Florence was born in her Grandmother's home on October 25, 1915 in Los Angeles, California to Elmer Leroy & Florence Ruth Weikal.

 

Florence had two brothers that were younger than her, Leroy Read and Herbert Arthur.

 

When Florence was 12 years of age when her mother passed away from breast cancer, and Florence had to help raise her two brothers and still go to school.

 

Florence received an award in the 4th. grade for writing improvement in 1925.

 

Florence's education: she graduated from Robert Lewis Stevenson Jr. High in 1930. She went onto High School to James A. Garfield High and graduated in 1933.

 

Florence was introduced to the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (now known as Community of Christ) by a friend. She was baptized on December 24, 1933 at the age of 18, by: J.C. Stuart and confirmed by: L.L. Sutherland and J.C. Stuart. Florence took an active life with the Church.

 

On Thanksgiving day 1938 Florence was married to William Bottorff.

 

After several attempts to have a child (two miscarriages and siamese twins) Florence and William had a daughter, Linda Ruth.

 

Florence and William were divorced in December 1959.

 

Her employment first was with the Los Angeles Unified School System. Her last years with the school system was at Grape Street where she was in charge of a new program that feed underprivilage children at 15 different schools. They did all of the cooking at Grape Street Elementry and trucked the food to the other schools. They used two different trucks. One for the cold foods and the other one for the hot foods. During her time with the school system during the summer she worked doing summer schools or she also did a summer camp that had a nautical theme. Florence really enjoyed doing whatever she was doing.

 

After she left there she had several other different employers: she worked for The Towers in Torrence, California. She also worked at the Salvation Army food service