Bessie Irene Primrose
Bessie, my maternal Grandmother, was a significant influence on my upbringing. She lived with us for many years, off and on, while my father even during my father's enlistment in the Army. With his second tour of duty to France, we all went there to live for three years, along with my Grandmother. She went with us to Europe in 1959 and hated living there. I remember her being unable to tolerate the French culture because of their "look down their nose attitude," as she used to say. It wasn't a good time to live in France. It was 1960, and President Charles de Gaulle was trying to remove many US military bases in France. There were still fresh wounds from the American way of being accepted because "we saved the French from the Nazis." 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 worked in that department store. Somehow, she met a young man named Clarence Wagers, who also worked at that department store. My Grandmother 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 my Grandmother purchased the first TV we had in my childhood so she could watch the San Francisco Giants play; that was around 1963). She was a fanatic about baseball.
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. Trying to pull this experience into her life will be fun, 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, where 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 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 from Iowa to Oregon to Nebraska, then back to Oregon. The Federal 1920 census shows that my Grandmother identified her 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 28, in a town unfamiliar to her, running a boarding house to make ends meet and ensure her children were safe.
In reflection of how things were for women then, women had just earned the right to vote. They had no career choices in professions that required an education, such as teaching or nursing. Most women managed to get by taking in roomers if they were widows and doing laundry. They were labeled as housewives, and education was not necessary. My Grandmother told me she only went through grammar school, leaving school in grade 8. In 1920, there were 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 and care for her young children. My mother always pointed out that my Grandmother had told her it was 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. Still, it was common in the Stockton area and during the big migration to California that setting up boarding houses was typical in entrepreneurship. So, to confirm this story, I want to prove that 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 installer, 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. I have two distinct memories 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 boiling bath, and 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 New Year's with some friends. Grandma was our babysitter that night. It was a sweet night. I was playing with one of those tooting noisemakers you blow, and the paper rolled out with a tassel on it, so I 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 I was testing how this noisemaker was put together. I was blowing it, annoying my younger sister, and then I jokingly put it up to my nostril to blow it. Somehow, I inhaled it into my nostrils to make air go through it. 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., saying, "Grandma, I've got this thing stuck in my nose."... (of course, while I was talking to her, the whistle in my nose went along with the words... unique how a whistle works). Amazing. She was looking up my nose; I was panicking and whistling simultaneously. She said calmly, "Stay put; I'll go to the cabin and get some tweezers."
As I watched her walk up the sidewalk, I remember breathing carefully, holding one nostril closed so the sound wouldn't go out. My biggest fear was that the small whistle would enter my brain! My sister was jumping 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, sister, and I all agree that our Grandmother was the best baker in the world. She made the best cinnamon rolls and pies. I can still smell the dough rising in that big bowl on the counter in the kitchen and watching her press the dough down on the floured board, rolling it out, sprinkling the cinnamon, brown sugar, and a few raisins, rolling the dough into a log, and cutting the rolls thickly. Then, she would place them under a flour sack and let them rise again. I could go on and on about her apple dumplings, which are sinfully thick, sticky, and yummy.
I can still 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" them through the wring machine brings great memories of an awesome childhood. These amazing senses and pictures are what I have in my mind about my Grandmother.
She had to be strong during the 920s and '30s. She was an example of the woman at the "turn of the century." She was a farm girl. One thing about our house in Mendocino is that it had a chicken coop. My dad fixed it, and the two 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 raccoons had chicken dinner the first night there. My Grandmother taught us how to gather the eggs, clean the poop from the coop, bake the eggshells, then press them finely and put them back into the chicken feed. It made the eggshells 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 indeed was my first experience in dealing with death. There is a time and a place for all of us to experience death for the first time, of which many have written. No expiration date is stamped on us, but as I write about her life, you can see that she made a significant 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. She was a great-grandmother to 17 great-grandchildren at the time of her death.
Sometimes, a heart-warming, spiritual experience can happen in connection with those who have transitioned before you. I have returned to my old house in Mendocino many times in my adult life. It is now a bed and breakfast. The kitchen area was transformed into a room with an "en-suite" next to it. I attended my high school class reunion a couple of years ago. 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 explained that this apparition was polite and quiet, I realized who it 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. Sitting still and closing 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 my Grandmother usually shows herself (her apparition) around July and August. An explanation is that this typically happens around the anniversary of their death or near their birthday. Since my Grandmother died on July 1, 1969, and her birthday was August 4, the window of opportunity is there. It amuses me to see the number of staff there who have 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 worked in that department store. Somehow, she met a young man named Clarence Wagers, who also worked at that department store. My Grandmother 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 my Grandmother purchased the first TV we had in my childhood so she could watch the San Francisco Giants play; that was around 1963). She was a fanatic about baseball.
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. Trying to pull this experience into her life will be fun, 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, where 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 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 from Iowa to Oregon to Nebraska, then back to Oregon. The Federal 1920 census shows that my Grandmother identified her 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 28, in a town unfamiliar to her, running a boarding house to make ends meet and ensure her children were safe.
In reflection of how things were for women then, women had just earned the right to vote. They had no career choices in professions that required an education, such as teaching or nursing. Most women managed to get by taking in roomers if they were widows and doing laundry. They were labeled as housewives, and education was not necessary. My Grandmother told me she only went through grammar school, leaving school in grade 8. In 1920, there were 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 and care for her young children. My mother always pointed out that my Grandmother had told her it was 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. Still, it was common in the Stockton area and during the big migration to California that setting up boarding houses was typical in entrepreneurship. So, to confirm this story, I want to prove that 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 installer, 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. I have two distinct memories 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 boiling bath, and 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 New Year's with some friends. Grandma was our babysitter that night. It was a sweet night. I was playing with one of those tooting noisemakers you blow, and the paper rolled out with a tassel on it, so I 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 I was testing how this noisemaker was put together. I was blowing it, annoying my younger sister, and then I jokingly put it up to my nostril to blow it. Somehow, I inhaled it into my nostrils to make air go through it. 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., saying, "Grandma, I've got this thing stuck in my nose."... (of course, while I was talking to her, the whistle in my nose went along with the words... unique how a whistle works). Amazing. She was looking up my nose; I was panicking and whistling simultaneously. She said calmly, "Stay put; I'll go to the cabin and get some tweezers."
As I watched her walk up the sidewalk, I remember breathing carefully, holding one nostril closed so the sound wouldn't go out. My biggest fear was that the small whistle would enter my brain! My sister was jumping 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, sister, and I all agree that our Grandmother was the best baker in the world. She made the best cinnamon rolls and pies. I can still smell the dough rising in that big bowl on the counter in the kitchen and watching her press the dough down on the floured board, rolling it out, sprinkling the cinnamon, brown sugar, and a few raisins, rolling the dough into a log, and cutting the rolls thickly. Then, she would place them under a flour sack and let them rise again. I could go on and on about her apple dumplings, which are sinfully thick, sticky, and yummy.
I can still 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" them through the wring machine brings great memories of an awesome childhood. These amazing senses and pictures are what I have in my mind about my Grandmother.
She had to be strong during the 920s and '30s. She was an example of the woman at the "turn of the century." She was a farm girl. One thing about our house in Mendocino is that it had a chicken coop. My dad fixed it, and the two 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 raccoons had chicken dinner the first night there. My Grandmother taught us how to gather the eggs, clean the poop from the coop, bake the eggshells, then press them finely and put them back into the chicken feed. It made the eggshells 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 indeed was my first experience in dealing with death. There is a time and a place for all of us to experience death for the first time, of which many have written. No expiration date is stamped on us, but as I write about her life, you can see that she made a significant 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. She was a great-grandmother to 17 great-grandchildren at the time of her death.
Sometimes, a heart-warming, spiritual experience can happen in connection with those who have transitioned before you. I have returned to my old house in Mendocino many times in my adult life. It is now a bed and breakfast. The kitchen area was transformed into a room with an "en-suite" next to it. I attended my high school class reunion a couple of years ago. 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 explained that this apparition was polite and quiet, I realized who it 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. Sitting still and closing 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 my Grandmother usually shows herself (her apparition) around July and August. An explanation is that this typically happens around the anniversary of their death or near their birthday. Since my Grandmother died on July 1, 1969, and her birthday was August 4, the window of opportunity is there. It amuses me to see the number of staff there who have 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.
