Mom and Dad: Dating



Mom (Fawn) Duane and Grandpa Sanders
In Californa 1942-1943

 Mom met Dad at a dance in Fairview. Her friend Ruby was with her. My dad was with another friend. They all got to talking and soon asked mom and Ruby to take a ride with them. Mom said they could not do that because you never go home with someone who did not bring you. Finally they decided they would as long as Ruby drove. Mom did not know how to drive at that time. It ended up that Ruby was actually with Dad and the other guy was with Mom.  After that, Ruby was dating Dad and I am not sure if Mom was dating the other guy.

A few weeks later, Dad went to see if Ruby was home (they did not have a phone) and she was not. He was bored and decided to go see the "skinny" girl, (Mom) Mom liked him but her mom said he was a hick from the sticks who lived a ways out of town (Mt Pleasant) and the family dressed funny and talked funny and was part of an odd farmer family that had no religion. But mom knew that he was the best guy she had ever met. Of course, her friend Ruby was a little upset but since she and my dad were not going steady, she finally forgave mom.

They dated for several months. This was on the heels of WWII and dad knew he would probably be drafted soon. He was hoping he could get out of it because he was needed on the farm. His family had a large sheep farm and needed all their kids to help out. My Grandpa Sanders was always changing jobs and going to where the work was.  At this time, he was working in Southern California at the shipyard where he was a welder. Grandma Sanders and Beverly stayed in Fairview. Grandpa Sanders was an orphan as a child and he had been raised by his mother's sister. Her name was Leona Halberg. All of Leona's family had moved to California. So my grandpa was renting a house near them. Mom needed a job and Fairview, being such a small town, could not provide her with a job. So she and her brother, Duane, went to California and moved in with her dad. Duane got a job at a factory and later; Mom got a job as a riveter for Douglas Aircraft. Most of the men were already in the war and they needed so many workers (a a lot of them women) to work on the planes for the war effort. Mom also took classes in PBX and typing.

At this time, Dad was working in the mountains for his dad on the sheep farm. Sometimes he would stay in the mountains for over a month at a time. One day he came down the mountain and went to see mom. When Grandma Sanders opened the door she told him that Mom was working in California.  His face looked like he was almost going to cry. I guess he got Mom's address in California and wrote to her and she asked him to come there and get work so they could be together.

He wasn't sure he could do that as the farm needed all the help it could get and he knew his dad would not be happy should he go to California. He and mom exchanged letters for a while. Dad often did not have paper up in the mountains to write on. So he used labels from canned peas to write to her. He had to wait from someone to spell him to mail the letters but often they would bring the letters to him and then he would give his letters to the person who brought them and they would take them down to be mailed.

After a while, Dad could not stand being without mom and being so long on the mountain. I imagine his dad was not happy when he told him was going California. He sold his car and quit his job (he worked part time for other farmers.)  Mom made sure to tell him in a letter that he needed different clothes. He simply couldn't come down there and have everybody see him looking like a hayseed. In her letter she told him what kind of clothes to buy. So he took the bus to California. The farmer who had never seen anything, was in a big and intimidating city. He got a job working with Duane. He was there for most of the summer but he had to leave and go back to Mt Pleasant and help on the farm and he knew soon he would be drafted.They continued to write letters back and forth and began to talk of marriage. But Grandpa Sanders and all the other relatives did not like the idea. They said she should not marry until the war was over.

More of this history will be added to in a later post.