Halcyon Visit February 2011

Okay, Susie - thank you for correcting my memory of when Nanny came to Halcyon - It was before the kids and she sent for them later. 
Dear family: this has been a marvelous time to reconnect with my "sis" and talk about our growing up years in Halcyon and who did what and why.  More to come ....
Please contribute your memories.

Why Halcyon?

Why were we raised in Halcyon?  Do you remember why or when our parents came to Halcyon to begin with? For example, here's one story about our grandmother, Ebba Whitney (Nanny).  Nanny was married to an executive of a steel mill (or something related to that industry) in Worcester, MA in the early 1920s.  She caught him cheating on her with another woman - not physically present, but she deduced from many telltale signs and his story fabrications of whereabouts that this was the case.  Mom always thought it was her father's secretary.  This explains why, whenever I would obtain a new job, or hire a new secretary for my office, she would ask me whether or not she was pretty ... and give a sort of warning scowl.  Anyway - Nanny wanted a divorce.  In order to spare the children (Bob and Louise, our uncle and mother) from the marital dispute (perhaps this was the reason) she sent them out West to Halcyon.  WHY Halcyon?  How had she learned about the Temple?  What was Nanny reading when in Worcester? One bit of history I recall clearly is from one of Mom's stories: traveling out west when she was only 11 years old (that would be in 1928).  She and Bob made the cross-country train trip by themselves.  She said she was scared, because she had heard many stories of the wild west.  Bob, on the other hand, told me that he had a wonderful feeling of adventure. They came to the Halcyon Sanitarium, where they lived until Nanny could join them, a couple of years later.  Oh, what stories there must have been about their growing up in Halcyon - and during the years of the Great Depression.  WHAT CAN YOU ADD ABOUT THIS STORY? WHAT DO YOU RECALL ABOUT HOW OR WHY OUR ANCESTORS CAME TO HALCYON?

Who is in this 1984 GROUP photo?

Look at the photo of family reunion 1984. CAN YOU NAME THEM ALL?
Top Row, from left to right: some young man; Ruth Lentz; is that Don Dana with beard? Mike Clark; Susie ("Can I see your ID miss?") Clark; Gene Clark; Patty and Amos Dana; Bob Lentz; Herb Lentz; Louise Lentz; Bernard Lentz.
Kneeling, middle row, left to right: Is that my cousin Robert Lentz? then is that Peter or Richie Dana? then Vicki (Stenquist) Chafin and Dick Chafin.
Seated in front, left to right: Opal Stenquist holding someone's bambino; Bob Stenquist; a friend of Susie's; Susie Dana; Jenny Clark; Dick (now goes by Richard) and Diana holding Shawn.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? 

Uncle Bob and Aunt Opal

Awww, I grew to love Bob and Opal so much in their later years.  They were the most loving couple I have ever met - doing things together - traveling so many places - and always seeming to be so kind and loving toward each other.  I'm sure there is another side - but this is my sweet memory of them. 

Bob always was a wonderful conservative counterpoint to Dad's liberalism.  Dad often would get frustrated talking with Bob, too.  I enjoyed Bob's practical view of life.  But when I was little, he sort of scared me.  Maybe because I was mischievous.

Gotta go now - but there's so much more to write about Bob and Opal.

Nanny

She occupies a very special place in my heart.  We were very close.  My strongest memories are when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old, waking up early in the mornings about 6 a.m. (during summer) and peaking into Mom and Dad's bedroom, and asking if I could go over to Nanny's.  I would sit by the wood stove with her, as she had coffee and toasted knickerbrod with butter and B.E.  She had an aviary full of canaries right off her main room.  She had set up a bed in the main room I guess mainly because the back bedroom was so cold - and then did she convert that to an aviary ? Or the other way around?

For many years I would do chores for her in her garden like pulling weeds, transplanting rose bushes, cleaning the duck's pond, raking up pine needles. 

I played with her black Labrador, Ring.  I threw the ball or pine cones for him to chase and bring back.  Then later she got another black Lab, Kim, and I did the same with him.  He was terrific - tireless ... he would continue chasing the pine cones and bringing them back even after panting and foaming at the mouth for lack of water.   

However, I never forgave her for taking me to see an absolutely horrifying movie which caused nightmares for weeks.  She and one of the elder ladies in town (Pearl? Aunt Esther?) would go to the movies every Sunday afternoon.  One day when I was particularly bored, as she was getting ready to go, she asked if I would like to come along.  She said it was the type of movie I would enjoy.  Yeah, right - here I was seven years old!!! She took me to see the Attack of the Giant Praying Mantis!!! The thing that was soooo scary about that movie, and the lingering thing was the sound that the creature made when approaching a city it was going to devour.  It made this awful droning, humming sound that increased in volume as it neared the city.  Then of course its giant claws would sweep up several people at a time, and it would chew them up.  Agghhhh!!!  Thanks, Nanny.

But on the lighter side - she told me stories of her days growing up in Worcester, MA.  She told me how she played piano for the silent movies in Santa Maria when she first came out West.

And there is much more to tell ......

Harold and Carolyn Forgostein

Harold and Carolyn were close to our family, not just because they were "high up" in The Temple.  I think Dad and Harold worked side by side at odd jobs during the late 40s or early 50s.  (The dates need to be verified as to when Harold and Carolyn first came to Halcyon.)  Before they lived in the town of Halcyon they had a place over in Oceano.  They had us over for dinner there once that I can recall.  I also remember when the new Temple home was being built.  I helped dig dirt for the foundation - and I swept the bare wood subfloors in the afternoons so the workmen would have clean areas for their framing.  When I was five years old Harold made for me a small cement block with my name in it.  That was such a special thing for me.  He was working around the Temple one day and had a little bit of cement left over.  He poured some into a small can, and wrote my name and the year into that small piece of cement.  I kept that thing for a long time during childhood.  Harold was my Godfather.

"Old People" we knew in Halcyon

Back then, there were a lot of "old people" in town, it seems.  Who were they?  I'll bet back then they were younger than we are now.  Hmmmmm ....

Herman Volz will always be the first person who comes to mind.  Herman symbolized for me The Temple.  He was down to earth, alone, simple, and he read a lot of Theosophical stuff (although I did not know this until in my later years).  When I was little, I remember he delivered the US Mail.  He had a pick up truck with a canvas top over the back.  When Halcyonites went on picnics to the County Park (back toward Lopez Canyon) he would carry a bunch of kids in the back of his pick up.  I felt so privileged when I was finally big enough to ride in the back with the older kids.

I was absolutely thrilled whenever Cethil Mallory would play some classical piano pieces in the Temple on Sundays.  I remember Pat Mallory delivering gifts to everyone throughout town at Christmas.

Some names that come to mind, old and not-so-old: Ken and Martha Schussman, and their beautiful home up on that hillside; Olive and Russel Hoff, with their marvelous old fireplace and chimney; Joyce Hedin; the blind piano repairmen, Mr. Paulsen; Fred and Freida Wolff, and his amazing rock collection; the Varians and Sheila's Arabian horses; Gertrude and Thelma Tedford; Maryalice Mankins; Evelyn Carlberg (you know Carl - aka Colin - now lives up our way in Arcata); Roberta Shumway; who else .... ?