronnie, and Billy (I love that they all seem to be reading!)

The third item is scanned from a large chalk drawing of the two boys, back at Niagara Falls. Do you remember when sidewalk artists were available at vacation spots to make a quick sketch of the kids? I have some crumbling ones done of my sister and myself at Knott's Berry Farm that I would like to get scanned. This one has survived pretty well, given all the family moves it has been through, but I am glad that it is now in digital format and free from harm.

Ronnie and Billy, Niagara Falls, 1956

Another Little Ballerina

2010-09-09T04:00:00.042-06:00

My little sister, Lee (actually Jean Lee) was born when I was five years old. I don't remember that she ever took dancing lessons, but she liked being a ballerina as much as I did so my mother always made sure that she was included in all the dance business that went on around our house.

It looks like Lee is wearing my ballet shoes--they look huge on her. My mother must have bought a special little leotard for her ballet "practice." Look at that curly hair! This picture wasn't just taken on the spur of the moment. There was a great deal of planning (pincurls, for example) that went into it.

Dancing girls.
What we wouldn't give to have those figures now!

I really can't get over the work my mother put into our costumes. Suzanne and I tap danced a Sailor''s Hornpipe, and little Lee got a tiny costume of her own to match. The dresses were made of white taffeta with dark blue taffeta trim printed with gold stars. Suzanne and I had hats to match--good thing little Lee didn't catch that detail! I love the expression on her face.

Dancing Lessons

2010-09-07T04:00:00.124-06:00

In the 1950s in San Francisco, little girls in our neighborhood took dancing lessons. I have no idea how much they must have cost, but they were held weekly in the Sunset District (on Judah St.? Irving St.?) at Miss Perkova's dance studio.

This would have been at the beginning of my dancing "career"--the dress was made of aqua organza. It took a lot of pincurls to achieve that curly hair--it certainly wasn't natural!

We were a two-income family, a rarity back then, I believe. My father, Dan, drove a tow truck at night; my mother, Elva, was an elementary teacher. Neither job probably brought in much money, but they managed to pay for the dance lessons and all the different types of dance shoes. I remember that we bought Capezio brand shoes at a store downtown, which meant getting dressed up (hats and gloves) and taking the streetcar.

I am surprised at how well I can remember each costume. This one was pale blue. I'm sure that whenever given a choice, I would always pick blue, my favorite color. This was still in my pre-toe shoe days.

My mother made all my costumes, which sometimes included matching gloves or mitts, hats, and decorations on the shoes. When I eventually acquired a dancing partner, Suzanne, my mother made her costumes as well.

Suzanne and I had so much fun being cowgirls, of course. These little lariats were reinforced with wire, so we looked all ready to rodeo! We tapped and twirled, and I remember dropping my rope in the middle of the routine at our dance recital.

When asked what kind of lessons I was taking, I would rattle off, "Ballet, acrobatics, tap, and toe." I differentiated between ballet and toe because we had to take ballet for a long time wearing either regular ballet slippers or some flat, soft, suede shoes; once we had mastered the ballet positions and learned routines that we performed at recitals, we were able graduate to toe shoes. Did you know that the toes of these shoes are stuffed with lamb's wool that is first wrapped around the toes?

I can't remember a thing about this costume except that it looks like it was a lot of work to make, and that the little vest was made of black velvet

This one was red velvet with silver stars, and was made for my solo, Winter Wonderland. Toe shoes, at last! Notice the matching mitts and cap. My mother was making these things while working during the day as a teacher and taking classes at night at San Francisco State College. She sure had a lot of energy, and provided me with the model (working and taking classes) that I later followed.

This must have been toward the end of my dancing years. The costume was blue satin with a red satin lining, and the tap dance was performed to the song, The Sidewalks of New York. I can still do the step we started with (or would be able to if my old knees cooperated) because I practiced it so much back then--stamp, hop, back, shuffle, step, and stamp...

As you will see in the next post, my mother even made costumes for someone who didn't take dance lessons at all.

About Those Family Photos

2010-09-02T04:00:00.005-06:00

If you are reading this blog, you probably have some interest in family history. You may even be the person in the family, like me, who is responsible for generations of photographs.

Here is what you should do right away: First, get your old photos out of the basement, attic, or garage, and into some kind of acid-free storage in a dry, cool place. My sister and I put a lot of my mother's old photos into new acid-free boxes and I thought they were safe for generations. However, someone at the historical archive where I volunteer pointed out that the photos themselves are acidic and need to be separated by acid-free paper. An inexpensive solution, suggested by the archive staff, is to use cut-up printer paper (just check the packaging to be sure that it is acid-free) and put it in between the photos. For more information about storage, see the article from Family Tree Magazine, Preserve Family Photographs.

Next, get out a soft-lead pencil and carefully label every single picture that you know about--who, when, where, and anything else you might know. See Safely Marking Your Photos from the same magazine, for the best tools for marking.

Gosh, I sound bossy this morning, but when you see the following precious and unidentified photos from our families, you will understand the need for labeling.

The first two are from a beautiful little doeskin-bound album of photos that were taken "back home" in New Brunswick by my mother. They are presumably friends and Crabtree relatives. We wish we knew.

Relative? Friend?

Great Auntie? Neighbor? On the home farm, or ?

The next batch are real heartbreakers. They come from Beez's (okay, his real name is Bill) family on the German side, and we would love to know more about them. Fortunately, the first one contains enough hints that I was able to determine that this uniform was worn by members of the German Imperial Navy before and during World War I, that the cap was that of an NCO in the I. Werft Division, and that "sailors of the Werft Divisions were used to guard naval bases and as marine infantry on board ships." (Information from Imperial German Naval Uniforms, part of the amazing German Colonial Uniforms website).

A grandfather, perhaps? A great-uncle? Look at that incredible bag he is holding!

This is the back of the German sailor's photo. Note that the marking in pencil has lasted, so far, for almost a hundred years! From the information here, we learn that the photo was taken in Dortmund, Germany. We still don't know the identity of the sailor, though.

She's lovely! Who is she? How sad that someone went to all the trouble of getting a professional photographer to take the picture, and then failed to tell us the name of the lady.

Even though this boy is unidentified, this photo makes me smile. I have a series of photos of little blond boys with sticky-outy ears from Bill's family, all taken around the time the boys of each generation were 7 or 8: Grandfather, father, son, and grandson. You would swear that they were all the same little boy, and this photo, although the boy is a little older, would fit right into the series.

Family Reunion at Little Sebago Lake, 1959

2010-08-30T04:00:00.130-06:00

In the summer of 1959, my father, mother, 9-year old sister (known much later as Auntie Bucksnort), and I traveled across the country in our family's yellow and white 1955 Chevy BelAir. One of the highlights of the trip was a reunion with some of my mother's sisters and their children, up at a summer camp on Little Sebago Lake in Maine.

My childhood friend, Carole, just sent me a collection of letters that I had written to her over the years. There, in my 14-year old handwriting, was a description of a memorable night with the cousins.

My letter, written in the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in high school

It said, in part:

I'm on the road again, this time in Maine. We just left a cabin out in the woods where we had a reunion of my mother's family. All [actually, some] of my cousins were there and I hadn't seen them since I was three.

The cabin had a darling attic with a ladder leading up to it for the teenagers. Last nite we snuck down when all the grown ups were down at the lake (which is in the back yard of the cabin--the lake was named Little Sebago--really huge) and took a gallon jar of do-nuts and a great big can of cookies which we made that afternoon.

What a feast! We pulled the ladder up after us and you should have heard our aunts (they're all old and fat) scurrying around, looking for the food. Of course, we wouldn't come down when they figured out where the cookies were. We just told 'em they would have to shinny up the pole to get us--and that's just what my father did.

So they took away the ladder and wouldn't let us down to go to the "back house" all night. ("Out house" to Californians). We just yelled all night, "Mum, puleeze send up a slop pot for me! Please..." Then, "Oh, oh, you'll be sorry..." etc.

They finally let us down in the morning. Honestly, we were really glad to see that stinky old back house.

The cousins: Marilyn, Ruth, Janie, Edie, and me. Vangie and Ginnie were there, too, but not in this photo. Notice the pincurls; that's what girls did to their hair at night in those days. That is the 1955 Chevy our family drove cross country--there weren't many big highways back then, so it was an adventure undertaken with map in hand

The stinky back house, with our rather substantial swim suits hanging up to dry

My Daddy Was a Chevy Man

2010-08-27T04:00:00.005-06:00

Back when the world was a much simpler place, I can remember my father telling me that folks were either Chevy people or Ford people, because those were pretty much the most popular choices back in the 1940s and 1950s. I remember a Hudson somewhere back then, parked in front of our house, but when my dad had a choice of used cars, he would always pick a Chevy. He trusted them.

People were proud of their cars and often managed to get them into their photos. Here are a few that I found in our family albums.

A glamour shot of my mom, probably taken while she and my dad were still dating

Me and my dog, Pete. This might have been taken at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. This is the only photo I know of containing Alphie, the peculiarly featureless stuffed creature that I loved so much.

Me again and a neighborhood boy named Billy, Jimmy, or Jerry. You will notice that my dog Pete is almost always in my photos, as she (yes, Pete was a she) was my constant and loyal companion and protector.

Kids at Play; Three Generations

2010-08-26T04:00:00.024-06:00

This post was first published on The Zees Go West in December 2008.

My friends, Alan, Sherry, and me; taking a break from Cowboys and Indians (c. 1950)

Nowadays, for whatever reason, when I walk or ride my bike around the neighborhoods, I rarely see children outside playing. Back in San Francisco's Sunset District in the 1940s and 1950s, we kids were rarely inside. We rode bikes, jumped rope, roller skated, played long and involved games of something we called "covered wagon," and, of course, we always had a cowboys and Indians series of some sort going on. The rule was more that kids were out playing, not in.

My own kids played outside a great deal at our place in Washington state in the late 1970s. There were chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, pigs, and even a donkey to either play with or run from. These kids from the two neighboring houses joined my son, Ben (the littlest), in a somewhat crowded "day at the beach."

Edgewood, WA, 1977

Interestingly enough, my own grandchildren posed for a similar photo in California, not too many years ago. They live a wonderfully healthy lifestyle, as their home is situated in a dead-end court where the neighborhood kids join in playing ball and riding bikes--not so different from my own childhood. Except, as my son would say, their life is in color.

A surprising number of kids here are in the same Zee family; another has been added since!

Road Trip; Old School Style

2010-08-25T04:00:00.004-06:00

This post first appeared on The Zees Go West in December 2008.

Family vacations were a big deal when I was a kid. My father often used his two weeks off all at once and we traveled in the family car that whole time. We bought new clothes before hitting the road; we called them our vacation outfits. For some reason they always included a hat, although we rarely wore casual hats in the other parts of our lives.

Here are my Aunt Nellie, little me, my mother, and littler Bucksnort, while on a visit to Jerry and Jimmy's Grandpa, who also appears elsewhere on this blog. He's the guy with the boots and jeans and for-real cowboy hat; the one who is grinning and no doubt cooking up another trick to make his San Francisco visitors remember their trip to his Arizona ranch forever. He isn't wearing his vacation clothes, but the rest of us are. My dad and Uncle Jack were off branding cattle, much to their dismay, so they didn't appear in this photo.

You can tell that these are vacation clothes that we are wearing because they are matching outfits, and because we kids are wearing hats with our names stitched on them.

And here we are, much later, back in civilization. That's our neighbor's house and car in the background; and Bucksnort, my dad, and me in the foreground. We are not wearing vacation clothes, although they might have been road trip outfits at some time in the past. You can tell that we are no longer on vacation because we are not wearing hats. In spite of the fact that we have no labels stitched anywhere, revealing our names, my dad seems pretty certain that he has hold of the right girls.

The Tenderfeet Camp with the Real Cowboys

2010-08-24T04:00:00.010-06:00

A version of this post first appeared on The Zees Go West in May, 2008.

Another example of Jimmy and Jerry's grandpa's sense of humor

When I was a little girl I lived in a house near the ocean in San Francisco.

I wore jeans and cowboy boots, a Roy Rogers cowboy shirt, a Dale Evans cowgirl vest, and a Red Ryder cowboy hat. And every morning before I went out to play I strapped on the rhinestone-studded belt and holsters that held my two matching pearl-handled six-shooter cap guns.

One of the highlights of my misplaced-cowgirl childhood was a trip that my family took with some San Francisco friends down to Arizona, where we traveled up into the mountains and stayed on a for-real ranch that belonged to Jimmy and Jerry’s grandpa.

A cowboy who rode a big black horse gave me a pony to ride. The cowboy's name was Rimrock and I named my pony Chauncey. Rimrock said that Chauncey would always be my pony even when I went back to San Francisco and he was still living his pony life in Arizona.

Little Buckaroo

We “helped” the cowboys round up and brand the calves.

That night we ate Cookie’s delicious beans and biscuits on tin plates while sitting around a campfire. Somebody had a harmonica, and somebody else had a guitar, and we all sang. It smelled like mountain air, pine trees, cattle, dust, and smoky embers.

After supper, we rolled up in blankets and lay down around the fire. Just as we were falling asleep, we heard the sound of boots and spurs.

It was Jimmy and Jerry’s grandpa.

He walked over to a wooden platform that had barbed wire strung around it, climbed up the steps, went through the little gate at the top, closed it, and sat down on the bed that was up there.

We thought about that for a minute. Then someone called out, using his best cowboy talk, “Hey, Jimmy and Jerry’s grandpa, what’re you fixin’ to do up there?”

Jimmy and Jerry’s grandpa took off his for-real cowboy hat and hung it on one of the barbed wire posts. He said, “I’m fixin’ to go to sleep.” We all thought about that some, and then someone else called out, “Well, how come you’re up there on a platform with barbed wire all around and we’re down here on the ground?”

Jimmy and Jerry’s grandpa had set his Winchester rifle on the floor of the platform and was practicing to see how quickly he could grab for it. He paused for a moment, looked down at us, and said, “Well, somebody has to protect us from the slitherin’ snakes, and the howlin’ coyotes, and the things that growl in the night.”

We all lay there, wrapped up in our thin blankets down on the ground. We thought about snakes slitherin’, and coyotes howlin’, and the things that growl in the night.

We thought for about two seconds and suddenly everyone rose up hastily from that dusty ground and there was the sound of hurrying footsteps and car doors slamming.

My Aunt Nellie put me to bed in the backseat of someone’s big old Studebaker, and she lay down in the front seat and went right off to sleep. Her snoring somehow sounded to me just like snakes slitherin’, and coyotes howlin’, and the things that growl in the night.

Meanwhile, back in the clearing, the only sound was the crackling of the poked-up campfire. If anyone else had been around, they might also have heard Jimmy and Jerry’s grandpa up there on his platform, chuckling to himself, and saying, “Tenderfeet!”

(Photos by my dad)

We Are Family--Not Many Crooks and Not Many Crazy

2010-08-23T04:00:00.015-06:00

This post first appeared on The Zees Go West in February 2009.

In the past week [remember, this was in February of 2009, when we still lived in eastern New Mexico] I have had several pieces of news from our far-flung family. During the Academy Awards ceremony my father’s cousin, screenwriter John Michael Hayes (known to our family as Buddy), was honored in the memorial video. It was the first that I had heard of his death. Next, I found out that my first cousin on my mother’s side of the family, the Reverend Charles Crabtree, had been named President of Zion College, a Pentecostal Bible school that had recently thumped itself down right in the midst of liberal New England.

Two cousins, two men, so different. The first had worked with Alfred Hitchcock to make the movies Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble with Harry, and The Man Who Knew Too Much. He adapted and toned down big-budget melodramas like The Carpetbaggers and Peyton Place so that the movie scripts could pass by the censors. The second was a man of God whose college students are winning over their adopted town by doing the good works that they feel are their calling, working at the local homeless shelter and helping out in the soup kitchens of northern New England.

During the same week, the oldest member of Beez’s family, an Italian immigrant, single lady, and devoted auntie who is now 96 years old, was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and was later returned to her home to continue bossing around her caretaker through another spring cleaning. We are rooting for her, and hope to yet attend her 100th birthday celebration.*

Beez and Bucksnort and I find ourselves out here on the High Plains, a tiny little family. Though our parents are gone and our children all far away, we were reminded this week that we are still part of a huge and diverse family. In honor of that extended family, I’d like to share this nice old fashioned poem, written about our relatives by Fern Gallup Kinney (click to enlarge it a bit). It appears in her hand-typed and self-published book, Kith and Kin of the Kinneys, which is the genealogical history of the descendants of Israel Kinney (1738-1791) and his wife Susannah Hood (1745-?), who together had 14 children. It is a remarkable piece of pre-Internet research. If you are a relative (and we are legion--Kinneys, Kenneys, Blakelys, Belyeas, Crabbs, Crabtrees, Gibersons, Kimballs, McGees, Gallups, etc.) you will be interested to know that the entire book is available in pdf format and may be downloaded from http://home.comcast.net/~kinneyed/KithAndKin_image.pdf. [Later note: As with so many things on the Internet, this link has, sadly, disappeared].

*****

*Later update: Auntie Mary died at the age of 97

Dressing Up

2010-08-20T06:41:00.003-06:00

The first few posts for this new blog are coming over from The Zees Go West because I never had any special place for these family stories before. This one was first published there in December, 2008.

Ready to go downtown in winter

While looking at old photos and reminiscing, I remembered an annual family tradition that started in the 1940s in San Francisco. We always went downtown on the street car, my mother and me (Dad was at work, as all men were in those post-war years), to see the Christmas decorations in the big department stores. We would go for evening drives later when my father got home from work to see decorated outdoor places like Maiden Lane, which I now find was originally an area of brothels(!) that had been converted to fancy shops that were decorated beautifully during the Christmas season.

I remember going up the escalator and all but gasping at the sparkling decorations in the Emporium* on Market Street. We always went to I. Magnin's, and Macy's, too. The transformation of the familiar stores was amazing and it seems to me that the decorations were far fancier than anything we see now.

Dressed up in spring

You know, we used to get pretty dressed up to "go downtown." For me, always a coat and matching hat, if possible (my mother made a lot of my outfits), and a little purse to hold my white gloves. My mother insisted on those gloves when we rode on the streetcar. For my mother, a dress, high heels (how did she do it?), matching purse, coat, hat, and gloves.

Family in fancy dress

Beez and I recently received an invitation in the mail for a Christmas party, being held in a pretty fancy part of town, to honor volunteers of a local charitable organization. The invitation, in addition to giving other details, specifies "spiffy casual" dress. Whatever that might be, it points out how much things have changed over the decades. People get dressed up less often, and so do our public places, especially during holiday times.

***

*I feel so historical. While looking for links to the stores and places I remember in downtown San Francisco, I found that many of them are gone and a part of history. I guess I am, too (a part of history, not gone).

Preacher, Preacher, Hair on Fire

2010-08-19T14:58:00.004-06:00

My mother's family

My mother's family was a large one, as you can see. Although one of them was missing in this photo, there were 13 children in all. There was such an age spread that the older ones had already left and started raising their own huge families when some of the younger ones were still being born back home. My mother is that sweet child in the bottom row on the far right. This photo would have been taken around 1919. [Later note: This is just my opinion about the date--as you will see from the comments, the family is chiming in with other ideas].

They lived on a farm up by the border between Maine and New Brunswick. You can tell they are farmers by the "farmer's tans" on the men--tanned and reddened faces with white foreheads that would have been protected from the sun by their hats when they were out working on the potato crop. Many years later, my mother would beg me not to move back up to Canada, because all she remembered about that place was the hard, hard work grubbing up potatoes out in the fields.

See that fellow who looks like his head is smoking? That's my Uncle Clifford, who later became a preacher. He was a man who liked to pray whenever it occurred to him, and he liked lots of company. He came to visit our family when we had left the dust of the Canadian potato fields far behind and had moved to a suburban lifestyle in northern California.

My mother had also left the "holy roller" church of her childhood far behind, and my sister and I were raised like little heathens. My parents occasionally did send us off to church on our own with dimes for the collection plate. I remember having a real religious revelation one Sunday on our way to the neighborhood Episcopal church. I explained to my baby sister that we should walk in the woods and Appreciate Nature instead of attending church with the all those "tea party ladies." She agreed with me, as she always did back then, and we made sure to look around appreciatively at some trees and flowers as we flagged down Glen the Ice Cream Man to spend our collection money on creamsicles, all frosty orange and white.

My parents were pleased that we were seemingly "getting religion" every week with no effort on their part. We were also pleased with the arrangement, as was Glen the Ice Cream Man.

All was well, until Uncle Clifford showed up, probably taking a swing through the western states on some missionary trip or other. As I said before, Uncle Clifford liked public prayer, administered often and lengthily, with all participants down on their knees. I spent my Uncle Clifford prayer time peeking over my folded hands and sneaking looks out the California-style picture windows, mortified that my friends might be passing by and might see me in this peculiar position.

As I peeked, I noticed that the adults all kept their eyes tightly closed while in prayer and that gave me my getaway opportunity. I inched along on my knees, painfully and slowly, across the hardwood floor until reaching the carpeted hallway and, speeding up on all fours, made it to my room where I crawled under my bed.

I fully intended to stay there until Uncle Clifford went off to save some other hapless suburbanites, but my mother eventually discovered my hideout. She refused to believe that I was "talking to Jesus" under there, as I claimed. Sadly, that made her suspicious of my other religious activities, and I don't remember seeing much of Glen the Ice Cream Man on Sundays after that.

Little Bucksnort and me, before we got religion