Memories of Elaine Cotten Sturtridge

(transcribed from Elaine's handwritten notes by Roger Ward July 2016)

My story starts in a little log cabin in Crawford, Colorado, early in the morning of April 22nd 1917. My parents Francis Sarah Priest, age 15, and Byran Willis Cotten had eloped by horse and buggy to Maher, Colorado, on March 1, 1916, and wed. My mother was born in Pueblo. My father was the twelfth and last child of John Willis and Jurretta Priest. Thru stories I have been told and ancestry searches the following has been learned—my grandfather, John Willis, was born in Georgia and during the Civil War enlisted with a black friend to fight for the South. During a battle a shell landed near them. The friend threw himself on the shell and was killed. My grandfather was taken prisoner and decided to fight for the North. From records, this seems to be the time the name of Cotten was changed to Cotton for him and his descendants. After the war my grandfather was sent to the Denver, Colorado, area to help place the… [That is all from that session that still exists.]

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My dad, Bryan Willis Cotten, born August 28th, 1896, to John and Juritta Cotten, was the youngest of 12 children. When he was 19 in 1915 he was riding his horse and came upon a wagon with Charlie and Gertie Price in front and their three children in the back. The children were Hilma 17 (7-31-1898), Frances 15 (6-10-1900), and Perry 13 (10-3-1903), born in Pueblo, Colorado. He later said Frances was the cutest black-haired, 5 foot 2 inch 97 pound girl he had ever seen. On March 1, 1916, Bryan and Frances were married in Delta, Colorado. I believe they eloped. Sometime before my birth, April 22, 1917, my parents rented a small log cabin in a clearing by Clipper Ditch in Crawford, Colorado. On the door was a calendar with a picture of a girl named Elaine. My middle name is from my Grandmother Price, Gertrude Elizabeth Avis Price. Known to the family as Aunt or Grandma Gertie. A name…

 I am Elaine Sturtridge and I’m 71 years old.

I have inherited since my great-grandchildren have been able to say “Grandma Gertie.” (According to my mother, apple crates were used as a part of their furniture in the log cabin.) My dad has said his brother, Oscar, or Uncle Doc, took one look at me and said, “Elaine…why don’t you call her “Enough”?” He was later to become one of my favorite uncles. He used to call me unflattering names as I was growing up, but I knew he liked me. Many years after he died in December 1943 his wife, Aunt Marie, told me, “Your Uncle Doc used to say that Elaine is so good looking she could be in movies. Sometimes I used to think he thought more of you than he did his own kids.”

My first recollection was when I was three-years-old. We had gone to my Uncle Sam and Aunt Ora Porter’s house in Onion Valley for a few days and it had snowed. The road in front of their house was a gentle slope, just right for sledding. My dad took a sled, Otis Porter, their 11 year-old son, and me about half a block up the hill. He lay on his stomach on the sled and Otis held me sitting on my dad’s back. About half way Otis and I fell off in a snowdrift and my dad proceeded on. A day or so later I fell ill with pneumonia.

 I guess I was pretty sick. I was on a bed in the living room with a cot for someone to keep an eye on me. I can remember my mother giving me castor oil and me spitting it out on the bed covers. I recall my Uncle Sam buying me a little glass telephone filled with candies He would pretend to phone me and I would say my name is “Mary Meyers” and my husband’s name is Bill. This was after I had passed “the crisis” and was recovering. A Dr. Lewis had delivered me in the log cabin and had ridden a house thru a snowstorm to see me thru the crisis at about midnight. My family and Dr. Lewis were waiting by my bedside when I opened my eyes, waved, and said “bye-bye.” A fright for my parents. After telling my folks my fever had broken and I should recover, Dr. Lewis turned to my dad who had lain on the cot and was having chills. He had pneumonia and our stay was extended.

Sam and Ora had a large ranch and for those days, a good-sized house with a big barn and an ice house. I recall my dad putting me on a horse and leading it around the yard. I guess we were pretty poor. My dad worked for ranchers helping to put up hay, etc. Also for cattlemen, herding and helping with cattle drives. These people usually had small places on their ranch where the workers lived.

My mother has told me that when I was about a year old and sitting in a buggy one of the sheep pushed me and the buggy into a ditch full of running water. My mother screamed and my dad came running. He grabbed at what he thought was me but was my doll. The next grab was me and he held me upside down and swung me around to get the water out that I had swallowed.

My family and I moved to Grand Junction when I was still three. My mother says I would crawl up on the dining room table and say, “Somebody catch me, I’m falling.” Although they talked about teaching me a lesson and letting me fall, they always ran to catch me. My grandma Juritta Cotten and her son Uncle Doc lived in part of our house. If I was in trouble with my folks I would run to Uncle Doc saying “help me.” He would shove me under his bed. Another time while living in this house my mother’s friend Hazel Rundle and her boyfriend had gone with us to town, to a movie or someplace. My dad worked second shift at a sugar factory, so he wasn’t with us. I had a dog called Tux and when we walked home Tux jumped and knocked me down, skinning my knee and elbow. The next morning my dad asked how I got skinned up. I said, “Well, last night when I come home with Mother and that other man (I failed to mention Hazel), Tux knocked me down.” I guess my dad came unglued thinking my mother had stepped out on him. Sometime later when my dad started to get after me for something, Tux growled and defended me. Needless to say, my Tux was taken out in the country to a friend’s farm and left there.

At Christmas time that year, I can still see the tree at the foot of the stairs trimmed with popcorn and cranberries. My cousin, Royal Porter (Sam Porter’s brother Johnnie Porter and Aunt Estella’s son) was staying with us. Another uncle, Ben, and his wife Aunt Iva and their two girls Opal and Lillie, lived a couple of blocks from us. For Christmas, Royal had given me a gold locket and chain, I can remember feeling badly that he must like them better than me because he had given them each a doll.

While in Grand Junction we also lived in a small apartment that was called the Abbott House on Ute Avenue. My grandma Gertie and Grandpa Charlie Price had an apartment in the same house. I can remember attending my Aunt Hilma’s wedding to Raymond Webber in about 1920. They were married in my grandparent’s living room.

My dad told me it was while we lived there that I was taught not to run the other way when I was called. Seems I had picked up scissors and when my mother said to bring them to her I ran thru the bathroom where my dad was stropping his razor. Wrong move on my part. My dad flipped my leg with his strop and I learned another lesson. If I don’t mind Mother, don’t try to run by Daddy.

I can remember a two-holer outhouse at one house on Ute Avenue in Grand Junction. I don’t recall what was used or where at the other houses. Except for the “thunder mugs” which were kept under the bed for nighttime use.

While at the two-holer house and a month before my fifth birthday I awoke before daylight to hear my mother crying and at times screaming. I got up and went to my mother’s bedroom to ask why she was crying. My dad said she isn’t crying, she’s laughing, and I was immediately put back in my bed. The next morning I had a black-haired baby brother Charles LeRoy Cotten. The birth had been painful because of a bent colic bone which had to be straightened before the nine-pound baby could be born. Two years earlier my mother had given birth to seven-month-old [sic] twin boys.

According to my dad, the doctor who came to the house to deliver the babies was drunk and after Woodrow was born, wrapped in a blanket and placed in a box by the oven (a makeshift incubator), the doctor went out the door to leave. My dad saw another little black head and yelled for the doctor to come back. Wilson was born dead and had been for a time. Woodrow died 15 minutes later. The twins are buried in the cemetery in Crawford where my dad’s parents John W. and Juritta are buried. Also, many relatives are buried there.

My dad also told of how hard it was to find work after WWI. He had tried to sign up for army service, but wasn’t called because of having a child—me. In Grand Junction my dad held various jobs. He worked moving blocks of ice in a sugar factory and in a meat packing plant. One time while delivering meat to an Indian reservation, he took me with him. I remember being fearful the Indians might touch him and I don’t know what I thought would happen to him if they did. Another time he told of going to a loading dock where they were hiring big, strong-looking men to unload ice the next day. The man doing the hiring stood in the boxcar door and pointed to the men he wanted to report for work the next day. My dad wasn’t picked (he was only 5 foot 7 inches and weighed 135 pounds), but he reported for work early the next morning. The boss said, “I didn’t pick you.” He got the job but said the ice was so heavy it almost killed him. My dad and Royal Porter worked in the “sooger sachary” as I called it, and I remember visiting there and getting tastes of raw brown sugar.

My mother’s sister, Hilma and her husband Raymond Webber, lived about 14 miles from us in Palisades, Colorado. They had a boy, Paul, born six months before my brother. I remember visiting them and though it was only 14 miles, I remember my dad stopping the car half way there so we could hide behind trees at the side of the road and go to the bathroom.

My uncle Raymond had a peach orchard which was their living. They shipped around the country. I remember my grandpa Price reading the funny papers to me in Grand Junction. I believe I remember Maggie and Jiggs and the Katzenjammer Kids.

In January 1923 my dad and grandpa Price decided to leave Colorado and come to California to try to find steady work. My dad had an old touring car with side curtains and I remember them leaving. For some reason (I was five years and nine months old) I got the coal scoop shovel and insisted they take it. They didn’t want it but finally decided to humor me. Their trip took over a week and the shovel was used many times to get thru snow and ice.

They arrived at my Aunt Estella’s, one of my dad’s six sisters, in Long Beach, California, on Lime Street. Her husband, Dick Ochs, was a barber with a rather thick German accent. Her two boys, Royal Porter and Dick Ochs Jr., lived with them. I believe my dad and grandfather worked in the shipyards in San Pedro.

In March of 1923 my grandmother Gertie, Mother, my year-old brother Chuck, and I boarded the train in Grand Junction headed for California. It took two or three days and I remember stopping in Salt Lake City to visit my grandmother Gertie’s father, Samuel (?) Avis and his second wife. He worked in the copper mines in Salt Lake City. My dad and grandfather were waiting at the train station in Long Beach when we arrived. My grandparents had a small place in San Pedro where they lived. We stayed with Aunt Estella for a short time and then rented a house on Lemon Street in the rear of a duplex.

In one unit of the duplex was a boy my age named Page Cheatle, my first boyfriend at age six. My dad used to tease me by singing “Two babes in the woods named Page and Elaine.”

Also while living here, we had a man who came by each day with a cart of vegetables for sale. My mother bought from him and one day while selecting her vegetables, the main said, “Honey, if you’ll give me a kiss you can have those free.” My mother went into the house and told my dad. He was a jealous man and he went tearing out to the street to beat up on the guy. He was driving off in his truck and never came back.

It was also while in this house and I was six years and five months old. I was enrolled in school. I was a little old for kindergarten, so I was tested and started in the first grade.

With all the fresh oranges and figs from Aunt Estella’s yard, my mother, dad, and I had a siege of boils. My mother’s were mostly on her arms, but mine kept me from sitting comfortably. I remember notes to my teacher to allow me to stand during class.

My dad had started his own business of digging and repairing cesspools. One day he cleaned or repaired a backed up cesspool for some “big shot” at the beach who wanted a rush job because he was going to have a party there. When my dad finished the job he was given a $100 bill. My dad brought it home and let us all hold it.

In 1924 we moved to Compton. A beautiful rural town with many acres of vegetable gardens spread throughout and run by Japanese or Chinese. We lived on Wilmington Avenue, across from the Pacific Electric tracks that ran from Long Beach to Los Angeles. We lived four or five blocks from town and the post office. I was seven or eight and my mother asked me to skate to the post office and mail a letter for her. About 1 ½ blocks from home I skidded on something and went head-on into a large mailbox on the curb. I started on, but my head felt hot. I put my hand to my head and it was bloody. One skate clamp came loose, held on by the ankle strap. I tried to skate home on one skate while dragging the other and screaming all the way home. People came out in their yards to look, but none helped. My dad worked nights and was asleep, so my mother woke him and said, “Start the car,” after she had my wound cleaned off.

Our move from Wilmington Avenue was to Richland Farms, not far from the Compton Airport and a few blocks south of Las Campanas Hospital. We heard Judy Garland had spent some time there recovering from a nervous breakdown or something. This house was nice, with a kumquat tree, flowers, shade trees, vines, and an outdoor brick fireplace and grill. I must have been about eight, and I walked from eight to ten blocks to Betsy Ross School. One afternoon, while walking home on a dirt road, I found a wallet with $6 in it. I gave it to my folks and I don’t recall what it was used for, but I’m sure it was well spent. I recall my mother being pregnant while living here and one day she said, “Elaine, get me a wet cloth,” and she fainted. Shen she came to I was mopping her face with a wet dish rag. She miscarried.

Our next move was to a house on Raymond Street. In this house, I recall a garage in the rear of the house where my visiting grandma Cotten sat and sorted and tore rags to braid into rugs. My dad, during most of my younger years, worked for the city of Compton, driving the street sweeper from 4 AM until noon. The pay wasn’t good, but it was a job. Many a morning I remember being awakened about 3:30 AM hearing my dad crank and crank our old car trying to start it. His expletives and a couple of hits on the car must have helped, because it would eventually start. While living here, I played with a freckle-faced girl named Loretta. One evening my dad told me Loretta’s mother told my mother that she had asked me if I knew where babies came from and I ran and said, “I won’t tell.” I swear and swore it was a lie, but my dad said I may have to go to a reform school. He tore two pieces of paper and supposedly wrote “stay” on one and “go” on the other. I drew “stay” and it wasn’t until some years later I realized he must have written “stay’ on both of them.

Times were different then. The facts of life weren’t taught nor mentioned in front of children. Parents raised their children the way they thought was best, and who’s to say they were wrong. In our home there were always picnics, games, company, dinners, desserts, and lot and lots of love and laughter. My folds never turned a hungry “bum” away without a meal.

Our next move in 1927 was to Almond Street across from the fire and police department, and a baseball field where my dad used to play fielder on the City Street Department team. During one game he threw a ball from left field to home plate and inadvertently hit the runner in the temple. The runner slumped to the ground and my dad thought he had killed him. A little smelling salts brought him around.

Three boys and their parents lived next door. Don Jones 11, Keith 9, and Darryl about 6. Their dad, Dave, was the manager of the Safeway store in town, and Mildred, their mother, used to have me come to her house and bake cakes for her. We didn’t have cake mixes, so it was all from scratch. Don and I used to fight a lot. Some were verbal, but many were fist fights. As I remember, I was always the victor and he would cry. I guess my dad was raising me to protect myself so I was the typical tomboy. At a young age my cousin Keith Dove, five months older than me, and I would put on boxing gloves and box—coached by my dad. I have always remembered his advice, “If they’re bigger and getting the best of you, get an equalizer (meaning a 2X4, baseball bat, or whatever), and use it. If that doesn’t work, run like hell!”

Back to Don and my first date: The Saturday afternoon matinee was 5¢ and Don asked me to go. My mother said OK. At noon, when Don’s dad came home for lunch, Don yelled from his porch to me, “Elaine, don’t forget your nickel!” Dave said, “Don, when you ask a girl to go to the show, you pay her way.” Don said, “I am Dad, but we can use her nickel for candy.”

In 1927 we had major flooding. The rains came and with no storm drains there was a sea of water. Our house was built high with three steps up to the porch, so we had no damage, but was marooned for a few days. That year my dad had another bout of pneumonia. He was at home and my mother and my great-aunt Marjorie Tuttle, who was my grandma Gertie’s sister, and was a trained nurse, took care of him. We had never had a phone and my mother ran next door to call Dr. Ehrke. My dad’s temperature was over 107 degrees and he was delirious. Dr. Ehrke said, “Run home, wring sheets out in cold water, and wrap him in them.” As my mother was wringing a sheet I asked if I could help and she said, “Elaine, get down on your knees and pray.” I did. My dad later said when he regained consciousness he found himself wrapped in a sheet with steam rising and he thought he had died and gone to hell.

As he was recovering, his brother Oscar and wife Marie and two children and his sister Maggie and her two children came in from Colorado to move to California. Oscar and his family rented a house after a couple of weeks and moved. Maggie, Keith, and Wanda were with us for nine months until Maggie’s husband Jesse came to California. In those days, there was no unemployment insurance, so no income. Friends and coworkers all helped.

At Christmas, a box of groceries, $25, and a pair of roller skates apiece for my brother and me from the City Street Department’s workers will never be forgotten. But the best gift was that my dad was able to come in the living room while we opened our gifts. The box of groceries contained a turkey plus the “fixins,” and mother cooked her usual fancy Christmas dinner for the family and relatives. It was also in this house that my mother’s brother, Perry Samuel Price, came to live with us for a while after being discharged from the U.S. Marine Corps. Erwin Charlie Price, a cousin, and two of Perry’s buddies, Pernie and Curly, were also with us for a couple of weeks.

Our next move was to S. Chester Street. Next door lived the Belben’s, Frank and Irene, a daughter my age, Phyllis, and a girl about five who was as helpless as a baby. I don’t recall the exact problem. A vacant lot with a big tree was between Belbens and the Vosgier family. Art and Dorothy and their two boys Bob and Bill. The two boys, Phyllis, and I spent a lot of time climbing the big tree and of course tomboy Elaine could be seen hanging by her knees from a limb with her dress over her head and her black sateen bloomers showing. I became 11 years old in April 1928, and it was that year my dad bought a new Chevy for $700, and my folks, Chuck, and I drove to Colorado for our first visit since leaving there in 1923. We drove straight thru, my dad doing all the driving, which took about 24 hours. With no air conditioning, we wet washcloths from a canteen of water which hung in the front of the car’s radiator to keep the water cool and washed our face and arms with them to cool off.

Our first stop was in Palisade to visit my mother’s parents, Gertie and Charlie Price, who lived in a cellar house on Uncle Raymond’s peach orchard property. My granddad had an old horse, Sally, who would only walk when I was on her, but would run for my dad. My grandfather explained that Sally knew by the weight of the person on her whether she should run or be gentle. We also stayed at Aunt Hilma and Uncle Raymond’s. From there we went to Aunt Ora and Uncle Sam’s in Maher, a few miles from Crawford where I was born. I fell in love with my cousin Otis Porter who was 19. We went to a school house dance where almost everyone was a relative. My dad and some of the uncles danced with me. My dad had taught me to dance by saying, “Never lead. Always relax and follow your partner.” They had several square dances. Who would guess that 55 years later I would once again take up square dancing? My dad was proud of my acrobatics, so after clearing the floor he had me tuck my dress in my panty legs and stand on my head, turn cartwheels, and do handsprings.

We also visited Uncle Roy and Aunt Emma, and their five or six kids. Veda, my age, and I spent the first day on horses from morning till night. We even rode to the cow camp. What fun! I was on a horse that would run and lope with me. That night I was so sore I stood to eat and had to sleep between Minnie and Veda. What a miserable, aching night.

We visited Aunt Maggie and Uncle Jesse and Keith in Hotchkiss. They had a big cherry tree in the backyard and since cherry pie was my favorite, my aunt gave me a bucket and told me she’d make some pies if I’d climb the tree and pick the cherries. One in the bucket for each one I ate, but our dessert that night was cherry pie. Of course, Keith and I had to put on boxing gloves for our dads’ amusement. We also visited Uncle Gene, Aunt May, and their son Loal. Maggie and Jesse had a police dog with a litter of pups. We picked out a black and tan pup and named him Smoky. He rode in the back seat with Chuck and me coming back to California and every so often my dad would have to stop the car and let Chuck and Smoky out because they were carsick.

Not long after we came home from our vacation my mother tried to start the Chevy and flames started coming from the engine into the front seat. My mother got the hose and turned it on the fire. I ran to the city barn to find my dad, about three blocks, and then ran five more blocks to find him on the sweeper. A neighbor called the fire department. I don’t recall what the problem was, or how we got it fixed.

Also while living on S. Chester I had my tonsils removed. I had had so many bouts of tonsillitis that Dr. Ehrke thought they should come out. They were taken out in his office and I recall him telling me to count to 100. The assistant started the ether; I counted one, two, three…and was out.

Mr. Vosgier, our neighbor, was a salesman for a big ice cream company and each afternoon a big ice cream delivery truck would stop at our house and deliver ice cream. In those days our only refrigeration was an ice box and ice delivery was made when your ice card was put in the window. Things were only kept cool, not frozen. However, we had a crank ice cream freezer and the ice cream would stay frozen as long as ice and salt was kept in the wooden bucket around the metal container.

Our dog, Smoky, was a great pal and protector for Chuck and me. Chuck was in the first grade and when he arrived at the corner of our block Smoky would take Chuck’s hand in his mouth and walk him home. When it came time for me to arrive home from school, Smoky would be back waiting at the corner and with my hand in his mouth would escort me home. We had Smoky for a year or two when a neighbor accused him of killing chickens. We had some friends, the Healy’s, from Colorado who had moved to Gardena. Mytle Heaaly’s sister and her family had a small farm and wanted Smoky. When we would visit, Smoky would get in the back seat with Chuck and me and wouldn’t let anyone come near the car. Chuck and I thought it was great but my dad wasn’t amused when he couldn’t get into his own car.

I remember living here when I felt my first earthquake. I recall running to the backyard and yelling to my family, “Everybody get right out here.” My family was right behind me. In back of us were acres of vegetables. The land couldn’t be owned by the Orientals who ran it but it was leased. On Saturday mornings Bob, Bill, Phyllis, and I would “borrow” vegetables and sell them to our folks and neighbors for a dime, so we could go to the 5¢ matinee and have 5¢ for candy.

In his spare time my dad had learned welding and he would go to the Japanese and one Chinese (Hip Yick) and pick up their plough shares and hard-face them in our garage. He and a farmer neighbor on Raymond Street, Mr. Balard, decided to open a welding shop in Lennox near Hawthorne. We moved to a house next door and the shop was opened on Imperial Highway.

We moved there before I entered the 8th grade and I was enrolled in Jefferson School about three blocks from us. Thanks to my dad, I could catch baseballs pretty well and I became the catcher on the girl’s hardball team. We played other schools and I can’t remember our standing at the end of the year, but each team player was called to the stage of the auditorium and presented with a letter J for a sweater. We couldn’t afford a sweater but I cherished the letter and have a crooked ring finger as proof of my “baseball career.”

The business folded and during mid-term we moved back to Compton on N. Rose Street. I was enrolled in the low ninth grade at Lynwood Junior High. The bus picked me up in front of my house. Many times the bus driver would honk and I would fly out of the house still buttoning a blouse or whatever. Halfway thru the low ninth grade I was called out of my class and told to go to the principal’s office. Mr. William Jones let me sit in his waiting room for 20 or so minutes wondering what I had done wrong and what my dad would say. I was finally asked to come in and to sit in a chair across from this stern looking and as I remember rather thin, tall, and partly bald man. Without smiling, he looked at me and said, “Elaine, if I move you to the high 9th grade do you think you can do the work?” I assured him I would try hard and walked out with a load of worry lifted and a smile of accomplishment. My only real problem was entering algebra when the rest of the class was halfway thru. My only salvation was help with homework. My grade of a D was embarrassing, but deserved. I remember nothing of algebra now.

In June 1932 at the age of 14 I was in the first graduation class from Lynwood Junior High. In later years my daughters Charlaine and Colleen attended Lynwood High, which was formerly a junior high. Our graduation was held at Compton High and Junior College. I had very few clothes for school. In junior high we were required to wear navy skirts and white blouses four days a week. I had one skirt and two blouses. Also a dress I could wear on Fridays. I don’t recall having a sweater or jacket, but I must have had something for when it was rainy or cold. I was embarrassed during my time at Lynwood because of gym classes. We changed into navy blue bloomers and white shirts and I didn’t have a brassier like the other girls. Nor did I ever say “regular” on my period days because I hadn’t started my period. However, I was tall, 5 feet 5 ½ inches tall and was often kidded by my folks and relatives about being a big, tall drink of water with big feet. I got my first pair of high heels, size 7, which I stumbled around in.

During the summer my dad had gone to Weed, California, to work on a pipeline with my cousin Dick Ochs. In July my mother, brother, and I went to visit and stayed with Dick and his wife Grace. My mother came home pregnant. My grandparents came from Colorado and rented a small house a few doors from us. We were a block from the railroad tracks and often had “bums” come to the door for a handout. One evening before shaving his dark beard, my dad put on an old sweater, pulled a cap low over his face, and we all went to my grandparent’s backdoor. My dad knocked on the door and Mother, Chuck, and I stayed hidden. My grandmother answered the door and Dad said, “Ma’am, could you spare me some food?” She said, “Of course,” and walked back into the kitchen. We were afraid it would frighten her if he walked in, so Mother went in and said, “Mama, didn’t you recognize Bryan?” She hadn’t, and was preparing to fix him some sandwiches. Grandma Price had a brother, Burden, who enjoyed being a bum. He would drop in and my dad or a relative would outfit him with clothes. He would get a job as a cook and settle down for a while. Once he even married and owned a little diner but wanderlust always got him and he would hop a train and be gone.

In September of 1931 I started the 10th grade at Compton High School. I cought the school bus a few blocks from my house and met Barbara Barnes who was to become my closest friend thru high school and for many years afterward.

In January 1995 Charlaine, Ed, Newt, and I met Barbara, Neil, Dolores, and Charles for a long lunch and visit in Beaumont. Barbara’s mother was English and had Barbara during her change of life. Her dad was ill with TB and her mother was quite old fashioned. If we wanted to go out or do anything, she would spend the night at our house. During a formal dance at school my folks bought me a pink and blue satin dress cut on the bias. I put it on and we went to Barbara’s for her to dress. Mrs. Barnes made me put on a girdle and when we went back to my house my dad said, “What in the hell do you have on?” He made me take it off and it looked much better. No lines.

When I was a sophomore in high school three days before my 15th birthday, my mother gave birth to my sister, Norma Lee, an 8 ¾ pound baby girl with black hair. She even had black fuzz on her ears and down her back. Mother had been sick for nearly all the nine months and spent most of her time in bed and vomiting. She tried drinking broth made from the gizzard lining of a chicken, red black cap [sic] raspberry tea, and many other old-fashioned remedies. Nothing seemed to work and the day before Norma was born the insurance man was at our house and couldn’t tell she was pregnant.

I was nearly 15, but during the at-home birth I was sent to a neighbor’s, Georgia Duke, for a few hours. Three days later, my 15th birthday, my mother said, “I’ll make you a birthday cake as soon as I’m up.” Mothers stayed in bed for 10 days so their organs could go back in place in those days. That was understandable, but when Georgia Duke asked if I could stay with her while her husband went to the fights that evening I was upset to think it was my birthday and my mother said I had to go. Jack Duke came to walk me back to his house at about 7:30 PM. He opened the door for me and when I stepped inside 10 of my girlfriends yelled “surprise”! A birthday cake, ice cream, presents, and embarrassment for acting as I had.

Having a sister at 15 was like having my own baby without having to wash diapers, walk the floor with colic, or any of the work. Only the fun.

We soon moved to a rental a few blocks away on Spring Street. Across the street lived the Murrays—Arch, Pearl, and their four daughters Maxine 17, Ardine 15, Janie 10, and Gloria the same age as my sister, about 9 months. Mr. Murray had a steady job in the oil fields, a nice car, and a gas refrigerator. I thought that must be what rich was. At Christmastime, Mr. Murray took Pearl and his three older girls to Long Beach to buy them Christmas dresses. They asked me to ride along, which I did. Mr. Murray picked out a red bias-cut dress which he really liked, but none of his women wanted it. He said, “Elaine, you try it on.” I did and he told the clerk to wrap it up for me. In those days old Grandma Gertie had a pretty hot shape. That Christmas I also received my first coat—a tan camel hair which was the style then. That was my only coat for many years.

At age 15 I worked as a mother’s helper in Long Beach for a couple of months during the summer. I lived with the family from Sunday evening until Friday evening and received $15 a month. My duties included helping with meals, doing dishes, general household chores, and watching two children. A boy about 10 and a girl about six. Every afternoon we would go to the beach for a couple of hours. A job previous to this was during Christmas when I was 14. I worked for Briggs Candy Store in downtown Compton (1931). My duties were to make sandwiches and do dishes. During lull hours I put the crooks in candy canes in a small building a the rear of the store where they made all of their candy. Hard candies, chocolates, etc. I received 25¢ an hour but didn’t work eight hours a day.

My fifteenth year seems to have been pretty busy as far as memory serves me. I recall my girlfriend, Julia, marrying a Bob West who was in his 20s and going on a blind date with Calvin, a friend of Bob’s who was also in his 20s and had a steady job. The four of us went to the Pike in Long Beach where we went on rides and Calvin bought me an ankle bracelet. He was very polite and attentive and didn’t kiss me but on the way home in the rumble seat of Bob’s car asked me to marry him. Besides being embarrassed, it frightened me and I refused to go out with him again. However, about nine months later, Bob West appeared at my door one evening and said he and Julia had separated, that he was in love with me, and had been for some time. Would I marry him? Of course, I said, “No, go back to Julia.” I never saw Bob again, but 10 years later when I was in the dime store in Compton and had my two daughters and a little girl I was taking care of with me I ran into Julia and a young boy about six. I never mentioned Bob, but she said, “This is my son, doesn’t he look like Bob?” Later, I thought to myself, I’ll bet when she told Bob she had seen me and I had three girls 5, 4, and 3 years old, he thought Thank God she said no!

It was also 15 years-old that I received my first “boyfriend kiss.” Elwyn Pocock, a Mormon from Utah and I were in a class together at Compton High School. We played tennis together, went to a Mormon dance, held hands, etc., until one evening when returning from a ride with Barbara and her boyfriend we stopped in front of my house. Elwyn said, “You know, Barb, I really like my girlfriend, but she hasn’t kissed me yet.” Barbara replied, “With her, you just have to force her.” He tried and I resisted, but I was never able to say I was sweet and never been kissed. Elwyn showed up in class the next day with a scratch on his cheek. When his friends teased him he said, “I got it in football scrimmage after school yesterday.” A week or so later we arrived home after a date. My folks had gone to bed and Elwyn became a little over-amorous. All of a sudden my mother came thru the door in her nightgown holding Norma’s empty bottle in her hand. She claimed to be embarrassed. Elwyn said he’d better go, and I know my dad had sent my mother to “save” me. Elwyn and I drifted apart but several years later an acquaintance had been visiting in Utah and met Elwyn. He asked her if she knew Elaine Cotten and when she said “casually” he said, “She was the sweetest girl I have ever been out with.” I’ve never forgotten him.

While on the subject of boyfriends, I also went steady with Jack Crozier. He was 21, had a good job, and owned a new Willys car. When he got off work early he would pick me up after school and drive me home. I think I liked the idea of the new car more than I did Jack. However, in March of 1934 I was in the rumble seat of a car with Glen Porter with Barbara and her friend in front. Several carloads of us were on our way to a beach party in Redondo Beach. A tall, handsome guy came to our car and started talking to me. I don’t remember much about the party except that this guy always seemed to be near me. Needless to say, Glen never called me again, but Charlie was over almost every night. He was in his second year at Compton Junior College, while I was a senior in high school. He lived in Redondo Beach with his mother, father, and brother George, who was a year or two younger. George was a very quiet, studious boy who did very well in school and worked his way thru UCLA to become a very noted professor and had written several books which were used as text books in school. At his death at 45, a grove of trees was planted on campus in his honor.

Charlie was a journalist major and was the [editor of the?] Samark and Man of the Campus newspaper. The Samark and Column was actually a gossip column. He was also a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. Charlie’s father had been in a train crash and had serious injuries. He died soon after Charlie and I met and Charlie quit school to go to work. I never met his father, Sam.

I had been going with Charlie for several weeks when Norma Pacock came to visit and all I could talk about was Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. That evening when he came over I started to introduce him to Norma and I couldn’t remember his name. Norma finally said “Charlie.” Was I ever embarrassed! If I remember right, his car was an early twenties Chevy sedan. It also seems like gas was around 10¢ per gallon and Charlie would scrape together 20 or 30¢ in order to buy gas.

Charlie had a knee injury from playing football and his knee swelled and was confined to bed for a week or so. He sent a note to me at school by George asking me to come see him. My friend, Barbara, took me in her mother’s old car to his home. I was nervous, scared, and shy, but made myself walk up to the door and knocked. Charlie’s mother took me to his bedroom and there lay my future husband. I had always thought I wanted to marry a tall, handsome guy, so I’ll have good looking kids.

During the nine months we went together Charlie was over three or four nights a week and since we had no money to spend on entertainment, we spent a lot of evenings playing cards, listening to the radio, or visiting with relatives that would come to our house, which were many. Probably partly because my mother was such an excellent cook. Charlie always made it there by dinnertime and mother loved to cook for him because he would eat anything and lots of it. He enjoyed good food.

In about September of ’34, after Charlie had bragged to me about going to parties at a college girl’s sorority house in Redondo several times, I decided I was entitled to some freedom, so I made a date with Bruce (?). Bruce went to the Methodist Church where I went and he was attending a trade school in Los Angeles. He came in the bakery where I worked several times before he got up enough nerve to ask me out. We made a date to attend a football game in a week in LA. When I told Charlie I had a date he came unglued and cried. My mother and dad walked in, asked what was wrong, and after Charlie left really got on my case. My dad said I was not going to be dating several guys at a time. This was on Thursday and on Saturday morning Charlie showed up and wanted me to go to Huntington Park with him. We went to a jewelry store where he bought a wedding set. A narrow band and an engagement ring with a diamond. In 1934 that was $35, which was a lot of money to us. Of course, I apologized to Bruce and don’t remember ever seeing him again. We planned to be married on a Friday night so we could have the weekend ahead of us.

Five months later we married and my family was started two and a half years later when Charlaine (a combination of Charles and Elaine) Sue Lewis was born. More later about my fabulous family.

July 24, 2005: It has been several years since I stopped my “remembering back when.” I was 88 years old on my last birthday so I’m hoping my mind hasn’t become dormant.

Charlie and I were married in the Methodist Church in Compton, California. We had chosen January 11, 1935. I took the Pacific Electric train to Los Angeles and met Charlie’s Aunt Sally for lunch at the May Co. where she was an elevator girl. With the little money I had left from working at the Compton City Bakery as a clerk, I was shopping for a wedding dress. In the May Co. basement hanging on a sales rack was a white satin floor-length sleeveless dress for $5. I bought it and took it for my Aunt Agnes, who was a seamstress, to make long sleeves for it and clean some smudge spots from it. I bought a pair of white shoes on sale, and borrowed a veil from Maxine Murray.

My cousin, Mary Tuttle, was my bridesmaid and Charlie’s brother, George, was best man. Reverend Narcross married us with about 75 people attending. My sister, Norma, was the flower girl at 33 months of age. She was fine strewing rose petals until she spotted Wanda Dove in the audience. She stopped, waved, and in a loud voice yelled, “Hi, Wanda Mae.” My dad was so nervous going down the aisle, his arm went limp and he had to hold his arm up by holding his coat sleeve. Charlie kissed me before the ceremony was complete and kissed me again when the minister told him to.

Our reception consisted only of relatives which totaled about 30 people. My Aunt Estella made the cakes. One angel food iced in white and a gold chiffon served with coffee.

As my dad put his arms around me in the reception line, he started sobbing and wouldn’t stop until I told him Charlie’s fraternity brothers were planning on kidnapping Charlie and he needed to get the car started so we could get away. When my dad got me in the car he started leaving with Charlie hanging on the car door yelling, “Hey, wait for me!”

Charlie and I then drove to Redondo Beach where we had rented a furnished one bedroom house for $12 per month. We had spent the weekend before the wedding cleaning and stocking cupboards. Chaos! When we entered our rental, Charlie’s fraternity brothers had been there first. They had moved the canned goods to different parts of the house. The living room furniture was all shoved to the middle of the room and the curtains removed from the windows and hung around the furniture. The bed had cracker crumbs between the sheets. The bed collapsed when we got into it at 2:30 AM. In the morning the alarm started ringing and the clock was hidden.

Charlie worked for Southern California Gas Company when we were married but after three months he was laid off and I was homesick, so we rented a house in Compton on Sloan Street. Charlie got a job with Goodyear making $1 per hour and we were doing great.

For some reason we next moved to Reeves Street and since Barbara Pyle had married and was pregnant, I decided we should have a baby near the same time. After months of “trying” with no luck and lots of fun, Barbara announced she had made an appointment for me with our family doctor, Dr. Albert Adolph Ehrke, the same doctor who had shaved the right side of my head and put it together with three clips twelve years earlier. He had also removed my tonsils years earlier. I kept the appointment and after clipping, stretching, and tears he said, “Come back in six weeks, Elaine, and we’ll see if you’re pregnant.” I returned as told and sure enough I was into my first pregnancy. At 5 feet and 5 ½ inches and 120 pounds I was a bit skinny and Dr. Ehrke thought I should gain all the weight I could and would possibly retain some of it. The pregnancy was uneventful—no morning sickness nor food cravings. Although, I loved the smell of fresh gasoline and new rubber tires. In 1937 gasoline was probably 15 or 30¢ per gallon. Today, 2005, gasoline here in San Diego is near $3.00 a gallon. Too expensive to even smell the stuff, and I’m driving a gas guzzling, eight cylinder Lincoln Town Car. I awoke about 6 PM on July 13, 1937.

The day before, Charlie and I had picked up buckets of apples. I planned on making apple jelly the next day. When Charlie went to work at 6 PM, Mother said let’s go to your house and make the jelly tonight. We canned 32 pints of jelly and sure enough about 6 AM the pains started. About noon Charlie and I drove to my parents’ house on North Chester Avenue in Compton. During the afternoon I recall showing my brother how to stand on his head. The teaching stopped when my dad walked in and saw me and in his salty slang said, “Elaine, you crazy damn fool you, get down.”

My mother, Charlie, and I drove to the Los Campanes Hospital at 3 PM and at 6:15 PM I had a black-headed 8 pound 7 ounce 21 inches long baby girl. We spent the night in the hospital (listening to her cry). Putting our names together, Charles and Elaine, I came up with the name Charlaine and added Sue. Charlaine and I rode to my mother’s the next morning in an ambulance.

In the “olden days” women were told to stay in bed for 10 days to allow their organs to go back in place. On my tenth day I got up for a couple of hours, felt tired, and went back to bed. My mother felt my hot head and called for the doctor to come out. (Imagine doctors making house calls today, 2005, and even staying to chat and have a cup of coffee. Times have changed, unfortunately.) Anyway, Dr. Ehrke was on vacation so his young partner, Dr. ?, came out, checked me, and gave my mother a prescription to have filled for ergotrate. He left and my mother called her Aunt Margie, a nurse. Aunt Margie took my temperature, which was 105+ and immediately made me get on my chest and knees on the bed and do up and down exercises. I thought she was killing me, but I soon passed a piece of “left over” afterbirth and was on my way to recovery.

When I was 22, 1939 I gave birth to Colleen Joy. She was born October 10, weighed 8 pounds 6 ounces, and was 21 inches long. I again went to my parents’ house for 10 days.

In the meantime, Charlie bought a tiny, approximately 500 square feet house on a big lot on Santa Fe Street in Compton. One small bedroom, a tiny bathroom, a small livingroom, and a kitchen with a small table, four chairs, and a used washing machine with a hand wringer. I had to rinse the clothes in a small sink. When we had company for dinner we moved the table and chairs to the backyard, put a leaf in the table, and with more than four people sometimes we used a wide board between two of the chairs for an extra seat.

Uncle Pearl, a brother of Charlie’s grandmother Shurtz’s husband, lived on Main Street in Los Angeles and we didn’t know where he earned his money, but soon after Colleen was born, a big wicker buggy was delivered with a note: “This should hold both children. Love Uncle Pearl.” Soon after, a used portable Singer sewing machine arrived. Love, Uncle Pearl.

Soon after Charlie and I married, Aunt Maggie taught me to knit and crochet. She also told me to buy some material and a pattern, lay it out on the floor, follow the pattern, and make myself a dress. My first try was a blue felt-like material jumper. I thought it went well and with praise from Aunt Maggie I started my sewing career. When the girls arrived, Charlaine had so many dresses, with ruffles, lace, and frills, she sometimes wore three dresses a day. Washing wasn’t bad, but ironing all the “fancies” was torturous. After Colleen, I still made lots of frilly matching dresses, but they were often in coveralls.

That’s all there is of those memoires.

Kayla Elaine:

About 2 ½ years: She and I were driving up and down Baseline Street in San Bernardino looking for Newt who was supposed to be at a garage having the Olds’ transmission chcked. Kayla looked at me and said, “Gigi, this is wedicolus.”

A few days after my 80th birthday party which Kayla attended she hugged me around the knees and said, “Gigi, I really do love you.” I said, “Kayla, I really do love you, too.” To which she replied, “Even if you are old, I still love you.”

In March 2000, I went with Kayla to a little fundraiser at her school. The school nurse was in the dunk tank. (Kayla wasn’t too fond of her.) Many boys and some girls were trying to hit the target and dunk the nurse, but missing. I told Kayla, “Look right at the red spot and throw right where you’re looking.” Her first ball dunked the nurse. Surprised us all, but elated Kayla.

June 13, 2001. Kayla had been taking money to her school on each Wednesday to put into her bank account. On the last day of school, a Wednesday, the girl from the bank wasn’t at school, so I took Kayla to the bank to deposit her $10. As the teller was taking her deposit, she stood on tiptoes to see the teller and said, “Can I have an ATM card?” He said, “No, you have to be 18 to have a card.” To which she replied, “But why? I have money in the bank!”

The boat carrying Elaine's ashes sails away. I'm on the phone with Ernie; Charlaine is about to leave the hospital--pneumonia--and I'm repeating the phone number for the hospital so Kim and talk to Charlaine while we are at waterside. Bon Voyage, Elaine.

Colleen, Gordon, and Kim wait for the boat.