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In the summer of 1917 Mary's father, Frederick Wilson Hawes (age 44), purchased an open touring car manufactured by Stevens.(2)

He thought this was a great time to show his young family the prairie states of the Southwest. Mary's mother, Anna Martha Franz Hawes (age 39), checked with the doctor about taking the baby camping. Since Mary was a robust 10-pound baby who was obviously in good health, the doctor agreed that a 3-week trip to Mesa Verde in Colorado and back to their home in Henryetta, Oklahoma, would be just fine.

So Fred and Anna loaded their four children, Freddy (age 7), Tommy (5), Jane (2), and 3-week-old Mary into the auto. The car was also packed with all the items necessary for successful camping and the clothes and personal effects for the two adults and four children. There was barely room for the baby's basket in the back seat.

The roads were rutted dirt. Improved roads were rutted gravel. It was very, very hot and very, very dusty. The family traveled just a few miles per day.(3)

They stayed overnight by the side of the road, setting up camp each afternoon and breaking camp each morning. Keeping clean was a challenge that was met, pioneer style, in a rarely found creek. (Click the picture to enlarge it.)

This trip was taken before the advent of motels, roadside restaurants, or developed public campgrounds. Fred filled many water containers and loaded up on gasoline at each tiny town; Anna purchased food at each available general store.

The Hawes family was not alone on the roadways. There were many other families touring. It was an exciting time. Cars were a newly available mode of transport, the scenery of the Great American West a gorgeous feast for the eyes. As Fred crossed paths with another auto, especially if it was a Stevens, he'd give a greeting with his "Aooga" horn.

Fred drove his family westward across Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, into the 5-year-old State of New Mexico, and then northward to Mesa Verde, a little shy of a thousand miles. Instead of returning home from their camping there, however, he drove westward into Utah and then into the other 5-year-old State of Arizona to see the Grand Canyon. From there he drove his family northward through Utah again and eastern Idaho, into Yellowstone. Fred was thrilled to see the new lands that he had never seen before. The entire automobile adventure aboard the Stevens touring car lasted … 12 weeks. (Take a look at a map of the adventure.)

Anna was hideously impatient with the whole damn thing. Good God! Isolated and alone, she had barely survived a difficult birth in the back country of Saskatchewan just 5 years earlier. Now this! The man just would not stop. Well, to be honest, she enjoyed seeing the red rock country and the Yellowstone. But couldn't all this wait until there was not an infant to tote about?

Mary did not thrive on this camping trip. She weighed less in October than she had in June; Anna had kept the infant alive with Eagle Brand milk.(4)

When the family arrived back in Henryetta, the doctor, who had OK'd only a short trip to Colorado, denounced Fred's irresponsibility in extremely colorful language.

Mary did survive, however. Here's a picture of her, smiling, on the Kiddie Car with her big sister Jane, taken a couple of years later at their home in Henryetta. (To enlarge the picture just click it.)

This was shortly before the family moved in 1920. This would be the last move; Anna had made that very clear. Also: There would be electricity. There would be a telephone. There would be inside plumbing. There would be at least some neighbors who spoke English.

Fred had a wanderlust that had plagued the marriage from the start. Freddy had been born in Chicago, Tommy at their homestead in the Saskatchewan back woods, Jane and Mary in Henryetta. Fred was now 47 years old. Anna was 42. It was time to put down roots and provide a steady home for the children. Fred searched from New Jersey to California before he found the perfect place: 16 acres on a paved road in Waunch's Prairie, 3 miles north of Centralia, Washington.

The 2,000-mile move was by train, since this provided the most economical way to move the household goods, the six family members, and the red Stevens touring car.(5)

During the journey a total stranger commented to Anna that it was too bad that the little girl was cross-eyed. Anna was totally shocked. She had never noticed this about Mary.

On the left you see the Stevens in a shed at the new home, with the four children in front of it (to enlarge the picture, just click it).

Although there was a good road to Centralia and many nice neighbors, the farmhouse, built in the 1870s, did not have interior water, a phone, or electricity. Fred contacted Puget Sound Power and Light and found that he could get electricity only if he paid for the poles and lines himself. He did. The entire 3 miles.

Fred hired carpenters to construct four 100-foot long chicken houses and a gravity water system from the natural spring on the hill. The workmen then dug a basement for a new coal-powered furnace and fruit room. They rolled the house over the hole and proceeded to extensively remodel that structure. All this was completed in 5 short years. On the right you see Hawes family members in front of the house, shortly before it was rolled to its new position (click it to enlarge it and see who's who).

Oklahoman to the core, Fred insisted upon calling the 16-acre poultry farm his "ranch," or his "chicken ranch." Also, the house was decorated with just a bit of the Oklahoma Wild West. Anna scattered several Navaho rugs on the dining room floor. Fred mounted loaded guns atop each kitchen door and the breakfast room archway.

For 15 years the farm prospered. At its peak there were 2,500 layers divided among the four hen houses. There were goats, sheep, pigs, turkeys, a cow, and a horse named Pete. There was a mature orchard that had come with the land, and the Hawes family planted a substantial kitchen garden. All this meant there were daily chores for each of the children, starting at a very early age.

Mary collected eggs, fed chickens, helped can the garden produce and the farm-grown meats. With the help of her sister Jane, Mary was expected to set the table for each meal, do the dishes, and help with the weekly wash. Mary's favorite chore was sitting atop the pump house, reading and every now and then tossing dirt clods … sometimes rocks … at the sheep and their lambs. These animals had been set out to pasture in an area along the highway that had no fence. It was Mary's job to see that no animals wandered onto the road.

While Mary read, her father would supervise from the nearby field. Fred was using Pete to plow and harrow the soil in order to plant feed grain. Neighbor children would stop on the road and call out: "Mr. Hawes? What are you planting?" He'd answer: "Bananas." This humor was lost on his small daughter. She was embarrassed.

Fred had a series of fondness names for his little girl. He used them all of Mary's life and added to the list as she grew older. Sometimes, to the delight of the family, it came out like this: "Chickie-me-too Merry-sunshine Goldielocks Daisy-in-the-nose Lollapalooza-mike Rolly-polly-pigwig Skookumchuck Inch-higher." The list was much longer, but Fred never changed the order of the nicknames or the cadence of the delivery.

Mary's big brothers always just called her "Chick," however, a nickname that dated from the time she had been so excited about having fried chicken for dinner that she had run round 'n round the dining room table telling her world that it was "Chickie me too! Chickie me too! Chickie me too!"

Starting at age 7, Mary wore wire-rimmed glasses.(6)

She hated them. Her classmates teased her, called her Granny. Now that she could actually see, however, Mary soon discovered the Carnegie library in town (click the picture on the left to enlarge it) and set out to read every single book in it. Being able to see better helped her school grades as well. Fred was proud enough to financially reward her: 25 cents per "A" and 20 cents per "A-" per 6-week report card. For the honor roll there was a whole dollar; for the semester honor roll $5.00. This was an absolute fortune in the 1920s. (See her second-grade report card.(7))

Tommy and Freddy regularly bamboozled their little sisters. Mary was expected to eat each morsel on her plate at every meal, but the boys convinced her that if she burped, she would explode with such great force that pieces of her would splatter everywhere. Mary did not test this. When the boys were expected to clear a pile of construction materials, they convinced Jane and Mary that there was treasure underneath. The girls did all the work while the boys supervised.

About this time Freddy taught little sister to fish in the nearby Skookumchuck River. Mary was good at that. By the age of 7, she could bait a hook with a squiggly nightcrawler. On the right you see Mary admiring her brother's catch at Ward Lake Park (to enlarge the picture, click it).

Tommy was teaching Mary how to swim, but unfortunately she never became a strong swimmer: The river was cold and, though it was not at all swift in the summer months, it did have a definite current that frightened her.

Mary was determined to learn to ride a bicycle. Tommy gave that lesson also. He'd have her lean the family boy's bike against a fence post, board it by putting one leg through the crossbar, help her get started down the gravel drive. Then he'd race alongside to stop Mary before she reached the highway. Lots of skinned knees and elbows later, Mary had mastered both starting and stopping all on her own. All this was long before she was tall enough to reach the pedals while seated. The Hawes children never did have a girl's bike.

As part of the school curriculum in the 1920s and 1930s, students were required to memorize poetry and then recite in front of their classroom. Mary did this very well: stanzas of Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. Mary also read for pleasure from the home library that her father maintained: the eight volumes of John Clark Ridpath's History of the World and the King James Version of the Holy Bible. At that Carnegie public library she worked her way through the popular fiction of Jean Stratton Porter, including A Girl of the Limberlost and Freckles.

Mary walked on the highway the single mile from the ranch to eight-grade Oakview Elementary School.(8)

Sometimes she skated. (On the left you see her as a sixth grader, a little shy of 12 years old; to enlarge this picture and see it in context, just click it.)

Transportation options changed dramatically when Fred traded in the Stevens for two Model T Fords. Anna now had her own wheels. She and her children drove to the shore each summer for a week, always to Moclips, and there were many trips to nearer sights on the weekends. Tom evolved into a first-class mechanic, which was great because no one else had a clue how to fix the Tin Lizzie.

Fred would take the children with him into Centralia on Saturday when he did his banking and shopped for supplies. Mary took these town-trip opportunities to gather in the sights and, of course, to borrow books from the library. There was always a stop at the candy store on the way home.

The ranch failed to prosper during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Hawes farm family never went without meals, but the economics of poultry husbandry dictated some serious changes: From a chicken population averaging 2,500, Fred and Anna were forced to cut back 99 percent, keeping a remnant for themselves of 26 hens. The slaughter must have been horrific, and it must have gone on for quite a spell. The Hawes lunches and dinners must have featured chicken fairly consistently. "Chickie-me-too" Mary remarked years later how she grew to dislike chicken meat, though she liked eggs all her life.

When the children finished eighth grade at Oakview Elementary on Waunch's Prairie, they could no longer walk or ride a bike to school. The high school was in the middle of Centralia, and the prairie children needed to ride the 3 miles on the school bus.

Father Fred was a harsh and demanding father.(9)

He wanted each of his children to excel in school, do daily chores without complaint, have excellent manners, and never ever back-talk. Jane, Tom, and brother Fred all ran away several times. Anna would know the runaway's destination, so she did not worry. Mary, though, was too stubborn to leave home. Here's what she observed several decades later about this time:

Don't know if I have a thick skin or not, but I do get hurt and resent it without saying too much.

When Jane entered high school, the sisters began to fight over everything. All the time. Jane was a vivacious, outgoing, dark-eyed beauty. She bobbed her hair and wore makeup. Mary was green with jealousy. Mary was very smart, wore glasses, was plump, was "cross-eyed," lived in the country, had a father who, each week, wrote opinionated letters to the editor of the Centralia Chronicle. Mary never dated. (To enlarge the picture, just click it.)

Mary hated high school. Because there was no late bus, she never stayed after school for any of the sports games or social events. Three miles was really too far to walk home. But she did her best in class. In fact the only "B" Mary received was from the Latin teacher; Miss Alice Atkinson never gave a first-quarter "A" grade. (See some example high school report cards.)

Jane, on the other hand, quit school in 1932, soon to be married to Harold Boyce. However unsatisfactory her new home life right in Centralia might have been, at least it had gotten her away from her father.(10)

From then on, Mary and Tom were the only children still at home with their parents.

In the spring of Mary's junior year at Centralia High, the school principal gave her permission to take her examinations a month early so that she could accompany her family to Maryland and New England. Brother Fred was graduating from the Naval Academy, and Anna, understandably proud, wanted to be in attendance. Tom was 21 and an excellent mechanic. Anna would be driving a Model T Ford more than 3,000 miles each way, and Tom's skills would be very handy. They would be gone 3 months, so father Fred needed to stay home to care for the animals.

During the June festivities at the Annapolis graduation, Mary met 18-year-old Margery Jane Doyle, who would always be referred to in our family as "Janie" to distinguish her from Mary's sister Jane. For a few years Janie would be Mary's closest friend, even roommate; later Mary would consider Janie her worst enemy. (To learn some of Janie's background, click the picture.)

Janie, working to convince handsome Midshipman Fred to break off his engagement with his hometown girl and to marry her instead, arranged a blind date for the just barely 17-year-old Mary from rural Washington State. Anna allowed this, because the date would be chaperoned by Mary's oldest brother. Janie was a friend of a third-year Midshipman from Massachusetts who seemed suitable: Allan Christie Edmands, whose nickname at that time was "Deak." He was 23, had a great sense of humor, spoke softly with a Boston accent, and was very handsome. He liked competitive sports, he played word games, and he quoted Longfellow and Coleridge with ease. Scholarly Mary was quite taken with him.(11)

After the Academy festivities, the Hawses drove north to New England to visit Anna's family. Anna found that her mother, then 87, had reverted completely to her native German tongue. This was the only time Mary met her maternal grandmother, and the lady had absolutely no idea who she was. On the return trip, they visited Niagara Falls.(12)

They also managed to return to Washington "by way of Albuquerque"; Mary remembered that her mother bought her an Acoma pottery bowl in Gallup, New Mexico.

After the one blind date, both Allan and Mary were smitten. Allan wrote Mary a Christmas card that December, with the picture at the right enclosed (to enlarge it, just click). During his senior year, Allan was on cruises all over the world as part of his academy curriculum. At every stop, he wrote post cards and letters to his sweetheart in Washington State.(13)

In the mean time, Mary, scheduled to graduate at the top of her class, was preparing a valedictorian speech and was winning college scholarships to both Reed and Whitman Colleges. Father Fred would not hear of something so liberal, however. His daughter would go to the junior college right there in Centralia!

In June 1935 Mary delivered her valedictorian speech at the ceremony that graduated her and 181 other students from Centralia High School. After the ceremonies, she came home and made a bonfire of all her high school memorabilia. To the left is a picture of Mary about that time (click it to enlarge it).

In the end, after a short stay at Centralia Junior College, Mary prevailed upon her father to let her study in Seattle at Metropolitan Business College. Fred only pretended that he did not know about the Ensign stationed at the naval base at nearby Bremerton, and he allowed her to enroll.

Allan came by ferry to Seattle often and took Mary to officer's parties in the big city. He and his buddies visited the ranch as well. Before Mary finished her 2-year course of study at the business school, she was engaged. Allan sent her bus money to travel to Vallejo, California, to be married while his ship was ashore there. Fred arranged for Tom to handle the ranch duties, he bought a new 1936 Dodge and he drove Anna and Mary to California.(14)

Unfortunately, there was a paperwork glitch and Allan's ship left before the marriage license could be processed. The three Haweses had to chase the Navy down the coast to San Diego so the proud parents could witness the wedding (click to see the charming report of the wedding, as well as the wedding announcement). The year was 1937. Mary was just shy of 20, Allan 26. On the right you see Mary on her honeymoon on Santa Catalina Island (click the picture to enlarge it).

It was probably while Mary was living on her own in Seattle that she took up smoking as a serious habit.(15)

For one thing, it helped her to diminish her plumpness by killing her appetite, and she certainly wanted to be as attractive as possible for her beau who regularly visited from Bremerton. (As you can see from the honeymoon picture, the plumpness isn't completely diminished. It took her having her first baby to do that.(16))

Also, women in those days regularly saw cigarette smoking as a symbol of freedom, a sign that they were their own person, that they had gone beyond society's narrow roles for them. There was a prevailing prejudice among many that a smoking woman was somehow "fallen." Her father, who rolled his own cigarettes with brown paper and Prince Albert tobacco, must have held such a prejudice; here is how he described part of the Hawes crest: "At the top a large, displeased lion's head protrudes through a crown marked as if laid together like bricks in a chimney. This lion has a very suspicious look, as if he expected to detect female smoking of cigarettes, liver-stained fingernails, lipsticks, or female nose wrinkles caused by snoring."

Here is what Mary said about her father's attitude: "He did not know I smoked until we were going to California when I was to be married, and [he] had a fit! I always smoked around him after that, but Jane lacked the nerve! He would not have liked her [mentholated] Kools, anyway." (Sadly, Mary was never able to kick the addiction. Shortly before her death, however, she was too weak to light up. Her death certificate attributed pulmonary carcinoma [lung cancer] as a probable cause.)

Married women rarely worked outside the home in the 1930s. Mary needed to keep busy. She ran their home, which for 6 years was always an apartment or rented rooms at the various U.S. Navy duty stations. She sewed on a "featherweight" Singer sewing machine for the house, for herself, and, soon enough, for her baby. She continued to read her way through the local libraries, checking out 12 books per visit and going through them in just 7 days.

Surviving as family heirlooms from that time is a hand-crocheted tablecloth that took Mary 10 years to complete. She ran out of thread about three-quarters of the way along. There is a definite color change. Beautiful even with, or perhaps because of, this blemish. Also surviving is a full-size bed quilt in the Dresden Plate pattern, which you can see on the left (click to enlarge). Mary had started the tiny piecing when she was 12 and finally finished it just after she was married (while she was pregnant). As a Christmas gift for the newlyweds, Anna hired the quilting done by a church group who "charged" by how many spools of thread they used.

On May 11, 1938, Mary brought her firstborn into the world, Mary Christine Edmands, who would always be known by her official middle name: Chrissy at first, Chris later, Christine much later.(17)

(This family always finds a way to avoid confusion with its identical names, doesn't it?)

Here you can see Mary with her 9½-week old daughter in San Diego. Mary seems to have lost all her unnecessary weight after her pregnancy. (By now you know how to enlarge the picture.)

Early in her marriage, Mary discovered that she did not know how to cook. She had had only home canned meats on the farm. Confronted with the daunting task of fresh meat, she had to ask the butcher how to prepare the piece of beef that she had just purchased. Fish she could do. Chicken she could do. Soon Mary could cook all the organ meats as well: liver, tongue, brain, tripe—but cooking was never a favorite task.

By 1939 Mary had morphed into an in-your-face beauty, as you can see on the left. This airbrushed glamour shot almost completely "corrects" the crossed eye.

Assignments usually changed every 6 months for the young officer's family. If it was just a few weeks and the assignment was on the West Coast, Mary would drive Chrissy to Centralia to be cared for by Anna and Fred. She could then spend a treasured few days alone with her husband. Here is a postcard she sent from San Francisco to her parents on September 28, 1939:

Dearest Mother & Dad—
I'm awfully happy & Allan looks grand—and he got orders today— he gets 30 days leave. We will be home Thursday or Friday. Tell Chris Daddy & Mother want to see their little girl— and we love her. And we love everybody. Love, Mary

In 1940 Mary, Allan, and Chrissy moved to Pensacola, Florida, where he could learn to fly the airplanes used on carriers. Here is a postcard Mary sent to her parents on the way there, from Van Horn, Texas, July 11, 1940:

Dearest Mother & Dad—
We left SD Tuesday night at eight— it has been horribly hot but the Christine is bearing up wonderfully. We expect to stay in Fort Stockton tonight. I hope you are all okay— and you can imagine how happy I am. Mary
P.S. Imogene (the car) is grand.

Before Allan was awarded his "wings," his mother traveled from Andover, Massachusetts, to visit. Just at that time John, Allan's younger brother, was on a Midshipman cruise to Pensacola. Mother Edmands was thrilled to have her two sons together. Around her formidable mother-in-law, Mary felt she was just a little bit on trial.(18)

Ultimately, Allan was assigned to the Pearl Harbor Naval Base in the Territory of Hawaii.(19)

The Navy moved the family to Honolulu in the summer of 1941. Mary's brother Fred had also been assigned to Hawaii, so Janie, his wife of 5 years, was moving to Honolulu, too. Here is Mary enjoying the cruise on the S.S. Mariposa. Probably, sister-in-law Janie is taking the picture.

Here you see Mary, Janie, and Chrissy right after their arrival in Honolulu. They had become very close friends. Seemingly inseparable, they would be keeping each other amused in this tropical paradise while their husbands were out on cruises, sometimes for weeks at a time.

Mary and Janie were fluent in the "Opp" language, a silly fad of attaching the fragment opp in front of every English vowel and pronouncing every "silent" letter—a kind of Pig Latin for young adults, which was all the rage in those days. It did not matter to the speakers if they were overheard and were thought foolish by others. Here is an example: "Stoppevoppe oppaskopped thoppat Chroppistoppinoppe toppe oppusoppe throppe-oppe woppords oppin throppe-oppe soppepopparoppatoppe soppentoppencoppencoppes," which in English would be: "Steve asked Christine to use three words in three separate sentences." Mary and Janie chattered on very rapidly in this gibberish. By the hour. They would have contests with each other on who could last the longest. They'd read the paper to each other, and they used it when shopping in the stores. It was a very effective secret language. The only word Chrissy ever learned was Chroppistoppinoppe.

Janie's company diminished the impatient loneliness Navy wife Mary felt, but it could not eradicate her missing Allan, an emptiness he was occasionally able to relieve with a loving telegram, such as this one, which he sent at the beginning of October. Within a couple of weeks, he arrived, bringing wonderful gifts from the Philippines: a set of mahogany and cane nesting tables, linens, and for Chrissy a costume doll. He learned then that Mary was expecting their second child.

Unfortunately, the Territory of Hawaii was not to remain a romantic tropical paradise for long. The following are Mary's own reminiscences, written months afterward: December 5, 1941, we were out to a dinner and a dance at a downtown Honolulu hotel.… [B]oth he [Allan] and Fred left for a cruise early Saturday morning, … which is why both the Lexington and the Astoria were out of the harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941.(20) Mary was one day off on these dates. The official records state that the Lexington and the Astoria (Fred and Allan's cruisers) left for their cruises on Friday morning, December 5. (The purpose of these cruises was ostensibly to deliver supplies and planes to Midway, but it might also have been "fishing"—that is, to look for suspicious activity from Japanese naval craft.) The dinner-dance at the hotel must have been Thursday night, December 4. When daughter Christine Edmands Barrett was recently taking an advanced history class, she tried to use Mary's dates and was corrected by the professor, Dr. Bridgman, who, as she said, was "very kind about family history writings being sometimes inaccurate." (We hope you will be likewise kind with this family history site.) (Close) Janie had stayed overnight with me in my apartment at the Pleasanton Hotel.… The bedroom was upstairs in the apartment, so when the telephone rang about 8 Sunday morning, [3½-year-old] Christine [went] down to answer it. She came back to tell me "that lady" wanted to talk to me … so when I answered it, I heard: "What are you still doing in bed?! The Japanese are bombing us!" I turned on the radio and heard Wesley Edwards describing the whole thing.(21)… Edwards was the well-known broadcast voice on the long-running "Hawaii Calls" radio show, which was then but 6 years old. (Close) Here is what Janie wrote in her diary: We are at war with Japan. Early this morning a flight of bombers attacked the island of Oahu—treacherously, while their ministers talked peace in Washington. They came out of the rising sun to spread death and destruction in a sleeping city. Mary and I were asleep—it wasn't nine o'clock—on a Sunday morning—and the telephone kept ringing downstairs. Finally we woke up enough to send Christine down to answer it. She came back and said a lady wanted her momma, and Mary went down. I don't know why—maybe it was the mixture of sounds—the guns in the distance—the voices in the yard—the odd sound of Mary's voice saying "No! Caroline!" and telling Chris to turn on the radio—but I got up fast and put on my dress and shoes and went down. Mary looked at me so funny. "Caroline says we're having an air raid." All I could think of was the men from Mars scare of so long ago(22)— Not so long ago, only 3 years earlier. Janie was referring to the 1938 Orson Wells radio drama War of the Worlds, which frightened so many people who thought Martians were really invading the Earth. (Close) I said "she's crazy" and tuned in the radio. It was warm and sputtering. The announcer panted "Keep off the streets! Do not use the telephone! We are being attacked! Keep off the streets!" Even then it didn't seem real. I went to the back door and saw [neighbors] Toots and Anne in the yard looking up. Toots said, "It's time you got up! We're having an air raid!" I remember saying "Yes—I know—" and right then I guess I did know. I looked up and could see puffs in the sky—and little dots they said were enemy planes—presumably Japanese—we could hear the anti-aircraft guns—big guns—or maybe they were bombs—Mary told Caroline to try to get down [to join them at their place] if she was scared—and to bring the baby— … We got orders over the radio to fill everything in sight with water. The radio went off the air, too—just came on to give orders and information—we filled the tubs in the yard and all the pots and pans in the house—just in case the water mains got hit. Caroline came in about then with her baby. She was plenty upset—and [???] came in from her house with her baby. She was honestly scared silly—just trembled and shook—and I've never seen anyone so pale and terrified looking.… We kept hearing of planes coming in.… I heard a call for the Police to get a man armed with a knife in Punahou Campus just across the street.… I looked out the window and saw three women trudging up Punahou Hill—with big bundles tied up in bed sheets—one of them was old, and had a bandana tied under her chin—it looked like the pictures you see of refugees in Europe—and they were refugees from some bombed section of the city. Greg [Toots's husband?] came home from the office picking glass and dirt out of his hair. Toots [had] called him and [had] asked him to come home—he [had] laughed and said it was a joke—but it seems a bomb lit down there on Beretania—killed a woman twenty feet the other side of him, and almost blew him out of the building—he was convinced.… Caroline and I got permission from the cop on the corner to go up to her place and get things for the baby—stopped for groceries on the way home—got reports over her radio of [enemy] parachutist landings on Punchbowl and in the mountains at the end of Manoa Valley.… I went out and got permission from the same cop to go pick up some clothes. It didn't dawn on me until much later that the policeman himself was a Jap. Lord what a job these men have on their hands! Imagine having to control a city waked out of a sound sleep by bombs—not a city at war—one at peace and totally unprepared—with all the varied races and people—can they keep it in hand? I hope to God they can—it will be hell if they don't.… Toots came over with bandages for us to fold, and Mary, Caroline, and I tried to do that. We spent the afternoon that way. Later Toots brought us some tea. They are planning to use the Main Hotel building for a hospital in case of need. Anne brought over a kettle of stew and we all had supper together—but I forgot to eat. And by the time Mary came downstairs, it was too dark to see to eat—we had no lights at all, being totally unprepared for a blackout. I went with Anne to put Mike to bed, but it was so dark and eerie, and she couldn't lock her back door—so she decided to pack a case and come back over here. We stopped to listen to her radio. We could get the mainland—and heard an unconfirmed report that the West Virginia was gone. Now back to Mary's reminiscences: [That] afternoon about eight of the wives whose husbands were either out at sea or at Pearl moved in with me and their kids.… [We] moved the mattresses down from upstairs and all slept in the living room that night, scared to death.… [We] had to leave all the lights off, and could do nothing about a blackout for two days. Then we got a chance to get some black construction paper and blacked out the living room.… [Also] on Tuesday [December 9] we sent a telegram to Mother and Dad and to Mrs. Edmands saying all was well.…

It was a time of great fear. Was there another attack coming? Would the enemy try to occupy the islands? Starting immediately, civilians began to be evacuated to California. Mary was ordered to move to the base housing at Pearl City and to be ready to depart on 6 hours notice. Janie moved in, too. That's where they celebrated Christmas 1941.

Now back to Mary's reminiscences: We had missed getting a Christmas tree off the load that came in on a ship on the 5th, so our tree that year was a branch of a hibiscus bush.…

Mary shipped the family car to the mainland as soon as she could, and she packed the trunks. Chrissy was anxious but bravely slept during the blackout amid the packing crates at their new shore-side, two-bedroom home. There were practice air raids when all the civilians had to immediately dive into the newly dug bomb shelters.

Neither Mary nor Janie had any idea where their spouses were, but they somehow got word to them that if they were still in Hawaii, there would be a red cloth hanging on the sea wall.

From Mary again: Allan and Fred did get home once in a while for a few hours, but they had to take a boat from Ford Island to the Pearl City landing because I had sent the car back to the mainland.… [It] was a case of do it now, or you may not have another chance.…

From Mary: I got orders to go home on the Thursday before Easter, to board the ship Easter Sunday with Christine.… [No] orders for Janie. So we went to the submarine base chaplain claiming that I got very seasick, that I was [7 months] pregnant, and who would take care of Chris… so we got orders for Janie to leave with me.… Janie's [state]room had 9 bunks, mine only had 6 where there had been 2. My roommates were 3 pregnant women, a new mother and a baby, and Christine.… There were no deck chairs so when we did go on deck, we had to sit on the deck… and wear life preservers all day long.… [It] must have been worth the price of admission to watch me get back on my feet.(23) She had to roll. Mary, who later claimed that December 7, 1941, had been the first day she had felt her baby kick inside her, jokingly referred to her expected baby, whom she expected to be male, as her "Rising Son." (Close) And poor Christine had to lie flat, put her rear in the air, and stagger to her feet.… My only coat was a summer one I had brought with me from Pensacola, and it did not meet in front! I was cold.

Finally Mary landed in San Francisco.(24)

She had no money, was very cold, and had no idea where to find her car. And she was hungry for cucumbers. She located the car in storage in Oakland, talked to a friendly bank manager who cashed a check for her on her San Diego account, and purchased a winter coat that would fit over her growing figure. Only a week later, Mary and her 4-year-old daughter arrived home in Centralia. Anna had fresh cucumbers for her!(25)

From Mary: It was really a good thing that we were home at that time (they told me it was better to take the baby packaged).… Fred's ship, the Lexington, was sunk the end of May, and Allan's, the Astoria, in August, so they knew where to find us—at home on the farm.

The baby, Allan Christie Edmands, was born June 9, 1942, in a nursing facility in Centralia. He was truly a "Junior," but that word is not on his birth certificate. Obviously his parents had discussed the name and the diminutive to be used should their second child be a son: "Butch." Amazingly, proud daddy Allan sent a telegram of congratulations from the front lines of battle: Midway.

Mary and her baby, as was the custom of the time, were kept in the nursing facility for 2 weeks. Chris stayed, as she had many times, with her grandparents on the ranch. In a few weeks they were joined by the other grandmother (Allan's mother), who took the train out from Massachusetts. On the left is a picture of Chris, Butch, and Grandmother Edmands (click it to enlarge it).

Allan's ship, the cruiser Astoria, was sunk during the Battle of Savo Island (August 1942).(26)

After that battle, Allan was furloughed for several weeks. Mary joined him in Long Beach, California for one of the first of those weeks. She left 2-month-old Butch with Waunch's Prairie neighbors and Chris with her parents. Allan and Mary then drove back to Washington, retrieved their children, and moved along to the new duty station of Alameda, California.(27)

The home front was very supportive of their military families. And not just with childcare. There was one occasion that Allan was in Oakland and asked that Mary join him. She was determined to go and convinced the county ration board that she should have the gasoline to do so. However, Mary's car had a bald tire. Anna took the tires off her 1936 Dodge and gave them to Mary. Driving around Centralia on a bald tire seemed to Anna a small sacrifice to the war effort. On the right you see Allan and Mary at Coronado, California, in May 1943.

The extended family traded ration stamps back and forth. Sugar coupons were needed for canning the produce of the farm. The farm folks did not need vegetable or meat coupons. Everything seemed to work out except the shoe coupons. Growing children need more than one pair of shoes a year. Mary finally resorted to cutting the toes out of the school shoes so they could be used for summer sandals. On the right you see the kids with a somewhat stressed-out Mary in 1943.

Though Mary was deeply in love with her husband, her later memories of having to play the role of "Navy wife" were not fond: moving from San Diego to Pensacola to San Diego to Honolulu to San Diego again to Alameda to Piedmont (with a gouging landlady that Mary had to bawl out) to Coronado to Long Beach and, now, to San Diego once again.(28)

Mary had to kowtow to the wives of superior officers, she was struggling on a small budget, and she was raising very young children by herself.(29)

Chris was old enough to actually be a help around the house, but little Butch was a handful. With his loud, boisterous, rambunctious, exploring nature, "into everything," he needed constant monitoring. And he attracted more than his share of childhood maladies, including breathing problems associated with enlarged adenoids and tonsils. And toilet-training him was so much more difficult than it had been with Chris; every day there were hours of laundry to do in the wringer washing machine.(30)

It is likely that around this time Mary acquired the daily habit of relaxing with a beer or two. On social occasions she might drink hard liquor, but beer was her preferred beverage. On the right you can see Mary surrounded by Allan and his brother John and a number of other Navy officers at a party just before Christmas 1943 (click to enlarge).

Allan was seldom home; there was a war going on. For months at a time, Mary did not hear from him and had not the slightest assurance that he was safe.(31)

Here is an airbrushed photo of Mary, nearly 27 years old, in 1944, year 3 of the war. By then Mary was not holding up under the continuous stress. Sending cheery letters to Allan on a very regular basis and knowing that all correspondence was routinely censored was trying.(32)

War news in Life magazine and in the newsreels was gripping. However, that too was censored. And tardy.

Most everyone involved the Pacific theater of the war dreaded the "final push": Even as the enemy empire dwindled, its borders retracting closer and closer to the Japanese home islands, the prospect of a looming actual invasion of those islands of determined resistance was very frightening. The realistic expectation that the invasion might last an entire bloody year led to a state of panic back home.(33)

It was at this point that, to her great dismay, Mary found that she was pregnant once again. This was more than she could take.(34)

Allan discussed with his sister Jean and brother-in-law Roland the possibility of an in-family adoption. Regretfully, they had to tell him no. After 12 years of marriage, Jean was, at last, pregnant herself.(35)

Anna Jane, always to be referred to as "Janna," was born at the U.S. Navy hospital in La Jolla, California, October 3, 1944.(36)

Allan saw his new baby a few weeks later for just that single time.

On the last day of November 1944, Mary took 2½-year-old Butch with her 600 miles north to Santa Rosa, to spend 7 weeks with Allan, who was temporarily stationed at Santa Rosa Naval Air Base to practice with the new torpedo squadron he was now skipper of. Mother and son stayed at the Santa Rosa Hotel, and Allan joined them as often as he could get away. (The demands of Allan's work, though—leading his squadron flying their new TBM Avenger torpedo planes in monotonous anti-submarine practice exercises and ensuring that they would be able to land safely on carriers at night—kept him very busy.)

Chris, 6½ years old, and 2-month-old Janna stayed behind in San Diego, with Janie, who agreed, as often before, to baby-sit. Here is a Christmas thank-you letter that Chris sent to Mary. Finally, Mary and Butch had to part from Allan in San Francisco on January 17, 1945. Mary did not know that would be the last time she would see him.

After returning home, she wrote to her mother-in-law that she had a lot of fun celebrating a belated Christmas with the children and Janie, but you have to imagine the stress was palpable. Allan was able to send a valentine card from Kaneohe Marine Air Station in Hawaii, where the squadron continued night carrier landing practice. Then, as his carrier sailed westward into the war zone, he was beyond communication. (He was able to send out a letter to Mary, dated March 13, although he couldn't reveal where he was. The letter had to have come from the Ulithi Atoll staging area in the western Pacific. It took 3 weeks to reach its destination.)

During the ensuing weeks, Mary paced the floor. She could feel the bile rising in her throat. She could not eat. Hardly a bite. She lived for the news broadcasts on the radio. She waited for the postman.

Mary knew that the war in Germany was thundering to a close. The carnage would soon be over in Europe. But Allan was not in Europe. He was out there in the vast Pacific Ocean as he had been for almost all of the last 3 years. In danger. In more danger now than he had ever been. Mary was not supposed to know what ship he was on. But Allan had shared that classified information with her and then had sworn her to secrecy.

Allan was in command of a squadron of airplanes on an aircraft carrier that was headed for the home islands of Japan. Torpedo bombers. Mary knew that those planes were first to any target and, to achieve maximum damage, went in slow and low and straight (without evasive zig-zags), making them much more vulnerable to antiaircraft. She was scared shitless but could not show it. She had to keep a brave front. All the other wives were in the same situation, and Mary did not want to frighten her oldest daughter.

But Chris knew something was up. The first grader was losing weight; had huge dark circles under her eyes. Mary worried about the girl. Took her to the doctor. The physician looked the child over and pronounced that lots of milk would help. He then went on to suggest that Mary also start drinking milk to maintain her own weight.

The only time that Mary ventured outside was to sit on the back steps, hug herself tight, and rock back and forth. Usually this was when the children were down for the night and her frantic tears could flow.

The only letter for all of March arrived from Allan on April 2nd. It was dated March 13th. Just how far away was that aircraft carrier? She knew that the Navy and the Marines had invaded Okinawa. Was Allan involved in that? There was nothing on the news to indicate. Mary could feel her strength failing. She was really very sick.(37)

Nonetheless, when Mary wrote to Allan on her tissue-thin pale pink stationery she tried hard to be chatty: tell of the Easter baskets made from oatmeal boxes, what a chatterbox Butch had become. When Mary wrote to her parents on the farm, she did share how worried she was but also gave day-to-day news and inquire if there could be extra blue ration coupons that could be shared by the Centralia family. You can read a transcript of a couple of these letters, written in early April 1945.

Mary was hanging on by just a thin, thin thread. Then the doorbell rang. It was Western Union, delivering some dreaded news from the Navy.(38)

The telegram was from Vice Admiral Randall Jacobs, Chief of Naval Personnel, who informed Mary that her husband was missing and that she must not aid the enemy by divulging the name of his ship. Mary called Janie to please come over to take care of the children. She went to her room—stayed there, in the dark, hardly ever coming out, for a week.(39)

That Allan was "missing" (rather than officially dead) provided a small reason for hope. But a very small reason it was, with a lot of speculation! A Marine flyer named Johnny came by and told her that Allan was on deck waiting to take off when the carrier was attacked, but he couldn't tell her much more than that. Here is an imprecisely dated letter of late April that Mary wrote to her parents, following up on a phone call, presumably within a few days of receiving the telegram and of gathering some of the speculations about what had happened. A chaplain came to visit, too, but Mary couldn't talk to him. Some of Allan's effects were shipped to her.

And here is the next letter Mary wrote them, dated May 1, where she asked permission to come "home" to Centralia and explained the financial difficulties her family was about to face. That letter referred to Allan's exec officer, Lieutenant Charles Carr, who had taken over command of the squadron. Apparently, Carr had recovered Allan's ring and would soon contact her with more information. And here is Carr's sympathy note, in which he referred to Allan in past tense and stated that

[he] and his crew were forced to go over the side along with others to avoid [explosions and fire]. He was not seen after that though many were rescued. I hesitate to offer any opinion as to what happened and must declare myself a failure in advising you as to what hopes there are, Mary. The situation is in the hands of God.

Mary took a deep breath. In her heart she clung to a hope she knew in her head was every day more and more futile, but she had to take charge of everyday matters: She needed to get ready for moving back, at least temporarily, to Centralia. She needed to find tenants for the San Diego house that she might return to in a year. She needed to sell her car. She needed to sort through piles of stuff, separating the detritus of junk to be discarded from the family treasures (especially Allan's things) to be packed for the move.

And she had to act like a mother again. Janie was a great help with the two little ones, especially with baby Janna, but Chris was having trouble at school: Her first-grade teacher, Miss Frank, reported that she was listless, could not concentrate, could not sit up, might not be well. Take a look at that report card.

Mary rushed up to the school to share with Miss Frank the reason that her child was acting so oddly. She invited all the classmates to a seventh birthday party to be held in the back garden of the house on First Avenue. She rented a movie camera and filmed the party.

Mary was sorting her belongings and burning some unneeded personal documents. She also burned a particularly disturbing letter. Her sister-in-law Peg, wife of Allan's brother, John, suggested that a wife of a serviceman during wartime simply had to expect the ever-present possibility of becoming a widow. Such offensive lack of empathy was not what Mary needed just then! She was so angry that she burned Peg's letter in the fireplace.

With all the sorting and burning, Mary set the house on fire. A burning ember had traveled up the chimney into the hot San Diego spring day. That meant that there was an added task. Now the roof needed to be repaired.(40)

Finally, in June, Chris finished first grade. Plans that had quickly been made were now implemented. Suffering from "walking pneumonia," Mary gave away the family's pet cat, El Gato. She put some belongings in local storage and shipped other items to Centralia. She found tenants for the house.

Janie volunteered to take Janna, almost 9 months old by then, to New Orleans with her, "for a little while," and Mary, relieved, accepted; they would stay with Janie's parents, Captain and Mrs. Doyle, who were on assignment there.(41)

Then Mary secured sufficient money from the Navy to pay train fare for her and Butch from San Diego to Centralia (see that official authorization, typed in late June, at the bottom of the Navy's April telegram); she had to finance Chris's fare herself. Her sister, Jane, agreed to care for these two Edmands children as well as her own at home on the farm while Mary would finish her secretarial certificate in the autumn and get a job that would support herself and her children. So Mary, Chris, and Butch traveled north. Here is a postcard Mary sent to her parents on June 29:

Dearest Mother & Dad—
I leave tomorrow— I feel fine— just tired. I'm going to stay with Susie & Walter for a few days— let you know later when to really expect me. Everything is squared away now. So bye and much love, Mary

From Christine: Without the baby? My 7-year-old mind could not fathom this. Leave the baby? I know I argued that Janna should come with us. I recall my [Aunt Janie] telling me that a baby sister would soon want my dolls; baby sisters grow up to be bothersome. This adult rebuttal to my childish plea still rankles [more than 60] years later. We boarded the train north. I was trusted with Butch's leash.(42) From Allan Jr.: As a toddler with caretakers who had no free hands to hold his hand, little Butch was often on a leash. (Close) … Mother had packages and bundles in both hands. We arrived in Centralia at midnight. Without the baby. I was sad. And frightened. I had spent months being frightened. I missed my Daddy; I knew he was never coming back. Mother seemed angry and she was always crying.

The problem with Mary's plan is that the situation at "home" had changed dramatically. By the summer of 1945, father Fred had taken to sitting by the hour on the back porch staring into the middle distance. He lost things, made strange, unintelligible statements; he wandered off and needed help with his most basic needs. Strong as she was, Anna could not continue to run the farm on her own. Tom came by fairly often, but his home was now on rural land 10 miles to the south. Anna turned to Jane and Jack. They rescued the situation by moving into the ranch house with their three boys, and they helped Anna and Fred move into a tiny house on Gold Street in town.

When Mary moved in with her extended family, all the good intentions were sorely strained. Emotions ran very high in the crowded ranch house. Anna visited often to relieve the baby-sitting chores as much as she could. Jack had a violent temper, as did Mary. Jack's back-country North Carolina upbringing would not allow his mind to understand that a woman could challenge his every statement. He fumed, frustrated he could not "discipline" his sister-in-law as readily as he could his wife. To punish his 11-year-old and his 6-year-old sons, Jack used a razor strap. Mary growled, "You will never touch my children. Do… You… Understand?"(43)

Mary had to wait until the autumn to resume her studies toward a secretarial certificate. As the months went by since the terrible April telegram, hopes that Allan might return from being "missing" seemed ever more futile. Mary was sleeping most of the time. To others, she was still clinging to those hopes, though. Allan's mother reported in her diary having received a letter from Mary: "[She] still hopes for Allan's return. I wonder if she really does. I don't see how she can."

With the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early August, the war came to an abrupt end. The rest of that horrific yearlong final push was no longer necessary. Mary seethed with hatred toward the Japanese, those "sneaky Jap monkeys," who were the reason her husband was lost. Why hadn't those bombs been used a few months earlier? Her brother Fred wrote, asking her if there was anything he could bring her from Asia. "A pair of Japanese ears," Mary responded. But when Fred returned with a human skull he said had belonged to a Japanese soldier, Mary was aghast and wouldn't let it in the house.(44)

When September came, Mary was enrolled in her secretarial courses.(45)

In early October, baby Janna had her first birthday in Laramie, Wyoming, where she was on an extended stay with Janie. They had returned there after the trip to New Orleans. There can be no doubt that by this time, Janna considered Janie her mother (and was learning to address her that way). Janie kept in contact with Mary, of course, who was still approving of this arrangement.

On October 12, the other shoe finally dropped: the follow-up telegram, this one from Vice Admiral Louis Denfeld, Chief of Naval Personnel. Mary received it when she got home from school.

With deep regrets and sincerest sympathy, Admiral Denfeld wrote: "A CAREFUL REVIEW OF ALL FACTS AVAILABLE RELATING TO THE DISAPPEARANCE OF YOUR HUSBAND LIEUTENANT COMMANDER ALLAN CHRISTIE EDMANDS USN PREVIOUSLY REPORTED MISSING LEADS TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THERE IS NO HOPE FOR HIS SURVIVAL AND THAT HE LOST HIS LIFE AS RESULT OF ENEMY ACTION ON 19 MARCH 1945 WHILE IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY." He promised that if further details were received, they would be forwarded promptly. Mary never had access to "ALL FACTS AVAILABLE," so if she didn't accept the Admiral's conclusion, she could imagine all kinds of things.

Mary fell apart with the second telegram. Her sister Jane asked Anna to come out to the ranch to stay with her. Father Fred, in his partially lucid moments, continued to insist that Allan would be found. Though in some part of her mind Mary kept that hope alive as well, she had to accept living without him.

Mary was expected to pick up the pieces of her fractured life and, like thousands of war widows, move on, unsung, to build an altered future. Allan was gone, frozen in time, lost to everyone except those who held the threads of his memory. Tears rose in her eyes whenever Allan's name was brought up. Mary treasured each photograph that showed his image and each item that Allan had once owned: uniform buttons, class ring, leather helmets, dog tags, a pipe rack, Annapolis yearbooks, Philippine linens, the list goes on. However, years passed before Mary would again utter his name.(46)

From Christine: Finally, at the end of 1945, Janie arrived in Centralia with toddler Janna. They stayed for several weeks—first in a bedroom at the farm and then at the Centralia Hotel in town (the second floor, the northeast corner, with a balcony; see the arrow, especially from the enlarged picture). When Anna took Butch and me into town to go to church (the First Christian Church at the corner of Silver and Pine), she allowed me to skip the service and go visit my little sister Janna and my Aunt Janie. I walked two blocks, crossing busy Main Street, and spent a little time with "my" baby. I was back as church let out. I can recall how distressed I was. Everyone seemed to be ignoring the baby. My baby. Anna was visiting the farm one afternoon and confronted Mary about her having sent the baby off with Janie. Jane sided with Anna, and scolded her sister for the disrespect she was showing to their mother. Mary screamed at the two of them: "These are my children, goddammit, and I will be the one who will say what the hell will and what the hell will not happen to them!" Then Mary spotted her frightened daughter standing in the doorway. She continued her tirade against me; this time it was about the sin of eavesdropping. I wondered what I could do so that my mother would not give me away next. I decided that I would have to be very, very quiet and very, very good. Mary was not yet ready to be a mother to a toddler. At 3½ years old, Butch was enough of a handful for her.(47) Butch's problem with enlarged adenoids and tonsils was finally so serious that he had to have them removed. The doctor gave Mary a "two-fer": He removed Chris's tonsils at the same time, even though she did not need the operation. Unfortunately, she nearly choked to death on her own blood in the dead of night, necessitating a mad rush to the hospital. (Close) When Janie asked if she could take Janna with her back to Laramie, Mary acquiesced, presumably signing whatever papers were necessary. Mary agreed to forward her third child's monthly $35 check from the Veterans Administration. All Janna's bonding was with Janie, who effectively became her mother.

Mary hurried through her education and, in early 1946, she landed a nice job working as a bookkeeper 5½ days a week at Gesler-McNiven Company Home Furnishers, the nicest furniture store in Centralia. Now she herself could contribute to her family's upkeep. But. She still needed that childcare help. And the farmhouse was about to get more crowded, since Jane was now pregnant with her fourth child.

Mary had another blow coming. Oakview School sent a word that Mary had to come in for a conference. She quickly went to see Miss Benedict and Principal Bogan. Christine could not read at all. Not a single word. The child needed to repeat second grade. Mary persuaded the teacher and principal that she would tutor her daughter (with phonics) to remedy the illiteracy.

Mary, 29 years old, needed to reassess her life. Quickly. If she was really honest with herself, Butch was not doing well either. He made extra work almost daily because he still wet the bed. Every single night. Sheets or diapers were part of the load her sister had to bear.

During the height of all this chaos, the nicest thing happened. Mary was invited to dinner at a family friend's home. The Barnards had a fellow they wanted her to meet. Mary was not at all interested but went to be polite and to get a much-needed social break.

Harry Ashbrook, a local Centralia man she had known for years, was 34. He had been married, divorced, had no children. He easily made friends with everyone.

The Cookie Truck by Christine Edmands Barrett, 1998 The campaign was so successful that I was an adult before I realized that there had been a campaign. The goal was to win over the children. We were easy pick'ins! You see, he drove the Cookie Truck and took us for rides. When it was my turn, Harry would come to the ranch before dawn. I would be ready. Shiny face. School dress. A ribbon in my hair. Reminded repeatedly by Mother to behave. In 1946 Harry worked for the Daviscourt Bakery. Our day would start at the bakery while he loaded the Cookie Truck. The bakers, in long white smocks and high hats, would give me a tour of the cavernous room. The ovens. "Peek in to see the dough baking." The warming trays. "Lift the cloth to see the bread rising." The vats of oil. "Stand far back while the doughnuts are cooking. The oil might pop, and we don't want you burned." Flour scattered on the floor and down the fronts of the bakers. The strong sweet smell of cinnamon blending with the tang of yeast and the thickness of the oil. It is a rare combination of smells. Unique to a mid-century bakery. Three days a week, Harry delivered to town stores and twice a week to the country stores. After he loaded the truck, we would stop at a real restaurant for breakfast. I would always have dry cereal and milk… any small box I wanted from the display behind the counter. I always chose the Rice Crispies. They made such a wonderful popping noise in the milk. We did not have that kind of treat at the ranch. Then we would start our deliveries. At each stop Harry would introduce me as his "helper for the day." I would wander around the store while Harry took away the unsold bread and replaced it with the new selection of white bread, brown bread, doughnuts, and cookies. At each stop, I was always offered a treat by the store owner, who—no doubt—was in on Harry's campaign of "courting the children." By midday, I was full to the brim with candy and cookies. "Behaving" as instructed, I would smile and say "No, thank you, I'm very full" when offered yet another treat. All the stores, town as well as country, were one-room affairs never bigger than 200 feet square. These mom-and-pop stores served the needs of all the households in those long-ago days. What we could not grow on the ranch, we could get at the store on the corner. The stock was sparse, consisting of paper products, some canned goods, wilted weary produce, wrapped… as well as bulk… candy, and treats like this commercially made bread. Harry would fill the time on the streets and the highway with small talk, observations, and jokes. The stops were filled with laughter and long conversations. Harry had to help me down from the high step of the passenger seat and make sure I was introduced, entertained, and safe. Therefore, each stop took longer because I was along. He did not seem to mind. In fact, he seemed to like having me for company. It made me feel very good.(48) Later that summer Mother married Harry. When she died in 1992, they had been married for 46 years. In the summer of 1995, my adult daughters J.J. and Mary had occasion to stop at their Grandpa Boots (Harry, then a widower for 3 years) for lunch. I asked J.J. what he had served. "Toasted cheese sandwiches, Mom. Velveeta on white bread. Kinda speaks for his life, don't you think?" The goal was to win over the children. Still is!! But it gets harder when the child is 23 and a cynic instead of 8 and very easily pleased. I would have thought Velveeta on white bread the highest of treats! (Close)

Harry was thrilled with the idea of a ready-made family. The children were darling. The grieving widow was in need of a few smiles. Harry was tickled pink when Mary said yes.

Harry purchased a modest house on two city lots on Silver Street in south Centralia. There was great potential for remodeling.(49)

Mary was pleased. She quit her job at Gesler-McNiven to be married in early August 1946. She had been a widow for just 17 months.

This marriage was of course, an extremely pragmatic choice for Mary. It had become obvious that she was not going to succeed on her own. She desperately needed to get away from the farm. She needed a partner to assist in raising her children. Harry was a nice enough man, so, with eyes wide open she rolled the dice. What a lucky lady she was! (To see a picture of them on their honeymoon—and to see that modest house—click the wedding picture at the right.)

In addition, selling her San Diego house financed the Silver Street remodel and later cleared the title on the Gold Street house, and purchased the remnants of the Waunch's Prairie farm. All this in turn, allowed the Ashbrooks, when they retired many years later, to travel extensively. Pretty good move. But in 1946, Mary thought her life plan had failed. Of course, she had no clue what the future held.

Harry introduced laughter to the family. When Butch would wet the bed once again, Harry would shush Mary, take his stepson by the hand, and go back to the bedroom to look diligently for the "rain leak" that surely must have formed in the night in the roof over the child's bed. Harry also had the little boy convinced that he could be squeezed into a milk bottle to be put out with the empties and would then taken away by the milkman in the morning. When he couldn't fit Butch head first into the milk bottle, Harry announced that it was because Butch's head was not pointed enough. Yet. He would march off to the pencil sharpener, child under arm, to remedy that situation. Butch, squealing with laughter, was delighted at the over-the-top teasing.

Mary's life with hometown-grown Harry was so much different from that with her Navy officer Allan. Easier, for sure. Fishing, camping trips, evenings with canasta or pinochle, PTA meetings, local Centralia politics and society—so much different from the formalities of Navy life and the continual moving and that damned war!

Although this was evidently the life Mary had been brought up in—and she seemed completely adapted to it—she did not forget her tall, athletic yet cultured, hero husband, who was "missing" in the war and had never been found.

Allan and Harry each had a sense of humor, for sure—Allan's more for witty word games, Harry's coarser, more blue-collar ribald.

Harry was a softer man. He loved sports, but always as a spectator rather than as a participant. Easily dominated, he complied with most of Mary's demands, and he accustomed himself to her nasty moods, even her most outrageous tantrums, displays that Allan would have laughed at.

Intellectual, college-educated Allan had been familiar with Coleridge and Longfellow. Not Harry. Never a scholar, basically unread, barely having made it out of high school only 3 months before his 21st birthday, Harry was a practical, hardworking, and loving man. He teased Mary (for example, the stories he told of how "fat" she had been in high school), but he was somewhat in awe of her.

He was certainly just what Mary needed in her life then. Handy with tools, he could fix things—the car, the house, whatever was broken and needed attention.

Mary needed attention. In 1946. And in the years to come.

He was down to earth, she was an intellectual who could be earthy, too. It was a very good and loving marriage they had all those years.

Mary soon noticed that her young children were beginning to talk like the nice man she had married. Harry and his entire family were loving and teasing—and, according to the tenets of proscriptive grammar, had a wonderful way of absolutely clobbering the English language. Mary never corrected what she was hearing. She just never allowed herself to emulate the Ashbrook crowd's speech patterns. But what do you say to an 8-year-old and a very verbal 4-year-old? She took Chris and Butch aside and had a serious conversation with them about Harry. She had them agree that Harry talked differently from the way their mother did. Mary then gently but firmly instructed them to (1) always just talk like their mother, and (2) never correct their stepfather. Those explicit instructions did not need to be delivered more than that one time, but they were occasionally enforced with one of Mary's "looks."

Harry effectively rescued Mary, Chris, and Butch out of the turmoil they were living on the Waunch's Prairie chicken ranch and set them up in a home in town. Their lives settled into a safe normality, they found friends in the neighborhood, Chris attended third grade in an elementary school a block away. World War II was finally over for them—nearly a year after the official end of it.

And now Harry had become "Dad" to Chris and Butch.

Peas 'n Honey by Christine Edmands Barrett, 1999 I know that they had been hungry at times. Not starving, but hungry. Dad: "[Older brother] Gene quit school then… stayed home… got a job… cut our hair… made sure we had enough to eat.… [The year was 1922. Gene was 14 years old. Dad was 10.] I joined the CCCs right out of high school.… made $30 a month… got to keep $5… sent $25 home to help. We had enough food in the camp, though." Mother: "Could not stand the sight of chicken for years. That was all we had on the ranch. When I was first married, I had to ask the butcher how to cook the beef I had just purchased. We had beef on the farm but it was always canned. Never fresh. I was 20 years old and had never cooked fresh beef. Never lost my taste for eggs, though." The legacy touches the next generation: Never waste. Use it up. Save it. It might come in handy sometime. And… Clean your plate. Eat what is put in front of you. It seemed so unfair. Mother would do the serving onto our plates. A "helping" of each item on the table. Meat. Potatoes. Cooked vegetables. Salad. Then she would insist that we eat what she had put on our plates. Dinnertime was a battleground of wills.(50) From Allan Jr.: It was also one more time when good etiquette was stressed. We learned to set the table properly—always napkin on the far left, then the fork, then the plate, then the knife, then the spoon; a glass was above the knife and spoon. Having been strictly "trained" to become right-handed, we held our fork in our right hand. Except when we needed to use a knife and fork together—say, to carve a slice of meat into proper bite-size pieces; then we needed to shift the fork to the left hand and hold the knife with the right. Violations of these rules were met with Mary's fork stabbing at the offending hand. Mary was once very embarrassed when administering this correction to Butch in a crowded restaurant: Butch loudly pleaded: "Don't fork me, Mama! Don't fork me!" Unfortunately, his pronunciation of the word fork was not yet mature enough to give proper emphasis to the sound of r. (Close) Mother's rules were law, but Dad lent some comic relief and gave Butch and me hope that there would be better days ahead. "Try this," Dad said, adding a generous topping of catsup on my hated cottage cheese. Catsup is very good on cottage cheese.(51) Mother regarding Dad: "He'll end up with catsup on his ice cream one of these days. He eats catsup on everything!" (Close) Peas. Butch hated peas.(52) From Allan Jr.: Why did I hate peas and yet love them today? I still dislike peas that have become wrinkly from being overcooked. I detest peas (and any other vegetables) that taste burned. I'm pretty sure that's how my mother typically cooked them. Cooking was never her strong suit. (She was much better with sewing and knitting and crocheting.) (Close) He was 4 years old. Had to keep his left hand in his lap. Could not use a "pusher." Had to finish what was on his plate before he could leave the table. Some evenings he was there until 8pm. Still staring at the half cup of peas scattered all over the 12-inch dinner plate. He would finally be released without eating them but would be sent directly to bed as punishment. Dad lightened the moment again: I eat my peas with honey, I've done it all my life. It may sound kind of funny, But it keeps 'em on my knife! There were two rare exceptions to the Clean Your Plate Rule. One was that I did not have to eat liver. While we had been living in Hawaii [summer 1941 to April 1942], Mother had made me eat a dinner that she had prepared but was not eating herself. Liver. I ate it. Because she insisted. I got violently ill with food poisoning from the spoiled meat. Mother felt so terrible about this that I never again had to eat liver. When liver was to be served, she made me scrambled eggs for dinner instead. I did not recall the poisoning that happened when I was 3, but I lived with the great legacy of Mother's guilty feelings. YES! No liver! Ever! The second exception to the Clean Your Plate Rule was negotiated by Dad: Mother would pan-fry thin strips of clam that she had dipped in an egg batter and rolled in seasoned bread crumbs. There were always… awful. Tough. Just like eating a strip of rubber tire. Mother's chowder was awful, too. Simmered rubber tire bits in a seasoned milk broth. No amount of nagging could get Chris to eat clams. Not even one. Ever. I would eat the broth or pick off the crusty fried batter and eat that. Then I'd sit for 2 hours and go off to bed with Mother's eyes drilling holes in the back of my head. Finally, Dad negotiated on my behalf. One of the conditions was that I had to cook my own scrambled-egg suppers. I could cook respectable eggs by the time I was 10.(53) I was in my 20s touring the Seattle waterfront before I braved clams. Ivar's Acres of Clams. Clam strips. Quite good, actually. I, who swore that I would not be like my mother, carried several of these mealtime edicts to yet another generation. Fortunately, my daughters soon pointed out—strongly—that they were in charge of what went into their stomachs… and when, and how. I'm sure that with my grandchildren the food part of the Great Depression is finally history. (Close)

Harry had spent much of the war years in a TB sanitarium, and as a result, from 1946, Mary, Chris, and Butch were "suspect" of being TB carriers because they now lived with one. This meant a lung x-ray in Chehalis quarterly for a couple of years, semi-annually for the following couple of years, and annually for the couple of years after that. There were anxious days while the results were read. Of course, Harry was on a short leash for years longer.

In the November 1946 midterm election, Mary voted consistently Republican and helped that party, after long last, win a majority in Congress. She particularly detested President Truman and often repeated the jibe "To err is Truman." In this she was rebelling against her father, who had always strictly voted Democratic. There is some irony in this: Father Fred had always espoused very patriotic opinions, and Mary was in accord with his patriotism. Apparently she felt the Republican policies advanced her patriotism more effectively.

Mary's strict child-rearing practices were, of course, informed by what she had experienced from her own parents. In addition, she was a woman of her times. In the days when she was raising growing children, there were primarily two diametrically opposed "professional" recommendations for child rearing, and each had a profound influence on American parents: either that of Benjamin McLane Spock or that of John Broadus Watson.(54)

Even if a mother had never read either book, and it is doubtful that Mary had read either one, she was so much influenced by one of the two philosophies, reviewed and excerpted in many magazines, that she would inevitably be at home in one camp or the other.

Bestselling pediatrician Spock advocated flexibility and affection in child rearing. A child should be treated as an individual, without excessive emphasis on "discipline." Countering the cold authoritarianism of much parental advice of the time, he argued that cuddling babies and showing affection to children would make them happier and more secure.

[You] need to accept that your child is who he is. As a parent, you have the most influence of anyone in shaping your child's developing personality, but you don't have anything near total control. Children need to feel accepted and to be accepted. Only after that can they work together with their parents to handle themselves in more and more effective ways.… The best experiences for infants are those that they inherently enjoy. To be beneficial, an experience has to make sense to your baby. You can tell that an experience is making sense when your baby smiles, laughs, coos, or gazes with bright, sparkly eyes. Little babies don't understand the words their parents are saying, but being talked to certainly makes sense to them!… Loving means, first of all, accepting your child as an individual who is wonderful but not perfect. Every child has strengths and weaknesses, gifts and challenges. Some babies are naturally quiet and cuddly; others are loud and adventurous. Loving your baby means adjusting your expectations to fit your baby, not trying to adjust your baby to fit your expectations.… Young babies especially may need the physical sensations of being held or rocked in order to calm down.… [My] advice to most parents is to wait with [toilet] training until a child is two to two and a half.… During a tantrum, it's helpful to stay nearby so that your child doesn't feel alone. At the same time, it's best not to get angry at your child, threaten punishment, plead for calm, or try too hard to make everything better.

According to the widely accepted behavioral psychologist Watson, however, a happy child was one

who never cries unless actually stuck by a pin… who loses himself in work and play— who quickly learns to overcome the small difficulties in his environment without running to mother, father, nurse or other adult— who soon builds up a wealth of habits that tides him over dark and rainy days— who puts on such habits as politeness and neatness and cleanliness that adults are willing to be around him at least part of the day; [he is] a child who is willing to be around adults without fighting incessantly for notice— who eats what is placed before him and "asks no questions for conscience sake"— who sleeps and rests when put to bed for sleep and rest.…

Mary was certainly more in the Watson camp.(56)

In fact, she was even a little bit influenced by a stricter author, one who had certainly influenced Watson himself: Puritan pediatrician Luther Hemmett Holt, who advocated strict time schedules for feeding and toilet training, as well as limiting affection:

A really contrary infant might try for an hour, or even for two or three hours, to get the best of his mother by crying. She must never give in, provided she is convinced that nothing is physically amiss with the child. Habitual criers should be left alone most of the time, otherwise they might become "nervous." Babies under six months old should never be played with, and of kissing the less the better.(57)

Mary was no rigid behaviorist, however. Though, like Watson, she worried about "spoiling" a crying child by routinely picking him or her up, she was naturally affectionate and had no problem with kissing or hugging her children in general. (One of her frequent descriptive adjectives she might apply to a child was "cute as a bug's ear.") On the other hand, even though—and this is ironic—Watson strongly warned against spanking and other corporeal punishment, Mary recapitulated her own upbringing in a "hand's on" way: Misbehavior might warrant a stern warning first ("Stop that whining, or I will give you something to cry about!"), but its continuation was met with a sound spanking.(58)

(After her child reached the age of 9 or 10, however, the corporeal punishment changed to a sharp slap in the face. As the child grew still older (and larger), the punishment became less corporeal and more emotional, more of a sarcastic verbal assault, a shaming, designed to invoke guilt feelings.)

On one memorable occasion her punishment of her preschool son, however warranted, was extreme (and today would be considered child abuse). When he was 4 years old, Butch, who had been admonished several times to look both ways before crossing the street, ran in front of a fast-moving car on his way to play with his friend Gordy. Brakes squealed. It was a near miss. Scared silly, Mary brought Butch into the kitchen and ordered him to stand in front of the teacart. Then she pushed the cart into him. Hard. So hard it bruised him, knocked him to the floor, and made him scream in fear and pain. She ordered him to stand up in front of the cart again. She ran him down again. And again and again—and again, for 20 minutes. He was wailing, begging her to stop. She was crying, too, but she yelled through her own tears over his screams: "A car is much bigger! It will hurt a lot more! Now stand up! And stand still!"

Chris was screaming at their mother to stop this horror. Mary turned to her: "You shut up, or you will be next. Do… You… Understand?"

Butch, covered with bruises, cried for hours in his room. He had learned his lesson, though. No more brakes squealed.

On another occasion, when 5-year-old Butch was bored with Sunday School and certainly did not want to wait in the nursery through the drawn-out service at the First Christian Church, he decided to simply walk home. His grandma, Anna, had taken him to Sunday School and church, as she did each Sunday, while Mary and Harry stayed home in their pajamas, as they always did, slept late, drank coffee, and read the Sunday paper. (Usually Anna took Chris, too, but this particular Sunday, Chris was staying over at a friend's.)

Anna expected to pick Butch up in the nursery after the final hymn and benediction. But she couldn't find him, because he wasn't there.

Butch had walked home by himself—always along Silver Street, from Pine Street, where the church was, across Main Street (which was busy U.S. Highway 99), across Locust and Walnut and Pear and Plum and Cherry (another busy street) and Chestnut and Jefferson, and one more block to his house—a mile altogether. He had never walked that stretch before, but he had paid attention while being driven it.

Mary and Harry were startled to see him come in the door by himself, at about the time he should be arriving—but without Anna. Why hadn't Anna come in with him?

"Where's Grandma?" Mary asked. "She just dropped me and left," Butch lied. Obviously, transparently lied.

"Are you sure?" his parents pressed. "If you tell us the truth, we'll scold you for not waiting for Grandma, but we won't spank you. But if you lie to us——" They made it clear to Butch that the punishment for persisting in a lie was to be more than an ordinary spanking: Harry would use his belt.

Butch persisted.

Not long afterward, Anna arrived, distraught that she hadn't found Butch at church, and Butch received another memorable lesson.

Butch had a remarkable sense of direction, even at that age. Mary would take him with her into the woods to pick wild blackberries for her delicious jams. Along the logging trail, then into a gully, doubling back at the end of the gully, up a rise, following the berries, filling the buckets. Butch ate more than he picked, complained about getting scratched by the thorns, sometimes rested on a stump. They were there for 2, maybe 3 hours, on a fine sunny day.

Finally it was time to return to the car. Mary was disoriented, started heading in the wrong direction. "Mommy, it's this way," Butch would correct. And he was right. Every time.(59)

In the winter months of 1947, Mary came close to losing her life, along with the rest of her family. It was a snowy night. They were passing through Castle Rock on the way home after visiting father Fred in the VA hospital in Vancouver. On an icy patch, Harry lost control of their late-1930s-vintage black Ford. They were spinning, and a heavy truck loaded with paint was barreling down on them.

The truck driver swerved to allow the Ford to hit the truck, rather than the other way around. If the truck had done the hitting, it is unlikely that the car passengers would have survived (and thus you would not be able to read this family history on the Web).

Chris and Butch, sound asleep, rolled off the back seat to the floor. Harry, Mary, Anna, and the truck driver, sustained only minor injuries. The truck was dented somewhat but drivable. The Ford, not quite totaled. was in the garage in Castle Rock for weeks.

Harry and Mary replaced the Ford with a blue 1942 Chevrolet sedan, which they would drive for tens of thousands of miles before replacing it 6 years later.(60)

For the frequent camping trips, they got a car-top carrier, a large square "basket" with suction-cup legs and clamps that could accommodate all four sleeping bags and air mattresses, their huge, heavy canvas tent, its poles and stakes, and other items. (Once wet, that tent took a very long time to dry, and it was very heavy to pack and move.)

A favorite place to camp was beautiful Spirit Lake right at the base of Mount Saint Helens.(61)

For days they would fish and hike, eat campfire-cooked food, and take lots of pictures. They also camped, fished, and swam at Offut Lake. They frequently went to visit Harry's Aunt Georgie in Ocean City, and spent hours during low tide digging razor clams.

In 1948 Harry and Mary remodeled the house in a big way. They divided the children's room, making a separate small room for 6-year-old Butch. Chris was thrilled with the possibility that at last there could be room for Janna: She and her little sister could share the same room. And this was apparently the plan! At last, Mary was ready to retrieve her third child from her former sister-in-law Janie in Laramie, Wyoming.(62)

They packed the car and the car-top carrier for the 2-week round trip of more than 3,000 miles. And they would be doing lots of camping, too.

On the way Harry and Mary discussed a problem with Butch. That is, the problem with his name, "Butch." He had already attended Ford's Prairie Kindergarten with that name, but there was bound to be confusion when they filled out the official papers for enrolling him into first grade. Those papers would have his name as Allan, but he had no idea his name was anything other than Butch. He had to learn.

As usual, Harry had the solution to this problem. As they passed through Boise, Idaho, the 6-year-old heard his parents say: "Let's leave Butch in Boise. And, in exchange, we can take Allan with us." It took a little practice, but eventually he—and everyone else in the family—got used to the new name. (From this point, he will be referred to as "Allan" rather than "Butch." Whenever his late true father needs to be referred to, you will see the name "Allan Sr." Or "Daddy Allan," as Chris and Allan would be referring to him in a few years.)

They spent several days in Yellowstone Park.(63)

Then they drove on to Laramie, and arrived, unannounced, at Janie's humble basement apartment. They would stay for 3 days— presumably Mary thought that would be sufficient time for her to bond with her daughter, so she could bring her home to Centralia. On the left you see Janna at that time, 3 months shy of her 4th birthday, perched on the back bumper of the 42 Chevy with its car-top carrier (to enlarge this picture, and to see a few more, click it).

Very understandably, Janie had grown quite fond of "her" daughter and had strong objections to being parted from her. The visit was a very stormy one for the adults; there was one particularly nasty late-night verbal battle. When Janna was packed in the Chevy with her sister and brother, with her new parents—when they began to drive off, leaving sad Janie staying behind—Janna screamed for her mother: Janie. Janna had to stay behind. Mary was livid. At the redone departure, Janie Hawes and Janna Hawes waved from the driveway to Mary Ashbrook, Harry Ashbrook, Chris Edmands, and Allan Edmands.

During the return trip, the family stopped at Salt Lake City and then Reno. This was only the first of many, many trips to Nevada, so that Mary could indulge her love of gambling. Her favorite was the slot machines, the "one-armed bandits." Harry played, too, but he knew when to stop. He learned how to pull Mary away before the losses mounted too high.

In the 1948 Presidential Election, Mary voted for Republican Thomas E. Dewey and was very annoyed when "that son of a bitch," President Harry S Truman, squeaked out a reelection victory. Her choice for Washington State Governor was successful, however; she voted for Republican Arthur B. Langlie, who defeated the incumbent, Democrat Monrad Wallgren.

In 1949, 32-year-old Mary worked for the U.S. Census Bureau. She went door to door in an assigned district in Centralia, collecting all kinds of statistics on the town's residence—not only the names, genders, and ages within a household, but also the race, marital status, birthplace, citizenship (or not), occupation, employment status, and hours worked within the week. Her district included the "hobo jungle," on the east side of the Northern Pacific tracks. She was able to bring a policeman with her, and probably she missed a few of the residents there.

Election Night by Christine Edmands Barrett, 1998 The year was 1949 and Mother had been hired as an election judge. She and Dad had also rented our home to Lewis County, for the day, as a neighborhood polling place. On Monday the living room was cleared. Most of the lamps and one overstuffed chair were moved into my bedroom. Two chairs and some end tables were moved into my parents' bedroom. The rest of the chairs and tables were moved into the kitchen. Remaining, ringing the perimeter of the 12-by-20-foot living room, were the oil heater, the console radio–record player, the book cases, the piano, and the couch. Six borrowed card tables and ten folding chairs were set up. Cardboard cartons that once had held shipments of paper towels had been saved for Mother by the neighborhood grocery stores. Two sides were cut away, and a carton was placed on each of four of the card tables to create individual voting booths. The remaining two tables were reserved for the election officials and the locked ballot box. The result was a crowded, friendly, and busy room. On Tuesday, Allan and I walked to school and arranged to be with friends until just before dinner. Dad went to work. The election officials arrived. At 8am, Mary went out to the covered front porch, which was decorated with a huge 48-star United States flag, rang a bell, and called "Hear ye, hear ye, the polls are now open!"(64) From Allan: The official courtroom cry, used for nine centuries in England, was the Norman French "Oyez, oyez!" (pronounced "o-yay o-yay"), but that translates to "Hear ye, hear ye!" (Close) The living room was bustling all day. Voters would wait on the porch until there was space inside. They then would be issued large paper ballots the size of a newspaper page. The voter would select a table, insert the ballot into the cardboard box, and mark his or her choices. When finished, the voter would fold the ballot and stuff it into the large locked box. At 8pm, those waiting on the porch were invited inside. Mary went out to the porch, rang her bell, and called "Hear ye, hear ye, the polls are now closed!" She returned inside and locked the front door. After everyone had voted and let out the door, the officials validated the box, and two of them took it to the county courthouse in Chehalis. Mother also went to the courthouse, but in a separate car. She had another election day duty. Allan and I retired to bed. Dad moved furniture. At the courthouse Mother helped with the ballot count. She was employed by the local radio station as a bookkeeper and had a quick mind with numbers. As each ballot box tally was counted, the results were read aloud. There was a blackboard in the front of the auditorium where all this was taking place. All night long, Mother, in her head, would add the growing total for each issue and each candidate and write the result on the blackboard. The radio station would use these totals for their "election results" during the night. The results again appeared in the Wednesday afternoon Chronicle. *** Afterthoughts *** There was a world before computers. The electoral process did take a bit longer because all Tuesday night's work had to be validated in the weeks to come. But Mother knew the results first, since she was an intricate part of the process. I learned my earliest lessons in The Democratic Process at home. My parents enjoyed this routine for many years; they only stopped with Grandmother [Anna] came to live with them [in 1965]. ****** I had daughter Mary read this memory last night. Then I told her that I had left out a fun part of the story… then related that part. Mary's comment? "Ahh, Mom! You can't leave that out! It is just too good and tells so much about the times. After all, today the products are demonstrated in living color nightly on TV!!" So I give the fun part: When Mother approached the neighborhood mom-and-pop groceries, she could not be too particular about the large cartons she had asked them to save for her. Paper towel cartons were her preferred choice, but a toilet paper packing case would do. Occasionally, she had to settle for a Kotex ® carton. These could not be for public viewing, and they necessitated extra work. Mother carefully covered these cartons with brown wrapping paper so no one would think unkindly of her.(65) From Allan: The stores wrapped up the 12-pack Kotex boxes sold to individual shoppers. The shopper had to ask for them at the counter. Sometime in the mid-1950s, I discovered a package wrapped in brown paper sitting in the back seat of the car during a shopping trip. My birthday was in a few days, and I presumed my mother must have wrapped up a surprise package for me. I teased her about it, and she was evasive—which only confirmed my suspicions. I kept pressing her to give me a hint about what was in it. Finally, exasperated, she snapped: "Goddammit, it's Kotex!!" I realized then that it was not a present for me. At that time, I had no idea what this "coat-tex" was, but I since I had obviously once again crossed over some indeterminate line and enraged her, I dared not ask. I looked out the window on my side of the car and shrank into myself. (Close)

At the beginning of 1950, Mary's father died. His decades of problem drinking had caught up with him during the preceding decade; he had plunged into decline, and he had frittered the preceding couple of years in the state mental asylum in Stielacoom.

It was up to Mary to take care of the chicken ranch that father Fred had purchased exactly 3 decades earlier. In 1945, her sister Jane and brother-in-law Jack had started paying installments to buy the ranch, but it had been some pretty tough times for Jack. Just to put food on the table, he had to work in the coal mine near Bucoda. Naturally, he could not keep up with the installments. When he had found construction work in Alaska, he took off north and then sent money back to Jane and their children, who moved to rented houses in Centralia before they were able to join him in Anchorage.(66)

Anyway, at this point, Jane had no further claim to the ranch property.

Mary arranged the sale of the farmhouse, the other ranch buildings, and about 5 acres. With the proceeds, she paid off the mortgage on the Gold Street house for Anna. She rented the remaining 11 acres, the L-shaped pasture land, to a neighbor, charging him just the amount of the property taxes.

In 1950 Anna, 72 years old, wanted to attend the national convention of the Navy Mothers in Washington, DC. She planned to travel by train, with Chris as her traveling companion. But, since she had recently traded in her 1936 Dodge on a brand-new green Dodge Meadowbrook with "fluid drive transmission" and a smart visor shading the windshield, and since both Harry and Mary were more robust drivers by that time and were eager to make the trip, she was happy to have the entire Ashbrook family drive her. This time there would be no camping, though; they needed to stay in motels on any night they did not stay with relatives. On the way, of course, they would see the sights; Harry, for one, had never been Back East.

Naturally they arrived, unannounced as usual, in Laramie, but this time they did not sleep there. They spent only a few hours. Here you can see Mary's three children—the two she was raising and the one she had given away—sitting on the lawn in front of the Hawes residence on Garfield Street.

They had enough time that they didn't have to drive straight to Washington, DC. Though Laramie could be considered on the direct route, after leaving there, the family took a detour southward, through Colorado and New Mexico. They visited Harry's half-brother Alec in Albuquerque (and stayed overnight). Then, reversing the course of the characters in The Grapes of Wrath, they drove eastward on Route 66, staying overnight in Norman, Oklahoma, with Mary's cousin Dick Hawes and his wife, Elsie.(67)

East from there, they made sure to pass through Mary's birth town of Henryetta. And then on through the hardscrabble Southern states of Arkansas, Tennessee, and the Kentucky Appalachians (in the Cumberland Gap area they were amazed to see fireflies for the first time), finally ending up in the hillbilly region of Dickinson County in southwestern Virginia, where Harry was able to find the scrubby home of his Aunt Lou, his Uncle Will, and several of his cousins.

Then it was on to Washington, DC, where they stayed with Mary's cousin Olive and her mother, Aunt Bertha. While Anna attended her convention, the family played tourist: the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the FBI headquarters to see target practice, the Bureau of Engraving to see money being printed, the Smithsonian to see the dinosaur skeleton.

Next was New York City, where the Ashbrook tourists stayed in a tall hotel on Broadway and saw television for the first time, with black-and-white signal on an 8-inch screen. They had tickets to attend a radio broadcast of the popular quiz show "Grand Slam." They rode the subways and the roller coasters at Coney Island. They went to the top of the Statue of Liberty. After leaving New York, they stayed a couple of nights with brother Fred and his new wife, Laura, in Newport, Rhode Island. Anna stayed on there for a few days more when Mary and Harry and the kids went on to the next stop: Andover, Massachusetts.

A decade earlier it had been Mary on trial with Mrs. Edmands; now, although she didn't realize it, it was Mrs. Edmands who would be on trial: If she were unable to accept Harry, Mary's new husband, the man who had replaced Allan Sr., the Andover kin would lose contact with the Centralia family. But Grandma Edmands—and Jean and Roland, too—gave the travelers a warm and hearty welcome. She cackled merrily at Harry's jokes. She made doughnuts for them. Jean and Roland took the travelers to the historic places around Boston. The extended family expanded rather than contracted.

Mary and Harry parked the kids with the Andover kin for several days while they went to retrieve Anna from Newport and then to Connecticut to visit some of her sister Emma's children she hadn't seen in 16 years. (Emma herself had died 5 years earlier, but 77-year-old brother-in-law Frederick Dicks was still alive.) One of Emma's daughters, Florence, now a 51-year-old widow of 11 years, had stayed for a year on the ranch when she had been in her early 20s and Mary had been only 5. Mary remembered her cousin, had liked her then and now liked her all over again in a more mature way. Florence had five daughters, two of them twins, ranging in age from 11 to 19. All but the oldest lived at home, and Mary found them delightful company.

But when she went to visit the oldest daughter, Marjorie, married already almost 2 years and now 8 months pregnant, she was shocked and appalled. Marjorie's husband, Samuel Wong, hailed from the British West Indies. He was a Negro! Mary was speechless and made a quick exit.(68)

Mary and Harry, now with Anna, returned to Andover and spent a few more days there. The two grandmothers renewed their warm relationship, started 8 years earlier. With Grandma Edmands the travelers toured Salem's House of Seven Gables.

Finally, they left, driving into New Hampshire and touching Maine. In Kittery, Maine, Mary and the kids were shocked to discover Harry purchasing a plug of chewing tobacco. He had been so discreet with his habit that Mary hadn't known about it.(69)

They drove to Niagara Falls and through the Ontario shortcut to Michigan. They visited the famous corn palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, and they gazed into an open-pit mine in Butte, Montana. Along the trip, Mary entertained the family with road games and leading everyone in song.(70)

When they reached Centralia at last, they were weary of travel, but they were rich in experiences. And photos. And pretty depleted savings.(71)

In the November 1950 midterm election, 33-year-old Mary again voted consistently Republican, helping that party further diminish the Democratic hold on Congress. She was disappointed, though, that long-serving Democratic Washington Senator Warren G. Magnuson hadn't been unseated by the Republican challenger she had voted for: Walter Williams. She closely followed all campaigns on the radio.(72)

Mary had been intrigued by a widely reported California Senatorial campaign, in which young (37-year-old) Congressman Richard M. Nixon swamped Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, whom he had called a left-wing sympathizer, "pink right down to her underwear." Anti-Communist Nixon had 2 years earlier denounced State Department official Alger Hiss as a spy, proving the allegation (at least to Mary's satisfaction) with the so-called "Pumpkin Papers." Months into the Korean War, with that "pinko bastard" Truman not supporting General MacArthur's recommendations to strike Chinese military bases inside Manchuria, Mary was very concerned with what she perceived as a worldwide Communist threat, which seemed to have infected even the government of the United States. Richard Nixon seemed like a hero, a Hercules who could clean out the Augean stables.

As the 1950s progressed, Mary smoked more and more cigarettes, filling up smoldering ashtrays and occasionally burning accidental small holes in clothing, couch, rug, or tablecloth. Ultimately, she was smoking quite a bit more than a carton of non-filter "Raleigh" cigarettes per week, about 35 to 45 cigarettes a day, sometimes two at a time when she lit up after forgetting that she had another one already going. (Each pack of Raleigh cigarettes included a coupon, and the carton itself contained a few extra coupons, which could be redeemed for merchandise from a gift catalog.(73))

Whenever she happened to have filtered cigarettes, Mary tore the filters off because she didn't want to absentmindedly light the filter end. Mary coughed plenty, too, especially at night.(74)

By that time, Mary was downing two or three cases a week of cheap "Old Style" beer, which averaged about 12 bottles a day. She would never consider that she was an alcoholic (as her father surely had been, to his detriment), however, because it was "just beer."

With the money that was being spent on these two vices, cigarettes and beer, the Ashbrooks might well have afforded a considerably more lavish lifestyle. There is no question that the vices ruined her physical and mental health.

From Christine: When she was good, she was very, very good. And when she was bad she was horrid. Mary ground her teeth in her sleep. She'd go at it until they'd sing. Time? 2am. Another 2am treat was waking up to Mary talking, at full volume, in her sleep. She was always bawling me out for some transgression. Harry slept through it all. Allan had his own room, remote from the scolding. I'd sit up and hug the cat. Not cool. Really not cool. There are many forms of abuse. One excellent weapon is the tongue. She did try. I know she did. I'd really like to know what was wrong in her head.

It is true that she tried very hard, and there are many examples of her positive impacts on her children, her husband, her friends, her fellow citizens—as other paragraphs throughout this biography have shown and will show. The following few paragraphs, however, attempt to address the question Christine posed in the preceding paragraph, by referring to what psychiatrists actually have to say. By considering the descriptions of possible relevant disorders, you can appreciate what she might have been dealing with, with compassion, without judgment. Mary's life was not easy. (Here is a picture of her, taken in 1951.)

According to the American Psychiatric Association, Mary might have been suffering from a combination of some specific defined disorders, exacerbated by her dependence on certain substances: caffeine, nicotine, and especially alcohol. First, here are some characteristics of substance dependence (and occasional abuse) in general: tolerance—that is, a need for markedly increased amounts to receive the desired effect, intake in larger amounts or over a longer period than was intended, persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control use of the substance, the spending of a great amount of time using the substance, withdrawal distress, continued use in spite of persistent or recurring physical or psychological problems caused or exacerbated by the substance.(75)

With alcohol dependence in particular, the sufferer generally experiences intoxication this way: At first she is talkative, is in a bright, expansive mood, and has a sensation of well-being. Progressively she can become depressed and withdrawn as well as cognitively impaired. There is mood lability, poor judgment, weakened social functioning, and slurred speech. Generally there is amnesia the next day about what happened during the intoxication, but during the temporary withdrawal of the next morning, the sufferer might have a splitting headache, hand tremor, and perhaps some anxiety. In spite of her denials that she had a problem with alcohol, this was often the case with Mary and her beers, more and more as the years went by.

The alcohol-dependent person continues to use alcohol despite the inevitable depression as well as such interpersonal problems as violent arguments with a spouse or child abuse. Here is an example with Mary: She and Harry were entertaining friends at their house and seemed to be enjoying themselves. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, Mary glared at Harry and snarled: "You son of a bitch!" Then she stormed off to the bedroom, slammed the door, and wept loudly into her pillow. Harry was unable to console her. (Outside of this incident, Mary's outbursts, her acting out, her deviations from her generally sociable personality, were witnessed, and endured, only by Harry, Chris, and Allan.)

Mary manifested a mixture of disorder symptoms described in the psychiatrist's manual. For example, the malady labeled alcohol-induced mood disorder, with depressive features, with onset during intoxication is characterized with an expansive but irritable mood alternating with depression, and the symptoms cause significant distress or impairment in important areas of functioning. The sufferer of a major depressive episode feels sad or empty most of the day, is tearful, has feelings of worthlessness or excessive, inappropriate guilt, and demonstrates recurrent suicidal ideation. Mary's children endured her frequent crying jags, learned to approach her tentatively, tried to find ways to avoid setting her off.(76)

They especially learned not to question her about why Janna was not living with them; she simply dissolved into miserable tears, and the children felt guilty for bringing it on. So many times they heard her say "I should have stayed in bed!" or, much worse: "I wish I were dead!" or "I should never have been born!"

Major depressive episode with melancholic features specifier is characterized by a loss of interest or pleasure in activities. The sufferer does not feel much better, even temporarily, when something good happens; the depression is regularly worse in the morning. Mary might have had a couple of these episodes over the years. Here is an undated photo of Mary, almost certainly from around 1950.

Freudian psychologist Travis Wade defines psychological projection as a defense mechanism where a person's personal attributes, unacceptable or unwanted thoughts, or emotions are ascribed to another person or people. Mary, who demanded to be the center of attention, castigated her children with statements like this: "Stop being dramatic!" "The world doesn't revolve around you!" She who fell so often into self-pity had this scold: "You're feeling sorry for yourself! Why don't you just go to your room and sulk?" And the mother who would tolerate no child's tantrum had no hesitation about throwing one in front of Harry or the children, plucking their guilt strings, forcing their pussy feet. And she who was so concerned about not "spoiling" a child—… (77)

Here are a few more ailments from the psychiatrist's manual that Mary was also touched by: She certainly suffered from nicotine dependence—the craving, the need to start smoking soon after she woke up in the morning, her chain-smoking, her insistence on smoking even when she was ill, her persistence despite repeated bouts with tobacco-induced bronchitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary ailments (including pneumonia) and, eventually, excessive skin wrinkling. On the infrequent times that she tried quitting, she suffered intense withdrawal symptoms: a depressed mood, insomnia, irritability, frustration, anger, anxiety, restlessness, and difficulty concentrating, all of them causing significant distress and impairment in important areas of functioning.(78)

And she suffered from caffeine dependence, too. She consumed more than 4 or 5 cups of brewed coffee every day, and they tended to make her restless, nervous, even excited. She needed to pee a lot, she suffered occasional gastrointestinal disturbance, muscle twitching, and, sometimes, rambling flow of thought and speech. You may have noticed that some of the symptoms of nicotine and caffeine dependence counteract, and even mask, some of the symptoms of alcohol dependence. Mary was a complicated case!(79)

Finally, the manual describes a couple of disorders that Mary suffered in a mild form. For example, alcohol-induced sleep disorder might help to explain her tight clenching of teeth at night, her loud teeth grinding, and her audible, even loud, scolding of the children in her sleep. She also appeared to exhibit two of the criteria of pathological gambling: She gambled as a way to escape from problems or to relieve depression, and she tended to "chase" her losses, although she allowed Harry to pull her away from the slot machines.

Well! In spite of the afflictions described in the preceding paragraphs, Mary was an active citizen of her community, and a sociable person other adults liked to be around.

She was also intimately involved in Chris and Allan's education. She regularly attended meetings of the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA). She worked hard to remedy Chris's problems with reading by drilling her in phonics, the effective method the San Diego school system had apparently considered too old-fashioned when Chris had been in first grade. She encouraged the children's reading, and she made sure their good grades in school were financially rewarded.(80)

Mary supported Chris's participation in the Girl Scouts and Allan's in Cub Scouts. In fact, for 2 years she was Den Mother of his Scout group. Once a week the Cubs would meet either at the Ashbrook house or at Gordy's mother's, across the street. Mary ensured that the boys had things to do: The meetings opened with a flag salute, with one of the boys leading. With colored stars and finger paints, or with tin and nails, they made Christmas presents for their parents. They planted seeds and watched them grow. They learned to tie knots and neckties. They played games. They worked on skits to be performed at the Pack meeting. Mary served them Kool-Aid and cookies, or peanuts and lollypops, or sandwiches and Ovaltine, or Dixie Cups and soda pop, or cupcakes and milk. She supervised their periodic elections of "Denner" (the boy leader of the Den), "Assistant Denner," and "Keeper of the Buckskin" (the secretary).

After Chris and Allan had left for school in the morning, Mary did her chores: washing the dishes, washing the laundry, ironing. While she worked, she listened to radio programs: the "Grand Slam" quiz show, the soap opera "Rosemary" (sponsored by Tide or Oxydol), the soap opera "Helen Trent" ("Can a woman find true romance after the age of 35?"), "Perry Mason" (depicting the talented defense lawyer who always forced emotional courtroom confessions from prosecution witnesses who were the real culprits), and other shows. The radio programs the entire family would listen to during prime time included the sit-com "Our Miss Brooks," the "Jack Benny Show," "Gangbusters," and "The Shadow." Harry liked to listen to sports; he was particularly fond of boxing on Friday nights. The children had shows, too—for example, "Let's Pretend" (sponsored by Cream of Wheat). On some weekend nights they all enjoyed a movie at the drive-in theater.

At one point Mary and Harry made a deal on a couple of major expenditures. He could have his desired outboard motor for fishing trips if she could have a fur coat. Each of them got what they had been dreaming of. Harry used the motor two or three times on rented boats at Offut Lake, but mainly it stayed in its barrel of water beside the garage door. Same with the coat: It hung in the closet, very rarely used, until the end of the 1950s, when she had it made into two very handsome stoles, one of which she gave Christine as a college graduation present, the other of which she never wore.

Mary's domestic routine changed when she began work as a bookkeeper at the local radio station, KELA. About the same time, Harry changed jobs, too: He now worked nights at the Kraft Foods plant in Chehalis (his status as a former TB patient did not disqualify him on getting his license exam to become a pasteurizer), and he needed to sleep during the day. Here is a picture of Mary, in her robe on Easter 1952.

During the 1952 Presidential campaign, Mary supported conservative Republican Robert A. Taft in the state's primary election, and she rooted for him during the heated July Republican Convention in Chicago, which was broadcast blow by blow on the radio (Mary was able to get early news by reading the teletype at KELA). General Dwight Eisenhower won the nomination, however, but Mary approved of much of the party platform: firing all "the loafers, incompetents, and unnecessary employees" at the State Department and prosecuting "Communist subversion" in the United States. She didn't like the platform's promise to end the unpopular war in Korea; why shouldn't the U.S. go for victory, even against Red China? In the November election, she voted for Eisenhower, the "lesser of two evils," who defeated the "egghead," Democrat Adlai Stevenson. She was happy to sing the popular "Walkin' to Missouri" song, a barely disguised mock of Harry Truman becoming an Ex-President.(81)

Mary stressed patriotism, and she wanted to instill in her children a strong love of country. On the right you see a poster that she had framed and displayed prominently on the wall (to read it, click it). The floor-to-ceiling 48-star American flag was hung on the covered porch on at least five relevant holidays each year. Mary didn't go quite as far to the right as her brother Fred, who was a member of the ultraconservative—oh hell, say it like it was: super-paranoid, troglodytic reactionary—John Birch Society. Still, she was keenly interested in, and gave much credibility to, the hearings that Senator Joseph McCarthy was holding to root out the supposed Communists, Communist sympathizers, and Communist dupes in the government.(82)

In 1952 Mary began to talk again about her first husband, Allan Sr., who 7 years earlier had been declared "missing" and later presumed dead, although his body had never been recovered. Neither Chris nor Allan could remember this man, whom Mary referred to as "Daddy Allan." And 10-year-old Allan Jr. hadn't even realized that he had a father other than Harry.(83)

What was at issue was whether stepfather Harry could adopt the children—that is, become their legal father. Though both children loved him, they were reluctant. Allan didn't want to give up the surname Edmands. Chris wanted to know how this would affect their relationship with little sister Janna.(84)

Their concerns were moot, however; there was a practical reason for the children to stay unadopted: Adoption would have made them ineligible for the Veterans Administration benefits they were allotted because of their "war orphan" status. Mary was their legal guardian and had cleared all the expenditures from that stipend with a county judge. Even though it wasn't required, she was saving their allotments for their post-secondary education.(85)

So Harry and Mary Ashbrook's children remained Christine and Allan Edmands.

Chris and Allan were each given a large photo of Daddy Allan for their bedroom walls. Mary explained that Daddy Allan was a hero, and he had sacrificed his life defending their flag and their freedoms. She told Allan that there was really a Junior after his name, and that his name, "Allan Christie Edmands," was one to be proud of, a name that he would need to live up to.

When Mary explained that Daddy Allan hadn't been buried in a cemetery, as Grandpa Hawes (father Fred) had been a couple of years earlier, the children legitimately asked that in that case if he might still be alive. Mary acknowledged the remote possibility. "What would you do if he came back?" Mary answered that, of course, she would choose to resume her marriage with him. This answer made the children feel very strange, indeed. It implied that somehow her first love, the dashing war hero, was without question preferable to the real flesh-and-blood hardworking husband, the anchor in all their lives. Mary reassured them that the possibility was very small, however, that it was almost certain that Daddy Allan was dead.(86)

There was a piano in the Ashbrook house. Chris took lessons for awhile, learned how to play "Chopsticks," but she didn't keep up with it. Mary knew how to play a little. During the Christmas season, she would play the carols while she and the children sang.

In 1953 Mary and Harry traded in their 1942 Chevy for a "new" (for them) 1950 Pontiac. And in the summer once again they were travelers—to Los Angeles and then into Nevada (stopping at casinos in Las Vegas), across the "Fiery Furnace" near Boulder Dam, to the Grand Canyon, to Zion National Park, back into Nevada (stopping at casinos in Fallon, Virginia City, and Reno), and through eastern Oregon, to home. Harry did most of the driving, Mary acted as navigator. When she drove and was cut off or overtaken by a reckless driver, she would say (as though that driver could hear her): "Go ahead. Hell is only half full!" Here is a picture of Mary beside the Pontiac. (If you click it, you not only enlarge it, you get to see another picture.)

Nobody in Centralia had a television set before about 1952. Harry and Mary bought theirs in 1954, a Hoffman with a green-tinted screen to mellow the black-and-white signal. Its wooden cabinet was purchased as matching furniture to the radio–record player, two 4-foot-high, 3-foot-wide consoles that dominated the living area. Mary insisted that set have doors that could be shut over "that damned eye." She was very, very sure that the eye was a spy.

At first there were only a couple of channels available, and programming stopped at a late-night hour (but before midnight), to be replaced by a "test pattern" to enable the owner to adjust the controls precisely. Gradually more channels were added, and the Ashbrooks installed a rotor on the roof so they could point the antenna toward either the Portland transmitter or the equidistant Seattle one. Their favorite shows were "Dragnet," "Gunsmoke," "Wagon Train," "Red Skelton," "The Ed Sullivan Show," and "I Love Lucy." Mary was happy that "Perry Mason" had transitioned from afternoon radio to afternoon TV.

To the entertainment of all who observed her in action, Mary was a master of multi-tasking. She would chain-smoke her cigarettes, chain-drink her beer, knit, read a book, and carry on an intelligent conversation. Mary later added the skill of answering the toughest question on the TV game shows. All this at the same time.(87)

Another scene: Mary fishing on the banks of the Cowlitz River. She'd seat herself on a comfortable log in the sunshine, bait a hook with a nightcrawler, attach a bell to the float line, dig out a good paperback, smoke, drink beer, and have a great afternoon. All this harkens back to how she did her favorite chore as a child (tossing stones at errant sheep while really reading) although she'd added a few touches since then.

The kitchen in their Silver Street home was special challenge to Mary. She lived there 30 years and the kitchen was painted every 4 years. Without fail. The ceiling, walls, drawers, and cupboards, inside and out, went from light yellow with white trim, to light green with white trim, to cream with white trim. Then 'round once again through the color choices. The room was 20 by 12 feet. The paint was oil-base enamel. Mary was a great painter. The application was flawless and required 2 days drying time between the coats. There had to be two coats, since the colors changed each time she painted. Mary did this with all the personal attachments mentioned before. Frequent breaks with a cigarette. Book. Beer. During the time she lived with that kitchen Mary added 16 to 20 coats of paint. Oh! Most of those years she worked 40-hour weeks.

There was one time when the pressure cooker exploded. No one was hurt, fortunately, but applesauce was sent, in a jet stream, to inscribe a 2-foot circle in the ceiling. Mary shrugged. Counted her lucky stars that the explosion was up, not sideways. Painting might need to be moved up a few months.

On the south 20-foot wall, there were solid drawers and cupboards below and windows, cupboards and a canary cage above. On the north wall, there was an additional 12 feet of counter space and a peninsula island with bric-a-brac display shelves. Again with cupboards above. Even with this massive abundance of counter space, there was never any place to put anything down. Mary believed that everything should be at-the-ready. A display of souvenir salt and pepper shakers, all the prescription and over-the-counter drugs, vases, starter plants, bird food, folded laundry, spices, copper-bottom pots, a huge coffee maker. Not at all dirty. Just a very, very busy room. Company had a tendency to settle in this room as well.

Mopping the kitchen floor was a real production. Chairs were placed upside-down on top of the table. Stools were placed upside-down on top of the peninsula. Legs of all these were thoroughly cleaned. In the month since the last mopping, the floor had indeed been swept on a regular every-other-day basis. However, the linoleum of the day scarred with the heel leather of the day. These were dark black scuffs on the speckled beige flooring. Mud was tracked in and dried. Bits and pieces of this and that gathered. Mary scrubbed with a damp mop. Then she scoured the scuffs. Then she rinsed with clear warm water. She changed the water each time the water reached a murky color. Kids and hubby had their own chores. This was Mary's, and she did a bang-up job. The topper was that when done, she spread six layers of newspaper over all the possible pathways and left the chairs and stools upside-down at waist level. Family and guests tippy-toed to the living room to wait 6 hours while the floor dried. This was a dawn-to-dark Saturday production.

Mary's brother Tom wanted to open a sawmill in Eatonville. He asked his mother, Anna, to put her house up as collateral on the loan he was taking from the bank. She did, of course. Mary only found out about all this when the foreclosure notices started to arrive at Gold Street. Tom had not paid the bank. Anna was about to be tossed into the street. Mary cleared the Gold Street title again, as she had in 1950, when she sold the Waunch's Prairie house and out buildings. Like Jane before him, Tom now had no further claim to the proceeds from the ranch property. The ranch of her childhood was becoming Mary's retirement fund.(88)

So sister Jane was in Alaska, and brother Tom was an hour and a half away in Eatonville, and later 4 hours away in George, east of the mountains. Brother Fred was living in Hawaii. Mary complained that the responsibility of caring for their mother, Anna, seemed solely on her shoulders.(89)

Anna, now in her late 70s, was getting frail: With cataracts in both eyes and needing to wear thick, smoky glasses, she could no longer drive her green Dodge. Mary had to do her shopping for her, and generally look after her. Actually, she performed these responsibilities gladly, she always enjoyed her wise mother's company, and she loved hearing about what life had been like at the turn of the 20th century—but she also liked having an excuse to complain about her inconsiderate siblings and to take on the role of the good child.

In the late 1940s, hosting Thanksgiving dinners had been a shared responsibility. When Tom and Bess had lived on their North Fork farm near Centralia, they would be the hosts one year, Mary and Harry the next. Now, however, it was every Thanksgiving at the Ashbrooks. The preparations had begun the day before, and the cooking went on for hours—the big turkey, of course, and the bread-crumb and sweetmeat dressing, the sweet potatoes, the pumpkin pies, the mincemeat pies (with real venison), the cranberries. Then the multitudes arrived, hardly ever fewer than 25 people, crowding the kitchen and the living room. The children ate at two or three card tables, the adults on the expanding dining table and at the peninsula bar. Almost all of the guests were relatives, and from Mary's side of the family, but sometimes some of Harry's kin would attend, and sometimes friends of the family. Pictured is a smaller, undated Thanksgiving dinner, probably mid-1950s, where everyone could sit at the same table (to identify each person, click the picture).

Mary liked to entertain guests. (At least, she gave that impression to the guests, who never heard her complaints about how much work she had to do in the entertaining.) One frequent guest was obese Doc Palmer, who sat around for hours sharing beers with Mary. He supplied the Ashbrook family with the low-cost meat they stocked their chest freezer with. He was their source for "cattle-o," not available in the market, a cross between beef cattle and buffalo. Finally, after years of this, he confessed that they had been buying horse meat.(90)

Pearl by Christine Edmands Barrett, 2001 Mother wrote to Pearl every month for 4 long years. Pearl faithfully responded to each letter. Pearl's answer was always the same: There would be no exception to the Washington State law. Mother would fume for a few days, telling us all how silly the whole argument was. Then Mother would come up with another idea and politely write another letter to Pearl. Pearl A. Wanamaker. I am very sure that I am the only senior in Seattle (or in the country) who can name the person who served as the state's Superintendent of Public Instruction during the 1950s.(91) From Allan: Actually Wanamaker is somewhat famous to this day. She had started teaching in 1917. She served as state Superintendent of Public Instruction from 1940 to 1957. During that time she was asked by General Douglas MacArthur to reorganize public instruction in occupied Japan. She served as president of the National Education Association. President Eisenhower appointed her to a White House conference on education. She bravely defended an elementary schoolteacher against the haranguing of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, winning that dismissed teacher (with a supposed "Communist" past) her back pay and earning for herself the opprobrium of right-wingers. (Close) Mother's long war of words with the lady has embedded the name forever in my memory. I only regret that no scrap of correspondence remains. Mother became aware of the law when I was in 7th grade and started her correspondence right away. As I entered high school, Mother had not yet been successful with Pearl, so she persuaded the high school to temporarily waive the law, since she still hoped to take care of the problem at the state level. So, while all the girls in my class registered for the state-required semester of Sewing with Miss Van Winkle, followed by the state-required semester of Cooking with Miss Bemis, I took a year of Band with Mr. West. The freshman girls made an apron with a patch pocket in Sewing and learned to measure flour in Cooking. I learned drum cadences and perfected my off-beat. Mother howled her displeasure to Pearl. Her daughter did not need to take Sewing. She had made her first apron when she was 8. Had given aprons with mitered patch pockets to her grandmothers as Christmas gifts when she was 10. Had sewn her first school dress, with puffed sleeves—and a zipper, for heaven's sake!—when she was 12. Sewing should be learned at home! It was a waste of school time and resources to demand such a class during the school day. High school classes should be for academic pursuits. Another time she reminded Pearl that some young women were taught to cook by their mother. Her daughter, Mother stated, started dinner every week night. Her daughter could bake a cake from scratch, make meat loaf, and do baked and mashed potatoes. Her daughter could even can vegetables and fruits from the garden and dress out a chicken. The freshman year of Sewing and Cooking was followed by a sophomore year of Advanced Sewing and Cooking. The girls made throw pillows in Miss Van Winkle's class and made a complete dinner with Miss Bemis. I was promoted to the pep band. Mother took a day off from work and traveled to Olympia for her appointment with Pearl. At the end, I had to step into the fray and tell Mother that I would either have to comply with the law or not graduate from high school. Mother reluctantly let me have my way. I registered for a semester of Sewing while Mother wrote yet another letter to Pearl. So there I was. In a freshman class as a junior. While making the apron, I upped the ante a bit. I chose a plaid material so that while I mitered the corners of the pocket, I would also have to match the plaids. Since I could thread (and unsnarl) the sewing machines, I was somewhat valued by those classmates who sat nearby. As a senior in a sophomore class, I chose to redo my bedroom as my final advanced sewing project. While studying with Miss Bemis, I learned that Mother was truly a horrid cook.(92) From Allan: Indeed. (Close) Mother should come on up to Centralia High and join Miss Bemis's class, too! I learned to get out all the ingredients before I started, measure everything before beginning, and clean up as I went along. Novel ideas that I demonstrated to Mother. She was not pleased, of course, but she did stop fighting with Pearl. None of the early sewing efforts survive except some photos of the redecorated bedroom. I wonder to this day what possessed me to choose black and aqua as my color theme. I think it was because the material was affordable to my tender pocketbook or the cost restrictions of the final sewing project. On the other hand, Miss Bemis comes to our table several times a year when dinner is served. If the presentation is particularly colorful, everything has become "done" at the same time—if hot is still hot and cold is still cold—I say: "Miss Bemis would be so-o-o-o proud!"(93) From Allan: Sewing and Cooking were state-required courses for high school girls. High school boy freshmen were required to take a semester of Wood Shop and a semester of Mechanical Drawing. I did well in Mechanical Drawing and enjoyed using the T-square and the drafting pencils and making isometrics and orthographics—no problem. Wood Shop with Mr. Russell, where the rowdy boys put condoms on the protrusions of the lathe, was a nightmare for me, though. Even though Harry had been a serviceable carpenter and had tried to show bored me how to use the tools, here is the comment Mr. Russell wrote on my report card: "Allen [sic] did in 1 semester what most of the class did by Oct 15 to 31." That is, I took the entire semester to make a simple broom holder, while the others were making tables and chairs with decorative legs. (I eventually learned carpentry building sets in the 1960s.) (Close)

In the summer of 1954 the family spent 2 weeks in Olympic National Park, mostly camping at Lake Crescent and fishing for the special trout that lived nowhere else. All day they would be out on the lake or hiking in the woods. In the evening, with light from the gas lanterns, they would play 7-up poker. Mary would initiate the game with this challenge: "Who is the best 7-up player in camp, and why am I?" Here she is, under the tarp extension from the tent.

Mary was often available to play board games with Chris or Allan—Parchesie or Sorry—and sometimes Harry would join in, too. She was especially fond of Scrabble, a game they acquired about this time. By herself, Mary loved to do crossword puzzles. She also played solitaire (and she taught Allan and his friends how to play double solitaire). With adults, it was canasta or pinochle or cribbage or poker at a table burdened not only with the cards and chips and cribbage board but also 2 or 3 ashtrays, beers, and tall glasses of bourbon whiskey or scotch with water. Those games went far into the night, sometimes until dawn.

Mary was disappointed with the 1954 election. The Republicans lost control of Congress. She had been upset that year when Senator McCarthy was censured by the rest of the Senate. It worried her that white people seemed to be losing ground in the world: The French were now pulling out of their Indochina colony, leaving it to the yellow Communists. And even in America: That "idiot" Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren had led a decision to overturn the tradition of racial segregation in the schools. In his letters, her brother Fred was insisting that Warren should be impeached. Fred was also convinced that fluoride in the reservoirs was a Communist plot, but Mary, who had a history of dental problems, had no argument against the fluoride.

Chris, 16 years old, and 12-year-old Allan did not get along very often. In fact, they hadn't gotten along for a few years, ever since Chris had become a teen-ager and Allan jeered at "teen-age stuff." Now, when Chris washed the dishes and Allan dried, they bickered so much that Mary, remembering how her mother had dealt with the same problem decades earlier with Jane and her, made sure they did chores separately. For example, Chris would do the dishes when Allan went to his Boy Scout meeting, and Allan would do them when Chris went to her Order of the Rainbow meeting.

In the summer of 1955, Chris was picking prunes at her Aunt Goldie and Uncle Cecil's ranch outside of Kennewick. Mary and Harry took Allan and his friend Mike with them on a trip to several state parks. They hiked, fished, clammed, and at every stop they played 7-up poker. Ever-joking Harry addressed the boys as Ignatz and Ignatius, and Mary followed suit.(94)

They finally ended up at Moran Park on one of the San Juan Islands. Here are Mary and Harry on Orcas Island.

In the spring of 1956 daughter Christine, just 18, was graduating from high school, and Mary and Harry (and 14-year-old Allan, too) had every reason to be very proud of her. She had won an AMVETS college scholarship, available only to high school senior scholars who were children of military personnel killed or disabled in World War II or the Korean War. It was the first AMVETS scholarship awarded in the Pacific Northwest, and she was going to use it to fund her attendance at Lewis and Clark College in Portland.(95)

Here you see Christine, with Mary and Harry, in her high school graduation cap and gown (click to enlarge and to see other relevant pictures). Grandma Edmands came out from Andover and stayed with Anna for a couple of weeks.(96)

At the commencement ceremony, Christine joined three other graduates, including the valedictorian and the salutatorian, to give an address on "The Responsibilities of an Educated Person"; Christine's subtheme was "His Debt to Himself and to His Family."

Fried Pies by Christine Edmands Barrett, 1998 Pie crust Sweetened applesauce Cinnamon red hot candies (optional) Powdered sugar Preheat 4 inches of oil in a deep fat fryer to 400°. Roll out the pie crust. Cut out 4-inch circles with a large cookie cutter. Place a tablespoon of applesauce in the middle of each circle (and one cinnamon red hot candy if you choose). Fold the circle in half and crimp the edges. Deep fry two or three of the pies at a time until golden. Drain well. Dust with powdered sugar. Serve warm. This was the Ashbrook treat for trick-or-treat night. It was the Hallowe'en tradition the 30 years they lived on Silver Street. I wish I could say this recipe is an old family one, but I can't. I do recall Mother saying that her mother had made Fried Pies—but under what circumstances, I have not a clue. In early October, Mother canned applesauce from the tree in the back garden. The jars that failed to seal were refrigerated with the knowledge that this sauce would be used for her Fried Pies in a few short weeks. Ingredients for the recipe that were not "on hand" were purchased early Hallowe'en week. The pie crust was made the night before and then refrigerated. When Hallowe'en was on a weeknight and Mother was working, she would leave her job a couple of hours early. She thought the littlest "tricksters" were the cutest and wanted to have her pies warm and ready for them by 5pm… just at dusk. Allan and I would do all we could to help, for Mother would make these wonderful treats only once a year. Whichever one of us arrived home from school first took the crust out of the refrigerator to allow it to come to room temperature. Oil was poured to within 2 inches of the top of the electric fryer. When it came time to actually make the pies, both of us joined in the assembly of them. Since the oil might splash from the fryer and burn, Mother did all the cooking. Dad answered the door and called Mother into the living room if it was someone she knew or if a child arrived in a unique costume. The children of Centralia had an information network that worked wonderfully. After the first year, they all knew that Mrs. Ashbrook made something special for Hallowe'en. So, each year the number of trick-or-treaters grew until one year there were over a hundred children at the door! If Mother got behind in her production, the kids waited patiently in line on the covered porch until the pies were ready. Mother never disappointed; she always had pies but did ask Dad to turn away "repeat customers." She also asked him to turn out the porch lights at 9pm. The older kids were still out, but she thought 4 hours of pie making was certainly enough. She was a very tired lady, and the house had the distinctive odor of hot oil. Allan and I would walk around the block to do our own trick-or-treating about 6pm. I looked after him the first couple of years. As we grew older, we both joined our respective friends for a trek around the neighborhood. In our teen years, there were parties, or we took over door duty from Dad. Mother was always the cook in the kitchen, however. ****** I kissed Mother and Dad good-bye when they finished packing me into the Akin Hall dormitory at Lewis and Clark College in the fall of 1956. Trying to keep the conversation light and the tears at bay, I said, "I'm sure going to miss the Fried Pies this fall." I need not have worried. On October 31, a parcel post box arrived. Shoe box size. I knew. I could smell the oil. In the 4 years I lived at Akin, my college friends grew to know that there was a treat in store on Hallowe'en. The Fried Pies were great even 3 days old and cold. Mother had broken with her tradition. She made pies twice a year, for she knew how much I loved 'em! *** Afterthought *** Things are different today. We teach our children that each treat must be individually wrapped; it is dangerous otherwise. This change took place while Mother was still serving her pies. She did not stop her tradition, but the crowds diminished. She was disappointed.

In the 1956 election, Mary voted to reelect President Eisenhower in his landslide victory even though she regarded him as the "lesser of two evils," the greater one being that "egghead" Democrat Adlai Stevenson. She didn't go as far as her brother Fred, though, who said that though Ike was not a Red, he was certainly "Pink." Actually, Mary approved of Ike's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, who, she said, was not afraid of the "brinksmanship" label his detractors had given him and was happy to go eyeball to eyeball with the Soviets, even at the risk of all-out nuclear war. Dulles reminded her of what she had read of her hero "Carry a big stick" Teddy Roosevelt.

She also didn't worry about Ike's frequent heart attacks, a situation the Democrats had warned about during the campaign. Hell, if he dropped dead, then Nixon would be President, and the country would get on the right track again, she said.

She was upset, though, with Washington State politics. Republican Governor Arthur Langlie had not run for reelection but instead had challenged Democrat Warren Magnuson, whom Mary and other conservatives referred to as a "playboy," for his Senate seat. Langlie was trounced. And easily winning the gubernatorial race was Democrat Albert D. Rosellini; Mary now lamented that the capitol in Olympia was "wop-sided." And perhaps worst of all was the successful joke campaign of former Lieutenant Governor Vic Meyers, the comic Democrat who bragged about his graft; Meyers was elected Secretary of State.

Here is 39-year-old Mary, at the peninsula bar in the kitchen, in the autumn of 1956. Probably politics is not the only thing she is blue about in this picture.

Now Allan was the only child at home. So unlike the sociable, popular Christine, he was awkward and shy, melancholy, somewhat depressed and brooding (he already had furrows in his forehead), and he compensated by applying himself diligently to studies. Harry was critical that he wasn't interested in sports like an adolescent boy should be.(97)

Mary, however, supported Allan's scholarly bent. He was getting excellent grades, just as Mary had 25 years earlier. And she had a plan.

Mary began grooming 14-year-old Allan to follow in the footsteps of his real father, Daddy Allan—to become a Navy officer like him, and like Mary's brother Fred and Allan Sr.'s brother John. Like all of them, young Allan needed to attend the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, after he would graduate from high school in 1960. As the son of an Annapolis graduate who had been killed in World War II, Allan would be given special consideration in getting an appointment. Mary saw no other future for him, and, obsessed with keeping up the military traditions of the family, she was determined that he embrace this future as well. And he did embrace it heartily, happy with the attention.

It was important to begin work on this plan now, when Allan was only a high school freshman. Already, in a strange one-semester course called "Orientation," he was required to write a detailed research paper about his chosen career, his life's direction. With Mary's help and prodding, Allan sent away for U.S. Navy catalogs and for brochures from Annapolis. He cut out pictures of warships and sea battles from the National Geographic and other periodicals, and he carefully pasted them into his illustrated opus. He made tables showing how he would climb the ladder, rating by rating, from Ensign all the way up, and he imagined being an Admiral one day, directing a fleet of awesome sea power. Mr. Milanowski gave him an "A."

Other than "The Twilight Zone," almost all of Allan's TV viewing now was about the Navy: "Victory at Sea," "Navy Log," and, of course, "Men of Annapolis." Allan didn't miss a single episode.

Allan did his best to identify with a hero ghost father he had no memory of. He wanted everyone to call him Ace, which had been Daddy Allan's nickname with his fellow officers. All his friends and even some of his teachers complied.

But what about the flesh-and-blood father he had right at home, his stepfather, Harry, whom he addressed as "Pop"? Odious and cruel comparisons were inevitable between the two fathers: Ace had been an Annapolis graduate and a commissioned Navy officer, Harry had finally graduated from high school 3 months before his 21st birthday. Ace had flown planes, Harry worked nights for Kraft Foods, stirring vats of cottage cheese. While gallant Ace had been risking his life continuously in combat, Harry had spent most of World War II in a TB sanitarium. The more Allan focused on Ace, the more distant he grew from the only father he ever really knew.

Mary had a loving, affectionate relationship with Harry. But with all her grooming of Allan for Annapolis, she was consciously or unconsciously participating in the comparison game. Such an impossible rivalry with a ghost hero must have deeply hurt Harry, but he never showed it.(98)

Allan, too, was measured up against Ace: If he performed well, Mary told him: "Your father would have been proud of you." When he disappointed or aggravated, Mary said: "Your father would have been ashamed of you." She also burdened him with the disclosure that he had been a "planned child" (whereas, she said, both Christine and Janna had been accidental pregnancies) and that he should not disappoint her.

As Mary encouraged Allan's reading and scholarship to ensure an Annapolis appointment, she exhorted him that a man's place was to defend his country.(99)

In the summer of 1957, Mary dipped into the savings from the VA checks so that 15-year-old Allan could attend the National Boy Scout Jamboree in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. This was the only time she dipped into those savings, which she had reserved for college (even though she hadn't been required to do this). It wasn't hard to justify this exception: Allan, 4 years younger than Christine, would be receiving an additional 4 years of those checks.

On frequent occasions the Ashbrooks entertained guests at home. Often, the men would be with Harry in the living room, watching a football game on TV. Mary would be with the women in the kitchen, everyone with a beer, most of them smoking, and having a grand time loudly gossiping, discussing the world's problems or whatever. Allan would be off in his room, trying to read. One day, he typed, as fast as he could, every word he couldn't help but hearing from the kitchen. This is the result.

In the summer of 1958, Christine had a summer job in the laundry at Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon. So she wasn't able to join Mary, Harry, and Allan on their trip to Glacier National Park, Custer Battlefield National Monument, and… Laramie, Wyoming. Oh yes, Haywire went on the trip as well.(100)

Allan, now 16, had not seen Janna, now going on 14, since a few hours in 1950, when neither one of them clearly understood what their actual relationship was. They knew by 1958, however. Janna referred to, and addressed, her biological mother as "Mary." The preceding spring Mary had finally managed to "explain," without dissolving into tears, why she had given Janna away 13 years earlier; her explanation was all about how sneaky Janie had tricked her. So, although Allan was courteous toward Janie during this visit of 3 days, he hated her in his heart for having robbed him of his sister. Here is a picture of Mary with Janie, her former bosom buddy but now her nemesis, taken at Como Bluffs, near Laramie (click it to enlarge it and to see another, relevant picture).

After leaving Laramie, the travelers went to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, and several casino towns in Nevada. They visited Christine at Crater Lake before finally returning home. Here are a couple of other pictures from this trip.

In 1958 a Nebraska attorney for the estate of Addie P. Bennett contacted Anna. Mr. Siefken was about to retire and was updating his records. The will of father Fred's mother's older sister, Aunt Addie, who had died many years before, was still in probate.(101)

Although Fred himself had been dead since 1950, his heirs were about to inherit through him. Since she was aware of all the heirs, Mary took over from 81-year-old Anna when it came to responding to lawyer Siefken. She supplied addresses and phone numbers and wondered what was going to happen next. Then came the big blow.

Anna called Mary all excited. She had a visitor she wanted Mary to meet. Could she come right over? So Mary quickly traveled the six blocks to her mother's house, where a total stranger stood before her. "Honey," said Anna, "this is your sister Isabel!" This was how Mary learned, at age 41, that she had another sister, Isabel, and another older brother, Robert. Her father been married and divorced with a lady named Maria before he met Anna.(102)

Everybody in the family knew about Maria, Isabel, and Robert. In fact, father Fred's mother had mentioned Isabel in her will. But somehow, some way, "everybody" had never included Mary. Everybody just thought that she knew. It was not a secret. But you know how big families are. You tell all the family tales over and over. Then—ooops—you realize that you have forgotten an important part. It takes a lot of telling to let everyone really know the whole family history.

Mary quickly revised the information she had sent to Mr. Siefken. When the estate of her great aunt finally paid off, Mary went right out and purchased a natural gas cooktop with the $600 that was her share.(103)

Mary was disappointed with the midterm election in November 1958. With the recession (and with the anxiety over Sputnik), Republicans lost many seats in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Allan was earning very good grades in high school, and Mary was encouraging him. Everything was working according to plan. During his junior year, she encouraged—directed—him to write letters petitioning for a 1960 appointment to Annapolis. Letters to Congressman Russell Mack, to Senator Warren Magnuson, to Senator Henry Jackson—to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, for heaven's sake. A year in advance of any possible appointment, Mary said he needed to get their attention. The letters always mentioned how Allan's father had graduated from Annapolis and how he had been killed in action in 1945. The letters also included the following sentences, where Allan was projecting his mother:

All my life I too have wanted to attend the Academy and make the Navy my life. With this aim in view, I planned my high school courses.

During his senior year, Allan did well on the Civil Service exam (testing vocabulary and reading, ability to recognize three-dimensional figures from flat drawings, and algebra) as well as the College Entrance Examination Board test.(104)

In January 1960 Senator Magnuson appointed Allan as his principal candidate for admission to Annapolis, solely contingent upon on his passing a physical examination. Now, the only hurdle was the physical, scheduled for March. He had been practicing pushups and chinups, he could do the duck walk (hands on hips, squat deeply with knees spread, and walk 10 paces) and the arm hang (full length and relaxed, hang for 3 seconds with each hand on a bar). Mary made sure that Allan practiced so that he could also do one pull-up from a full hang until until his chin was over the bar; 15 situps in 30 seconds, touching elbow on alternate knee each time; and 10 pushups with feet supported chair height, chin touching floor each time.

What worried Mary was Allan's vision. In those days incoming Midshipmen were required to have 20/20 vision, and he was already nearsighted. Probably from all that reading and scholarship Mary had been encouraging. Now she importuned her son to practice the "Bates method" of eyesight improvement: He needed to hold his palms over his eyes for a minute, then take his hands away and stare wide eyed. Gaze for several minutes at a remote horizon. Repeat again and again. And avoid reading as much as possible.

She drove Allan to Madigan Army Hospital in Fort Lewis and left him there for the required 2 days. He passed everything…except the damned eye test. In spite of the Bates method, his uncorrected distant vision was not sharp enough for the Academy: 20/30 in the right eye, 20/40 in the left. Midshipmen did not wear glasses in those days. On the long drive back home, Mary was utterly silent, deeply disappointed.(105)

So son Allan was not going to go to the Naval Academy, was not going to carry on the family's Navy officer tradition. He did earn a couple of scholarships for college, however: one from the Navy Officer's Wives Club and another, like Christine, from AMVETS. Like her, too, he would be getting a monthly stipend from the Veterans Administration, which would help to cover college expenses. The question was: which college?

Allan was very interested in the esteemed Reed College in Portland, which had published the math analysis book he had just learned calculus from. But Christine had reported to Mary how strange the Reed students were, and about their reputation for outlandishness. Like her father had with her 25 years earlier, Mary forbade her son from going to that beatnik college. He had to settle for the fallback choice, the University of Washington in Seattle.

Allan was to graduate from high school. Christine was to graduate from college. Janna was to come out from Wyoming with Janie to see the festivities. Grandmother Edmands was to travel by train from Massachusetts to be there, too. Mary quit her bookkeeping job at the KELA radio station in order to keep up with the chaos. The following piece by Christine explains what happened. (It's best to read it once through without clicking on the footnotes, to capture her flow. Then go back and get deeper context, and correction of facts, with the footnotes.)

Christine Allan Janna Champion of the World by Christine Edmands Barrett, 1997 I still laugh. I know I shouldn't, but… The year is 1960. A "Leave It to Beaver" year. I am to graduate… with honors… from Lewis and Clark College in Portland. Allan is to graduate… with honors… from Centralia High School. "Other Grandma" had traveled by train from Massachusetts for these back-to-back festivities.(106) None of her grandchildren, nor any other family member, would have dared referred to Mary Caroline Findley Edmands as "Other Grandma" to her face. The Ashbrook family used the term to refer to her to denote that they did not mean Grandma Hawes (Anna, Mary's mother) or Grandma Maxie (Harry's mother, who had died 4 years earlier). Whenever she was on the scene (which, considering the distance and the economics, was quite often), she was called "Grandma Edmands." By everyone. Including Harry. (Close) More important, our sister had come for a visit, too. I had been with Janna and Aunt Janie in Laramie over the winter holidays of 1958, but Allan had not seen his younger sister in 12 years… he had been 6, she 4.(107) From Allan: No, no, no. Let's get the facts straight. Janna and I had seen each other in August 1958, just a few months before Christine had been in Laramie; I had been 16, Janna not yet 14. We had also been together, the 3 of us, for a few hours in 1950, which would have been 10 years before, when Christine was 12, I was 8, and Janna not quite 6. And about that 1948 visit? Christine had been 10, I had been 6, and Janna had been not quite 4. Be all that as it may, however, we hadn't seen Janna very much when we were growing up, and this 1960 visit was very special. (Close) "Other Grandma," born in 1887 was of the old school. Today I will describe her to others by conjuring up the version of Eleanor Roosevelt in appearance. She was everything a mother-in-law should be: autocratic, opinionated, unmovable, humorless. Petrifying. Allan was the only son of her deceased son. He was the only grandchild who could possibly carry the Edmands surname into the next generation. Allan was perfect. Of course, Grandma Edmands had come by train 3,000 miles to see for herself.(108) From Allan: Grandma Edmands did not regard me as perfect, although Christine needs to say so for the purpose of her story. She had come out 4 years earlier, to see Christine graduate from high school and me graduate from the 8th grade. Here's what I wrote about my time with her when we went on the train to Portland together then: "I embarrassed Grandma by talking to strangers and conning her into buying me a dirty joke book. She never said a word." She definitely did not like me talking to one particular stranger in the train station: a black man. (Close) Mother was not on speaking terms with the woman who had raised my sister, but both Janna and Aunt Janie stayed at our Silver Street home. Grandma Edmands stayed in Grandma Hawes's home on Gold Street. The visits were for 2 weeks. Is the tension enough for you yet? Janna arrived with badly dyed hair. Her ash blond had been covered over with an obvious 15-year-old's application of unbelievable henna. The roots showed. Allan had a God-given head of copper-penny or rust red, and I had locks of curly strawberry blond, also God-given. My aunt, in her wisdom, had allowed Janna to announce to the world that she, too, was part of this family. The events of the college went off without a hitch.(109) From Allan: Christine's graduation ceremony happened a few days after Allan's, not before it. But this detail doesn't work as well in the story. (Close) Everyone was pleased as punch to have me be the first of my generation in this family to graduate from college. It was somewhat awkward to introduce Janna. The word sister had not been part of the many conversations I had had with friends over the 4 years, whereas the word brother had been. Then there was that unusual hair. We removed to Centralia. Same awkward introductions. Some polite questions. After all, our Centralia friends hadn't a clue that there was a second Edmands sister. Not that we had exactly kept Janna a secret. It was just too complicated to talk about. So we hadn't. Then the crash came. The phone rang at 3am.(110) From Allan: Actually a policeman knocked on the front door, and it was about 5:30. My mother was particularly upset that the neighbors might have seen him. (Close) I was sleeping in my room with Janna. Grandma Edmands was across town. Allan was in jail. Mother was furious. Dad went to get Allan out of the drunk tank.(111) From Allan: In the high school commencement ceremony, I had gold cords on my gown, as an honor student. I had played a flute solo, "Minuet" from "L'Arlesienne Suite" by Bizet. Then I had gone to the senior class party at the Elks Club. After a couple of hours there, I left with Mike Penley, Paul Conzatti, and his girlfriend, whose name I've forgotten. We smoked cigarettes. We got beer, lots of it. Mike drove us out to Plummers Lake. Paul and his girl wanted to make out in the back, so Mike and I strolled down to the shore and drank some more beer and smoked some more cigarettes. I swam in the lake. I got very drunk. I got sick. We went to an all-night diner, Johnnie's Grill, on Tower Avenue, and I drank cup after cup of hot, black coffee, thinking this would sober me up. It didn't. I was walking to the car, that 1950 green Dodge that Anna had bought 10 years earlier. Before I got there, a policeman pulled up and started questioning me. I didn't want to tell him my name. He ordered me into his car and drove me to the police station. I didn't want to tell him my name, but I said, repeatedly, "I'm only 17." (I would be 18 in exactly 7 days.) They put me in jail. Terrified, I screamed and wailed: "I'm only 17!" Finally I told them my name, and in about an hour, Pop came to fish me out. (Close) I laughed. Mother never forgave me for that horse laugh from the heart. I was cheering aloud that "perfect Allan" had finally done some stupid teenage stunt. No one had been hurt. Except Mom. Her pride.(112) From Allan: Actually her image: She had been bragging about her scholarly son, who "minds his P's and Q's" and she shuddered that neighbors might have seen the policeman at the door. As for "Perfect Allan," he had been living a double life. Getting excellent grades. Playing flute solos. Getting an appointment to Annapolis. All that. At the same time, I had been smoking in secret. More than that, I had been drinking. Quite a lot, in fact. Here's a journal entry for Friday, May 20, 1960, that illustrates my double life, perhaps bordering on schizophrenia: Rain. The Trade Fiesta began today. I wore my slacks and sport coat to school today. I had a chemistry test this morning. At second period I was excused to be on the May Fete Court. We reigned over the Fete. I had been selected to be on the Court by virtue of my participation in plays and music for 4 years. I walked in with Evelyn Opgaard. John Gibson walked in with Sharon Beckman, Dale Hylton walked in with Judi Ayers, Jim Gloyd walked in with Mary Lee Benson, and Lord Russ Denney walked in with Lady Judy Harris. It was very fascinating. It was over at noon and I got changed into my band uniform. The band played downtown in the rain today for the Trade Fiesta. I skipped fifth period today, but I went to Drama. I made arrangements with Bill Smethers to go to Catholic Services on Sunday. I talked with Barbara for a long time. We recorded today. I drank some of my codeine [prescribed over and over again for my chronic bronchitis] and came home. The Senior Dinner-Dance was tonight. I didn't go; I went to the Rec Center dance. I drove around with John Dowell for a while. Ron finally came, and we made arrangements for the evening. I was driving. We went over to Paul Conzatti's and picked him up, and then went over to someone else's house and picked up a case of half-quart cans of Heidelburg Beer. Then we went back to the Rec Center and picked up Dick and Denny. Then we drove out to Ford's Prairie and drank. I had six cans. I was feeling good. Then we went back to the dance. I smoked for quite a while. Then I went out to the car and had another Coke bottle of bourbon. Then I got in Pete Margel's car, and he and Dean Cottrel drove over to Chehalis. I had a couple of stubbies. I was drunk by this time. Later I drove over to Johnnie's Grill and saw Sandy with some guy. I told her I loved her and got in Bob Larsen's car. We and Jim Goodwin, Bill Goodwin, and I drove around awhile, and I had some 103 proof vodka. We ended up at Walt's Drive-in and had a hell of a good time. Then they drove me back to Johnnie's. We fortunately shook a cop. Then I drove out to Walt's again and had some coffee with Bob Harris. I became sober. Then I drove home and went to bed about 2:00. All that drunk driving! My God! Sometimes I would bring booze to school even: I put some of my Pop's bourbon in a thermos, and then I watered his bottle to bring it up to the same level. I often added some of my mother's beer to the bourbon, and I called the mixture a "barbarian." Here's an excerpt from Thursday, May 19: I don't exactly know why, but today I brought a 7-Up bottle filled with bourbon to school. It was really sort of stupid, but I'd already squandered my lunch money on weekend liquor. I had some immediately after chemistry. Then I had some more immediately after rollroom. I went to biology, and afterwards Bob Harris and I had some. News sure spreads around fast. I didn't have very much at noon, but at the beginning of fourth period I got a tip that things were getting a little hot, so Bob put it in Mike Woodward's locker. After math class I went out to Mike's car for a cigarette with John. Then I got Tom Gossan out of Drama, and we finished it off and destroyed the evidence. Then we went back to class. I'd like to think I'm more mature than that now. At least I'm better adjusted, more comfortable with myself, than that unhappy young man of 1960. (Close) Needless to say, we were sworn to secrecy. Grandma Edmands went to her grave never knowing the events of that graduation night.(113) From Allan: Pop was able to make a deal with Johnny Duhmah at the police department to keep my name out of the paper. (Close) And another crash. Janna was learning to drive that summer. She practiced her limited driving skills in the double-wide driveway. Here is a photograph that shows her beside the corner of the garage. She had crumpled the building on one of her practice runs. There she is beside the damage. Hands clasped over her head in the traditional boxing victor stance. Champion of the World. (Click the picture to enlarge it and to see some other relevant photos.) Dysfunctional was not part of my vocabulary until many years later. My poor Mom. TWO weeks!

Soon after the festivities, Christine was hired as a stewardess for Northwest Orient Airlines. She went to Minneapolis for training and then found a home at Bow Lake near SeaTac Airport, with other stewardesses for roommates. Sometimes between assignments she was able to come home for a few days, occasionally bringing a colleague or two along.

One time Jackie Sholberg came along. She had lent Christine her paperback of James Michener's Hawaii. Mary had never read any Michener, and her daughter was sure she would find his epic on that Pacific Paradise she remembered from 1941–1942 fascinating. Mary borrowed Jackie's book from Christine and became engrossed in it. But she had to keep up with her cooking. She was peeling potatoes for a huge potato salad, she was dropping the peeled ones into a large pot of cold water to prevent their turning brown. She accidentally dropped this wonderful book into the pot, too. She was mortified, apologized profusely. Jackie just laughed.

Mary was proud and happy that she had succeeded in bringing up Christine well. Her daughter had obviously established herself as an independent, well-adjusted adult, comfortable with herself, with her friends, with her career.

Allan was unfortunately another story. After the shock of his fall from grace on his graduation night, Mary realized that there was another side of her son that, in her zeal that he be a recapitulation of his namesake father, she hadn't allowed herself to see. On the surface he did what was expected of him, but underneath there was a sullen, depressed, perhaps angry boy. Sometimes she tearfully confronted him: "What did I do wrong?" He, of course, had no answer to this, except protesting that she had done nothing wrong. Mary was worried that Allan was not going to turn out well, but mainly she was just wishing he would finally grow up.(114)

In the autumn Allan enrolled as a freshman at the University of Washington, and Mary made sure he was safely ensconced in the Lander Hall dormitory. Worried Mary wanted regular letters from him, and he tried to assuage those worries with friendly, over-the-top correspondence. (Mary and Harry on one side and Allan on the other were usually adept at using humor to mask the prevailing tension.)

Sunday, September 25, 1960, Seattle
Don't worry so much, Mother. Think of how much poise I'm gaining!… Is Mother cooking for the seventh regiment? Are you having pork chops, applesauce, T-bone steaks, fruit salad, and waffles for supper every night?(115)

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These were Allan's favorite foods in those days.
(Close)

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Are you scheduling fantastic trips? Are you gallavanting [sic] around? Is Haywire sleeping on my bed, or in my bed? Chris called today from the Roosevelt Hotel. She said you could put Haywire at my place at the table, and then you wouldn't have to shorten it up. Has Mom sold the field yet? Is the barn painted yet?… Love from your favorite son, Allan

Mary was working to foster a familial relationship with Janna, but it was very difficult for her to give up addressing her with the surname "Edmands" and to comply with what the name Janna was known to the world by: "Hawes"; to do so would have been an official acknowledgment of reality. In the Christmas season of 1960, she finally overcame her reluctance. Here is from a thank-you letter than Janna wrote from Laramie:

Dear Mary & Harry, Haywire & Chico,
I don't know where to start thanking you. But I might as well start at the beginning, novel as it sounds. The address to Janna Hawes. I feel as though you had finally admitted my identity. Thank you muchly…

In early 1961 Allan wrote that he was in a play at the university:

Sunday the 8th of Jan[uary 1961]
… I don't know what your reaction is going to be—but I've made a part in a play up here—Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. I'm not too flattered with the part (Mercutio's page and Paris' page), but then I'm only an insignificant Freshman non-major. This is the first Shakespeare!! I know I have enough time. It will be tough, but I'm sure I can do it.…

Why couldn't Allan concentrate on his math-major studies and aim toward a solid career in science or engineering? Mary was happy that his son's first roommate was an electrical engineering student, and she and Harry really liked his new roommate, math major Ben Heeb, who often came to Centralia with Allan during breaks. She was sure that outgoing and relaxed Ben had to be having a very positive influence on him.(119)

Allan's return home during the summer break of 1961 was a disaster. He was able to secure a job at the local glove factory and, after a month, a night job at the cannery in Chehalis, but he couldn't hold on to these positions for long. In one instance, instead of driving to Chehalis, he drove his friend Bob Frame and Bob's girlfriend for a 200-mile round trip to SeaTac Airport, carefully removing the speedometer/odometer cable so that Harry wouldn't detect the excess mileage.

Then Allan got into trouble with the police once again. In the early morning hours, after Allan had driven around with Bob rather than show up at his night job, the two of them blocked a urinal at the train station so that the automatic flush would flood the floor. Mary called Bob "crazy" and certainly considered him a bad influence on her son.

Mary took Allan to a psychiatrist in Olympia to see what was amiss with him. At one point, screaming, she informed her son that he had been a burden to her since even before he had been born. She also intimated that he was the main reason she had given Janna away. She was relieved when he left with Ben to work in the spud harvest east of the mountains.(120)

But during his next year at the university, Allan invoked more worries in Mary. He continued his passion for plays; in fact he dropped his math major and became a history major with a minor in drama. He also dropped personable, sporty Ben as a roommate and a friend.(121)

Allan's politics were becoming liberal. He got himself kicked out of the dorm.(122)

And—horrors!—he grew a beard! He seemed to be becoming a beatnik. Whenever she saw Allan, she couldn't help herself: "When are you going to shave off that goddamned beard?"(123)

Mary repeatedly and rhetorically asked what had she done wrong, and Harry reassured her that there was nothing that she should have done differently.

When she was 44 years old, Mary traded in all of her sensitive, aching teeth for dentures. It took months for her to recover from the extractions, but after that she didn't have to worry about cavities and all the oral problems that had been afflicting her for decades. As you can tell from the photographs, before and aft, however, she definitely looked older: different jaw line, slightly sunken cheeks.

In October 1962, daughter Christine married young businessman Edwin Barrett. In the ceremony at the First Christian Church in Centralia, and in the reception at the Silver Street house, there was an awkward joining of two families, the plebeian, blue-collar Ashbrooks and the more patrician, aristocratic Barretts. Christine and Ed made their first home in Portland.

The trusty Singer sewing machine was traded in for new machine in the early 1960s. Mary moaned about that decision the rest of her years. The new one was not near as good as the trusty 1937 machine. She had upholstered, tailored, created endless gifts, sewn almost all the family clothing, made slipcovers and drapes with that blessed Singer. This new machine had to be in the repair shop almost all the time with a broken gear or whatever. The needles broke, the threads tangled, the tension was always off. In the end, Mary relegated the new one to the storage shed, to be brought out only for mending. And she chose to do most of that by hand.

As new empty-nesters, Mary and Harry had plenty to do. They went fishing on weekends. They visited friends or relatives (who were also friends), sometimes a day or two away by car. Of course, they visited daughter Christine and son-in-law Ed in their apartment in Portland.(124)

Friends or relatives came and visited them. In fact, a new friend came into their life: 33-year-old Harry Dicks, the son of Mary's first cousin Arthur.(125)

This Harry had been working for the State Department in Cambodia, and he had lots of stories. Now he was living in Seattle, and he often visited the Ashbrooks in Centralia. (He also kept tabs on son Allan.) To be distinguished from Harry Ashbrook, Christine's college roommate Jennie Johnson dubbed this Harry "Harry Also," and that became how he was known from then on with the Ashbrooks.

Though he was technically in the same generation as Christine and Allan, Harry Also seemed more like a contemporary of Mary and Harry. He enjoyed the televised football games, but he especially enjoyed sharing beers with Mary, chatting by the hour, playing cards, and especially playing Scrabble. Harry almost always won at Scrabble. Eventually, Harry Also and Mary, in their relationship, assumed names from the comic strip Peanuts. Harry Also was Charlie Brown, and Mary was Lucy.

In June 1963, son Allan, now 21, enrolled as a summer student at the University of Colorado in Boulder. On weekends when he wasn't needed in rehearsals with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, he drove (in his own car) to Laramie to spend time with his sister Janna, then almost 19. That's when he learned Janie's side of the story of why Janna had grown up there. Here is bearded Allan at that time.

Mary's bearded son continued to find ways to shock and dismay her. Though he was now technically an adult, she still maintained control over his remaining money from the Veterans Administration. That's how she learned of a new misadventure. He had to ask her to send him $150 out of that estate right away.(126)

Why? He had impregnated a Boulder woman, 3 years his senior and already a mother of a 4-year-old, and he needed to pay for an illegal abortion.(127)

Mary hotly scolded Allan over the phone, questioned him if he was sure that he was responsible, asked him sarcastically when he was ever going to grow up, but she sent the money.

Rather than staying in Centralia during the weeks between the end of one university's summer session and the beginning of the other university's autumn quarter, Allan used up the time by driving to Louisiana and then to Maine and then, gradually, timing it just right, back to Washington.

In the spring of 1964 Allan, newly graduated from the University of Washington, moved to that hotbed of radicalism, Berkeley, California. That was where, 4 years earlier, student activists had demonstrated against the investigations of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and had been depicted in the patriotic documentary Operation Abolition as agents or as dupes of agents of a vast Communist plot to overthrow the U.S. government. And now Allan was living there! Within a month he wrote that he was becoming a pacifist and had some criticisms of U.S. foreign policy (basically that he didn't see why humans should be involved in killing other humans); Mary wrote back: "Your father wouldn't have liked to hear you talk. He was proud of his country, and he died in its defense."

In the summer there were several news reports of young activists from Berkeley, not all of them students, chanting slogans for this or that cause at various places in the Bay Area, and then thousands of them protesting the Republican convention at San Francisco's Cow Palace, protesting the nomination of Mary's hero, Senator Barry Goldwater, for President. She wondered if Allan were there.(128)

In September Allan stopped by the house on Silver Street on his way north to Seattle. He had two friends with him: Roger Scott, a liberal who had been at the March on Washington the year before and heard Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, and Hilbert Coleman. Good God, Hilbert was a Negro! Someone Allan had met during his protests with the "Congress of Racial Equality" (CORE). And Allan himself had plans to go to Mississippi to work on voter registration!

Mary, fancying herself polite, immediately initiated a conversation with Hilbert—actually engaged Hilbert in a debate—about racial integration. "Now, Hilbert, it's nothing about you personally. You know I think the world about you, don't you? But—" She defended herself openly and proudly as a "bigot," and she asserted the rights of restaurant owners to serve or not serve whomever they chose, of employers so to choose whom to hire or not, of realtors so to choose who was eligible to buy or rent where.

Mortified Allan never brought anyone over to the Ashbrook house again. In fact, that was the last time Allan ever stopped at the house at all.

A couple of days later, the United States Selective Service System sent its "greetings" letter to Allan, its "Order to Appear for Physical," "directing" him to report for the Armed Services Pre-Induction Physical Examination—in other words, the draft letter. Up to that time, 22-year-old Allan had been eligible for student deferments from the universal military conscription of young male American citizens, but now that he was out of school, he was classified as 1A.

The letter had been addressed to Allan's address of record, 831 South Silver Street in Centralia. Mary opened it, read it, and then enclosed it in a larger envelope addressed to Allan's Berkeley address. The military would be good for him. It would make a man out of him, at last.

With the federal "greetings," Mary enclosed a small green "Radio Ringo" game card, on the back of which she wrote:

Here you are, boy--I thought this might be your GREETINGS so I opened it. Change of plans?(129)

Ever practical, Mary did take out a life insurance policy on her son.

In the first half of 1965 Allan was back in Seattle, working as a short-order cook. Mary and Harry visited him once in his apartment near Green Lake, showing up without advance notice (as was their habit). He had a girl friend there with him. A Japanese girl, of all things! She had been with him in Mississippi. All four of them were very polite, but the tension could be cut with a knife.(131)

Mary and Harry certainly had occasion other than Allan to visit Seattle. Christine and Ed had moved there, and now 27-year-old Christine was having a baby. Susannah Jane ("Sue") Barrett, the Ashbrooks' first grandchild, was born in April. Naturally this meant rolls and rolls of film. Here is a picture of baby Sue with Mary and Anna, not long after her birth, on a visit to Centralia.

In 1965 Anna, going on 88 years old, no longer able to keep her own house on Gold Street, moved in with the Ashbrooks. (That was when the Milkcan Papers were discovered, and you can see the story here of how Mary rescued them.) Mary had stopped working at the radio station the preceding year, and was thus able to take better care of her mother, who was suffering from diabetes and serious arthritic pain.

In the late summer Allan left Seattle for the last time. He was in Mississippi again, then in New York City, then he was hitchhiking west to Laramie, Wyoming. Daughter Janna was getting married in a Catholic wedding to Rich Yarnot, both of them University of Wyoming grads, Rich having been in the Air Force ROTC (as Allan himself had been for a mandatory 2 years), and he was now being commissioned as an officer. Allan was acting as the "father of the bride," to "give away" his sister bride to the Second Lieutenant groom. Janie's family—nieces, nephews—were there; Rich's parents, siblings, cousins, were there. Bearded beatnik black-sheep Allan was the only family member present from Mary's side of the family.(132)

Mary and Harry assumed the role of grandparents with gusto.(133)

They took the 2-hour trip to Seattle often, bonding with baby Sue right away, and they were always happy to have Christine and Ed come down to Centralia with Sue. And Mary was communicating regularly with Janna, who was now expecting her first child; Veronica Jane ("Roni") Yarnot was born in Tampa, Florida, in November 1966. Janna's second child came along less than a year later: Monica, born in Laramie in October 1967, while Rich was flying missions in Vietnam. Janna sent pictures as well as regular family news updates.(134)

But Christine's Sue was the granddaughter whom Mary and Harry got to see in person. At first, soon after she was able to talk, Sue dubbed Harry and Mary as "Poppo and Mommee," but after a while that changed: She started referring to Harry, who often wore ankle-high field boots (and let her play with them), her "Grandpa Boots," to differentiate him from her Grandfather Barrett. (Here is a picture of toddler Sue wearing her grandfather's boots.) Of course, Mary was swept along in the naming and became "Grandma Boots." From the time of Sue's birth, Mary had been busy knitting things for her: a crib blanket, booties, mitts, a hand-knit bathrobe for her to wear when she was only 9 months old.

In her late 40s, Mary began suffering recurrent bouts of bursitis in her right arm. In May 1966 Harry, age 53, suffered a minor heart attack, lost a lot of weight, and was out of work for several weeks. In the summer he suffered a stomach ulcer, and for several months he had to stop chewing his tobacco. Still, with brother Fred and sister-in-law Laura coming up from California to look after frail Anna, they were able to take off to Nevada during Harry's vacation. They even were able to visit Harry's half-brother Alec and his wife Laura Mae in Hobbs, New Mexico. Sometimes sister-in-law Ruth Ashbrook or Ruth's sister Lucille would "grandma-sit" for a day or two, and Mary and Harry went fishing on the Columbia River. Here is a picture of Mary there with her salmon.

For their 20th wedding anniversary, Harry gave Mary a plain gold band to replace the Keepsake rings from their wedding that she was no longer able to wear because of a skin allergy.

Mary and Harry continued visiting Seattle often, to see their growing granddaughter Sue as often as possible. And Christine and Ed often came down to Centralia with Sue. Here is 2-year-old Sue with Haywire.

Harry and Mary celebrated her 50th birthday, June 23, 1967, in Seattle with Christine, Ed, and 2-year-old Sue. Harry gave her the old-fashioned plain gold wedding band she had always wanted. Christine made a cake with a single candle.

In the following February, there was another granddaughter: Christine gave birth to Mary Christine Barrett, always to be known as Mary.

(And, as necessary, in this narrative, the granddaughter can be referred to as Mary B. and the grandmother either as Mary A. or Grandma Boots.)

Janna's Rich had just returned from his dangerous tour in Vietnam, and he got to see and bond with his second child, daughter Monica, already a toddler, for the first time. The four of them took a much-needed R&R trip, visiting kin in Centralia in August 1968, before returning to Laramie. This was the first time that Mary and Harry were able to see the two Yarnot children. Here are Monica Yarnot, baby Mary Barrett, Sue Barrett, and Roni Barrett.

In June 1969, Anna, 91 years old, who had been suffering with diabetes and arthritis for several years, who had been severely ill for 8 months, and who recently had been sleeping most of the time, died in a Centralia nursing home. Mary, understandably distraught at losing her mother, played exhausted hostess to the extended family who came to pay respects.

About this time, Mary and Harry became close friends with Allan's childhood friend Gordon Harper ("Gordy") and his wife Joan. (Though there was an obvious "generation gap" with son Allan, the Ashbrooks certainly bridged it with the Harpers.) Mary became particularly close with Joan, and they easily and happily spent hours together, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, and playing cards or just yakking. Here is Mary's comment about this a couple of years later:

She and I get along so well. Christine calls her my daughter-in-residence, and both Harry and I agree. Since Pearl and Hugh [Gordon's parents] are gone, Joan calls us her folks… Mom and Dad. Lots of people think she is ours, and we don't disillusion them.

In 1969 Janna gave birth to her third child, Steven Gerard Yarnot, in Lakenheath, England, where her family was living. This would be Mary's fifth grandchild, the first grandson, but—after that short 1968 visit—with the Yarnot branch she had only Janna's occasional newsy letters and some photos. With her local-area granddaughters, however, Mary and Harry could be wonderful, full-fledged grandparents. They loved to baby-sit so that Christine and Ed could get some time away.

As the 1970s began, Grandma and Grandpa Boots took the Barrett girls fishing with them, taught them how to catch worms, were there when Sue caught her first fish. Grandma Mary happily read to the girls by the hour. She knitted bonnets and all kinds of things for them—she knitted baby-doll crib blankets, for example—and she even taught Sue how to crochet and to knit. At Christmas time, Mary made ornaments for the tree, one for each child—for example, a 2-inch-high hand-knitted red bell or a hand-crocheted 3-inch-diameter stiffly starched snowflake.

Correspondence with son Allan, now living in upstate New York, was sporadic. As much as she wrote him, she couldn't count on hearing back from him more than three or four times a year. She sent him money to buy her a few months of 1-dollar New York lottery tickets at a time.

In 1971 Mary and Harry purchased a camper for their truck to extend their living quarters beyond their full-size tent when they went on trips. Which were as frequent as they could manage. Kraft Foods had closed the Chehalis plant several months before, and Harry had been laid off; his prospects for getting hired somewhere at his age of 59 were small. Mary was only half-joking when she said they might have to live in that camper.

Later that year Harry was hired at the Leprechaun Dairy on the Galvin Road. When the management learned that Mary was a bookkeeper, they hired her, too, part time. When they visited the Barretts, Grandma and Grandpa Boots brought some of the Leprechaun 6-ounce milk pouches usually sold to the schools. Harry showed 6-year-old Sue and little Mary B., 3 years old, how to stick a sharp straw in them to get the milk out.

Harry's job at the dairy was nonunion, and his salary was not great. He did have his small Teamsters pension from his years at both the Daviscourt Bakery and Kraft Foods, but it also was not much. Mary was working only part time. She complained that "taxes and food and just plain things (light bulbs, etc.) get us." In 1971 the Ashbrooks took in a very polite and likable Palestinian college student as a room-and-boarder: Yasir el-Hadir, and that helped. They were able to save toward their dream: a new truck and a travel trailer so that they could hit the road for years at a time. They looked forward to September 1974, when Harry would be able to retire.

I'm going to quit then, too. We will be broke, but very happy. Broke, because I won't be able to draw on my Social Security until I am 60 in 1977, and can't draw on Harry's until I am 62 in 1979. (His will be more than mine because I never earned very much.)

In 1972 Mary and Harry were blessed with another grandchild, their sixth, when 33-year-old Christine gave birth to her third: Jennifer Jean ("J.J.") Barrett. Mary remarked that "Ed has mellowed lots since Sue was a baby—poor fellow, he is really outnumbered by all the girls." The Ashbrook grandparents took 7-year-old Sue for a week in June, bringing her to the dairy and showing her how the production worked. Harry whittled her a wooden rifle so that she could play cowboys and Indians with the neighborhood children. He taught her to box (and to shave her face). They camped at the Mission Bar on the Cowlitz River and fished; Sue caught the only fish. Then 4-year-old Mary B. got to stay with the Grandparents Boots; they camped and fished on the Columbia (it was her first time camping, and she loved it). Here is Mary with Haywire in Centralia. Just as it took a stranger in 1920 to point out to Anna that 3-year-old Mary had crossed eyes, Harry was the one who told Christine that her daughter Mary had crossed eyes.

Mary (that is, Mary A.) had been gardening at the Silver Street house ever since they had moved there, more than a quarter century before. Now she was doing organic gardening, though. She saved peelings, eggshells, all kinds of wet garbage and covered it all in trenches in one half of the plot. The following year, that half would have very fertile composted soil for growing vegetables (beans, carrots, beets, turnips, asparagus, blackberries) and flowers, and she would bury garbage in trenches in the other half. The free manure she got from the dairy helped the crops, too.

Every year Mary canned jams, jellies, and other preserves. She also enjoyed making sauerkraut in a large crock, which they allowed to ferment in the room that had been Allan's. She was never a very good cook, but there were certain things she could do well: For example, she could bake spare ribs with barbecue sauce all day long while she was at the dairy, and then serve them with sauerkraut and boiled potatoes in the evening. Harry was always very happy with the meals she prepared.

During Christmas 1972, Mary gave in her usual way: Ignoring, or scorning, the commercialization as much as possible, she gave presents only to whom she wished and what she and Harry could afford, and only because she wanted to. She made things—for example, that yearly homemade Christmas tree ornament for each of her Barrett granddaughters—or she bought sale items way in advance, in the summer. Suddenly, about the middle of December, she started to think she was Mrs. Santa Claus, however.

Muslim room-and-boarder Yasir watched her carefully, and then he sent out Christmas cards and gave gifts himself. He said that for the first time in his life he understood the idea of Christmas, without religion having to be a part of it. The year before the Ashbrooks had given him a road atlas of the U.S. and Canada, and this year they gave him Roget's Thesaurus. Yasir was the Ashbrooks' "son in residence."

Mary had a "brag board" in the house: a bulletin board with pictures of all the grandchildren. Janna sent pictures of her three—Roni, 6, Monica, 5, and Steven, going on 4—from their new home in Blytheville, Arkansas. Mary looked forward to the day when the physical distance wasn't so great with them.

Grandma and Grandpa Boots were frustrated when the older Barrett girls were in school, because they didn't get to see so much of them. But during vacation time, the grandparents insisted on spending time with each of the girls, individually, a week or two at a time. They went camping, fishing, or clamming at the beach. Harry was always entertaining; He was childlike, on their level: He would make them laugh by comparing Holstein cows with "half-stein" ones. Once he took the blade off the riding mower and drove Sue around the block on it. He made each girl a tool box of her own, with her own name on it. Sue would remember for years how he had given her her first tool: a pair of pliers. On another occasion Harry made a hand-whittled slingshot for Mary B. (see the picture).

In 1973 Grandma Boots knitted matching vests for the Barrett girls, 8-year-old Sue, 5-year-old Mary B., and 1-year-old J.J. (To enlarge the picture, just click it. With the enlargement are a couple of other relevant pictures from this time.) At one point, Mary and Harry took little J.J. with them to Kennewick while the other girls and Christine and Ed went sailing. Harry's sister Goldie and her husband Cecil, and their friends Rita and Chappie, were delighted with the little girl.

As you have seen, Mary (Grandma Boots) was always happy to spend time with, and to entertain, her grandchildren, but after her relaxing beers had taken effect, she sometimes had difficulty with their parents, her daughter and son-in-law. For example, though she was aware that Ed disliked all cooked vegetables, particularly peas and carrots, she offered him peas and carrots every time they visited Centralia. When he would politely refuse, she'd throw a snit, cry, and leave the room to pout in her bedroom. When the young Barretts visited without staying for dinner, another snit. Finally Ed stopped coming to Centralia; Christine came with the girls without him.(135)

Of course, Mary was appalled with the inner-city riots, the leftist protests, and the provocative "hippie" counterculture—which, to her, were all of a piece. She strongly identified with the voters whom Nixon had called the "Silent Majority," and when she learned that young protesters were angry with "the Establishment," she considered herself a proud part of that Establishment.(136)

In 1972, in one of his infrequent letters, 30-year-old Allan wrote that he had been playing music at various places around Woodstock, New York. (He was also living at various frequently changing addresses in that region.)(137)

A few months later, Allan asked for the birth times of himself and other family members so that he could construct their horoscopes. He included pictures; here is one, and you can click it to see another. Determined to be accepting rather than provoked, Mary wrote:

Thank you so much for the pictures— I don't even mind the beard! I do wonder why you don't have your hair cut and shaped? You can tell that we old folks are getting used to long hair— if it is clean. I have seen some hair on the fellows that any woman would envy. Didn't think that we would ever say that, did you?

We got a 21-year-old bearded long-haired boy who made a contract bid of $100 (we bought the paint). Imagine all the windows, doors, and eaves on this house and garage for $100! and it did need scraping very badly on the south side! Anyway, I bought paint and made advances to Hank for three weeks— he did a good job. I gave him a bonus of $20 but told him that perhaps he might bid jobs by the gallon of paint used after this. About $20–$25 per gallon would have been right— but then he was to furnish ladders and brushes, etc. (which we did). He knew he had bid wrong long before he was through, but I didn't let him out of it. As I say I gave him a bonus, plus coffee and cookies— and shut up Mary and Sue about his beard and his red hair… we liked him, and recommended him to other people.(138)

In early 1974, Allan wrote that he was going to be marrying Dodie Gerson and that they were expecting a baby in the autumn. Mary was delighted (perhaps her wandering son was at last settling down?) and began planning her crocheting and knitting right away. Here is a picture of a clean-shaven Allan marrying his bride in June. Dodie's mother and family friends from New York City were there, but no one from Allan's side of the family could make it. The Ashbrooks' seventh grandchild, baby girl Norah Phoebe Umbriel Gerson Edmands (soon to be unofficially renamed "Oona Edmands") was born in late October in Rhinebeck, New York. Mary kept enlarging a special charm bracelet, now featuring seven "heads," one for each grandchild with name and birth date engraved. The name change was too late for that bracelet; it kept the name Norah.(139)

In the summer 6-year-old Mary B. spent a couple of weeks with her Grandma and Grandpa Boots. They took her camping at Schaefer State Park on the Satsop River near Montesano. A little later 9-year-old Sue had her time share with them, and they went to a friend's private campground on the Wynoochee River near Aberdeen. Harry was always entertaining: For example, driving through the town of Montesano, he would argue with the town's name and make his granddaughter laugh: "No, Monte say YES!" After the two older girls were in school in September, the grandparents got to have 2-year-old J.J. for a while. They took her to visit family in Kennewick. "No doubt we spoiled her a bit," wrote Mary, "but it is easy to do with her—she is a darling. We hated to take her back Wednesday but were glad to be able to borrow her." Pictured is J.J. in a rather frilly outfit.

Mary and Harry sold their old truck to brother Fred and bought a red 1974 Dodge pickup. They installed a canopy on it and, preparing for their dream of hitting the road for an extended trip, started looking at trailers the truck could pull. "We want to go now," Mary wrote, "while we are both young enough and well enough to enjoy ourselves. So many of our friends have waited too long to retire, and one or both are ill or dead." During the oil-embargo energy crisis of the early 1970s, they worried that gasoline might be rationed. In the meantime, they were able to take trips to Lake Tahoe or Reno to play Keno (to "pay their dues"). Sometimes they went on a chartered Eagles Club bus with friends Joan Harper and Arlene Thompson.

Both 57-year-old Mary and 62-year-old Harry were taking Geritol ® iron-and-vitamin supplement by this time. In late September Mary canned 27 pints of tomatoes (and made chili sauce out of the rest of the harvest Gordon had given her), 18 quarts of peaches, 12½ quarts of pears, 21½ quarts of sauerkraut, and lots of applesauce, too. "I was tired last night—but feel fine now. Good old Geritol!" Mary was also suffering arthritis in her right thumb by this time. (By the way, she was continuing her every-4-year ritual of repainting the kitchen—ceiling, walls, cupboards inside and out. Now she added the back porch to the ritual.)

Thanksgiving 1974 was the last one that Mary and Harry hosted the large extended family and friends, 27 diners in all, including themselves: Christine, Ed, Sue, Mary B., J.J., brother Fred, sister-in-law Laura, niece Faye Hawes, nephew Rick Hawes and his wife Rhonda and their son Eric, Rhonda's parents and another child, Donna Clark, Laurie and Peg Colerick and their 5 kids, Gordon and Joan Harper, and Darrell Buck. They were crowded but had fun "and entirely too much to eat," wrote Mary. "Next time I think we should hire a hall. Really. But then the fellows couldn't watch their football games, could they?"

By her late 50s Mary was blind in her left eye. When viewed in a mirror, her lazy eye was always apparent. This was also true at the end of a long day: The eye moved ever so slightly toward her nose. She would cheat to get a driver's license by quickly memorizing the eye chart with the good eye so that examiners would not know about the weakness. She threw in the towel, though, when she and Harry went on the road. Mary became a very good navigator and let Harry be the professional driver that he was.

Even with one eye, Mary kept right on reading up a storm. While traveling, she discovered the charms of the used bookstore. She could purchase a grocery bag of paperbacks in one town and return those same books for credit at a used bookstore on down the road.

Since she was traveling as the designated navigator, Mary had considerable time on her hands. She was able to create a number of sweaters, afghans, and a wonderful completely hand-stitched, oversized patchwork quilt. She took notes about all their travels. Evenings, Mary transcribed everything in triplicate (with carbon paper on a manual typewriter) and occasionally sent a copy to her cousin, children, or grandchildren. At one time Mary hoped to have all this published, but failing health put an end to that idea. Papers of the unpublished nonfiction manuscript filled three paper ream boxes at the end of her life.

In spring 1975 Mary and Harry finally found the trailer they had been looking for: They purchased a 20-foot 1970 Aljo with tandem wheels, and they began practicing how to haul it. At last, at the beginning of June, after a couple of local shakedown trips, and with daughter Christine in her Seattle "home base" acting with power of attorney for whatever came up, they embarked on a grand odyssey. (Click the picture to enlarge it and to see another relevant picture.)(140)

Every day Mary maintained a running journal, which she converted into an (unfortunately) unfinished book, Innocents on Wheels.(141)

In the first few days they camped in the Oregon Cascades, visited with friends George and Louise in northeastern California, camped for a week near Sparks, Nevada, so that they could play Keno in Reno.…

In June 1975, Janna gave birth to her fourth child, Vincent Charles Yarnot, in San Francisco. He was Mary and Harry's eighth grandchild, their second grandson. The Yarnots had moved to Sacramento, certainly now in reach of a visit from the Ashbrooks. But such a visit was not part of the initial itinerary of the huge trek Mary and Harry had embarked on.(142)

They found out about baby Vincent a few days into their trip, when they were in Nevada.

On the way to Winnemucca their third week out, Mary and Harry saw a motor home with a bumper sticker reading "The Geritol Gypsies," and they decided to assume that name for themselves. After Nevada, they crossed the Salt Flats and visited friends Dayanne and Phil (Dayanne had been Christine's roommate in college) and their children in Salt Lake City. (Mary had her 58th birthday in Salt Lake City.) Another couple of hundred miles and they visited the family of another one of those roommates: Lucille and Isabel in Vernal. They suffered a breakdown there—a sheared pinion gear in the pickup—and had to wait for parts to arrive from Salt Lake City; fortunately, the breakdown had been in the town (in the mountains it might have been fatal), and the parts and labor were covered by warranty.

They stayed a week in the eastern slope of the Rockies near Denver at a camp called Stage Stop, where they celebrated the Fourth of July (displaying a big flag on the trailer), and where they made friends and shared lunches and campfire suppers with the manager couple as well as several other campers. In fact, throughout the trip, the Geritol Gypsies made strong friendships with camp managers and other campers. In nearby Littleton, they visited Mary's 90-year-old Aunt Bertha, her cousin Dick and his wife Elsie, and their daughter Charlotte.

The travelers turned northward, into Wyoming, then back and forth across the borders between that state, South Dakota, and Montana. At Lemonade Springs a plunger for the brake system on the pickup's right rear wheel brake system failed, more than a hundred miles from the nearest Dodge dealer that could honor the warranty, and Mary found herself writing to "Your Man in Detroit." They were rescued by camp owner Harold Hanson and his father, trained mechanics of farm machinery. And in Williston, North Dakota, they were able to get the entire wheel assembly replaced on the warranty. They were now 6 weeks out from home.

Soon after that they entered Saskatchewan and encountered Celsius temperatures, imperial gallons, and labels in both French and English. They sent some of those labels home to the Barrett grandchildren as souvenirs (they had also sent dinosaur hunting licenses from Dinosaur Park in Colorado). It was in Saskatchewan that they learned to make wind whirligigs out of milk cartons. In Winnipeg they got the odometer recalibrated and the trailer hitch lowered to prevent the skids from scraping on inclines.

At the end of July they stayed a week at Tomahawk Lodge on the Lake of the Woods in Ontario and tried fishing for the "ugly" walleye for the first time; another camper gave them some walleye and northern pike he had caught from his boat. They celebrated their 29th wedding anniversary on Lower Lake Shebandowan, in the trailer with tamale pie and cole slaw, and then shared coffee with another couple, Bea and Glen, whose anniversary was the same day. (A few days later they ate together at a Chinese restaurant in Thunder Bay, a town well named as far as they were concerned because of the most dramatic thunderstorm they had ever seen.) Whenever possible, they played card games with, and made whirligigs for, the children they met, and they missed their Barrett grandchildren so very much.

The Geritol Gypsies had lots of adventures, and they learned a lot. At Matawa, Ontario, they were questioned by heavily armed police and their trailer searched, just in case they might have been harboring an escaped convict from North Bay. In Quebec, they found that, from necessity, they were learning a few words of French from the road signs: Nord, Sud, Est, Oest, Vient, Arrête. They were also able to make out with sign language in a number of spots. Here the travelers are on either side of the guard while they tour the Citadel in Quebec City.

On the Gaspe peninsula they encountered charming little fishing villages and miles of brutal construction. Shopping for groceries, they learned a few more French words: ouvert, ferme, poisson a vendre, and, of course, sortie. They had fun haggling with child salesmen hawking model ships, but they haggled too long and ran out of salesmen before they could buy one. They had a bit of a problem reentering the United States between Woodstock, New Brunswick, and Houlton, Maine, because they had not declared their rifle with U.S. Customs when they crossed the border from North Dakota into Saskatchewan; Harry had to swear an affidavit that it was the very same rifle.

In West Brooksville, Maine, after some research in the Bangor phone book and some driving around, Mary introduced herself to a Gerald "Girard" Hawes, and a few days later she met his brother Dwight Hawes, who turned out to be her third cousins once removed.(143)

Mary was happy to share the family history stories she knew, and she took notes with the stories she learned from these newly acquired kin.

By now it was September. Our Geritol Gypsies traveled on small state highways to Andover, Massachusetts, and parked the truck and trailer for several days in the driveway of in-laws Jean and Roland Weeks, who gabbed with them through the nights and in the days treated them to all the New England delicacies—lobster, steamed clams, clam chowder, fish chowder, and more lobster. Jean and Mary visited the oldest cemetery in Andover, and they took rubbings on the graves of Edmands ancestors Joshua and Mary Phelps, 9 generations back.

A week later they were parked under a big chestnut tree not far from the back door of Mary's cousin Arthur Dicks's house in Blackstone, hooked up to the house's electricity and water. Arthur's huge family included his son Harry Also (now firmly on the East Coast) and his son Frederick, daughter-in-law Del, and their several children (some grown up, some not), as well as a house guest and an occasional housekeeper.

At Mystic	At Blackstone	Scrabble

Arthur and Del took the travelers to the nearby cemeteries in Dedham and Wrentham, and Mary was able to make gravestone rubbings of her third and fourth great grandfathers, both named Hezekiah Hawes. Frederick and Del took them to the Mystic Maritime Museum (see the picture on the left). Harry Also and Mary played Scrabble quite a bit (see the picture on the right), and it was great to renew their relationship after the absence of quite a few years. They enjoyed hours of just plain talking.

The travelers always preferred to arrive suddenly, without advance warning, at each visit at the house of relative or friend, and they turned down Arthur's suggestion that he call ahead to the next stop, with Mary's five Connecticut cousins (once removed) who were the daughters of his late sister Florence: Marjorie, Mabelle, Barbara, Ruth Ann, and Dotty. Dotty and her husband, Ed, were on vacation in the Virgin Islands, and the other cousins were working at their various jobs and were thrown into a tizzy with the Ashbrooks' unexpected arrival after an absence of 25 years. They parked the trailer in the yard at the Tolland home of Maybelle and her husband, Howard. Mary reported sharing dinners and gabfests with all the daughters (except Dotty), each of whom was in her 40s; some of the husbands joined a get-together at Maybelle and Howard's, and with Harry they watched a Red Sox game on TV.(144)

During the last week of September Mary and Harry reached the Catskills of New York State, parked the trailer at a campsite by the Esopus River, and, with the help of the Chichester post mistress and general store owner, arrived with the truck unannounced at the home of son Allan, 33, daughter-in-law Dodie, 28, and granddaughter Oona, 11 months.(145)

For the next few days they spent several hours with the youngsters, sometimes at their home, sometimes at the campground. Harry helped repair some of the house wiring, and he easily made friends with little Oona, playing "bump heads" with her. Mary taught Dodie how to can vegetables from their garden.

Allan and Dodie made a big apple cake to celebrate Harry's birthday, and gave him a fishing license "to fish in the Beautiful Blue Bounteous Waters of New York State, provided he had attained the age of 63 years." Inside the folder was a very small twig with a long string which went into the B-B-B waters of New York, and attached to a very large fish with two New York lottery tickets. Mary gave Harry the fly fishing rod that cousin Dick had given her in Colorado.

On the second day of the visit, the A-frame on Allan's car broke, and the car had to be junked. The Ashbrooks drove the Edmands family on several errands during the rest of the visit.(146)

At the end of the visit, Mary and Harry generously bestowed on Allan and Dodie their extra car, an 11-year-old Plymouth Fury station wagon with less than 50,000 miles on its odometer, parked in Oakville, Washington, in the garage of brother Fred and sister-in-law Laura.(147)

From the Catskills to the Amish country around Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It was now early October; our Geritol Gypsies had been on the road for 4 months. They spent several days learning about these fascinating people, buying delicious bargain vegetables, homemade bread, and sausages, and visiting old cornmeal mills and museums with ancient farming implements. They watched the production of cider, soap, and candles.

They toured the battlefield at Gettysburg, and they shared mountain dew with a couple of schoolteachers in Front Royal, Virginia, whom they had met in Stage Stop, Colorado. In Enfield, North Carolina, they bought a postcard with a cotton boll attached, which they sent to the Barrett granddaughters in Seattle. (They would have sent one to the Yarnot grandchildren in Sacramento, but California law prohibited "imports" of out-of-state cotton.) In Wilmington, they bought a television so that Harry could watch the World Series, depleting their funds so much that they decided that this purchase should constitute all the presents for the Christmas, the birthdays, and the anniversary to come. Arriving at a campground in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, they decided to rest for a few weeks.

At that campground they made friends and shared cookouts with several other campers, including two couples from California— Jim and Irma, and Lenora and Willard— the latter couple had been camping with a trailer for years and taught them a great deal about being full-timers. They also fished from the ocean pier, but it was quite a while before either of them caught anything they wanted to keep. They took several day trips to watch fish being netted from the ocean, to visit a rice museum and learn about indigo. During rainy weather, Mary typed copies of the family history she had compiled, including the basic "Milkcan Papers" genealogy her father had written. Mary bought some baby and toddler clothes at a flea market, mended and washed them, and sent them to Allan and Dodie for Oona to wear.

In mid-November they embarked southward; an easy day's drive brought them to a campground just south of Charleston. Jim and Irma were there already (most of these campers were "snowbirds," moving ever southward as winter approached), and they shared the information they had learned about that city; in turn, the Ashbrooks shared tips with friends Lenora and Willard when they arrived later. Our travelers spent a couple of days watching the Citadel parade, enjoying a buggy tour through Old Charleston and the harbor, and exploring some Confederate and Revolutionary sites on their own.

In a virtual caravan, the same group of snowbirds moved on south to a campground near Savannah, to Jekyll Island, to St. Augustine, Florida, seeing the sights in each place (including Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in St. Augustine).

In a detour, our travelers saw alligators for the first time (as well as various snakes, torpid for the season) at Okefenokee Swamp, at tannin-black Mirror Lake they saw carnivorous plants eating insects, at Lake Walker they enjoyed the most gorgeous sunset they had ever seen.

They spent Thanksgiving in Gulfport (near St. Petersburg) with Mary's half-brother Bob (whom she had never before seen), sister-in-law Katherine, and several members of her family. After the "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" meeting, Mary and Bob became immediate friends; Mary noted how much he looked like their father and their Uncle Jim. Mary especially enjoyed the meal, because for once she did not have to cook it.

They stayed at Woodsmoke Park in Fort Myers for the weeks on each side of Christmas, playing Bingo, going to craft class, watching football on TV, and relaxing. Harry had to see a doctor to deal with an eye rash caused by poison ivy (or poison oak, or poison sumac) from campfire smoke.

The Ashbrooks improvised Christmas decorations in and on the trailer: silver paint on shells, cones, and acorns, on a green net tree, tinsel and decals for the windows and over the milk-carton whirligigs, palmetto fronds to finish it off. Disregarding how they had designated that TV a couple of months earlier, they got each other a toaster oven as a present. Daughter Christine sent them "Time to Retire" stationery. Here is Mary peeking out from the trailer door.

They shared a potluck Christmas dinner with a couple hundred other snowbird campers. They made friends with fellow snowbirds George and Joan MacDonald. And they enjoyed a New Year's party in the camp's recreation hall. To their friends they gave away "round tuits," which Mary made with baker's clay.

From there the travelers went to Homestead near the bottom of the Florida peninsula, to camp for another 6 weeks. The MacDonalds would be there, too. Centralia friend Dick Roush flew down to Miami to spend quite a few weeks with them. (Mary accepted the name "Tom" so they could be Tom, Dick, and Harry.) Together they toured the Everglades three different times (Harry's Golden Age card covered the admission) and saw all kinds of wildlife, including alligators, egrets, herons, anhingas, and the rare wood ibis. They also went to the Monkey Jungle, where the people are in cages and the monkeys are free, and to Marineland to watch the trained dolphins. And they also took a couple of days to tour Key West together, eat Cuban cuisine there, watch turtles, and take in other sights (Dick took this picture).

Dick had to stay in the hospital for a couple of days because of fluid in his lungs (and he was ordered to cut out salt in his diet). Then he continued with the Ashbrooks as they drove north to a campground on Lake Okeechobee, and from there to another camp on Lake Tohopekaliga, trying (unsuccessfully) to get their money's worth on expensive short-term Florida fishing licenses. Snowbirds Lenora and Willard were at that second campground. They saw ballets, clowns, barefoot water skiing, jumps, pyramids, and kite skiing at a Cypress Gardens water show. They also toured the Tupperware World Headquarters. Again, in mid-March, they camped for a few days on the yard at Bob and Katherine's in Gulfport. Later they went out on an overloaded sponge fishing boat and enjoyed Greek food in Tarpon Springs. They camped on the Suwanee River and then to the spring blossoms, the great fishing, and the very white Gulf-beach sands of the Panhandle at Carrabelle and Navarre. Only tornado watches, no alerts.

In Pensacola Mary took a look at the house she had lived in 35 years earlier. They noticed that a chamelion was living in the canopy in back of the truck, and they adopted him as a pet, leaving bits of hamburger out for him, and naming him Izzy the Lizard; he lived in the canopy for weeks and hundreds of miles (and finally died, perhaps overly chilled?, somewhere near Vicksburg just after Mother's Day).

On a lovely day out of Pascagoula, Mississippi, our "Tom"-Dick-and-Harry enjoyed a riverboat tour on the Magnolia Blossom past several processing plants and Navy shipyards with war ships under construction. They toured the antebellum Gautier plantation, listened to a Dixieland band there, and watched a sabre-armed Confederate cavalry.

At the campground near New Orleans they met a couple from Bellvue, Washington; the husband had grown up in Lewis County and knew many of the same people that Harry did. They spent an entire day on a bus tour of the city, marveling at the architecture and relics. Another day they walked through the French Quarter, ate delicious food, enjoyed cocktails in the revolving Top of the Mart tower, and were shocked by the sleeze and the filth on Bourbon Street. They took a riverboat tour on the Cotton Blossom through the bayous and marveled at all the pumping stations to keep the city free of the river above it. During the time in New Orleans, they took Dick to the airport, where he got a flight to California, ending a fine several-weeks time together.

The Ashbrooks went into New Orleans again, rode the streetcar for 2 hours, and ate at a sidewalk cafe. At a shopping center they observed a gang steal a radio from a drugstore and reported them.(148)

And, based in the campground just outside the city, Mary and Harry took day trips in the truck: up the river a bit or out into the bayous to Cajun country, and to Gulfport, Mississippi, with fellow campers Mike and Zada.

As April progressed to May, our travelers began moving northward. They camped at the beginning of the Natchez Trace, they picnicked at an ancient Indian temple for sun worship, they toured the Vicksburg Battlefield. Then, after Mother's Day, eastward again across Mississippi and Alabama and into Georgia. Mary was growing tomatoes and other vegetables in coffee cans in the trailer. They spent a day touring the notorious Andersonville POW camp, which Mary had read about. Here's what Mary remarked a few years later about these tours:

To me the way [Colleen McCullough, the author of The Thorn Birds] mentions the historical characters just made me interested in finding out more about them. It was that way when I read books about the Civil War and the Revolution.… Which is why I knew about Herkimer, New York (near Utica), and Beauregard in Charleston, and Andersonville in Georgia, and the Mohawk Valley in New York. One thing can lead to another.… Poor Harry, I dragged him to battlefields and museums everywhere just to see what I had read about!

Then northward into the Great Smokies of Tennessee, and they celebrated Memorial Day in mountainous Pigeon Forge. They thoroughly explored the area and even obtained a recipe for corn liquor moonshine. It was there the Geritol Gypsies celebrated the completion of one entire year on the road.

Followed closely by heavy coal trucks and pickups along the S-curved, chuckholed roads in the Cumberland hills of western Virginia, in the towns of Clintwood and Clinchco and Wise, even looking down into the deep "hollers," Harry tried (unsuccessfully) to locate some of his relatives not seen since 1950. In Wise, he and Mary found the marriage records of his parents, which listed the Russell County birthplace of his father (new, surprising information). In Clintwood they met a nice old gentleman who had known Harry's Uncle Gel (Magellan), Uncle Soto (DeSoto), and Aunt Lou; he also knew James Damron, Harry's grandfather, and reported that his grandmother's name was Martha.

Mary's coffee-can tomato plants blossomed in mid-June. Friends Pat and Barry Taylor (from Stage Stop and Front Royal, now from Chesapeake Bay) visited, bringing fish and crabs with them.

North from the Cumberland hills through Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio along the Ohio River, and into Pennsylvania, with its big barns, big silos, and enormous corn cribs. In the Mohawk Valley near Utica, New York, our travelers went on what they reported was the steepest, longest hill they had ever been on. Staying there for the weekend, they called Allan to see if he and Dodie and Oona might drive the 70 miles to their campsite to spend a little time on their 2nd wedding anniversary, but they were too busy.(149)

Then it was on to Lake George and the historic sites of Ticonderoga and Crown Point on Lake Champlain. In South Lunenburg, Vermont, they visited Mary's distant cousin John Hawes and his wife, Annette.(150)

Mary celebrated her 59th birthday with steaks at a campground on the Merrimack River near Franklin, New Hampshire.

Then for two sets of kin who laid out the Red Carpet for the travelers:

First,they spent a week with Jean and Roland in Andover, time that included Jean's 67th birthday and her and Roland's 44th wedding anniversary. On a day trip to York Beach, Maine (where the anniversary couple had met), they watched saltwater taffy being made, and Mary tried yoghurt ice cream for the first time. Unfortunately, Jean had arthritis so bad in her knees that she could not get down to her lower cupboards (Mary helped her), and Roland was enfeebled with his final illness (though he was sometimes up to playing dominos). They scrapped the plans to travel together to Nova Scotia.(151)

Then it was on to Blackstone, to park for 3 weeks beneath the chestnut tree in the Dicks yard, where they joined in the enormous family reunion (over 50 people) during the Bicentennial Fourth of July celebration in that yard: badminton, horseshoes, frisbee, swimming, feasting, and lots and lots of yakking. They took day trips to Plymouth and to Newport with Frederick and Del, and to Boston suburbs with Harry Also—but not into Boston itself ("Both Harry and I want to avoid Big Cities as much as possible!"). They visited Mary's widowed first cousin Anna Dicks Smith and her family at their summer home in Point Judith. With 80-year-old Arthur they explored Nantucket and Cape Cod over 3 days, eating lots of seafood, visiting a whaling museum, marveling at the hedges and flowers and ship figureheads and scrimshaw ivory carvings and low sea-worn cottages. They picked blueberries and beans, and Mary played Bingo and the Massachusetts state lottery ("can't win, of course").(152)

Then, leaving the trailer in Blackstone, they went back to Andover for a week, during which they celebrated their own 30th wedding anniversary. Over the years, Mary and Harry were becoming ever more like each other.

Son-in-law Ed Barrett came out to Boston on a business trip, and stayed overnight in Andover with them. John Allan Weeks, his wife Carole, her son, and her niece, visited as well. The Ashbrooks played tourists in Lexington and Concord, and they sat out Hurricane Belle (which veered west of them anyway). Jean was suffering from arthritis, and Roland's health was failing; Mary cleaned cupboards, and Harry did yard work. Everybody ate lobster. ("We had begun to feel like 'the Man who came to dinner'…went for one week, and stayed two!")

Then another few days in Blackstone. More Bingo with housekeeper Dotty and Scrabble with Harry Also. Mary's coffee-can tomato plant grew one tiny tomato at last—just before she threw the whole plant away. ("Just wait until next year.") Traveling west, they stayed a couple of nights at a campsite on the Housatonic River near Southbury, Connecticut, and there spent some time as well as a restaurant meal with their snowbird friends Claire and Dave (from Homestead the previous winter).

Then it was on to the Catskills to visit son Allan, 34 years old, daughter-in-law Dodie, 29, and granddaughter Oona, not quite 2. They stayed at the Sleepy Hollow campsite for 6 nights but saw the youngsters only three times—once for a couple of hours showing up at their house, another time when Allan and Oona spent half a day at the campsite (Dodie needed to stay home and work), and a third time for an evening dinner at their house. Oona learned that they were "Grandma and Grandpa Boots" (click the picture to enlarge it, and to see another one). In the off times, Mary worked on her journal, and Harry talked with other campers.(153)

Then it was westward to the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Iroquois Museum in Cooperstown, a beautiful campsite on the Susquehanna River, another bucolic one on one of the Finger Lakes, an interesting lecture on the local salt mines, a tour of a vineyard (with free samples), and a very engrossing tour of the Steuben Glassworks. Then through the Buffalo area and that small bit of Ontario (where they learned about tobacco cultivation and harvesting) to Emmett, Michigan, where they spent the week around Labor Day with George and Joan MacDonald, snowbird friends from Fort Myers and Homestead the previous winter.

Then it was on to "Michiana" (the border land between Michigan and Indiana, where the time zones are all mixed up). They camped on the beautiful Wabash River and then went westward into the Illinois prairies to look up possible Hawes relatives around Belvidere. Mary explored the cemetery and found the graves of her great-grandparents Frances Hancock Lawrence Hawes (1803–1888) and James Hawes (1800–1865).(154)

Mary called up some living Haweses she found in the local telephone book, and that's how she met her distant cousin Carl Hawes.(155)

From Illionois, the travelers went west into Iowa and then south into Missouri. They spent a weekend in the Centralia of that state ("we like our Centralia better").

They anchored themselves in the Ozarks around Bennett Springs, Missouri, for 6 weeks (until the end of October), they enjoyed lavendar sunsets there as well as some frosty nights, and they kept the bugs, ants, and flies away from the trailer with industrial-strength Raid ®. They were very lucky with their fishing in the nearby Niangua River; Mary once caught a big rainbow trout and landed it by herself (although her next cast landed in a tree, and she broke her pole trying to get it loose). Harry had his 64th birthday at the campsite: Swiss steak for dinner but unfortunately no cake.

They were able to get their absentee ballots mailed from Cave City, Missouri, and they watched the televised returns of the 1976 Presidential Election from their campsite near Murfreesboro, Arkansas. Though no doubt disappointed with Jimmy Carter's victory, they had fun digging for diamonds with a screen and big spoon at Crater of Diamonds State Park. Southward into Texas they went, past Nacogdoches, around the rice fields near El Campo, and to a campsite near Rockport (a little north of Corpus Christi) that would anchor them until mid-December, while they fished in the Intercoastal Waterway for flounder, beachcombed on Padre Island National Seashore, and—during the heavy gales—improved their dominoes game. The also got their shots against swine flu, and Mary got new glasses—"Granny glasses"—with a beefed-up prescription.

They took a side trip without the trailer to San Antonio for a few days, staying in a motel very close to the Alamo, which, of course, they visited and thoroughly enjoyed. Mary found two Ashbrooks in the phone book, called, and hit the jackpot. Brothers John ("Jack") and Donald Ashbrook took them to a country club for Thanksgiving dinner and then shared extensive family history with them, a history that made it very likely they were kin of Harry's.(156)

They escaped from the rainstorms and, watching roadrunners on the way, moved 50 miles south to a campground near Harlingen in the lush Rio Grande Valley, where they parked under the grapefruit trees, made new friends, and renewed friendships with fellow snowbird couples Lenora and Willard, and Pat and Ed. There they celebrated Christmas, and over the weeks they enjoyed potlucks (including one with a hilarious mock fashion show), they went slumming in Mexican border town Reynosa, and they toured a citrus processing plant and the Confederate Air Force Museum (where Mary saw the type of torpedo plane Allan Sr. had flown). They greeted the new year of 1977 by nursing colds in their trailer home. Here is a picture of them, taken in Harlingen ("For the first time in 19 months I got Harry into a coat and tie [to have his picture taken]….") Mary made pints and pints of sauerkraut from the Valley's 10¢-a-head cabbage.

In mid-January they headed up the Rio Grande through the cactus, cattle, rolling hills, and a checkpoint to capture undocumented aliens, all the way to an overnight campground at Carrizo Springs. Then beside pecan groves and alfalfa fields, past huge herds of angora sheep and angora goats, to historic ghost town Langtry. Then north into the high flatlands, desert country, past so many enormous grasshopper oil pumps all the way to Hobbs, New Mexico, to spend a couple of weeks of sunny days and freezing nights with Harry's half-brother Alec and wife Laura Mae. They visited working oil rigs, Harry went down into a potash mine, and they ate lots of good food, including cornbread, hushpuppies, venison, quail, and Rio Grande catfish. They also had to replace the universal joints on the truck.

As February began they drove south across Guadalupe Pass to El Paso, then across the high desert and the very subtle Continental Divide all the way across New Mexico and into Arizona. They stayed several weeks at a campground near Casa Grande Ruins National Monument southeast of Phoenix. Dick Roush drove out from California in his camper to be their neighbor, and again they were "Tom," Dick, and Harry. Together they went to those ancient Indian ruins, they spent a day at the Gila River Indian Community, they toured the Roosevelt Dam and the Tonto Rim cliff-dweller ruins on the other side of the Superstition Mountains, they spent a couple of hours at the beautiful rock house at the Woodruff Ranch, they toured a cattle feed lot and a copper mine, and they attended a Winter Visitors Dinner represented by snowbirds from nearly every northern state and in Mesa a potluck just for those from Washington State, some 1,800 of them ("Who is minding the store at home?" Mary asked in her journal).

In early March the three of them took a tour with 34 other gringoes on a rocking and bumping Mexican train from Nogales to Mazatlán in the state of Sinaloa on the Pacific Coast at the Tropic of Cancer. Based for half a week at a comfortable hotel, they toured the town by bus and the harbor by boat, shopped at a super mercado, saw countless beggars, attended a Fiesta dinner dance, and drank lots of margaritas. They were surprised to see a Centralia couple there: Jack and Hazel Breckenridge. Mary and Dick were each suffering from a bad cold on the trip back.

The three of them stayed the night in charming Tombstone, whose fascinating cemetery epitaphs they enjoyed reading, and they went on to Bisbee and gazed at the open pit copper mine. Then they got the trailer and headed westward across the already-blooming desert of purple, gold, and white to Keno in Las Vegas. Then into California and across the Mojave. At Victorville, our Geritol Gypsies said goodbye to Dick, found a campground near Corona, and visited Harry's half-sister Ann in Bell Gardens (one of the angels of Los Angeles).

Among the letters in her mail pickup, Mary received one from a stranger who introduced herself as distant cousin Sara Hawes Carlile, the sister of the Carl Hawes they had found in Illinois the previous autumn.(157)

Even though Mary's bronchitis night cough from smoking (and from that cold she picked up on the Mazatlán trip) was wearing her down, she was able to make room in the trailer for a visit from granddaughter Sue Barrett, 12 years old, who flew down from Seattle and was treated by her Grandma and Grandpa Boots to an exciting big day in Disneyland.

Our travelers moved the trailer to a campground in Bell Gardens, just across the street from Ann, and they spent weeks helping Ann get her house ready to sell. In April they joined in a reunion of Maxie's children: Ann Alexander Hudson; Alec Alexander from Hobbs, New Mexico; Harry Ashbrook, the Geritol Gypsy; Elzie Ashbrook from San Francisco; Goldie Ashbrook Anderson from Kennewick, Washington; and spouses, some children, some grandchildren.

On the way north, right around Mother's Day, Mary and Harry (with Mary avoiding her nemesis Janie as much as she could) got to spend a little time with their five Yarnot grands in Sacramento: Roni, going on 11 years old; Monica, going on 10, Steven, 8, Vincent, 2, and infant Bernadette Allyn Yarnot, their ninth grandchild, born just weeks earlier. They stayed in a local motel, and spent daytime hours in the back garden at the Yarnot household. Mary later commented that "all the children are bright, sweet, and very polite and thoughtful. We felt welcome and wanted."(158)

After a short detour to Reno to play a little more Keno (to "pay their dues"), our Geritol Gypsies reached Centralia at the beginning of June 1977, 2 years after they had set out. Mary was very ill with a serious case of bronchitis, which persisted for several weeks. She "celebrated" her 60th birthday in bed. It was clear that she and Harry were relieved to be off the road for a while. Here is a map, which you can click for some detail. Also you can see there an article that appeared in the Centralia Eagles about it.

During the rest of the year 1977, Mary and Harry worked toward selling the home they had owned for more than 3 decades, which meant consolidating and—with distributions to family members, with yard sales, and with trips to the dump—minimizing the "stuff" they had accumulated during that long spell. Mary wrote the following in early September:

The Ashbrook Motel is closing—we hope to have everything sold by the first of October—house and all. Sales have taken lots of the excess (31 years of it) but still have some furniture to get rid of.

Dear Mom and Pop,
Thank you for the three packages of mementos from Centralia. Seeing many of the pictures, the comic-book histories, and scrapbooks of maps again after all this time particularly moved me. Your remark that you were exhausted after cleaning out thirty-one years of collected things was an understatement. There is at least a century represented in the stuff you sent. And I bet you were more than just exhausted. It must have been agonizing for you to decide which object should be saved, which destroyed, and then to parcel out the survivors. Sort of like pilgrims, you are, setting off for the New World and leaving the familiar comforts behind, or like pioneers baling out the overladen covered wagons on the westward Oregon Trail. Selling the house and severing from your growing-up place was the least of it; deliberating over the little things whose value only you can really appreciate (unlike real estate) was obviously the hard part.
Then again—it must be rejuvenating to cut your bonds and follow your hood ornament. You remind me of myself when I was twenty-three and footloose, hitchhiking whichever way the traffic was headed and eager to see what was ahead. You're changing your two-year odyssey into a permanent way of life; you've obviously been itching to do this for years. Bon voyage!
While you're becoming more and more like hippies, I find myself getting ever more settled here in this Catskills life. Not that we might not move someday—just that I am committing myself more deeply to my growing family (we are trying for a second child). When I compare my life now to how I was living just four or five years ago, I am constantly shocked. We put in structural improvements in this rented home. We fantasize buying our own house someday, maybe in neighboring Delaware County. Our work becomes ever more important. Living with Oona, who continually grows in body and awareness, and imagining her sibling, contemplating the interactions of our well-rounded foursome, focuses my mind toward long-range plans, scenes that taper into my own old age.
Oona, nearly three, attends her nursery school daily. She now spells her name with magnetized plastic letters on the side of the refrigerator: Anoo. She is utterly toilet trained (without hassle) except in nighttime sleep. She hangs from chinning bars and plays catch with big rubber balls. She "reads" aloud to herself, she sings and dances. More impressive than any of the above is her expression of feelings. She may kiss and hug you unbidden, but she can also make you feel rotten with her cold rejection. She is supersensitive and alert to the shifting moods of adult interaction. Her memory is phenomenal.
So is mine—or at least my capacity to dwell on some remote haunted moment out of perspective with what's going on around me. It often makes me sad when I realize this tendency of mine can blind and deafen me to the relentless growth of my little girl, so alive, open, and vulnerable. By the time I fully appreciate her, she's grown into a new stage.
But even this tendency of mine, or my awareness of it, is teaching me things about the priorities in life. What I have been learning is that I just can't please everyone.
In your phone call you chided me, Mom, for not having written in six months (even though I thought you were the one who owed the letter). I've given the matter a lot of thought since, and I've come to the realization that I, like Pop, am not a very good correspondent. Since I'm thirty-five years old now, I think I should accept this about myself. Writing letters is a very difficult, often painful, process for me; I just don't know how to drop off a line or two. I very seldom have the time to spare for such mulling over in my mind, since my work impinges on my consciousness day and night.
Also it's difficult to explain the life I live to you in real terms, since I sense your disapproval—or lack of interest—so strongly. I have often agonized in attempts to express my real feelings to you in writing only to receive a shrugging-off postcard in return. I have also tried far more often just to drop lines, forgetting my feelings, but it has never seemed genuine. Neither course is real communication, it seems to me.
I'm not sure whence comes your disapproval, but probably I don't live up to your image of an ideal, dutiful son. I feel we should try to change our expectations of each other. I'm never going to be what you so strongly wanted me to become, but I'm going to try to be happy living my own life. I'll try not to expect your approval continually and try to stop hoping that if only I'm dutiful in this or that, you will finally like me. I'll just accept my life as it is, even if you don't like it. That way I may even outgrow my childish pain and anger toward you, which no longer serves any useful purpose for me.
I'm sorry this letter is so heavy, but at this point my only other choice was not to write at all. I understand that I'm hurting you when you're already no doubt suffering from your rupture with our Centralia nest. But I just couldn't write without clearing the air. Ironically, this may even be an appropriate time. Hopefully the communication that follows will be more genuine and heartfelt.
Love, Allan

… We wonder why you say we disapprove of your way of life—we remember admiring all you had done with the house. I know I was quiet the last time— just didn't feel welcome when we first came. "You surely came at the wrong time" "We are very busy for the next few days." We really felt we were in the way, but you do remember that all was well on our walk, and we did enjoy ourselves. Sorry that you feel we disapprove—it is NONE of our business—I tell people that you like the Catskills and like your work and are doing very well (as we know you are!). What more can we do or say? It has been a long time since I've been able to carry on a discussion or argument by letter—in fact, I try not to argue with anyone person to person.
If you feel that postcards are "shrug off" I'm very sorry—I just thought you might like to know where we are, how we are and what we are doing. I cannot & will not write long philosophical, introverted, argumentative letters. I promise never to get my feelings hurt again either. Life is just too short, and Harry and I are going to enjoy all the time we have left.…

The Ashbrooks listed the house with three real estate offices, but the house was slow in the selling. Mary did find a buyer for the vacant land on Waunch's Prairie, however, and carried the note on the sale: A little bit at a time, at reasonable interest into the Ashbrooks' bank in Chehalis.(159)

In the meantime, occasional "son in residence" Yasir returned with his new bride from Saudi Arabia and the Ashbrooks put her up for a while. Newly widowed Jean Weeks came out from Andover, Massachusetts, and stayed for 3 weeks. In addition, Mary and Harry acted as "parents" for Gordon and Joan, whose daughter Crystal referred to them as "Grandma and Grandpa." Robbie and Arlene Thompson came over to play pinochle with them almost every Saturday night—provided that Harry would make popcorn for Robbie.

Even though they didn't make any large trips for several months, the Ashbrooks did prepare for an extended, full-time life on wheels to come: "north in the summer & south in the winter (criss-crossing the U.S.)…not always the same north or the same south." They yearned to resume their "hippie"-like lifestyle.(160)

During the odyssey they had joined a very large group just like them, many with no family at home or in the same town or state, folks who would "wander" in order to visit. Mary and Harry determined to continue on the road that way until they got tired of it—"and then buy a mobile home somewhere to settle down. No more gypsying when we get Old—now we don't feel old."

By September they had purchased a new, more robust truck and a larger trailer, an Ideal, to replace the truck and trailer they had used for the 2-year odyssey. Here is a picture of them with their Barrett grandchildren on a shakedown trip with the new rig to visit brother Tom and his extended family in George, east of the Cascades (click it to enlarge and to see a couple of other 1977 pictures). They also found time to take 9-year-old Mary B. and 5-year-old J.J. on a trip around the Olympic Loop. Ever-childlike Harry entertained the girls with ridiculous commentary on road signs (as in "Caution in the road, A Head!" or "Turn in the road, A HEAD!" followed by startled remarks about how all those heads might have gotten into the road).

The sale of the house was still up in the air.(161)

Unfortunately, Christine, recuperating from back surgery, would not be able to perform the Geritol Gypsies' mail-forwarding service. Centralia neighbor and good friend Eileen Roush took over that responsibility.(163)

Finally, in March 1978, the house on Silver Street was sold.(164)

Toward the end of the month, Mary and Harry were on the road again, with their robust truck, which Mary named Clyde (after the strong Clydesdale horse); and a new trailer, an even bigger, far more roomy Terry trailer, which naturally took on the name Bonnie. Mary was ecstatic:

Would you believe that this trailer has so much more storage both inside and outside than either the Aljo or the Ideal.… I just counted storage inside…the living room kitchen has 11 cupboards, 6 drawers, and a broom closet/pantry…the bedroom has 11 cupboards and 6 drawers…plus a big closet…and the bathroom has a double medicine cabinet, 2 closets, 1 drawer, and 3 cupboards. I like it! Pop says it is much better on the road, and so much more outside storage, too.

The travelers stopped to see niece Martha in Redding, California, the Yarnots in Sacramento, and sister Jane in Fresno. They stayed awhile at a familiar campground in Corona, and were able to take day trips into the Los Angeles area to see Ann and her family.

After Memorial Day, they headed east through scorching weather, spending nights at more familiar campsites—for example, Quartzsite, Arizona. They went up and down over various Arizona ranges, then through Albuquerque and finally again to Hobbs, New Mexico, to spend some time with Alec and Laura Mae, parking Bonnie in their back yard. It was here that Mary celebrated her 61st birthday. They then returned to Washington, to brother Tom's in George, where 25 kinfolk celebrated the first Hawes family reunion over the July 4 holiday.

Meanwhile, in late June, a day after Mary's birthday, daughter-in-law Dodie gave birth to their tenth grandchild (third grandson): Theo Julian Edmands, born at home in Chichester, New York, the delivery managed by a nurse midwife. Son Allan helped in the delivery; also present were Oona, Dodie's mother, and a family friend. The traveling Ashbrooks learned of Theo's arrival 3 weeks later.

The Geritol Gypsies stayed at a campground between Usk and Metaline Falls on northeastern Washington's Pend Orielle River for 2 months—fishing for perch and cutthroat trout, exploring, metal detecting, playing lawn darts, playing dominoes, and watching TV. They attached a hummingbird feeder to Bonnie and watched the action. Robbie and Arlene Thompson visited from Centralia, declaring they had come just for pinochle.

In September they started south again (you can read Mary's travelogue) through central Oregon and into Nevada to play Keno in Carson City ("5 out of 5 numbers…28,37, 39, 40, 41 paid very well for us"), and then 3 weeks in smoggy Corona, visiting Ann and family (who now lived in a trailer park in Riverside) and then eastward through scorching 101°-at-night Yuma, through Gila Bend and Casa Grande, to El Paso. They had learned about Mexico's much cheaper dentistry: Mary needed a repair on her dentures, and Harry needed his teeth professionally cleaned. Driving just Clyde, they had an interesting adventure to see a recommended dentist in Ciudad Juarez, across the border. Then it was a short but gusty drive north through Carlsbad to Hobbs to spend some time with Alec and Laura Mae while camping in their back yard.

After Hobbs, they went on into Texas to stay: getting watermelon in Lubbock, touring an oil field in Odessa, past cotton fields, San Angelo, through the hill country, past long-haired sheep and goats, Uvalde, Laredo, and finally Zapata in the Rio Grande Valley for the winter. Here they are at decorated trailer Bonnie, Christmas 1978.

We do like our life on wheels, and know that we don't miss all the real housework and the yard work. Yesterday we made 12 pints of sauerkraut here in the trailer—the cabbage was four nice heads for less than $1, and we spent a couple of hours of fun doing it.… The neighbors are so fascinated that they are making sauerkraut, too.

Mary and Harry were amazed at the local meat markets selling tripe and featuring a whole hog's head in a bin. They picked sweet oranges from the tree each camping space was blessed with. During the winter, Mary got new glasses (an enhanced prescription). They watched TV. They also watched turtles, herons, pelicans, egrets, gulls, ducks, and lots of mud hens. Mary repaired heirloom quilts. Dick Roush arrived from California with his camper and boat, and for a few weeks they renewed their "Tom"-Dick-and-Harry threesome. They visited the campgrounds around Harlingen and Brownsville, looking up some of their snowbird friends from 2 years earlier. They toured the famous King Ranch.

With the price of gasoline rising as a result of the toppling of the Shah of Iran and the capture of the American Embassy in Tehran, Mary worried that they might have to scale back their traveling:

The trouble in Iran is making us rather unhappy and spoiling our retirement! If gasoline becomes a prohibitive price we will have to find a place to settle down before we want to. At this point, we think we will probably head for Hemet, Calif. not too far from Riverside where Aunt Ann now lives. Hemet isn't too bad in the summer with air conditioning, and is wonderful in the winter…we have friends who live there the year around because they finally got tired of gypsying…we aren't! We do like our life on wheels.

Nonetheless, in late April they drove northward, through the tamarisks, bluebonnets, poppies, daisies, buttercups, Indian paintbrush, through Dennison, Texas (where Mary's father had been an assistant District Attorney in the 1890s), past the cardinals and butterflies on Lake Texoma, and Mary's birthtown of Henryetta, Oklahoma (where she located the graves of her paternal grandparents and talked to the Chamber of Commerce manager who had known both Mary's father and her Uncle Jim). They had to cement a loose fitting on Bonnie's hot water heater (after spending a day mopping up the mess). Finally, after passing through blooming dogwood and lilacs, they reached the Ozarks and anchored themselves for several months at a familiar campground in Bennett Springs, Missouri("only $36 a month").(167)

On days that were not stormy and windy, or thundering or hailing, they fished in the Niangua River, but when their freezers were full of fish, they released everything they caught. With their metal detector they picked up quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies, screws, nuts, and bolts. They watched the resident beaver and a muskrat down at the "Gut Hole" fishing spot, they watched fireflies (called "lightning bugs" there) and listened to katydids in the humid evening sky, and they watched sparrows and ruby-throated hummingbirds at their birdfeeder. They also watched a lot of TV.

[The] boob tube is almost all of our entertainment these days, but we do pick and choose the programs we watch. When nothing (often) is on TV we play cards or dominoes.

Now, please listen to this, and keep the letter? Buck Weaver [part of the camp manager's family] died on May 20 which made us think about what we would like to happen for us (in addition to our wills, maybe?). Both Papa and I would like cremation, and flown home (cheap) from wherever we are. The cemetery lots would go to the estate—such as it is—so sell them if you like, because one of the happiest times of our lives were spent on Orcas Island in the San Juans and maybe the ashes could be scattered near there? No one but us ever paid any attention to the graves in Greenwood [in Centralia, where the preceding generation was buried], and we now wonder what happens there, don't you? Please forget about memorial services, too. Believe us, this is what we would like, but whatever happens you have control because you are the executrix of our wills. Good luck to you.…

They left their Missouri campground friends in mid-September, promising to return the next year if at all possible, and they headed west through Kansas and down through the rutted roads of the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, past the cotton and the green peppers waiting to be harvested, past the sorghum, corn, and cattle. Their cheapest gasoline was in the Texas panhandle for 85.9¢ a gallon.(168)

We wonder what we have done to make the whole Moslem world mad at us …have heard that it will take just one madman to start a war, and it could be that Iran now has that madman. The next war may be fought with bows and arrows? We are on odd-even [gasoline] rationing here, and we follow the idea even though the "snowbirds" do not have to do so…out-of-state licenses can always get gasoline. How we hate to pay a dollar or more, though.…(170)

Mary read Herman Wouk's War and Remembrance. And she busied herself with sewing and crocheting, making all kinds of towels and stuffed mice for gifts as well as sweaters and afghans. She repaired one old granny square afghan and sent it to Janna. After the enormous field of carrots across from the campground was harvested by machine, Mary and Harry joined all the other Roadrunner seniors with buckets and bags to glean the thousands of carrots left behind ("we did like the price of the good sweet small carrots"). They bought a 26-inch Schwinn girl's bike advertised on a bulletin board for $20.(172)

Harry had fun riding that bike all over the campground—Mary?

[Some] night when it is dark, I am going to try again just to see if I have forgotten how to ride. One never forgets, I hope. So far I have not felt energetic enough to try.(173)

Both Mary and Harry were now taking medications to control their blood pressure. In late February, after enjoying an evening luau in the campground, they were awakened and rocked by an earthquake.

At the end of March, Mary Barrett, just turned 12 years old, flew down to see her grandparents, and the three of them spent an exciting week together (you can see the blow-by-blow details). They spent most of one entire day at the drive-through Lion Country, gawking at all kinds of safari animals from inside the truck, and later they enjoyed the petting zoo and the animal nursery. The entire next day was Disneyland, waiting in line for all kinds of exciting attractions. Here is Mary A.'s comment at the end of the day: "we were all very tired and our feet hurt up to our ears after standing in line for hours and hours." The next day was devoted to Universal Studios, where they were let in on all the tricks of the film industry, including the opening of the Red Sea and the tipping dock in Jaws; "once again we were very tired, but had had a good day." They watched TV to keep tabs on the ongoing Mount Saint Helens eruptions back in Washington. As soon as Mary B.'s return flight was in the air, Grandma and Grandpa Boots missed her already.

The other snowbirds left northward with their trailers in April, but the Asbrooks decided to stay in Hemet through the summer, along with the permanent mobile homes. ("We hear that gasoline may keep lots of the people away for next winter…") They bought a storage shed ("to get the 'stuff' out of the back of the truck"), and within a couple of months they had hooked up trailer Bonnie with a phone, making Hemet even more of a home base. Mary planted tomatoes and green peppers outside of their home on wheels; the peppers died soon afterward ("I have never had a green thumb"), but they later harvested delicious tomatoes. During the coming months, they endured dusty Santa Ana winds, temperatures up to 111°, heavy humidity, and smog; air conditioning made it all bearable, and they could take walks in the cooler evenings. They chose to skip the Hawes family reunions and the high school reunions scheduled in Centralia during the summer.

With some friends they had met in South Carolina, they toured Twentynine Palms to see the desert flowers and the blooming cactus, as well as the fascinating Joshua Tree National Monument. They fished for perch, trout, and catfish that they filleted and deep-fried in batter. They heard from Centralia friends about the mess that Mount Saint Helens had made, that their old Spirit Lake camping place had disappeared, and that salmon and steelhead fishing in all their favorite Washington rivers was ruined.

As part of a senior citizens tour group, our Geritol Gypsies went to the La Brea Tar Pits and gazed at mastodons, mammoths, and other extinct animals—that was just before Mary's 63rd birthday. Harry taught Mary how to play pool, and the neighbors taught both of them how to play shuffleboard. During the summer, Harry needed new contact lenses, Mary new glasses, Harry a repaired tooth cap, Mary new bottom denture, both blood-pressure medication:

We think we must be getting OLD…either that, or we are financing extremely good vacations for the dentist, the optometrist, and the doctor!…Hooray for Medicare and for the insurance which takes care of lots of the $$$$.(174)

To celebrate their 34th wedding anniversary, Mary and Harry dined at one of the nice restaurants in Hemet; friends in the campground found out about it and sent cards and congratulations. Fellow residents were also waiting to see how long Mary could wait before giving Harry his 68th birthday present—a sectional pool cue, case and all, more than a month early: "Everyone watches to see what Harry and Mary will do next…I think?"

With the senior citizens tour group, they spent 9 hours in Las Vegas playing Keno and the slots ("it was fun, we came home with most of the money we left home with.… I slept on Papa's shoulder most of the way home.…"). Mary was learning new cooking techniques by listening to Julia Child broadcasts; she was also acquiring recipes from fellow snowbirds (see some sourdough recipes she transcribed).

At the end of September they embarked on an impulsive 3-week trip to Washington; the original purpose was to ensure that Harry got his renewed driver's license by his 68th birthday, but that rationale became moot when the license arrived the week before they were set to leave.

However, by that time the idea of a trip to see our family and friends seemed absolutely wonderful…so we put air mattresses, sleeping bags, blankets, pillows, an ice chest, etc., in Clyde and away we went. (You can see the details.)

As a result, many of the proposed dropees were not at home: Rita and Chappie in Kennewick, niece Marlene in Onalaska, brother Fred in Oakville, and—on the way home—niece Martha in Palo Cedro, California (and, as a result of missing Martha, sister Jane in nearby Cottonwood).(176)

Chris and Ed and the Barrett grandchildren were home in Seattle, "but they seemed so busy that we only stayed a couple of days there…probably another time we won't surprise them."

In Othello, still covered with St. Helens ash, our out-of-the-blue travelers were invited to visit the son of the Centralia dairy people they had worked for in the early 1970s. They spent the night with brother Tom and sister-in-law Bess in George, but Bess was quite ill and had to go to a clinic the next day in Seattle (where she discovered her potassium deficiency from her blood-pressure meds, which the Ashbrooks learned when they dropped in on niece Luann in Tacoma).

When they reached Centralia (after an absence of 2½ years this time), they were heartily welcomed by friends Arlene and Robbie; "we used their house as a turnaround to visit and sleep, saw all the old neighbors, had dinner with several of them, and talked miles a minute." Their former employers at the dairy gave them rib steaks and milk (and invited them to come back to work); Gordon and Joan gave them carrots, string beans, razor clams, and sacks of filberts. Arlene and Robbie gave them lots of walnuts, and his brother gave them more razor clams; they went to a steamed clam dinner at the Adna Grange.

On the return trip, a friend in Kelso baked them a wild blackberry pie. Jo and Margo in Salem insisted they stay overnight. A friend in Sutherlin gave them jelly, jam, and pickles. They spent an entire Sunday with Janna and Rich in Sacramento:

Harry and Rich get along so well, and Janna and I went here and there to pick up kids all day from here and there. We went to a spaghetti dinner at the church that night, very nice. They even serve wine! The kids have newts, lizards, rats, rabbits, etc., etc.…must take hours to feed all of them. They wanted us to move in with them to save our motel bill, which we would have done no doubt because we had the sleeping bags with us…we were having fun. However, I had warning signs to "get home to the doctor now"…no I didn't tell Janna my problems, either.…It may be years before we can do another vacation like this—but it was worth it.

I came home from the hospital Saturday a.m.—feeling as though I had been beaten with a baseball bat.…The people here in the park are so very nice—like a wonderful small hometown. Cards, visits, and phone calls—Harry said they really fretted when I had to stay overnight Friday. So far we don't know if there is more to come for me—hope not.(177)

I had been going to the doctor since last March because of bleeding at my age…that is when they discovered that I had very high blood pressure, too. I made Papa go then, and his b.p. was worse than mine. Why the doctor waited so long to find out "Why" for me, we will never know, but at least now we know that all is well. Now if I wouldn't feel depressed and weepy so often. Papa is so very good to me, but I am going to learn to twitch my nose to get things done around the house like Samantha in Bewitched. I can't lift anything, or even use a broom!! Now I wonder when I can ride my bicycle again and start to play shuffleboard and pool again?? If I go shopping, there is no walk for me…too tired. And would you believe that I go to bed at least by 8 every night…with the sleeping pill I wake up at 8 in the a.m. I refuse to take pain pills, though…hate the thought of being dependent on them.

When he was almost better a relapse—but he is now on the mend. One day he will feel like helping me vacuum, I hope (forbidden for me still). Our house is really messy these days, even the corners. I watch the neighbors wash windows—can't see very well through ours. Maybe by March we will clean house and celebrate by going to Las Vegas again. One day we will win big at Keno again.

Our life goes the way we like it now—every day is quite interesting, some more than others, of course. We never expect to go on long trips again with the trailer, gas is just too much now. We feel so fortunate to have gone on that 2-year trip when we did.(179)

Actually, it was about this time that Christine and Ed gave the Ashbrooks a used car, a 4-door dark brown 1977 Ford Granada, which Ed's business had totally depreciated. The Barretts hired a drive-away service to get the Granada from Seattle to Hemet for $600.(180)

Now, indeed, our Geritol Gypsies could leave the gas-guzzling truck Clyde at home in Hemet and make more economical car trips.(181)

The Ashbrooks were not the only ones who went visiting; family and friends visited them, too. Brother Fred and his new wife, Elizabeth, in early March and sister-in-law Jean from Massachusetts for a few weeks in May and June. Jean, just shy of 72 years old, had never been in southern California, and they took her to Santa Catalina Island, and then a rushed trip up to Washington (Mary needed to renew her driver's license in person) and back (in time for Jean's return flight), staying a day or so here, a day or so there, with Chris and Ed in Seattle, with Arlene and Robbie in Centralia, with Janna and Rich in Sacramento. Also they went through the Redwoods on the way up, and, naturally, through Lake Tahoe and Carson City on the way back.

In July, and again for their 35th anniversary in August, they spent a weekend away from the hot desert, driving the very steep road up to the cool and smogless Idyllwood. They got to the ocean a couple of times, too. They were glad when the snowbirds returned in the autumn, and they celebrated Thanksgiving with their Roadrunner neighbors. In December they gave each other a Christmas present by spending 3 days and 2 nights in Las Vegas to "pay their dues." Christmas was with Ann and her family in Riverside.

In April 1982, daughter Christine, nearly 44, and 10-year-old Jennie (J.J.) came down to Hemet to spend the spring vacation, which, of course, included Disneyland and Universal Studios. Here is Harry with Christine at that time (click to enlarge and to see another picture).

Later in the spring they had to put out $3,000 to save Harry's teeth; fortunately much of it was covered by insurance.(182)

"Not very good to get old and fall to pieces," wrote Mary. "The only good thing about my reaching 65 is that I'm eligible for Medicare."

During the hot summer months in the desert, our Geritol Gypsies again went traveling with Bonnie the trailer; it had been almost 3 years since Bonnie had been moved, and its various glitches proved Murphy's Law several times on the trip. Over the long July 4th weekend, they visited friends in Rogue River, Oregon. They camped for a couple of months at a campground near Sequim, Washington; "we like the clean, cool air and the SEAFOOD!" They were able to take short trips with Clyde the truck to Seattle and Centralia. They attended a multiyear high school reunion and met classmates they hadn't seen in years.

[We] discovered a reunion is not the place to visit with one's family…too many interruptions from those we had not seen for years and years. You can well believe that we heard, "Mary, your hair is gray now," and "Harry, what happened to your hair!" Frankly, we think maybe they looked 50 years older,too.

In an autumn letter to mostly incommunicative son Allan and daughter-in-law Dodie, Mary reported on her and Harry's health:

Have you all been well? We are fine, considering 70 and 65! High blood pressure is under control with expensive medications, and my bronchitis comes & goes. Caught a cold in Sacramento on the way south, but okay now!(183)

In November, a hit-run driver damaged the passenger door of their parked truck Clyde, and the repair cost the insurance deductible. A little later a very bad Santa Ana wind tore Bonnie's awning into shreds but fortunately did no further damage.

Like the year before, Thanksgiving was with their Roadrunner neighbors, and for Christmas they again gave themselves the Las Vegas days and nights.

In February 1983, they were pulling out from the bank less than 2 blocks from their Roadrunner home, and going from one shopping mall to another, they hit a car in front of them.

Witnesses told what happened, and the other insurance company paid over $1,000 for repairs.(184)

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$1,850 in 2009 dollars.
(Close)

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Very happy to say that there was no report to our insurance company on this. Would you believe that I now ALWAYS wear a seat belt everywhere…a black eye and bent glasses made me learn the hard way.

The Ashbrooks were excited that Allan (going on 41 years old), Dodie (going on 36), Oona (8½), and Theo (going on 5) planned to visit them in the coming spring on a trip to southern California and were shocked to learn the visit was canceled because their son and daughter-in-law separated. Here is Allan's letter, dated Spring Equinox 1983:

Dear folks,
I'm sorry to disappoint all our plans—but we won't be getting together next month.
For 3 weeks now Dodie and I have been separated. She's still going out to L.A. (where her father lives) in early April with the kids, but I won't be joining them. I'll be going to Seattle the end of the month on my business trip—alone—and hopefully can see Chris & family for a couple of days.
I'm still doing a lot of sorting out about this, trying not to dwell on my own bitter self-justifications but also learn from my own mistakes. Marriage is very difficult—particularly, it seems, for my generation. She and I cannot agree on our concept of marriage, on our life-style, and our differences have been getting more & more turbulent for over a year.
My address, for now, is General Delivery, Lake Katrine, NY 12449
Oona and Theo are paramount for both of us, and the greatest pain in all this is about them. Oona is very angry at both of us—and she's very resistant about staying with me where I am. I do, however, stay with her in Chichester some of the time. Theo doesn't show all that much, but he's always glad to be with me. I see them Sat. morn thru Sun. eve., again Mon. eve., and every other Fri. eve., and I talk to them on the phone all the other days.
I'm sorry if this letter is upsetting to you.
Love, Allan

Dear Allan—
Needless to say, we are very sorry about the news in your last letter. Can only say we hope you can work things out and be happy. It takes two to make a marriage—but one always feels for the children involved. Our best to all of you.…(185)

Allan did go alone on an IBM business trip to Seattle and saw Christine and Ed and the Barrett children, but he did not see his parents.

Again this year, as the desert became unbearably hot, Mary and Harry headed north, this time allowed by Centralia friends Arlene and Robbie to use their home as home base. They visited in Kelso, Randle, and Seattle. They went to Harry's 50th high school reunion, including a dinner dance at the Eagles Club. While in Centralia, they canned pears, applesauce, and beans. On Labor Day weekend they spent time with Christine and Ed and their family: Sue, 18 (and just starting college), Mary B., 15; and Jennie, 11. On the way home, they stopped in Sacramento but did not have enough time to see the Yarnot grandchildren much. Naturally, they stopped in Reno and Carson City and even saw some Centralia friends there who were also "paying their dues."

In November they spent an entire month in Riverside taking care of Ann, who was recuperating from an eye operation. Mary's arthritis was getting worse, and she could hardly hold a pen properly.

In the spring of 1984, son Allan had another business trip to Seattle, and this time he brought Oona, 9½, and Theo, nearly 6. They spent several days with the Barretts (and Janna and Roni, too, who were visiting from Sacramento), but again Grandma and Grandpa Boots were more than a thousand miles away. Here is a picture of Mary's three children, together for the first time in 24 years (if you click it, it will enlarge, and you can see another picture: six of the ten grandchildren).

In the summer of 1984 Mary and Harry again enjoyed several weeks in the trailer at Sequim, Washington, visiting family and friends in Seattle and Centralia. Christine would sometimes come to Sequim with her daughters to visit, and they had great crab feasts at The Three Crabs restaurant nearby. They also toured a nearby mastodon dig and a big game park that was sometimes used by Hollywood for films featuring an African savannah.

The highlight of 1984 was the September cruise to Alaska (you can read the details). They joined a packaged tour with other seniors, flew to Vancouver, stayed in a swank hotel there and toured the city, toured Victoria for a very rainy day (but very much enjoyed Buchart Gardens anyway), and then sailed on the Daphne for several days past glaciers, to Wrangel, Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan—and finally back to Vancouver for the flight home. They made several friends, ate "Captain's dinners" and attended "Captain's receptions" and learned which evenings were "Formal" which "Informal" and which "Casual" (Harry had to wear a jacket and tie for most of the on-board meals), joined in some of the activities directed by the Cruise Director (or did as they pleased), enjoyed evening shows (but Mary had to go to bed early), and experienced many instances of "hurry up and wait." They also took lots of pictures; here are the two of them at home before the cruise, but if you click it, you can see a couple of pictures en route.

Both Mary and Harry were keeping their blood pressure under control with some expensive meds—for a while with the beta blocker Lopressor at precise 12-hour intervals, later reduced to once each morning. They were also taking the diuretic Dyazide. At the beginning of March 1985 Mary fainted in the bathroom doorway and, as a result, bruised her knees, sprained her fingers, got two black eyes from her glasses, and broke the bathroom mirror.

Usually I get up slowly to get my balance, but not [this time], unfortunately. Anyway, no one thinks I am a "battered wife," I hope. At times we do get Cabin Fever but don't fight about it.

So Murphy's Law is still in effect for us!

First, our doctor retired and sent our records to an Indian doctor of his choice telling us we could change anytime we wished. (We think our payments helped his retirement to Idyllwild, Greece, and Tahiti.…)(186)

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It's pretty certain that the Ashbrooks would never had chosen a doctor born in India! (It's doubtful, however, that their Murphy's Law experience would have been very different with an America-born one. After all, the "practice" of medicine is just that—practice, no matter which specialist is doing it. Nonetheless, what happened helped to justify Mary's smug nativism.)
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Second, Harry developed Gout…couldn't drive or walk for a week. Good neighbors took me to the store a couple of times. Finally, I rebelled at being Florence Nightingale and made him go to the doctor…who was so busy that he forgot to give Harry any prescriptions the first day. However, the next day he had time to give a complete physical ($$) and prescriptions with no warning of any side effects or length of time to take the dumb things.

Third, Gout got well, but a horrible rash came on poor Harry's head, face, and neck…really bright red and itchy.

Fourth, Dr. Tiwari was a specialist and sent Harry to another specialist for the hip pain he had developed. This doctor Chaudhury (also an Indian) warned Harry to stop taking one of the prescriptions now (side effects), and wanted him to come back after seeing the $114 X-rays taken earlier for a comparison with the ones he took for $110.(187)

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$196 and $189, respectively in 2009 dollars.
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Fifth, back to Dr. Tiwari for the rash. He was not in the office so another Indian took his place. Nice enough, but that did it.

Sixth, when we paid the bill, I asked for my records, and Harry did, too. It seemed that they had to have Dr. Tiwari's permission to release them (even though they had been sent to him without our permission).

Seventh, we went across the street to a group of MD's to ask for help (had heard good things about them). They looked at Harry and made time for him…we had all the prescriptions and junk with us that he was taking, or had been taking. We could ignore the ointment prescription given in Dr. Tiwari's office, and take samples to help…they worked for the rash.

Eighth, back last Thursday to the M.D. who said all was well, and gave a sample (and a promise for more) to help the horrible pain in Harry's hip…a bone spur?

Ninth, the orthopedist, Dr. Chaudhury, had not been able to locate the X-rays ($114) taken in March…did we have them? No way, so we called to cancel our appointment for yesterday until the X-rays were located somewhere. Why pay for an office call when the purpose for it was not there?

Tenth, meanwhile the sample pain pills have helped very much, so we will try to get a prescription for more, and wait for Dr. Chaudhury to find the X-rays and call us.

Murphy's Law truly works…we know. Now to find the reverse law.…

I do not drive at all, because I don't see on the left side, but I do help on "my" side, and read the signs when needed. Wonder if Harry could drive without me? At this point, his hip bothers him when he drives…hope it gets better soon.

Me, I don't have time to feel bad, so I can say that all is well with me lately. I did faint several times, but not recently, t.g. The bruises are all well now. Our blood pressure readings are fine these days…we try to eat properly for the b/p. Why the gout? Who knows…and no one has told us. The Indian doctors never made themselves clear, so now we have American doctors who can make themselves understood!…

[3 days later] The new pain pills do work (so far) for Papa—the name is Indocin, take as needed.…

[4 weeks later] It was finally decided that Papa had sciatica, and at present he is both well and energetic. Hooray!

Our park is so empty that echoes go up and down the streets. Many permanent people have moved out, as well as those who have gone home. Our street has only 3 trailers, including us, on both sides of the street. Other streets are the same. Yesterday we got a notice from the office which we think shows that they HURT…rent will stay the same, but utilities will be less, shed rent is much less, no pet rent, etc., etc. Which makes us wish we could ask someone, but rumors go around immediately: "Mary said…" "Harry said…" So we shut up. It would be nice to have trusted friends here.

In Centralia, they attended Mary's 50th high school reunion. They also attended another Hawes family reunion at Borst Park. (If you click the picture, you can see her at both these events.) Back to Hemet as the temperature there moderated, with autumn coming on.

At the end of December, 43-year-old son Allan, whose divorce with Dodie had recently been made official, married again: to Christina Eggert, 38, a German citizen, recently settled in the U.S. after a few years in New Zealand. Their wedding was in Sherman, Connecticut, attended by their friends. Oona and Theo had a small role in the wedding, but there were no other family members present.

Here is what Mary wrote in late April 1986:

Murphy's Law struck again!! or maybe things just happen in bunches for us.… I think I made the original mistake by telling Dr. Tibbetts that I had not been to see Dr. Dreder for a long time. He frightened me into making an appointment, and the roof fell in on March 18. An examination and test, then go to a specialist for a colonoscopy, and get X-rays for a mammogram. Twelve hundred dollars(188)

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$1,990 in 2009 dollars.
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later (10 days) the tests proved okay, but I must avoid stress and anxiety with the help of pills and diet. So…

At 2:00 in the morning of April 23 I had to call 911 for help because Harry was having an attack of some kind. The paramedics came at once with the fire engine (t.g. they were quiet about it), and let me go with them in my housecoat to the emergency room. I think I signed our life away, but they were taking care of him!

He was in intensive care for 2 days with many, many tests, and only family allowed as visitors (me). I can't drive now, but our park is like a small town and I had all the offers of rides that I needed to go to the hospital, and the store one time.

Finally, it was decided that there had been no heart damage, and that his lungs were all right, too. Apparently, it had been an angina attack, and now he must wear a nitro patch all the time, and carry nitro pills for an emergency. His instructions are "don't mow the lawn," etc.,…but take Bufferin or Tylenol for the headaches that will come for a couple of weeks until his body becomes accustomed to the nitro patch.

I am so glad to have him home, and REMEMBER, NO STRESS, Mary! That 4 days in the hospital were the longest days I have ever spent, but I tried not to cry in front of Harry. I miss my friends who have a wonderful shoulder for me to cry on…here I can only trust one. But the rest were so very helpful when I needed them. One time for me at 7 in the morning to pick me up in my housecoat!

Things will get better soon, I know. They may even let Harry drive farther than the bank and the grocery soon…after his appointment this coming week with the doctor.

Again, as usual, Mary and Harry spent the hot months north in Washington, driving the last gasps of their Ford Granada. In Centralia, Harry traded it in, paying cash for the balance, for a year-old white Plymouth Caravelle with 20,000 miles on it. They named this car Susie. Here they are in Seattle with Christine and Ed (to enlarge, and to see a picture with the grandchildren, just click).

In New York State, new daughter-in-law Christina was pregnant, due in February. Mary and Harry were excited with the prospect of their 11th grandchild. Unfortunately, on February 27, 1987, Maja Ernestine Edmands was born, full term, 10 minutes after she had died from heart failure.(189)

Mary and Harry heard the terrible news over the phone from distraught Allan, and they later got a complete description, with pictures, of the funeral. Mary shed a lot of tears over this tragedy.

One Ashbrook trip north in summer 1987 coincided with 12½-year-old granddaughter Oona's flight west to the Seattle area to spend several days with her close friend Ariel on Whidbey Island. Of course, she also needed to spend a couple of days in Seattle with her relatives. Here she is with her Barrett cousins, her Aunt Christine, and her Grandma Boots.

In July Mary and Harry spent several weeks at the run-down Flycaster Motel, across from the Gold Hill, Oregon, home of nephew Fred Foster and his wife, Sally. To join them, Christine brought Mary B. and Jenny down to Gold Hill, and Janna brought daughter Bernadette up to Gold Hill. Here they all are at a nearby restaurant.(190)

On April 13, 1988, Mary and Harry got their 12th grandchild, their 4th grandson: Daughter-in-law Christina in New York State gave birth to Maximillian Christie Edmands—this time under better care at Albany Medical Center.

In the summer, the Ashbrooks again escaped the hot, dusty Mojave and spent a few weeks at the rickety Flycatcher in Gold Hill, across from Fred and Sally. They did some fishing in the Rogue River.

In October, son Allan (age 46) had another business trip to Seattle, and this time he took Christina and 6-month-old Max with him on the train. They were able to spend time with Christine and her daughters, and they drove over the mountains to Tom and Bess, but they didn't see the Ashbrooks, who were more than a thousand miles away, in Hemet.(191)

During the autumn, it was clear that daughter Christine's marriage with Ed was breaking up. Mary A. now felt freer in expressing her dislike for Ed.(192)

In June 1989 granddaughter Sue Barrett, 24, who had been in the Navy for 3 years already and was now an aviation structural mechanic, married fellow sailor Paul Lee Anderson, just shy of 25. They moved to Guam.

In August kinsfolk were summoned to the community center in Chehalis, Washington, to celebrate a big 79th birthday bash for Mary's older brother Fred (his family was not at all sure that he would be able to wait for an 80th birthday). They transformed the occasion into another Hawes family reunion. Mary, age 72 and very fragile, and Harry, just shy of 77, drove up from Hemet, brother Tom, 76, and sister-in-law Bess, going on 76, and some of their family, came from George. Christine, 51, drove down from Seattle with her daughters, Janna, going on 45, drove up from Sacramento with Bernadette, 12. When Christine introduced Janna to Tom, he looked her in the eye and informed her that Christine did not have a sister.

During 1989 Mary's health was declining precipitously. She was losing weight, and getting ever weaker.

We do hope that 1990 will be a better year for everyone.—it just has to be better than 1989—

Our friends and family are so far away from here—we want to leave here very much.

Also in March, grandson Steven Yarnot, 20, married Glenna FitzGerald, 18, in Reno, Nevada. They made their home in Carmichael, California, close to Sacramento.

By the beginning of June, with the temperature approaching 110°, Mary and Harry had sold their trailer Bonnie (although they continued to live in it until early July).

Now if only the park would buy back the shed. It is better than any of the sheds, and the floor has never been wet as have most of the others. They need sheds here in the park, and I threaten (to myself) to pour buckets of water on the floor before we leave if it doesn't sell! We have a bill of sale for it.… We hope to see our friends in Calistoga and Fred & Sally on the way north.

We (Harry especially) wants to look around the Rogue River. I don't care enough to argue about it (I like Centralia!), but rent is important, as well as being near a doctor and a hospital.…

The doctor gave us enough prescriptions to last for months the other day (we bought out the drugstore again) and we are to get our medical charts next week to take with us. A new doctor or emergency room will need them, huh?… So far we have 15 boxes almost packed and 3 to go—only hope we can pack the TV with the extra sleeping and blankets and stuff. Still have a suitcase to pack to go—extra clothes & sheets & towels & stuff. We are trying to make "poor little car" as light as possible. We only wonder how we ever collected so much stuff in a trailer & a shed!!

Who knows when we will get to Nevada again?

In early July they left Hemet for good, visited friends and family on the way north, and headed for Centralia. Although Mary had said she didn't care enough to argue about where they would settle, her wish for Centralia had prevailed. Clearly sensing that she had little time left, she wanted to be close to Christine in Seattle.

Once in Centralia, they stayed with Robbie and Arlene while they looked for a place to rent. They could find nothing, so they bought a small, 2-bedroom cottage on Aurora Street, with stove, refrigerator, washer, dryer, dishwasher.

We are now in the house with a mortgage and new & used furniture—still need a tall lamp & 1 or 2 chests of drawers. Papa is happily puttering while I try to put stuff away—how did we ever get it into a trailer and a shed?

Of course, Mary and Harry attended the August 1990 Hawes family reunion at Centralia's Borst Park. Here is a picture of Mary with her sister and two brothers (and her daughter and sister-in-law); to enlarge and to see the group in context of all the attending kin, just click.

In early November enfeebled Mary, 73½ years old, fell twice in a single hour:

No bones broken, but a badly sprained ankle so I waited until Medicare and Blue Cross would take over again in 1991. It seems that I have what is called a dropped foot and must wear an ankle brace—how long I don't know. I have now been sent to a neurologist to find out if perhaps a nerve has been damaged—supposed to go to Olympia for that, too, but the doctor comes to Chehalis every 3 weeks.… Papa and his Six-million dollar teeth—a crown that held the magnetic brace fell out the other day, so he is now going to the dentist (for which we have no insurance coverage, naturally). Dr. Mohoric is sure that he can fix it for Papa…but he will be eating soup for a couple of days next week.

We were invited out to Christmas dinner, but stayed home hoping for phone calls which never came. Chris had planned to come down but we had snow all over the place. Our car is a little front wheel drive Caravelle, and Papa no longer knows how to drive in snow after all these years. Me, I don't drive at all because of my eyes, and Pop doesn't drive at night. Could be that we are getting on in years?

He finally learned to eat on the back porch, which Pop fixed a garbage can for a "cat house" for him. We can't afford to feed all the cats so we watch for Malcolm only. He is afraid to come into the house—during the very cold weather I warmed some milk for him and tried to get him in. He just went back to the front door and yelled to get OUT, so I gave him the milk on the back porch. We like our Malcolm who seems to recognize the sound of the car, and is waiting to EAT now.

Now if we could only buy a flag—none are available right now, but [brother] Fred said he might be able to help us about that. The flag we had in Hemet wasn't worth bringing with us, darn.

In early spring they outfitted their home for their ailments:

We are getting railings for the front and back steps—I need them, and so does [brother] Fred (he has ramps at his place and complains about our steps). [Brother] Tom has diabetes but seems to be doing better, and no one ever hears from [sister] Jane in Tacoma.…We have been here for 6 months now, and it almost feels like home—I don't mean the trailer, I mean South Silver Street! We do have a someday list that is quite long—SOMEDAY means that they can wait a little while. Just wonder if everyone has a list like that? Of course, we have a "to do" list, too, that is gradually being taken care of. I am the list keeper, the bill payer, the medical record keeper, and Pop had better learn how to do all those things.…

In late April Grandma and Grandpa Boots' first great-grandchild was born: Matthew Girard Yarnot, born to grandson Steven and granddaughter-in-law Glenna, in Carmichael, California.

Mary was happy that Washington State had a lottery, and she played it every chance she had, ever hoping to win big. She also hoped that her health (and Harry's, too) would improve, but it did not. As she continued to smoke like a chimney and drink her bottles of beer, she declined month after month. She joked about her "dropped foot" with this Irish prayer:

"May those who love us, love us; and those who don't love us, may God turn their hearts; and if He doesn't turn their hearts, may He turn their ankles, so we'll know them by their limping."
Needless to say, this did not make me very happy these days.…

Daughter Christine notified son Allan in New York State that their mother's condition was dire, and he flew out to Washington just after New Years' Day 1992. Harry and Christine did their best to make Allan's arrival in Mary's hospital room seem nonchalant, that because of a business trip he was "just in the neighborhood," but Mary was not fooled.

Allan stayed at the little Ashbrook house on Aurora Street. Sister Jane arrived from George with niece Martha, and they stayed there, too. Christine was staying there off and on, with turn-around trips from Seattle.

When Mary was released from the hospital, she was too weak to smoke, but she was able to breathe in the smoke from Jane. Mary faded in and out, but while alert, she was generally in a nasty, snarling mood. Harry kept his hearing aid on low, and the TV was on high. After a couple of weeks, Jane and Martha returned to George, and Allan to New York. Harry carried on with Mary.

The family feud with former best friend, former sister-in-law Janie continued only in Mary's mind.(195)

The feud would die with her; Mary would go to her grave knowing that she had made a horrific error in judgment leaving her baby with Janie until such time that it was convenient for her to retrieve the child. None of her children ever even pretended to understand that decision.

Toward the end of January, Mary fell in the bathroom.(196)

She ordered Harry not to call 911 for help. He somehow got her back into bed and waited for her to get better. Finally, on a Sunday, in spite of the orders, Harry called for help—to daughter Christine in Seattle, who hurried to Centralia. Mary was mute, and pretty much stayed that way.(197)

Christine arranged for Mary to reside in a hospice/nursing home only a block away from the Aurora Street house. She called Allan in New York, who flew out again. Shirt-tail relative Donna Hawes Nedelisky came up from Portland.(198)

Donna and Allan sang, in two-part harmony, hymns to Mary, now silent and no longer glaring, but rather sweet. With Mary's nodding consent, Allan arranged for the First Christian Church minister to visit her bedside. Brother Tom and sister-in-law Bess visited Mary. Also visiting frequently was Arletha Raymond Seiffert, Mary's lifelong friend, and schoolmate from Oakview Grade School and its baseball team. Harry walked over to the hospice every day.

Donna returned to Portland. Allan returned to New York.(199)

Mary lingered for several more weeks, passing into a coma. Christine came every week, read her charts, consulted with the nurses, and spoke with the aids. Christine was holding her mother's hand as midnight on April 12 became the early morning of April 13 (the 119th anniversary of Mary's father's birth, the 4th birthday of Mary's youngest grandchild, Max), and Mary's last breath shuddered out of her body. She was 74 years 9 months and 21 days old.

According to Mary's death certificate, the immediate cause of death was hydrocephalus, whose onset was 4 months earlier, probably brought on by pulmonary carcinoma (lung cancer). Earlier she had survived a bout of uterine cancer and, possibly, colon cancer, but those who knew her have no doubt that her tobacco addiction diminished her life by many years.

Daughter Christine prepared a notice that included the following:

Mary Ashbrook
June 23, 1917
April 13, 1992

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am a diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.

After a long illness, Mother left us yesterday.
She left us in dignity and with grace.
We know she is at peace.
Dad is understandably distressed.
He has spent these last few months showing great courage and his love.
A tribute to both my Mom and my Dad.

Christine opened the duplicate wills when Harry died 8 years later. The estate was modest. No probate was required. The instructions were what Christine would have done as executrix in any case. Both wills were the same: give in equal shares, share and share alike, to the three children of Mary Anna Hawes Edmands Ashbrook—Christine, Allan, and Janna. What a wonderful coda.