ForeverMissed
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Her Life

Mom and Dad Meet, Marry, and have Four Children

September 7, 2014

Mom and Dad were both members of the Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF). They met at church camp, or an MYF meeting when Mom was 14 and Dad was 15. They both graduated from El Monte High School. After graduation, Mom went to college in Santa Barbara for 6 weeks. She missed Dad so much that she begged her parents to let her come home. Aunt Roberta drove up to get her, but forgot to put oil in the car, and it overheated.

They were married April 9, 1949, when Mom was 19 and Dad was 20 at the Methodist Church in Arcadia. (I wonder why they didn't get married in El Monte.) Dad recently told the story of running from a track meet to the wedding. Maybe that church was closer. They rented a garage apartment. Dad went to Whittier College and Mom worked at the Bell Telephone Company.

They moved to Berkeley, so Dad could attend the univeristy there. In 1951, I was born changing the plan. Dad took a job at Cutter Labs. After about a year they moved back to Southern California and lived in Monrovia. Jim was born in 1953.

Mom and Dad bought a newly built house on Persimmon Street in Temple City, That home holds many memories for me. That is where Richard and Connie were added to the family.  Mom was friends with all the neighbors. The women met regularly for coffee and chats while the kids played outside. Dad worked long house getting his lab started. Mom had the responsibility of four children. We spent many summers on Balboa Island. Mom and Dad would rent a beach house and Mom and four kids would play by the beach for a week or two. Dad would join us on weekends.

Mom and Dad took us to a little white Methodist church on the corner of Freer every Sunday. Dad played the organ and directed the choir with his eyebrows. Mom taught Sunday school. Later Mom and Dad were MYF leaders.

In 1960, they moved to a new house on Barela St. with four bedrooms and a family room. Two of our neighbors were teachers. Erlene Milke and Barbara Lockie would come have coffee with Mom in the morning before they went to work. We knew everyone in the neighborhood. In the summer, we'd play outside until Mom rang the bell for dinner.

About this time Mom and Dad bought the mountain cabin in Twin Peaks. From then on we went to the cabin instead of Balboa. Mom taught us how to play Kings Corners. She bought peanut hearts to feed the Blue Jays and squirrels, We sledded and toboganned in the winter, and played Capture the Flag and rode the wagon down the road in the summer. Mom read aloud to us at night. It was a magical place for four children.

Mom was home when we got home from school. She chaperoned on Camp Fire Girls campouts. She went with my MYF group to an orphanage in Mexico. She sewed for us. Mom made my 8th grade graduation dress, easter dresses, and many of my clothes. She helped me plan my wedding and made my wedding dress. She was a wonderful mother.

 

 

Childhood

September 3, 2014

Virginia Lee Thompson was born in Cresco, Iowa, July 6, 1929, the oldest of three children born to Katherine Louise Stevens and Boyd Arthur Thompson. Her father was a football coach and science teacher, her mother had taught school before she was married. They rented the main floor in a large home owned by the town libraria, Aunt Bobbi. 

Her siblings, Constance Louise and Robert Stevens Thompson were also born in Cresco. Their parents were active members of the Congregational Church. They have fond memories of summers at the lake in Minnesota, and visiting their grandparents in Albion, Iowa. The family moved to El Monte, California in 1942.