Working on Wednesday: Flagstone for New Room

During the Easter break in 1955 we made a quick trip to Prescott, Arizona, to pick up flagstone for around the new front door. We only spent one night away from home and didn't take the trailer--Mother and I slept in the truck and Dad had a sleeping bag on the ground.* According to Dad's notes we brought back 3800 pounds of stone.

This photo, taken two years later, shows the stone in place.

[All from my personal collection]

*The notes say we spent the night in Blythe--all I remember is that is was cold.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Atascadero Lake Park - Summer 1955

After all their years of camping around the West, Mother and Dad had a mental list of a succession of free places to stay up and down the length of California. The oak-shaded parking lot of the Atascadero Lake Park was a favorite.

[From my personal collection]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Whiskey Run, Oregon Coast - Summer, 1955

This sheltered campsite, far enough back from the beach to be comparatively warm, was one of our favorite places to stay. (And true my parents' frugal habits, it was free.)

In those days the road to Whiskey Run wasn't paved.

 And in one area there were several choices, so Dad always checked out the route on foot to see which one appeared to be the best. We never got stuck in the sand.

Here's a photo of me on my way down to the beach in search of agates and petrified wood which was the attraction this area had for us.

[All photos from my personal collection]

Whiskey Run's history dates back to the early 1850s when gold was discovered in its black sands.


TripAdvisor rates this beach at 4.5--you can see current photos of it here.



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Cape Perpetua, Oregon - 1954

Here we are, seven-year-old me standing next to the Forest Service sign, while Mother watched from the truck. Whenever our summer trips took us to Washington state, we always stopped at Cape Perpetua.*

[From my personal collection]

*You can find out more about Cape Perpetua in one of my previous posts.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

The Answer to a Recent Comment, with Photo

Beloved Commenter Bonnie had a question about the vehicle in last Sunday's post titled The Old Dodge Made into a Truck:

Are you sure it was not made that way? I've seen other photos from this period and I believe you could order this from the factory, or perhaps a secondary shop who did the conversion.

I'm sure it wasn't in this case because of the caption to this picture (another double exposure) on the same page of the photo album.

[From my personal collection]

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: The Old Dodge Made into a Truck

Because there's no caption to this photo I'm not certain of the date but from other pictures on the same and neighboring pages, I would guess it was taken in the late 1920s or early 1930s.*

[From my personal collection]

Capitol Electric was a well-established firm whose name often appeared in the San Diego Union's lists of permits granted by the city.

[Title: San Diego, California, City Directory, 1934. Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.]

And for some of their better-known clients, Capitol Electric would often buy space in the newspaper to offer congratulations, as on this page announcing the opening of new banquet and dining rooms at the U.S. Grant Hotel in 1927.

[San Diego Union; Saturday, November 12, 1927 San Diego, California. Page:   6. Source: Genealogybank.com]

This magazine ad from 1931 for Mazda Lamps which Capitol Electric was also selling was found on Pinterest.

[From pin by Vintage Electronics]

*I believe it would have been before 1933 when lack of work in his trade forced Harold to work in a plating shop on India Street.



© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Truck, Trailer & Cow - Oregon, 1950

If not for the caption on this slide we would never understand why our truck was hitched to a trailer carrying a dairy cow. Fortunately Dad wrote "Roger - Lloyd Middleton Auction near Portland" and this slide is one of several obviously taken during the same visit in 1950.*

[From my personal collection]

Who were the Middletons and why were we visiting them?

Here's the family's listing in the 1940 U.S. Census where their place of residence was given as Eastwood in Multnomah County, Oregon, and Lloyd was a truck driver.

[Year: 1940; Census Place: Eastwood, Multnomah, Oregon; Roll: T627_3376; Page: 13A; Enumeration District: 26-23. Ancestry.com. Original data: Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1940.]

Dad's note on another slide suggests that by 1950 the Middleton's were living in Estacada and daughter Joleta's obituary states she was raised in Boring.

I have only the vaguest memories of how Dad Currey** was connected to them but they may have fallen into the category of what he called "shirt tail relatives."

As for the cow, I don't know if she was coming or going.


*Stay tuned, I'll be posting at least one more from this series in the future.
**I believe they would have been Currey rather than Grenfell connections because of their location in Oregon.


© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Doheny State Park - 1948

The caption of this color slide reads: "1948 Doheny SP on way home"

[From my personal collection]

As usual Dad had me posed facing into the sun so my eyes are closed as usual. I'm not sure if I was waving or trying to shield my face from the sunlight.




© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Agua Caliente, 1950

Dad always wanted us to face into the sun for his photos--even my hat wasn't enough to keep 3-year-old me from squinting.

[From my personal collection]

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: On the Way to San Felipe - 1951

In 1951* the Curreys and Neals drove down to San Felipe for Christmas. On the way they saw this abandoned Buick and stopped to check it out.

[Jimmy Neal inspecting overturned Buick alongside the road to San Felipe.]

San Felipe was a bit less "developed" in 1951.

[Our red truck and the Neals' woodie make it easy to locate their campsite.]

[Dad, Jessie and Jimmie Neal hanging out at San Felipe.]

[Once again the red/black Dodge truck stands out.]

[In this photo it's the woodie you see.]

This photo is labeled "Andys Cave house - Bought Shrimp, Dec. 1951.

[Andy's Cave House, San Felipe.]

And this was the meat market, flies and all.

[All photos from my personal collection]

I was 4½ that Christmas and so I have some vague memories of this trip.


*A paved road to San Felipe had just been completed which is undoubtedly why we went there this year. I think Mother and Dad may have visited that part of Baja California before World War II but this marked the last time we went to Mexico.

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive (and Laundry): Yachats, Oregon - September, 1948

Obviously this was taken on a bright sunny day near the Oregon Coast. I was 17 months old. 

The truck is a 1948 Dodge which has appeared in this blog before.

[From my personal collection.]

Dad's note on the slide holder says it was taken at Yachats Forest Camp which either no longer exists or is called by another name. I think it's most likely the Cape Perpetua Campground in the Siuslaw National Forest.

[Hammond's New World Atlas. Illustrated Gazetteer of the United States and Territories. Garden City Publishing Company, Inc. Garden City, N.Y., U.S.A. 1948. Source: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.]

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: 1957 Dodge 1-Ton Long-Bed Truck

As far as Dad* was concerned a truck was always a fire-engine red, 1-ton** Dodge long-bed. He bought big powerful vehicles and then drove them into the ground. (I recall him bragging to a friend --about a later truck--that he had never changed its oil in 60,000 miles. Jimmy was properly horrified and took it upon himself to remedy the situation.)

[From my personal collection]

This photo was probably taken around Easter time in the Anza Borrego Desert.  A few months later this same truck hauled our trailer to Arkansas and back.


Knowing Dad, an ad such as this one for Dodge "Power Giants" would have been like catnip!

[Source: Alden Jewell|Flickr Dodge Trucks]

*Harold D. Currey (1902-1981) was the father who raised me.
**This was true until the 1970s when the last truck he bought was a 3/4 ton Dodge (red, of course).

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Winchester Bay, 1952

Every summer vacation where our ultimate goal was Oregon we spent several weeks at a trailer park in Winchester Bay.* These photos from 1952 appear to be taken during our earliest stay there.**

[I have no clue what that dark diagonal line through the image is. From my personal collection.]

[Caption: Boats Winchester Bay taken from cannery. From my personal collection.]

*At this time the park was being run by Stanley and Lena Spooner, the in-laws of the owner Jack Himbaugh. Trying to figure out just how we came to know these people, I think the Curreys probably met the couple initially through their son Lee Spooner, a sailor stationed in San Diego during World War II. Mother and Dad had friends whose sons were in the U.S. Navy who sometimes brought their friends around for a good home cooked meal. I can't imagine any other connection.
**Here's a view of the park taken two years later.

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: Strait

He's not in the photo (because he's undoubtedly the one behind the camera), but Dad Currey obviously asked his brother-in-law Roy Strait (1920-2009)* to give him a hand with a load of lumber some time in 1952. I wonder if the boards were being bought or sold?

[From my personal collection]

Although no location in mentioned in the notes I think this was probably taken at Whiting-Mead, the only lumber yard I can ever remember going to with him.

[San Diego Union Classifieds, 23 Jun 1952]

Note the shovel on the side of the truck's bed. An axe was similarly attached to the opposite side. Both were therefore readily at hand in case of need. I recall one time when someone's campfire got a bit out of hand and Dad was right there with his shovel to put out the small blaze.


*Second husband of his youngest sister Marguerite.

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Currey

Influenced by their experience as trailer owners dating back to the late 1930s, the Curreys were always on the look out for free places to stay. Dad preferred to limit each day's drive to around 300 miles so longer runs like that between Nipomo and the California redwoods north of San Francisco always were a challenge. 

For several years we dry-camped on the grounds of the then largely unrestored Mission Soledad in the Salinas valley. As I recall only the chapel had been rebuilt* and as you can see in the background of this photo, most of what was visible were crumbling adobe walls. The entire site was surrounded by fields of sugar beets and felt very remote.

[From my personal collection]

*According to Mission Soledad's website, the chapel was rebuilt in 1954 so this slide probably dates to 1955 or 1956.



© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Curreys

When Mother and Dad (Currey) took 3-day-old me home from the hospital and into their lives in 1947 they were in their mid-forties and still recovering from the loss of their son in World War II. Before the war they led a very active life filled with camping/trailer trips, boats, crafts (like basket making, and leather and bead work) and urban farming. They also amassed a significant collection of Native American textiles, baskets and pottery.

After my arrival they cast about for a new hobby and found it in rock hounding, attending meetings of the local mineral and gem society in Balboa Park to learn what to look for (and what to do with what they collected afterwards).

Sometime in the early 1950s we went on a field trip to the Chocolate Mountains in Imperial Valley sponsored by the society. I remember the ride through this wash as we followed other cars and I think we were all there to look for geodes.*

I'm glad we weren't the ones to get stuck like that brown car did. 

[From my personal collection]

And I have no explanation for why we brought the boat.

*Geode definition here. You can see a BLM publication covering the Chocolate Mountain area here (PDF).

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Snow in Anaheim, 1949

Dad wrote the year and place on the cardboard slide holder for this picture and since snow isn't that common in Southern California it was easy to narrow down when it was taken--between January 9th and 12th. His 1948 Dodge truck and travel trailer #2 are parked behind Jimmy's work truck, possibly a 1935 Dodge.

[Jimmy Neal in truck, Anaheim, 1949, from my personal collection]

[Long Beach Independent, Long Beach, California. Tuesday, January 11, 1949. Source: Newspapers.com]

While Jimmy Neal (1899-1974), who worked with Dad on this job for the City of Anaheim, looks rather cold in the photo above, other Southern California residents responded differently, at least for the camera.

[The Van Nuys News, Van Nuys, California. Thursday, January 13, 1949. Source: Newspapers.com]

[Golfing in the snow in Glendale, 1949. Courtesy Glendale (CA) Public Library. Source: KCET.org]

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Curreys and Travel Trailer #2

This is the travel trailer that the Curreys had during the 1940s and up until 1952. The earlier photos were taken before I arrived on the scene and the trailer is being towed by a pre-war Dodge truck.* The color slides were taken in 1951 during our trip to South Dakota to visit Bernice's father; the tow vehicle is a post-war Dodge.

[Location unknown]

[Possibly at Agua Caliente County Park]

[Parked in front of the Empress Hotel in Victoria, B.C.]

[At Indio, California]

[Grenfell Ranch, Lawrence County, South Dakota]

[Shell Highway Map of South Dakota, 1949. David Rumsey Historical Map Collection]

*I can't tell the exact year--it could be 1939, 1940 or 1941. Whatever the year, I'm certain the truck was red, Dad's favorite color.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Rough Road Ahead

When our ancestors set off on their Sunday drives in first decades of the 20th century, most of them were probably envisioning traveling along roads like the one below.

[Road Trip 1 of 2-San Diego County (1900-1920) California State Library]

But they could never be sure what the condition of the road would be around the next bend.*

[Road Trip 2 of 2-San Diego County (1900-1920) California State Library]

Of course early automobile manufacturers had to take bad roads into consideration in their car design. The video below shows what some cars were capable of.**

["Oilfield Dodge" Promotional Film]

As far as I can tell, the Dodge in the video above was this one, although it could be a later model.

[1919 Dodge Brothers Ad]

Since the "Oilfield Dodge" film was shot in the silent movie era and some stock music has been added as background, I thought it would be fun to see if I could find out what the car would have sounded like and the internet didn't let me down.  You can read a modern review of  a 1922 Dodge car here which includes the video below.

[Driving around in a Dodge Brothers car]

*I don't think these two photos from the Robert Ford collection at the California State Library show the same car.
**Although the video is described as a promotional film, I wasn't able to find out where it originated or if there is any connection to the Dodge Brothers or their car company.



© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.