The Brick House

Reminiscence...That last post made me think of that odd house that we lived in for a just a few years. It was, as I say, a brick house and the only one in the whole city. It was located on Center Street, now Manhattan Beach Blvd. It was close to the school and there was a huge vacant lot on the west side of the house, with plenty of room to play. This house also featured a basement and that is where the washing machine was located. In the kitchen, one cabinet was designated as the vegetable cabinet and the bottom of that cabinet was screened and open to the basement below. This allowed cool air to circulate around the vegetables. It also allowed us to communicate with mom when she was doing the laundry; we would open the cabinet door and yell out our requests to her. Out in back, and attached to the garage, was a covered patio/room, complete with a brick barbecue. Beyond that was a small fruit orchard and the pen that held a neighbors pig. Oddly enough, I can't remember much about the inside of the house, as I was usually ill with asthma and spent a lot of days sleeping on the couch in the front room. I do remember that room quite well.

I remember that the vacant lot, owned by Gianini Construction, was used for making great fortresses, complete with secret passages. We would dig trenches in the sandy soil and cover them with cardboard and sand. The weapon of choice for defending a fortress was a dirt clod or dirt bomb. You would grab a choice weed, with plenty of soil attached to the roots, pull it up and fling it high into the air, hoping it would land on your adversary. Those "enemies" were the kids from 12th Street, just above us. It's amazing that none of those trenches ever killed or injured any of us, as they were always collapsing and had to be rebuilt often.

Questions

Here's a photo that is titled, "Dunn's" and I don't know any more than that. Who are these people? Is one of them William Bernie, my grandfather?

That question brought back some memories of a time in the late 1940's, when I was 9 or 10 years old. I remember standing in the driveway of our house on Center Street, the brick house, while dad talked to his father. It wasn't a pleasant conversation and I can remember the tension in the air. In my memory, I can't quite see my grandfather's face...I see a tall and thin figure, standing next to his car, there is a lady in the car.

Later, when our grandfather had left, there was a brief explanation from mom; that Auntie Jay had sought a reunion with her father and dad was very unhappy about it. I remember a story about our grandfather having a farm in Oregon? I wish I knew more!

And then...just the other day, as Laurae was sorting photos, she ran across two notes from Grandpa Dunn. He had written to congratulate Laurae and I on the birth of Denise and of Alicia. There were no envelopes with the notes, no way of telling where they had come from. I then remembered when those notes came, and the fact that Auntie Jay had supplied him with our address.

Now I can only wish that I had been more curious and asked more questions of mom and dad.

Make a note to yourself...ask those questions now, while relatives are still alive!

Another Photo

A very small photo...sorry. This is Margaret Thorp and her daughter Ruby Elizabeth. Margaret was Nana's aunt, and Ruby, her cousin.

Phebe

Here is a photo of 3rd Great Grandmother Phebe Jennings...She looks somewhat stern, but you have to remember that having your photo taken in the 1800's was serious business!

The Canadian connection

Let me try and explain this, as clearly as possible. If you’re up to speed on the Seymour family, it will be easy.

But first we have to go all of the way back to my 3rd great grandmother, Phebe S Jennings, born in July of 1815. She married Simon Crammond and they had one child, my 2nd great grandmother, Elizabeth Patience Crammond, born in October of 1842. Unfortunately, Simon died one month before his daughter was born. Phebe later married Leonard Terry and had at least 3 more children.

Elizabeth Patience Crammond married Andrew J. Seymour and they had 5 children, John Leonard, Libbie, Fanny, Charles and Frederic. The last 4 are great grand Aunts and Uncles; John Leonard is my 2nd great grandfather. All clear so far?

Let’s follow great grand Uncle Charles family. He married Margaret Thorp and they had one child, Ruby Elizabeth, born in 1889.

Notes: Ruby Seymour was born in Duluth in 1889. Her father, Charles, was 26 and her mother, Margaret, was 32 at the time of her birth. When she was young, she contacted Scarlet fever or Typhoid fever and after the doctors had given up hope, a lady came to the door and asked if she could try to heal her through Christian Science. When Ruby survived, the family became Christian Scientists and Ruby practiced her faith all of her life.

In addition, when young, her father (Charles) abandoned the family and went off to California. (What? Is this some family curse?)

She would become Nana’s Cousin Ruby. She married James Robertson and they had 3 children, Bruce, Margaret and Ruth; all my second cousins, one time removed. Now let’s follow Margaret, who married George Drake and they had 3 children, Sally, Susan and Bruce. And it’s Susan that contacted me when she saw some inquiries I had made about the Seymour family. Susan, now Susan Drake-Johnson, lives in Vancouver, British Columbia and was kind enough to send me photos and other notes regarding our common ancestors. Susan Drake-Johnson is my 3rd cousin.

I will post some of those photos that I just mentioned.

Don't Give Up On Me

I'm just taking a break from this blog. I will get back to posting as soon as I have some free time. Right now, between the garden, the orchard and practice for the marathon...I'm out of time.

More Memories of Nana

Another memory came to me this morning as I read yesterday's post that mentioned Auntie Jay. In the late 1940's, Auntie Jay, Uncle Rocky and Jill, our cousin, lived in Glendale and right across the street from Nana's apartment building. So when we visited Nana, we visited our whole immediate family. And in the house right next to Nana's building, lived Jill's grandmother. This was a great old Craftsmen Style house with a huge front porch, complete with a "glider", a swinging seat, suspended from the ceiling of the porch. We all loved to sit on the porch and swing on that glider, often late at night, while our parents were across the street playing cards at Auntie Jay's house, which was actually a duplex, or maybe even a triplex?

And of course I have to mention Nana's apartment. The first thing you noticed was the smell. It wasn't unpleasant...it simply smelled like Nana's, and I have never smelled anything like it since. You entered a small lobby and the stairs were to the right; very elegant and wide stairs. Nana's apartment was 2 doors down from the top of the stairs. She had two doors to her apartment, but the front door was the second one. The aprtment was quite small, a living room, a bath and a kitchen. The walk-in closet had a Murphy bed, which fascinated me! I would bet that the apartment wasn't bigger than 200 square feet, at the most. Only one person could be in the kitchen at one time and the closet was bigger than the bathroom. And just down the hall was the trash chute. I would always volunteer to take the trash out so I could open the door to the chute and toss the trash...where did it go? And this building was quiet! You automatically lowered your voice as soon as you entered the lobby...it had that kind of power over us.

How Old?

Here is Nana at an early age...I'm going to guess that she is a teenager in this photo. And I'm sure that this was taken at a commercial photographers studio, as the backdrop and props seem stylized and out of place. Date?

There are all kinds of discrepancies about dates and ages associated with Nana. I have a birth certificate for dad, (1915) and on it it says that Nana was 26 years old and this was her second child. That would make 1889 her birth year, not 1887 as most other records show. William Bernie Dunn, her husband, is said to be 30 years old at the birth. Later, when Nana was working at Robinson's, she began her employment by telling them she was 10 years younger than she was and so she was still working at the age of 75. Manipulating the dates was obviously hereditary as our Auntie Jay, born in 1912, always insisted that she was dad's younger sister.

Odd

Here is a photo of the Seymour family. And all 8 children are present so that means Kittie Ann, the youngest is in this picture. Great grandparent's John and Flora take up positions on the lower left and right. Nana, the eldest daughter is centered. Leonard Earl (Uncle Len) is second from the left on the top row. Wait a second...there should be 4 girls and 4 boys. Margarette Patience is missing and I wonder about the guy behind John Seymour. He looks too old? If I were to guess, I would say Kittie is to the right of Nana and Grace to the left.

Odd, I never noticed that about this photo before.

Beach Memories

It’s still a time for sharing stories of Nana. You will have to excuse the disjointed fashion in which I post these stories; without an index and in no apparent order.

When we were growing up, maybe in the early 1950’s? Nana left J.W. Robinson’s and began a short-lived career running a gift shop (The Jade Tree) in Laguna Beach. I remember being disappointed as we wouldn’t be seeing her as often, but also excited because we would be going somewhere different on those weekends when we would drive down the old Pacific Coast Highway to faraway Laguna to visit her. And going to Laguna meant that we would have a chance to wave at the “Greeter” of Laguna Beach. He was an old gentleman with long white hair and beard and he stood near an intersection in downtown Laguna, waving at every car that passed. (That's him in the photo)

Here’s a comment from someone from that era.

Eiler Larsen was known as The Greeter of Laguna Beach, but to us the Laguna youth of the '50s and '60s, he was only Mr. Larsen. He stood at the corner of PCH and Forest Ave, sometimes under the hanging gate, but mostly on the beach side. He heartily waved to every passer by. He called out "Hello there" in his deep voice. He gave people his crooked smile. He was happy when he greeted people, he was happy when he did the light gardening for the north end residents, he was happy almost all the time. He loved people; he loved the outdoor, the sun, the wind, and the beach. One thing he did not love was people who were rude and pointed at him. We never did. We all said “Hi Mr. Larsen” when we passed by him, we all loved him and respected him as our parents said we should.

I remember that we would start talking about waving to him long before we arrived and it was almost anticlimactic when we waved and passed him…but we had another chance to wave on our way home!

Odd, but I can’t remember where Nana lived while she was in Laguna. Perhaps an apartment came with the position? Laguna Beach then, as now, was not a cheap place to live. Only the wealthy and a few artists lived there…

I do remember going to the gift shop and being quite proud that our Nana was in charge of this marvelous place, much nicer than the dusty old lamp department in Robinson’s.

For reasons now unknown to me, the venture was soon over and Nana returned to her position at Robinson’s and life in her old apartment in Glendale.

More News

Another interesting day...Kitty had found a link to the Duluth Public library where they had clippings of news stories about our Great Aunt Kittie Ann Hagstrom nee Seymour. It was only a matter of a few hours and Kitty had the clippings as PDF files. And then she shared them with me. I am now sharing the files with my children and grandchildren.

The story of Aunt Kitty's career is a great one and we should all be proud to be related to her. She was one of the founder's of Saint Louis County Federal Saving and Loan association back in 1922, when it had assets of only $8,000. In 1956, they had assets totaling over $20 million and she had a hand in every part of the business. She was the only woman on the board of 15 directors for the association. When she retired in 1972, she had spent 50 years with the company and she was elected to the office of Director Emeritus upon her retirement.

To us, the kids that knew her as Aunt Kittie, she was just one of the highlights of summer, a funny lady that could make you laugh and best of all...she made our Nana happy.

Classy

Anonymous writes about how she remembers Nana as “classy” and she was definitely that. But my favorite memory…OK, just one of my favorite memories of her was when we had first moved to Manhattan Beach and she had come to spend some time with us. (It was only a two bedroom house so I imagine that she slept on our couch.) My sister Julie and I had gone out with my red wagon to collect bottles for the refunds. Yes, littering has a long history in California. Anyway...somehow Julie and I had managed to attract the attention of some older kids and if I remember correctly, they wanted our bottles, or we had been poaching bottles on their turf. The resulting argument soon grew more heated and my thoughts turned to flight, so Julie and I raced home with our wagon, the other kids following close behind. As we approached the house, Nana stormed out the front door, in her housecoat, with her long hair flying and she began to yell at the kids, as she picked up the garden hose and turned on the nozzle. “Shoo! You kids, shoo!” She had saved us! Now that was classy…

Google Mania

It’s been an exciting morning. First, I read that my sister Kitty had found a reference to our great aunt Kitty; her namesake. The Duluth Public library may have some information for us. And then, as Kitty and I e-mailed some bits of information back and forth, I would stop every once in awhile and do a google search on different names. I searched for Aunt Grace’s information on my own computer and found that she had married Ben Olson and had a son named Seymour Olson. Apparently, he is still alive and lives in a trailer park? in Stillwater, Minnesota. (Correction: Seymour passed away a few years ago...)

With google as a tool, it’s sometimes amazing…even to me, what can be found in a short time. I was soon looking at Seymour’s house via Google satellite images. And I also found another Seymour website and have contacted the author of that one…hope I can add to the story!

Sisters (Photo)

Here's a photo of the sisters taken during one of their annual visits to see Nana.
Nana on the left, then Kitty and Grace on the right.

Sisters

I guess I should include a few stories about Nana's brothers and sisters, as they were certainly memorable! I only knew Uncle Len, Aunt Kitty and Aunt Grace.

For instance: Aunt Kitty, who was married to "Putty" Hagstrom, was the Secretary of Saint Louis Federal Savings and Loan (Duluth, Minnesota) ...not a secretary, she was the corporate officer Secretary. And as a corporate officer, she had a new company car every year and every year, Putty, Kitty and Grace would make a pilgrimage to California to see their older sister. Stopping, just coincidentally, along the way in Las Vegas for a little gambling.

Aunt Kitty and Aunt Grace were both quite large, Grace being more rotund and Kitty just overall "big". And they were funny! Kitty had the sharpest sense of humor and could devastate anyone who dared to be pompous around her. Grace was always laughing about something...I never saw her without a smile. And Uncle Putty was a serious looking guy, never smiling...but he was funny, always trying out practical jokes on the unsuspecting.

When I turned 13 or 14, I remember that they came out one summer and decided to go to the Farmer's Market in Los Angeles and to see a television show being made. So off we went in Kitty's big new Buick; Putty doing the driving. I remember being quite embarrassed, surrounded by these large and very loud midwesterners. I mean, it was obvious that they were from Minnesota! Uncle Putty would wear those ribbed undershirts without a shirt over them and Grace and Kitty had floral print dresses on. I would hang back in the crowd, hoping that people would think I was with some other group...any other group!

You know...I miss them!

John and Flora Seymour

Here's a photo of Nana's mother and father...I don't have a date for it. They appear to be fairly young, perhaps in their 30's?

Nana's Family

Nana was the first born of the Seymour children. The others were, in order; Donald John, Leonard Earl, Margarette Patience, Archie Robert, Andrew, Grace Saloma and Kitty Anne, born in June of 1901. A full house for father, John Leonard and mother, Flora (Boyd).

Surprisingly, or maybe not...the Seymour side of our family has given me more information than any other. With just a simple search, I can find our way back to the time of Henry the VIII and the unfortunate Jane Seymour. And beyond, all the way back to William De Saint Maur, our 22nd great Grandfather (1260?)

Anyway, back to the 19th century. I like to think of the immense changes that Nana saw in her lifetime. When she was born, the automobile wasn't seen on the streets of Tower; only horses and buggies. And when she died, in 1977, man had gone to the moon and back.

Tower

Here is a school photo of Nana at an early age...second row up, third from the left. (short hair) Must have been taken in the 1890's.

A little background on Nana…

Eava Lena Seymour was born in 1887, on the 11th of July. (That’s 118 years ago.) She was born in the little town of Tower, Minnesota.

http://www.city-data.com/city/Tower-Minnesota.html

As you can see by following the link above, Tower is still very much a small town. And note all of the other data, especially the temperature in January and February!

There is some dispute in the records I have seen about the spelling of her name. Some have it as Eva and that was the way she pronounced it. Either way, she became our Nana and that was the end of it…except for our Aunt Jay and cousin Jill, who insisted on calling her Na-Na.

If you look at a map of the area, you will see that Tower is located on the shores of Vermillion Lake and very close to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. It’s also about 30 miles from the Canadian border. ?) I think it’s great that we all have a link to this small town. And one more thing to note…it’s only a few miles from Embarrass, Minnesota, and that town is even smaller than Tower. (How did that name come about?)

What do people do in Tower today? Apparently it is still iron country, with lots of mines still in operation. It was a logging town at one time, but I think that has ceased.

Want the scoop on what’s happening today in Tower? Check out this website…
http://www.towermn.com/

I will try and find some more data and a few more pictures of that area.

Downtown

Here's that picture I promised. It was taken in 1939, about 8 or 10 years before our many trips around the block.

A Change of Pace

I have spent some time now relating stories of dad and so I think it's time to change subjects and write something of Nana.

Without a doubt, she was our favorite grandmother. And she would often come to spend the weekend with us. Dad would come home early and then tell us to get in the car on a Friday afternoon; we were going to pick up Nana! That involved a long trip through traffic (no freeways) all the way into downtown Los Angeles. She worked in the Lamp Department at J.W. Robinson's, a very upscale department store. Unless dad could find a parking spot near the employee entrance, (not likely) we would circle the block until Nana made an appearance. Mom usually stayed at home to make dinner and I would get to sit in the front seat, with Julie and Kitty in the backseat. We would kneel on the seats, our faces against the windows as we searched the crowded sidewalks for her familiar face. Around and around we went. With many false alarms..."There she is!..."Oh, no, I guess not" until she finally made an appearance and I quickly crawled over the seat and into the back, so she could sit down, up front with dad. Of course we all got hugs and kisses as well, and all the way home, she devoted all of her attention to us.

I actually found a photograph of the old Robinson's parking lot and I will post it as soon as I can locate it.

Vacation

I'm taking a couple of days off to get my garage/glass shop in shape and do some other things that are needed around here.

Photo

Here is a photo (from the net) that shows you the type of tower I was writing about.

An electrifying story

Here are some more memories of Dad. As I told you earlier, he once worked as a lineman for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Bureau of Power and Light. And during those times as a lineman, he worked on the power transmission line to Boulder Dam. I think he really enjoyed that job, because most of his stories were about those days, much like I enjoy talking about my own career as a “Sheetrocker”.

The story, in a nutshell, was that the line originated in Los Angeles and that is where they began constructing the tall towers. They would drive, cross country, in utility trucks specially built for the task. These trucks became their homes and were known as “Crummy’s”. They had no concrete trucks to bring them cement and they had no cranes to lift the steel into place. The footings were dug by hand and the concrete mixed and poured at the site. The towers were built out of sections of steel and were simply bolted together. I say “simply”, but I doubt that that was the case. Remember; they had to climb them to bolt them together. Once they had a tower complete, they would move on to the next site and start all over again.

One of dad’s stories was of a time when a new crewman showed up at the site and was told to help the crew bolting up the uppermost sections of the tower. The man climbed until he would go no further. He clung to the steel and couldn’t go up or down. Dad said that after trying, in vain, to talk the man down, he climbed up past him and hung a block from the “horn”. That’s the part of the tower that projects sideways. He had a rope and that was thrown down to the crew on the ground. He then fastened the rope to the safety belt of the clinging lineman and pried him loose from the tower. The crew let him down safely, but when the man’s feet touched the ground, he took off running. Dad saw the rope quickly ascending to the block so he grabbed the block and threw it down. The man continued to run until he had disappeared over the hill. The crew went after him and after awhile they came back with the belt, the rope and the block. That was all they found and never saw the man again.

That must also be one of my favorite stories as well...I'm sure I have told it dozens of times.