Chapter 24: mid 1940s • Sonora  ~ No Sunday or Holy Day passed without Dad taking the children to Mass. Some Sundays they attended St. Anne's in Columbia, other Sundays they went to Mass in Jamestown. Sometimes they drove to Tuolumne, during summer camping trips they heard... Continue

Chapter 23: 1946 • Sonora ~ On a sunny Saturday, Mom brought home six-dozen chicks from the feed store and enclosed them in the safety of the chicken coop. The next day, Carleen, Betty, and Claudia gently carried them from the pen to the front yard, cradling... Continue

1942 • Vallejo, California ~ The only dog the family ever had was when they lived in Vallejo, but they didn’t have him for long. It was a little black and white eight-year-old mongrel, and eight-year-old Larry loved him. On a cloudy Sunday, our parents took a... Continue

Chapter 21: Letter from my mother (age 26) to my father’s sister living in Minnesota: Watsonville, Cal. Nov. 22, 1941 Dear Amelia and all: I started working in an apple dryer here the first of September and got through the day before Thanksgiving. I don’t mind... Continue

Chapter 20: 1939 • Watsonville, California ~ Our house was right on her way home from the grammar school and Marceline (Uncle George’s and Aunt Verda’s daughter) loved to stop off and visit mom. Marceline held Babe in high esteem, elevating her to a kindred spirit... Continue

Chapter 19: •  Minnesota -- My paternal grandparents were tall, sturdy, farming stock. Grandma had a reputation as a relentless taskmaster and was always thinking of something for her husband to do. He could never sit down, even in the middle of the winter. It... Continue

Chapter 18: • Minnesota, The Clemens Farm ~ My grandparents were known for attending funerals. Relatives, close friends, acquaintances, people they barely knew—it didn’t matter—Barbara and Mathew went to all of them. It was their social center. If anyone wanted to visit them and a nearby funeral... Continue

Chapter 17: 1920 • Minnesota ~ When the wheels needed to be changed or the axles greased, my father—not yet a man—lifted the more than 200-pound hay wagon with his back, raised it higher with his arms, and held it steady while his older brother Aloysius,... Continue

Chapter 16: 1933 • Los Angeles, California ~ Shortly after their marriage and with my father’s job in Colusa finished with the completion of the Sacramento River weir and bridge, my parents moved to Los Angeles. His employer, Frederickson & Watson, had a new contract to reconstruct a portion... Continue