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]
Serves the drunken old fool right
Chapter 11: My grandfather Sep 30, 1915 • Red Bluff Daily News, Los Molinos, California: WOMAN ALL ALONE GIVES BIRTH, CHILD TAKES... Continue
Upholding the tapestry of life
Chapter 10: Crazy Quilt 1895 – 1915 • Nellie ~ My grandmother started her crazy quilt in 1895, the same year she started her family.... Continue
The taste of shame and bile
Chapter 9: Backstory, my maternal grandparents — Diary of Charley Chatfield (age 17), the oldest child of Charles and Nellie Feb... Continue
With Nellie, the wrath was silent
Chapter 8: Backstory, my maternal grandparents — Dec 26, 1894 • Fruita, Colorado ~ In a ceremony in her parents’ home,... Continue
Betty would eat anything
Chapter 7: Mid 1940s, Chico — Every summer Mom took the kids to visit her mother, Nellie Chatfield, who still lived in the two-story... Continue
A business school of hard knocks
Chapter 6: 1945, Sonora – At five, Betty opened her first business. She admired the ads of the Lucky Strike girls wearing long gloves,... Continue
Where’s the pet chicken?
Chapter 5: Mid 1940s, Sonora. Larry and Carleen went everywhere together. They were a year apart (he was born in 1934, she in ’35)... Continue
The elm tree out front was already 100 years old
Chapter 4: 104 Green Street — A long linoleum hall led to the staircase and wood banister that the kids rode halfway to the... Continue
Chapter 3: Warm soda on a hot day
Mid 1940s • 104 Green Street — Chapter Three. My father first took a job managing the Sprouse-Reitz on Washington Street... Continue
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,... Continue
