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.