My Trails into the Past

When my father went off to work, it was to grocery stores or supermarkets as a produce clerk or produce manager. He worked for several different stores, but the longest was for LoRay Market and Safeway. Safeway When we lived in Pittsburg, he worked at Safeway. The city directory just says clerk, not specifically produce clerk. The directories from 1955 to 1962 identified his place of work as Safeway. In 1963, they purchased a home in Walnut Creek. My father may have already been working there, and buying a house closer to work was more desirable. LoRay The LoRay store in Walnut Creek was only a few blocks away. There were three or four LoRay stores in the county. The name came from merging the owner's and his wife's names. My father always drove to work, primarily because he started work at 5ish. This gave him time to put out all the produce that had been removed from the shelves and put into cold storage refrigerators. I believe this was before they created refrigerated displa...

As I researched the funeral Masses of my Catholic family members, I often found that the recitation of the Holy Rosary preceded the funeral Mass, or was said the previous evening. My grandmother, Anne M. Hork, died on 14 February 1979, and her funeral was held on 17 February at St. Matthews Catholic Church in San Mateo. I was present at the funeral, but I don’t remember much about it, except for the nice wake we had following it at my Aunt Virginia’s home. According to her funeral card, the Holy Rosary was recited ten minutes before the funeral Mass. Now, ten minutes is not enough time to recite the whole rosary, so I imagine they did only a portion. This past week, I attended the funeral for my cousin, Melanie. We also recited a portion of the rosary before the start of the funeral Mass. I am sure not many in attendance knew what to recite. We had no reading aids to follow along. It had been many years since I learned the parts of the rosary. It was not hard to find online. If y...

W illiam Joseph Hork and Lela Nell Johnston were married at Queen of All Saints Church in Concord, California, on 19 April 1953.[1] Lea’s friend, Barbara Boyenger, was her maid of honor and Bill’s brother-in-law, Gene Soares, was his best man. Before the ceremony, Ken Harvey, Barbara’s future husband, took photos of the preparation at Lea’s house. Barbara must have spent the night as we see the two of them having breakfast still in their night clothes.  The marriage news was written about in the Contra Costa Times and the Concord Transcript . The article in the Times is very detailed about the clothing the participants wore during the wedding and afterward for their wedding trip. They married on a Sunday afternoon at Queen of All Saints Church in Concord. Father Adrian McKenna presided over the ceremony attended by immediate family members and close friends. Because Lea was not Catholic, the ceremony was likely not a full Mass. The photo below shows the couple just at the alt...

The earliest homes my parents, Bill and Lea, lived in are not completely known. After their marriage, the newspaper announcement stated they lived at 3418 Wren Avenue, which might have been Bill's mother's home.  For a wedding present, Lea’s parents, Tom and Pansy Johnston, helped purchase a home in Shore Acres housing development in West Pittsburg (now Bay Point). Below is Lea and Bill at the site of their home before its purchase. The address was 35 Wharf Drive. The purchase price is not known but Bill took out a mortgage with Bank of America for $6550. How Tom and Mam-ma helped them was probably with the down payment. If the down payment was 20%, the purchase price would have been about $8100. It is not known how long they lived there. Here they are holding me outside the home. It had a flat roof. Today the house looks completely different with new pitched roofs. There is no record of the sale of this house with the county recorder, so it is possible the bank repossessed the...

In 1905, My grandfather’s sister, Ida Hork Colmann, and her husband, Martin J. Colmann, lived at the Manhattan Hotel in San Francisco. Martin was a partner in the business of manufacturing underwear at the Colmann & Fiel, located at 1429a Mission Street.[1]  The Manhattan Hotel was located at the junction of Market, Fell, and Polk Streets and run by John P Gallapher.[2] Here is a current map from Google Maps of the intersection of Market at Polk and Fell. I looked for a fire insurance map of the streets but that part of San Francisco wasn't available. Here is a map of the area of San Francisco that shows the area that was in the burned portion. https://data.sfgov.org/-/Areas-Damaged-by-Fire-Following-1906-Earthquake/yk2r-b4e8 The story passed down is Ida and Martin had to spend time in Golden Gate Park in tents.  A tent camp in Golden Gate Park, April 1906, after the Earthquake and fire.  Chronicle Archive 1906 By 1908, they were be found living on Pacific Avenue and ...

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:  It's Saturday Night again -  Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings, courtesy of Linda Stufflebean for suggesting the topic, is to:  1)  What is the most unusual cause of death you have discovered for your ancestors? Here's mine: I browsed through my RootsMagic database looking for unusual causes of death and found lots of deaths from heart problems, pneumonia, tuberculosis, influenza, kidney problems, suicide, and accidents. One unusual way of ending one’s own life was through drinking carbolic acid. My great-grandfather, John A. Hork, did that at a saloon in Sheridan, Wyoming in 1906. This unusual way of killing oneself caused newspapers from other places in the country to report on it even though he was not a known person. The distinctive way he died caused the newspapers to pick up the news. It seemed he asked for a drink on the house or by credit and was refused. So, he drank from a v...

My dad, William J. Hork, known as Billy growing up, had three older sisters: Lorene, Virginia, and June. This photo, taken in 1935, probably in Ontario, is of the four children. Billy looks about four or five years old. Since they are wearing sweaters and hats, it is probably winter.  I love this photo because it is black and white, has nice contrast, and shows the spunk of my aunts. Pictured from left to right: June, Lorene, and Virginia, and in front, Billy. #52Ancestors - Week 2: Favorite Photo This is my eighth 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. Copyright © 2025 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

Calling All Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night Again -  Time For Some More Genealogy Fun!! Our mission tonight from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:  1)   Today's challenge is to share memories of December holiday gatherings and celebrations with your families (as a child, a young adult, a parent, a grandparent, a great-grandparent, an aunt or uncle, a nibling, a cousin, an in-law)!   2)  Pick two or three questions from the list in my blog post:  Ask AI:  "What questions can I write about concerning family gatherings and celebrations during the December holidays?" 3)  Tell us about your memories of your holiday gatherings and celebrations in your own blog post, in a comment here, or on your Facebook page.  Be sure to leave a link to your report in a comment on this post. Here's mine: I chose these two questions: Did your family have traditions for how gifts were given or opened (e.g., all at once, youngest to oldest)? Wh...

This is one of the funniest photos I have of my parents. Taken in 1952 before they were married, they must have had a trip down to Santa Cruz to enjoy the fun at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. My mother loved the Big Dipper roller coaster and the bumper cars. My guess they had friends come along with them to take this photo. #52Ancestors-Week 48: Very Funny This is my seventh 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. Copyright © 2024 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.

What does one write when our families do not have cultural traditions? Are our family traditions cultural at all? Hork Family Traditions When growing up, we had some holiday traditions. Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were always at the Hork house, as our house was large enough to seat everyone. The maternal grandparents and great-aunt came to us, bringing salads and dessert. Mom cooked the rest: turkey for Thanksgiving and a ham for Christmas. The side courses were always candied yams, mashed potatoes and gravy with giblets, cornbread stuffing, and peas with onions. Hors d′oeuvres consisted of potato chips with onion dip, carrot, celery, radish, and green onion sticks, and smoked baby oysters. Dessert was a variety of pies: pumpkin, mincemeat, pecan, or apple. My mother made us recipe books when we married and here is her recipe for the turkey and stuffing. Gorrell Family Traditions At the Gorrell house, they also had turkey on Thanksgiving with a sage stuffing, mashed potatoes, gr...

Even though my mother, Lela "Lea" Nell (Johnston) Hork had four children under 6 years old, she was active with the Junior Woman’s Club in Pittsburg, California. In 1960, she was installed as secretary. Mrs. Bess Gibson was president, succeeding Mrs. Edward Marchoke, Mrs. Frank Pietruszkiewicz was vice president, Mrs. William Hork was secretary, Mrs. Cyril Bruno was treasurer, Mrs. Ally Petrial was parliamentarian, Mrs. Marchoke was auditor, and Mrs. James Hanges was club coordinator. [1] In September, Louis Armstrong performed for a hospital benefit at the Pittsburg High School creative arts building. The sponsored show's proceeds were to purchase a circoelectric universal hospital bed for the Pittsburg Community Hospital. The following women were involved with the program: Mrs. Bess Gibson, Mrs. Ally Petrini, Mrs. Cyril Bruno, Mrs. Bernard Krieg, Mrs. Edward Marchoke, Mrs. Donald Meyer, and Mrs. William Hork. [2] A photo of Louis Armstrong appeared in the newspape...

Wallace William Waldron, my dad’s sister, Lorene E. Hork’s future husband, served in the United States Navy during World War II. Wally was born in Vallejo in 1922 but grew up in San Francisco where he graduated from Lowell High School in 1939. In 1940, he worked as a messenger until he enlisted in the Navy on 11 October 1940. From the database on Ancestry of World War II muster rolls, I discovered he served on two ships. [1] USS Argus (PY-14) [2] The USS Argus was commissioned on 13 February 1941. It started as a yacht built by Krupp Germaniawerft (Kiel, Germany) for Max C. Fleischmann of Santa Barbara (the same Fleischman family of the yeast company in Cincinnati) in 1927 and named Haida . The Navy had the Craig Shipbuilding Company in Long Beach convert it for Naval Service. The Argus’ duties were to patrol the San Francisco Bay which she did for the 12 Naval District. In September of 1941, she was transferred to the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey and renamed Pioneer . T...

We were not well off and rarely had a new car. I remember some of the cars my parents owned but I don’t have photos of all of them. I located photos online for illustration. When my parents were married in 1952, my dad was driving a 1948 Chevy. Here’s a shot of them leaving on their honeymoon. And another shot of the car with Dad holding me in 1954. Sometime before 1963 or 64, they had another Chevy but I don’t have a photo of our car. I kind of remember it looked like this one, which is a ’57 station wagon. We loved sitting or lying in the back portion and looking out the back window. After we moved to Walnut Creek, they bought a Rambler Ambassador station wagon. Here’s a shot of three of my siblings in front of the car. I’m not sure what happened to that car. My dad was promoted at work and was given a company car to drive. It was a Ford Country Squire station wagon and he was allowed to use it on the weekends. So perhaps that is when he sold the Rambler. The wagon can be seen in t...