Here is our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing:
1) Tell us about a memorable summer vacation when you were a child. What are your memories of summer vacations with your family? Did you travel? How? Did you visit extended family? Who?
2) Put it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post. Please leave a link in a comment to this post.
Here’s mine:
The summer in 1969 was between my freshman and sophomore
year. My grandmother, Anna M. (Sullivan) Hork, who we called Nana, wanted to go
down to Pomona, California, and spend some time with her older sister, Loretto
(Sullivan) Patterson. After three weeks, there would be a trip down to San
Diego to visit with her daughter, Lorene (Hork) Waldron.
She had done this trip many times and in 1969 I was invited
to accompany her. I was both excited to make this trip with her, and equally
scared. This would be my first airplane trip.
We flew from San Francisco International Airport, likely aboard a PSA 727 and landed in Ontario airport, where we disembarked via stairs. I don’t remember who picked us up, probably Loretto’s son, Jimmie Patterson. We stayed at Loretto’s house and each had our own rooms.
The first event we attended was the wedding of Loretto’s
granddaughter, Christine Monnie. I knew no one except for Aunt Loretto, for she
had come up to northern California in the past to visit Nana. However, I quickly
met lots of my father’s first cousins and their children, my second cousins.
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| Loretto on the left, Nana 2nd from the right |
There was one second cousin, Anne, who was close to my age and we spent a lot of time together. There were planned trips to Disneyland, Mission San Juan Capistrano, Long Beach, and Hollywood & Beverly Hills. We may have done other things, but I have no recollection other than the photos that I took. The photos are square, so likely I was using my first camera, a Kodak Brownie. The photos I have of the wedding are rectangular, so perhaps I obtained those from someone else.
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| Disneyland |
I missed my friend, Beth, and we wrote letters back and forth several times. One thing I did love were the dinners with Aunt Loretto and my Nana. These two would tell such funny stories about their childhood that we laughed and laughed until we had tears in our eyes. What I regret, since I’m not very auditory, is remembering any of these stories. Wouldn’t it had been fun if we could have recorded them?
The last week of our almost four-week trip was in San Diego. I think Loretto’s son, Tommy, drove us down. We stayed with my Aunt Lorene and Uncle Wally in their apartment. Lorene took Nana and me to Old Town, San Diego Zoo, and to Sea World. I bought a few miniature ceramic items for Beth’s new doll house and a swan-shaped candle for my maternal grandmother, who gave me some spending money for the trip.
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| Sea World |
One funny story with Lorene: A cop pulled us
over. I think Lorene made a wrong type of turn. She literally talked her way
out of the ticket by telling him she worked for the DMV. Another was she started
speaking Japanese to our Chinese restaurant waiter and he spoke back in
Japanese! Lorene had worked for the Army in Tokyo during the 1950s.
It was a great trip. Our family took very few vacations and
it was a wonderful opportunity to experience something outside of our
neighborhood.
That was a spectacular vacation! Southern California was a totally different place back then. My husband talks a lot about the good old days growing up there.
ReplyDeleteThere definitely wasn't as much traffic back then!
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