The Life And Times of
Yvonne Kay Marshall
(Mom's History)
PART ONE IS A SUMMARY OF YVONNE KAY MARSHALL'S LIFE.
PART TWO IS HER HISTORY - Where she grew up and went to school, how she meet her wonderful husband, places she moved and lived, challenges and blessings
From Yvonne's Teen yrs |
PART ONE - SUMMARY OF
YVONNE KAY MARSHALL
I have this opportunity to tell a little about my mother. I know all of us in the family loved to soak in the warmth and knowledge she had to share . She was a naturally giving and caring person, always did all she could to help. She was a great example as a mother and wife.
She was born, a very cute happy little baby, in Oakland, California in the spring of May 1, 1931. Times were hard back then and her parents were struggling. Both her grandparents had died when she was a baby and her parents needed a little help. So she lived with relatives quite a bit. And then also for a time at the Catholic Convent in San Francisco. With all this she had a fascinating childhood, having a variety of families and different places to stay. She had interesting experiences, some good, some challenging.
Through the changes and trials, she kept very good grades. After high school she was accepted to San Jose State University. However,She had a strong desire to be a nurse and found nursing programs were offered through different Hospitals. Franklin Hospital in San Francisco seemed to be the right one. It offered a three year live in nursing program that worked out perfect for mom. This program was offered through San Francisco University. For the first four months she was able to go home to Menlo Park, California, on the Week ends. And this led her to her future husband B.Vaughn Marshall, YEAHHH.
From Mom's History "The Life and Times of Yvonne Kay Marshall"
“I did go into training and I remember the first day I stood in the lobby waiting for the head nurse to interview me and show me my room. I remember thinking, this is where I belong. It wasn’t that I loved the place, I didn’t. It was a very strange place to be. But I knew I’d made the right decision, and I knew that’s where I was supposed to be at that time. I was there from September until Christmas and that’s when I met dad, at Christmas time.”
Working
Mom passed the Board of Registered Nursing, in August 1952. She started working as a surgical scrub nurse at Franklin Hospital in San Francisco, California. In the early years of marriage, due to changes with moving and working in between children on the way, mom worked in a couple more hospitals,(in California) Palo Alto Hospital, Stanford Hospital and Elcomino Hospital. And different areas within each one, from scrub nurse to pediatrics. But some time after the third child, the greater need was for being at home and taking care of their new and increasing family of six children. Work was needed again soon enough, however, when the youngest ones were about 10 years old. Mom then went to work for yet a different Hospital, the V.A. Hospital for nine years. During this time she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. The effects of this kept Mom down and out at home for three months, and keeping mom down for any length of time takes a lot. It was a very eventful year, but of course she quietly got through it as best she could with each major event. Including the birth of her grandchild, death of her mother and marriage of a daughter, all in 1981.
Talents and Hobbies
Ever since she can remember, she has loved to color and draw. Her first official art class was in Junior High School, she took to it naturally and created some beautiful paintings througout the years. After moving to Arlington Washington she volunteered to do the bookkeeping for the Marysville Art Guild for a couple years which brought her back into the limelight of enjoying one of her hobbies even more. She has painted beautiful pictures for each of her children, and has sold some of her masterpieces upon request. Here you can see some of mom's beautiful paintings. moms-paintiings.php
Music
Another hobby or enjoyment would have to be playing the Piano. She started this when she was about fourteen, in seventh grade. She was able to take lessons and practice on her Aunt Dot’s piano at the time. Later she was able to continue playing on her parents piano, which she enjoyed very much. Grandpa John gave mom his piano after she was married, then bought himself the organ. She loves the classical melodies of Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Tchaikovsky. She has also taught her children and now some of her grandchildren.
Genealogy
Mom has had a great interest in genealogy. Which is what this website is all about. She has been doing quite a bit of research in many ways, including utilizing the internet information that is at our fingertips. Helping others that are interested in genealogy, how to go about researching their families. Besides interesting, it can be enjoyable, and fun to find out about past histories. Like Piecing a giant puzzle together. It is hoped that information will continue to be shared and expanded upon in this area with our family is her wish. So our family puzzle will continue to grow, as pieces are put where they go. Mom of course has all information regarding the Marshall line that was done by Dad, and feels all this is of great importance to those who want to know.
More
Mom has, in the past, knitted, crocheted and sewed many things. Making everything from prom dresses to wonderful decorations. She had a knack for making things look beautiful with her finishing touches. And I’ve learned, and appreciate very much, that when she puts her mind to doing something, she simply does it. Because Yvonne Kay Marshall is a doer, not just a dreamer. She gently and sweetly finds a way to get the job done when needed. That’s my wonderful mom.
A SPECIAL FAMILY STORY
One of the places mom stayed when she was young, was with the Cauble Family. This is the story of Bernard Cauble that was always very special to mom. She felt it was important to write this story, it turned out she finished about three weeks before she passed away. She gave it to me on April 5, 2006 and requested to please put on our website for those interested to read. Bernard Cauble - bernard.php
From Yvonne's Teen yrs |
1. Mom's Birth Stories | 18. College and Nurses Training | 2. The World Mom Was Born Into | 19.Mom's Commentary On Her Youth | 3. Mom's Parents/Grandparents History | 20. Young Adult, Met Our Dad | 4. Living in Sparks, NV - The Cauble Family | 21. Dad, Navy, School and More | 5. Bernard Drowning | 22. The Bagpipes at Mom's Reception | 6. Bernard's Saying,"Be Good" | 23. Dad's Begins His Career | 7. Leaving Nevada | 24. Mom's Dad Coming and Church | 8. Going To Live With Aunt Dot | 25. Mom's Dad Passing Away | 9. Another S.F. Apart., 4th & 5th Grades | 26. Grandma Mary's History | 10. The Convent Decision | 27. Ingham History (From England to Salt Lake) | 11. Mom's Special Dream | 28. Aunt Janet's Temper (Mom's Father's Sister) | 12. Summer Camp With The Convent | 29. Back to Ingham History, Maureen's Story | 13. Back to Live With Aunt Dot, 9th Grade | 30. The Beach Property | 14. Sixteen Yrs. Old, In S. F. in High School | 31. Grandma Mary's Work | 15. Friendship with Kay and Church | 32. Grandma Mary Moving in with Mom | 16. Street Cars, Cable Cars, Fun In The City | 33. Mom's Education and Notes | 17. Moving to Menlo Park |
From Young Yvonne Kay |
If we're going to start at point one, then I have these birth stories I need to tell. I have two birth stories that I was told when I was growing up at different times, and in different ways.
The first one is; I was the second grandchild on my father's side of the family, but my father(John Black Kay), from what I was told, was my grandmother's favorite son. And so she had wanted, and was anxious to see her first grandchild. And I guess in those days, or maybe Scottish people had favorite children, which is hard to picture, but I guess they did. My father was the so called baby of the family and, as I said the favorite. His mother(Margaret Young Kay, my Grandma Kay, had been Relief Society president of her ward, the Oakland Ward. And she had gone out the Christmas before I was born, and it was very bad weather. But she kept going out to bring things to people, especially families that were in need, that sort of thing. And she had become quite ill, and finally came down with pneumonia. I'm not sure how soon after Christmas this was, but she had been sick pretty much since Christmas time. I was born in May and she was living with my oldest Aunt, my father's oldest sister, Aunt Katie and her husband (James Hamilton). In those days when you went into the hospital to have a baby, they kept the mothers in the hospital for ten days, if you can believe that. They were not allowed to do anything for ten days. I was born May 1st, 1931, so mother brought me home after ten days. And then because my grandmother was still ill, I guess they had been advised not to take the baby around her very soon. So some days after that my parents brought me over to my grandmother because she was very anxious to see this new baby, and she was still too ill to get out of bed, or anything. So they did, they took me over to see her, and the story that I'm told is that they took me into the room where she was in bed and she held me in her arms. And I guess she called me little bonnie. The Scottish name they call a baby. (It means pretty or charming) But I guess that's what she called me , and handed me back to my mother and they went out of the room, to let her rest. And I'm not sure the exact time frame for all this, but then I was told when they went back into the room they found her dead. She had died. I guess it always touched me because it was quite touching to my parents I guess, especially to my father, because he realized that's all she was waiting for. That she had been so ill and ready to go and that's all she was waiting for. I don't remember this of course, but that was my first birth experience story.
The second experience; I was told about when my mother(Mary Ingham) was driving in a car with her brother, my Uncle Ward, and with her mother(Mary Agnes Pack-or Grandmother Ingham) and my Aunt Pearl, who was my Grandmother Ingham's sister. And I don't remember who else was in the car, but I think there was someone else in the car. I'm not sure where they were headed but I had been sitting on my grandmother's lap in the back seat, then I was about one year old. My mother tells me that she suddenly handed me to my mother, who was sitting in the front seat. And told her something about, she thought she shouldn't hold me any longer. But mother was surprised because she thought everything was fine in the back seat, that that was unusual. And just a moment after she handed me to her, that they were hit by a drunk driver. They were hit on the side of the car were my grandmother was sitting, and she was knocked out of the car and she was killed instantly. I guess my Aunt Pearl was injured and my Uncle Ward, they were all injured. But mother said she wasn't, she was the one that was holding me. So I don't remember either one of my Grandmothers, and both my Grandfathers past away long before I was born. I think my parents told me these stories because they thought that was important that I know. And they felt that those instances were rather important that both my Grandmothers had held me right before they died. I think that's the reason they told me those stories, is because they thought that that would be very meaningful to me as I grew up. That's my two baby stories.
2. The World Mom Was Born Into
When I was born, May 1, 1931, we were living in an apartment in Oakland. At that time my father was working as a broker, or by that time he might have already been working for Bank of America. I believe, he got his job at Bank of America because he was a broker. Both my grandmothers were living with their daughters and living in Oakland and attending the (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) Oakland Ward.
3. Mom's Parents and Grandparents History
My father's family had lived in Wyoming when my Grandfather Kay died(October 8,1925). He died when my father was fifteen or sixteen. When his father passed away, his mother, my Grandma Kay, was trying to support the boys. By that time, both her daughters , Katie and Janet, were married. And I don't know how many years after that they came to California, but not too long. Because my father's oldest sister, Aunt Katie, who had married a Scottish carpenter, Jimmy Hamilton, (who was the bagpiper at my wedding), had moved to California in the Oakland area, and they were making a good living. So they invited her mother, Grandma Kay and to bring the boys, my father(John Kay) and his brother(Jim Kay), out to California and live with her until they got established. Because there was better work out in California, and it would give the boys a better opportunity for work. So she did go out to California. This was deep in the depression time, this was 1926 maybe when they moved out. And so they lived with my Aunt Katie.
My father made it through high school. (In those days he did well to get through high school, because they couldn't afford to do anymore than that.) But because of the financial situation, my uncle Jim, my father's brother said that he would work for the first year or so while my father finished high school, and then my father was supposed to work while my uncle Jim went back to high school. And as it happened, my father finished high school but my uncle Jim never did go back. And I don't know how that happened, whether it was because he didn't want to, or I don't know. I don't think there were any bad feelings. But my father was the baby of the family, and the whole family sort of figured that he could do no wrong in his mother's eyes. So I think there might have been some bad feelings due to that.
On Mother's side, my grandfather Ingham and his family had a home in Salt Lake City. I understand he had his own shoe shop, The Ingham Shoe Company, and sold a lot of shoes.
And that's where he earned his living; he sold shoes. One of the things that mother used to tell me was that she loved shoes. And of course, her size, she was very small built, and she had small feet, and was she able to fit into any pair of shoes I guess. But she says she probably ruined her feet trying to fit into shoes that were way too small still. But they didn't ever have any problems having shoes in their family because their father had a shoe store.
But I guess after he died, in March of 1924, the family lost the shop and my Grandmother didn't really have any way to support the family. By that time her two oldest daughters, Madelone and Helen, were married. My mother's mom didn't work, she was a stay at home mom.
Madelone married and stayed there in Utah and Helen married a fellow who took her to California in the Oakland area, and he had, kind of a coal and lumber business. It was like one of those yard business's, he sold all kinds of building commodities and landscaping materials, that sort of thing. So he was doing well, and he began to buy property there throughout Oakland and Berkeley. He was a widower himself(He had a long name - Gerald Arnald John Beukers). He was married once and had a daughter(Barbara J. Beukers). My Aunt Helen had graduated from college, she was a teacher, so she went out to California to teach and she met him. So they were doing well and made the same thing as my Aunt Katie did; she had also talked her mother into bringing what was left of the family out to California where the girls could earn a better living. In the meantime my mother had finished business school while they were in Salt Lake City. It still exists, but it's changed its name ,and was still a business college. So she was able to earn a living. But whatever family my grandmother Ingham had left in Utah, she brought with her to California. And they stayed with Aunt Helen until they each established a place, found work and that sort of thing. When my grandmother Ingham moved her family to Oakland then her girls started going to the Oakland Ward. And I understand that all four of them were in the choir together, they all loved singing.
So mother grew up in Salt Lake City. Until my mother's father had a sudden, very severe stroke and he died. She said she could even remember seeing him in the chair as he had passed away. So I guess that was a real shock for her. And my father grew up until he was a teen ager in Wyoming , until his father also died - then his family moved to California.
That's where my parents actually met, was in Oakland California, in the Oakland Ward(of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints). They were all kind of stuck there in the Oakland Ward together, and they never would have met if they hadn't of moved out from Wyoming and Utah. I think my parents were twenty when they married. They were both within a month or two of each other's age. And they were twenty one when I was born. And that's why my mother's sister, Ardell, also met and married my father's only brother Jim. They had a double wedding and a double reception. I got to know them, this Aunt Ardell and Uncle Jim, because that's one of the families I went to live with for a while. I didn't know them socially until then because by that time my parents had moved to San Francisco, and I really didn't see much of the other family, they were across the Bay in Oakland.
When I was young my father was working for Bank of America, as I mentioned earlier. I was apparently considered to be a very promising job. He was beginning to be invited to work in the president's office a lot in the bank.
But because of that, he got in with the wrong crowd and started drinking a lot. And I can remember my father even pointing to this big Bank of America on Market street a number of times and telling me - that's where I used to work. But he didn't tell it to me in a loving way, because they let him go, and he hated The Bank of America from then on. But he was working and my mother was not, when I was very young. Although, after he lost his job and because it was depression era time, it was difficult to find work after that.
The other work he had done, was working a broker - as well as working at the Bank of America. And being a broker in those days was not a fun thing to be. I don't know what kind of work he was able to find, but I was told it was sparse and hard to find, and the times were very difficult. For a while apparently he went back to Nevada to live with one of his sisters out there, Aunt Janet. She was a nurse in Nawasha County Hospital and she was married at that time and had two children. He went to stay with her for a while to see if he couldn't find work in Reno. He thought Reno might be a good place to work. The only thing I really know about that period in his life, is what I've read from some letters that he sent to my mother while he was back there in Reno. And he would talk to her in his letters about a deal he was trying to make work with somebody, or another deal. And it sounded like he was still trying very hard to sell stocks and bonds. He was still trying to be a broker, and apparently things were just not working out well, it was not a good market. I don't know what kind of work he got out there, but I guess he got some sporadic work. I found maybe two or three letters that he sent while he was out there asking how I was, and how she was. And talking in optimistic terms that this job, or that job was going to work out, but I guess none of the jobs really worked out. It was not easy.
4. Living in Sparks, NV - The Cauble Family
I guess somewhere when I was about between four and five, my father came back. And he and my mother moved to San Francisco, and I went back to live with my Aunt Janet in Sparks Nevada. Because they were both working at that time, and they didn't have anyone to take care of me. That's when I began to be real good friends with my cousins. There was Bernard, who was a couple of years older that I was, and Don who was the same age as I was, and by that time she had had Ben, who was just a baby. I guess you might say my cousins and I became quite close. I always thought of them as my brothers because I was little. And when I went to live with them that's how I was treated. And we used to do the fun things brothers and sister does together. Except that I might have been kind of a tomboy because it seemed like I was always into whatever Don was doing and that usually somehow or another would always get us in trouble, whatever it was. And Bernard was always the one who was always trying to get us out of trouble.
I lived there for a few years and during that time, just before I left, I can remember, starting school out there. And I can remember some kid pushed Don into my swing in the schoolyard, and it was so bad for Don. He hit his head and he went down, and I went flying out of the swing flat on my face. And I came up with a mouthful of gravel, and Don's head was bleeding, and we went staggering home like that. I remember that so well, it was some kid just being smart. Most of the time I was mad at Don, but I remember I felt bad for Don that time. I felt sorry for me too, we both cried all the way home.
While I was in Nevada my mother came to visit me once, in fact I have pictures of when she came to visit. The thing that stands out in my mind about those pictures is that I didn't want to get cleaned up and neither did Don and my Aunt Janet wanted us to get cleaned up for these pictures and we didn't want to, and Bernard was the only one that looked good in the pictures. Don and I were standing there and we were both dirty and nether one of us would smile, I remember that real well. We were both mad because we didn't want our pictures taken.
From Cauble.website |
I lived there for two year, as I mentioned before. The last summer I was there we had gone down to the beach, to the river, for a picnic. That's when my cousin Bernard was drowned. That had a lot of implications for me. It was the first real tragic thing that I felt happened to me. Don and I both loved Bernard so much, he was the oldest, he's the one who took care of us and he was just perfect in our eyes, you know. He had just turned eight, but had been eight long enough to be baptized, about a few months after that, it happened. I guess the only other reason that it has a lot of meaning in my life, is because of all the things that transpired in Don's life throughout the years after Bernard's death . And the fact that Bernard kind of watched out for Don, I think, all the rest of his life. And I think Bernard probably watched out for his parents too as much as he could. And in many times I think, Bernard watched out for me because I could kind of feel him, but at that age, I didn't understand it.
As we were having a picnic there, the whole family and my Aunt Janet and Uncle Angus were laying on the blanket up the beach a little ways with the baby, Ben. And they had kind of dozed off. And Don and I, and Bernard were kind of playing in the water. And I remember standing on a log. I remember that real well because I couldn't swim, and I was kind of frightened of the water. And all of a sudden, I remember Don yelling and yelling. And he wasn't too far off shore but he got caught in some quick sand, and he was yelling because he couldn't get out. And Bernard went in, he could swim a little bit, and he got Don out of the quicksand, and kind of threw him up towards the beach. But the tricky river is not a good place to be because the tides in that river were bad. Getting Don out, the currents apparently pulled Bernard in, further in the river. He kept trying to get out, to swim out, but he wasn't that strong a swimmer. And I can remember both Don and I crying, and yelling and so forth. In the meantime, my Aunt Janet and Uncle Angus had woken up and realized what was happening, and I can always remember my Aunt saying something like, if I just hadn't stopped to take my shoes off, you know. Or something like that, because they were trying to get their shoes off and run toward Bernard to pull him out. Especially my Uncle who had these big boots to work in, that's what he was wearing to the beach. And he was trying to get those boots off to get in the water. So he dove in after Bernard, and he said he can even remember touching Bernard once, but he couldn't grab him, he kept going down and down. I guess he must've been under the water at that time, and the current had taken Bernard so swiftly that they finally found his body five miles downstream. There were some fishermen down there that saw the body and grabbed it, the same day.
It was a very difficult sad time. I was six years old and Don was six. Don was so upset, he was crying all the way home, and he was mad at me because I wasn't crying. And I don't know why I wasn't crying, I think it was I didn't believe it, I really didn't believe that it had happened. I was in shock I think. That was a very painful time for the family. My Aunt Janet and Uncle Angus were not really active in church(The Church of Jesus of Latter Day Saints) and my Aunt kept saying that if she'd been active in church God wouldn't have taken him and stuff like that. I know that Bernard went when it was his time, it was his time. But it was hard for them, it was really hard.
6. Bernard Saying, "Be Good"
This story goes along with the other one of Bernard's Drowning. I told you that Bernard took care of us and kept us out of trouble. We all went to church the day he was confirmed, after his baptism, and Don and I were sitting towards the back. They called Bernard up to the front to confirm him, and I guess Don and I were doing what we usually were, we were in trouble, messing around making noise or something. And when he came to his seat he scolded us and he told us, he said, "I'm not always going to be here all the time". I remember that really well. He said, I won't always be around to get you guys out of trouble. And I don't think either one of us thought anything of what he said at the time, but later on I remembered. And years later I remember reminding Don, and he had forgotten that. It was kind of like he didn't really know he was going to go, because I don't think an eight year old does, but I think something inside of him prompted him to say that to us. So he admonished us to be good kids, like he always did.
7. Leaving Nevada
After my cousin Bernard died, my parents told me that they had decided that I should come back home, because they were a little concerned. I'm told this was rather hard on my Aunt Janet because she had gotten kind of attached to me. And she really didn't want me to go right at that time, because it was already so hard losing Bernard. So I believe they let me stay a little while longer, and then took me back home to San Francisco where they were living. And I started going to school in San Francisco. Bernard died in the summertime, I might've still been six when I came back. But I remember my impressions of San Francisco and the apartment we were living in at the time. It was different, I wasn't used to apartments. Mother had gotten a high school girl to take care of me after school every day, and I didn't like her, and I don't think she liked me. And I didn't care for the school very much, I didn't like school. I do remember the looks of the apartment. We had kind of a window seat in one of the front windows, and I can remember sitting on the window and feeling kind of lonesome. I don't think I was in San Francisco too long because the sitter didn't work out, and I had more that one sitter, as I recall. I don't know where my mother got the girls to look after me but it didn't last a long time.
8. Going to live with Aunt Dot
I then went to live with my Aunt Dot, mother's sister who had married my father's brother, Uncle Jim. And they were living in Berkeley at that time. I started going to school there. And I started getting closely acquainted with the cousins who lived there. My cousins were Jo Ann and Kathleen, and at that time I don't think their younger brother was born. My Aunt Pearl, who I mentioned was in that car accident when I was a baby ,was living with them and helping to take care of the children. I think that was for two reasons. Aunt Pearl really didn't have a family that would take care of her. She never had any children of her own, she raised her husband's children and it appeared that none of them cared to take care of her. So, she was kind of all alone, and so she went to go live with my Aunt Dot. And my Aunt Dot kind of supported her, and in exchange, my Aunt Pearl helped take care of the children, and the household and so forth. The reason I remember that so well is because as kids, we would do things that kids did, and most of the time we would drive Aunt Pearl crazy. She was like a grandmother. She was older than my grandmother that had died, she was my grandmother's sister, my great Aunt. So she was not a young woman and she was tired and all these kids bothered her a lot.
My Uncle Jim worked for Sloan Furniture Company. And he was a very important executive at Sloan Furniture Company. Sloan was big time furniture in San Francisco, and he was well known for that. While I was there, I went to church because they took us, so I had some church experience again, you might say. But Uncle Jim and Aunt Dot didn't do many church things in their home. But they were involved in the choir, they were always in the choir. My Aunt Dot played the piano very well, and she played the organ very well for the ward, she did that for years.
Aunt Dot . . . . how do I put this, Aunt Dot basically had a good heart, but she was not a person I ever got to know very well. She was not an affectionate person, and she was not a person that really talked to me, or I felt inclined to talk to. I don't know how else to explain Aunt Dot. I don't know if she was that way with her own children, but I felt like I never knew Aunt Dot very well. Her children were younger than I was, I was seven or eight. I can remember being there in third grade, I think it was. Jo Ann was a year younger and Kathleen was almost two years younger. Aunt Dot changed throughout the years, later in life she had Alzheimer's. I remember I liked school there, school was fun. And living with Aunt Dot was okay. There were always disadvantages. I would go see my parents every so often, not every weekend though. I would go to San Francisco and stay a few days and come back.
So I was in Berkeley for a few years and apparently there came a time, probably when my Aunt Dot felt like she couldn't manage it anymore. So I went back to live with my parents and we were in a different apartment, I remember it was a small apartment.
9. In Another San Francisco Apartment, 4th & 5th grade
So back in San Francisco, and I think for at least a year I went to public school. And I would come home from school every day and take care of myself in the apartment, while my parents were still at work. And they called me, and got worried about me at some point in time, because I was alone so much in the apartment. By that time I was in fourth and fifth grade. So I can remember walking to school and back, and it was no big deal, everybody walked to school. But the thing I remember, was that you walked this way and that way, and on the way home, you walked this way and that way, up and down the hills, down the other direction from our apartment house. I remember there was a store that had comic books. And I used to love to go down to that store, and buy comic books and ice cream after school, and bring it back to the house. And that's what I spent my allowance on. I used to have so many comic books. In those days we read about Sheena the Queen of the Jungle, and we read about Captain Midnight, and the Phantom, and a bunch of good ones. Good comic books, not the comic books they have now. They have junk out now, but those comic books were fun. That's right, they had Batman, and Superman, good Batman and Good Superman, not messed up. But I had this stack of comic books, such a collection.
10. The Convent Decision
I think my parents eventually got worried about my being alone so long after school until they got home. However, they would assign me chores. I was supposed to clean the apartment and do things like that, but that didn't take very long. So after a year or so, that's when Mother took me to the convent, and decided to enroll me as a boarding student in the Catholic Convent in San Francisco. In fact it wasn't too awfully far from where we lived. I must've been in sixth grade by that time, because I spent sixth, seventh, and eighth grade in the Convent. I didn't want to go to the Convent. I did it because Mother told me that's the only choice we have. She told me that she had researched all the other boarding schools around and she didn't feel that any of them would be safer than the Catholic Convent. Because I remember, I kept asking her, why the Catholic school? But she told me that it was the best one they could find. It may have been the least expensive, I really don't know for sure. But I do remember I did not want to go, and I remember when we went there and I was introduced to the nuns, and then the Convent area, and oh, I just did not want to stay. It was just so strange and so cold. As I've said before though, so many times, I think Mother did the very best she could for me, I really do. And I think that was probably the best decision she could have made for my good. I think something bad might have happened to me if I hadn't been in that place as a student. So I think she did the very best she could do. And the option wasn't open to go back to anybody else's, my Aunt's and Uncle's, that sort of thing.
So I used to come home on the weekends from the Convent and visit with my parents. But I spent the next three years in the Convent. And I learned a lot of things there. I think I learned a great deal of sympathy for the Catholic people and I learned why it's difficult for Catholic people to accept any other religion. I feel I learned lots of things there that I might not have learned any other way. And that's also where I had "The Special Dream", when I was there.
11. Mom's Special Dream
For many years I didn't say anything to anybody, because like your experiences it was too personal and too special. You know. I was growing up,and in the Catholic Convent at the time, I had at this point become very confused about religion. I was between 10 and 12, and I had been in the Convent for a while. I wanted really bad to be baptized in the Catholic Church, because I thought that was the true church, and I wanted to be sure and belong to the true church. Part of it was because living in the Convent, I had to go to mass every morning and chapel every afternoon, and we had to say morning prayers and evening prayers. I mean you get very indoctrinated, you know.
Most of the people who were there were Catholic, a few were not. Not everyone that went to the day school lived in the convent. They had a big school called the Immaculate Conception, from grade school up to high school. The majority of the kids didn't live in the convent. We were called boarders because we boarded in the convent.
My roommate was one who was not a member, and her name was Roberta Ray. I remember that real well, and she also wanted to be baptized in the church, we both did, and I remember even talking to the nuns about it. And I kept pleading with my parents, and it was mainly Mother I talked to because I don't remember my Father being there for these conversations as much. I would go home on the weekends and these were the times I would keep asking her and asking her if I couldn't please be baptized. And she kept telling me that if I still wanted to be baptized when I was sixteen, then she would allow me to. Of course at that age, sixteen was a million years away, and I was so upset and disappointed that she wouldn't let me be baptized until then. So I kept still trying to figure out some way I could talk her into it.
In the meantime, I started just praying every single night. But these prayers were not in the way the Catholic Church taught. The Catholic Church had set prayers, all the prayers you memorized. They may now have some prayers that aren't set, but not then. Whenever I would kneel down though, to just say what I figured were my prayers, that would be the thing I would ask my Heavenly Father, every single night. I would ask him to please let me know which was the really, really true church. I really needed to know that. And it seemed to me, that I said that same prayer night, after night, after night. And you know how it is when you're young. At times…. sometimes it all seems really drawn out, it seemed like it was weeks and weeks. But every single night, it had gotten to be routine. That was my routine to say that prayer. So it took quite a while.
And one night I had a dream, and I never have been able to remember the first part of the dream which so often happens, but, I've never forgotten the important part. (By the way, my dreams are usually always in Technicolor.) At one point in the dream Roberta and I were walking up this steep flight of steps in this tower, in a castle. And the tower was like you see in the pictures, it was round and the steps were circular, and they went round and round all the way up, and it was dark, we could hardly see our way up there. Someone was leading us up the stairs, and I was so anxious to get to the top because I think castles have always intrigued me. I was so anxious to get to the top of the stairs and see what it was like up there. So when we got to the top, it was a room, and there were two windows in this room. And Mother went over to the window on my right hand side, and Roberta Ray went over to the window that was on my left hand side. And I remember these things so well. The room itself was not very light, kind of dim, and I had the impression that we were way up high. Roberta Ray got really excited and called me over to her window and she wanted me to see what she could see out her window. She didn't want me to miss it. And so I looked out her window and she was telling me how wonderful it was, and we were looking down into the street, and I looked down there, and it was awful. It was just awful. And to this day it's very difficult to explain in words what it looked like, but I have never forgotten what it looked like. It was dark, it was filthy, it was so depressing. I didn't even want to look at it, much less go down there. But she was so excited, and I kept saying to her it was awful, and she tried to tell me I wasn't looking at the right thing, and I said no, no it's awful, it's terrible.
And so then mother called me over to her window, and I went over to mother's window, and she was kind of excited. And to this day, I have a problem describing that, but I can see it. And one thing to keep in mind is, at that point in my life, I had never read any kind of description about God being full of light or any of that sort of thing. I didn't know about any of that. But I looked out the window and this was the most beautiful scene I had ever seen in my whole life. The street was like gold, only better. It was kind of like sparkly and glass and diamond like, and the houses were just sparkly and light and bright and just shiny. And the light was almost too bright. It was so bright, I didn't want to turn away from it. I didn't feel I had to, but it was so bright, I'll never forget that. It was like the prettiest diamonds and rubies and whatever you want to say, that could possibly be on the earth. Of course I knew, and I still have problems telling the story because I get emotional, but immediately I knew what it meant. I knew that my mother was trying to show me the right window. She was trying to show me where the truth was, by not letting me be baptized. Because she kept telling me, that even though she didn't go to church, she kept telling me the church was true, and that I would find out someday. And so the dream ended right there, and I woke up. And I was so excited about it. I knew that that was an answer. I absolutely, as well as I knew I was breathing, I knew that was an answer to my prayer. And I knew the difference between Satan and God. For me, I don't know how to explain it, but I had never had Satan described to me that way before, all darkness and filth, and stuff like that, and God all brightness, and glass and sparkly and gold. I can't find the words to explain how bright it was. I've never seen anything in my life that was that bright, in this world.
As soon as I woke up I was so excited I told Roberta Ray about it, and I told her you can't join the Catholic Church. And I told her all about my dream, and I was so excited about it. I think I had her completely confused. And not only that, I started telling all my friends there in the convent about it because I was just so excited about it. And finally one of the nuns came to me and she told me that I needed to stop talking about my dream. So I realized that I couldn't do that, so I stopped talking about it. But the very next Sunday when I went home to visit I told mother that we had to go to church. And so we did. And I could hardly wait to tell the bishop what I had found out. So I told the bishop about my dream. (I had told my mom too. I think mother was very touched. ) I think mother was excited for me to tell him too because she made a real effort for me to see the bishop after church. And I remember I was really disappointed because I told him this whole story and he didn't seem to be very excited about it.
I had been baptized years before, I just hadn't been active. I'm sure the bishop felt good about it, but as I think back about it I think he must've thought I was a little strange by telling him about this dream. It probably didn't come across the same way as it did to me. Then I realized, that was a message for me, not for him. And I think it was at that time that I stopped telling the story. Because I realized that it didn't mean the same to somebody else, as what it meant to me. I hardly ever told that story again. After I was an adult, I told it to people in my family. Since that time I've tried to tell each one of my children, but even for a long, long time I didn't want to share it with anybody. But it's interesting, even today, as old as I am, I can still see that beautiful gorgeous street and houses and everything, I can still see them so well. And some years ago I was reading something that Joseph Smith had written about the lightness and brightness of God, and he made a statement about the light defyleth all description. And I said that's true, you can't describe, there's no describing it. And I didn't know that as a kid, and it's interesting that I was able to see something like that when I was younger. And I didn't even realize how important that was that the lord showed me how bight, and light, and gorgeous truth was. Because I had never related it to that, in all my growing up years, I had never related it to that.
That has always been a really strong testimony to me. Even though I went to church, and sometimes didn't go to church, and was active sometimes and than not. That ended my desire to be baptized in the Catholic Church. So that was good.
12. Summer Camp with the Convent
While at the convent I would go to their summer camp. And I spent the first summer a regular camper. But immediately I did not like that. I was not a camper, never have been a camper. I didn't like going on the hikes, doing work, I didn't like anything. I didn't like getting up in the morning. I remember thinking if I have to come back to camp, I'm not going to come back a regular camper, I'm going to come back as a worker. Because they had some students there that they called workers, and you could earn money and you didn't have to do the things campers did. So I remember applying for that the next year I went back to camp. And I got part way through my camp year, and finally they let me be a worker. So I spent part of that summer being a worker and the following summer I was a worker, the whole summer. All those different experiences had their negative and their positive side. My friend, Robert Ray, was a camper and I was a worker, so I didn't do much with her the last year there at camp, we didn't see each other much.
13. Back to Live with Aunt Dot, 9th Grade
That particular conversation was a very difficult conversation, because I felt I was finally old enough, I could just go back home and take care of myself. And mother said no, we've made arrangements for you to go live with Aunt Dot, and that was hard, really hard. I wanted to go home. I wanted to be like normal, you know. But Mother said no. At that time I was fourteen and I really felt like I could take care of myself. But she was probably wise again. I do remember I was upset about having to go back to Aunt Dot's, but I did go. I went back to Aunt Dot's, and I spent the last year of junior high school there, ninth grade.
And that was probably one of my funniest years in school, as I remember that year in junior high. In San Francisco it would have been the first year of high school, but in Berkeley it was the last year in junior high. I can remember it was dark looking. But it was a good junior high, I enjoyed it for two reasons. Because I had gone to the convent, and the way the catholic school had taught me, I was a good student by that time. So going to junior high and taking the subjects I was taking, it was a snap. I hardly had to do anything in ninth grade. Some of the stuff I took, it was so easy, and I wasn't used to school being like that.
And, for the first time, I got to take a real art class. Oh, I loved that art class. There was a guy in that art class who was also fourteen, believe it or not. And he was six foot three, he was so tall. He was my first boyfriend. It was just fun having a boyfriend. But he was one of these boyfriends who never had a girlfriend, and I never had a boyfriend. And he didn't know what to do with me, and I didn't know what to do with him. So we were just friends, and we were just friends for that whole year. I remember that really well. And we didn't really do anything, to the point where his friends, his boyfriends gave him a terrible time. They just teased him to death. And they finally came over one day, we'd been going together for a long time, and they wouldn't leave until they had actually pushed us together and made us kiss. I'll never forget that. I was so embarrassed I could've died. I think he was too, I think he just wanted to dig a hole somewhere and hide. Because we were doing fine, we were good friends and we were just doing fine if they'd left us alone. We just talked and talked and talked, and he was a good artist. Since he was in my art class, we had that in common and we just loved to talk about art, and loved to do it. We'd do posters together and all that sort of stuff. He was always a fun person. He wasn't a member of the church, but he should've been.
Towards the last of that year, I think because those guys had pushed us together, we used to meet, like after dinner down at the bus stop, which was a block away from our house. This bus stop, it was a pretty thing. It had seats and trees all around, a real pleasant place to go relax in the shade. That's where we practiced learning how to kiss. But we were stupid enough we didn't even try to hide. That's all we were doing. We were both so innocent. We never tried anything bad. It was just such a good friendship. But my Aunt came by one evening and saw us, and I shocked her to death, and she called my parents. And I guess the way she described it all to my parents must've been awful, because mother talked to me on the phone and told me that I couldn't be doing these things, you know. And I said, we didn't do anything, I kept saying to her. But she didn't understand. Besides I guess the decision had been made that my Aunt couldn't have me there any longer. It kind of hurt my feelings because she never ever talked to me about it. To say she saw something, or to question me, nothing. I do remember she admonished me for talking to him on the phone too much, which I did. I can remember sitting in the hallway and someone tell me, get off the phone. So I would have to do that. But I think she was frightened that I was going to be a really bad example to her younger daughters. And her daughter, Jo Ann was starting to get a little interested in boys by that time because she was starting junior high.
From Yvonne's Teen yrs |
The decision was made that I should go home, so I did. And at that point I was finally old enough to be left on my own, I was sixteen. And I was glad to be on my own, but I was sad about the way it had happened. I knew where I wanted to go to school, in San Francisco. In those days you could pick the high school you wanted to go to, you didn't have to go the high school nearest you. And the high school I wanted to go to was an academic high school, it only accepted students that were planning on going to college. And if your grades went low you were asked to leave. It was called Lowell High. I think it's still there but it's not and academic school anymore. But that's where I wanted to go and it was all the way on the other side of town, I remember that. I had to take a street car forever and ever to get there. But I remember applying there and feeling real good about it that they accepted me, because my grades were good.
And the first day I was there, I was looking for a class and ran into a girl in the hall, and she was looking for her class. And we both told each other, this is our first day here, we don't know what we're doing. We just kind of started talking, and decided to have lunch together. Her name turned out to be Kay, her first name, (funny that is was my last name), her last name was Hansen, her name was Kay Hansen. We hadn't been talking to long, before we found out we had a number of classes together. So that worked out nicely. So maybe we'd been acquainted a day or so and were beginning to find out things about each other. She found out then, that I was Mormon, and she told me she was Mormon, but that she hadn't been raised in the church. And we talked about that, and I said I hadn't been raised in the church either. I don't know where she'd been going to school before, but she'd been going somewhere where she'd been having some bad experiences. And then she told me about an experience that always stayed with me after that. She said, you know, I've been praying that if, I could meet someone who was Mormon, that we could go to church together, that I could have a friend who was Mormon. She said, isn't it interesting that you're Mormon. So I think we were both impressed that her prayer had been answered.
15. Friendship with Kay and Church
Kay lived on one side of the city, and I lived on the other side of the city, we did try to go to church together. She used to come over to my house, and we would go down to what they call Mission ward, which was the closest ward to me. She would take the street car after school to my house, and we would walk from my house six or seven blocks to the church. And we had a really good mutual teacher. She must've been ancient, she must've been fifty, and in our eyes she was ancient. But she was such a good person, and she really made us feel like she really wanted us there. Not just Kay and I but all the girls that would come. So every Wednesday night, for a long time, we would show up there just because she made us feel that way. But we both had a very difficult time getting to church on Sundays. Probably it was because she had to come such a long distance.
Sometimes she would stay the night, (on Wednesdays), and we'd go so school together. We were both sixteen, not little kids anymore. And she'd been raised in similar circumstance. Her mother was divorced and Kay was an only child, and I was an only child, and I think both of us were rather adult for our age. We pretty much raised ourselves, so in that respect we had a lot in common. I think her parents trusted me, and I think my parent trusted Kay. Very, very often I would stay the night at her house and go to school, most of the time actually. And every once in a while, she would spend the night at my house. And then we'd just go to school and hang out after school, usually at her house, and then I'd catch the street car home, or something. Her mom really liked her going to church, but her mom never did quite make it. And my thought was, that that was great, you know, to go to church, but they didn't quite make it either like my parents.
One thing I remember particularly about my friendship with Kay, and the times that we would go to mutual together at the Mission Ward, is the place itself . The Mission ward was held in a rented building on Mission Street. The bottom of the building was some kind of a store. And as a church we met on the second and third floor of the building, and it was an older building. So that was a little different than most people are used to. But it seemed natural to me at that time, you met in what you could afford to meet in. The Mission district was not considered a very good district, it was a really rough district. So that would probably be the only other thing, if I were a parent I would probably not let me walk to the Mission ward by myself, you know. And that's what Kay and I used to do, walk down to the church by ourselves. And it was dark both ways. And on the way there were a number of bars to walk by, because that was the kind of street it was - not a good street. And I can remember a few times actually having people come out of the bars and approach us. And this is when I knew that the Lord was really with us, because Kay and I both felt like, how do I put it, like nothing could hurt us. And we used to just stand up to these guys and tell them, forget it, take off. I'll never forget that. And when I think about that now I think, boy, pretty gutsy, you know. But we did. We just figured that was part of the territory. We never did get hurt or anything like that. Nothing bad ever did happen to us. But as I think about it now, I'm not sure my parents knew how bad that street was. But we knew, we knew the parts of the city that were safe and the parts that were not. And Mission district is not a safe part.
16. Street Cars, Cable Cars, Fun in the City
There were a number of parts that were not safe, and we didn't usually go to those parts. But you learn when you live in San Francisco where you can go, and where you can't go, and how to stay safe in a city like that. Especially at our age where our transportation was street cars. That was before busses, they didn't even have busses then. And cable cars were different. Cable cars were used just on very, very steep hills that had cables built in the ground that actually pulled the car up to the top of the hill. The street cars would run by these electric wires that were strung on the top of the streets, running down the streets from like a telephone cable, you could see them. And the street car a had a thing on the top of it that would latch onto the cable. And that would help keep it on the track, and keep it going, and that's where it would get it's power. So it was a little different than a cable car. A street car pretty much ran on flat ground and we would switch from one to the other when we needed to.
That's how everyone got around. It was really interesting, hardly anyone had cars in the city. So there was a lot of room for street cars all up and down the middle of Market Street, and all the other streets, because there just wasn't that much car traffic. And of course the car traffic increased, and then the street cars turned to busses, I guess because the busses were more economical, I have no idea. But on the street cars you could get umpteen thousand people squished in a street car, and then you could still have twenty or thirty more hanging out the doors because the doors didn't close. On a bus, you pack the bus and close the doors and that was it. And so I was always turned off by the busses. And the same with the cable car, you could always jump on the car and there was always room for one more, or on the street car. All you had to do was get one hand on a pole and one foot on a rung, on a step, and you were fine. You could just hang on until it stopped at the next block and you could jump off. So it was really easy. If the cable man got around to getting your money that was fine, and you would try to give it to him. But if it was too crowded to finally give it to him, you just didn't sweat it, you know. It was more important to get a ride. That sounds terrible I guess. That's maybe where they thought they were losing money, I don't know, they used to get so many people on those cable cars. Now a days of course they won't allow that. If you're not actually sitting down on a cable car you can't go. In those days we used to hang out everyplace, the doors, the windows, the sides, everything.
And that's how you got around in the city. You'd pay maybe a token to get on, and then from there you'd go with transfers, all day long you'd use a transfer slip. A token was probably a nickel. We used to call them tokens because they were special tokens and you would pay so much money for "x" number of tokens and use the tokens until they were gone, and then get a bunch more tokens. I guess maybe they were easier to handle, you didn't have to make change. The picture I'm trying to paint is that it was just very easy to get around the city, especially for teenagers. For anybody who could jump on a cable car or a street car; you could go anywhere in the city you wanted to. You could go from one end of the city to another. And you stayed away from the places you knew it was a good idea to stay away from. In those days there were some places you knew it wasn't a good idea to be.
During those years in the city I feel I learned a lot about independence. I learned a lot about taking care of myself and knowing who to associate with, and who not to associate with. You could go down on Market Street, for instance, and if you really wanted to meet somebody, if you wanted to be picked up, you could do that, that was easy. But you had to make up your mind what you really wanted, is that what you wanted? Or did you really just want to go out with good guys. And I think Kay and I both decided early on we were not going to mess around. So we did meet a couple of good guys in high school. They didn't go to our school, I've forgotten what school they went to, but they were good friends themselves and they were about a year older than we were. And we used to date as a foursome a lot, there was a lot of things to do as couples all over the city. Because it seemed like we could make entertainment for ourselves fairly inexpensively by just catching a street car out to the beach, and then walk on the beach at night, or something.
Or sometimes we would (we weren't allowed to) but sometimes we'd go up to "The Top of The Mark", which is like the top of The Space Needle or something like that. Generally you don't go places like that if you under age, or if you don't have the money for it. But as teenagers we'd do all kinds of silly things like that. We'd just go up there to see if we could get in. "The Top of The Mark" was probably about the highest tower on top of a hotel in San Francisco. The Mark Hopkins was the name of the hotel. It was a very, very plush hotel, only the rich, of the rich would stay there. So we used to go in and out of those hotels just to see how the rich live. And nobody really stopped us, we didn't make a nuisance of ourselves too much. But we obviously didn't belong. But you know you could do all kinds of things like that and not really get in trouble. But there were places, like that winding street you see pictures of, we'd often go up there and try running down. We'd just do crazy things like that. Then there were other streets in San Francisco that were so steep, there were steps, and we'd try running up and down those. So there were so many things to do for teenagers, for us, anyway, that didn't really cost money. It was interesting, there wasn't really a lot of trouble to get in. Once in a while I think we went to movies together. And I think we even went to some church dances. Because Kay and I would find out about them and go, but it wasn't always in our ward, it was maybe in another ward.
17. Moving to Menlo Park
When I was a senior at Lowell High, that's when my parents finally had the opportunity to move down to the Palo Alto area, and the Menlo Park area. My mother had an Aunt, who would be my great Aunt, on her father's side. Her name was Aunt Jean(or Sarah Eugeane Ingham), and her married name was Aunt Jean Kilpatrick. She married a Kilpatrick ,and the Kilpatrick she married was the one who helped build the Ford Motor Company. So she was very wealthy. She had three children and they all died young. So she didn't have anywhere to leave her money, so she left it to all of her nieces and nephews, and mother happened to be one of the nieces. So at that point in time, my parents finally had the money to get themselves out of the city, which they always wanted to do. They didn't like living in the city. So it was kind of like their dream come true, moving down to Menlo Park. I was trilled to be moving down to Menlo Park, but I didn't want to leave Lowell High School because that's where I wanted to graduate. (We moved in the summer before my senior year.) So for a while I tried commuting on the train every morning up to San Francisco to go to high school up there. But that really didn't last a long time because I had to leave so early, and got home so late that I was just dead. I had a hard time doing that. It was hard giving up that dream of graduating from Lowell High School, but realized I was not going to be able to go to San Francisco everyday because I was just getting too tired. But Kay and I remained friends. In fact she planned then on going to San Jose State, and I was going to go to San Jose State with her.
In the mean time I went ahead and applied to go to school in Redwood City, which was the closest school at that time to Menlo Park to support a high school. And I intensely disliked it because I didn't know anybody there. I had pretty much done all the stuff I needed to do except chemistry, and mostly just credits to get out of high school. So I took classes in the morning and I got a job for the rest of the time. I worked eight hours a day and went to school in the morning, and finished high school that way. And that worked fine, I really needed to do that because I didn't know anybody, and I was unhappy at school anyway.
From Yvonne's Teen yrs |
I got through my high school years and went down to San Jose State and was accepted there. And my first plan was to go to college for a couple of years, then go into a special nursing program. And I know Kay and I, we looked at some boarding houses, that we were going to board together and stuff. But I had this strange feeling though, its' kind of like I knew that if I started college..... that I would graduate with my bachelor, because at that time, I knew that's what I finally wanted to do. But the closer it got to fall and school starting, the more worried I got. Because I just kept thinking, if I start college I will never finish, and I will never get into nurses training. I just know myself. I'll quit and I'll go get a job. I just was afraid that I would not finish. So, on the spur of a moment I applied to a few of the hospitals in San Jose and San Francisco. And I was accepted at a hospital in San Francisco, and decided almost at the last minute to go straight into nurses training. That way I knew, if I did that, I knew I was committed and I would have to stay and I would have to complete something. And that way I would at least be able to earn a living. But I felt bad because Kay was more than a little upset, she was very upset. She figured she had a roommate and was all set. But I kept in touch with her off and on for the first year or so. She got married though in her second year, and I think she quit college. You see that's what I was afraid might happen to me, and I really, really felt like I needed an education before I got married. I was just afraid I would quit school. But I do remember she was really hurt with me. And I didn't think I could ever explain to her why I did that. I kept saying, "I'm sorry Kay, I have to do it this way". And I think I made the right decision.
For many years I lost track of Kay, and then she got in touch with me sometime around the year 1959, and I went over to visit with her. And she had not gone to church for many, many years, and I felt bad about that. And then I tried to get in touch with her again after about ten years later, and talked to one of her daughters, and she never did call me back or return any of my calls. Her daughter told me that her mother and father were not married anymore, and they had a friend staying with them, and she didn't know what her mother's plans were or anything like that. So I could tell she was living in a situation where she really didn't want to see me. I never did get in touch with her again, I lost track.
I did go into training, and I remember the first day I stood in the lobby waiting for the head nurse to interview me and show me my room. I remember thinking, this is where I belong. It wasn't that I loved the place, I didn't. It was a very strange place to be. But I knew I'd made the right decision, and I knew that's where I was supposed to be at that time. I was there from September until Christmas and that's when I met dad, at Christmas time.
19. Her Commentary on Her Youth
I'm just really glad that I finally got to the point where I realized, and always said, that I couldn't have learned what I learned any other way. And I learned a lot. There wasn't any other way I could've learned some of those things. So I always felt in a way really blessed. But I harbored this resentment for my parents for allowing this to happen. But the longer I was married, and as my family grew and I looked back on it, I thought, this is ridiculous you know. My parents did the very best they could, given the circumstances. And they could've really let the ball drop. But they really did, they did the best they could do. And my mother had me living with these different families so that I wouldn't be let loose on the streets while they were at work. And that in itself was a real blessing. Because there was a lot of junk going on in San Francisco, there always is. I remember thinking as I was growing up that it's okay, it's not that big a deal. When my cousins would feel sorry for me living with different relatives.
20. Young Adult, Met Our Dad
I was 18, when I really decided to make a decision about the gospel, about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I started going back to church, and that's when I really did gain a whole testimony. And it just so happened that during this period, that when I was getting to go back to church and beginning to read the Book of Mormon (not a whole lot but just a little bit) then I met dad(B. Vaughn Marshall). He had just gotten out of the navy and I met him at Christmas time. And that's when we started going together. I met him at church, as we were decorating the Christmas tree at one of these young adult dances. We were supposed to be decorating the Christmas tree and decorating the cultural hall for a dance. It was something they made up for the young adults. I was in San Francisco going to nursing school and I would come home on the weekends. We lived in an area where we lived in the Palo Alto Ward, Menlo Park Ward hadn't been formed yet. So that's where I would go on the weekends, to the Palo Alto Ward. And so that's where I met dad. His family had been in the Palo Alto Ward for a number of years.
That wouldn't have happened, I guess if I hadn't gotten interested in the church at that time. So I've always been really grateful that I did. And so we both started reading the Book of Mormon again. I'm sure he had read it a number of times before I had read it, but we had this little challenge, especially after we knew he was going to go on a mission, we gave ourselves this challenge that we had to be reading the Book of Mormon together.
From B.V.Marshall |
Dad(B. Vaughn Marshall) had gone to Stanford in the summer for one quarter, and then joined the navy under a special program, and was in the navy just a year. In those days everybody, every male that didn't have any health problems or anything had to be in the armed forces of some kind or another for a certain period of time, most of them 2 years. But there was a special program that the navy was offering. If you were on active duty for one year, then you would be in the navy for four years, serving on inactive duty, and he took advantage of that. It was a real blessing for him, because during that period, it was real hard for young men to go serve on mission for the Church, because of the requirement for being in the service. So he had it all figured out. It was 1948 when he graduated High School. There might have been still some Korean conflict going on. Essentially the war was over, but still every young man had to be in the service. So it was a real blessing for him to get into the service on that particular deal because that way he figured he could do his service in the navy and also serve on a mission in and still get to school. And given the choice between army and navy, navy won hands down. He didn't like the army, he liked ships, and I think he liked the navy, but he always liked ships and the sea, and things like that.
When I think back about it now I think how a hard time it must've been for a lot of these young men and for dad too. Because of so many things he had to do, he had to get in his Navy Service , he had to go on a mission, then there was college, and somewhere in there get married. It must've been really hard on these young men. As I think back about it though, we used to have the feeling like we could do it though.
I'm not sure how much he liked his time in the service or didn't like it. The navy was the lesser of many evils as far as being in the service was concerned. He talks about times when he was sleeping in the lower bunk and the guys above him had been out drinking, they threw up and he'd be down under them, and he hated that. Then I guess when they had stop over's in San Diego it was a pretty awful town and things like that. I think he was very proud of the ship he was on though. He was on a carrier. It had a very good reputation. I think he was proud to be on that particular carrier. Given his choice he probably wouldn't have gone into the service, but you don't always have a choice.
22. The Bagpipes at Mom's Reception
We were married February 9, 1953. My Aunt Katie's husband, Uncle Jimmy, played the bagpipes at our reception. I was so thrilled. I had heard him play the bagpipes from the time I was a little girl and just loved it. Now, he was good! He won many cups and many honors playing the bagpipes. He was raised in Scotland, and before he came to this country he was in the Queens Pipe Band. In order to get into the Queens Pipe Band you have to be really good. So he was already really good. And he had a Scottish brogue. I loved to listen to it. And he was a fun person, he really was. He was a fun Uncle. He was just always happy, we always had a good time listening to Uncle Jimmy. He had some beautiful kilts and all that sort of stuff, so when he played the bagpipes at my reception he wore the kilts. He wore the whole thing and marched up and down the cultural hall playing the pipes. I'm not sure everybody was ready for that. But I was thrilled. I remember I was so excited that he came to play the pipes for me. And Dad appreciated it very much that he did that. That was really special. I'm not sure that he did that for anybody else. But I had asked and he did. So for me it was really exciting.
23. Our Dad's Begins His Career
Theoretically dad (B. Vaughn Marshall) only had a couple of years of school left because he already put in a couple of years before his mission. But he changed his major when he came back. He was in engineering before he left. And when he came back he changed his major to Geology so he had to take courses he hadn't taken previously so it made it almost three years. We were married in 1953, and he started school in the fall of 1953 in San Jose State, and he graduated then in June of 1957. So that was a long two and a half to three years or so, mainly because he changed his major. He went to school full time he took a lot of credits every single quarter. In the summertime he would try and get part time jobs, but even in the summer time he was taking some courses to get through. He majored in Geology and minored in Physics. He took a lot of math courses, many more math courses than he ever would've needed as a geology student. So he had a geophysical background really. So that when he worked for the Geological survey, having a geophysical background, he then joined the geophysical union there through the survey as a geophysicist. It used to amaze me the amount of math that he had. I didn't even know there was all that kinds of math in the world.
When he first started looking for a job he didn't have in mind working for the government, he was going to work for an oil company. They paid a lot better. There was a lot of moving around, but that was okay. But as he got out of college and began to research where to work, he had kind of decided to go back to Stanford and get his Master's . And so it would be better to work around the area where we were, while he was going to Stanford. So when he interviewed for the Survey, he was accepted right away. He thought, well I'll work at the Survey for a while, and he'd be in the right area to go back to Stanford and everything. The area where he was hired at the Survey, was looking at his background and they saw he had a good geophysical background. One of the projects that was still very young, and they hadn't done much with, was this thermal study project, off this ice island ocean bottom - thermal studies. He was interviewed for that particular position, in that project. So that's how he got to be working up North on the ice island.
Then, he took a real interest in it, he was low man on the totem pole, so he was the one who got to go up North. But for a while he was up North with the guys that were in charge of the project, because it was a new project, and they were just getting going on it. So for the first couple of trips up there, they were with him also. But they didn't stay, eventually they left him to continue on with the project, while they came back.
Going up to ice island for work, some of it he felt was okay, but I don't think he ever enjoyed the isolation up there, it was something he endured. He enjoyed the field work, and did get to do some other projects at the survey.
One trip on his way back from the ice island, they had to come home the long way around. They had to take him off the ice island because it was breaking up. That was up in the North Atlantic, and in order to bring the group back to their homes on ship, the ship had to go down around the tip of Africa. Because one of the stop offs was in South Africa, he also had a stop in France, he got to see Paris, and he got to see Italy, Rome. But I remember thinking, that's a long way around, getting back home. But it was just the way they were picked up, and where the ports were at the time.
He did some field work in the Mammoth Lakes area in California, some ground studies they were doing there. That was one project he was loaned out to. Then he was loaned out to a project in eastern Washington, I don't remember what studies he was doing there. But that was when he was gone for the whole summer and he invited us - the family - to come up and camp with him. That's when my fourth child was a baby-toddler. We camped that whole summer and I kept saying, I'm not a camper. I kept saying that. We were gone that whole summer and that's when I found out that it rained in Washington.
From KAY FAMILY |
My Aunt Janet who was one of my father's older sisters, was not really very active in the church. She's the one I went to stay with in Nevada. She married a Mormon, but neither one was very active. His oldest sister, my Aunt Katie, married the Scotsman that played the bagpipes at our wedding, was not a member. So she gradually became inactive also. So the only two that were really active, was my father, (John B. Kay) and his brother, (Jim Kay.)
This happened after dad and I were married. And I think my parents wanted to be active, and every so often they would try to go to church, but it wasn't anything consistent. And it was mainly because my father continued to have the Word of Wisdom problems, with smoking and alcohol. What I heard, was that it came about from some of the people he met at Bank of America, because they were important people. And he was put in a position where he felt he needed to impress certain people, and join in certain things they asked him to do. So as I understand that's when the drinking started. And it was a very addictive thing, and so was the smoking of course. But he had tried different times throughout his life to quit and leave it alone, but just hadn't been successful. It had been very difficult. (My mother picked up social drinking too, but never smoked.) So it wasn't that he didn't want to quit, I knew he wanted to, he just couldn't.
So this was just after our first child was born, I remember his bishop was visiting in the Palo Alto ward on a Sunday, and happened to stop me after church. He asked me out of the blue, how I would feel if I called your father on a stake mission? What do you think he would say? And I looked at the bishop and I said I have no idea. I really, have no idea. And the other thing I finally told the bishop was that, if that's the inspiration you've gotten, go with the inspiration, because I wouldn't dare say. So he did, he went with his inspiration. My father was probably forty four at the time. So the bishop went to visit with him, and the next thing I heard ,was that my father had accepted the call. I believe it was the bishop that called me and told me, that he had accepted the call, and I was so surprised. I don't remember how the Word of Wisdom was handled, but I do remember that my father indicated to me that he never smoked, and he never drank after that. After he accepted the call he never ever touched another one. And the Lord knew that's what it would take. And nobody else knew, but the Lord knew. And so my father remained very active in church after that. He was in the bishopric when he died. And mother also remained very active.
After my father passed away she didn't go back to her ward. She said it was just too painful so she used to come down to our house every weekend and go to church with us. So I guess that's that story. He really loved being a stake missionary. And I remember sometimes we would visit him during the time he was a stake missionary, and he would get so excited telling us about visiting with this person and visiting with that person. Telling us how he would explain the gospel to them. He would be very excited. It was a two year stake mission call, from 1955 - 1957. He was instrumental in seeing people baptized into the church.
25. Mom's Dad Passing Away
My father was around fifty six. He had been diagnosed with heart problems for some time before he died. He was taking medication and so forth. In those days they didn't really have any way to look into the heart and the vessels or anything like that. They had x-rays and EKG's. The way we think of it now, it was very primitive. He had a heart attack and they took him to the hospital and treated him. They put him on what they called blood thinners, in those days they didn't have a whole lot else to do. They assumed it was a clot that was causing the problem. The medications they had to put him on made him feel really tired. I remember that. They changed his ability to be able to taste things very well, or smell things. It was kind of a hard time for him. He was really tired a lot after that. I think he was probably diagnosed about four of five years from the first heart attack, before he died. He may have had other smaller heart attacks, I don't know. But he did go into the hospital every so often with some chest pain or to be worked up because he wasn't feeling good. But of course it didn't change the situation around.
One day when he was at work, he had to go up a pretty steep flight of steps to get to his office. And I guess he was going up the steps and the individual that was with him, said that he just suddenly crumpled. It was just very, very sudden. And he didn't have any time at all, he died immediately. He was gone. And this was at his work in San Francisco, and mother was also working (but they were living in Menlo Park). But they contacted dad first from the hospital, and I don't think they even told dad that my father was already gone. But they wanted him to tell my mother. They didn't want to say anything to her on the phone. So I can remember he drove her up, but they went in her car and I followed them in my car up to the city, San Francisco, to the hospital. Of course after she got to the hospital they had to tell her what happened. I can remember that was a real shock to her, I remember that very well. Dad drove her back home also, then he stayed with her a while. I think I may have stayed there until some of the family started calling and started coming to be with her and stuff. That was a hard time for mother. That was on February 8th 1968
26. Grandma Mary's History(Mary Ingham Kay)
I don't know as much about her growing up years, as I was told about my father's growing up years. And I didn't really know a lot about either one, and all the little things that happened to them. I do know that her father was either the bishop or in the bishopric for many years, and he and his wife were very active in the church and raised their family in the church(Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). But my cousin and I, Maureen Perona, Aunt Alta's daughter, used to kind of wonder about it. Because it seemed like none of the girls had very big testimonies, and we used to wonder how that happened. It just seemed strange to us. I don't know about my Uncle Ward. He married a very active Mormon girl and they remained active all throughout their married years. My uncle Ward got married in the temple, and my mother did, and my Aunt Dot, but none of the others did. Mother's parents were married in the temple. They were from the pioneers that came across the plains at the time Brigham Young came across on both sides. Mother's grandmother was a Pack, and mother's father ,was an Ingham. And both of those families were early converts to the church. Apparently fairly active. The Pack side remained very active, most of them throughout church history.
27. Ingham History (from England to Salt Lake)
The Ingham side, it would appear, that her grandparents were converted in England and joined the church and came over. And whether they were married just before they were converted or just after, isn't clear to me at this time. But they were married very close to the time they left England to come to the United States. Because their first baby was born on the plains of Wyoming, as they crossed the plains to come to Utah. And they came and settled down in the Salt Lake area. Her father was the second child, the first and second children were both boys. Both of these older boys remained active and raised their families in the church. But apparently something happened ,and I don't think anybody knows what happened. Not anything that I know of that was ever discovered. But somehow mother's Ingham grandparents became very hurt with the church. Something happened either with an individual or with the ward, something, they became very hurt with the church. Sometime after their first few children were born they stopped coming to church. But the two older boys continued to go to church and to be active, but none of the other children were. And they were a big family. And as the two older boys grew up into adulthood they apparently asked their parents questions about their ancestors with temple work in mind, and their parents would not give them any information. So as a result for a long time, no one knew anything about the parents that were left behind in England. And to this day I don't think they know where they lived in England, or the port that they sailed from. They wouldn't tell them anything. I guess the feeling against the church stayed very bitter. And so some genealogy had been able to be done on that Ingham side, but not much. Because there's so little information known.
But my mother's father ,was one of those two boys, like I said he remained very active and raised her family in the church, and mother can remember having to go to church all her life.
They lived right in Salt Lake City. In fact some years ago we drove by the house where my mother was raised right in the middle of Salt Lake City. She always seemed to have good feelings when she talked about her parents whenever she talked about them. When she spoke of her mother she seemed to like her, but I don't know how close they were because she never talked to me about it, (that seemed to be more of a sibling conversation). I think she was close to her sisters, especially her oldest sister, Madeline. Madeline seemed to have helped raise a lot of the younger ones. When she spoke of Madeline it wasn't so much Madeline liked her, as she liked Madeline. And I don't know how close she was to some of the others. I think she and her brother were close as they were growing up, because she talked about that. Maureen and I used to wonder about this. There didn't seem to be a tremendous amount of physical affection between them in that family. We thought well maybe that was just the English way, and maybe it is. I know that I had trouble apparently, as I was growing up, being physically affectionate. Not that it wasn't offered to me, but I apparently didn't desire it so much, or something like that. So maybe it's just a trait, I'm not sure, ya know
28. Aunt Janet's Temper (Mom's Father's Sister)
My father's family(Kay's) was more physically affectionate, they were also more physically volatile, more animated. As I think of my Aunt Janet, his sister that was just older than he was. She was one of these people who were either up or down, and she was very vocal. I always knew she loved me, but at the same time if I had done something wrong, I always knew I was really going to get in trouble. She was really going to spank me hard, and she used a little switch on me sometimes, on all of us, and sometimes even a belt. Aunt Janet had a very, very quick temper - she had a strong temper. She was famous for that temper of hers. One minute she was very, very loving, but she had those two sides to her - loving personality, but quick temper. I don't remember my father ever having an uncontrollable temper, but Aunt Janet did. And you never knew what she was going to say. She would say some of the craziest things sometimes. It was kind of like if you were visiting my Aunt Janet you just didn't know what kind of information you were going to come away with because there were no secrets. And if she thought something, no matter how wild it was, she said it. But everyone kind of got used to that, that was her.
29. Back to Ingham History, Maureen's Story
But after my Grandfather Ingham passed away, I guess it was hard to come by money then. As I mentioned before, my Aunt Madeline and Aunt Helen were married by that time. And the next one down the list was Aunt Dot, then Aunt Alta, then my Uncle Ward, and then mother. But Aunt Alta had sort of run away, and she had married a Mexican and was pregnant. Then he left her, so she came back home without a husband and pregnant and everything. Any way that was Maureen's father. I guess Aunt Alta had a reputation, she was always ,I guess, kind of the one they were worried about, the one that was going to get in trouble. Mostly I think she was just terribly, terribly unrealistic, she was a romantic. She remained that way all her life. I remember Maureen used to kind of shake her head about it. She would say, I don't know how mother thinks she's going to be able to do some of these things. She was so unrealistic.
Maureen's father, it turns out, was quite a wealthy Mexican young man, from quite a wealthy well known Mexican family. And I guess he just came up to the states to play around for a while or something and that's when he met her. They were all very strong Catholics (his family). And he didn't ever tell his family that he had married her, because he was afraid he'd be disowned or something. So I guess when he left her he didn't let her know his whereabouts or anything. He didn't want her to ever find him. Some years later when Maureen was young and married, and was trying to do her own genealogy she started asking her mother many questions about who her real father was, and was trying to get information about him. She got as much information as her mother could give her. And then she started actually searching for him down there in Mexico. She may have, maybe wanted to make contact, but she wasn't on high hopes that she would be accepted or anything. And I guess she definitely did find out, who he was and where he was. And she sent him a couple of registered letters, so she knew he received them. She went to a lot of trouble to make sure that he actually got them, literally. But she never ever heard back from him at all, ever. To the extent that she really felt strongly that he didn't want to be reached, he still didn't want his family to know anything about it. So for Maureen it's kind of a bitter thing. She didn't want to bother him, but she wanted to do her genealogy. That was a long time ago. But that was hard for her.
Maureen and her family often visited in the house on the beach - "The Beach Property", but that's not where she lived. Helen and Jean and her family were the ones that were living on the beach.
30. The Beach Property
I'll tell you about who lived on the beach. The second oldest daughter in my mother's family was named Helen. She's the one(as I mentioned before) who had studied to be a teacher, and she went to California. She had a good offer there and went there to teach, and met her husband there. He was the one who was a widower and had one daughter. He was also not a member of the Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter Day Saints, and he was well to do at the time. He's the one who owned that landscaping yard and had been buying property and so forth. But she married him and they had three children, one was Gerard, and another Helen Jean and the last one was called Don. Helen Jean was the one that was about a year younger than I was. And I lived with that family for a while also, so I was well acquainted with all of those cousins, fairly close to all of them. They had a home in Berkeley and they also had a home in Rio Del Mar, which was fairly close to Monterey. At first it was what they called a cabin. It was rather an elaborate cabin, it was two stories , and it was right on the cliff above the beach of Rio Del Mar. He had bought quite a bit of property down there in that area, all along the beach and up there on the cliff side. This was a man that I had described as being in those days quite tall. He was six foot seven, just a great big guy. In those days most men were not that tall, even the basketball players. And he loved the beach, he just loved being down there, so I guess they felt they could afford to move their business headquarters down there at some point in time. So he built another house that wasn't very far away from the cabin. And this was quite a lovely home for those days. It was kind of a Spanish type of home. It wasn't down on the beach, it was up on the cliff still. That was the home that they lived and raised they're kids in, and Helen Jean and Gerard finished school down in that area.
From what I was told, there got to be a point where he felt like he had to keep making more money. And so he would just build things in a hurry and rent them out, and he wasn't happy until everything was rented out. So he rented out the cabin, and that meant they had rentals that were fairly close to their main home (in Berkerly).
And then he decided he wanted to get closer to the beach so it wouldn't take so long to get down to the beach. So that's when they built the house there on the beach. It had steps that went down the cliff to the beach from this cliff house, to get closer to the beach. And they built the house right into the cliff. It was a very sandy cliff, of course, but they managed to build a good part of the foundation right into the cliff, so I guess he felt that the cliff was good and secure where they had built it. I remember I always worried about that cliff because we knew how sandy it was. We used to start at the top and slide all the way to the bottom. And that was a long ways. Not straight down, we had kind of a snake trail. It was pretty sandy. And that was a rather large house, it had three stories , he had a swimming pool on the top deck, and then they had the main story that was really, quite large, a big front room, a big kitchen, a quite a few bedrooms. And under that they had built a couple more rooms for the kids.
Well, that was fine for a while because it was a beautiful home. But then he kind of figured they didn't need all that space, so they started renting the bottom part of the house. And people wanted it - a premium of people want stuff on the beach. So there wasn't a problem renting anything. But I remember at that point my Aunt got a little bit unhappy and discouraged because she really didn't want all those rentals all around. But he did, he continued to rent and he even went so far as to divide some of the upper parts of the house when the kids stared leaving and started renting that.
Just about that time my Aunt had a heart attack and she died. So then he was alone there in the home. So he invited Helen Jean and her husband and family to come down and run the business. So she did, she came down and ran the business. That particular beach house kind of became a place for the Ingham family to get together once a year. We used to try to do that at New Year's. We'd go down and have family reunions there. That's when Maureen's family, and Helen Jean and Gerard's family and all of those cousins, used to all go down there
31. Grandma Mary's work
Mother(Mary Ingham Kay) had gone to secretarial school and had gotten her business degree from when she was in Salt Lake City. She knew shorthand and typing really well, she knew all of the secretarial things, and she was really good at it. So when she did go back to work in San Francisco, the company she worked for most of the time, was called Stedheimer. Which was a wholesale place that handled sweaters, t-shirts, and sports clothing, all that sort of thing. It wasn't right in the store or anything, it was in a big business building right down on Market Street. I used to go down and visit her every once in a while. They took up one whole floor of that particular building. I can remember going down there and seeing boxes and boxes of sweaters and things. I remember thinking why don't they have this stuff displayed, but they were wholesalers. It came in and out. She wasn't the only secretary there, but she was one of the chief secretaries. In fact I'm pretty sure she was the president's secretary, and worked there for many years. Then when we moved to Menlo Park, she applied at Jordan Junior High School and became the secretary there, at the Junior High School. It's interesting because a long time before, that's where, my dad had gone to Junior High, when he was a young man.
But she was very well liked in Jordan Junior High. As secretaries in schools often do she kind of began running that whole office and kept track of everything. They really liked her there. She was sixty eight when she retired but she didn't retire from Jordan, though. At one point because of politics or something like that, the new school board came in a changed the principal and how the system was run there. So when the new principal came in he brought in a lot of people in and he brought in his own secretary. I remember that was a hard time for mother because she liked that school and I think they liked her. But because she worked for the school system she was given the opportunity to work at another school. But that was still hard. She worked there for so many years. Then she worked for a school that worked with handicapped children and it was called Loma Vista. I think it was a grammar school and junior high age. All of the children were handicapped in one way or another. And after a while she became kind of the main spokes person there in the office also. They all thought a lot of her. I can remember her getting all kinds of little gifts and notes and letters from people there. It seemed like whoever she worked with really, really liked her. So that's the one where she retired from. She could've retired at sixty five, but she decided not to. She decided to, as long as she was feeling well she would continue working. So she retired at sixty eight and that's when she built on to our house and moved in with us.
32. Grandma Mary Moving in with Mom
We had been asking her ever since my father passed away to come down because we worried about her. At one point she did have a terrible experience. Her house was broken into and she was attacked and robbed. She didn't tell us anything about it until a couple of days later. And after that dad and I really didn't want her to stay up there. But she still really wanted to stay in her own home. I think towards the last, she began to be a little worried also, because she always had problems with high blood pressure, and I think she was beginning to fall down a lot. And she was worried that something would happen, and there wouldn't be anybody around. So I think that's what finally made her decide to come down and live with us. She planned when she was going to retire, and the building onto the house, all ahead of time. She was seventy two when she died. So she wasn't with us very long, after she had moved in with us.
She liked taking care of Louie, a dog we kind of just acquired, she liked Louie. She was an animal person, she really was. The big thing she enjoyed doing was the flowers. The big thing that she wanted when she came to live with us was space in the backyard to plant her corn and her plants. Of course dad was more than willing to give her all the space she wanted. And because she wasn't physically able to do it all, he worked with her. Every year he would bring corn and she would stand there and tell him exactly how to do it. Because there was a certain way she had to plant corn.
We had quite a few planters in the backyard. Mother planted all the flowers. She loved to go down to the nursery, she'd get the urge every so often and she'd talk to dad, She'd say, "let's go down to the nursery and see what we can find." I think she and dad had fun doing that, because dad really enjoyed going to the nursery and looking at plants. And she enjoyed going down there and buying them. So she did that a lot. Dad planted too, he tried vegetables for a while. He tried beans and peas and zucchini of course, you hardly even had to try for that. We planted yellow squash, and Hubbard squash, and planted all kinds of different vegetables. And then he wanted to plant berries, and berries didn't grow that well in California. Well the raspberries didn't, we got those from Nana and Gramps. We planted grapes and kiwi and all kinds of things. And Every kind of plum. The were there when we had the house built, but they were damaged so badly with the bulldozers when the house was built that it was just a matter of time before they all died. We never could get them to grow very well after that.
From Yvonne's Teen yrs |
These are her notes taken from her genealogy files
Education:
3 yrs Immaculate Conception Academy (convent) in San Francisco
Garfield Jr. High (living with Aunt "Dot") Berkley
Lowell High School (academic oriented) San Francisco
Sequoia High School-- senior year and graduated Redwood City
Franklin Hospital Nursing School--3 yr program (yr round ) graduated 1952
Passed California state boards 1952 Licensed Registered Nurse
De Anza College: various courses taken from 1979 to 1982 to upgrade skills while working at the V.A. Hospital;
necessary due to long absence (18 yrs) while raising family and need for certification
to perform tasks in ICU and ER
Interesting Facts That Occurred After My Birth.
My Grandmother Kay died an hour or so after holding me. It was the first time she
had seen me. I was told she had been very ill with pneumonia, but wanted very much to see me.
I was 10 days old.
My Grandmother Ingham died just moments after she handed me to my mother. The car we were driving in,
was struck and she was thrown out and killed instantly. I was ab 1yr old.
This has been mostly about mom's earlier life and her family history. Mom continued throughout her years as a wise,
and wonderful mother. She gave to others in every way she could possibly think of. I believe she's one of those
people that many remember with great affection, and I think of her as an awesome example to live by.
I'd like to also thank Diane Wintch, for her help in getting this web page up. I appreciated her advise on how to work with pictures, and tips of learning how to set up a website. She has a beautiful genealogy website, www.dianneelizabeth.com/index.html - Dianne Elizabeth's Family History - and has done much in the field of genealogy and website design.
All information contained on the genealogy pages which were written by myself and my family and may be copied for personal use. Any other use is strictly prohibited. Those pages where contents were written by others and used with their permission on this web site remain the property of the author. Permission to use those pages must be received by the author.
Web Author:Colette and Angela, © 2009 To reach me by E-mail:Colette --colette_david@yahoo.com Web Site: Marshall - Kay Family 22, 2006 |