She turned 100 years old…
This spunky and feisty lady is my grandmother. She turned 100 years old this August. Born in 1908, in Nevada, Missouri, one hundred years can hold quite a bit of history especially if you’re just shy of having had one foot planted in each of the last three centuries. When she was a young girl of 8, her father, a veterinarian, moved the family from Missouri to Arizona so that her ailing mother, who had tuberculosis, could live in a drier climate. The family had been living in El Dorado Springs, Missouri, where their ancestors, the Hightowers, had founded the town due to the healing waters of a nearby mineral spring that the town was named after. Her father was educated at a Veterinary College in Chicago, Illinois and started his profession in Walker, Missouri in 1900. Their trek by car from Missouri to Arizona in 1916 was probably not for the faint-of-heart. Instead of superhighways there were dirt roads or trails and cars were probably not all that roadworthy. Enroute to Arizona they got lost and a Native American on a horse gave them directions to their destination of Mesa, Arizona. Her dad, despite having veterinarian skills, decided to buy a store with a soda stand in Mesa. Her mother’s health continued to decline and in 1919 she passed away and was buried in Mesa Cemetery. About 15 years ago my grandmother and I visited the cemetery and located her mother’s unmarked grave through cemetery record coordinates. To honor her memory we hired a stonemason who created a beautiful grave marker with an engraved rose on it.
Mesa Store
Without a mother…
.. and with a father trying to provide for his family, the 6 kids pretty much had free reign. She said they spent quite a lot of time being barefoot and swimming and playing at a nearby waterhole. At some point her dad started spending more time with a woman named Belle and eventually married her. I got the impression from grandma that she and her sibs felt somewhat disenchanted by this new woman since their dad’s attention was being diverted elsewhere and she said that Belle was rather stern with them. After losing their mother at such a young age it was probably difficult to accept another woman trying to fill their mother’s shoes, but I have to admit taking on someone else’s 6 kids was probably not the easiest thing for another woman to do. Years ago when I was quite young I met Belle when she was living in El Dorado Springs, Missouri. I don’t even remember what she looked like but I do remember that she was a very nice lady and treated me well.
A brief stint in New Mexico…
At some point in time, grandma’s father purchased a hotel in French, New Mexico. Land promoters touted the area but the town never did thrive and it eventually turned into a ghost town. I saw the two-story hotel many years ago and it was one of the few remaining buildings left standing in the middle of a cow pasture.
Grandma as a young girl
Leaving home, bootlegging, and sports…
Eventually my grandmother and her siblings either got married or spread their wings and left home. Grandma went to live with an older sister and her husband in California. As she tells it, they were always one step ahead of the law because her sister and her husband were bootleggers. During Prohibition making bathtub gin and selling it was fairly common practice because people were trying to make ends meet. Grandma was still a teenager while living with them and was enrolled in the public school system at Compton High School in Calif. She excelled at sports and was very good at track. She was invited to participate in a track meet competition but wasn’t able to do so because they had to pull up stakes and move because the law was catching up with brother-in-law’s bootlegging endeavors. She was also an accomplished high diver and used to compete at the amateur level. In all the years I’ve known my grandmother and up until not too long ago, she has always been involved in some type of sports activity especially team volleyball and bowling leagues. I think she was about 87 when she finally put her bowling ball away.
Grandpa…
Somewhere along the way at the tender age of about 17 she was introduced to her future husband, my grandfather, who came from a large Sicilian family. His parents and older siblings were born in Sicily and immigrated to the US on October 27, 1890 on the S. S. Elysia. Their port of entry was New Orleans where they worked the sugarcane fields. At one point they had given thought to relocating to where the sugarcane industry was in need of workers, a place called Hawaii. Fate played its hand and instead of going to Hawaii they moved to Los Angeles, California where they gave up the backbreaking labor of working in the sugarcane fields to become greengrocers. Even though they were from Sicily, their ethnicity was called Arbereshe whose origins were Albanian and spoke a separate dialect from the Italian language. They were from the village of Piana degli Albanesi which means “Town of the Albanians”. The town was founded in 1488 by Albanian refugees fleeing Turkish invasion.
WWII…
In 1932 grandpa became a police officer for the Huntington Park Police Department in Calif. and when WWII started he joined the Navy in 1942 as a Boatsan mate. There was a need for stateside military police (Shore Patrol) and they were recruiting from the police departments. He spent most of his shore patrol traveling on trains. He and his son, my dad, both served in the Navy at the same time during WWII which left my grandmother home by herself working as a “Rosie the Riveter” for Vultee Aircraft. I believe either my dad or my brother still has her tool chest.
My grandmother’s parents
The foundry…
After WWII, and upon leaving the Navy in 1945, grandpa went into partnership with his 3 brothers who owned and operated a foundry in LA called Master Iron Works. They operated it up until 1951 when the company was demolished by a fire that spread from a trash burn on neighboring property.
Giving them a scare…
At the time I was born grandpa and grandma owned an apartment building where they lived in the front apartment and mom and dad lived in the back apartment. When I was about a year-and-half old I put my parents (and grandparents) through a scare when I climbed out of my crib and crept out of the house and up the stairs to the second story apt. landing and just sat there as I watched them desperately trying to find me. They finally noticed me when I started waving and saying “hi” to them not knowing what all the fuss was about. Even though I have these vague memories of living there I do remember a tenant who had a poodle with red fingernail polish painted on its nails. It’s interesting the things one remembers from that long ago.
Getting hit by a train…
About 1964 grandpa and grandma had purchased a brand new blue Ford Thunderbird. It had this really neat feature where the steering wheel would slide to the side when getting in and out of the car. As nice as the car was it was short-lived because while driving home one day and going over the railroad tracks they were hit broadside by a train. Miraculously they walked away from it with only minor injuries. Had the car flipped it would’ve been all over but the car had amazingly just been pushed along the tracks for quite a distance. Even though the car was totaled I’m amazed that grandma survived since her side of the car was badly caved in from the train impact. For some strange reason grandpa said he never saw the railroad warning lights swinging back and forth but many of us knew that he was a terrible driver and drove as if he had blinders on. Perhaps that’s why grandma did most of the driving.
What the heck is a donkey BBQ…
For as long as I can remember grandma and grandpa dabbled in real estate eventually acquiring apartments and commercial buildings, houses, vacant land, and even building track homes in Hemet, California in the early 1960s. Even after Grandpa passed away over 20 years ago grandma just kept on plugging away like a Timex watch and oversaw their investments. She and grandpa lived frugally but did well for themselves over the years and she would occasionally surprise everyone like the time she came home with a 12-cylinder Jaguar XJS. There she was, this little old lady with barely the top of her head showing above the steering wheel, driving this beautiful beast of a car. She was so short that she would have to put the seat almost all the way forward to prop herself up so she could see over the dash. As she got older age didn’t keep her from traveling either. When she was 79 years old she and I traveled together for a month in New Zealand along with some family members and friends. We had a great tour guide named Merv who had a good sense of humor and told many jokes. He also found grandma amusing and she kept asking him if he had ever attended a donkey BBQ and not knowing what she meant he finally asked her what the heck a donkey BBQ was and with a serious face she told him that’s where people get together for a BBQ and grab a piece of ass. Needless to say, he was totally caught by surprise hearing this coming from her but thought it was hilarious. They hit it off the rest of the trip.
I hope I get her longevity gene…
It’s amazing how she’s never had to take any prescription medications except within the last few years for some minor ailments. Up until a few months ago she never used a walker but we’ve noticed in the last few years that she has really started to slow down quite a bit. Still, she’s feisty as hell and can be quite a handful for the family at times. We actually think that her being ornery and cantankerous is what makes her thrive.
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