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Note: y in palo alto Served from the beginning of the draft 1939 all through the way to about 1946. Jody can remember the sight and the sound of these huge greyhound busses an unheard of in a tiny town like Riverbank. the wives and sweethearts were controlled the mothers were hysterical, mainly the itallian and portugeuse mothers so emotional. every male between 18-25 had to register for the draft. second regicstation to 35, third registration up to 40 or 45. VFW and Legionaires were only service connected organizations at the time, and they had volunteers who were where to put this draft board and filing cabinets (made of heavy card board because the metal was always going to planes) eugene said I can make a dollar, he moved some of the news office stuff into the back apartment and rented out the old news office to the government. side note grace owned that building and sold it when eugene was overseas After the first year of the draft they moved into the old bank building. bank closed in 1925 when mr flack obsconded with the santa fe payroll (we were known as the little town with the big payroll) he went to some country in south america they never caught him he left a letter to gene and one to the bank (in care of gene) (daddy was everything, we had no city hall, no chamber of comerce, no police department we had a marshall who didn't have a telephone and used to sit on a bench inside the palace meat market, which was kind of his office. The post master didn't know where anyone lived because mail was general delivery. "go down to the news office mrs bessac will tell you where they live" jo can remember watching her mother drawing a map for someone and if there's nobody home go half a mile down to other farm and they will know where ) amelia leisure who ran the switch board went to bed at 9 so if you wanted to reach someone too bad. It was well known that gene would go down to the news office early in the morning to get stuff done (like 4 am). one morning there was a great pounding on the door, it was 11 year old eddie o'connell crying my father is beating up my mother and of course gene wasn't about to tangle with a drunken Mickey O'Connell, but he had to get in his car and drive to go wake up the sherrif. side note eddie was an only child and he developed polio.knew him all her life went to school together. when our house was robbed in the early thirties we had to wait hours fot the sherrifs to come from modesto. WILSON (British). "Son of Will." connecting with helen baker lake and dudie later in life, were high moments in her life, being able to connect with her mother (through niece, and through surrogate mother/servant who could tell flo stories or her mother.) because was only 10 when never saw mother again Jody wanted "The psalm of life" by Longfellow read at her mother's funeral, because she felt the last few lines particularily described her mother. Of course, she later stated, the minister really couldn't read aloud ver well and she was so annoyed. She said that if she had known how he would have read it, she would have got up and recited it herself. "Mama was reading from her big beeok of Longfellow right up until the very end. She always loved him, probably because he was easy and she was used to reading him since she was a child." JABL Classified as the last of the Victorins, because Victoria was still on the throne when she was born. She was raised by true Victorians. Prob had an idealized vision of her mother, although she really didn't talk about her mother. Had to learn to live within herself for entertainment. I think she took things so to heart, She was always so anxious about our health, always so afraid we were going to be kidnapped because of the lindburg baby, or die as her baby brother. She was happy, if you could call it that, when she lived with grandma. Which of course didn't last long, when her father remarried Mimi, he took his children from their grandparents. Was 12 when father remarried crazy Mimi Webster. Mimi would get her up in the middle of the night and make her wash every dish "because of the germs" it is why she married young. days spent doing all the work in the house and taking care of grandad, while gRace and daddy worked. Moved to Riverbank and still had to share her house with grace. Riverbank was such a little town it was a culture shock for her, but she made it her own. She loved the news office because it gave her such a purpose. She knew everybody and where everybody lived. she should have had an education, they lived right there in Stanford. Grandaddy was an extreamly selfish man. Jody remembers when she was a little girls, and there would be some wreck on the HWY. Dr Ronald Fulkerson, friend, would call her in the middle of the night and take her slong when her was called out to the scene (before EMTs). She would come home so excited, he had shown her exactly how the man had died, how the neck was broken on impact. She loved anatomy, and it was things like this that really fullfilled her. She loved insects. She was always trying to drag Jody to look at some caterpillar or something (at which Jody pretends to faint) Exhausting being the head clerk of the draft board, responsibility of telling people (a male they had to get retested tested positive for gonnerea) getting frusted with rich drs buying their sons farms so they could avoid the draft marjorie taught first grade (she wanted to join the convent in 43 but her parents wouldn't let her margie served on the war sugar board (people needed extra sugar rations to can) shoes were rationed. kleenex forget it. fabric yardage didn't exist, all the mills were making fabric for the war. couldn't buy tires. war effort collected bacon fat to greese bombs the sound of the waves of airplanes over head, all night sometimes black out curtains, even in the valley the canery in riverbank was exclusive tomato canery. Rose Bemis was an retired RN, she came out of retirement to work a shift as a nurse in the canery. jeanette was pregnant in 43 and was a nurse until she erdene's father was a block chairman when they had an alert would make sure every had their curtains up for the blackout. brought out trains from retirement because everything used troop trains,
Note: grew up not religious. became episcopal when her father knew father hugh montgometry sociall
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