PEG

I went back and went to work for Maurice Clapp in the tire shop again. I'd been gone for a year. I'd thought I was quite somebody before, but two other fellows had started to work while I was gone and had taken my place. So now I wasn't so high on the totem pole.

One night Claire and Hiel and I had gone down to the moving picture show. I don't remember what was on--it was just something to do. Along the bottom of the screen flashed BURR BRONSON! BURR BRONSON!

I was wondering, "What on earth is this all about."

Hiel and Claire said, "They want you back at the door."

"What do they want me for?"

"Well, let's go back and see."

We all went to the back and there was Joe Clapp and some little gal that I'd never seen before. Maurice and Bernada Clapp had just gotten married. Joe was wanting some help to run them down and drive up and down through town and make a big fuss. So, that's what we did. I don't remember all the details of the evening but we drove up and down the streets and once in a while we'd see Maurice and Bernada.

The girl with Joe was Margaret Whaley, Joe's cousin. She was kind of a sweet little gal. Anyhow, that's where I first got acquainted with her. I started going with her a little bit. Peg was a long ways away.

I told her the first time I went out with her, "Now listen, I have already got another girl and have plans all cinched down. Anything we have here is just to pass the time away."

She agreed with me. I did see her quite a bit that summer. I kept telling Peg, "I'm going to come get you," but somehow I just never got around to it.

That fall Peg and her girlfriend, Anna Stang came to Porterville, California. Anna was going to work in an orange packing plant with a girlfriend and her sister.

I took that old car that I had driven back from Graceland, took the body off, it had fallen to pieces, and put on another body that I had gotten from Maurice. That's what I drove to Porterville to get Peg.

Peg had gotten quite sick coming down on the boat and wasn't feeling too well yet. Coming down from Porterville to Redlands, we went over the ridge route which was over the mountains. She wasn't too sure how she would make it. We got home without her getting sick.

Somehow, Margaret Whaley got her "nose broken" because now I had another girl. She felt pretty bad about it. Maurice and his mother just about had kittens because I'd thrown Margaret over for another girl. She went to work for Hunter in his service station in San Bernardino.

I'll let Peg tell about her arrival in Redlands.

I'd come down to Redlands with Burr near Halloween. Nothing would do but what we had to go to a Halloween party over at Edith Green's house (Edith is an older sister of Barbara Wixsom Savage). So we went over there, but Burr had to stop in at Aunt Addie Clapp's and tell Margaret Whaley that he already had a date for the party. That really caused some problems. We went over to the party and I didn't know anybody, of course. I'd never seen any of them. The young people just assumed I was a friend of Edith Green's and went on about their business. So Edith and I kind of shared the hostess spot for the evening.

I think it was the next Sunday evening at church that Margaret Whaley collared Burr and, I guess, gave him a dressing down. I wasn't there except I was in the church with Anna waiting for Burr to finish his conference with Margaret before he came and took me back to Redlands.

I worked in a orange packing plant not very far away and rode to work with dad Bronson. He worked out that direction. I lived with the Bronson's while I was working at the orange packing plant. Meanwhile Burr was working for Maurice Clapp at the tire shop.

I came to Redlands the last of October and we were married March 25th the next year.

I'll let Burr finish the story now.

Well, Peg has already written her history and our lives have been joined since that day in March, 1928. But maybe I'll have some details that she left out.

Right away, after we were married in the church at San Bernardino, we went to Washington on our honeymoon, where we spent two or three weeks. Maurice loaned me a hundred dollars to go on my honeymoon because I didn't have any money.

We had gone to Hemet to buy a car. It was a 1926 Roadster Model T Ford--a used car (the last year the Model T was built). We drove that on our honeymoon.

After we left California for our honeymoon, Mother and Dad got word that Lester had taken ill--just after we left Washington to go back to California. Mother and Dad pulled out to go to Washington and they left Claire at the San Mateo Street place to hold down the fort. When we got there, from our honeymoon trip, it was the middle of the night. Claire was in bed sleeping like a pig. We both crawled in bed with him because the bed was warm and we were cold.

I had been working for Maurice in the tire shop. I guess it wasn't long after we were married that Fergie came to me and said, "I'll give you twenty-eight dollars a week if you'll work for me."

I was making twenty-five dollars a week for Maurice. Well, three dollars a week was quite a bit. So, I quit Maurice and went to work for Fergie in his service station. I started in on a day job, but I hadn't been there more than a week or two when he put me on nights. Then it turned out to be a seven-day-a-week job. I wasn't too happy about it, but I stayed with it until the night shift closed down. So then I was out of work.

By that time, Peg was getting kind of homesick. We had been living in Mother and Dad's house on San Mateo Street until the latter part of October when they came home. Since I had lost my job, we struck out to go to Washington state in our same little Model T. It was a good little car. Later, we took the turtle back off it and built a little truck bed on it.