Remembering 08-09-18

Today was my mother's birthday.  She was born on August 9, 1906, but she only lived to 65 when she died of an aortic aneurysm in February 1972.  I think she had a sad life and I believe she suffered from depression, as I do.  Her father was a tyrant and took her out of school when she was just a sophomore and got her a job as housemaid to Dr. and Mrs. Babbitt in a big house in NE Portland. They paid him for her service.  She never did go back to school, but worked at a number of different jobs.  She met my father when she was working for a huge laundry and one of her fellow employees was Ella Spencer, whose son, Ellery, came to pick her up after work.   His family didn't approve of her, mainly, I think, because she was not educated.  She was "common" besides.  Not that the Spencers were gentry.  So, they made it difficult for her.  Then my father died in 1942 of kidney disease and she was left with two babies and a house that was only about three quarters built.  My father was a millwright and he was building the house after work and on weekends.  As many people did then, they lived in the basement while he continued building the two stories above.  

She had to work and it was difficult finding child care for her two little girls.  We lived various places for short periods of time and for about six months in a Catholic boarding school for children whose parents couldn't take care of them.  That was an adventure as we were not Catholic.  I don't know how we happened to be accepted.   However, we kept getting sick and the school couldn't keep us.  About this time our grandparents house burned down and the decision was made to move to Los Angeles where their daughter, her husband, and their baby girl lived.  Vernice was the only daughter and Gordan, the other son, was off to war in the Pacific.  They convinced our mother to let us live with our grandparents in LA and we drove down the coast in an old jalopy with grandmother, aunt, baby, and the two "orphans".  Grandpa traveled down on the train with Buddy the dog in a crate.  

When World War II was over in Europe in April 1945 mother married one of her co-workers at the Railway Express Agency, where she was a package handler.  Soon she and her new husband came down on the train to retrieve her two girls.  It was not a happy marriage, he was a drunk, and a mean one at that.  We regarded him as our mother's husband, but not as our father.  Very sad all around.  

My sister married and had four sons and a daughter who lived nearby, so mother was able to enjoy her grandchildren.  I moved to SCalifornia as soon as I turned eighteen and could legally do so and eventually lived with my grandmother again for a couple years before going out on my own again.  I visited Portland every year or so.  I could drive the 24 hour, 1000 mile trip easily when I was in my twenties.  And mother came down on the train a couple times to visit.  But the years passed quickly and she died in February 1972.  I was divorced and had yet to meet my 2nd husband, who I think she would have enjoyed.  

Hers was a sad life and she was so talented.  For many years she made costumes for the Portland Rose Festival parade.  And repaired and dressed dolls for the "Toy and Joy Makers" which was operated by the fire department.  That was an era when toys were not discarded, but repaired, repainted, and redressed for some other child to enjoy.  She was the personification of the saying, "make a silk purse from a sow's ear".  And I do believe she could have.   

Colleen Dingley with brother Arnold  c.1912

Colleen Dingley  c1926

This is a studio portrait taken at her work, a photo studio where she did the hand tinting of photographs since this was before color film was used.   She tinted this one.  

Colleen Dingley Spencer  c1941

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