I was blessed to know all of my grandparents.
My dad had one brother - Charles Milton Evans known as Milton. Uncle Milton was a BIG man, very sweet and looked like my dad with hair. He was married to Frances or "Auntie Fran". She was kind but my mother didn't care for her because she wouldn't let mom smoke in her house.
Grandma and Grandpa Evans were lovely people. Clyde Russell Evans was tall and lean with wire frame glasses. He had been the editor of a newspaper in Rodeo, California. Grandpa was in the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco and wrote a story about his experience for Reader's Digest, but it was never published. He also knew Jack London. As he told me once, he knew Jack before he became famous and went a couple of times pirating oyster beds in San Francisco Bay. Grandpa died when I was about 10 years old.
Grandma Evans was my favorite. Madeline Kidson Evans was born in Wolverhampton, England and as the story is told, met my grandpa on a train and married him two days later. Hmmm...She made wonderful sugar cookies, told fabulous stories, knew all kinds of poems which she would recite to me and had this magical curio cabinet filled with trinkets and baubles that entertained me for hours.
(See post of Grandma's Poems and Other Stuff) Grandma had a sister who lived in Berkeley named Beatrice, or Auntie Bea. Auntie Bea suffered from terrible arthritis and was in a wheelchair. She was also a Christian Science Practicianer. I never really understood what that was, though I suspect it meant that as people had health issues, she counseled and prayed with them. I think. Bea had an African American maid who wore a white uniform and made me Vienna wieners from a can for lunch once and called them hot dogs. Grandma died in her early eighties.
On the other side of the family is where it gets REALLY weird. Grandma and Grandpa Daley lived in Napa and were part of my daily life. Grandpa Edward Leroy Daley, Sr. was a skinny, mean old guy who yelled all the time- mostly at Grandma. In fairness, Grandpa was sick with emphysema most of the time I knew him, but I don't think he was ever a nice person. He was a thin man who wore a cap and a frown most of the time, I only remember one conversation I had with him. He asked me about water skiing when I was about 7 years old and told me that he skied on barrel stays in the snow once. My most vivid memories were of him sitting on the front porch with a cigarette in one hand and his oxygen mask in the other, alternating hits. We were lucky he never blew Grandma and himself to Kingdom Come. He died when the Beatles were becoming popular. I don't know why I remember that.
Grandma Maude Ellen Daley, or Granny as we called her was the sweetest, kindest woman you would ever meet. She had a pair of dentures, but I only saw her wear them once or twice. She lived alone after Grandpa died but her house was always full of cousins and aunts. All of my mom's sisters lived in town (there were 6 kids, though Uncle Eddie died when I was 5) and we all were a big, sometimes happy, dysfunctional family. Granny raised my cousin Jim Hansen, Ilene's son. Jim hung out with "the Mexicans" and ended up in Juvenile Hall and then jail. Several times. He did straighten out much later in life but died at a young age of liver cancer.
Granny lived in a crummy old house that she rented from Mr. Chopping. She took in laundry and ironing and seemed to make do. She later moved to a little apartment when the house was finally condemned but that was near the end of her life. She died in her mid- eighties.
I never knew much about the ethnicity of the Daley side. Stories of Grandpa being a bootlegger during Prohibition caused some confusion over his real name as my mother was born with the last name of Hinke. She discovered this when she applied for Social Security. Grandma was raised in a Catholic convent. I don't know why.
That's the summary of my grandparents as I remember it. There are many colorful memories of both sides and I'll try to post those later.
No comments:
Post a Comment