Upside Down

[These are the stories that Joan and Leona told me and now I remember from my growing up years. They are memories subject to the skewing that people do over time. Some of them are not very nice or flattering. Judy probably has better memory about Stratford facts and people than I do, since she was four years older then I was.]

Chapter Four - The Ranch in Stratford

The ranch in Stratford was part of a land partnership called Newton Farms, Inc. This was a partnership between Jesse and his two brothers. The land was originally given to Jesse's father (grandfather?) in lieu of salary when he was working as a ranch foreman for a hacienda in the Oceanside area around 1860-80s, where the Newton's lived when they first came west after the civil war. (See the Newton Family Tree by A. Oldham for the story of the trip west.) Jesse's Julia was originally from Oceanside, and Stan had been born there (about April 1919 or 1920?), but he raised in the Stratford and Hanford area.

Jesse was the largest land owner-partner and a major owner of the water rights from the Tulare Irrigation District. He was also the founder of the cotton gin co-op, and its major shareholder. Jesse was a shareholder in many California ventures, including the San Francisco Ferry Company, Pacific Telephone Company, and the other local rural utility companies. He was an investor, and when his investments paid off, he reinvested in land in the Stratford and Lemoore area. The Newton Farms were not contiguous sections of land, but were scattered around the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley. Each of the other two brothers managed a geographical area. However, Jesse made most of the large financial decisions for the company. He also had vacation property on Bass Lake in the Sierras and on Shasta Lake. Jesse liked to hunt and fish. Stan did not.

The ranch house sat in the middle of a field bordering a gravel road that connected to the road that ran between Stratford, Lemoore and Hanford. The gravel road lead eventually to one of the farm's irrigation pumping houses and other sections of the ranch. The road was raised a bit from the level of the fields, but from the west-facing windows in the ranch house, any car or truck was visible since it had to pass the house to go down the road a bit to the turn in for the ranch.

The first building past the mailboxes on the south was huge. It was a warehouse for the ranch machinery, a bunk house (dormitory) for the single male farm workers, a foreman's office, and a sort of worker's restroom and showers. It was about the size of 10 houses in a row. Trucks, combines, tilling machines, and Stan's boats were stored here also. There was a gas and water pump. The ranch bought all sorts of fuel by the tankerful every week (diesel, gasoline, fuel for the planes, and oil fuel for heating) .

You would drive to the corner of the warehouse, and then turn north to get to the area where the ranch house and office were. On the west side of the road was a pump house that controlled the irrigation to the fields surrounding the ranch house. The ranch house was at the end of this road on the west.

On the east side of the road was another, older warehouse that stored miscellaneous carts, tools, hoses and ancient farming equipment. Next to that were the four shiny silos for storing grain. Next on the road was the machine shop and aircraft hanger and Stan's radio room and private office with walls covered in large aerial photographs of the farm and the general area, and large topographical maps. He kept all the paperwork and offical logs pertaining to the planes and radio in this office. His drafting table was also here in the clean office.

The airstrip was on the east side of the hanger running north and south. The radio call sign was painted on the roof of this building. All of the buildings: warehouses, silo, machine shops, and hanger were constructed of corrogated aluminum and were fairly well protected with annual coats of white rust proof paint with green trim. The buildings all sat on concrete pads that were kept oil- and dust-free by daily cleaning by the ranch foreman's wife.

The aircraft machine shop was a large enclosed area separate from the hanger. Inside, the walls were all painted grey, with the shadow shapes of tools painted orange. In this way, if a tool was taken down off the wall, the orange shape was visible. If anyone took a tool out of this shop, they had to sign for it and Stan did a strict accounting weekly for the return of all borrowed tools.

There were grinding machines, work tables, arc-wielding equipment, stacks of pipes and other raw metal materials, fine tool cases and locked cabinets of parts, and rows and rows of free standing shelves with bins for nuts, screws, nails, bolts and other fasteners. There was even a small forge and die making equipment. Several of the work tables had ventilation hoods and blowers leading up to the roof and fans that controlled the flow of air off the bench and up the flues. Here you would find anything an aircraft construction engineer could want. This was Stan's playground. It even had a bathroom with a shower. Later, this workroom would become air conditioned. It was cleaned daily. It was immaculate.

Continuing down the road, on the right there were six small houses enclosed with a waist high white picket fence. This was where the permanent farm workers lived with their families. These workers were black. Jesse had electricity brought to these cottages right after WWII, along with indoor plumbing. However, they did not have telephone service, but had to come to the ranch office to use the phone. Down a little farther on the left was the car garage, the laundry house, the driveway to the ranch house and office. This area was enclosed with a small white picket fence, too.

The ranch house had a small cement porch that was later enclosed to become a sort of waiting room and central telephone room for the ranch office. At first it was a crank phone on the wall. One long, one short ring for ranch business, two long rings for family calls. It was a party line, so that all subscribers could pick up the phone and over hear whatever conversation was going at that particular time.

When Joan first came to the ranch, she was appalled that she had to go out to the windowless, spider-filled laundry house to hand wash clothes in a large vat that she had to heat with a wood fire. The clothes were soaked in strong detergent, pulled out of the vat and put into another vat for rinsing. Then the clothes were pushed through a set of rollers mounted on the edge of the rinse vat and the water pressed out, the clothes fell into a basket from the mangle rollers and then the basket was carried outside and the clothes hung on the line by the side of the house to dry. Mondays AND Tuesdays of every week were dedicated to doing the laundry, all day. Wednesdays were ironing days.

Joan also learned to do basic cooking and canning of food. Jesse liked to sit in his office and watch Joan hang the laundry and to watch the road for cars. One of the first gifts that Jesse gave to Joan was electricity to the laundry house so that a washing machine could be installed. She was very appreciative. Spider bites were no fun.

The ranch house was built in the shape of an L. The short leg consisted of the porch and hall that ran to the kitchen. Off the hall on the left was the ranch office and on the right was a small toilet area. Farm workers would come to the office every Friday afternoon to collect their pay checks. The bookkeeper came every Thursday to do the books and draw up the checks for the farm bills and payroll. Other times, the office was the meeting place for salesmen, and generally Jesse's hang-out area.

Once you passed through the kitchen, you came into the large living and dining room with fireplace wall decorated with Jesse's hunting antlers. On the right was a hall with a master bedroom and closet, a full bathroom and a small bedroom. There was a small hall between the bathroom and the small bedroom. It was used as a clothes closet as well as a passway. Later, another bedroom and bath would be added, as well as a family front door for greeting guests separate from the office.

The house was added to several times over the years, and there were steps up or steps down to each section as you moved around in it. Any construction done to the house had to go through the farm's incorporation funds, so it was a direct expense to the farm and could not be written off as easily as the wear and tear on the farm equipment and warehouses could. It was always difficult to get funds for any improvements to the residences.

The house yard had one tree in it, but the rest of the yard was just mowed lawn. There were no bushes or flowers or other plantings. One of the farm workers came and mowed the lawn every week. Once Judith was born, Jesse had a cleaning lady come and help Joan with the housework. The house was hot and a common practice was to put a table fan pointing to a door draped with a dripping wet sheet, (towel on the floor to catch any water that was not vaporized by the moving hot air). It was hot. In the summer, the temperature hovered around the low 100s almost every day.

Outside, there was no shade. Inside, you stiffled from the heat since the windows were not large and there was no natural air movement in the summer. In the 1950s, an attic fan and attic swamp cooler were added, but it did not help much. Somehow these people did not like growing things unless it was for profit in the fields, else the land was left bare. This seemed to be some sort of testament to cleaniness and vegetation control?

Judith Adair was born May 23, 1940. Stan stayed around, moping and drinking and working on his bi-plane for over a year. Then Pearl Harbor happend. Jesse became the head of the local area draft board. First thing he did was exempt his own son from joining up. Stan was an only son, the heir, thus he was exempt under the 'sole surviving son' rule. This also ate away at Stan. Stan had injured his ear drums doing altitude flying, this also affected his ability to serve in the military.

Stan's drinking was pretty non-stop now. He managed to get a job with the military as a civilian pilot instructor. Two years after Judith was born, in the spring of 1942, Joan was pregnant again. Stan came home drunk and Joan was upset with him and they had a physical fight. He struck her and knocked her down. She lost the baby, and it was a boy. Joan never told Stan this irony, just her mother, Leona.

From the hospital, Joan called her mother to come and help her. Leona had married her fourth husband, Frank Plummer, an iron worker and co-owner of his own iron working shop. He subcontracted to build the high-rise buildings in downtown Los Angeles and to do custom iron working (fences, gates, building ornaments). Leona did not have to work. At first, they lived in her house on Figeroa Street in Los Angeles.

Leona came on an extended visit and was also well liked by Jesse. Julia was rude and refused to meet or speak to Leona because she was "the motel maid". Stan, feeling guilty, disappointed with his life, unable to please anybody, moped around and spent his days in his shop or flying for his military training classes.

In 1944, Joan became pregnant again. The betting was on. Stan was going to get his baby boy for sure this time. Nancie Ann (me) was born in Hanford, Kings County, California on September 15. Stan was devastated that he had sired another 'split-tail' girl. When next he saw Joan in the hospital, he slapped her in the face and told her she and the baby were worthless. Joan called Leona again from the hospital to come up and help her.

Nancie was a deformed baby. She was almost totally blind in one eye and had crossed eyes. Also, as she grew, she had a noticible receeding chin from thumb sucking and was left handed. But, for some reason, both Jesse and Leona loved her to pieces. This distressed her four-year-old sister Judith, who in her childish way tried to kill Nancie about 15,000 times over their lifetimes together (exageration, but it surely felt that way to me).

Chapter Five - Up to San Leandro

After Nancie was born, Joan decided to officially get her radio license. Naturally, Jesse helped her and she passed the tests with flying colors. She used the ranch radio and was helpful to the Civilian Air Patrol during the late war years.

Stan's drinking and abusive behavior worsened and Joan decided to call it quits. After the end of the war, in late 1945, Joan moved out with her two girls, put the girls in a day boarding home and went to work in a radio repair shop in Hanford as a radio technician. She was like many women during that time. The unspoken contract was that they would quit working when the men came home from the war. Joan worked, but the job was tenuous in the face of the homecoming military men, many more qualified than she was.

Nancie's earliest memories are of being at the day care center, leaning over and laying on her stomach on the wooden seat of a rope swing, rocking back and forth crying, and chewing Black Jack licorice gum. Another memory is of waking up from a nap on a cot in a darkened room in the boarding home smelling chocolate pudding being cooked on the stove top.

Joan met Harvey Cantin, Hanford High School football hero, Army Air Corps Staff Sergeant and he was stunned by her. He and his brother, Rudy, decided to buy a gas station franchise business with Texaco, up in San Leandro, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It started out very well. After a few months, Harvey felt he made enough money to offer marriage to Joan and her family of two girls. Joan agreed, and married Harvey in the spring of 1947 when her divorce from Stan was final.

The divorce and settlement agreement between Joan and Stan was acrimonious and he often contested the child support mandated. Many times through the years, Joan had to go back down to Hanford to court to collect the money owed by Stan. Money was always a club used to beat another person with. Every gift involving money had a string attached to it. Stan learned it from his father and practiced it on Joan.

In 1948, Jan Paige was born to Joan and Harvey.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Stan married a woman named Lena who also had a daughter named Diane. Joan's separation from Stan was also a separation from Jesse. She had a new life. However, they stayed cordial with each other. But Julia finally left Jesse and divorced him. Jesse remarried a woman named Betty. Julia moved back to Oceanside. Joan would bring his two granddaughters to to see Jesse and Betty whenever she was down in Hanford.

Harvey's mother Correine was called "Maman" (pronounced "mah-MAH"). She was a french-canadian woman from the Gaspe peninsula in Canada. She spoke english poorly and worked as a licensed vocational nurse at King's County Convalesent home in Hanford. Maman had a long-time admirer, Hal Weisbaum, a wonderful, yiddish-speaking Jewish accountant. Maman had three sons, one of them died in WWII, at the Anzio invasion of Italy. Harvey, her youngest, was stationed in North Africa. Harvey had been born in Saskachuwan, Canada. Shortly thereafter, his father abandoned his family to search for gold in the Yukon. Finally, after more than 20 years, Hal married Correine in the early 1960s after his bed-ridden previous wife died.

Correine Cantin came to California, and at first worked in a creamery and donut shop. She became a naturalized citizen, and raised her three sons, who all finished high school in Hanford. Rudy Cantin, Harvey's older brother, married a Daughtry from Castro Valley, one of the old orginal "49er" settler families. Daughtry Road in Dublin was named for the family, and they owned the large Daughtry Store in Castro Valley. Rudy and his wife only had a son, Brian.

In April 1951, Cynthia Lee was born to Harvey and Joan. Joan managed to have a girl child every 4 years and 4 months, except for the last one which was 2 years and 4 months (i.e., 5/23/1940 Judith, 9/15/1944 Nancie, 12/28/1948 Jan and 4/7/1951 Cindy).

Joan suffered very badly from postpartum depression. She spend her days in bed sleeping and her nights laying in bed reading. Young Judy and Harvey helped a lot with Cindy as a baby.

Chapter Six - Visitation

The court inforced a two week visitation period between Stan and his two girls every year, alternating between summer and Christmas school vacations. They were a nightmare to prepare for. Joan would be nervous and tense, any little thing would set her off and then the slapping and hitting would begin. Because the support money from Stan was so critical to the family's well-being, Joan would worry that one of the children would say something that Stan could use with his lawyer to try to stop paying the child support.

One time, Stan called unexpectedly while visiting in the area and wanted to see his two daughters for the day. This caught Joan off guard. She was enraged, took it out on "her" girls. She took a wooden coat hanger and started to beat Nancie. Nancie rolled off the bed, hit her eyebrow on the corner of the nightstand and cut it with much swelling and bruising. Joan drilled Nancie over and over to say that she was bouncing on the bed and hit her head, and not rolling away to save herself from a beating from her mother.

In the mid-50s, Stan had formed a Formula I racing boat team and they raced all over the state. One time, there was a race in the estuary near Alameda. Stan swept in and got the girls. They had to sit in their frilly dresses on the muddy shore all day and watch the boats go back and forth doing time trials. It was boring, to say the least.

Many times, Stan flew up to Oakland in his own plane to pick up the girls for these annual visits. Naturally, it would be a new plane he wanted to show off. He always liked Beechcraft for his personal plane and Thunderbirds for his car. Nancie would be nervous and tense, buckled in, flying. The altitude and flying stunts that Stan did to impress the girls would make Nancie throw-up or her nose bleed and she often make a mess all over her clothes and the new cloth seating of the new plane.

Stan's second wife, Lena, did not like the ranch house and in the mid-50s had Stan build a town house in Lemoore. This was a large one acre corner lot. The house was shaped like a flying V. The kitchen, dining and living room were on one side, and then a wing with three baths and five bedrooms on the other side. The house was air-conditioned and had a built-in television and sound system that Stan built himself from electronic Heath kits.

Always, on one or two of the days during the visitation, Nancie went with Stan to the machine shop at the ranch. She was forced to sit on an overturned bucket and made to watch her father work. She learned to do it for hours on end. The heat in the shop during the summer was unbearable and invariably Nancie would become sick from the heat and be in bed vomiting and with a fever (heat stroke effects), sleeping for two or three days afterwards. Stan always thought she was a sickly, weak thing, when in fact she was a strong, vigorous outdoors girl. She was just always sick around him from the sweltering heat in the summer.

Lena did not like Stan's girls. Her daughter, Diane, lived with Stan and Lena year round. She was a petite, dark haired girl and a ballet dancer, about the same age as Judy. She did not like Judy or Nancie much either and seldom spoke to them. Her room and things were 'off-limits', so Nancie spent most of the visitiation time in her own room reading and hiding out. Judy would go and visit overnight with Stan's uncles and their families, but Nancie did not. Stan was ashamed of the ugly cross-eyed, buck toothed Nancie and allowed her to fade into the background as much as possible, but Judy was his 'showcase' girl and he would take her around to meet and be with his family.

Once, after a Christmas visit, Stan and Lena were going to a Stanford football game up in the Bay Area for New Year's Day. So they traveled up on a fancy silver streamlined passenger train. Nancie sat the entire time in the caboose club car with Stan's drinking crowd, drinking Shirley Temple drinks and being very, very quiet.

Chapter Seven - His Girls vs. Yours Girls

When Judy was about 13 or 14, Joan voluteered to be her girl scout troop leader. She told the girls about her adventures with airplanes and the men who flew them. They were entranced. Joan talked the parents into starting an Air Scout Troop out of Oakland Airport, one of the first in Girl Scout history. The girls had many experiences helping at the airport and using the equipment there, like the Link Simulated Flight Trainer. When the 99er's (Women's Pilot Association) held one leg of their annual Transcontinental Powder Puff Derby in Oakland, Joan's Air Scout Troop were the official hostesses and greeters to each of the competitors, recording their clocked times for that leg. Nancie tagged along, cute in her little browie scout uniform, a mascot to the troop, but generally doing all the things that the bigger girls were exploring.

Judy started to rebel against Joan and decided to go live with her father. She called him up to come and get her and she stayed with him for one school year. He got fed up and sent her back to Joan at the end of the school term.

That was a funny game that Joan played all the time. Her most ultimate threat of end-all, be-all punishment was: "I will call your father to come and get you". Or, "get out, you can't live in MY house any more". Well at 13, Judy picked up the gauntlet and walked out to live with Stan for a year.

One time, when Nancie was about 9 years old, Harvey found her walking the 8 mile road to his gas station because Joan had locked her out in a furious fit. Nancie learned to try to get lost when Joan was in a rage. She escaped outside or hid someplace with a book. Almost every year, Joan was in court trying to get Stan to pay the extra expenses for Nancie's broken eye glasses, eye surgeries and orthodontics for her receeding chin and buck teeth.

Nancie learned to panic when she had to enter a law office or a courtroom. The actual money was never a problem for Stan. He just always fought Joan for the principle of the thing. Under it all, Joan still loved Stan and Stan still loved Joan, but the only way they communicated was through the lawyer game. It was sick.

Joan felt she needed to train her girls in housework in the way she had not been. Saturday mornings, the nightmare of cleaning would begin: dusting, vacuuming, polishing silver, washing and starching and ironing clothes, washing floors and windows, etc, etc, etc. And to learn cooking, on the weeknights, each girl took part of the dinner preparation: setting the plates out, making the salad, making the main course, washing up afterward. Meanwhile, Joan sat in her chair in the living room, reading a book and giving orders. Lady Joan on her throne.

Meals were a nightmare too. Early on, every night sitting at the dining table, Joan would pick and pick and pick at each of the girls until they were all tied in knots and sick to their stomachs. She managed to give both herself and Harvey ulcers from it. Finally after years of it, Harvey put a stop to it by buying TV trays. The family watched TV and ate in peace in the large back room, while Joan read in the living room. Bliss. To this day, Nancie gets so tense from the smell of dust she is too irritable to be around. The four generations of family abusive pattern and picking on repeating: Old Mrs. McDaniel, Leona, Joan to Nancie.

One of the saving things for Nancie was her special attachment to her grandmother Leona. Starting in about 1951 every summer she would fly down to Burbank to visit her grandmother and Grandpa Frank for about six weeks to two months at a time. Leona tried this with all of Joan's girls, but Nancie was her favorite and was the only one asked back year after year. Leona would make clothes for Nancie, save up Betsy McCall paper dolls cut out from the McCalls magazine. Leona kept a closet full of toys and games just for her. Nancie grew up with the kids on her Grandmother's block, swimming, dancing, surfing and hanging out together.

Leona never learned to drive a car, so Nancie was dependent on the other kids and families on the block to take her places like the pool, beach or the movies. Nancie was well liked by the neighborhood and they looked forward to seeing her each year when she came to visit.

But, all the times she visited Burbank, she never saw Hollywood or Disneyland. Summers were Frank Plummer's busiest work times, and he was usually away from home for Monday through Thursday nights on the job. Frank was tired when he came home on Fridays for the weekends, and the only outting he had time for was the weekly grocery shopping on Saturdays. Frank was easy going and he had bonded with Nancie since he had just been married to Leona when she was born. She was 'his' granddaughter and favorite, too.

Harvey and Joan played the 'your girls' and 'my girls' game. This was another sort of sick behavior. If Harvey got miffed at Joan, he would go and do some little spiteful thing like take "his girls" to get ice cream, to get back at Joan. Silly, but Nancie was hurt by it.

Harvey could spank 'his girls' but was not allowed to touch 'her girls'. Judy must have said something to Stan about Harvey spanking her, since it was one of the court issues one year. Petty stuff like this. Harvey was not allowed to touch 'her girls' even for a hug. After that, Nancie only felt another person actually touch when her mother hit her in rage or a doctor was examining her.

Unfortunately, Nancie was a bedwetter until she was nine and her hormones started to kick in. This lead to many urinary tract infections for her. Stan saw the bills for this, assummed the worst and felt Nancie was being sexually abused (she was not). This was another issue for the court one year with subsequent doctor examinations for Nancie. Judy got mad at Harvey and told her father that Harvey touched her inappropriately, he had not. Another court game with a Judge as mediator. So it went -- into court every year. A little more money, another bill paid, and the annual legal tangle.