Chapter 1 - Prolog - My Mom and Dad

Of course, this all started with my parents. My brother Gene has put together quite a complete family history, but I need to add some background for my story. My mother. Stella Marie, was born in 1896 to Alphonse and Anna (Meyer) Verschelden, the eldest daughter of eight children (five sons, three daughters). Their large farm was near St. Marys, Kansas, and as the oldest girl, she helped her mother with all the cooking for the farm hands, canning food, vegetable gardening, and caring for her younger siblings. She would laugh and shake her head when telling how her sister Bernadette played hooky when it was her turn to help in the kitchen. Aunty B. was usually hiding in the attic or up a tree, reading a book. (This is the one who became a teacher and a nun.) Her dad expected Mom to marry a good Catholic farmer, but her ambition was to become a nurse - no farm wife's life for her! Her mother encouraged her and evidently convinced Grandpa, or else Grandma had some egg money, for the tuition, hidden away. Grandma had won a touring car and learned to drive it, while Grandpa could never get the hang of it (he'd yell "Gee and Haw" to get it to stop and start). Thus, when it was time to leave for nursing school, Grandma drove Mom to the train station in St. Mary's. As they went out the driveway, Grandpa shook his fist at them, calling, "You'll be back! You'll be back!" St. Mary's Hospital School of Nursing (Kansas City, MO) was tough; six days a week, and student nurses not only cared for patients, but also washed bed pans and scrubbed floors. Whenever Mother would get terribly discouraged, she'd remember her last sight of Grandpa and his "You'll be back," and return to her studies with renewed determination.

The course lasted three years, and she graduated in 1921. She and two of her classmates had vowed that if they ever lived to finish their training, they'd work for a while, then take a trip to that romantic place, California, and see a real ocean. Eventually, they did so by train, ending up in Southern California. None of them ever went back home again. Mother had cousins near San Diego, the Clancys and Ronsees, who were originally from St. Mary's, but I don't know how long she remained in that area. While there, she happened to buy a Jot in Long Beach. I think some slicker convinced her there might be oil under it. I know she still had it when I was a small child, but no oil gusher ever developed, and they evidently got tired of paying taxes on it. Then she evidently went to Fresno to work and rented a room at the Floyd Smiths, who became her very good friends. Eventually she went to Turlock, probably because of her cousin, Doc Ronsees, who had been a veterinarian in the Army Calvary, and had settled in Turlock, establishing his practice there.

In Turlock she worked as a nurse at Collins Hospital, owned by Dr. Collins and his son, Dr. Marion Collins. Later on, I thought it very romantic that she had dated the younger Dr. Collins. He eventually became the person who founded the famous Medic Alert Foundation, after his daughter almost died from a reaction to a bee sting.

When I was young, I loved hearing about my mother's experiences at St. Mary's Hospital School of Nursing, including dating a young doctor at that hospital who was "sweet on her" (her words). She was a very beautiful woman, and I'm sure attracted many beaus. To me (young and naive) doctors were very important, rich, glamorous men, and not understanding about falling in love, I wondered why didn't marry a doctor? Toward the end of her life, she told me that after she came to California, she and the Kansas City doctor, John, kept in touch. When she wrote to tell him she was engaged to Dad, he sent his congratulations and asked for old times' sake she would name her first son after him. Thus, my brother is Leslie John. I am sure my father never knew exactly where the "John" came from, but after she died, I found that letter from Doctor John among her personal items, and sent it to my brother.

My father, Alex Louis Denk, was born in 1895 to Louis and Helene Denk, in Olivenhain, near Encinitas, California. They were also farmers, and Grandpa Denk was one of the original settlers of the Olivenhain Colony, a German communal settlement. He was a shoemaker and farmer, originally from Austria. My Dad related that if anyone called him a German, he would sternly remind them he was an Austrian and that blankety-blank Kaiser had no business taking over Austria. I never knew my Denk grandparents. Olivenhain is an interesting story, and thank goodness, a descendant wrote a book about it before all the second generation had passed away. My Uncle Bruno had charge of the old records, and he could read them, but they were written in the old German script, very hard to decipher. I have a copy of that book, The Olivenhain Colony, and today the Meeting House and the schoolhouse are California State Historical Monuments (thanks to the efforts of my Cousin Harley Denk, who still lives on what's left of the old property). All of our Denk ancestors are buried in the private cemetery there.

Dad told a cute story about the names in his family. He had two brothers, Bruno and Ludwig, and a sister, Anna. His name was Alex, and we asked if it wasn't Alexander. "Nope, just Alex," he'd say. "But 1 was lucky. My brother Bruno was named after a dog, and brother Ludwig after a piano." When he was young, Dad contracted rheumatic fever, and after that was always rather sickly. The doctors told his folks he'd never live past his teens unless he got out of that foggy climate. He probably went to about the eighth grade, but was bright, and very anxious to learn, quite a self-educated man .. (I remember him often enrolling in night school classes in Vallejo one time we took a math class together.) Of course, he was expected to help out on the farm, and lost part of his thumb one time when he stopped runaway horses hooked up to the wagon. He once showed me the hill where it happened. Finally, in his teens, he moved to the dry desert climate of the Imperial Valley, and worked there in the packing sheds, making crates. Eventually, he went to Turlock, working for the Turlock Irrigation District, then bought his own business.

My Dad, not given much chance in his youth for a long life, outlived all his siblings and died at ninety-four. We had a big birthday party for his ninetieth birthday. Instead of presents, there was a money tree, which paid for a plane trip back to San Diego and Olivenhain to visit his ailing brother Bruno. I had the pleasure of accompanying him, and the old family home, where he was born, together with the farm buildings, was still there. That year, the property was sold, and today an office complex occupies the site.

Mother met my father when he was in Collins Hospital with a broken leg, and he evidently was very impressed with this nurse, and she with him. He was a bright, ambitious young man, owned a service station and garage on Olive Street in Turlock, belonged to the volunteer fire department, and he played in a dance band. My dad liked the outdoors life, hunting and fishing, and we know he rode a motorcycle to Yosemite (have the picture). Camping was the only affordable way for a young couple to take a vacation, and he probably introduced the Kansas farm girl to this. Among the old family pictures is one of a campsite with the women in nineteen-twenties dress and aprons. I recognize my Aunt Anna Denk, and J bet she was the chaperone. Mom had once told me he proposed on a camping trip, and also among the old family photos is this one, which would give any Yosemite Park ranger a heart attack. I wonder if this is where, on the edge of Glacier Point, he asked, .. Stella, will you marry me?'' and sweeping his hand out over that expansive, magnificent view, said, "I want to give you the whole world."

Although living in Turlock, they were married in 1924 in Fresno, California, perhaps because the Smiths wanted to host a reception. Afterward. They went to Catalina Island for their honeymoon, a common honeymoon destination in that day. I don't know how soon they would build their home on Merritt Street. It cost $2,000! It was a typical 1920s bungalow with a covered front porch anchored by two big cement pillars; a living room, dining room, and kitchen with a built-in breakfast nook down one side, and two bedrooms and a bath on the other. There was a back, screened porch. The garage was at the back of the lot, on the alley that serviced the entire block. A double clothes line ran between the house and garage. Under it was a lawn, and several years after they were married, the diamond fell out of Mom's wedding ring while she was hanging out clothes. Later on, she actually found it one day after the lawn had been watered and the sun glinted off something- the diamond. In July of 1925, my sister, Estelle, was born but lived only a day. I hope that my arrival two years later made up for that heartbreak.

"And now to the rest of the story ..."