Chapter 3 - The Sonora Years

1937-1942

By the time school started, we had rented a house on High Street in the "Michigan Heights" part of Sonora, on the southern edge of town. Tony DiNapoli owned it, and he had a small home to the side and down on the alley. Our house, a dirty shade of yellow, was even with and practically right on the street (no sidewalks), but on a steep hillside, and the back of the house was on stilts. Today, he'd be lauded as a conservationist, but to us he was a cheapskake because he had our bathtub drain connected to a rickety flume carrying the wastewater down to irrigate his grapevines and fruit trees, which were on our house lot. I didn't pay much attention, but I think there were some arguments, because my folks felt they rented the house and lot (as well as watered the trees), and he felt the trees and fruit were his. Tony also made wine, and John has a funny story about how he and his friend Tucson Meyers would sneak into his cellar and sample his wine. I think that ended when my dad smelled John's breath one day and made him go to Tony and apologize.

I don't know how we could have gotten to school from the original place (would have been a very long walk), but this was closer. It still took a good half an hour to walk down our steep hill three blocks, along Washington Street (Main Street through Sonora) several blocks, across it and three blocks up another steep hill. The old Sonora Union Grammar School, classical architecture with a gleaming dome, stood out on its hill (are you realizing how hilly Sonora was?). On the way, I often picked up my classmate, Jacqueline, who lived with her aunt. On the way home after school, Aunty sat us down to homemade cookies with a glass of milk, or cocoa in the winter-m-m-m, good. The school covered eight grades, and I started there in the fifth. I was a good student; my parents expected it and held out high standards for us three kids. Dad seldom smiled or laughed (mother had a much better sense of humor), and I discovered that I could really make him happy by working hard and getting good grades.

We played games (regulation PE) at recess, and it's a good thing we weren't graded on that, because I would have flunked. I was a real klutz when it came to coordination and sports. Music, usually choral singing, was a regular part of the curriculum, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In Sonora, I joined the children's choir at St. Patrick's Church's (whose picturesque white steeple you see as you enter town). We practiced after school every Friday at the home of an elderly Mrs. Scott, who spoiled our dinner appetites with her overflowing candy dish. I continued to sing in church choirs most of my life, until the past few years.

My dad, who played several instruments and in dance bands in his early years, had bought Mother a piano for their first anniversary, in hopes she would learn to play and they could make beautiful music together. She wasn't very apt at it, but it was a player piano and we had lots of family fun playing those rolls of music. This is the same Hobart piano, which has been restored and is in the custody of our Mary Biasotti Mackey. It's a mystery that my money-conscious father purchased such a fine piano, but I imagine he traded a music store owner garage services towards the price. Anyway, as the only daughter, I was his next hope. The music teacher gave instrument lessons at school and I tried the violin for a while. That didn't last very long, so they had me take piano lessons from a neighborhood lady for nearly three years (then they gave up on me?). I think my mother's chickens paid for those lessons. Now I am really sorry I didn't keep it up.

The best part about High Street was our wonderful neighbors, the Sherrards. Mrs. Sherrard, Lisa, was a delightful, loving, red-headed German lady, and her mother, Oma, lived with them. I spent many hours with Oma, and she taught me to knit. James and Babe (Ruth) were the Sherrard children. Mr. Sherrard, who was the Agricultural Commissioner for the county, was very quiet, and I have little memory of him. We were always included in their Christmas Eve party. I especially remember the traditional herring salad (one has to acquire a taste for a mixture of herring and apples), but there was also a beautiful tree and Santa's grand entrance with a small present for every child. Mr. S. played Santa, but I think he was called into the army in 1941, and my dad filled in for him that year.

A block down the street was a cemetery. We had great respect for the dead, plus we'd heard enough ghost stories that we steered clear of it (at least, I did). I think my brother got in trouble once and hid out there, but I'll have to let him tell that story.

My grade school friends were Dorothy Eschew (very sweet, very poor), Diane Hunt (the blonde glamour girl), Jacqueline (homely, but a brain), Mary Francis Speer (whose folks inherited some money and built a nice home with a swimming pool, so she was very popular), and cute, pert Patty Wright. For fun, we made dresses for paper dolls, roller-skated (skates were clamped onto the foot and tightened with a key), played indoor games like Chinese Checkers and jigsaw puzzles, outdoor ones like Hide-And-Seek, softball, Fox and Goose, and jump rope. With my brothers, Jim and Babe (Ruth) Sherrard, and the other neighborhood kids, I explored the hilly woods around Sonora. Mother never knew about all the old abandoned mine shafts we came across and looked into. Poison oak was plentiful, and we often got it, but one time was memorable. We were playing Cowboys and Indians, and were so intent on ambushing the cowboys that we never paid attention to what we were crawling through on our stomachs-a bed of poison oak! As I recall, we were homebound for at least a week, wearing only undies and slathered with calamine lotion.

After renting Tony DiNapoli's house a couple of years, we moved to a much nicer one on Bradford Street. It had a big upstairs room, which was my bedroom plus an all-purpose area. It had dormer windows, and we often climbed out that window and hid on the shed roof (the shed was built into the hill in back) when it was chore time, or I just wanted to ditch my brothers and read in peace. This house was much closer to the downtown area, and we walked everywhere (one car, certainly no bus service), to the grocery store, bank (we had bank day at school on a regular schedule where we deposited our meager savings in our accounts), drug and dime store. Sometimes Mother would phone in her grocery list, and a grocery boy would deliver the items. However, this house was on the west edge of town, and by crossing the creek and going straight south a mile or so over the hill, though the woods and some fields, you could get to High Street and the Sherrard kids.

At the Bradford street house, Mom raised banty chickens. My folks also raised rabbits but that may have been later on (in Vallejo, for sure). We were warned not to make pets of them, but we did. Then when we had chicken or rabbit for Sunday dinner, we had to choke it down, knowing we were eating poor Flopsy or Mopsy. One time Mom came home to find some of her chickens dead or missing. Suspecting one of the neighborhood dogs, she was so mad she loaded one of dad's guns and kept it handy. Sure enough, the dog came back the next day, she got him with one shot, then had one of my brothers hurriedly dig a grave up on the hill and bury him before anyone came snooping around.

John (Buddy, in his younger days), Gene and I all had home chores and received a small allowance, with which we bought Tootsie Rolls for one cent and went to the Saturday afternoon matinee uptown at the only theater, ten cents admission. There was often a double feature, and always cartoons. One summer, Mother went to Kansas on the train, because her father was dying, and I was to keep house and take care of my brothers during the day. I was never much of a cook, so I wonder what kind of dinners we had those weeks. "Buddy" was better at cooking and baking than me. It was my job to keep the house clean, and I was a slacker at that, because I would rather read. Even in those days we had "movie magazines" which featured Shirley Temple, Errol Flynn, Nelson Eddy (my idol), Sonia Henie, Esther Williams, Tyrone Power, and others. The contents were wholesome with modest pictures, compared to today. I also was a regular at the public library.

Because I was old enough to babysit my brothers, Mother took some private-duty nursing jobs in order to help out financially. It was one of those days when I was in charge that Gene scared me to death by setting my folks bedroom on fire. It was our family custom to have a May altar, where we gathered around each May evening and honored the Virgin Mary, asking her to intercede with her son, Jesus, for our special intentions. The altar was in front of or just below the windows, and had a statue of Mary, a vase of flowers, and a candle or two. I know it was one afternoon when I was in charge and both our parents were gone. Gene decided to play with matches and light one of the candles. A breeze blew the curtain out into the flame and he screamed for me. I saw the whole wall on fire, and yelled at the boys to grab kitchen pots and pans. I still remember how agonizingly long it took to fill that pot with water. We sloshed out the fire, but sure messed up the dresser and floor with water damage. You may ask why we didn't call 911? First of all, phones had party lines, and sometimes the other person wouldn't get off the line, especially for a child. Secondly, Sonora, and many towns, in those years had volunteer fire departments, where men who lived or worked near the firehouse dropped what they were doing when they heard the fire siren (a special signal), and ran for the engines. Often, buildings were too involved to save much by the time they got there. One time the Europa Hotel, on a hill opposite the grammar school, caught on fire--a spectacular fire, and we were allowed to watch from the school's auditorium windows and balcony, which looked out upon it. That was Sonora's most newsworthy event of the year. 21 Eighth-grade graduation was notable for two new, store-bought dresses: a pretty light blue with white polka dots and a pleated skirt, plus a white graduation dress with a colored, removable vest. This was a big deal, because Mother made some of my dresses, but most were from my cousin, Luci, three years older than me. I did not appreciate them (or home-made dresses, either), because they were hand-me-downs. They were probably lovely, because she was the only child in the family and her mother worked. Cute little Shirley Temple was a big movie star, and even in those days, they licensed things. I dreamed of having a "Shirley Temple" dress, and I did get one for a wonderful birthday gift (I was probably about nine years old). The Electrolux Corporation gave incentive gifts to salesmen who met their quotas. A very popular one was department store gift certificates (I am sure this is where this dress and the graduation dresses came from). I did love my white confirmation dress, which my mother made out of white dotted Swiss; the square neckline trimmed with lace. The "Sunbonnet Sue" quilt (now very worn and safe in my cedar chest) was made for my 6th birthday by Grandmother Verschelden from many of the scrap materials from dresses Mother made for me when I was little.

In September of 1941 I became a freshman at Sonora Union High School, where I met Alicemae Bullock. I often visited her home in Soulsbyville, and our friendship continued for many years. However, I eventually lost track of her, and the only other friends from those days have been Lisa (Mrs.), Babe and James Sherrard, who all eventually relocated to Placerville.

As for entertainment and the news, it was either the radio or the telephone. I remember listening to "Little Orphan Annie" every evening at 5 PM. I made Mom promise to call me into the house from play. On Sunday evenings we'd popped corn, eat it and listen to "One Man's Family," a fictional family living in the Seacliff District of San Francisco. Many years later when driving through there, I'd look at those homes and wonder which one was the setting for that family. Phones in Sonora had party lines (maybe several households on a line) and each home had a special ring. There was a central operator who sometimes listened in on all the gossip. We had a weekly newspaper, but for a while there was a two-page mimeographed weekly sheet my Dad called "The Scandal Sheet." It would list who went where, had guests, parties, got engaged, married, or died. One of my brothers delivered it, he probably also delivered the other newspaper as well.

I remember when my grandfather Verschelden died. We were eating dinner. The phone rang and the operator said that there was a telegram (I think you had to pay to have someone deliver it; otherwise go pick it up at the telegraph office). Telegrams were so few and far between they usually meant bad news. I'm sure Mother suspected it announced her father's death, and had them read it over the phone. I'm glad she had been able to visit him a few months before. Trains took three days and two nights to Kansas, and my folks had very little money, so there was no thought of attending his funeral.

As for transportation, one either walked, larger cities had bus lines, and you took the Greyhound Bus to go out of town. I don't think even wealthy people flew much, because those were prop planes in those days, which weren't very comfortable and couldn't go 22 long distances very fast. Besides, train travel was in its golden age. However, it was a real thrill in the mid-1 03 0s when a Ford Tri-Motor flew into Modesto airport, and Dad plunked down $10 for a sightseeing tour over Modesto for him, myself, and (?) my brothers. My next time to fly was in 1952 to join your father at his first professional job at the Madison, Wisconsin, Crime Lab. Dave was a baby, and AI had gone ahead to find us a place to live.

On Sunday, December 7, 1941, the all-purpose Sonora fire siren wailed and wailed, and we knew something was up (there was a certain signal for local fires, a long wailing for disasters). The adults sat mesmerized around the radio, listening to the news that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. We kids probably went on with playing, little realizing our lives were about to change drastically. Because he was an excellent machinist, Dad was soon in Vallejo, working on submarines at Mare Island Navy Yard. He must have taken the Greyhound Bus home every month or so to visit us in Sonora, because Mother had to have the car (a blue 1937 Chevy sedan) for emergencies and family transportation. Vallejo had a good bus system and ''jitneys" to serve Mare Island. He lived in a boarding house, where he and a fellow boarder, Hiney Gearhart, became friends. Hiney eventually bought a home in South Vallejo and moved his family out from Nebraska (more about the Gearharts later). Many Bay Area people panicked and afraid of a Japanese attack or invasion, moved their families to more remote places like Sonora. Two families, sans fathers, in our immediate neighborhood were San Francisco transplants.

Mother and we children remained in Sonora the rest of that school year. With thousands of extra civilian workers flooding Vallejo, housing there was at a premium, especially rentals. Our old Turlock neighbors, the Trowbridges, owned a house and pear orchard near Lakeport, on Clear Lake. They needed a caretaker and offered Mother the job for the summer, so off to Clear Lake we went (I guess the furniture went into storage). We had a great time playing in the orchard, exploring the area by car (gas must not have been that strictly rationed, as yet), going to a municipal beach to swim, because the shore near us was reedy and mucky. We spent a great deal of time in this great fruit-growing area helping her go to different places to pick fruit and can it. A special memory was poking through an impressive, old abandoned mansion on the other side of the lake. Someone had lost it during the Great Depression, and a family who befriended us were caretakers and had a key. For our part, we had to watch out for transients and fruit poachers on Trowbridge's land, and Mom had one of Dad's guns with her. We chased off a few.

By the end of the summer, Dad had had no luck finding us a house (he worked long hours, probably six days a week), school would be starting soon, and our folks were worried. The Gearharts offered us their basement, so our first Vallejo home was a basement with a washtub for an all-purpose sink, hanging bed sheets for bedroom walls, and two families; nine people shared the one bathroom upstairs. It was wartime and often two or three families would share a house.