Lottie's Photos: The Van-Tillo Ally Painters, 1947

 

Mom, Dad and Terry with John Thornally and Clara
and Floyd VanEpps and their son.

Wherever Mom and Dad lived they made friends with their neighbors and kept those friends for the rest of their lives. This pattern began with Harold and Mickey Mohr and when they bought their first home on Elsie Avenue in San Leandro, they met and befriended Clara and Floyd VanEpps.

Mom and dad socialized with Clara and Floyd and they spent time entertaining each other in their homes. Mom and Dad went to the VanEpps one Thanksgiving, the following year they spent New Years Eve together. They went dancing at the German Club and the Alta Mira Club. In August of 1944 they all went to see a musical at Woodminster. Occasionally, they would watch each other’s children and when Dad went to the hospital to bring Kathy home after she was born Clara rode along with Dad and held Kathy on the way back.

This photo was taken over the 4^th of July weekend when the two families worked together to paint one of their home. The following weekend they painted the other. Grandpa Thornally, sitting in the middle with his pipe and a hat on washed all the brushes and helped clean up each day. Looks like even Terry and the VanEpps’s son helped as well.

Lottie's Photos: Terry's First Birthday, 1943

Terry and Mom - both looking stylish

This photo stands out for me because it shows my mother looking rather glamorous. It’s not how I saw her but I think it may be how she saw herself – at least when she was that age. This photo was taken on Terry’s first birthday and he is looking quite smart in his sailor suit. Mom would have been 23 and everything she’s wearing says style – the flowing dress – no doubt one she made for herself and possibly designed, the shoes, the nylons, the necklace, her makeup and the hairstyle all look fabulous. Of course, her slender figure helps a lot too. I have that necklace now and remember her wearing it. It has 8 stones on the face that I suppose are small diamonds and inside there is a photo of her and my father. I don’t know for sure but it looks like it may have been a gift from dad.

The look she is giving Terry says a lot too – “we’ll young man, what do you think about being one year old?”

In her diary mom wrote that they went to see Bert and Marge, then both sets of grandparents. She recorded each of the gifts Terry received which included two bonds – one for $5 from Gramma and Grandpa Thornally and a $25 bond from her and Dad. I guess that was something families did during the war years. Somehow, there was still time that day for my father to plant vegetable seeds in his garden and to put a coat of varnish on Terry’s toy chest.

Lottie's Photo: Dad's Vegetable Garden, 1945

 

Kathy, Dad and Terry in Dad's vegetable garden

I love this photo partly because my father and siblings all look so adorable but also because it clearly shows how much pleasure and pride my father took in his vegetable garden. Practically the first thing Mom wrote about after they purchased their first home on Elsie Avenue in San Leandro is the fact that Dad was outside working on planting a vegetable garden. This turned out to be a life long endeavor. Years later when I was young I remember how Dad would come home from work, covered in white dust from the sheetrock he’d been hanging all day. He would make a mess of washing up at the kitchen sink. Then he would turn around, give my mother a big hug and a sloppy kiss.

Typically, he would take a nap before dinner, then after dinner, he’d be out working in his garden. We had an apple, apricot, plum, two orange trees and a walnut tree that all produced fruit and nuts. For many years there were blackberry vines and a few raspberries. Dad always planted a large area with corn, lots of tomatoes, multiple types of squash – all of which I hated, cucumbers, and beans. He also planted potatoes and onions which he stored in a dark shed after harvesting and they lasted that way for months. We also had rhubarb and artichoke plants. In later years, after I’d left home, he grew fava beans.

Prepping the soil, doing the planting and watering and tending all this was a big, on-going job. Most of the work was done by Dad but Mom and I sometimes helped with the planting and Terry and I were often charged with watering and harvesting. Throughout the summer mom did a LOT of canning and freezing to store the proceeds to last through winter – nothing better than home-grown corn from our freezer in December. Everyone was involved with pie making and fruit canning – Dad or Terry would pick the fruit, Mom would prepare it, Kathy or I would make the dough and assemble the pies which Mom would bake, and of course, we all enjoyed eating them.