Bessie Irene Primrose
Bessie, my maternal grandmother was a big influence in my upbringing. She lived with us for many years, off and on while my father was enlisted in the Army. On my father's second tour-of-duty in France, she went with us to France and managed to live with for about 18 months. This was a big move for my grandmother. She hated living there. I remember her not being able to tolerate "the French" because of their "look down their nose attitude". It wasn't a good time to live in France. It was 1960 and President Charles DE Gaulle was trying to get rid of the US military bases in France. There were still fresh wounds from the American way of looking because "we saved the French from the Nazi's". Amazingly, when I look at that today, there is still an attitude from certain Americans - most of them older - about how the world owes America a debt of gratitude. I look at it differently now. But being raised as a military brat with a career soldier father, your view was loyal and patriotic.
Born in Iowa and raised on a farm, until her early teen years, her father and mother moved to Eugene, Oregon, where her father was a handyman for a brand new department store. The 1910 census records show that she, herself worked in that department store. Somehow, she met a young man by the name of Clarence Wagers, who also worked at that department store. My grandmother obviously did not like her first name. Three separate census records show her name as "Irene B." She married Clarence - who was also a passionate man about baseball, and was a semi-professional (this was only told by rumor.) I remember my mom talking about my grandmother loving baseball so much. Many talks with my Aunts (their father was James) reminded my mom that her mother's absolute attraction to baseball was from her first love. (This was very evident, when the first TV we had in my childhood was purchased by my grandmother so she could watch the San Francisco Giants play, that was around 1963). She was a fanatic about baseball.
Somewhere between 1914 and 1918, she and her first husband, Clarence Wagers lived in Gordon, Nebraska. World War I impacted a lot of families. On June 5, 1917, he registered for the draft in Bailey, Nebraska. He listed his wife and two children and asked for no exemptions. It will be fun to try to pull this experience into her life, but the evidence shows that my Aunt Dorothy was born in Eugene, Oregon on October 28, 1915. But then, my Aunt Virginia and Uncle Kenneth were born in Page Nebraska, the same area that Clarence was born. It seems that maybe, just maybe they went back to his family in Nebraska to help there. Perhaps he and Irene wanted to try something new, to get away from his father and mother there in Oregon.
By 1919 first husband, Clarence, died in the great flu epidemic. Death records show they were in Portland at the time of his death. She bounced around quite a bit from Iowa, to Oregon, to Nebraska, then back to Oregon. The Federal 1920 census shows that my grandmother was listed as Irene B. Wagers, widow. She was now a resident of Elkhorn, San Joaquin County, in California. Also listed on the census, were her small children Dorothy, Virginia, and Kenneth...ages 4 1/2, 2 1/2, and 1 year old. She was age 28, in a town unfamiliar to her, running a boarding house to make ends meet and make sure her children were safe.
In reflection of how things were for women then....women had just earned the right to vote. There was no career choices for them in professions, which required an education, that of teacher or nurse. Most women managed to get by with taking in roomers, if they were widows, and doing laundry. They were labeled as housewives, and education was not important. I have been told that my grandmother only went through grammar school, leaving school at grade 8. In 1920 there was no social security benefits or widows’ benefits. The story from my mother was that my grandmother’s father-in-law - James William Wagers, owned a boarding house in Stockton, and provided it for her to manage in order take care of her children. My mother was always pointing out that my grandmother had told her, that it had been a house of "ill repute". The story goes that my grandfather was one of her boarders. This could be entirely true. I don't know about the ill repute part, but it was common in the Stockton area, and during the big migration to California, that setting up boarding houses were typical in the days of entrepreneurship. So to confirm this story on how my grandfather and grandmother met, and with the listing on that 1920 census at the same address was a young man and his young wife - Warren and Augusta Cushman, ages 21 and 18. Warren was the youngest brother of three brothers. My grandfather, Paul was the middle child. He was born in San Francisco to Charles Henry Cushman and Eunice Prickett.
After she married Paul Raymond Cushman, they moved to Sonora, California. That is where my mother and uncle, Karleen Irene and Charles Raymond, were born. I have to admire the grandfather I never knew. He took on the responsibility of a widow and her three small children, had two more of their own, and survived the great depression. My mother always told us, that he was never on the relief line and always had enough money to support all of them. He was a carpet/linoleum layer, and a tragic accident on the job took his life in Seattle, Washington. He died in 1946 at the age of 52.
She lived in a time of great transition. She was married and widowed twice. There were two world wars in her lifetime. There is only a draft registration on her first husband for World War I, and her second husband served in World War I in the Navy (before she met him in 1921-22). During World War II, both of her sons from each husband served in the Navy.There are two distinct memories that I have of my grandmother. She managed to live through a world flu epidemic, losing one husband to it, seeing women getting the right to vote, all the way to surviving the great depression with her second husband and her five children. Since she lived with us off and on during my formidable younger years, she was already a second-time widow.
I remember my grandmother caring for me during a time of illness. I wasn't the best child to care for when sick, but I guess my grandmother had just enough of my temper tantrum when I didn't want to get into a very hot bath, that she grabbed my ankle and dunked me in the hot water. I must have been around 4 or 5 years old. I don't believe I ever gave her a problem after that.
The other memorable story - happened when I was about 12 years old. My grandmother was living with us in our home in beautiful Mendocino. She lived in the cabin behind our house. My mother and dad wanted to go out and celebrate the New Year's with some friends. Grandma was our babysitter that night. It was a sweet night. Me...playing with one of those tooting noisemakers that you blow and the paper rolls out with a tassel on it...decided to take it apart for some investigation. The little round whistle was the size of a button. I would put it to my mouth and blow, and was amazed on how this noisemaker was put together. I was blowing it, annoying my younger sister, then I jokingly put it up to my nostril to blow it, somehow, in trying to make air go through it, I ended up inhaling it into my nostril. Up high in the nostril! I stood up in a panic because it was UP there...you know what I mean? I ran into the kitchen in a panic..."Grandma, I've got this thing stuck in my nose"... (of course while I’m talking to her the whistle in my nose goes along with the words...amazing how whistle work). Amazing. She was looking up my nose, I'm panicking and whistling at the same time. She said to me calmly...."stay put, I'll go up to the cabin and get some tweezers."
As I watched her walk up the sidewalk, I remember breathing very carefully, holding one nostril closed so sound wouldn't go out. My biggest fear was that the small whistle would go up into my brain! My sister is jumping all around me laughing so hard...and then it happened....a big sneeze! Out came the whistle. By the time my grandmother came back into the house, the problem had resolved itself.
My brother and sister and I all agree that our grandmother was the best baker in the whole world. She simply made the best cinnamon rolls and pies. I can still smell the dough rising in that big bowl on the counter in the kitchen. Watching her press the dough down on the floured board, rolling it out, sprinkling the cinnamon, brown sugar, a few raisins, rolling the dough into a log and cutting the rolls thickly. Then she would place them again under a flour sack and let them raise again. I could go on and on about her apple dumplings, sinfully thick, sticky and yummy s.
I see the garden that she and my mother would plant in our yard with vegetables growing. Her image of hanging the clothes out on the line to dry after "wringing" the clothes through the wring machine, bring great memories during an awesome childhood. It is these amazing senses and pictures I have in my mind about my grandmother.
She had to be strong during the 1920's and 30's. I believe she was an example of the woman at the "turn of the century". She was definitely a farm girl. One thing about our house in Mendocino, it had a chicken coop. My dad fixed it up and the two of them stocked it with about 20 chickens. I can still see my dad "walking" those chickens up the ramp to get into the coop. They were too stupid to stay in at night and a couple of raccoon had chicken dinner the first night there. My grandmother taught us how to gather the eggs, to clean the poop from the coop, bake the eggshells then press them finely and put them back into the chicken feed. It made the egg shells stronger, she would tell us.
It was a horrible experience on the day she died. I write about it in my book "Escaping the Jaws of Life" ...it truly was my first experience in dealing with death. There is a time and a place for all of us to experience death the first time, of which, many have written. There is no expiration date stamped on us visibly but as I write about her life, you can see that she made a huge impression on me. This woman, a wife to two men, widowed at age 28 and then at age 54. A mother to five children. A grandmother to 16 grandchildren. A great-grandmother to 17 great-grandchildren at the time of her death.
A heart-warming and spiritual experience can be experienced in connection with those who have transitioned before you. I have gone back to my old house in Mendocino many times in my adult life. It is now a bed and breakfast. The kitchen area has been transformed into a room with "en suite" next to it. A couple of years ago, I went to my High School class reunion. I decided to rent that room for my weekend up there. The caretaker of the house was a joy to talk to. She explained to me that they occasionally get a visitation from a lady. When she started to explain to me that this apparition is polite and quiet, I realized who this was. I was amazed. When she took me to the room (the converted kitchen), I realized the bed I would be sleeping in was right over the spot where my grandmother had died. I took this all in with a deep sigh and a big smile. Because, if I can just sit still and close my eyes, I can visualize the smell of those cinnamon rolls baking in the oven.
Last year and this year, I have gone back and stayed in that room. The staff there says that she shows herself usually around July and August. An explanation is that this typically happens around the anniversary of their death or around their birthday. So...since my grandmother died on July 1, 1969, and her birthday was August 4th...the window of opportunity is there. I am amused of the number of staff there that has seen her. There is no fear, just an understanding that life is continuous and everlasting. She is only there for a visit of her own.
Born in Iowa and raised on a farm, until her early teen years, her father and mother moved to Eugene, Oregon, where her father was a handyman for a brand new department store. The 1910 census records show that she, herself worked in that department store. Somehow, she met a young man by the name of Clarence Wagers, who also worked at that department store. My grandmother obviously did not like her first name. Three separate census records show her name as "Irene B." She married Clarence - who was also a passionate man about baseball, and was a semi-professional (this was only told by rumor.) I remember my mom talking about my grandmother loving baseball so much. Many talks with my Aunts (their father was James) reminded my mom that her mother's absolute attraction to baseball was from her first love. (This was very evident, when the first TV we had in my childhood was purchased by my grandmother so she could watch the San Francisco Giants play, that was around 1963). She was a fanatic about baseball.
Somewhere between 1914 and 1918, she and her first husband, Clarence Wagers lived in Gordon, Nebraska. World War I impacted a lot of families. On June 5, 1917, he registered for the draft in Bailey, Nebraska. He listed his wife and two children and asked for no exemptions. It will be fun to try to pull this experience into her life, but the evidence shows that my Aunt Dorothy was born in Eugene, Oregon on October 28, 1915. But then, my Aunt Virginia and Uncle Kenneth were born in Page Nebraska, the same area that Clarence was born. It seems that maybe, just maybe they went back to his family in Nebraska to help there. Perhaps he and Irene wanted to try something new, to get away from his father and mother there in Oregon.
By 1919 first husband, Clarence, died in the great flu epidemic. Death records show they were in Portland at the time of his death. She bounced around quite a bit from Iowa, to Oregon, to Nebraska, then back to Oregon. The Federal 1920 census shows that my grandmother was listed as Irene B. Wagers, widow. She was now a resident of Elkhorn, San Joaquin County, in California. Also listed on the census, were her small children Dorothy, Virginia, and Kenneth...ages 4 1/2, 2 1/2, and 1 year old. She was age 28, in a town unfamiliar to her, running a boarding house to make ends meet and make sure her children were safe.
In reflection of how things were for women then....women had just earned the right to vote. There was no career choices for them in professions, which required an education, that of teacher or nurse. Most women managed to get by with taking in roomers, if they were widows, and doing laundry. They were labeled as housewives, and education was not important. I have been told that my grandmother only went through grammar school, leaving school at grade 8. In 1920 there was no social security benefits or widows’ benefits. The story from my mother was that my grandmother’s father-in-law - James William Wagers, owned a boarding house in Stockton, and provided it for her to manage in order take care of her children. My mother was always pointing out that my grandmother had told her, that it had been a house of "ill repute". The story goes that my grandfather was one of her boarders. This could be entirely true. I don't know about the ill repute part, but it was common in the Stockton area, and during the big migration to California, that setting up boarding houses were typical in the days of entrepreneurship. So to confirm this story on how my grandfather and grandmother met, and with the listing on that 1920 census at the same address was a young man and his young wife - Warren and Augusta Cushman, ages 21 and 18. Warren was the youngest brother of three brothers. My grandfather, Paul was the middle child. He was born in San Francisco to Charles Henry Cushman and Eunice Prickett.
After she married Paul Raymond Cushman, they moved to Sonora, California. That is where my mother and uncle, Karleen Irene and Charles Raymond, were born. I have to admire the grandfather I never knew. He took on the responsibility of a widow and her three small children, had two more of their own, and survived the great depression. My mother always told us, that he was never on the relief line and always had enough money to support all of them. He was a carpet/linoleum layer, and a tragic accident on the job took his life in Seattle, Washington. He died in 1946 at the age of 52.
She lived in a time of great transition. She was married and widowed twice. There were two world wars in her lifetime. There is only a draft registration on her first husband for World War I, and her second husband served in World War I in the Navy (before she met him in 1921-22). During World War II, both of her sons from each husband served in the Navy.There are two distinct memories that I have of my grandmother. She managed to live through a world flu epidemic, losing one husband to it, seeing women getting the right to vote, all the way to surviving the great depression with her second husband and her five children. Since she lived with us off and on during my formidable younger years, she was already a second-time widow.
I remember my grandmother caring for me during a time of illness. I wasn't the best child to care for when sick, but I guess my grandmother had just enough of my temper tantrum when I didn't want to get into a very hot bath, that she grabbed my ankle and dunked me in the hot water. I must have been around 4 or 5 years old. I don't believe I ever gave her a problem after that.
The other memorable story - happened when I was about 12 years old. My grandmother was living with us in our home in beautiful Mendocino. She lived in the cabin behind our house. My mother and dad wanted to go out and celebrate the New Year's with some friends. Grandma was our babysitter that night. It was a sweet night. Me...playing with one of those tooting noisemakers that you blow and the paper rolls out with a tassel on it...decided to take it apart for some investigation. The little round whistle was the size of a button. I would put it to my mouth and blow, and was amazed on how this noisemaker was put together. I was blowing it, annoying my younger sister, then I jokingly put it up to my nostril to blow it, somehow, in trying to make air go through it, I ended up inhaling it into my nostril. Up high in the nostril! I stood up in a panic because it was UP there...you know what I mean? I ran into the kitchen in a panic..."Grandma, I've got this thing stuck in my nose"... (of course while I’m talking to her the whistle in my nose goes along with the words...amazing how whistle work). Amazing. She was looking up my nose, I'm panicking and whistling at the same time. She said to me calmly...."stay put, I'll go up to the cabin and get some tweezers."
As I watched her walk up the sidewalk, I remember breathing very carefully, holding one nostril closed so sound wouldn't go out. My biggest fear was that the small whistle would go up into my brain! My sister is jumping all around me laughing so hard...and then it happened....a big sneeze! Out came the whistle. By the time my grandmother came back into the house, the problem had resolved itself.
My brother and sister and I all agree that our grandmother was the best baker in the whole world. She simply made the best cinnamon rolls and pies. I can still smell the dough rising in that big bowl on the counter in the kitchen. Watching her press the dough down on the floured board, rolling it out, sprinkling the cinnamon, brown sugar, a few raisins, rolling the dough into a log and cutting the rolls thickly. Then she would place them again under a flour sack and let them raise again. I could go on and on about her apple dumplings, sinfully thick, sticky and yummy s.
I see the garden that she and my mother would plant in our yard with vegetables growing. Her image of hanging the clothes out on the line to dry after "wringing" the clothes through the wring machine, bring great memories during an awesome childhood. It is these amazing senses and pictures I have in my mind about my grandmother.
She had to be strong during the 1920's and 30's. I believe she was an example of the woman at the "turn of the century". She was definitely a farm girl. One thing about our house in Mendocino, it had a chicken coop. My dad fixed it up and the two of them stocked it with about 20 chickens. I can still see my dad "walking" those chickens up the ramp to get into the coop. They were too stupid to stay in at night and a couple of raccoon had chicken dinner the first night there. My grandmother taught us how to gather the eggs, to clean the poop from the coop, bake the eggshells then press them finely and put them back into the chicken feed. It made the egg shells stronger, she would tell us.
It was a horrible experience on the day she died. I write about it in my book "Escaping the Jaws of Life" ...it truly was my first experience in dealing with death. There is a time and a place for all of us to experience death the first time, of which, many have written. There is no expiration date stamped on us visibly but as I write about her life, you can see that she made a huge impression on me. This woman, a wife to two men, widowed at age 28 and then at age 54. A mother to five children. A grandmother to 16 grandchildren. A great-grandmother to 17 great-grandchildren at the time of her death.
A heart-warming and spiritual experience can be experienced in connection with those who have transitioned before you. I have gone back to my old house in Mendocino many times in my adult life. It is now a bed and breakfast. The kitchen area has been transformed into a room with "en suite" next to it. A couple of years ago, I went to my High School class reunion. I decided to rent that room for my weekend up there. The caretaker of the house was a joy to talk to. She explained to me that they occasionally get a visitation from a lady. When she started to explain to me that this apparition is polite and quiet, I realized who this was. I was amazed. When she took me to the room (the converted kitchen), I realized the bed I would be sleeping in was right over the spot where my grandmother had died. I took this all in with a deep sigh and a big smile. Because, if I can just sit still and close my eyes, I can visualize the smell of those cinnamon rolls baking in the oven.
Last year and this year, I have gone back and stayed in that room. The staff there says that she shows herself usually around July and August. An explanation is that this typically happens around the anniversary of their death or around their birthday. So...since my grandmother died on July 1, 1969, and her birthday was August 4th...the window of opportunity is there. I am amused of the number of staff there that has seen her. There is no fear, just an understanding that life is continuous and everlasting. She is only there for a visit of her own.