Mother was a Connecticut Yankee born 1892 into the Beach Clan of Branford
dating back to Sixteen something, almost but not quite back with the
Mayflower. Being a Registered Nurse, she joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corp
as a Lt. in World War I and was posted to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma in 1920.
Dad, a career Army officer, 1st. Lt., Field Artillery , was also posted to
Ft. Sill. Handsome, dashing, young officer meets dark hair beautiful
lady. Romance, proposal, marriage, end of nursing career. I , Grant, was
born in 1922, my brother, David, in 1925.
Summer 1925 a fire bug, loose, at Ft. Sill, succeeded in burning down our
row of officer's quarters. Everyone escaped safely but we lost all our,
clothes, furniture, everything. What to do? Dad put Mom, me, and baby
David on a train back to mother's home in Connecticut while he finished his
Ft. Sill assignment and learned where his next post would be. It turned
out to be Presidio of Monterey, California.
By this time Dad had acquired a Chalmers touring car, a big open vehicle,
canvass top, quite a car. It was one thing for Dad to drive by himself
from Oklahoma to Connecticut but something else to consider driving across
the entire country with a wife and two kids, one still in diapers. I have
to consider that they hadn't thought the situation through until he arrived
in Connecticut. Maybe Grandma Beach put her foot down and said, "You
can't take a baby across the country in that open touring car!" Anyhow,
the decision was that Mother and year old David would remain in Connecticut
while Dad and I (almost four) and Mother's younger sister, Florence would
drive to California. When we were safely in Monterey Mother and baby and
Grandmother would come out by train. Florence and Charlotte Valentine
Beach, twins born on February 14th, 1900, were nurses also.
We carried two spare tires strapped on the back, leather suitcases
strapped on the running boards, lord knows how much junk stowed in the car.
I know we had a large (two gallon?) canteen in front with emergency
radiator water. Isinglass windows snapped in place in case of wet or cold
weather. Windshield wipers had to be manually turned by the driver or
preferably by a passenger in the front seat. Dad had learned the hard way
in Oklahoma that worm gear jacks were quickly rendered useless by mud and
sand and he had a pair of newfangled hydraulic jacks for this trip
(expedition?)
Off we went. I'm sure much of my remembrance is what I've heard from my
father and aunt Florence. The first few days I wondered why we didn't ever
turn around so we could get back home in time for supper and where we would
sleep if we weren't home? In late afternoon Dad would study his maps and
plan where we could stop for the night. Upon entering the selected town he
would hope to find a gas pump, store or someplace where he could ask if
there were any homes that would take "overnight tourists?" If we found one
Florence inspected the rooms for suitability and beds for bedbugs. If we
were lucky a meal might be available.
Finding edible food was a challenge. Dad had grown up working in his
father's café in Ogden, Utah. This was at the turn of the 20th century.
Mechanical refrigeration didn't exist. Dad firmly believed that all
hamburger was the rotten trimmings of a side of beef and thus inedible, all
pork suspect for trichinosis, and any fish you didn't see being caught
wasn't to be considered, and all sausage type things including hot dogs
were right down there with hamburger. What's left? Roast beef , baked or
fried chicken, and baked ham. We went across the country learning how
many ways there are to make beef stew or pot roast inedible. And no matter
how delectable your memory is of cherry or apple pie, what you are going to
get on the road is a thick gummy crust filled with cornstarch and precious
little apple or cherries. I expect we lived mostly on roast beef and ham
sandwiches when we were lucky enough to find a deli or market with them and
apples and other fresh fruit.
In 1926 most roads were dirt, not gravel, not paved, just dirt, rough,
dusty, and muddy when it rained.
Out there in Iowa or Kansas we encountered an enterprising farmer who kept
a pair of mules harnessed behind the haystack hidden from the giant mud
hole on the highway. When we, as all passing cars did, got stuck, out
popped the farmer, offering to have his mules pull us out for $5. Now five
dollars was a lot of money in 1926. The mud hole was impassable, what can
you do? Five dollars poorer we are doubly outraged as we drive away, to
see the farmer dump another barrel or two of water in the mud hole.
One sight impressed on my memory is watching a thunder storm develop and
overtake us. Dark clouds on the horizon rapidly approaching. Muttering of
thunder, lightning illuminating the clouds. Don't wait too long to put up
the sides, try to tuck some canvas around the suitcases in the racks on the
running boards. First a few drops hitting the windshield, the first gusts
of wind, the smell of rain, then sheets of water sweeping over us. Road
starts to get slick then muddy. Driving, staying on the road a challenge.
Don't dare stop. Suddenly the rain stops, back to a dusty road, car a
mess. A great adventure for me, not so much fun for Dad.
We veer north through Wyoming to avoid a direct assault on the Rocky
Mountains. There are Indians in Cheyenne. Not a big deal, we had Indians
in Oklahoma and Fort Sill. Can't avoid some mountain and canyon roads
going into Utah and Ogden, Dad's family home. The towering rock walls,
rushing river, road hanging on the cliff edge, scary stuff for a four year
old.
In Ogden, great grandmother, who experienced the Mormon Trek from Missouri
to Utah, gets trotted out to tell me and Aunt Florence all about it. When
was that, 1850's? I remember she seemed very old to me, she had to be in
her eighties in 1926.
I have no recollections of the trip from Utah to California in 1926. Maybe
even then the trek across Nevada was mind numbingly dull and at 20 to 40
mph seemingly endless.
Monterey was awe inspiring. Ocean with real waves, unlike Long Island
Sound. Pine forests, cypress trees, cliffs, crashing waves, fishing
fleets, cannery row. What was it "Carmel by the Sea, Pacific Grove by God,
Monterey by the Smell"? We moved into a wooden frame house on the upper
edge of the Presidio parade ground that stretched down the hill toward the
Monterey wharf. The last I knew those houses were still there.
Aunt Charlotte, Florence's twin sister came out to California also, maybe
with my mother and baby brother. Then mother's remaining sister, Mildred
came out. All of them married. The twins eventually retired, widowed,
lived in a cottage in Pacific Grove until they passed from the scene in 1989.
My youngest brother, Jack, was born in Monterey in 1928. Dad's army
assignment in Monterey ended in 1930. He had seen half the world by then
and resolved that when he retired he would settle somewhere pretty close to
Monterey. He retired a Colonel at the end of WWII and did just that. I
started college in California, after WWII and a career in Silicon Valley,
retired in the Santa Cruz area.
Grant O. Heninger 3/12/2001