Wars cause many disruptions in scores of ways, including economic displacement and relocation. Thus, in our family’s case, Dad’s new career path coupled with our move to the northern part of the state became root causes that significantly influenced all that would transpire in our family thereafter.
Dad left for the San Francisco Bay area in March of 1944. During his initial time away in the new location, he was able to secure a place for us to live, and we joined him three months later.
With the war in full swing, available housing was at a premium all over the country–especially, I would guess, in the San Francisco Bay area. There were no new homes being erected at the time, and there was almost nothing for rent. George Schiess, former counselor to Dad in the Santa Monica Ward Bishopric, and his wife, Florence, and family, graciously opened up their home to us in Millbrae, a few miles down the peninsula from San Francisco. We lived with them for the next nine months. Dad helped remodel the downstairs where we stayed…. After nine months with the Schiess family in Millbrae, for one reason or another, we moved in with Dad's Occidental Life Insurance Company Manager, Burl Blevins, and family at 300 Poet Road in Hillsborough. Hillsborough was a beautiful community, also situated on the San Francisco Bay Peninsula. It was nestled in rolling, wooded hills, and was essentially a millionaire's haven, much like Bel Aire in Southern California, or Quaker Heights in Cleveland, Ohio. The Blevins’ home was a huge, several story complex, seemingly ten thousand square feet, built on several acres. Mom apparently took care of their children as well as us during the day. But the arrangement didn't work out too well, and we moved about six weeks later to live with Grandma Howells, on West Temple Street in Salt Lake City. As Dad had now become manager of the insurance agency, he remained in San Francisco, overseeing the construction of our long awaited new home in San Mateo. 66
For Mom, this two year period must have been difficult, even daunting. It required her to manage her four young children alone, without permanent residence and a husband to help. She felt like a burden on her friends and on her family. It wasn’t easy on Dad either. He was forced to embark on the new career path in difficult times alone and without the support of his family around him. Times were hard.
Nonetheless, a decade and a half before, the two of them had committed to one another to pull together and to succeed. Moreover, each came from a long line of forefathers who had done difficult things, as well. After all, as had already been noted by others, they too were pioneers, weren’t they? So they moved forward.
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