A horse of a different color

As I've been sifting through the family photos, it seems that everyone shows up on top of a horse or mule at some point.  Here's Granddad:

Diane and Marrian:

Rick being led by his mom:



And lastly, Mildred and Aunt Lucile:

I want to be Aunt Lucile when I grow up.







The dapper haberdasher Elijah

Tonight I am posting photos of my husband's greatgrandfather Elijah, who lived from 1855 to 1939. He was the father-in-law of Mildred who was introduced in an earlier post.

In the photo above, Elijah is standing 3rd from the right, with his parents and siblings.   He was a haberdasher in Hamilton, Missouri, and family legend says that he had some connection with the original J.C. Penney. 

(Elijah is on the left)

He was always fastidiously dressed up in photos, whether it was a day at Venice Beach,...

(Elijah is on the right)

 ...or cutting loose in Tijuana.

Chavez Ravine, then and now

My mother-in-law was born in her grandmother's house in Chavez Ravine near Dodger Stadium about 80 years ago.  This is what the house looked like then:

Here is what that house looks like now:



Looking back at Mildred

I've been scanning my husband's family photos, and the ones I like best are of his grandmother.   

She was born Mildred Davis in Texas in 1906.  She's the smaller girl on the mule. 

 Mildred's family moved to California.  Here's a picture from around 1920.  She's seated in the middle row at the right end, with her ankles crossed. Was this a school or camp photo?  Or just a day at the beach?  Although they're wearing swimsuits, the girl in the middle is holding a baseball and bat.

 She married at age 19.  She and her husband Frank were avid hikers, and this was a typical hiking outfit in 1925.  Her son (my father-in-law) recalls playing with those boots when he was a child.

Here they are with one of their 3 sons in the early 1930's.  What kind of car is that?  They bought a house on Main Street in Alhambra, California, but lost it during the depression.  They recovered thanks to jobs in the burgeoning movie industry.

They continued to enjoy the outdoors as much as possible.  This trip to Yosemite National Park in their 1939 Chevy probably took place in 1940.  When WWII started, gasoline rationing kept them from traveling. 

 

Mildred was also the PTA president, and here is her official photo. I don't know what year that was, but she looks quite young to me.

Mildred and Frank worked for several of the movie studios, and also some well-known interior designers.  Mildred became the Forewoman of the drapery department at MGM, and Frank was the lead drapery cutter.  She's the dark-haired lady at the back of the photo.  Mildred was not at all impressed with actors.  When asked what it was like to work around movie stars, Mildred would say: "They do their job, and I do mine".

 

I was surprised to see that Mildred is almost always wearing pants instead of dresses.  I thought that was supposed to be pretty scandelous back then. 

Mildred and Frank's connections at the movie studios got them tickets to Opening Day at Disneyland in 1959.  We don't have a picture of Mildred that day, but here's her daughter-in-law and grandsons on the Peter Pan ride.  The little boy on the right is my husband Rick.

I hope you enjoyed these photos.  I never met Mildred, so the stories with the pictures were provided by my father-in-law.