I Admire My Grandmother

My grandmother, Anna Marie Sullivan Hork, was born 15 October 1892 in Anaconda, Deer Lodge Co, Montana, and died on Valentine’s Day, 1979 in Santa Clara, California.[1] I remember because my parents had a party for the immediate family and Dad got the call from one of his sisters that Nana had died.

The funeral was a few days later at St. Matthews Catholic Church in San Mateo, California.[2] Afterwards, we went to my Aunt Virginia’s house where the after gathering could have been called an Irish wake. We all spoke of the great memories we had with our Nana. She was buried next to her husband in the Los Angeles National Cemetery.[3]

She had married William Cyril Hork in Butte, Silver Bow County, Montana, on 30 November 1922, which was Thanksgiving Day.[4] They had five children, four who lived to adulthood. Cyril had problems with alcohol, so she left him and took her children to Napa, California, to live with her sister’s husband and start a new life. After working in his coffee shop, she decided to return to teaching. She taught in a one-room school house there and at Williams School in Concord, California, until her retirement.

I always thought she was brave to break off from a bad relationship, though they never divorced (she was devote Catholic). She went back to school in her fifties to get a California Teacher Certificate at San Francisco State, because her Montana certificate was not sufficient.[5]

Here are some of my random (or not so random) memories of Nana:

For us Hork kids, we were lucky when we were very young. She lived across the street on East Ninth Street in Pittsburg, California.[6] I am not sure how my mother felt about her mother-in-law being so close, but Nana was probably a big help by the time there were four of us, all born within two years of each other. I am the oldest, so my memory is probably the best about the times with Nana in Pittsburg.

She might have come to our house in the evening to babysit us while our parents went out to dinner. I remember her getting us ready for bed: the ritual of using the bathroom and brushing our teeth. She loved to read to us and I have fond memories of that.

Sometimes we went over to her house—probably not all of us at once, but perhaps just my brother and me. She had the left-hand side of a duplex. It was a one-bedroom house but there was a murphy bed in the living room that we slept overnight in. She might have cooked for us there, but what I remember most about treats there was her putting sugar on lettuce leaves and rolling them up.

I'm on her lap and my older cousins are on both sides of Nana

Across the street from St. Peter Martyr Church was a donut shop and I remember Nana taking me there after Mass. She loved chocolate old fashioned donuts and I did, too. I think I started going to church with her once I started school, at St. Peter Martyr School.

Later, in 1963, we moved to Walnut Creek, and she moved to San Mateo, probably to be closer to her daughters. But she came often to visit us in her 1956 Volkswagen Beetle with the oval back window. We loved that car and would fight over riding in the cubby in the way back.

She came to stay with us a few times a year, especially those occasions when my mother gave birth to my two youngest sisters. When she was there, we watched the TV shows she liked, such as Lawrence Welk. But she also helped us with the dishes and taught us fun little songs she used to teach her elementary school pupils when she was a teacher. She also taught me some songs on the piano, even though we did not have one. I had a paper keyboard to practice on, and then would play the on the grand piano at my aunt’s house in Menlo Park when we visited.

One day, when she was driving us around somewhere, she made a left turn onto Mt. Diablo Blvd in Walnut Creek and was on the wrong side of the road. We all screamed at her to move to the right, which she did. We probably told our parents about it. Later, there was a story that she tried to drive up the off ramp of a freeway. That is when the little black VW came to our house to live. My dad drove it to work for several years, which gave my mom a car during the day.

Our visits after that were in San Mateo. She lived next to a park that had nice picnic area and a small train that could be ridden. It was a great place to meet up with Nana and the aunts, uncles, and cousins. Her apartment was very small, but close enough to town to walk to shops or to church.

I got to spend time with Nana. In 1969, she took me to visit with her sister, Loretta, in Pomona for two weeks and then one week in San Diego to visit her daughter, Lorene. It was a fun summer, where I met a whole bunch of second cousins, some even close to my age. Another time I spent a week with her in her little apartment in San Mateo. I slept on the couch, I think, though I think it might have been a studio apartment with no bedroom. I do not remember.

We're at San Francisco Airport just before flying to Southern California

Nana loved several things: going to Mass, saying the Rosary, making orange marmalade, having canaries, and growing African violets. She always had a jar of sour ball candies on the table, and she always brought presents to us when she visited, usually bought at the 5 & 10 store. Her Christmas presents to us each year were pajamas and nightgowns, and we always got to open them on Christmas Eve so we could wear them to bed.

I think of her often and wished I had asked her more about her life before us.

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#52Ancestors: Week 1: An Ancestor I Admire

This is my ninth year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow (https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/) at Generations Cafe.

I write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

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[1] St. Paul's Church, Anaconda, Montana, baptism certificate, Anna Marie Sullivan, born 15 Oct 1892, baptized 19 Oct 1892, certificate dated 20 Aug 1953. State of California, Department of Public Health, Certificate of Death, 1979, no. 01092, Anne M Hork.

[2] Funeral Card, Anne M. Hork, 17 Feb 1979.

[3] Photo of grave marker, taken by Lisa Gorrell, 1996, Section 419-1-19.

[4] Silver Bow County, Montana, marriage record, A-14551, William C. Hork & Anna M. Sullivan, 1922.

[5] Diploma, San Francisco State College, 1 Aug 1952, Anne Sullivan Hork; copy in author’s archives.

[6] Pittsburg-Antioch City Directory (RL Polk, 1959), 304. It lists Anne M Hork at 448 E 9th Street in Antioch, but that is incorrect. My father, Wm J Hork was listed at 467 E 9th in Pittsburg.

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