Gas and tires were both rationed during WW II, but somehow my folks managed a surprising number of trips to see Dad’s family. Most of those trips were to Dinuba, about 130 miles south of Stockton, but I remember at least one trip to Vallejo, one of the towns on the east shore of San … Continue reading 7. Vallejo
6. Stockton: WWII
“When Lowell and I quit Junior College we went to Lodi and lived with your parents until the war. We enlisted shortly after. Your parents made several moves before they lived on 21 West Third Street in Stockton. While on Third Street your dad and I got jobs driving dump trucks at the Stockton Airport.” … Continue reading 6. Stockton: WWII
5. Grandma & Grandpa Young
Margaret Armbruster Young (1892-1973); Adam Young (1888-1972) Even when I was a little girl I thought Grandpa Young was a nice looking man. He had a nice nose and blue eyes, a mouth that always looked ready to smile. It was a kind face, a face I trusted. His heavy German accent felt like a … Continue reading 5. Grandma & Grandpa Young
4. The Youngs
The Adam & Margaret Young Family (November 1941) My mother stands at the left end of the photo above. It was taken November 1, 1941, the day Mom’s brother David married Jane Weston. The parents sit on dining room chairs taken from the house, their four sons and six daughters stand around them. It … Continue reading 4. The Youngs
Chapter 3: The House on Highway 99
The photo below was taken November 1941. I was two months shy of my fourth birthday. My father was twenty-seven. In less than a month, Japan would bomb Pearl Harbor, and the United States would enter World War II. Jacob & Loretta Willems, November 1941 I have a dim memory of this photo being taken, … Continue reading Chapter 3: The House on Highway 99
Jack Willems: “Truck Driving Exploits”
Truck driving was my father’s default occupation, the job he turned to when other projects didn’t turn out. It was a default occupation because he was good at it, and though he disliked working for other people, he did enjoy driving and took pride in his skill at handling the big diesel rigs. Below are … Continue reading Jack Willems: “Truck Driving Exploits”
Chapter 2: The Christmas Tree House
My parents lost the little farm in Navelencia, the place where memory began for me. Dad got the place by buying out another man’s interest in the farm and assuming the mortgage, a deal done without the original owner’s permission. When Dad couldn’t make the mortgage payment at the end of the grape harvest, the … Continue reading Chapter 2: The Christmas Tree House
“Toddlers remember better than you think”
“Up until the 1980s, it was thought that babies and young toddlers lived in a perpetual present. … The paradigm of the perpetual present has now itself been forgotten. Even infants are aware of the past, as many remarkable experiments have shown. Babies can’t speak but they can imitate, and if shown a series of … Continue reading “Toddlers remember better than you think”
Chapter 1: Memory
“The only observations worth making are those that sink in upon you in childhood. We don’t know we’re observing, but we see everything. Our minds are relatively blank, our memories are not crammed full of all sorts of names, so that the impressions we gather in the first 12 years are enormous and vivid and … Continue reading Chapter 1: Memory
Old Photos
I have been going though my accumulation of old photos, trying to find a satisfying way to both organize and preserve them. Particularly urgent are the colored snapshots and portraits made back in the 1970s and 1980s. Unbeknownst to us then, that lovely color was doomed to fade. Before long they will be ghost photos. … Continue reading Old Photos
