Rain Numbers - 18 April 2004

.02", for the day
.02", for the storm
.02", for the month
40.19", for the (rain) year

Springtime? Summer???

Who said anything about nice weather??

We’re definitely on the winter side of Spring now; it got up into the 50s today, and will no doubt drop to the high 30s tonight, as it has the past few nights.

Mom Said…, Pt. 2

So I had to call her back.

ME doesn’t know where in the order Grandma Nellie falls. She thinks there might have been brothers, too; she’s going to check with Joan.

Lizzie's daughters (the ones ME is sure of) were Alice and Hazel; they never married. Alice came to San Francisco to live, in her old age. She lived in a hotel. ME recalls that she died four or five years after Dorothy (Dor died in 1980).

Grandpa Bill remarried into money. His second wife died before he did. He gave rings (of hers?) to Grandma Julia: Pat and Joan each got a diamond solitaire and ME got the turquoise surrounded by 12 diamonds (were there other rings, or other jewelry?). (His second wife had to have died before 1942.)

He lived?/visited? Florida for his health, and may have died there.

Molly had another daughter, Midge, who Joan characterized (the earlier generation characterized?) as “glamorous and shady”: she had beached blonde hair, was divorced… The girl ME hung out with in their infrequent visits with that side of the family may have been Midge’s daughter, rather than Ethel’s.

Kathleen Brennan’s sisters are Mary Ellen and Judy.

Jack died of peritonitis, from a ruptured appendix, at French Hospital, right by Chinatown.

Mom said…

I called her 29 March, and left a message, wanting answers about Grandma Nellie’s family

Questions I wanted answered:
1) Was Grandma Nellie the oldest sister? (Actually should have been, was Grandma Nellie the youngest sister; Molly is older, by eight years.)
2) Was Molly Mary A?
3) Did Molly come to Pasadena after her husband died?
4) Where did she (Molly) live before coming to California? Chicago?
5) Did her daughter marry?

When ME called back, we were on the dock, feeding the fish, and I didn't have Tail with me… Answers I got:
1) Forgot to ask…
2) Yes
3) As far as ME knows
4) Forgot to ask; did find out that the daughter had a daughter.

Notes from the conversation:

Ethel had a daughter about Pat & Joan’s age (therefore born about 1927 - 1929; born where? Pasadena?); Mom presumed Ethel was married, but her death certificate is in the name of Ethel LeFebvre. (She could have not changed her name when she married; maybe she wasn't married [certainly not out of character in her family]; I could have the wrong Ethel LeFebvre, but her birth year [1886] and place [Illinois] fit, and the CA Death Index at RootsWeb lists her mother's maiden name as Hefferma. The CA Death Index lists no SSN for her, although she is in the SSDI.)

Lizzie married a man named Murphy (I had down that he was Johnnie Murphy), had a son named Johnnie, two daughters, and five children altogether.

Grandma Nellie and the kids came to North Dakota after Mart died; they were there some years before they left for California in 1929 (Lyle and Mary Julia were married in 1924).

When Jack Brennan died in 1936, Grandma Julia and the kids went out to California to be with Grandma Nellie.

Uncle Bill was in and out and around during these years; he’d appear and hang around for a year or so, and then go away again. Grandma Nellie finally got him admitted to the VA hospital (Sawtelle) after the move out to CA in 1929 (she had a great struggle getting it done; the Army didn’t want to admit that his problems were related to his service in WWI); he was definitely there in 1936.