CATCH A FALLING STAR Kate’s Journal

EPISODE 11
Grants Pass 1942

How do I recapture those few months after Pearl Harbor? With Japanese subs patrolling along the west coast it became apparent that we were moving again; this time my mother and I would go to Grants Pass, Oregon, my father’s home town. The only specifics I remember of that time are that I graduated from the 9th grade, turned 14, and my father’s mother, Grandma Tena Grey Sweetland passed quietly from this world to the next. She was laid to rest in the family cemetery alongside a flock of ancient Sweetlands
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We stayed temporarily with Aunt Hazel and Uncle Jean who made room for us in their rustic two room house out on the highway where they had lived for many years. Its rusticity included another outdoor privy, which recalled our time living in the Connecticut countryside.

Though they owned a large amount of acreage, plus a few buildings in downtown Grants Pass, they preferred their simple style of life, quietly watching the passing of time with their Australian shepherd dog, Bounce, and a few cats. Formerly there had been a few cows and sheep in the barns, and chickens roamed freely.

Uncle Jean had come to this country from France as a talented race car driver to race against America’s best, which at the time was Barney Oldfield. I can picture him then; a young hot shot driver, probably full of himself and sure of getting any girl he wanted. He chose Hazel, my Grandmother Tena’s sister, recently divorced from a high powered San Francisco lawyer and happy to return to Grants Pass where she was born.

Years before, when I visited them as a young child, I remember offering him a bite of my shiny red Delicious apple. He had pointed out that there were “stars” sprinkled all over the red skin. He declined my largess however, saying “Darlin’ I got no teeth.” Today I understand that limitation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My mother and I shared a bed in the main room of the house, where we listened each night at 10 p.m. to “The Richfield Reporter” for news of the war, calling out now and then to Aunt Hazel and Uncle Jean in their adjoining room as to which Island was under attack.

I would be starting my sophomore year in the local high school in a few weeks, but we still had no place of our own in town. I would be taking a school bus which was a new and somewhat frightening experience.

The ranch was comprised of many acres, with some areas overrun with delicious ripe blackberries which my mother turned into equally delicious pies. Aunt Hazel was knowledgeable about the things most city people know little, such as cloud formations, where the best fishing holes were, and when it might rain. She was on first name basis with the local squirrel population, and flights of migrating birds knew they could expect a hand out.

On August 12th Aunt Hazel handed us blankets and told us to go out and sleep in the field for a treat; it was the start of the Perseid meteor shower. I remember lying there with my mother enthralled with each shooting star all night long. We wished on each one, and naturally our wishes were for my father’s safe return.

Perseid Shower

The warm night was filled with the pleasant sound of crickets and an occasional small nocturnal creature disturbed the dry grass. You could still smell the heat of the day bringing the memory of ripeness in fruit and flowers. Uncle Jean thought we were crazy to sleep there in discomfort and told us that August 12 was known as the “Glorious Twelfth” in the UK and marked the traditional start of grouse shooting, which made a lot more sense.

Hop Field in Grants Pass, Oregon

There are fields of hops growing outside Grants Pass, which in wartime did not attract the migrant pickers it usually did, so it was suggested that schools and some businesses be conscripted to bring in the crop. My mother and I signed on, and for a week joined others in town stripping the hops into large bags hung around out necks. I was working alongside the first friends in town whom I would soon see when school began.

When I think of Grants Pass now, I think of that summer, and the closeness of my mother and me, and the kindness of family who took us in and made us welcome. Things were going to be OK.

“I GOT NO TEETH DARLIN'”

Oldtimer, clay sculpture, KSR

It’s hard to reconstruct a life through the memory of a fifteen year old girl, but Jean Cornelier deserves more of a history than he got.

He came to America as a young race car driver in about 1909, to race against Barney Oldfield, a famous driver who was the first to drive a roaring 60 miles an hour.  Barney had built a reputation by racing for Ford Motor Co., and he was a challenge for any young and daring young driver of the new “contraptions”.

There’s no record as to how well he did on the track, and other than a few gruff references to his racing career, that was his youth as far I ever knew.

He may have met and married my Great-Aunt Hazel in San Francisco, where she had been married and divorced from a prominent lawyer there, and thus he became my Uncle Jean.

Hazel had been born and raised in Grants Pass, Oregon, and this is where she and Jean settled down on a large piece of property out in the country where they raised chickens, cows and a few sheep.

They certainly had money as they bought several buildings in town, as well as many acres of land, but they chose to live in a rough cabin-like house consisting of one large communal room and a large bedroom, with an outhouse a distance away from the house, and a long dirt road which became a mudhole in the Oregon winter rains.

My first recollection of them was from a visit when I was about 9-10 years old, and coming from a city background, it was a delight to see the farm animals and help collect eggs, etc.

They were homely no-nonsense people, and I was a quiet and curious child and somewhat afraid of Jean, whose English was a bit broken and who did not communicate well with children.  I’m not sure if he really liked them much, or maybe me in particular.

He seemed tall and skinny, and was quite weathered looking, with wild coarse grey hair which never seemed to stay put. His face was craggy, with a very prominent nose taking up the center of his face.  His eyeglasses seemed always to be slipping down and being saved from actually falling by his nose.

He was taciturn and seemingly preferred to be alone, so I was pleased and surprised when he invited me to ride down to the barn with him to milk the few cows.  We bounced along down the hill in an old open-topped truck, narrowly missing large rocks and potholes, and rolling precariously over an open irrigation ditch with no sides.

He gave me my first red Delicious apple and pointed out the infinitesimal white stars all over the shiny skin.  It was probably the juiciest apple I ever had; cold and true to its name, delicious.  With apple juice dripping down my chin and all over my new “farm” clothes, I offered him a bite, and he looked down at me and said “I got no teeth, Darlin'”.

I had never seen anyone without their teeth, and on closer inspection I was surprised to see that he really did not have any teeth!  My Grandpa and another Great-Uncle used to tease me by clicking their dentures in and out, but it did not occur to me that the reason they wore them was because of the lack of real teeth.

My next visit with them was during the War, when I was 15 and we came to live with them for a year.  He seemed older and greyer, and the farm animals had mostly gone, but I think he liked me better.  When he found I liked poetry,  he went to a bookcase in their bedroom where there were several old beautiful leather-bound books and gave me a small book of French poetry.  I have always treasured it, and though I never learned to speak French, my granddaaughter is fluent in the language, so there is someone who may love it as I do.

I have always thought there was a lot more to Jean Cornelier than we ever knew.