Kewpie

This is a Kewpie Doll.  They were created by Rose O'Neill, who in 1909 made a comic strip featuring this little character.  The dolls came soon after, in 1912, when the comic strip became popular.  The name Kewpie came from Cupid.  An authentic Kewpie always has tiny blue wings on its shoulders.  These dolls were extremely popular carnival prizes during the first half of the 1900s.  These days, an Asian Food company makes Kewpie Mayonnaise.

Carol loved Kewpies.  She collected them, sold and traded them.  This one was her favorite. She had this in her French cabinet ever since I can remember.  Look on top of its head and you will see a  bobby pin holding a curl of golden hair.  This is Carol's hair.  She always put locks of her hair on the dolls.  Even when she sold them, they usually went to their new home with her hair on their head.  Yes, it was weird. And it seems even weirder that I still have this odd little doll, now that I think about it.

The Baby that Died

There are no photos of Jody Jim Warriner, because he did not survive his birth.

Every time we were downtown and drove past Goodbody's Ivy Chapel, I got to hear the tragic story of Jody Jim, because his ashes were stored in the mortuary there.

At corner of 3rd and Ash

Jody Jim was Carol's final biological child.  He was named after the boy character in a movie called "The Yearling." Since his brother Darwin D was born 6 and half years earlier, the family had gone through ungodly amounts of domestic trauma, to the point where it was unlikely the marriage between Darwin S and Carol would survive.  Somehow they had come to a truce and it was hoped that this baby would bring them back together.  

Carol had already given birth to 6 children.  She felt like she had this process down pat.  And since she had already given birth to at least two of her kids at home, she wanted to have a home birth at 4071 Eagle Street.  In this day and age, no doctor would have advised that she attempt a home birth. She was 37 years old, overweight, and probably diabetic by that time.  The child was very large, and she, at 4 foot 10 inches, was very small. 

According to Carol, there was a doctor and a nurse in attendance on that fateful day of March 3, 1959.  Carol labored on a table in the living room with no progress. The doctor and nurse stood above her pushing on her belly with each contraction.  But there was no way the child could be born. His head was too big, her pelvis too small. 11 year old Lynda was in the kitchen listening in horror to the panicked voices and screams of her mother.  After hours of hopeless labor, the doctor gave up and took Carol to Mercy hospital in Hillcrest.  At that point, the baby was already dead.  There was a C-section to remove his body, along with the ruptured uterus.  Her child production days were officially finished.  

His body was removed to Goodbody's Ivy Chapel, where it was cremated.  The family could not bring themselves to retrieving his ashes, so they left them there. 

Goodbody's Ivy Chapel no longer exists as a mortuary.  But it is a historic building, designed by Irving Gill, and will remain downtown forever.  Where Jody Jim's ashes ended up is anyone's guess.

The family sued the Doctor for malpractice, but they did not win. 

According to Carol it was her husband's fault that they lost the lawsuit.  He was called to the witness stand, and Dr Mina's lawyer asked him if he thought Carol had suffered pain above and beyond the pain of normal childbirth, and he supposedly testified that it was normal childbirth pain.  And the decision was made in favor of the doctor. 

Whether his answer affected the decision or not, the guilt that Darwin S would feel over the lawsuit loss would affect him for the remainder of his life.

Carol never got over this experience.  This tragedy would launch her into a compulsion that would affect the entire family for years to come.

First Child

Carol became pregnant within a couple of months after getting married.  This first child was very nearly her last child, when serious complications arose in June, 1940.

She was very ill with morning sickness from day one of this pregnancy, but after the nausea started to wear off, Carol began having much bigger problems with her blood pressure.  The doctors called it Toxemia, which is another term for pre-eclampsia.  She was ordered to bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy, but continued to have problems.

Soon she had to be hospitalized, as she was very near to full-blown eclampsia, which causes seizures, organ failure and death.  According to Carol, the doctors ordered her to remain very calm, and told visitors to limit their time and to not get her upset. The next part of the story is another reason why she hated sister Nina. She said Nina tried to kill her.

Nina came to the hospital to visit her, and was given the warning from the nurse.  According to Carol, Nina ignored the warning, and starting telling funny family stories in order to get Carol to laugh.  The more they conversed and laughed, the higher Carol's blood pressure rose, then suddenly, Carol lost consciousness and began to convulse in her hospital bed.  The nurses ran in and called the doctors, who noticed that not only was she in distress, but the baby was coming, so they wheeled her down to the delivery room.

Carol told me that even though she was unconscious and seizing, she knew what was going on, because she was viewing the scene from above her bed.  Doctors were trying to stabilize her, another one was delivering the tiny premature baby, and one Doctor said they were losing the mother, and made the comment, "What a shame, she is just a kid and isn't even married."

That comment made Carol so frustrated and mad (because she was unconscious and couldn't correct him. She kept trying to shout, "look at my hand, I have a wedding ring") that she snapped back into her body and they revived her.

The baby was very small, but would survive and be named Patricia Ann, born June 12, 1940.
The doctors told Carol she came so close to death that she should never try to have another child.

Of course, she didn't heed their advice, and was pregnant again two years later.

Who was Bill Tompsett?

Not too much is known about Carol's first husband.  This is his family tree.  Most of his family came from New York, and before that, from England. His grandfather Charles Helmer had been an RFD (Rural Free Delivery) for the US Post Office Department. He was born in Michigan.

He and Carol were married in September 1939.  The 1940 Federal census tells us this:

He was 19 years old, he only completed 2 years of high school, and during the previous 52 weeks, he had worked a steady job for the city as a street cleaner, earning $520 for the year.

Carol was 18 years old, completed only 3 years of high school, and did not have a job during the previous 52 weeks. (We know she was living with sister Nina, helping with baby Jerry)

What was not recorded in the census was that they were expecting their first baby, who would be born in June 1940.

Carol hated Bill Tompsett as much as she hated her sister Nina.  From the time I was very young, she would tell me stories about their drama-filled marriage.  She said he had a job with the railroad and was required to be gone most of the time.  But when he came home and they were together, they fought constantly, and there was violence between them.  Also, every time he came home, she got pregnant, and then he would be gone again.

Carol told me that Bill Tompsett had been named after a brother who had been born a year earlier and who had died.  She found it extremely creepy to be named after a dead sibling. The creepy thing about this was that the older child died on Fed 20, 1920--exactly one year before Bill was born on February 20, 1921.  She also said his mother Laura was crazy, and that Bill was a schizophrenic.

They moved from place to place in the Detroit area.

In 1949, when Carol was pregnant with her fifth child Skippy, Bill Tompsett died.  I have no evidence of this yet, but here is the story she told me again and again when I was a child:

After 9 years of a super violent marriage, she was pregnant with number 5.  For some reason, Bill Tompsett, who was living somewhere else other than with his family, wrote a long emotional letter to her, telling her how much he loved her and how sorry he was that he couldn't be a good husband to her, and that the only solution would be for him to take his own life.  Then he rigged up a hose to the tailpipe of his car, got inside, started up the engine, and suffocated on gas fumes.  She said the cops came to her house and told her what happened and gave her the note.

I cannot substantiate this story yet.  I don't have a death certificate, never saw the suicide note, and cannot find any newspaper articles, obituaries, or corroboration from anyone who knew Carol at the time. But that fact was, he suddenly died in 1949, leaving her with 4 young kids and one more on the way. And I have a theory about why he committed suicide, which I will explain in another post.

Carol's First Husband

Carol was in a hurry to get out on her own.  Back in those days, it just wasn't proper to live alone.  A girl needed to be married in order to get out from under her family's control.  When Carol was sent to live with sister Nina, she met a guy, and before too long they were married.  Everyone called him Bill. This grainy photo is Bill and Carol Tompsett. This rushed marriage was a ill-fated decision that they would both come to regret.

First marriage record

Dad's Sister June

Darwin S Warriner's older sister June lived in Texas for the last half of her life.  She was a very talented artist.  Photo with her nephew Darwin D, was dated May 25, 1953, "Aunt June and Babe"

This is one of her pen sketches.  This was up on Mom's bulletin board for decades.

Carol's Family Tree

Carol came from a very interesting set of parents.

Her mother, Elsie Caroline Tetzloff, was the daughter of deaf parents, Charles Tetzlaff and Cynthia Williams.  Neither of them had been born deaf:  they were of normal hearing until childhood diseases rendered them unable to hear.  They were sent to the Wisconsin School for the Deaf at Delevan, Wisconsin.  That is where they met and after graduation they were married.

Photo of Charles Tetzlaff in The Deaf Lutheran

Charles was of all German stock.  He was the smartest kid at the school and he wanted to be a teacher, but his parents made him learn the trade of shoemaking.  He made custom shoes by drawing the outline of the person's feet on paper.  Although he was good at his trade, new-fangled shoe factory production drove him out of business.  He ended up working hard labor at a sawmill.

Cynthia's father was a civil war casualty.  He was wounded near the end of the war and after suffering greatly from his wounds he died when Cynthia was about six years old.  Her mother was German.

Charles and Cynthia were looked down upon because of their deafness.  Their 4 kids, including Elsie, had to put up with alot of teasing from neighbor kids who called them dummies.

Cynthia was known in the family as "Little Grandma."  She died in October 1921, the same month her granddaughter Carol Jane Martindale was born.

Carol always used to talk about "Little Grandma," as if she had known her.  She felt some sort of spiritual connection to the grandma whose life ended just before Carol's was beginning.

After Cynthia died, Charles Tetzlaff moved in with the Martindale family and stayed with his daughter Elsie until he died at age 91.

There was some German spoken in the household, but Carol's only German language recollections came in the form of a German Nursery Rhyme that goes back to the 1800s.  She would recite it to me me when I was little.  It went something like this:

"Drei Klein Entchen
Schwimmen auf dem see
Kopfchen in das Wassen
Schwanzchen in die Hoh"

meaning,
"Three little ducks
Swimming on the lake
Heads in the water
and tails in the air"

Carol's father, Don L Martindale, was of mostly English stock.  His dad Albert was one of those good-looking guys who was nothing but trouble, the kind of man you don't want your daughter to date.  Albert was smart, musical, and a accurate rifleman. He was a horse trader, a gambler, an auctioneer, and always was engaged in questionable  activities.  A real job was too boring for him and he was always trying out some kind of scheme.

He fell for Lillian Washburn, married her and immediately joined a circus. Lillian became a bareback  horse rider and sang to entertain.  Albert had a trained bear and soon started initiating his young sons, including Don L, into the traveling circus life.  Don was just starting to perform on the trapeze when Lillian decided enough was enough and divorced her husband, taking their three boys and returning home to Marinette.  She supported herself by having a dressmaking business.  Albert disappeared from their lives and never returned.

Don L went to work full time in the sawmills at age 12, then went into the Navy for 4 years.  After that he wandered around from state to state with some buddies, living in hobo camps, jumping trains, living as a vagabond. He picked up a cocaine habit, and developed a bad alcohol problem.

Meanwhile,his mother Lillian remarried and had a 4th son.  She needed help with the dressmaking business, so she hired local girl Elsie Tetzlaff to keep up with demand.  And after a few months, the prodigal son Don L showed up on his mother's back door.  He was done with the life of a bum and came home.  He got a job at the sawmill, fell in love with Elsie, gave up his partying ways completely, and the two of them married and spent the next 20 years having 9 children.

Here is Carol's family tree:

Carol's family

Carol Warriner began life October 31, 1921, in Marinette Wisconsin, a small town near Green Bay.  She was the fifth child to be born to Don and Elsie Martindale

This is a very old photo. Carol's handwriting is on the back of it, stating," 1873 Dunlap, where Carol was born."

This is another photo of Carol's family home:  The writing on the back of the photo states, "where I was born 1873 Dunlap Ave, Marinette. It was not Carol's handwriting.
The house looks different in this newer photo.  Looks like they added the porch.  Carol said the house was always being added to over the years.

Her older siblings were Don, Amy, Nina and Ray. Then after Carol was born, the parents took an 8 year break in the action.

Here's another shot, with Don, Amy, Nina, Ray and Carol standing in age order. Already you can tell little Carol's attention is elsewhere.  I think she marched to the beat of a different drummer from day one!

Here is one with their parents, Don and Elsie.

Then they had four more kids:  Joan, Lois, Dick. and Dave. Elsie started having kids in 1915, and finished up 20 years later, in 1935.In this shot, taken around 1934, Elsie has not yet had the youngest child David. Back row from left: Don, Amy, Ray, Nina. Front row, from left: Carol, Mother Elsie,Lois, Joan, Dick, Father Don.


All of the kids had nicknames.  I can't remember all the names, but Carol's was "Coosie." Don't know why, don't know how she got that name, but that's what her father called her.

Carol adored her oldest brother Don and sister Amy.  Don was serious, studious, went to college and became a professor of sociology at a University in Minneapolis/St Paul. He wrote some textbooks in the 50s and 60s.

 Amy also graduated college with a degree in childhood education.  An interesting little tidbit that I remember about Aunt Amy:  As a childhood educator, she was dead-set against shows like Sesame Street.  When it first started airing on PBS back in the 60s, she happened to be down visiting from her home in Ephrata, Washington.  She had custody of her grandkids at the time, and they were enrolled in some kind of Head Start program.  But she would not let them watch Sesame Street.  Her words, and I remember it well were, "Its too quick, flashing too many images in too quick a time.  Its going to affect kids ability to pay attention in class later on.  They won't be able to focus on a slower lesson or on getting through a reading assignment." I think she was right, judging by how many kids have to be on heavy duty drugs these days just to get through a day in school.

Carol absolutely hated, with a capital H, her sister Nina.  She said Nina threw her shoes in the fire and burned them.  Whenever she spoke of Nina, it was never a happy story. I grew up under the impression that Nina was a bad sister.  I never met her.  As adults, they had no contact with each other. Carol told me a story, leaving out many details, about having to go live with Nina, for a time. Seems like she may have dropped out of high school during this time, according to the 1940 census, which indicated she completed only 3 years of high school, compared to others who completed 4 years of high school. She didn't tell me anything about school,  but it appears that Carol was the only kid out of nine who failed to graduate.

On the back of this photo, in Carol's handwriting, it says, "Carol and Jerry.  This is the bike Carol earned and bought by herself."

In 1939, Nina was married, had a little boy named Jerry, and lived in Detroit Michigan.  Carol didn't like having to do what Nina told her to do.  She didn't like Nina's little boy, and didn't like the fact that he was a red-head. Carol said that she was sent there to help Nina take care of the boy.  I am not sure how long she was there, but while she was there, she met and married her first husband Bill Tompsett, when she was about 18 years old. That got her away from Nina and the little red headed boy, but it obviously did not give her the freedom she was craving.

Ray was the brother closest in age to Carol.  She got along well with him, and the two of them got into a lot of mischief together as little kids. They used to hang around a cheese factory and somehow get their hands on cheese samples.  Evidently the cheese makers would stab the wheel of cheese to get a piece out, to see how it was coming along. They also used to wander around the railroad tracks looking for pieces of coal.  She told me that when they were small, the two of them would hop the train as it slowed through town and ride it for a little while, then jump off. One day, they saw a shoe near the tracks, and there was a bloody foot inside it. That should have spooked them away from train jumping, but it didn't.  One day someone who knew their father told him what they saw the kids doing, and Little Ray and Carol got their butts blistered by "The Persuader," which is what her parents called the belt that was used for punishments.

Carol didn't talk much about her four younger siblings.  I think she was not around much as they grew up. She was 7 or 8 when Joan was born, and 14 when Dave, the last one, was born. If she was out of the house and living with Nina in 1939, then she probably never got to know them.  She always cruelly insinuated that one of her younger sisters could not have been fathered by their dad, Don Martindale, because she was taller than the other girls.

Aunt Amy was the sister who kept track of everyone, was in contact with all her siblings, and was the go-to sibling when you needed to tell her your problems.  Carol was on the phone talking long distance to Aunt Amy, at least once a week.

When Amy called her in 1970 with the news that Nina was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer, Carol didn't have any change of heart about her feelings for Nina.  She didn't care if she was suffering through experimental cobalt radiation treatments.  It seemed like she was jealous that Nina was getting too much of Amy's attention.  When Amy reported Nina's death a few months later, Carol didn't shed a tear, and didn't go to the funeral. Cancer ran rampant through this family. I am fairly certain that Carol is the only sister who did not get breast cancer.

Aunt Amy drove down with her family to visit us maybe three times.  Uncle Dick came down to San Diego one time for a quick visit, ,because he was in town on business. Uncle Don sent a letter every so often, and would send copies of his newest publication. But that was it.  We kids knew she had a huge family, but we only were acquainted with Aunt Amy. Carol just didn't seem close to any of them except Amy. And more telling, none of them seemed too interested in her or her kids.

Happy Birthday Dad

Happy Birthday Dad!  Darwin S Warriner was born on July 23, 1913, in Detroit Michigan.  He was a photographer, and a tooling inspector.  This is one of his selfies from the early 50s.

Here he is as a happy little boy with his big sister June.  This Photo looks to be from around 1916.

Here are his other siblings:  Sister Mavis, and little Brother Billy.  There were two other Warriner children that didn't make it long enough to get a picture taken.  And Billy died of a ruptured appendix when he was 17.

In this great street photo, you can see the birth order of the Warriner kids: June, Darwin, Mavis, and Billy.  Detroit, 1923.

By the time this photo was taken, Darwin had been through the wringer.  There had been some sort of accident when he was very young, whereby he fell against the pot belly stove.  Catching himself with his hands, he suffered horrible burns which disfigured his hands for life.  He suffered through rudimentary treatments, and spent much time in the hospital. At one point they sewed his hands up on his abdomen somehow, hoping that would stimulate healing.  And  he went through the torment of experimental skin grafting, where they took skin from his sides and grafted it onto his hands.

When the healing was complete, his hands were deformed and his fingers were not very flexible, and his hair had turned white from all the pain and anguish.

He came out of the long ordeal with hands that were imperfect but worked well enough.  His penmanship was impeccable.  But he didn't have fingerprints anymore.

I remember sometimes he would come home from work and his hands would be bleeding.  The skin just wouldn't toughen up and would easily tear open. I never heard him complain about it. And he attempted to hide his injuries from nosy little children like me. He would just wrap them up in clean rags, sit down in his La-Z-Boy, and pour himself a nice big drink to help him deal with the pain.

His hands never kept him from doing what he loved to do on his days off-puttering around in his garage, making things with wood, and jigsaws, and drill presses and the like.  He was very good with those hands.  He could fix anything around the house that needed fixing.  He could lay tile, put up wood paneling,  and make new wooden frames to screen every window in his house.

Here is Dad in 1968.  It is his birthday, and we surprised him with a homemade birthday cake with lit candles.  He always got the same things on his birthday--some new bottles of Old Crow, some cans of cherry scented pipe tobacco, and a big can of Planters Fancy nuts.  He turned 55 years old in this photo, and there he was still taking care of babies in diapers. And he only had three more birthdays left in his short life.  He was a man of very few words.  And you surely did not want to get him angry at you.  But he was always dependable.  He supported all 9 of us kids. And it didn't matter to him whether we shared bloodlines or not. He was our Dad.

Dad's Wallet

This is Dad's Wallet.  When he died September 9, 1971, Mom put it in his top dresser drawer and there is stayed until she herself died 15 years later.  I saved it and packed it away for 31 years.

The wallet is black, very worn, and if you put it up to your nose and inhale, you can just faintly make out the scent of leather mixed with pipe tobacco.  Dad's smell.  Almost like I am 10 years old again and giving him a hug. Its a good feeling.  

Lets open it up and see what's inside.

Dad's Wallet-The IDs

This was Dad's ID and important papers. There is his California Driver's License, it states he was 5'10" tall and 175 pounds.  He was born July 23, 1913.  It was good for one more year.

He had a metal Social Security Card.

There was a United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of American (UAW) Local 506 Union Card.  It shows he signed up March 1953.

A Pay stub for July 5 through July 11, 1971.  He wrote that July 5th was not paid because it was a legal holiday.  His take home pay for 32 hours was $104.62.

There was a Food Basket check cashing card.  Food Basket was the grocery store on West Washington Street just a couple blocks away from our house.  It replaced a huge used car lot that had been on the site in the early sixties.  Food Basket was swallowed up in the 80s by Lucky, then Lucky stores was devoured by Albertsons, who sold it to Haggens, who promptly went out of business after 2 months.  The store sat empty for a couple years and is now getting ready to reopen as a Lazy Acres, which is just another name for overpriced organic foods.

Cal Stores Membership Permit.   This was a store down on Sports Arena Blvd, just off the 8 Freeway.  You had to be a member of a union or some other organization to get in.  It was a store that sold a variety of things.  I remember getting Halloween costumes there (the kind in the little box with the one piece cheap outfit and the plastic mask with the elastic band. I also used to wander off to the book section to read, and then get in a panic when I couldn't find Mom. I remember they used to get their prescriptions filled there. Cal Stores closed in the 70s, and a multiplex movie theatre went up in its place.

Zoological Society of San Diego membership.  Mom and Dad never rarely took us to the zoo, but if relatives from out of town showed up (which happened maybe 3 times) they took them, using the free passes that always came with the memberships.  The summer of 1971, I got to go to summer Zoo School, which was really fun and educational.

Mom and Dad had a bank account at San Diego Trust and Savings Bank, like everyone else in San Diego back then.  This bank was conveniently located right next to the Food Basket, and it had a drive through teller service. San Diego Trust and Savings Bank was sold to First Interstate Bank in the late 80s, then it was sold to Wells Fargo in the 90s.

His home loan was through Southland Savings.

4071 Eagle Street was insured through Great American Insurance Company.  His car insurance was with Nationwide.  I had no idea their slogan, "Nationwide is on your side," was so old!

Dad's Wallet-Photos

Here are the photos that were in Dad's wallet on the day he died in 1971:
You can see he has a photo of 4071 Eagle St, in all its pristine southern Cal glory. Folded up in between this stack of photos was a list of birthdates for Carol, all nine children, and his wedding anniversary date.

There were some old photos of Carol,one looks like a glamor shot from the 50s.  There is one of an elderly woman who may have been his mother, school photos from 1959 of Darwin, who signed it "Bay,"( a more mature nickname than Babe, which is what they called him for years) and Lynda, who signed it "Chooch," which is short for her nickname Choo Choo.

A couple of school pictures of Skippy. A photo of one of the boys, not sure which kid it is. A kodak photo of Darwin looking down at Tammy, the newest addition to the house in 1961.  Tammy's 1st grade photo, dated 1967.  The most recent photos are the two black and white baby photos of Jeff and Tabatha, from 1967. Seems like he quit adding photos to his wallet  in 1967.

The Cocker Spaniels

Little Darwin and Skippy with the newest family pets. This photo was taken sometime around 1955 or 56.  After their experiment with Shetland Sheepdog ownership failed, the Warriners got a couple of Cocker Spaniels.  Darwin is holding buff colored Tommy, and Skippy is holding solid Black Dolly Girl. Her AKC name was Geroco Baby Doll.

Dolly Girl was a beloved family dog.  She was spoken about with great love and appreciation over the decades, because she saved Darwin's life.

The story goes like this:  The kids were all outside playing on the sidewalk.  Baby Darwin was toddling around in his diaper, and wandered into the street.  Dolly Girl saw him step off the curbing, and she ran over and grabbed hold of his diaper, pulling him out of the street as a car drove by.

They got Tommy later to use for breeding to Dolly Girl.

Dolly Girl had a litter or two over the years.

The last time she was pregnant, one of the girls was walking her a couple blocks away on Fort Stockton Drive in the business area of the neighborhood.  There used to be antique shop near the pet shop.  As they walked past the antique shop, two white standard Poodles came charging out of the house and attacked Dolly Girl.  One grabbed her by the neck and started shaking her.  She later that day had a miscarriage from the stress.

That is why Mom never cared for Standard Poodles, or any large dogs in general.

The Big Move

The Warriner family was part of the first wave of people who decided to leave Detroit, Michigan. From Left to right:  Dad, holding baby Darwin, Patti, Susan, Tim, Lynda, Skippy, and Mom is standing behind Skippy. 

This Photo was taken at the end of the year 1952. Here is the story Mom told me:

Dad was a photographer in Detroit.  He wanted to work in the exploding aerospace industry, and much of it was located in southern California.  He had applied to a company called Rohr, which was located in Chula Vista.  After Baby Darwin was born in their trailer, they decided to make the cross country move, with 6 kids crammed in the car and all their stuff in the trailer.

When they left Michigan, they thought they had things set up for their arrival in California.  They made reservations at a trailer park just off the 5 freeway near Pacific Beach.  And dad thought he was a shoo-in at Rohr.  

After a long grueling road trip dealing with flat tires, crying kids and frayed nerves, they arrived in San Diego.  When they got to the trailer park, however, they were told that there were not any open spots.  Looking for another place to park the trailer in a strange town with no local contacts, they started driving around neighborhoods looking at houses.  They got to Old Town, the original San Diego.  This is a small area of old preserved buildings, in those days the area had a long adobe wall on the Juan Street side.  Juan Street is a long and very steep street.  Old Town is at the lower base, and at the top of the hill, Juan Street winds around into Sunset Blvd in Mission Hills.

Dad and Mom decided to see what the neighborhood at the top of the hill looked like.  When they started driving up the hill, the hitch on their trailer broke, the trailer went speeding down the hill, crashing into the old abode wall. The trailer was demolished, and lots of their belongings got broken.  China, glasses, Photographic equipment, all trashed.  

Now their trailer was a mess, their household things were a mess, they had all those kids, and still needed to find a place to live and a job.

They needed to find out where Dad was going to work, so they would know where to find a place to rent.  They started driving out to Chula Vista, and passed by the salt fields, where the strong smell of rotting seaweed made the baby stop nursing and start screaming.

When they got to Rohr, they found out that Dad didn't really have a job; he would be on call.  So back to San Diego they went, where he applied at every aerospace business he could find.  When they got to Ryan Aeronautical, they stopped on the side of the road.  

Ryan used to be located right next to Lindbergh Field, the San Diego Airport.  Back in those days, you could park right there on the street.  The kids got out of the car and started working off their pent up energy.  One of them found a chicken.  They named in Cluck Cluck and kept it. 

Dad was in the hiring office for a long time.  He applied, and they told him they weren't hiring at that time.  He couldn't take any more bad news, and he broke down crying.  When they asked him why he was so upset, he told them of their journey, their disaster, and his huge burden waiting outside.

They actually took pity on him, hired him on the spot, and had the company photographer go out and take a picture of them parked on the road, with all their stuff tied on top of the car. They published an article about the Warriner's in their company newspaper.

Here is a partial clipping.  Looks like they cut out the article and the photo, and it is gone forever, but they left the photo caption behind, proving that the story Mom told really was true. It was published in the Jan 2, 1953 Ryan Newspaper.  

Warriner's Crack

Here is the adobe wall that faces Juan Street in Old Town.  When Mom would take us kids out for a drive around Mission Hills and Old Town, she would always point to the crack in the wall and tell us that it was Warriner's Crack, the place where their trailer crashed into the wall after it broke loose from their car and careened down the hill.

In later years, when she retold the story, she took full possession of the legend, changing the name to "Angel's Crack."

Swimming Lessons made the Evening Tribune 1966

Here is an article from the San Diego Evening Tribune, Saturday, July 16, 1966.

The Photo shows Big sister Lynda and little brother Jeffrey in the pool.

At this time, we did not yet have a swimming pool at our house, but Mom wanted one really bad.  She took me, Lynda, Darwin, and Jeff to an indoor pool in the Midway District, not far from where the Sports Arena is located.  Darwin and I took swimming lessons from an instructor, and Mom and Lynda taught the baby how to deal with being under water.

They would push him just under the water's surface towards each other.  He held his breath and would move his little arms.

I remember Darwin used to complain alot about how the chlorine hurt his eyes.  I think he got some water goggles to help him deal with it.

I was pretty comfortable swimming in the shallow end, but the thought of diving in the deep end really frightened me. I finally got over it and became the fish our Mom wanted all of us to be.

We went to San Diego Divers Supply for lessons for many months.  Baby sister Tabatha would not be born until November of 1966,  and after she was a few months old, she went for lessons in that same pool along with Jeff.

Those swimming sessions would completely wear those babies out.  They would sleep for hours afterwards.

Dachoo and Darwin

This is Darwin Don Warriner, the son of Darwin and Carol Warriner.

This picture was taken in August, 1953, before the family moved to Eagle Street.

The little Shetland Sheepdog puppy was named Dachoo.  Her ID tag was a simple crushed washer.

Baby Darwin was born on a kitchen table in a trailer in Michigan the year before.  The family left Michigan to chase the California Dream.  At first, they rented a house in Linda Vista, which was a very new neighborhood at that time.

When Mom showed me this old dog tag, she told me that Dachoo was a combination of the names Darwin and Carol.  She also advised me to never get a Sheltie, because she believed they are the most stupid dogs on the planet.  They did not keep Dachoo very long, because they couldn't train her. I am surprised that they bothered to even save a photo of that cute little puppy, since they never bonded with her.  If baby Darwin hadn't been in the picture, I would have the dog tag, but no face to put with the name.

Now that I have my own Sheltie, I can see why Mom thought they are untrainable.  Its not that they are stupid.  They are more catlike in their personality, independent, reserved with strangers, and a little bit finicky.

I hope little Dachoo went to someone who understood how to "speak Sheltie."

This is Dad

This is the owner of the house.  His name was Darwin Stone Warriner.

This faded photo was taken sometime in the mid to late fifties.

Check out what my Dad is wearing to do the yard work.

Long sleeved shirt, trousers, and leather work shoes.  Today, most people are wearing shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers.

Dad always dressed in a nice and neat manner.

It was said that he was colorblind, and that Mom had to put his wardrobe in order in the closet so he wouldn't accidentally wear clashing colors.

The House, the Canyons, and the White Deer

 In 1960 I was brought home from the hospital to 4071 Eagle St. It was a white stucco craftsman bungalow with 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and a one car garage. The basement was mostly dirt crawlspace, but a tiny section had a concrete floor and a concrete retainer wall. This area housed the gas heater and water heater.

 There was a tiny front yard with a sloping lawn in front. Growing on the south side of the house were a couple of citrus trees. On the North side, a tall Eugenia bush that ran the length of the neighbor's driveway served as a privacy hedge.

 The backyard was entirely concrete, some patches were grey and some were pale pink. A low brick wall was all that separated one from the canyon, which was overgrown with foot-tall fox tail weeds. If you were brave enough to wander down about 100 feet, there were Brazilian pepper trees and patches of cactus. If you continued further down the canyon side, through thick brush, you would eventually reach the bottom, where a seasonal creek flowed.

It was told to me that in the 50s, when the Warriners moved into the house, there was horseback riding stables and archery on the other side of the canyon.  That was long gone by the time I got there.

 Missions Hills is a big area consisting of many hills and canyons. The canyons all lead to Mission Valley, which, when I was born, was mostly undeveloped acreage and farms, with the San Diego River running from the eastern part of the county all the way to the Pacific Ocean. There was one mall that had just been built. The valley was still natural and beautiful and hadn't been utterly ruined by freeways, retail, condominiums, and tons of trash, drug paraphernalia, vomit, urine, and feces left by hundreds of feral people who have colonized the San Diego River Banks over the past 10 years.

During the 60s and 70s, there was a lone white deer that roamed the canyons of Mission Hills.  It was thought that she escaped from the San Diego Zoo, but no one knew for sure.  Wherever she came from, the White Deer was very illusive.  She was rarely seen.  She lived a lonely existence, sharing the canyons with silver fox, skunks, snakes, lizards, and opposum.

In 1975, some do-gooders were worried that the White Deer was going to get hit by a car if she tried to cross the freeway.  So the professionals at Animal Control decided to rescue her with a tranquilizer dart.  Instead of getting her out of harm's way, they killed her with too large a dose of the drug.  She was buried at the top of Presidio Park with a nice little marker.

Lesson to be learned from the White Deer's experience:  Don't ever trust the Department of Animal Control.

Why this blog?

In 1960 I joined a family already in progress in San Diego, California.  We lived on Eagle Street.

Years have passed.  The parents have died. The sons and daughters went their separate ways.

The house was emptied out, with most of the contents thrown out to mold in the rain until the trash dumpsters were hauled away. Then the house was sold, painted, remodeled and restored.

There is nothing left of the family who lived there from 1954 until 1986.

Its all new people there now.

But, there are remnants left. A few momentoes.

Photos

Papers

Memories

Family stories passed down, some may be true, some may be legend.

Good

and bad.  Very, bad

And also Funny.

This blog is coming from my collection of experiences, and stories my mother told me.

You may not believe some of it.

You may even get mad when you read some of it.

It wasn't always good, living on Eagle Street.

But it wasn't always bad, either.

This will not be a linear collection of recollections.

As I recollect something.  As I come across something I haven't seen in years,

its going on this blog.