The name on her birth certificate was
Clayre Eljin Kailianukamakaokalani Warke Keanini
Her mother was Ella KuiKuiEhu Keanini and her father was David Eljin Warke.
Ella had a hard time nursing Clayre and when she failed to gain weight after a few days, Ella approached her sister Lucy for help. Lucy was nursing her own daughter Mamo and began to nurse both Clayre and Mamo at the same time.
Lucy also watched Clayre during the days so that Ella could continue working her job, washing clothes at a nearby base.
Ella was at her job on base when she met a handsome young supply sergeant by the name of Jean Banks. Jean tried to court Ella, but she wanted nothing to do with military men. The way mom told it, Jean was sneaky and asked around about her. When he learned that she played organ in the Mormon church, he showed up on Sunday morning.
He saw Ella sitting with Clayre on her lap and instead of running away, he moved over and offered to hold Clayre while Ella played the organ. He kept coming for many weeks. He loved holding Clayre and played with her often both at church and at home. Eventually Jean asked Ella to marry him.
Mom thought that Grandpa was her birth father for most of her youth. And when they finally told her, Jean told the story of holding her at church. Mom always felt that Jean didn't just marry Ella, he married Clayre as well.
Less than a month after they were married, Perl Harbor was bombed. They were living on the base at the time. Mom just remembered noise, smoke, and grandma hurrying to help grandpa get out of the house. Then for weeks after the attack she remembered grandpa sitting in a chair with his leg in a cast.
A few weeks later, grandma was so worried about the Japanese invading the the islands that she sent Clayre to the island of Molokai to live with Antie Birdie and Uncle Ernest.
Clayre remembered lots and lots of boy cousins to play with. Mostly she remembers being happy.
Every morning Birdie and Ernest would fry chips and make egg salad sandwiches. They ran a sandwich stand on the Molokai docks. Most days they would make a little crib under the counter for Clayre to sleep and play in.
She remembered the excitement as big trucks would come in from the farms to offload into the ships.
She also remembered a small roped off area beside the docs where she was allowed to swim. She would hold onto the ropes and monkey walk around the ropes as she learned to swim, completely un-supervised. Today you'd be thrown in jail for child endangerment, but that's how mom learned to swim.
Mom always loved the pier on Molokai and the smell of pineapples because it reminds her of those times.
After Jeanie and Val were born, mom returned to Molokai for a little while and Auntie Birdie put her in kindergarden at the Seventh Day Adventist church. Every day the teacher would take her outside and lay a blanket under the Coconut trees by the beach where she would take a nap. Mom remembers the sound of coconuts falling on the ground around her as she napped.
In 1944 when Clayre turned 5, Grandpa was transferred to Maui and took Clayre with them. Auntie Camile (also known as Auntie Honey) moved with them so help take care of Clayre Jeanne, and Val. Camile was about 11 years old. Clayre started the first grade in Maui. Camile always says "Clayre couldn't go to school alone and I had to go with her. I had to carry Clayres' books and they were heavy."
Clayre's best friend lived next door on Maui. A girl her own age, but whose name she can't remember. There were lots of tree around the houses. Her friend's house had a big bay window and Clayre would sit with her friend in that bay window to play and look at the trees.
Wilson was born on Maui.
After the war, Gene was transferred back to the mainland in San Diego. Gene rode on a troop transport, but Ella and the kids rode on a hospital boat to San Francisco. They arrived in the night and Grandma's friend Lani Fong met them on the docs. They stayed with her for the night. When they got up, they got on a train and rode to San Diego where Gene was stationed.
They moved to Oceanside sometime before Clayre turned 8 because she was baptized in Oceanside.
The marines wouldn't give Grandpa his Warrant officer rating so he changed from the Marines to the Army and moved to Monterey Californa base housing. Gene's goal was to get into the Air Force so they eventually moved to Sandia Base near Albuquerque around the time Clayre was 10.
After Sandia, they moved to Ft Worth Texas. They moved around Ft Worth a bit for the next five or six years. They lived on base and off base military housing. Then they bought a really nice house and moved there.
It was about this time that Clayre met De. She remembered him wearing his Khaki uniform and being so handsom with his big green eyes. Grandma invited him to come to dinner after church one day and that was it.
They were married and stayed in Ft Worth. De was a radio operator on a B-36 Peacemaker bomber. The air base often had practice alerts where the air crews had to rush to the base, prep their planes, and take off to form formations. These alerts always resulted in the planes landing and the alert turning out to be a practice.
Just 3 days after they were married, De went into the base for an alert, but instead of landing, the plane was directed to Africa and De didn't return home for 3 months. This was during the Korean war.
Mike was born in Ft Worth.
Gene, Ella, and their other kids moved from Ft Worth to Denver Colorado.
In 1956 De was about to muster out of the air force. Clayre was pregnant and it was a race between whether the baby would be born before or after De got out. If the baby was born while De was still in the military then the delivery would be paid by the military, otherwise they'd have to pay the doctor themselves. David was born just days before De left the military.
Clayre's mother came down from Denver and helped Clayre pack up. Then she rode the train with Clayre and the boys backup to Denver. De drove their Plymouth to Nucla loaded with all their belongings. He unloaded the things, then drove to Denver to get Clayre and the boys.
They drove back to Nucla Colorado. De and his farther Cardon had purchased a ranch 17 miles North of Nucla. They lived in a very rustic house that was only meant to be used while rounding up cattle. It was early May and De had to drive the cows up onto the mountain slopes to graze.
De and his father began building a cabin up on the mountain slopes where they had grazing rights in the national forest. The area was called Tabaguache. The cabin would help them monitor the cows on the mountain. There are home movies of this time where Rusty, Betty, and Donna helped building the cabin.
As the summer passed and fall came in, it was time to bring the cows down off the mountain. They brought the cows to the corrals by the ranch house. There was no electricity in the house and as it got colder and colder and the snow got to falling, it became very hard to live there. It also got very hard to get back to town in the snow.
They had sold the plymouth and had bought an International Harvester pickup.
The Maupins were people they were buying the ranch from. The Maupins lived on the rver near Nucla. There were 2 houses on the Maupins land and they offered to let De and Clayre live in the other house. It was a small 2 story house but it had electricity, running water, and indoor plumbing. They moved into the home and the maupiins stayed in the big red house.
The lived between the river house, the ranch house, and the cabin for the next 4 years. Robert was born, then James was born and died, then Clay was born.
Some time during all this, Mrs Maupin passed away and Mr Maupin moved away leaving their big house empty. Clayre and De rented out the big house to a family name Bugg.
In the summer of 1961, De's favorite horse, Penny (?) died having a colt. It so upset De that he hadn't been able to help save her. It left him very broken and upset. De and Clayre talked about the death and De said he wished he'd had enough schooling to know what to do and that he would like to get that schooling. Clayre said she would be fine with him going to school.
De immediatly went to his good friend Lark Washburn to ask for financial help and Lark gave it. De also approached his father Cardon about the idea and received his support as well.
In the fall of 1961 De left Nucla and drove up to Fruita Colorado to get his transcripts. When he got them, the ladies in the office laughed because his grades weren't that good and they thought he'd never get into college.
He drove up to Provo and called on President Lamb who had been Stake President of the Grand Junction Stake. President Lamb had left Grand Junction and now worked for BYU administration. President Lamb filled out an application for De and setup his schooling schedule. De was admitted without any testing. He was just suddenly a student.
De found a basement apartment for the family to live. A week later Clayre had packed up most of their belongings . Cardon drove the International pickup filled with belongings and Clayre drove Gene and Ella's pontiac up to Provo to begin school life.
The basement apartment had a small front room with a kitchen on the side. The table was in the kitchen. It had a small laundry room and 2 bedrooms.
The house was empty but the people needed the money so they rented the apartment so someone would be around.
The buggs (from the big house on the ranch) moved to Provo and told them about another basement apartment near them. So they moved to a different apartment closer to school. The new apartment had a lovely kitchen, 3 bedrooms, a door out to the back yard. It was allot more comfortable.
The Smiths owned the home and became great friends to Clayre and De. The Smiths also babysat the kids for a dollar a day. This allowed Clayre to get a job.
Clayre's first job was at the bowling alley near campus. She worked the lunch counter and hated every minute of the one day she was there. She went home and refused even to go back to get her pay.
A few days later she heard about a job opening at Orem State Bank. When Clayre went to apply, the manager had served his mission in Hawaii and hired her with little fuss.
Numbers just felt right to Clayre. She understood credit and debit and fell into being a teller very easily.
At night De worked at Washburn Motors (different Washburn family). He washed cars at night because he was at school all day long.
In the summers, De would take the older boys and go back to the Nucla ranch to help Cardon.
De finished his schooling in 2 1/2 hears. He applied for veterinary school without finishing his bachelors degree. He was accepted so long as he finished one last class.
So in the fall of 1964, the family moved to Ft Collins so De could attend veterinary school.
A friend told De about a duplex home for sell in Ft Collins. De asked Lark for a loan for a down payment to buy the house and Lark agreed. They bought the duplex and rented the other side to the Robinson family. The duplex was at 1004 Castle Rock Drive.
Clayre got another job as a bank teller. All the boys were in school except Clay, so Clay went to live with De's parents, Cardon and Hatti, back in Nucla. Clay lived with them for about 9 months during the school year.
After a while Cardon sold the Nucla house and moved back to Utah. He worked for Charlie Redd running the Dugout Ranch North of Montrose.
Clayre made christmas money sewing surgical packs and dressings for the new veterinary students. De worked in the veterinary clinic run by the school.
In the summers De and the boys would go down to work the Dugout with grandpa Cardon while Clayre worked at the bank.
They met the Stegelmeiers while De was in school and became good friends. De and Loren planned to open a practice together. Loren was 2 years ahead of De so after graduation they and moved to Rexburg to start the business. But after a year Loren called De to say that there just wasn't enough work in the area to support 2 veterinarians. So as De got close to finishing, he had no plans for work.
During the new years eve dance before graduation, one of the college professors told De about a job opening in Arizona. So during spring break, De and Clayre drove down to Arizona to check out the job opening with Dr Willis in Tolleson. The whole valley smelled of orange blossoms and the weather was so mild and perfect. They decided to take the job and prepared to come back in August.
When they sold the duplex they paid allot of money back to Lark Washburn. Someone also told De that because he'd served during the Korean war, he was eligible for the GI bill. He applied for, and got much of his tuition reinbursed.
They moved to Tolleson Arizona in August of 1966, in time for the boys to start school. They rented a home at 9362 W. Taylor St, and De began to work at the Tolleson Animal Hospital with Dr Willis.
The Animal Hospital was at the intersection of 95th Avenue and Van Buren, across the street from the High School.
De's work mostly consisted of large animal work, especially cows. There were many dairies and beef cattle feed lots in the area which meant pregnancy testing, TB testing, deliveries, and other common maladies.
No comments:
Post a Comment