CONVERSATION BETWEEN NANCY ORAM AND HER MATERNAL GRANDMOTHER

ANITA GERTRUDE ECCLES HEERMANCE SEARLE

ABOUT OCTOBER, 1977

[This first part is notes I scribbled down

before I started the tape-recording.]

. . .Castro Street, torn down and made Castro Theater. Here Pop used to rock Hadley and Aunt Ruth to sleep. Babysat because he was rooming with Hadley’s mom and dad. Aunt Ruth was 13 or 14 when their parents separated. Before the earthquake, Lindon Avenue, San Francisco. Then Hadley’s father, after separated, came to live with Pop and Grandma. Ruth and Hadley used to come to see their father there. They were living with their mother. Little Grandma used to play with Hadley and Ruth and enjoyed many hours with them and their father who was a printer. They used to make Christmas decorations together, etc. Hadley’s father joined the church in New York (Aunt Ruth 2 years). Came to Salt Lake, then moved to San Francisco.

Aunt Ruth said that the parents were very loving, and when the father got angry he left with suitcase many times only to return and patch up. The last time he left the mother wouldn’t let him return. She didn’t want to be hurt again. He took a room near the Palace Hotel and later roomed with Pop and Grandma. Later Hadley lived with his father on Clara Avenue. Pop had moved to Wallace Street. Still before the earthquake. Before this the mother remarried Jim Calder.

The two families (Heermance and Eccles) lost track of each other for awhile. Later, Hadley came and took Little Grandma (about 13 years old) to Sunday School. He was seven or eight years older. She asked him to come in several times and he wouldn’t. He said it was because Sunday School was fine, but she was too young for them to get involved. He felt for her already, but knew her mind should be on other things until she was older. Later he took her to dances at the mission home (after his father died.) In 1911 his father died and he came over to Pop’s to tell them. He had like a heart attack. (The dances came after his death.)

In 1915 Little Grandma moved to Oakland. So did he, but they sort of lost track of each other. Then Little Grandma wanted to invite him to her birthday party, but didn’t have his address. She got an address, but it was in Berkeley and when she went, it turned out to be a fruit store, so she gave up.

[Start of tape-recording.]

GRANDMA:        His birthday was in March and I would have been -- I think I would have been 8 that September of 1906. And he was already, maybe about 14.

NANCY:               And that's when you first met him? When he first started coming to your house, or ...

GRANDMA:        In 1916?

NANCY:               How old were you when you first met him?

GRANDMA:        Oh, I was just a youngster. He used to take me to the mutual parties and, you know ...

NANCY:               Yeah, I see I wrote down here that he used to take you to Sunday School and you asked him to come in but he wouldn't come in?

GRANDMA:        No. Because, you see, he knew how he felt about me. And he thought maybe it would get too serious, you see. And it would, you know, take our minds from things, you know, well, whatever it was, but it would be too -- he was so considerate about everything. Just, I don't know. I can't tell you. The longer I live, the more I think about it, why, it's just, there's no words -- well I don't know. He was just -- he should have been a superior, because he was so -- to me he was different. He was different than most people. I don't know, I can't explain.

NANCY:               Well you know I've always felt that and I never knew him.

GRANDMA:        No. Well he was. And that's why I say, if he could have just lived how wonderful it would have been if he -- well if he was living now even. See, 85.

NANCY:               But if he was superior, see, he didn't need much of this life.

GRANDMA:        No, that's it.

NANCY:               You've felt different times that he's -- that he's been in your bedroom, haven't you?

GRANDMA:        Yes.

NANCY:               You've woken up and --

GRANDMA:        Yes, he's been around me, yes.

NANCY:               Have you felt that recently?

GRANDMA:        No. No, it hasn't been -- oh, I've woke up like in the middle of the night and, you know, I couldn't go to sleep right away, and I've thought back, you know, my mind goes way back to things, and I don't know. But he was just different. He was different than -- well he was different than anybody. I don't know. It's hard to explain. You know how you feel, but it's hard to explain.

NANCY:               Well I know what you're saying, and I -- well you had that close relationship. And I know exactly what you're saying, but I never was anywhere near to him.

GRANDMA:        No.

NANCY:               You know, and Mom hasn't talked a whole lot about him, except when I ask her she'll tell me anything I want to know, but what I'm saying is no one has to tell me, I can feel it.

GRANDMA:        You can feel it, yeah.

NANCY:               I'm close to him somehow. I don't know how. So that's why I've, you know, taken an interest in doing this.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, yeah.

NANCY:               Let me see what I wrote down here before and then maybe we can pick up the story. Let's see. Oh, when his father died, when his father died, he came over to tell --

GRANDMA:        To tell us.

NANCY:                -- to tell you that he'd had a heart attack -- now he didn't have a heart attack at the beach.

GRANDMA:        His father did.

NANCY:               Well he had a heart attack running to catch a (street)car, mom said. It was Ed, his brother, had a heart attack at the beach.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               But that was when he was -- when Grandpa Hadley was in the hospital.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, yeah.

NANCY:               So I've gotten that a little bit wrong here. But he did have a heart attack. And then it says you moved to Oakland in 1915, and he moved to Oakland too.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               Now his diary says he was living with other fellows, wasn't he? People he worked with or a brother or somebody?

GRANDMA:        Not that I know of. He moved -- when he moved to Oakland he moved with his mother and step-father.

NANCY:               Oh. Okay. Let me stop.

[Recording stopped and picked up mid conversation.]

GRANDMA:        He had a heart attack in Land's End in the City.

NANCY:               Oh, okay. Yeah, because, yeah in the diary it just says, "Papa died today," and it says, "cause," and he didn't finish.

GRANDMA:        Oh.

NANCY:               Maybe he was waiting to find out, or maybe he didn't want to write any more, you know.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, but it was -- but then there was -- like your mother said, you know, running for the car, but there was something about Land's End. There's a place in the City they call Land's End.

NANCY:               Yeah, he mentions it in his diary another time.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, yeah, well that's it.

NANCY:               Okay. Yeah, that's interesting.

Well, let's see, it said, okay, you lost track of each other for a little while after -- when he moved to Oakland, you didn't see each other for awhile.

GRANDMA:        No. And then one Sunday when I went to Sunday School, I had to take the (street)car. I took the car and I got off, you know, the corner where we go to Sunday School, we're meeting in a hall. And I got off and he and Ed, just as I got off the car, he and Ed walked, like on the sidewalk, in front of me. Well I didn't pay any attention because I didn't, you know, I really didn't recognize him then. And then after I went to Sunday School and went home, a little while afterwards --

NANCY:               How old were you?

GRANDMA:        Well I just passed 15 because that was just past my 15th birthday and I couldn't find him.

NANCY:               Oh. Yeah, on your 15th birthday you wanted to invite him to your party, and you couldn't find him?

GRANDMA:        Not my 15th birthday, my 18th birthday, my 18th birthday.

NANCY:               Oh, okay. So how old were you when they got off the car and you didn't recognize them?

GRANDMA:        I was still 18.

NANCY:               You were 18 then?

GRANDMA:        Yeah, because it was just right after my party.

NANCY:               Okay. He didn't come to your party, then.

GRANDMA:        No, because I couldn't find him.

NANCY:               Okay, it says here when I took notes before, it says, you wanted to invite him to your party, but you didn't have his address. And you got an address, but it was in Berkeley --

GRANDMA:        In a fruit store.

NANCY:                -- in a fruit store. Turned out to be a fruit store.

GRANDMA:        The same number, the same number.

NANCY:               Yeah. So you gave up, huh, on that?

GRANDMA:        And he must have got the car -- I guess they were just taking a walk and he must have got the car, you know --

NANCY:               Streetcar?

GRANDMA:         -- yeah, the streetcar, and came out to the house. He must have had my address.

NANCY:               I see.

GRANDMA:        Because he came out to the house.

NANCY:               So when you saw him, did he turn around and recognize you?

GRANDMA:        When he came out to the house he told me that he said to Ed he thought he knew me. He thought I was Gertrude Eccles, and so then --

NANCY:               So then he looked you up?

GRANDMA:        Well he came out to the house that same day.

NANCY:               Oh, I see.

GRANDMA:        And then that was in 19 -- well that musn't have been 15, it was 16 -- no -- well anyway, he came out and then we started to go together, like.

NANCY:               I see. Okay. So -- I'm trying to read some of these notes here we took before. So you just started doing things together, then?

GRANDMA:        Well he started coming to the house right after that, you know, keep coming steady, you know. Not every night, but, you know, steady. And then we started going together. That was -- but it was in 19 -- maybe we didn't start to go together until 1916, I don't know. But anyway, that's when it was.

NANCY:               How long did you date before you got married?

GRANDMA:        Oh, not very long, you see, it was 1916 and in 1917 we were married.

NANCY:               How did he propose to you?

GRANDMA:        Oh, I don't remember now.

NANCY:               Maybe you just decided, huh?

GRANDMA:        I guess that's what it was. And he got -- he brought the ring -- or did I -- oh, Joe was living in Suisun at that time, and we went to Suisun to get the rings. And I wanted a wide band like yours. Of course Joe kind of talked him out of it. See we got -- well I took it off, my, you know --

NANCY:               I didn't have this wide band until about two months ago, you know.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               But I kind of wanted a wide one.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, I like a wide band.

NANCY:               But my fingers are small, too, so I couldn't have it too wide.

GRANDMA:        No.

NANCY:               And your fingers are small and that's probably why -- Joe being a jeweler would know that.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, that's it. And -- but you see, it got too tight, and it was all I could do to get it off. And so then he got the plain band and this lacy ring. And it really looked pretty.

NANCY:               Yeah. I love this ring.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               That's beautiful.

GRANDMA:        And then -- so that was the -- so then, of course, I wore this -- I wore this in 1916. That's what it was. I wore this all of 1916. So then in 1917, then I got the wedding ring, and it was in September.

NANCY:               In September, yeah, when --

GRANDMA:        The 30th of September.

NANCY:               September 30, 1917.

GRANDMA:        Yeah. Well we were going to be married on the 20th.

NANCY:               On your birthday.

GRANDMA:        Now it shows, really, how much I knew. Joe couldn't make it on a Saturday, so we had to make it on the Sunday, we were married.

NANCY:               Oh, you were married on a Sunday. Where were you married?

GRANDMA:        On Fremont Street, in the basement.

NANCY:               Was that your house, Pop's house?

GRANDMA:        Yeah, on Fremont.

NANCY:               Yeah.

GRANDMA:        Yeah. He made me my wedding cake. A big --

NANCY:               Pop made your wedding cake?

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               Oh.

GRANDMA:        In those days, the wedding cakes were kind of like a brown cake, you know, with a lot of raisins and everything in it. He made it. So we were married -- they made a, you know, spread it all out in the basement. And we had a big basement. And we had, you know, for all the people. Quite a few people came. So that's that.

[Tape turned off, then back on mid conversation.]

GRANDMA:         -- one that paid any attention to the church, too.

NANCY:               Yeah. Okay, so his dad was pretty active --

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:                -- and then Hadley paid attention to the church, and, of course, none of the brothers or sisters did.

GRANDMA:        No.

NANCY:               Ruth was the only sister.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               Yeah, okay. And --

GRANDMA:        Well I think there was another girl, but she died.

NANCY:               When she was tiny?

GRANDMA:        Yeah. Edie.

NANCY:               Edith?

GRANDMA:        Edie.

NANCY:               And that's the one that died?

GRANDMA:        I think so.

NANCY:               I'll check into it.

GRANDMA:        Yeah. I'm sure. She may not have had -- but it runs in my mind it's Edie.

NANCY:               Well I'll see if -- you know, Mom would know.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, you be sure on that.

NANCY:               Yeah. Is there anything else you remember about his family?

GRANDMA:        I don't think there was any more boys.

NANCY:               Was he the youngest?

GRANDMA:        He was the baby, you see, because that picture in the hall of Ruth and him?

NANCY:               Yeah. Did he look like any of his brothers?

GRANDMA:        Well he was nice looking.

NANCY:               I think he was probably the handsomest.

GRANDMA:        He and Joe were pretty much alike. They looked more like -- George and Ed, he didn't look like them at all. Not to my idea.

NANCY:               So there was George, Edgar, Joe, Ruth and Hadley, and then if there was a baby.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               So there was four brothers and a sister.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               Then how long were you married when Mom was born?

GRANDMA:        Two years.

NANCY:               Two years, that's what I thought, about two years.

GRANDMA:        Let's see, we were married in September of '17 and she was born in December of '19.

NANCY:               That's right.

GRANDMA:        It's 70 [sic] years, just imagine.

NANCY:               Yeah.

GRANDMA:        Seventy years. If he could have lived that. Seventy.

NANCY:               Oh, where did you live right after you got married, where did you go? Did you go anywhere for a honeymoon?

GRANDMA:        We went up to -- we went up to Suisun, stayed there for a few days. Then we came home and lived with the folks. We lived with my mother and dad until, I guess, your mother was about 2 years old.

NANCY:               Oh.

GRANDMA:        And then we bought that house on 61st. Well we lived -- we lived on 55th -- we rented an apartment on 55th and lived there, you see, it was during the war, and he got a card saying that he was in, oh, one of the lowest classes, you know, that he wouldn't be called. And a little bit afterwards there come another card that said they made a mistake, he was in 1st class. So then I moved back -- I moved back with the folks while he went into the service. He went into the service August 18th of 1918.

NANCY:               Oh, before Mother was born.

GRANDMA:        Oh, yes.

NANCY:               Yeah. He went in the Army; right?

GRANDMA:        Yeah. He knew he would be called, so he volunteered. And he went -- and then -- the flu was raging. You know the flu was raging.

NANCY:               Oh, the one they talk about, yeah.

GRANDMA:        And that was in '18. And I was back with the folks and he -- oh, they went to Presidio, they were stationed in Presidio just before leaving for -- for San Pedro, you know, down south. And anyway, his mother, being his mother, she thought that she could see him, you know, before he left. And I said, "I don't think you can. I can't even see him." Well, of course, she -- she was ahead of me, you know, she was that type. And she was going to see him, that's all there was to it. So, of course, I didn't argue. Well she couldn't see him. And anyway he left for San Pedro and I got the flu. I got that flu. And we had the Elders. I didn't want to eat, I wasn't -- I couldn't eat, I didn't feel hungry and I didn't want anything to eat. So the folks got the Elders and they came and administered to me. And before they left Mama had a coconut cake. I can remember that like that. She had a coconut cake. And I wanted a piece of that coconut cake. And so she gave me a piece of that coconut cake, and I ate every bit of it. That was after the Elders administered to me. And, oh, the flu was raging. My uncle, he volunteered to run a, like a taxi cab to take the sick people, you know, they turned the auditorium into a hospital. And he said they were just dying like flies. He said it was terrible. And sometimes they'd die right in the taxi cab. And, you know, that's the way that was. Well then that went on until, 1918 -- I forget when he was discharged. I've got his discharge home. But --

NANCY:               You have his discharge?

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               Would you like to put it in the book that I'm starting?

GRANDMA:        Don't make any difference.

NANCY:               If you'd like to, we'll put it in.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               And then it will be preserved.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, I've got it. I've got his and Jack's, both.

My aunt lived in Watts. And so I wrote her and told her when Hadley was discharged and I would go down. So that time came and I went down. Have you got it on now? Don't -- don't put this --

[Tape turned off at Grandma's request..]

[Laughter.]

NANCY:               Everyone's going to wonder what was said because we're laughing now.

GRANDMA:        Oh.

NANCY:               How long was he in the Army?

GRANDMA:        Just about four months.

NANCY:               Oh, that's not bad.

GRANDMA:        No, you see, the Armistice was signed the 11th of November, and then soon after that he was discharged.

NANCY:               So, then, did he go back to his job?

GRANDMA:        Yeah. He went, let's see, where did we go then? Oh, we bought the house on 61st Street, then.

NANCY:               Oh.

GRANDMA:        And then --

NANCY:               Well, if you stayed with your folks until Mom was 2, then you didn't buy the house until later.

GRANDMA:        When he got out of the Army, we still lived with the folks.

NANCY:               I see.

GRANDMA:        That's where it was. We still lived with the folks because your mother was born, you know, when we were still with them. Then, I guess, she must have been about 2. I guess she was. Because she was walking, yeah she was walking. She was walking then, and then we bought the house in 19 -- it must have -- see, if we bought the house in about '22.

NANCY:               Where was he working, then?

GRANDMA:        He was working for the Photoplayer.

NANCY:               What?

GRANDMA:        Photoplayer.

NANCY:               Photoplayer. He'd been there for quite awhile.

GRANDMA:        Yeah. Yeah. That's where he was when he went into the service, he was working for them, Photoplayer. Yeah. I guess that's about it. I can't think of any more.

[Tape turned off.]

GRANDMA:        Then of course he was an Elder and -- oh. He was president of the Seventies Quorum.

NANCY:               Oh. When he went in the hospital?

GRANDMA:        Yes, I think it was then. He was -- he didn't -- he didn't make it to High Priest. You know there was some -- some books that had pictures of the different ones and -- I can't -- I can't seem to see that book anymore.

NANCY:               Of the groups at church?

GRANDMA:        Yeah, like, you know, in picture frames, and it would give their name and then what they was, and he was in that and I can't remember where I saw that book, but I --

NANCY:               Maybe Mother has it.

GRANDMA:        Maybe she has.

NANCY:               Because from time to time you've gone through your things and given, you know, given her things. So she might have it.

GRANDMA:        Yeah. Yeah. She may have that book. Because it seems so funny that it'd be just that book and -- and I wouldn't see it now. Seems to me I have -- I'll look through the books, I'll show you sometime. Yeah, he was a Seventy.

NANCY:               Tell me -- tell me the story about when Mother -- when she threw a temper tantrum, or --

GRANDMA:        Oh. Oh. He never spanked her. And we could always talk to your mother. Just both of us -- you know and the best part of it was whenever anything like, most anything come up, we'd sit down and we'd both talk it over. Well anyway, this time something came up, your mother got mad, or something. And Hadley very seldom got mad. He very, very seldom got mad. And you know that little breakfast nook we had? Well she got a tantrum, and she lay on the floor and she kicked up her heels, you know. Well that made him mad. And he picked her up gently, he wasn't mean about it, just picked her up, put her on the chair, and said, "Don't ever do that again. You sit there." And he spanked her a couple of times. And from that day, she never did. And he talked to her afterwards. But that's the way we did. We'd, you know, tell her why, too. So, I don't know, there was something -- I never believed in spanking a youngster -- spanking a youngster. I don't like to do it, and I don't like to see it. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe some youngsters need spanking. And with just having the one, and the type child she was, just made me feel that way. And I never was spanked, but once. Maybe I told you before. But in those days they had, you know, this, well they call it sweet french bread nowadays, but in those days they called it milk bread. And they cut the top out and fry oysters and put oysters in the top, put the top over it and they called it oyster loaf. One day my mother took a notion for an oyster loaf. So she sent me to the restaurant to get an oyster loaf. Well, you know, kidlike I picked up another little girl and we both went to the restaurant. Well I don't know, somehow or another that didn't hit my mother right. I don't know whether she didn't want the girl to know whether we got an oyster loaf or what it was all about, but she -- so right then and there -- of course we had the long drawers, you know, clear down to our ankles. And black stockings on top of that. Well she turned me over her knee and gave me a couple of spats. And that was my spanking. And that's the only spanking I ever remember. My dad never spanked. He was easier than my mother. And my mother was easy. But my dad, he was easier than my mother. So that's the spankings we had. Of course, you know, every parent knows their child. And, like I say, maybe some of them need spanking sometime or other. So that's how -- that's my life.

NANCY:               Didn't you tell me, or maybe Big Grandma, when you were born you were so tiny they carried you on a pillow, or something?

GRANDMA:        Oh yes. When I was born, when I was a baby, I was a walking drugstore.

NANCY:               A walking drugstore?

GRANDMA:        My mother -- nothing would agree with me. They tried everything under the sun. Nothing would agree with me. Finally, I don't know, they got something -- I think going away -- trip or something . . .

[Tape interruption.]

NANCY:               I think Big Grandma said that they had to carry you on a pillow, you were so tiny, so little.

GRANDMA:        Yes. And they did that with my Uncle Joe. He was very tiny and they had to carry him on there, but I think, I think they had to do that with me, too.

NANCY:               So you were born a little early, too, weren't you? You were premature.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               To be that tiny you would have to be. You weren't a full-term baby.

GRANDMA:        No. I think about seven months.

NANCY:               Yeah.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               Because even now, seven month babies don't have -- well they've got a much better chance to live, but you're probably very lucky you survived.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, yeah. Yes, I --

NANCY:               Or I guess we're very lucky.

GRANDMA:        Oh, I don't know (laughing).

NANCY:               Well there's a few of us that wouldn't be here.

GRANDMA:        Well that's true.

There was one time your mother was -- she was just a youngster. We were still living with the folks. She had something wrong with her. I forget -- I'm trying to think what it was. We got the Elders. And as soon as they got through administering to her she was all right. Oh, we've had lots of experience with that. I don't know.

NANCY:               Grandpa Hadley wrote in his journal, when he was at the hospital, about several times someone would come to administer to him.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               That he had been praying for someone to come.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               And then there were the missionaries, or somebody.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               So -- and I can tell in reading that journal, that he really counted on things like that.

GRANDMA:        Oh, yeah. Yeah.

NANCY:               And he seemed to -- now he doesn't say a whole lot.

GRANDMA:        No.

NANCY:               You have to read between the lines to try to get to know what he was like.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               But I got the impression that he never really felt too sorry for himself.

GRANDMA:        No.

NANCY:               And that he understood why, you know, why we have sickness. He hoped to get out of there.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               But he never blamed anything or anybody for being sick.

GRANDMA:        No. Well I don't know really how he got that. But when the piano tuning and everything was quiet, and the Photoplayer moved to Van Nuys, he got a job in a cannery. And evidently there was a lot of water, or something, and he had to stand in that. And I think he got cold, or chilled, or something. And he just got this cold. And it wouldn't let up. And so that's how come he went to the hospital. But I thought, well, maybe he'd be out in a couple of months, or something, you know, I didn't think he'd be --

NANCY:               He thought that, too.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               How long was he sick before he went into the hospital?

GRANDMA:        Well I really don't know. But he coughed so terrible, you know, and, oh, must have been a couple of months or more. Let's see, he went in the hospital in April, April.

NANCY:               Yeah, April 3rd.

GRANDMA:        April 3rd.

NANCY:               1931.

GRANDMA:        1931.

NANCY:               Right.

GRANDMA:        When George died, he and Ruth went back there. He should never have gone. But --

NANCY:               To Salt Lake?

GRANDMA:        What?

NANCY:               To Salt Lake?

GRANDMA:        Yeah. Ruth wanted to go, and he didn't want Ruth to go alone. And the other boys didn't bother. And so the two of them went back there. But he never -- I've got pictures of him -- oh, he looks terrible.

NANCY:               That was just before he went in the hospital?

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               Shortly --

GRANDMA:        Yeah, shortly.

NANCY:               Yeah. Trying to think of what I was going to ask.

[Tape ends. Side B.]

GRANDMA:        He wanted Joe to -- maybe I told you before -- he wanted Joe to teach him the watch -- well, you know, repairing of watches and everything. Joe wouldn't do it. I don't know why. Maybe -- I was telling your mother, and she said maybe it was, like, he didn't want competition, or she didn't know what it was, and I said, well I didn't know what. At the time Hadley told me I thought, well it was kind of mean of Joe not to want to teach him that, but of course Joe had a reason.

NANCY:               Well, and it's a good thing, because later when he was in the piano business he had had dreams, you know, did he tell you that?

GRANDMA:        What?

NANCY:               He had had a dream that he was fixing or building pianos. And in his journal he says that he finally found the work that he feels he was cut out for, but that he didn't pay any attention to the dream until after he got this job, then he realized that he had had this dream weeks before. And so he knew he was doing what he was supposed to do.

GRANDMA:        Uh-huh.

NANCY:               And he was really interested in what he was doing.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               And you know now that I think about it too, it's a good thing that he was in the Army just for four months because that gave him the veteran's benefits for the hospital.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, sure.

NANCY:               But it was nice he didn't have to serve for a long time.

GRANDMA:        Yeah. Yeah, you see, with Jack, he was in, I don't know how long he was in the service. He was in France for quite awhile.

Yeah.

NANCY:               Well, what did you guys -- what did you like to do, like when he was through work, what were some of the things you did for entertainment?

GRANDMA:        With Hadley?

NANCY:               Uh-huh.

GRANDMA:        Well I don't know. We stayed home quite a bit. We never went much. We'd go down to the house quite a bit, you know, and spend the evening down there. We were always a close family, you see, and we didn't live too far, you know, about five blocks.

NANCY:               Sort of like it is now, you know, everyone's close.

GRANDMA:        Yeah. Yeah.

NANCY:               Well, I don't know what else to ask you. There's always something that we think up, though, because it was a whole lifetime we're talking about.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               Mom said how most times, you know, she couldn't see him in the hospital, she had to just wave at him.

GRANDMA:        Yeah. It was a few times she got up -- we'd -- he'd come out on the lawn and she could be with him then.

NANCY:               You had to get a special pass, didn't you?

GRANDMA:        Yeah. But do you know, I guess it was a certain part, like, of precaution, but after he died I got all his books. Well now, if there was any germs, you'd think they'd be in those books.

NANCY:               Did anyone say anything about it?

GRANDMA:        No, no. And his letters coming back and forth.

NANCY:               Yeah, yeah that's true.

GRANDMA:        I wrote to him every single night of my life, I wrote to him. Every night.

NANCY:               Did you ever read his diary?

GRANDMA:        I guess I have, yeah, years ago, but I've . . .

NANCY:               There's some things in here, you know, it's touching to me to read it because it shows how much he loved you.

GRANDMA:        Oh, I know. I know.

NANCY:               It probably -- if I were you -- I'd understand how it would be painful to read that.

GRANDMA:        Yeah. Yeah.

NANCY:               You wouldn't want to, you know, after awhile.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               Did he -- I'll read you a few of them in a minute. Did he go downhill real fast, or towards the end, did he know he was going to die?

GRANDMA:        Well I don't know. You see, let's see, how did they -- Shields -- did you know Shields? I guess you didn't know Shields. Somehow or another I got word that he was pretty bad. So I went out there. And then Shields -- I told Shields, and then he told your mother. Anyway, I went out there. It was in the evening. And he was pretty bad then.

NANCY:               When you say pretty bad, see I don't know what he was like. Was he just weak, or --

GRANDMA:        Yes, you know, he hadn't eaten or anything. Well he was -- he was really dying, I guess. It was on a Monday evening. And we stayed there for awhile, and Brother Shields and somebody else, I don't know, went in and administered to him. That was on the Monday evening. Well then we came home and went out during the week, you know, and he was in a private room. And he seemed to be pretty good, but he was weak. Well then the next Monday, about quarter to 11 at night, the hospital phoned me and told me he'd gone. And the doctor said that the nurse found him just gone. You know, just went in bed. And so he just went off like that. I guess he went peacefully. And then, of course, they would have attended to everything, but I phoned an undertaker, Truman's, and he went out and got the body. But you see, if I'd have only known, if I'd have let them handle it, it wouldn't have cost me anything. But you see, with all my excitement and everything I didn't think about that. But anyway, that was that. And when he was in his casket, he looked almost the picture of health. He didn't look bad at all. Of course they fix them up, you know.

NANCY:               Maybe it's good you had it done privately. Maybe he looked better than if the Service had handled it. You never know, there might have been a reason.

GRANDMA:        Maybe so. Yeah. You see, we work on reasons a lot, you know.

NANCY:               Or they work on us.

GRANDMA:        Yeah one or the other.

NANCY:               Thank goodness sometimes.

GRANDMA:        Yeah. And, but -- and do you know, I used to be -- I wasn't afraid of the dead, but it gave me a, oh, kind of a funny feeling, and I didn't want to be around very much. Well do you know when he was laid out, right in the parting of his hair, there was a hair out of place, and I reached over and put that hair back. Well do you know, from that day to this, I've had an entirely different feeling about the dead. With Grandpa -- with Pop going, I saw him die. I saw Mama close his eyes and I saw all of it. With Grandpa Jack dying, it was the same thing. And that night, of course I changed all our bedding and everything, I slept in the same bed. And I don't seem to have any fear of the dead like I used to. Oh, I get funny feelings sometimes, but not like I used to. Now maybe it was -- they say that if you touch the dead, or something, you get a different feeling. So maybe that happened to me. I don't know.

NANCY:               That could be. Well how did Mom take it? I guess she expected it, and she, you know -- she was what, 12 years old, almost 13?

GRANDMA:        Yeah, well he went in November.

NANCY:               So she would be 13 in December.

GRANDMA:        She would be 13 in December.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, well. I don't know. She was just a child, you know. And I remember, I thought that the priesthood put the cap on them. But it runs in my mind and it sticks out so clearly that, you know, this Maureen Perona?

NANCY:               Uh-huh.

GRANDMA:        Her mother put the cap on Hadley.

NANCY:               I think the Relief Society --

GRANDMA:        Well maybe that's it. Because I know, it's just as clear, and I can't get it out of my mind that she did it. That she reached down and got the cap and put it on him before they closed the casket. Because he was buried from Moss Avenue, you know the chapel there. And I'm sure -- and then I thought -- afterwards I thought, now the priesthood's supposed to do that. And then I thought, well it must be right because she wouldn't have done it if it wasn't. And just about a week later she was killed. She was killed in an auto accident. She and her sister were in a car and somehow or other another car bumped into them and, anyway, she, it killed her right out. Wasn't long after. It seems to me it was only a week, but it may have been a little longer.

NANCY:               Well he wrote, you know, in his diary, up until a week before he died. He wrote up until about the 30th of September, and he died the 7th -- I mean October, 30th of October --

GRANDMA:        November.

NANCY:               Yeah, let me look. Yeah, October 29th, Saturday. And then there's -- see here's the next page with nothing on it.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               So, yeah, he said, "In the afternoon Brother Shields and Bagley came in a administered to me."

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               And that was on a Tuesday. So, anyway, well, you know, I didn't want to get you sad, but I'm interested in hearing about it.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, sure, sure. Oh, I think about these things when I'm alone, you know. And, I don't know, lots of times when I think about different things and my mind goes way back and I try to think of something and sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. And there's funny parts, too, and there's --

NANCY:               Did he have -- he had quite a sense of humor didn't he? I've -- kind of a subtle --

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:                -- sense of humor.

GRANDMA:        I think he had more of a, oh, what do you call it, sense of humor, I guess that's it.

NANCY:               Dry sense of humor?

GRANDMA:        I don't think I've got any. There's some things that people see that's funny and they laugh, and I -- I can't seen anything funny to it. I tell you, Nancy, I'm too serious. And I have been all my life. Yeah.

NANCY:               Well, I don't think of you as being that way, because you're always -- you're always ready for a good laugh.

GRANDMA:        Well, yes, but I think myself that way.

NANCY:               Yeah, maybe you're serious-minded.

GRANDMA:        Well maybe that's it.

NANCY:               I'm that way, too, and yet I like to have a good time, you know.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, you can see a sense of humor. That's it, that's what I wanted to say. Sense of humor. I don't think I've got that. I don't know.

NANCY:               Oh, you do. You just -- you don't know -- you do.

GRANDMA:        I have a sense of humor?

NANCY:               Oh yeah. Sometimes you sit there and laugh at something the kids do that none of the rest of us have even noticed, you know. You do.

GRANDMA:        Well maybe I have, then.

NANCY:               Oh, yeah. There's a lot we don't know about ourselves, you know.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, that's right.

NANCY:               He wasn't -- he wasn't real serious was he?

GRANDMA:        No.

NANCY:               I mean, I know he was, but, I mean, not to the point of being stuffy --

GRANDMA:        Oh, no. No.

NANCY:               You know, he just seems to me too perfect.

GRANDMA:        That's it.

NANCY:               I think he was close to it.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               It really surprised me to read in his journal about when he was younger, taking a motorcycle trip down the San Juaquin?

GRANDMA:        Oh yeah?

NANCY:               And he ended up staying eight months.

GRANDMA:        Oh.

NANCY:               He worked in the canneries.

GRANDMA:        Oh, that's it.

NANCY:               But he started out just -- he didn't have a job, so they, he and his friend hopped on motorcycles and just took off.

GRANDMA:        Yeah.

NANCY:               I --

GRANDMA:        I think that was Earl.

NANCY:               Yeah.

GRANDMA:        Yeah, Earl Shultz.

NANCY:               Are any of his friends still alive, or I guess you wouldn't know, huh?

GRANDMA:        No. I don't think Earl is.

NANCY:               Mom often talks about how he used to sit and make decorations for her parties.

GRANDMA:        Oh, could he make them, too. He'd sit for hours at the machine, sewing little baskets. These little baskets, you know, that you buy in the store. He'd ruffle the crepe paper, you know, and he sit there and he'd go, and he'd go, and he'd go [gesturing]. He used to sit -- make the baskets, and we used to decorate the dining room, you know, hang the streamers from the corner. And he used to love to do that.

NANCY:               He had great patience, didn't he?

GRANDMA:        Oh, patience. He had the patience of Job. Oh, yeah.

NANCY:               When did you go through the temple?

GRANDMA:        27th.

NANCY:               And then, of course, you took Mom and she was sealed then.

GRANDMA:        Oh, yeah.

NANCY:               Well I know she was, but -- did you take the train back? It was in Salt Lake, wasn't it?

GRANDMA:        Yeah. Yeah, ten years after we were married, we went to the temple.

NANCY:               Did you have any boyfriends before you started going with Hadley? You didn't, huh? Just sounds like a fairy story, you know. The whole thing is just -- just really neat.

GRANDMA:        No, I don't know. I don't know whether my mother was old fashioned or what, but I -- oh, I had a -- there was some friends in the City we had -- Willofords, have you heard me speak of Willofords? Anyway, her nephew, well I got to know him. And anyway a friend of his, he's the one I told you, you know, that at my party. My girlfriend was tall and I was short, and her nephew was tall and his boyfriend was short. And I said that if they came over we'd pair up and it would be just our luck that my friend would get the short one and I'd get the tall one. And it happened that way. But after that, this boy asked me to go out. And of course I had to ask my mother, you know. Mama said yes, I could go, but come right home from the show and don't go anywhere to eat or anything. Come right home from the show. So I had a date with him. Well in the meantime, Hadley showed up. You see, Hadley came that Sunday, you know, and it was -- well I guess my mother could -- my mother didn't say much, you know, but I guess she could see that -- and knowing Hadley for so long before, I guess she thought, well it would ripen into something. So she told me, now, she says: You have a date with this fellow -- I forget his name now -- well it wouldn't be fair to either one of them, you going out with this fellow and still Hadley coming to the house. So I had to give up one. So I had to tell this fellow that I couldn't go out with him anymore. In other words, I couldn't have Hadley and I couldn't have this other fellow at the same time.

NANCY:               Yeah.

GRANDMA:        I had to have one or the other. But Hadley and I went to the show one night, but my mother didn't say don't go out after to eat, don't go --

NANCY:               She trusted you.

GRANDMA:        Yeah. So we went -- the show where we went to was on Broadway, and just kind of opposite, down the next block, was a Glenhardt's. Have you heard of Glenhardt Candies? Well, they had kind of a -- it was a candy store, and they served refreshments, you know, like the, oh family farms, what do you call them?

NANCY:               Berkeley Farms?

GRANDMA:        Berkeley Farms. Yeah. And we went in and had, I forget, I guess we had some sodas or some ice cream or something. But of course, I had to come right home afterwards.

END OF TAPE

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