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Chapter 2: 1943 • Sonora, California 

Emerging from the crown of Highway 49 and a mile from end to end, Sonora is tucked into the foothills and ravines of the Sierra Nevada, the gateway to California’s gold-mining region. In its frenetic gold rush heyday, the sounds of miners blasting the hillsides and dynamiting the treasure-filled creeks echoed throughout the area, changing the natural landscape and waterways forever.

When the ice companies closed, my father got a job managing a Sprouse Reitz five-and-dime. Given the choice of running a store in Sonoma (a sleepy hamlet forty-some miles north of San Francisco) or in Sonora, he chose the latter, hoping it offered more business opportunity. When our family moved there in 1943 the town had no stoplights, one taxi, two theaters, a three-lane bowling alley, four newspapers, five cemeteries, a six-block main street, seven churches, and eight taverns, with cigar stores, barbershops, ice cream parlors, and clothing shops tucked in between. The dry hot summers went on for years, a silver quarter was a lot of money, and people did what was expected of them. Sonora had passed its rough and tumble era, settling into a cocoon of open windows and unlocked doors.

During World War II most of the men not fighting left for wartime jobs in the bigger cities. My father was exempt from the draft, being almost forty with four children, so was one of the few men still in town. Sonora shifted into idle. With little work other than the timber industry, most of the stores were vacant and gas rationing wiped out the tourists.

Everyone in town, a community of about 3,000 people, knew our family. Dad was active in the church, the Lions, Elks, Rotary, and the Chamber of Commerce. Lean and on the lanky side, he was prematurely gray, wore wire-rimmed spectacles, and smelled like a mixture of Listerine and Vitalis with a splash of Old Spice. In one neatly pressed side-trouser pocket he kept a small black comb, metal nail-clippers, and his father’s Elgin pocket watch; in the other, his worn leather wallet, two silver dollars and a tiny gold coin.

He loved children. He had time for their chitter-chatter and sang hokey songs so they could sing along. He knew they had tender souls inside small bodies. He cared about flowers and trees, about rabbits, squirrels, and birds. The only living things he mortally harmed was the rooster that crowed at 4:00 a.m. and the dog he accidentally killed when he whacked it over the head with a shovel trying to stop it from killing the baby chicks.

He was a gentleman. He shook your hand, tipped his hat, and offered his coat. He walked on the curbside. He stood when an adult entered a room. He waited for ladies to go first, holding their doors, chairs, and umbrellas. Dad was known to call a spade a spade but was too polite to call a profligate a degenerate. He might think it, but he wouldn’t say it (unless they were stealing from his store). He didn’t like dogs or dishonest men, liars or loose women, thieves or thoughtless people. He hooted at his own corny jokes, fainted at the sight of blood, and had no sense of direction whatsoever. None. But that runs in the family.

To be continued…

Catherine Sevenau is a writer, humorist, and storyteller living in Sonoma, California. The stories in this series are excerpts from her book, Through Any Given Door, a Family Memoir. The full memoir is available as a web series at Sevenau.com. A longtime Realtor and Owner/Broker at CENTURY 21 Wine Country, she can be reached at [email protected]

 

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