The 1950's

From 1954 until June of 1958, dad, mom, Ann and I lived at 13222 Foxley Drive in Whittier, CA.  Our house in the photo above, likely taken shortly after we moved in the late spring or early summer of 1954, was brand new.  Unlike our previous house on Broadway in Santa Ana which was built and occupied by others before we lived there, nobody else had lived in that house.  Most, if not all of the houses on our cul-de-sac, were new.  Most of those living on Foxley at that time were families much like ours:  the husband worked at a regular job and his spouse was a housewife who remained at home, keeping the house tidy and the 2-3 kids neat and clean.

While my memories of our time on Broadway in Santa Ana remain mostly confined to black & white photos (except for attending the memorial service of a young girl about our own age who had died of Diabetes), I have a stockpile of vivid memories of our lives on Foxley, though many are also confined to photos taken by mom.  She had a black Kodak camera that might have been characterized today as compact.  The user had to rotate the lens mechanism counterclockwise, snap it into place, and then take a picture.  But if the user failed to entirely click the lens into place, the developed photograph had black corners like the image above.    

I have recounted elsewhere about the evening that I, at least, was driven by the parents to this new home.  I was put to bed in the bedroom that I shared with Ann (her official name was Georgann but she never liked that).  The bedroom door was left ajar so that light from the hallway streamed into our room, and we could more easily find out way to the hall bathroom.  (There was a half bath with a shower, sink and toilet in the opposite back corner of the house from our bedroom with a family room/den in between.)   

 I must admit that I have no memory of bedwetting in Santa Ana.  But at some point, I eventually caused consternation with the parents when I frequently wet the bed when we lived in this house in Whittier.  Most of the time, I did so entirely unaware and slept through the night only to awaken with soaked sheets and pajamas.  On a few occasions, I would awaken and make my way to the bathroom.  Sometimes, I would be afraid of monsters in the hallway and simply wet myself, too afraid of those monsters.   I cannot even recall when the bedwetting started or exactly when it stopped before we moved from Whittier in 1958.

Sadly, while other families would experience marriage issues and, eventually, divorce, we were the first to do so.  Mom had been there when one morning she found a mouse in a loaf of bread in the bread drawer in the kitchen and ran screaming onto the driveway while dad had been talking to Mr. Hofeldt next door.  (He took a shovel and smashed the mouse and the remaining slices of bread, flat.)  Mom was there for the earliest Halloweens and Christmases (when she made Rice Chrispie treats to give out in this more trusting and earlier time).  Eventually, she was gone and we had a series of three or four housekeepers, and finally my Grandmother Sanchez arrived, totally unprepared to take care of young children.  

Mom was there when I started Kindergarten at Laural Elementary School in the fall of 1954, along with several other kids on our block.  She brought Ann with her one time and Ann knocked something over in the playhouse, letting out an embarrassing wail even though she was not injured.  But when she was first no longer there, I don't remember.  But I do recall the night of turmoil when she surprisingly returned, getting into a loud row with the current housekeeper, whom I liked, and expelling her from the house.  Soon enough, mom was gone again.  But when that was, I do not recall.  But she was not living with us when the other housekeepers occupied the family room, nor when Grandma Sanchez moved in.   
But mom was there in the summer of 1956 when she, Ann and I were taken by dad to Union Station in LA to board a Santa Fe train (The El Capitan one way and the Super Chief the other way) for Kansas City and, soon, White Cloud to see her mother and her sister Doris and her family.  In retrospect, I believe the marriage was already on the rocks.  Perhaps the trip was to get away for a time and she how she felt when we returned.  Or perhaps she wanted advice or support from her mother, Gladys Breeze, as to what she ought to do.  

Only years later, from Ann and my late Aunt, Norma Jean, did I learn that mom had been bored in the marriage.  She did not want to be a housewife.  She had worked in a Bank of America in Hollywood in the 1940's, during and soon after the war.  She had enjoyed being the wife of an Air Force Captain, living on military bases in Washington State, Florida, Georgia and California, likely playing bridge with the other wives or playing golf on base courses, attending parties at the Officer Clubs.  But in Santa Ana and Whittier, she stayed at home, likely bored silly.  Dad was no longer in the active-duty military since he got out to avoid the Korean War after having been a bombardier POW in Germany in the last months of that war.  He was always going to be working in paint and wallpaper stores for the rest of his life, not something mom was looking forward to.