Noreen Chatfield & Carl Clemens

FAMILY LINE AND HISTORY

Noreen Ellen “Babe” Chatfield
10th of 10 children of Charles Henry Chatfield & Nellie Belle Chamberlin
Occupations: store clerk, seamstress, cook/housekeeper for priests
Born: Sep 29, 1915, Los Molinos, Tehama Co., California
Died: Nov 9, 1968 (age 53), Whittier, Los Angeles Co., California; suicide
Cremated: Inurned in Memory Garden Memorial Park in Brea, Orange Co., California
Married (1): Feb 4, 1933, Carl John Clemens, Colusa, Colusa Co., California
Divorced: Filed Apr 27, 1953; divorce final May 10, Dec 1954, Sonora, Tuolumne Co., California
Five children: Gordon Lawrence “Larry” Clemens, Carleen Barbara Clemens, Elizabeth Ann “Betty/Liz” Clemens, Claudia Clemens, Catherine Frances “Cathy” Clemens
Married (2): Aug 3, 1955, Raymond D. “Ray” Haynie, Carson City, Ormsby Co., Nevada
Divorced: 1957, San Jose, Santa Clara Co., California
No children

RAYMOND D. “RAY’ HAYNIE
1st of 2 children of Robert Pinkey Haynie & Rachel Theora Jensen
Occupation: Colorado miner, salesman in retail gardens, Colorado Aircraft Corp., machinist, ran auto repair shop, San Jose
Born: Oct 13, 1912, Manassa, Conejos Co., Colorado
Died: Jul 12, 1964 (age 51), San Jose, Santa Clara Co., California; alcoholism, cirrhosis of the liver
Buried: Old Manassa Cemetery in Manassa, Conejos Co., Colorado
Married (1): Ruth Lyckman, prob Colorado (b.1893 – d.1968
Married (2): Jan 26, 1935, Charlotte M. Painter, Manassa, Conejos Co., Colorado (b.1917 – d.unkn
Married (3): Feb 8, 1939, Alice Mae O’Donnell, Yerington, Lyon Co., Nevada
Divorced: Jun 15, 1948, Nevada
One child
Married (4): Aug 3, 1955, Noreen Ellen (Chatfield) Clemens, Carson City, Ormsby Co., Nevada
Divorced: 1957, San Jose, Santa Clara Co., California
No children
Married (5): Annabell (Shifflette) Nachtmann (b.1914 – d.1993)

Carl John Clemens
8th of 13 children of Mathew Sylvester Clemens & Barbara Nigon
Occupations: Laborer, iceman, store owner, manager of Sprouse Reitz stores
Politics: City Council in Sonora, Tuolumne Co., California
Born: Sep 25, 1905, Rochester, Olmsted Co., Minnesota
Died: Sep 16, 1986 (age 80), Santa Rosa, Sonoma Co., California; prostate cancer
Cremated: Interred in Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Santa Rosa, Sonoma Co., California
Married (1): Feb 4, 1933, Noreen Ellen “Babe” Chatfield, Colusa, Colusa Co., California
Divorced: Filed Apr 27, 1953; final May 10, Dec 1954, Sonora, Tuolumne Co., California
Five children: Gordon Lawrence “Larry” Clemens, Carleen Barbara Clemens, Elizabeth Ann “Betty/Liz” Clemens, Claudia Clemens, Catherine Frances “Cathy” Clemens
Married (2): 1956, Irene Vennita (Tregear) Whitehed, living in San Francisco
Married (3): Sep 25, 1961, Marie Lenore (Macdonald) McCartney, San Francisco, California

IRENE VENNITA (TREGEAR) WHITEHED
4th of 5 children of James Tregear & Anne “Annie” Daniel
Born Sep 26, 1886, Colton, San Bernardino Co., California
Died: Aug 7, 1959 (age 72), San Francisco, California
Cremated: remains at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, San Mateo Co., California
Married (1): Jan 24, 1906, Harry Sackfield Howard (b.1881 – d.1962 (Canadian soldier)
One child: Norma Pearl Howard (1906 – 1987)
Married (2) bet 1941-1944, Jesse Meigs Whitehed
Married (3): 1956, Carl John Clemens, living in San Francisco (b.1905 – d.1986)
Note: Irene was 70, Carl was 51 (19 years his senior)

MARIE LENORE (MACDONALD) McCARTNEY
6th of 6 children of Angus James Macdonald & Mary Gertrude “Mayme” Meyers
Occupation: Saleswoman in children’s clothing stores, child care/nanny
Born: Sep 25, 1917, San Francisco, California
Died: Apr 11, 2011 (age 93), Seattle, King Co., Washington; massive stroke
Cremated: interred in Calvary Catholic Cemetery, Santa Rosa, Sonoma Co., California
Married (1): Sep 13, 1941, Joseph Scott “Mac” McCartney, Reno, Nevada
Two children: Irene E. McCartney, Janet McCartney
Married (2): Sep 25, 1961, Carl John Clemens, San Francisco, California
No children

Five children of Noreen Ellen “Babe” Chatfield & Carl John Clemens
1. Gordon Lawrence “Larry” Clemens
Occupations: High school teacher & counselor; campground & hotel owner; real estate investor
Avocations: AFS/American Field Service/area director, genealogy, travel
Born: Jan 14, 1934, Chico, Butte Co., California
Living: Carmel, Monterey Co., California
Married: Jun 16, 1956, Marian Louise McLellan, Upland, San Bernardino Co., California
Two children

2. Carleen Barbara Clemens
Occupation: Secretary for Astro Spar/aerospace and equipment company
Avocation: Ceramics
Born: Mar 13, 1935, Watsonville, Santa Cruz Co., California
Died: Nov 12, 2022, (age 87), Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie Co., Iowa
Buried: Walnut Hill Cemetery in Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie Co., Iowa
Married: Mar 15, 1953, Charles Evans “Chuck” Albertson, Sonora, Tuolumne Co., California
Three children

3. Elizabeth Ann “Betty/Liz” Clemens
Occupations: Auto leasing; antique collecting and sales
Avocations: Travel, antiques, birding, and collecting a wealth of knowledge
Born: Dec 3, 1939, Watsonville, Santa Cruz Co., California
Died: Oct 8, 2004 (age 64), Sacramento, Sacramento Co., California; lung cancer, pneumonia
Residence at time of death: Fallbrook, San Diego Co., California
Buried: Masonic Cemetery in Fallbrook, San Diego Co., California
Married: Feb 1, 1958, Anthony Leo “Tony” Duchi, Jr., Whittier, Los Angeles Co., California
Four children

4. Claudia Clemens
Occupations: Customer service manager; traffic manager; purchasing agent
Born: Mar 28, 1942, Vallejo, Solano Co., California
Died: Aug 21, 2011 (age 69), Escondido, San Diego Co., California; lung cancer
Cremated: Ashes with family, some scattered at San Clemente Beach in Southern California
Married: Sep 15, 1956, Bobby Milton McDaniel, Sparks, Washoe Co., Nevada
Divorced: May 17, 1973, Lauderdale Co., Mississippi
Five children

5. Catherine Frances “Cathy” Clemens
Occupations: Owner/juice company, Real Estate owner/broker/agent, writer/author
Avocations: Genealogy, writing, dancing
Born: Aug 16, 1948, Sonora, Tuolumne Co., California
Living: Sonoma, Sonoma Co., California
Married: Oct 7, 1967, Robert Kenneth “Bob” Sevenau, San Francisco, California
Divorced: 1973, Santa Rosa, Sonoma Co., California
Two children

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Timeline and Records

Ten children of Charles Henry “Charlie” Chatfield & Nellie Belle Chamberlin:
1. Charles Joseph “Charley” Chatfield
1895 – 1986
2. Leo Willard Chatfield
1897 – 1956
3. Howard Francis Chatfield
1899 – 1953
4. Roy Elmer Chatfield
1901 – 1978
5. Nellie Mary “Nella May” Chatfield
1903 – 1983
6. Gordon Gregory Chatfield
1905 – 1948
7. Verda Agnes Chatfield
1908 – 1978
8. Arden Sherman Chatfield
1910 – 1981
9. Ina Chatfield
1913 – 1993
10. Noreen Ellen “Babe” Chatfield
1915 – 1968

Thirteen children of Mathew Sylvester Clemens & Barbara Nigon:
1. Unnamed twin (male)
1898 – 1898 (died at three days)
2. Unnamed twin (female)
1898 – 1898 (died at three days)
3. Mary Anne Clemens
1899 – 1994
4. Elizabeth Barbara Clemens
1900 – 1996
5. Amelia Rose Clemens
1902 – 1972
6. Dorothy Clemens
1903 – 1903
7. Aloysius Michael Clemens
1904 – 1929
8. Carl John Clemens
1905 – 1986
9. Cecelia Helen (Sister Ann) Clemens
1908 – 2003
10. Agnes Catherine Clemens
1909 – 2005
11. Anna Frances Clemens
1911 – 1995
12. Lawrence Matthew Clemens
1912 – 1978lemens
13. Joseph William Clemens
1914 – 2010

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Sep 25, 1905: Birth of Carl John Clemens, 8th of 13 children of Mathew Sylvester Clemens & Barbara Nigon, in Rochester, Olmsted Co., Minnesota

Sep 29, 1915: Birth of Noreen Ellen “Babe” Chatfield, 10th of 10 children of Charles Henry Chatfield & Nellie Belle Chamberlin, in Los Molinos, Tehama Co., California

Apr 27, 1910: Federal Census for Cascade, Olmsted Co., Minnesota:
Clemmons, Mathew S: head, male white, owns, age 36, Married 1 time, married 12 years, born Germany, father born Germany, mother born Germany, naturalized 1881, farmer, general farming (Clemens)
Barbara: wife, female white, age 36, Married 1 time, married 12 years, born Minnesota, father born Minnesota, mother born Germany
Mary A: daughter, female white, age 10, born Minnesota, father born Germany, mother born Germany
Elizabeth: daughter, female white, age 9, born Minnesota, father born Germany, mother born Germany
Amelia: daughter, female white, age 8, born Minnesota, father born Germany, mother born Germany
Alvinia: daughter, female white, age 6, born Minnesota, father born Germany, mother born Germany (Aloysius, male, son)
Charles J : son, female white, age 4, born Minnesota, father born Germany, mother born Germany (Carl, my father)
Celia H: daughter, female white, age 2, born Minnesota, father born Germany, mother born Germany (Cecelia)
Agness C: daughter, female white, age 10/12, born Minnesota, father born Germany, mother born Germany (Agnes)
Bosneyk, Sebastain: hired hand, male, white, age 26, single, born Austria, father born Austria, mother born Austria, farm laborer

Oct 1, 1915: Red Bluff Daily News, Tehama Co., California:
WOMAN ALL ALONE GIVES BIRTH
CHILD TAKES CARE OF IT
LOS MOLINOS. Sept. 30 (1915)—When a baby girl was born last night to Mrs. C.H. Chatfield of this place, the woman, unaided except by some of her small children, rose from her bed, washed and dressed the child and performed functions of physician or mid-wife. The husband is away from home working in the rice fields at Princeton. Before the child was born Mrs. Chatfield sent for a neighbor woman, who, however, did not arrive until after the child was born and cared for. Both mother and child are apparently doing well. This is the tenth child born in the family.
Note: Her daughter Nella May was 10 and daughter Verda was 5.

Headstones, Hearsay, and a Little History:
In 1915 the Chatfield family left Los Molinos and moved to the up-and-coming agricultural town of Chico, buying a fairly new two-story corner residence in the Chapmantown district, a working-class neighborhood near the Diamond Match Factory. In those days most people rented; few owned their own homes. With only two upstairs bedrooms, the boys sharing one, the girls the other, it was a small house for a large family. Downstairs, Grandma Chatfield created a tiny sleeping space for herself in an alcove under the stairway, keeping the small downstairs bedroom for company. Grandpa slept in the shed.

circa 1917: Youngest Chatfield children on rail of the Boucher street house in Chico:

abt 1919: Babe and her sister Ina:

Jan 12, 1920: Federal Census for Cascade, Olmsted Co., Minnesota:
Clemens, Mathew S: head, male, white, owns, age 45, born Minnesota, father born Germany, mother born Germany, farmer, general farming
Barbara: wife, female, white, age 46, born Germany, father born Germany, mother born Germany, year immigrated 1881, year naturalized 1890
Mary A: daughter, female, white, age 20, born Minnesota, father born Minnesota, mother born Germany
Elizabeth Z: daughter, female, white, age 19, born Minnesota, father born Minnesota, mother born Germany (Elizabeth A.)
Amelia R: daughter, female, white, age 18, born Minnesota, father born Minnesota, mother born Germany
Aloysius M: son, white, age 15, born Minnesota, father born Minnesota, mother born Germany
Charles J: son, female, white, age 14, born Minnesota, father born Minnesota, mother born Germany (Carl)
Celia H: daughter, female, white, age 12, born Minnesota, father born Minnesota, mother born Germany (Cecelia)
Agnes C: daughter, female, white, age 10, born Minnesota, father born Minnesota, mother born Germany (Agnes)
Laurence M: son, male, white, age 7 born Minnesota, father born Minnesota, mother born Germany
Joseph W: son, male, white, age 5, born Minnesota, father born Germany, mother born Germany

Jan 26, 1920: Federal Census for Chico, Butte Co., California:
Chatfield, Charles H.: head, owns, age 49, born Colorado, father born Illinois, mother born Texas, foreman for rice ranch
Nellie C.: wife, age 46, born Montana, father born New York, mother born Pennsylvania
Charles J.: son, age 24; born Colorado, father born Colorado, mother born Missouri, laborer rice ranch
Leo W.: son, age 22; born Wyoming, father born Colorado, mother born Missouri, laborer, rice ranch
Roy E.: son, age 18; born Colorado, father born Colorado, mother born Missouri, Lumber Grader in Match Factory
Nellie M.: daughter, age 16; born Colorado, father born Colorado, mother born Missouri, Forewoman in Match Factory
Gordon G.: son, age 14; born Wyoming, father born Colorado, mother born Missouri
Verda A.: daughter, age 11; born Montana, father born Colorado, mother born Missouri
Arden I.: son, age 9, born Montana, father born Colorado, mother born Missouri (Arden S.)
Ina J: daughter, age 6, born Montana, father born Colorado, mother born Missouri
Norine E.: age 4 3/12, born California, father born Colorado, mother born Missouri (Noreen)
Note: Charles is working for the Spaulding ranch 16 miles west of Chico, as foreman harvesting rice.

Late 1920s photos:

Apr 12, 1930: Federal Census for San Francisco City, San Francisco Co., California:
Clemens, Carl: Roomer, male, white, single, age 24, born abt 1906, born United States, father born United States, mother born United States, able to read and write, electrician

Apr 23, 1930: Federal Census for Chico, Butte Co., California:
Chatfield, Nellie: Head, owns, Value of property $2,500, age 54, married, 1st marriage at 19, born Missouri, father born New York, mother born Pennsylvania, wrapper in Match Factory
Roy E.: son, age 29, single, born Colorado, father born Colorado, mother born Missouri, Driver for Ice Plant
Arden I.: son, age 19, single, born Montana, father born Colorado, mother born Missouri, waiter in restaurant (Arden S.)
Ina J.: daughter, age 17, single, born Montana, father born Colorado, mother born Missouri
Noriene E.: age 14, single, born California, father born Colorado, mother born Missouri (Noreen)
Chatfield, Charlie: Husband, age 59, married, 1st marriage at 24, born Colorado, father born Illinois, mother born Texas, carpenter for contractor
Note: Charles, Noreen’s father, appears to be back in her mother Nellie’s good graces as he is in the household again

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
1932 • Colusa, California ~ Two years into the Great Depression, when there were no jobs and little money and Herbert Hoover was unable to keep his campaign promises of prosperity, 59-year-old Nellie moved to the bustling rice town of Colusa, the county capital built on a lazy river bend in the center of the Sacramento Valley. She left Charles behind and brought her two youngest daughters with her, Ina (age 19) and Babe (age 16), the rest of her children grown and out of the nest. There she opened an eatery. It was Prohibition, and the former Golden Eagle Bar and Hotel was now called the Golden Eagle Hotel and Cafe, serving tea and milkshakes instead of beer and whiskey. They lived in three small rooms over the restaurant, and the girls helped their mother cook for the locals and the men who’d come to town to work on the big government reclamation project, the building of a weir and the new bridge. Serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, they also sold coffee, cakes and pies. Sodas were a nickel and sandwiches, hamburgers, and hot dogs went for a dime. Nellie carried cigarettes too; two packs of Camels were a quarter. Word spread through town and Nellie became known for her one-pot dishes: her beef stew, her spaghetti, her lima beans, tamale pie, beef chili, and especially her chicken soup.

Opening ads in the Colusa Sun running for the month of February 1932 read:
AMERICAN CAFE — 120 FIFTH STREET — NOW OPEN
Coffee, Pies & Cakes
24 Hour Service
Reasonable Rates

On a crisp fall morning after Mass, while Carl and Lawrence perched on the swivel stools at the end of the counter at the Golden Eagle and made small talk with Mrs. Nellie Chatfield as she fixed their usual Sunday breakfast of fried bacon and eggs, Babe walked in. Mrs. Chatfield’s sixteen-year-old daughter seldom showed up before 10:00 any morning. She liked to sleep in.

Employed by Frederickson & Watson Construction Company, traveling from job to job and rooming in boarding houses wherever their work took them, Lawrence and Carl came to Colusa in August of 1932 to work on the new weir construction. It was a fifteen-hundred-foot cement dam built to regulate the Sacramento River flow. Work was hard to come by, and the brothers went where the jobs were.

They became Sunday morning regulars and Babe always waited for the two of them to come in before making her entrance down the stairs. She sat at a nearby table while her mother cooked her a rare steak. Lawrence sat at the counter eyeing her. Babe was fast-talking and quick-witted: quick to flirt, quick to laugh, and quick to snap back. Snappy-eyed and snappy-mouthed, he thought she was one snappy girl.

Lawrence was the talker of the two lanky men and he and Babe bantered back and forth, laughing and telling stories. Carl said little when Babe was nearby; he may have been twenty-six and seven years older than Lawrence, but he still had the innocence of a farm boy.

The brothers missed their family and home-cooked food. They liked coming to the café and liked Mrs. Chatfield. She reminded them of their mother; she too believed in God, hard work, and common sense. They respected that in a woman. In return, Nellie Chatfield admired the men, especially Carl. He was Catholic, dependable, upright, a worker, quiet and kind, and he didn’t smoke or drink. This man was a good prospect for her daughter and he would be a decent addition to the family. Yes, Carl Clemens was a grand choice in Nellie Chatfield’s book. She wished she was younger.

Comfortable around Mrs. Chatfield, Carl talked to her about the heat and the bugs, discussed the differences between hay and rice farming, and went on about Longhorns and Herefords and Leghorns and Rhode Island Reds. They could talk about almost anything. It was Babe he was tongue-tied around. His sweaty palms wouldn’t come out of his pockets when she was near, his long legs stayed wrapped and glued to the swivel chair post, his large feet locking him on.

Lawrence thought Babe was spoiled, getting up late and being waited on hand and foot by her mother, but he was drawn to her. She was not like the Catholic girls back home, not like most girls he knew. She seemed older and bolder, quick and outspoken. But Lawrence didn’t interest Babe—Carl did—Carl, who didn’t say a word to her, who could hardly look her in the eye, who could only bow his head and lower his lashes and twiddle his thumbs. Perhaps she didn’t understand that Carl was naïve and had never been with a woman. Babe wasn’t used to being ignored. She set her sights on this good-looking, tall, brawny Minnesota farmer, determined to have him. She went after Carl like a western cattle queen and lassoed him like a rodeo calf. He never even felt the branding. Too shy to make a move on his own, he was roped and tied before he hit the ground.

Lawrence, upset about their impending marriage, did everything he could to talk his brother out of it.
“This woman is not going to be good for you,” he warned. “She’s not the kind of woman to marry. She’ll only cause you heartache and trouble.”
Carl turned a deaf ear.
And so, within six months of meeting one another in the Golden Eagle Cafe, in an early morning Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes in Colusa, California, my father married my mother.
As it turned out, Lawrence wasn’t jealous. He was right.

Feb 4, 1933: Marriage of Noreen Ellen “Babe” Chatfield & Carl John Clemens, in Colusa, Colusa Co., California

Noreen in middle and Carl at right. Unknown who the other couple or children are. Pictures were taken near or at the time of their marriage.

Feb 4, 1933: Colusa Sun-Herald, Colusa, Colusa Co., California:
Noreen Chatfield Weds Stockton Youth at Colusa Ceremony
COLUSA–At an early hour Saturday morning Miss Noreen Chatfield became the bride of Carl Clemens of Stockton at a ceremony performed at the Lady or Lourdes Catholic Church immediately following 8 o’clock mass services. Father Renwald, assistant priest, officiated in the absence of Father James Vaughan.
At the close of the service the bride and bridegroom left for Stockton where they will make their home. Their honeymoon has not been planned although they expect to visit the east sometime this summer. Clemens has many friends and relatives there.

Miss Chatfield is the daughter of Mrs. N.C. Chatfield of Colusa. They have resided here for the past year, coming from Chico. During that time two of Mrs. Chatfield’s daughters have become brides. Mrs. James Fouch, Jr., who was married here recently, is a daughter of Mrs. Chatfield.

At the impressive ceremony this morning Margaret Anderson of Chico, a close friend of the bride, was the bridesmaid. Lawrence Clemens, brother of the groom, was best man.
The bride is a girl of many charms and has a large coterie of well wishing friends.

These photos were taken the day of the wedding. Babe wrote on the back of the below: These are my uncle, my brother Roy (he’s just a little shaver, like all the rest) & his girl. They have been going together for fifteen years. Someday maybe… She is Jo Chambers.

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
1933 • Los Angeles, California ~ Shortly after their marriage and with his job in Colusa finished with the completion of the weir and bridge, Carl and Babe moved to Los Angeles for his new job building highways; Frederickson & Watson had the contract to construct a portion of the Grapevine (Highway 99). A hard worker, Dad was always employed—even through the Depression when many were without jobs.

My brother was conceived in Los Angeles, but Babe and Carl went to Chico for the birth so Nellie could help her youngest with her first child. Larry was born January 14, 1934, in the Van Ornum Maternity Home in Chico, a “blue baby,” the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around his neck. A couple of weeks after the birth, the young couple and their newborn son returned to their home in Los Angeles, launching the next generation of family stories.

1934: California Voter Registrations, La Liebre Precinct, Los Angeles Co. California:
Clemens, Carl J, Sec 12, T8N, R19X, D

1934 • Watsonville, California ~ In 1934, Carl and Babe moved to Watsonville, a small agricultural town on the central coast 95 miles south of San Francisco. They wanted to be near Verda and George, and Carl got a job working for the Union Ice Company through George, who was his closest friend. For years he worked with him at Union Ice, first as a deliveryman, then as a manager. Along with regular home deliveries, Carl also filled commercial ice vending machines, delivered ice to all the restaurants, and to the huge army base filled with hundreds of tents and soldiers near Watsonville. 

Jan 14, 1934: Birth of Gordon Lawrence “Larry” Clemens, 1st of 5 children of Carl Clemens & Noreen “Babe” Chatfield, at 10:00 o’clock in the morning at the Van Ornum Maternity Home in Chico, Butte Co., California; delivered by Dr. Meyers with Nurse Smith attending. He was born 21 inches long and weighed 7 lbs, 5 oz.

Feb 4, 1934: Baptism of Gordon Lawrence “Larry” Clemens, by Father James B. Dermondy on Sunday at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Chico, Butte Co., California. His Godparents were Mr. & Mrs. John D. Hubbard, who also gave him a baby spoon as a birth gift as noted in baby book.

Photo of John Dixon Hubbard’s was in Larry’s baby book, on the back written in our mother’s handwriting: “Capt. John Hubbard, Larry’s Godfather”

Feb 12, 1878 – Aug 17, 1960
Died at age 82 in Oroville, Butte Co., buried at Paradise Cemetery in Paradise, Butte Co., California

Obituary for John Dixon Hubbard:
The Paradise Post of Friday, 19 August 1960 included on pg. 1 the following article:
John D. Hubbard Succumbs at 82

John D. Hubbard, 82, a mining engineer who had mining interests in this area for 45 years, and was one of Paradise’s best-known residents, died Wednesday morning in a hospital in Oroville. He had been sick for some time and had suffered a stroke followed by virus pneumonia. He had a heart condition and his physician sent him to the hospital the day before for examination and tests.

Hubbard was one of the owners of the Lucky John draft mine in Little Butte Canyon and came here to work the mine long before he and his wife moved here and built their home on Wagstaff Road in 1937. His mining experience was extensive and took him to many parts of the West and even to Korea.

Born in San Francisco on February 12, 1878, Hubbard was educated in San Francisco schools and then studied assaying. After working as an assayer in Calaveras, Butte, and Siskiyou counties, as well as in San Francisco, he studied mineralogy, chemistry, and geology at the University of California.

On November 20, 1902, he married Stella Terese Male, also a native San Franciscan and daughter of a well-known merchant. Their golden wedding anniversary was celebrated here in 1952 with a jubilee mass said by Father Bernard Hubbard, S. J., the famous “glacier priest,” John Hubbard’s younger brother.

He and his wife lived in Korea from 1906 to 1912. He worked for several mining companies there as a metallurgist. He was superintendent of a large cyanide percolation plant at Taracol, Korea, and planned the largest gold mill in the world at Kosung. While in Korea he invented a slag furnace to treat the slag from the cyanide process which was highly successful. The Hubbard furnace has been erected and used all over the world. After returning from Korea Hubbard entered Santa Clara University in order to become a graduate mining engineer. Before World War I he worked as superintendent of placer and hydraulic mines in California and Nevada. Enlisting in the Army as a private in April 1917, he attended officer school and was commissioned a captain in the Corps of Engineers. After the war, he remained in the reserve. He was active in organizing the Chico National Guard unit, which he commanded from 1926 to 1930.

He was usually referred to by his military title of captain by everyone who knew him. In Paradise, he was affectionately known as “Cap Hubbard.” Returning to mining, he became superintendent of the Salmon River Mining Company in Siskiyou County. He was interested in a number of mines in this area, and even in recent years had plans for developing some of them. At the time of his death, he still owned the Terra Lava mine in Little Butte, near the Mineral Slide mine.

The Hubbard’s moved to Chico in 1918 and Hubbard was in charge of the irrigation system of the Phelan and Parrott ranches. During WW II he did work for the government in locating iron ore deposits in California. Hubbard was very interested in the Boy Scouts and helped organize them in the Chico area. He was proud of having the Silver Beaver Award, the highest honor in scouting. It was awarded to him in 1957, and at that time he was the oldest Eagle Scout in the United States. He was a charter member of the San Francisco Engineers Club, of which ex-President Herbert Hoover was also a charter member, and of the Western Mining Council, as well as of the Butte County Mining Council. He contributed many mining papers to various mining companies.

In addition to his wife Hubbard is survived by his brother, Father Hubbard; a sister, Mrs. Earl J. Stanley of Santa Clara, and several nieces and nephews. Father Hubbard is at present in Alaska and efforts were being made yesterday to reach him. Funeral services are pending at the Chapel of the Pines.

Mar 13, 1935: Birth of Carleen Barbara Clemens, 2nd of 5 children of Carl Clemens & Noreen “Babe” Chatfield, in Watsonville, Santa Cruz Co., California

1936: California Voter Registrations, Watsonville No. 20, Santa Cruz Co., California:
Clemens, Carl J.—Democrat—Salesman………………….1118 Lincoln St., Watsonville
Clemens, Mrs. Noreen E.—Democrat—Housewife…….1118 Lincoln St., Watsonville

1936: U.S. City Directory for Watsonville, Santa Cruz Co., California (pg 308):
Clemens, Carl J (Noreen ) driver Union Ice Co h109a Stanford

1938: California Voter Registrations, Watsonville No. 9, Santa Cruz Co., California:
Clemens, Mrs. Noreen E.—Democrat—Housewife…….29 W. Fifth St., Watsonville

1938: U.S. City Directory for Watsonville, Santa Cruz Co., California (pg 339):
Clemens, Carl J (Noreen ) driver h29 W 5th

Dec 3, 1939: Birth of Elizabeth Ann “Betty/Liz” Clemens, 3rd of 5 children of Carl John Clemens & Noreen “Babe” Chatfield, in Watsonville, Santa Cruz Co., California

1940: California Voter Registrations, Watsonville No. 9, Santa Cruz Co., California:
Clemens, Carl J.—Democrat—Salesman………………….29 W. Fifth St., Watsonville
Clemens, Mrs. Noreen E.—Democrat—Housewife…….29 W. Fifth St., Watsonville

1940: U.S. City Directory for Watsonville, Santa Cruz Co., California (pg 343):
Clemens, Carl J (Noreen ) driver Union Ice Co h29 W 5th

Apr 12, 1940: Federal Census for Watsonville, Santa Cruz Co., California:
Clemens, Carl: Head, male, white, married, age 34, born Minnesota, delivery salesman for ice industry, completed 4th year high school, 60 hrs worked week prior to census, 52 hours worked per week in 1939
Norine: Wife, female, white, married, age 24, born California, housewife, completed 2nd year high school (Noreen)
Larry: Son, male, white, single, age 6, born California
Caroleen: Daughter, female, white, single, age 5, born California (Carleen)
Elizabeth A: Daughter, female, white, single, age 3/12, born California

Oct 16, 1940: U.S. WWII Draft Card:
Name: Carl John Clemens
Gender: Male
Race: White
Age: 35
Relationship to Draftee: Self (Head)
Birth Date: 25 Sep 1905
Birth Place: Rochester, Minnesota, USA
Residence Place: Watsonville, Santa Cruz Co., California
Registration Date: 16 Oct 1940
Registration Place: Watsonville, Santa Cruz Co., California
Employer: Union Ice Co
Weight: 180
Complexion: Light
Eye Color: Gray
Hair Color: Brown
Height: 6
Next of Kin: Noreen Ellen Clemens

Nov 22, 1941: Letter from my mother (Noreen)(age 26) to my father’s sister, Amelia Conway (age 39), living in Byron, Minnesota:
Watsonville, Cal.
Nov. 22, 1941.
Dear Amelia and all:
The last letter I had from you was dated July 11, whether I have written since then I don’t know but I probably haven’t. Not much to write about. I started working in an apple dryer here the first of October September and got through the day before Thanksgiving. I sure was glad to be through. I don’t mind working out for a couple of months but I don’t want to any longer, my house is in terrible shape. I had an old lady in who took care of Betty and got Larry and Carleen off to school and that was about all she did do.

We have put the house up for sale and if we do get a buyer I want to buy or rent a place in the country. I want a cow and chickens and a pig family etc. Milk is 14¢ a qt., eggs 50¢ a dozen, butter 45¢ a lb. and all other prices are according. It takes every nickel you make just to eat. Meat is such a luxury even hamburger is 31¢ a lb. and pork chops are 43¢, as for beef, well I don’t even glance at steaks any more, you cant buy a steak for less than 50¢ and it takes two big ones for my family.

You asked me in your letter to send some snapshots but I haven’t any, we took three rolls while on our vacation and Betty got into the boxes and pulled the films out before I ever had a chance to send them away but we have some large ones for Xmas this year again. I just ordered them, in fact the lady came and took my order just as I started to write this. The proofs are very good, what the pictures will be like I don’t know. I hope they are good. My sister and her family from Vallejo just drove up so will finish this later. (note: Verda and George Day)

Sunday p.m.
Days left about 3:30 this afternoon, things are so hectic while they are here. There are George and Verda and four kids. Jr. is nearly seventeen and the baby is a year old. George and Carl are such good friends, they really think the world of each other. The(y) go off out in the car or someplace by themselves and talk by the hour. I would think they would get tired.

I guess I haven’t written since we got our new furniture. We really couldn’t afford it but it was such a wonderful chance, we’ll never again get such a break. This couple we know broke up and we took over the contract on the furniture. It is just like new, they had it about a year and with only one little baby it hadn’t gotten scratched a bit.

We got a chesterfield set, dark red, blue rug, rug pad, occasional chair, table, floor lamp and big mirror to hang over the fireplace for the living room, a dinette set, walnut colored with cream seats, breakfast set (I sold it and kept my own as mine was a more expensive one) a Hot Point washing machine, white and a swell big white enameled stove. I traded my old washing machine for a new white and black Mix Master. Altogether we got $425 worth of stuff for $204. We pay $11.50 a month on it. I sure am glad to have some decent looking stuff, my old living room furniture was in an awful shape, well, you can imagine. I burned the old rug and sold the chesterfield and one chair for only six dollars. The other chair was a very comfortable one so I kept it and some day I hope to cover it in bright flowered chintz and use it for a bedroom chair.

Everyone here is fine, the kids and I all had an attack of stomach flu but it only lasted one day each. Betty is so cute and growing so tall, she talks a blue streak, she calls her daddy, Carl, which I think is cute but he doesn’t think much of. Her hair is blonde and real curly and her eyes blue and they just sparkle with the devil in them, then she has a dimple in each cheek and the evenest little white teeth and pinkest cheeks. I wish you would see her before she outgrows her baby cuteness. Larry and Carleen are so proud of her and just love to hear people say that she is cute, they want to take her every place they go, just to show her off.

We finished off the last of our Thanksgiving turkey today (yes, I still have the frame to make soup with tomorrow) we wouldn’t have had a turkey as it cost 38¢ a lb. this year but I won one last Sunday playing Bingo and it only cost us 60¢. We played six times.

Now that I am through working I must get started on some sewing. I have pajamas to make, coats to make for Betty and Carleen, a neighbor lady gave me two lovely coats, one a gray which I will make over for Carleen. I made her a gray tweed out of an old coat of mine and its as nice as any $10 one I ever saw in a store. The other coat she gave me is of white flannel. I’m going to dye it blue and make her a coat and hat (Betty I mean). Then I have a quilt to line and quilt, a quilt to put together for Betty’s bed. The top is made out of little squares of nursery flannel, peices (sic) left over from pajamas. I line it with flannel and put pink or blue flannel on the bottom side. Then I have kitchen curtains to make, I don’t know where to start on it all but I think I had better make Betty’s coat and hat as I gave her old one to my sister today for her baby, it was such a nice one I paid $5 for them and she only wore it one winter, she has outgrown it now. I told her to give it back to me when her baby out grew it as I may need it again some day. Betty has so many cute clothes that she has outgrown but if I had any more I suppose they would be boys and I couldn’t use them anyway.

Well, this turned into almost a novel but I must stop now, Betty is under the card table and she keeps bumping it and making me scribble all over.
Write when you can and my love to all.
Noreen

Dec 7, 1941 • Vallejo ~ The family gathered quietly around the radio—their link to the outside world—listening to the news about the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor, attacking our naval base on Oahu. Our country had serious concerns that our coast would be invaded by Japan, and right after the bombing, all the local Japanese were interned or relocated. There were blackout sheets on all the windows. Everyone had flashcards so they could tell the difference between American and Japanese planes. Between 1942 and 1945, sugar and butter were rationed and the government issued scrip to buy meat. You couldn’t buy a new car because they weren’t being made; all manufacturing efforts went into making vehicles for the war. You could buy a used car, but gas was rationed.

As there was a food shortage, they picked raspberries as a family. The Japanese were no longer there to work the fields and the remaining pickers were employed in defense jobs. Larry, who was eight, and Carleen seven, picked all they could eat and could eat all they wanted. The farmers paid them a nickel a basket for what they didn’t consume. Our parents made two or three dollars a day. Larry and Carleen made a quarter each, their first earned money. Dad bought them piggy banks so they could save their wages.

Mom and the kids were staying with Mom’s sister and her family for a few days. Her sister had somehow secured a pound of bacon and the next morning she cooked it for breakfast. The children were at the kids’ table in the other room. When she returned to the kitchen to fix their plates, she found that Mom had eaten most all of the bacon.

She chewed out her younger sister. “Babe, how could you do that?” she snapped. “What about the kids?”
Mom’s defense was that they were too young to know. “Besides,” she sniffed, “I haven’t had any bacon lately.”

Mar 28, 1942: Birth of Claudia Clemens, 4th of 5 children of Carl Clemens & Noreen “Babe” Chatfield, in Vallejo, Solano Co. California

1942: California Voter Registrations, Vallejo No. 66, Solano Co., California:
Clemens, Mrs. Noreen E.—13 Reis, housewife, Dem.

1942: California Voter Registrations, Watsonville No. 8, Santa Cruz Co., California:
Clemens, Carl J.—Democrat—Salesman………………….29 W. Fifth St., Watsonville
Clemens, Mrs. Noreen E.—Democrat—Housewife…….29 W. Fifth St., Watsonville

Jul 23, 1942: Death of Charles Henry Chatfield (age 71), father of Noreen “Babe” (Chatfield) Clemens, at the Butte County Hospital in Oroville, California; of cardiac failure and malnutrition

Jul 24, 1942: Chico Enterprise, Chico, Butte Co., California:
C.H. Chatfield Taken by Death
Charles H. Chatfield, widely known Chico resident for the past 25 years, and retired rancher, died at a local hospital yesterday following a short illness.
Chatfield was born in Florence, Colorado, September 21, 1870 and has been a resident of this community for 25 years. The family residence was at 666 East 16th street. He followed his occupation as a rancher until his retirement a few years ago.
He leaves to mourn him, his wife Nellie Chatfield of Chico and the following children, Charles J. of San Francisco, Leo W. of Camptonville, Howard F. and Roy E. of Chico, Gordon of Martinez, Arden with the U.S. Army, Mrs. Nellie McElhiney of Oakland, Mrs. Verda Day of Vallejo, Mrs. Noreen Clemens of Vallejo, and Mrs. Irma Fouch of Yuba City. Twelve grandchildren also survive.
One brother, Elmer Chatfield of Wyoming, and two sisters, Mrs. Ella Small of Superior, Arizona, and Mrs. Calla Joslyn of Santa Monica, California.
Friends are invited to attend the funeral services Saturday morning at 9:30 o’clock at the Black and Johnson Funeral home. Rev. Father Patrick J. Cronin of St. John the Baptist Catholic church will read the last rites and the interment will be held in Chico cemetery.

Jul 25, 1942: Charles Henry Chatfield is buried at the Chico Cemetery in Chico near the corner of a storage shed. He lay in an unmarked grave until two grandchildren had a headstone made for him 61 years after his death.

Back row: Grandma Nellie Chatfield (in shade), Charley Chatfield, Mamie Rosborough, Carl Clemens, Ina (Chatfield) Fouch, Herb Rosborough, Velma (Turnbull) Chatfield, Ethel Chatfield ??? (Leo’s wife)???, Jim Fouch (in shadow), Vera Northrup (Jo’s sister), Russell Northrup (Jo’s brother-in-law), Jo Chambers
Front row: Leo Chatfield, Betty Clemens (girl), Noreen “Babe” (Chatfield) Clemens, Verda (Chatfield) Day, Larry Clemens (boy), Howard Chatfield, Roy Chatfield (looking down), Nellie May (Chatfield) McElhiney

1943 • Sonora, California ~ In 1943, the family moved to Sonora, the county seat of Tuolumne County in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where Dad traded in his dark blue uniform for a suit and tie, managing the Sprouse Reitz on Washington Street. The former farmer, construction worker, iceman, and pinball wizard comfortably settled into small-town life, running a five and dime and raising his growing family.

1944: California Voter Registrations, Vallejo No. 84, Solano Co:
Clemens, Mrs. Noreen E.—13 Reis, housewife, Dem.

1940-1944: California Voter Registrations, Sonora Number 8, Tuolumne Co. (pg 46):
Clemens, Carl J. …………..Store Mgr. Sonora Dem
Clemens, Mrs. Noreen …..Sales Clerk Sonora Dem

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
1946 • Sonora ~ No Sunday or Holy Day passed without Dad taking the children to Mass. Some Sundays they attended St. Anne’s in Columbia, other Sundays they went to Mass in Jamestown, sometimes they drove to Tuolumne, during summer camping trips they heard Mass sitting on the hard benches at the outdoor theatre in Pinecrest, but most often they went to St. Patrick’s in town. They traveled around because Dad passed the collection plate and served communion as there were not enough altar boys. Mom no longer attended church; forced to go as a child, she avoided it whenever she could.

Dad was partial to the girls, harder on Larry. When he was fourteen, Dad found out from Mr. Burns that Larry was in his cigar store too many times after school playing the pinball machines.

My father remembered his own long-ago flirting with gambling and pinball. He dragged my brother down to the basement of the store and used his belt on him, the only beating Larry ever remembers getting. (Carleen says he has a bad memory. He does. He forgot about the whipping he got for setting the bedroom curtains on fire.) Dad was going to beat that lesson into his son or beat those impulses out of him. My father occasionally played Friday night poker at the Elks club, but he was careful, very careful. He hadn’t forgotten about his inability to keep his compulsion at bay, the ones he’d cast from himself as a younger man.

There were no shades of gray softening my father’s edges, he was only black and white. Nor was there deviance from the rules—on his part—or anyone else’s. Having moral fiber as starched as his collar, Dad also drew a hard line with my mother’s behavior and kept her on a short leash. She was smoking cigarettes, which he hated, and drinking some, which he also hated. He bought her anything she needed, but controlled the purse strings; she didn’t have money of her own, not even pin money, even though she worked in the store. But Mom wasn’t to be controlled; she was going to do what she wanted to do, when she wanted to do it, and Dad couldn’t stop her. This was about the time (after thirteen years of marriage, four children, and two years before my arrival) that Mother began to unravel.

1946 • Sonora ~ Squatting on the front stoop in the low afternoon sun, Betty, all of six, and Claudia just four, sat wondering what kind of trouble they could get into when their plans were cut short. An eerie howling, like a trapped animal with its foot caught in a snare, floated through the front screen door from the top of the staircase above them.

“What is that?” they whispered, giggling and poking each other.
“Owoooooooooooo! Owoooooooooooo!” they imitated the sound as if they were wolves calling to one another in the woods.
“Who is that crazy person?” Betty wondered aloud to Claudia.
Carleen, who was twelve, heard them. “Shut up, she hissed through the screen door. “It isn’t funny, it’s Mom.”

Something happened to Mom, something snapped. This was the first time my mother tried to kill herself. They took her away for a while until she could get better, but she never did, not really.

Other than Mondays, Mom seldom got out of bed until the kids left for school. Betty had her hair braided on Monday and wore the same dress for a week; by Friday she itched on every square inch of her body. The rest of the week Mom slept in, waited for the older kids to be gone, then got up and fixed herself a steak, lit a cigarette and vanished into the shallow depths of her westerns and True Crime Magazine.

Although no longer compelled to clean the house or take care of her children, she still managed to cook occasionally, making meals in her heavy black cast-iron kettle or her Dutch oven, one-pot meals like her mother cooked.

She used to bake chicken on summer Sundays and make roast beef for winter Sundays. She used to make scratch cakes with Bakers chocolate frosting and bake pineapple upside-down cakes. The family missed the smell of her homemade biscuits and fresh apple pies, her rolled sugar cookies made from leftover strips of dough, sprinkled with pats of butter and spilled cinnamon. She also once loved to sew—the hum of her Singer now silent—making the girls’ clothes and embroidering the top hems of white sheets, pillowcases, and tea towels like her mother taught her, like she taught Carleen, like Carleen would teach me one day.

My father believed that life was hard work. He believed you had to earn everything you got, and that to get anything done right you had to do it yourself. He believed that you always finished what you started, and that if something was worth doing, it is worth doing right, and doing it right the first time. All these beliefs served him. They also served my mother; as she had no such beliefs, he picked up her slack. On Saturdays he did the heavy cleaning: mopping floors, changing sheets, wiping sticky doorknobs, scrubbing ten grimy handprints of five kids off the walls. By this time, my mother’s idea of housework was to sweep a room with a glance.

My mother, brother, and sisters loved to read. They regularly checked out books from the local library, and in every room at home someone would be sprawled somewhere with their nose buried in one. Larry’s favorites were historical adventures, dog stories, and biographies. He’d buy books when he wanted a special volume, and read them in his room. Betty read on her bed while Carleen read on the couch, Claudia read on the front porch and Mom read in the kitchen. Dad rarely picked up a book. He had work to do and saw no sense frittering his life away reading things other than the newspaper and an occasional Reader’s Digest or Saturday Evening Post. The family rule was lights out at 10:00. Our father was customarily asleep by 8:30 though Mom stayed up late reading; the kids read under their covers by flashlight far into the night.

Dec 24, 1946: On his twelfth Christmas, Larry received a small five-year leather-bound diary. He faithfully wrote in it most every day; Included here references to our immediate family:

1947 • Diary of Larry Clemens, page one (ages 12 and 13)
Jan 1  Am just getting over sickness and added a small piece to my room in which I keep my books. Could not write diary in ink.
Jan 2  Today I bought another book, The Adventure’s of Huckleberry Finn, which makes 107 books (not including diary) that I have
Jan 4  Mrs. Hoe came up to my room and visited me. We played rummy. My mother also gave me her bookcase!
Jan 12  Today all of us except Carleen and Betty went for ride to Pinecrest. The lake was all dried up except for patches of ice
Jan 14  Today I am entering into my teens, and for my 13th birthday I got a pair of Levis.
Jan 19  Today I went for a hike with my sister (Carleen). We went to Phoenix Lake and it was mostly iced over.

Jan 21, 1947: Carl Clemens is elected to the Sonora City Council

Jan 26  Today I nearly have finished reading Huckleberry Finn. I bought some campfire marshmallows; they are the first ones I have seen since before the War
Jan 28  Today it was and still is snowing. The snow was very thick and I was in some snow fights. Changed mattresses with Mother’s and Father’s

Feb 7  Today a lady gave me a 50 cent tip on my morning paper route, and said, “You’re the best paper boy I ever had and I hope I don’t lose you.” I got my report card
Feb 19  Today is Ash Wednesday so I put some ashes at church for one hour mass. Carleen got into my room again and took 15 packs of gum
Feb 24  Today I counted my books and I have a sum of 147 books including pocketbooks. Got a piece of plyboard for my bed (too soft)
Feb 25  Today I cleaned and rearranged my room a small bit. Father bought a radio. As soon as I get enough money I can buy it from him
Feb 26  Today they had a picture on how they make books. Bought a stand to put radio on by my bed. Cleaned my room, got Current Events.

Mar 30  Aunt Elizabeth phoned long distance to tell my parents that my grandfather had died this afternoon. I went to church to inform them.

Apr 1  Received pay of five dollars and paid father on radio
Apr 4  Cleaned up room thoroughly and gave the kids things which I did not want anymore. Dad made me walk up and down the stairs 100 times for going down too fast
Apr 6  Today was Easter Sunday. At the fairgrounds I won an Easter basket in a contest. I also found a prize egg but Carleen broke it.
Apr 7  Went back to school today from Easter vacation. Am now reading a book about stamps. Gave the kids most of my old comics
Apr 30  Carleen broke her arm again (both time single fractures)

May 8  Carleen and I went to carnival. I rode the ferris wheel 4 times and treated Carleen 3 times. Did not have very good luck at the games
May 11  Went to the rodeo after the parade. Worked some for father. Went to show and saw Song of the South
May 18  Carleen may have appendicitis. She went to the hospital. Made a list of about 20 books for Merit Badges. Did a little bit of carving
May 19  Bought an issue of Varsity. Took my bike to have flat tire fixed. Took my radio to hospital for Carleen
May 25  The whole family went to Yosemite and saw all of the famous points of interests; Pat Conway and another sailor went with us. I climbed up near the two famous falls (Yosemite and Bridal).

Mom’s family visited more often as they lived closer. Her brother Roy and his sweetheart Jo, and her brother Gordon came on occasion. Her brother Charley with his wife Velma came more often. Mom’s sisters’ families visited, Verda and George and their children Junior and Bob who were George’s sons from his first marriage, along with Jim, Marceline, and Judy, (Jeff came along later). Her sister Ina with Jim with their girls, Joanne and Shirley also visited; (Jimmy, the youngest, like me, was born later too). Company was always staying at the house.

When our cousin Marceline turned seventeen (the same age Mom was when she married Dad), she became engaged to a young man named Roy. She wrote my mother of her wedding plans; Mom penned back a four-page letter in her cursive handwriting:

May 2, 1947: Letter from Noreen to her niece, Marceline Day:
Dear Marceline:
Received your letter when I got home late last night. Carl didn’t know where he had put it, but I found it by accident, otherwise I never would have found it.

Marceline, I don’t know this boy and therefore don’t know anything one way or the other about him, but I am going to put in my 2 cents worth. I don’t care who you marry but if you marry as young as you are you will regret it. I did, your mother did and so have hundreds of women I know and every darned one of us wishes we had waited until we were older. From 16 until 26 is the best time of your life. You may think you will be divinely happy and you probably will be—for six months. By then the glamour is gone. I tell you going out on dates with a boy is a lot different than having to look at him across the table day in and day out, going to bed with him night after night; it may be swell at first, but oh you get your belly full in such a short time, and I don’t mean that with a double meaning, but you probably will. You know Marceline, you were raised to be a good Catholic and with your heredity you will probably have an immense family if you don’t do something, have you thought about that? If you intend to follow rhythm, for heaven’s sake, get some good advice on it and follow it, come hell or high water! But for your own sake, for God’s sake, change your mind before it is too late. When you’re married you’re married for a long time, don’t go into it with the idea in the back of your mind that if you don’t like it you can get a divorce, go on and finish school and get a little experience first, don’t ever fear that you won’t get another chance. You know another thing Marce, you have never had to skimp in your life, you don’t know how to stretch money, and boy, the price of things now you are going to have to skimp. You may think now that it will be fun to be working, but when you have to leave work you have to shop, then hurry home and cook. Oh, I know, your thinking, “well, we will eat out,” but you will be darned lucky if you get to eat out once a week, there is the rent, the gas lights, and dozens of other items that you don’t think of now, but they will pop up and soon there will be one continuous struggle to keep your head above water. Your pride will keep you from appealing for help from your folks or his. I know you don’t believe any of this is going to happen but you wait and see, the same thing has happened to so many thousands of others. Why do you think it won’t to you?

Boy, if I had the chance to live my life over again do you think I would have gotten married at my age. I’ll say I wouldn’t have.

He may be wonderful to you and probably is, but did you ever hear that men change, once they get you, they don’t have to court you anymore—they don’t have to be so considerate of you. Another thing, they have a wife to support now, so he has to work and work hard, they are too darned tired to go out and it can get pretty deadly staying at home night after night. Maybe you think now that you won’t mind staying home, but when a person is young they should go out and have a good time. Time enough to sit home by the fire when you are old, and if there are children then you are tied down.

Don’t do it, kid. Don’t do it. He may be a swell guy, don’t drink, don’t smoke, and don’t gamble. Well, Carl doesn’t do those things either but do you think I have had any bed of roses? If I could change places with Carl’s sister Elizabeth, who has never married, has a good job and is her own boss, would I do it. I would jump at the chance and don’t think I wouldn’t. If she wants to buy a new coat or dress or take a trip does she have to ask anyone first. No, she is her own boss. I feel sure that I am just wasting my time, but you can’t say you weren’t told, and I haven’t tried to mince words.

We expect to be in Minnesota or on the road from the 7^th of June until the 29^th. But if you still decide that you are going to take the leap then I wish you all the happiness in the world, but I hope and pray that you change your mind before it is too late.
Lots of love,
Noreen

P.S. Tell your mother that Carleen’s arm is coming along fine. It must have not been a bad break as it didn’t hurt her a bit like the first time. I am going to the doctor with her tomorrow. (Carleen had broken her arm the first time when she ran it through the wringer washer. This second break was when she fell off her bike.)
N.C.

Marceline was crushed by my mother’s letter, unable to understand from where she spoke. Everyone else had already tried to talk her out of marrying Roy, and now her staunchest ally had turned against her. She was so in love with this big handsome football player, how could everyone be saying these things to her, especially Babe? When Marceline showed the letter to her fiancé, Roy said, “This is the last you’ll ever have anything to do with her.” She never spoke to my mother again.

1947 • Larry’s diary (age 13)
Jun 4  Graduated from 8^th grade elementary school. I got a wristwatch and binder as gifts. Went to graduation party and danced with Barbara Miles
Jun 5  At 2 PM left for 3 week vacation to stay at George and Verda Day‘s home in Redwood City as Mom and Dad going to Minnesota
Jun 18  Received letter from Mom and Dad in Rochester, Minnesota. They had an accident in their car but no one hurt.
Jun 21  Postcard from Mom and Dad in Minnesota
Jun 22  Marceline Day got married to Roy today. Reception here at George and Verda Day home after wedding.
Jun 29  Mom came to pick me up. She brought my cousins Shirley and JoAnne Fouch and Carleen with her. They stayed overnight.
Jun 30  Went to So. San Francisco to pick up Betty and Claudia at Aunt Velma’s and Uncle Charlie‘s. I was in Redwood City for 26 days

Jul 7  I quit my afternoon paper routes so I could work at my job in Dad‘s store
Jul 9  Went fishing this evening but only caught mosquito bites
Jul 13  Went fishing and caught 4 perch. Mom and Dad were in boat and they caught 2 fish including a 14” long catfish
Jul 23  Have lived in Sonora 4 years today. Picked blackberries from Sonora Creek

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
As soon as they were old enough, the kids worked at Dad’s store after school and during the summers. Betty and Claudia made a nickel an hour, Larry and Carleen earned fifty cents. As holidays and seasons changed, they helped Dad dress the storefront windows. They swept, supplied, serviced, stocked, stickered, and sold. They saved part of their earnings and spent the rest; they bought ice cream cones at The Dipper near the Uptown Theatre (a long narrow building with an aisle down the middle and a balcony where you could smoke during the movie) and root beer floats at Brandi’s Ice Cream Parlor. Movies were a dime, comic books were a nickel, and gumballs were a penny. In 1947 you could buy lots of things for a penny.

1947 • Minnesota ~ Dad’s first trip back to the family farm was for his mother’s funeral ten years earlier. He and Mom took the long train trip to the midwest, bringing Larry who was almost four and Carleen who was a year younger. Farm kids were seldom catered to, and this woman from California indulged her children, especially Carleen, giving her daughter anything she wanted while the Minnesota relatives watched and raised their mid-western eyebrows. My father been gone from home for fifteen years, and hadn’t spoken to his mother during that whole time; he was sure she didn’t care about him. What he didn’t know is that she cried every day, hoping each time the phone rang that it was her son who’d run away to California without even saying good-bye.

Our parents returned in June 1947 for his father’s funeral. Larry stayed with the Day family for three weeks, Carleen went to the Fouchs, and Betty and Claudia stayed with Uncle Charley and Aunt Velma; this was the year before I was born. There wasn’t much to do on the farm and Mom, finally being free of her children, wanted to go, go, go. Never wanting to sit still, she wanted to see the country, have some fun and kick up some dust. Instead she visited her in-laws’ farms, meeting the Clemens, Conway, and Nigon clans.

The family liked Mom. Well, the men and the kids liked Mom with her easy way and sense of humor. She had an air about her that made most of the women uneasy, nor was she serious about duty. The farm women took care of duty, busy raising corn while my mother was out making hay. They lived the better part of their busy days in aprons and house dresses, wore sensible Red Wings or work boots, used no nail polish or make-up. They had chores to do, men to feed, and kids to care for—from dawn until ten and often back again until dawn. They knew Mom was of a different flock. She dressed, sat, and spoke differently, wasn’t as proper and reserved as they were, not as buttoned up.

There is a picture taken at the Terrace Room at the Oaks, a restaurant overlooking the Mississippi River. My mother is front and middle, wearing a low cut black dress, legs easily crossed at the knee—not the ankle—sandwiched between a handsome uniformed Pat Conway, his arm draped casually over her shoulder, and Dad, his hand discreetly tucked under hers. No, Babe was not a Minnesotan, and she was definitely not like the rest of the women in Dad’s family. Nor did she care to be.

1947 • Larry’s diary (age 13)
Aug 1  Got paid for morning route and paid off my $15 clothing bill at Baers Store
Aug 2  Paid dad $5 and I still owe him $10 for my radio
Aug 10  Went swimming almost all day at Phoenix plunge with Carleen, Betty, and Claudia and we had a good time
Aug 13  Bought a full box of bubble gum, 100 pieces for $1. Gum very rare in past 6 years as it was not available during the war

Sep 1  The first day in three years without a paper route to attend to as usual!!!
Sep 9  Bought some school supplies today. My father plans to buy Tibbits store by end of this month
Sep 14  On the last day before school starts again. I cleaned up my room and took down my curtains to be washed. My mother brought a box of apples
Sep 22  My father finished buying Tibbit’s Drugs store and will take over the beginning of October
Sep 23  A big article was in tonights Democrat and Daily about Dad buying Tibbits
Sep 25  Went to scout meeting today. It is Dad’s birthday. Dad is 42
Sep 28  Sunday, worked all day today at store trying to clean it up and get out some of the new freight we got in

Sep 1947: Sonora newspaper article:
CARL CLEMENS BUYS TIBBITS DRUG STORE
Sale of Tibbits Pharmacy by Lynn Day to Mr. and Mrs. Carl Clemens was consummated this week with Clemens scheduled to take over active management of the business October 4^th. Clemens, who came here in July 1943 has served as manager of the local Sprouse Reitz store. Clemens stated he would add a variety line to the cosmetic, stationary and novelty lines already carried by the store, and will sell general merchandise. The store will be known as Clemens’.

After running Sprouse Reitz for four years and as the economy was good, Dad went into business for himself. Inheriting some money when his father died and borrowing from his sister Elizabeth, he bought Tibbits Drug Store in September 1947, remodeled it into a record and department store, and opened Clemens’. He sold records and music because no other store in Sonora sold them, not because he was interested in music. Clemens’ was in the center of town on the block in front of our house. He readied his new store for the upcoming 1948 California Centennial, to be celebrated with town parades, fanfare, and all sorts of grand hoopla. The country was recovering from the war, gas was available, and tourists were visiting the gold country again. His Sonora Union Democrat store advertisement read:

1947 • Larry’s diary (age 13)
Oct 8  Worked at the store mostly this afternoon. Mom is down in the city of San Francisco. It has been raining.
Oct 15  A girl named Sharon may come to take care of the kids regularly until maybe even December 3, 1947.
Oct 28  The neon sign was taken down at store today, it will be changed from “Tibbits” to “Clemens’”

1947: Sonora newspaper article:
CLEMENS’
“Only Music Store in Tuolumne County”
A Full Line of Records, Sheet Music, Toys, Cards, Gifts and Variety Items
440 Washington Street, Tel 2143

Nov 24  Got out of school at 1:15 today because of the teachers institute which was being held today. Saw Carleen stark naked (by accident) HA HA
Nov 27  Thanksgiving and no Scout meeting was held. My Uncle Gordon is staying here over the weekend and he cannot do much. He was disabled from a war injury, fell out of a truck. I am named after him

Dec 20  Did my Christmas shopping today, got boxes of candy for mom and Miss Hoe, got a car mirror for dad.
Dec 22  Viola cleaned up my room, this is the first time that I have not cleaned up my room. It was a happy day.
Dec 24  Xmas eve brought me a wastebasket, pajamas, pen, shirt, books, and a sheet of the Florida Everglades stamps
Dec 25  Had a big Christmas dinner and stayed in nearly all day long. Went to church this morning and wore my new shirt
Dec 28  Sunday: Went to Redwood City and stayed at Day’s house. Mom and Dad had to go down San Francisco to get some records for the store.
Dec 30  Came back home and went through San Francisco and over Bay Bridge with mom and dad. Got stamps from the Jamestown Stamp Co.
Dec 31  Took inventory at the store and helped finish it up. Stayed home in bed tonight but stayed up until 2.

Larry did not keep a diary for much of 1948. Many entries were the typical posts about Boy Scouts, band, and building bookcases, some days were missed, and some weeks and months were completely blank.

1948 • Larry’s diary (age 18)
Mar 15   I may have found my coat which I lost two weeks ago. Richard Young may be wearing it now.
Mar 16  Got my coat back after Young was called into office and Mr. Dawson and Mom clarified it.

Apr 6  Carleen was playing with the electric blanket, burned the mattresses

Aug 1 – 15  (no entries)
Aug 16  Got a new sister at 12:10 a.m. Her name will probly be Kathern. Babe Ruth died.

Aug 16, 1948: Birth of Catherine Frances “Cathy” Clemens, 5th of 5 children of Carl Clemens & Noreen “Babe” Chatfield, in Sonora, Tuolumne Co., California

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
1948 was not an easy year for the family, particularly for Mother …
It was difficult for Betty to bring girlfriends home; it was too hard to explain Mom’s erratic behavior and temper, too upsetting to be around her when she was drinking. There were no longer birthday parties, no friendly sleepovers, no company of any kind. It was better not to play in the house with a mother anxious and high-strung, driven crazy by children and the constant noise from small mouths.

My mother had another breakdown and tried to end her life a second time. This time, she was pregnant with me. Once again she disappeared for a while, away at a hospital. Betty stayed with the Harringtons. Mrs. Harrington told Lorna to keep Betty with them as much as possible (my sister already spent most of her time there anyway), explaining to her daughter that Mrs. Clemens was unhappy about being pregnant and that it was all putting a great strain on our family. Mrs. Harrington wanted to take Mom to an abortionist but assumed an abortion for her was out of the question. She was not friends with Mom, knew Mom was Catholic, knew my father, and knew we lived in a close-minded small town. What she didn’t know was Mom had an abortion two years earlier followed by a nervous breakdown, and she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do it again. No one knew about it except mom’s sister Verda, and Verda was shocked; it considerably cooled their warm relationship.

Mrs. Harrington had great sympathy for my mother, had great sympathy for all women caught in the daily routine of raising children, the constant cooking and endless cleaning, having no dreams of their own. “It’s not that there is no end in sight that makes a woman go crazy, it’s that there is no relief in the middle,” she told the girls.

Betty and Lorna had each other through the end of seventh grade until Lorna’s mom had to finally get away; she took her three daughters and moved to Reno, Nevada, leaving behind her home, her husband, and the stifling small town of Sonora.

August 1948 • Sonora ~ I was welcomed into the family two years after Mom’s first breakdown, though not by her. She didn’t want another child, she wanted out. I was a fifth burden tacking on another eighteen years to her prison sentence, another eighteen years of not wanting to be a wife or a mother, of not wanting to cook and clean and cry every day.

Just after midnight, Mom gave birth to me by optional cesarean, which was in vogue if you were wealthy; we weren’t. She wanted to have her tubes tied so Dad wouldn’t know, and Mom’s doctor was willing to do it for her; if she had it done while having a Cesarean, no one would find out. It was illegal for a doctor to perform this kind of surgery without a husband’s permission and it could have gotten them both in a lot of trouble, but he’d been my mother’s doctor for years and knew it would be the end for her if she had another child. Mom was not concerned about it being against the law or a mortal sin. She was barely hanging on to her soul as it was.

Sonora Union Democrat birth notice:
CLEMENS, In Sonora,
August 16, at the Sonora Hospital, to the wife of
Carl Clemens of Sonora, a daughter, at 12:10 A.M.

Just two months after my arrival, my mother—along with losing her mind—lost her brother. Gordon Gregory Chatfield, at the age of 42, died in Letterman’s Veteran’s Hospital in San Francisco from his WWII injuries. 

My mother’s ability to cope waxed and waned. There were times when she appeared normal and times she could not deal with everyday life. I know this story feels disjointed (rather like my mother) but I don’t know what happened in the blank spaces. I’m simply telling the stories as they were relayed to me, how they appeared in Larry’s diary, from the pictures and newspaper articles I have, and later, from my own experience. I’m trying not to make up what happened in between. Like life, it’s complicated.

Nov 19, 1948: Death of Gordon Gregory Chatfield (age 42), in the Letterman’s Veterans Hospital in San Francisco, California of injuries he sustained from falling from the bay of a truck in WWII. He is buried in the Presidio Cemetery in San Francisco, California.
Note: Gordon is the brother of Noreen and the 6th child of Charles Chatfield and Nellie Chamberlin.

March 1949 • Larry’s diary (age 15)
Mar 25  Claudia (age 7) had a birthday party at the youth center but I didn’t go to it.
Mar 26  Had my first driving lesson. I drove the car but not over 20 miles per hour.

Apr 21  Claudia may have the measles and Dad is sick. Got Easter cards put away and got most of Mother’s Day out

May 1  Days went back to Redwood City. Took bath. Dad owes about $10,000 in bills has to pay bank $1,000 tomorrow, only has $800
May 8  Sunday: Mother’s Day, rained a little and had a rainbow. Mom went to Chico to visit Grandma.

Jun 9  Carleen graduated from grammar school, but I had to stay home with the baby
Jun 10  LAST day of school, played at graduation. Got one A, B, B, B-, C in cards.
Jun 15  Dad took me to San Francisco on buying trip, mostly for toys for the store. Left at 5 am, got back at 7:50 pm. I got to drive most of the way
Jun 16  Mowed the lawn. Bolt from the lawnmower got lost when Carleen fooled around with it. Father Harrington got over $500.00
Jun 21  Started to clean off the roof of the Orchid Shop. Dad is sleeping with me because Mom is sick again

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
Larry and Dad took monthly trips to San Francisco to purchase stock from the Decca, Columbia, and RCA Victor wholesale dealers. Larry decided which records to buy as he knew all the popular songs as well as classical music. On one buying trip, Dad got an incredible opportunity from a record store dealer, acquiring all the 78 records he had in stock. He added these to the inventory of thousands of records he’d bought from the music store in Virginia City. However, the owner knew that 78s were soon going to be replaced by new turntables for the longer playing 33s, and also knew Dad didn’t know. The music business was changing, and Dad got caught in the middle. When the new 33 long-playing records came out, and then the large-holed 45s, he was stuck with thousands of old 78s and an inventory of outdated players he couldn’t give away.

Jul 8  JoAnne and Shirley and mother and father (mom’s sister Ina and husband Jim) paid us a surprise visit on their way to Yosemite. They only stayed overnight.
Jul 12  JoAnne and Shirley stopped here again. Their car broke down at Yosemite. Washed Knoxes windows for $1.50
Jul 16  2nd night of pagent. Gov Warren was there. Uncle Charlie and Aunt Velma came up. Got to bed after 2. Almost late for scene 3. At least 15,000 people there. I was an actor in the Big Columbia 49er centennial pageant. I was in 6 scenes as a 49er. The play was on two huge turntable stages plus a large center stage. At least 15,000 people attended each performance in the outdoor staging.
Jul 20  Started to clean up back yard, wet it down. Betty got hoard of comics from somewhere. Mom canned apricots this morning.

Aug 15  Got thousands of records from music store in Virginia City which went bankrupt. Got up at 6 this morning.
Aug 16  Dad went to city. I got some music stands for the band, also got books, valve oil, and electric trains. Am putting out records from Virginia City. Cathy’s birthday
Aug 19  Got all of RCA records put in stock. Today was dollar day in Sonora. Mom went to Stockton and got 2 shirts.
Aug 21  Went to show and saw Sorrowful Jones with Bob Hope. Everybody except Dad and I went on a picnic at Phenix Lake.
Aug 31  Went to San Francisco and Sellers, Decca, Warehouseman, Dunham, Cariagan & Town were all on strike. Only had one meal, drove back in dark.

Nov 5  Quit Del Ray Coffee Shop washing windows. Got new job at Lodes O’ Gold. Got books out, 50 different Zane Grey. Mom and Dad went to Modesto to eat.
Nov 6  Saw Bing Crosby in Top of the Morning. Mom is sick in bed. Rained first time since August
Nov 10  Mom and sisters went to Yuba City to visit relatives. Dad and I stayed in Sonora to work. Got Christmas cards out. No school today. Got 45s at store
Nov 12  Ate Chow Mein with dad. Had first radio show at store
Nov 13  Mom and kids got back from Yuba City. German band played for Lion’s Club convention. Got free dinner
Nov 30  Missed school and went to SF with Dad. Foggy all the way down and back. Got up at 4, left at 5, got back at 10. Got radio back from Carleen

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
1949 • Sonora ~ Our parents never argued about how to raise their children. They argued about my mother’s smoking and drinking and about her housekeeping, but not about the kids. Mom gave the older ones a swift kick or a snapping backhand when they didn’t move fast enough or do as they were told. When she was too lazy to get up, she’d warn, “You just wait ’til your father gets home!” She often threatened to pack the girls off to the convent, though that hadn’t made a whit of difference in her attitude when she and her sisters were sent there as young girls.

To get Mom to calm down and have some peace and quiet for the night, Dad, slipping his brown leather belt from the loops of his pants, meted out an occasional token thrashing on Larry and Carleen’s bottoms, ignoring their seldom innocent protests with, “Even if you haven’t done anything wrong, this is for something you probably got away with, or for something you’re planning to do.” Other than that, our father was a soft-spoken man of few words.

Jan 1950 • Larry’s diary (age 16)
Jan 14 (16th birthday) Quit window washing jobs at Maxwells, Lode O’ Gold, Blisses, Adrians, and Sprouse Reitz. Worked there for almost 7 years. Got leather jacket and started getting allowance of $3.00 per week.

Feb 5  Went to Redwood City with Dad, drove part way. Stayed overnight. Went downtown tho it was raining, got book
Feb 8  Went to scout meeting and signed up with air scouts. Baby Cathy is sick with cut finger.
Feb 16  Asked Dad about getting a tuba this summer, he said maybe.
Feb 26  Dad was sick so I kept store open all day alone. Started making new control envelopes for Victor red seal records

Apr 24  Mom came to my room and told me that she and dad may get a divorce and which one would I stay with. (Dad)
Apr 26  Dad told me about divorce. Student from India spoke.
Apr 27  Freshman cleaned out bleachers. Mom said goodby to me and left. Told me to tell Dad to get car at Parrots Ferry.
Apr 28  Mom in Columbia Way Hospital, everyone seems to know.
Apr 29  Saw mom in hospital. Looks real sick.
Apr 30  First performance of Hasty Heart in public. Ima came to house and told me about overdose of sleeping pills.

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
The back of our mother’s green wool coat receded down our front path to the street, two brown suitcases gripped at the end of each sleeve. Dad was at work. Larry was behind his closed door. Betty was in her room crying and Carleen was in the kitchen. Claudia was curled on the couch in tears. My body, plastered to the screen door as I wailed for her not leave. I was not yet two.

She went to a hotel. That night, opening a bottle of sleeping pills, she took an overdose. This was not the first time Mom left, nor would it be her last. It was also just one of the many times she would attempt to end her life. However, it was the first talk of divorce between our parents, which was unthinkable considering Dad’s German Catholic beliefs and our mother’s fear of her mother. Suicide was not unthinkable for my mother, mortal sin or not.

If Ima Deaton (a young woman Dad would soon hire to help take care of us) hadn’t come to the house and told Larry that Mother had tried to kill herself, and if Larry hadn’t made these entries in his diary, and if I hadn’t poked and prodded my family’s memories, this would have been a forgotten part of our mother’s story.

Carleen, at fourteen, stepped into our mother’s shoes during the periods when Mom was gone. It was expected and she didn’t think much about it, she simply did it. When she went anywhere she took me with her. On her way to school she dropped me off at Mrs. Evans, then picked me up on her way home. Dad hired Ima Deaton (nineteen-year-old Betty Imogene “Ima” Deaton) to help with the younger girls and the house, but when summers came, Carleen took over. Betty and Claudia were now old enough to be pressed into service, and when Carleen could catch them, she dragged them downstairs by their ankles and beat them with a wet washcloth to make them help her cook and clean and take care of 

Mother was gone for a short while; on May 25 she reappears in Larry’s diary and is mentioned a number of times thereafter.

1950 • Larry’s diary (age 16)
May 2  Dad hired Ima to stay in home to take care of my little sisters. Taught her how to play Canasta.
May 25  Awards assembly, received my block lyre for 30 credits of music. Mom left for Chico to visit her mother. 
May 27  Charlie and Velma came up. Stayed in my room. Mom got back from Chico. First day of fishing.
May 30  Went swimming at Columbia pool. First time this year. Learned how to dive from Don S., Ima, Mom and kids took me

Jun 18  Mom and dad went to Modesto toy show. Will stay down 2 or 3 days. Saw how Mrs. Mike went alone. Days left
Jun 21  Went to San Francisco with Dad. Drove all the way from Sonora to Walnut Creek. Stayed at Drake Hotel. Saw show with Dad.
Jun 28  Went swimming at Mosses with whole family and Ima, except dad. Started to sort out wheel deck cards. Got up at 6 this morning

Jul 1  Cleaned up room. U.S. troops rushed to Korea. Dug in back yard some. Mom went up to Dardenelle for fishing
Jul 16  Mom and dad gone on vacation, kept store open by myself all day. Went to 8 o’clock mass. No sermon. Keen.
Jul 22  Have completely memorized “When Yuba Plays the Rhumba”. Also memorized parts of “Auld Lang Syne”. Got card from Dad and Mom.
Jul 26  Mopped and waxed back room. Phone call from Mom and Dad from Chico, got Ima in kitchen. Korean War 1 month old today
Jul 28  Mom and dad came back from vacation in Oregon, Tahoe and around. Got Christmas toys in. Store in tip-top shape.
Jul 29  Saw show Let Henry Do It by myself. Averaged $102 per day during Dad’s two-week vacation. 

Aug 16  Missed driving into ditch. Saw show Captain Cary U.S.A. Got in at midnight, 3 hrs sleep. Cathy’s birthday, two year party.
Aug 23 Mom, Dad and I saw movie The Big Lift. Mom and Dad feeling low. Movie people are up.
Aug 25  Worked at store till midnight when fluorescent lights went out. Dad came after me at 11:30.
Aug 26  Noah Berry Jr. came in store and bought locket set. He is in Sonora filming Texas Ranger. Korea War 2 months old. Mom and girls went camping at Pinecrest

Sep 10  Mom fixed a great big turkey dinner.
Sep 25  Dad’s birthday. Handed out 1st issue of Wildcat with Frank Long and Ken.
Sep 29  Got band sweater from Baers, 3 stripes, name, wildcat heads, pin, block S. Rode around with Joe Drabkin after game. (also our mother’s birthday)
Sep 30  Stayed open till 9:00 by myself. Typed controls which finally came in. Saw George Hesse. Mom sick again, called Dr. Boice.

Oct 2  Mom at hospital for operation. Carried horn home for 2nd time for T.C.B. without rehearsal. Boys Sextette and Commissioners meeting at noon

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
On September 29, 1950, our mother turned thirty-five. She’d been married half her life and had five children. The day after her birthday, struggling against everything she knew, she once again tried to end it all. Dad was forty-five, Larry a senior in high school, Carleen a sophomore, Betty was in the sixth grade, Claudia was in fourth, and I had turned two. Mom was back in the hospital, then five days later, home again.

My mother was interested in the world around her when her own didn’t overwhelm her. She loved visiting museums, had a passion for historical buildings and cemeteries and local sights. If she couldn’t get anyone to go with her, she dragged Claudia along. Three or four times a year she took Larry to the Community Concert series, or Carleen if there was someone else to watch the girls. There was nothing like that in Sonora so they traveled to Manteca, Oakdale, and Stockton for the concert and to Tracy to see the Russian Cossack dancers. They saw the Horace Heidt Amateur Traveling Show, heard Rubinstein play the piano, and listened to Spike Jones. Those were the times that she was most like herself.

Oct 7  Had company from Vallejo. They slept in Dad’s room, and Dad slept with me. Mom came home from the hospital

Nov 23  Thanksgiving. Kept store open 11 to 7. Cleaned room, washed windows. Sent letter to Sherman Clay about horn. Great big dinner.

Nov 1950, Thanksgiving Day • Sonora
After a short spell of being gone again, Mom returned for Thanksgiving. The air was icy both inside and out, and Mother was not welcomed with open arms. Carleen had taken her position in the hierarchy, and it didn’t sit well with Mom. She informed Carleen that as Carleen had taken over and Mom was now a guest in her own house, she could cook the turkey and fixings by herself. It was the first holiday dinner my fifteen-year-old sister prepared, and she was fit to be tied when she realized she’d be cooking the whole thing by herself while Mom sat on the couch, feet curled under her, reading.

Dec 16  Days came up and slept in my bed and broke it then fixed it. Jim here also.
Dec 17  Had bad cold so stayed in bed all day, missed church. Days left. Mom went to San Francisco without electric blanket. Heater on all day.
Dec 24  Went to Midnight Mass. Got tie from Betty and Claudia, shirt from Carleen, ties and slacks from mom.

1951 • Larry’s diary (age 16)
Jan 2  Got Valentine, Graduation, and Easter cards in. Talked to dad about Music and Business
Jan 3  Opened up store at 9:00 and closed at 6:30 counting records. Dad talked about selling out all music and records
Jan 5  Ordered stamp saying “Property of Lawrence Clemens”. Mom sick
Jan 13  Dad borrowed keys and coat, forgot about keys, closed up store about 10 o’clock. Putting out Valentine cards
Jan 14  (age 17) (17th birthday) Got $5.00 as present under plate.
Jan 28  Went to Dodge Ridge and Mile Hi for first time with whole family. Went thru lodge

Feb 8  Brass Choir and Tuolumne County Orchestra practice. Dad went to Merced for Elks.
Feb 10  Went to Valentine Ball with Audrey Fisher. Had a good time. Too close. Her parents drove. Formal. Dad told me we may sell store soon
Feb 11  Saw add for store for sale in San Francisco Examiner
Feb 15  Told Hagemeyer about store. Dad asked me about taking over in summer.

Mar 20  Dad sick in bed. I opened up Ben Franklin store for him as he is now managing that as well as our store. I worked there all day then closed up at 6 p.m.
Mar 31  Mom and Dad asked me about Waters and Ross horn deal.

Things were bad at work and Dad was close to losing the store. The local paper ran an article about him taking a job at Ben Franklin up the street.

Mar 15, 1951: Union Democrat, Sonora, Tuolumne Co., California:
Carl Clemens, local merchant and member of City Council, has taken over the operation of Ben Franklin. His wife will continue the managing of Clemens’ Record & Gift Shop opened in 1947. Mr. Clemens came to Sonora in 1943 to operate the Sprouse Reitz.

Our parents’ business and personal lives were in turmoil, but life went on for the kids. Carleen celebrated her sixteenth birthday and the next day this appeared in the local paper:

Mar 17, 1951: Union Democrat, Sonora, Tuolumne Co., California:
SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY
Approximately 85 teenage friends gathered at the Sonora Youth Hut last Friday evening to help Carleen Clemens celebrate her sixteenth birthday. A grand time was had by all at the party which was in the St. Patrick’s motif, and delicious refreshments were enjoyed.

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
In 1951, Mom and Dad bought a 1946 blue four-door Plymouth.

In the early afternoon on Easter Sunday, Carleen picked up her friend Cassie Jo, whose Mom worked in the drugstore across the street from Dad’s store. Carleen got her driver’s license on her 16th birthday, ten days before. I was standing on the backseat of the Plymouth coupe dressed in my Easter clothes, being driven to an egg hunt on the other side of Columbia where Bret Harte’s historical cabin was. They had a community egg hunt there every year.

“Mom is leaving again. Oh Cassie. What are we going to do?”

Carleen was close-mouthed about our family situation, and it was unusual for her to open up about it to anyone. In a town the size of Sonora, everybody already knew, but no one at our house talked about it. My brother and sisters generally found out what was going on through the grapevine, not at the dinner table. We weren’t allowed to talk at the dinner table.

Cassie Jo Joslin was one of Carleen’s best friends, but she had no idea what we were going to do, had no words of wisdom or advice, nothing to say. She quietly listened, heartsick at the weight on her friend’s shoulders. As it turned out, Mom stayed. Dad was sick. The business was falling apart. Mom thought that maybe she shouldn’t leave. Maybe things would change. Maybe she could make it work. She lasted a year.

Apr 5, 1951: The Union Democrat, letter to the Editor from Mom:
Editor, The Union Democrat, Sonora, Calif.
Dear Sir:
Answer to letter from U.K. Peterson published in April 5^th issue of The Union Democrat.
Dear Mr. Peterson:
I, for one am getting sick and tired of the snide cracks taken at the City Councilmen, not just because my husband is unfortunate enough to be a member of said City Council, elected into office against his wishes (and mine). It seems to me that men who work as hard and as long hours as he who will give of his time and patience to attend these meetings, usually until midnight, deserve something besides the condescension, abuse and actual slander which from time to time befalls them; certainly they don’t do it for the munificent sum of $5.00 a month (their salary).

Now as to your gripe, the 72-hour parking limit on the streets of Sonora. If you had taken the time to read it and had interpreted it as written I think you would have seen the word UNOPERABLE VEHICLES. I believe you live in the country, so, therefore, you wouldn’t have had the doubtful pleasure of an old jalopy setting in front of your house for months at a time. I have, and so have many other residents. I invite you to take a walk around the town or drive around. If you can’t see them I would be happy to show you a Ford coupe which has been parked on Shepherd Street for years, license No. 97H441 with 1947 plates; a black coupe on Stewart Street behind the City Barber Shop, license No. 24A4641, which has occupied this most desirable spot since the first of this year. There is an old truck and car, license No. 444775 on Elm Street near Yaney which are really beauties. These are but a few.

Your mention of “dumb cops” seems rather odd coming from a man whose father was once Chief of Police of the City of Oakland and who himself was once on the police force in that city.

Your mention of a garage having to be built is laughable. I believe your intentions were to implant the idea in people’s minds that they will not be able to park near their homes for a week or longer without their being issued a citation, but I took the trouble to find out if this was the case, as anyone could have done before jumping to conclusions, but such is not the case. UNOPERABLE cars will be towed away if not moved by the owners to a junkyard or lot, off the city streets where they have been an eyesore for so long.

As to your final statement: Every new ordinance or law takes away more of our freedom. Really, Mr. Peterson, what kind of a community, what kind of a country would this be if all laws or ordinances were repealed?

It is a thankless job working for the public. If a few more would try it they wouldn’t be so quick to gripe. Incidentally, this little billet-doux will be as much a surprise to the members of the Council (Clemens included) as I hope it is to you.
Sincerely, Mrs. Noreen Clemens

Note: Dad was first elected to City Council in January 1947; when his first four-year term was over, he won re-election on a write-in ballot over two other candidates

1951 • Larry’s diary (age 17)
Apr 12  Mom got letter published in the Union Democrat about city council and Dad
Apr 14  Mom, Dad and the Hagens went to Reno for weekend of gambling. Mom lost $90 in wallet. Cleaned up basement a little. Got coins and coins in bottles from Tatham
Apr 15  Maudine Murphy came to store and we practiced square dancing in basement, went for 1 hr. Kept store alone all day as Mom and Dad in Reno
Apr 21  Got coins and stamps from Tatham, got new tennis balls. Cleaned up room. Went on driving lesson to Shaws Flat with Carleen and Mom
Apr 23  Asked Hagemeyer about most valuable music award. Asked Mom and Dad about new or used horn. Answer was no
Apr 24  Clean up day. Hagemeyer told me not to get horn—too expensive.

1951 • Larry’s diary (age 17)
May 1  Sick from eating cherries, missed day of school, Mom and Claudia also sick. Packed uniform in suitcase.
May 8  Spring Concert, Band Brass Choir, both solos. Don H. flubbed solo. Mom and Dad there. 
May 23  Senior Banquet held at Twain Harte. Ate for 2 hours and danced for 3. Didn’t miss a dance or a girl, about 100 there. Voted for most valuable chorus student
May 24  Was elected most valuable Music Student. Presented silver cup and trophy with my name engraved on it.
May 29  Showed Tom Sappington how Wildcat “books” work. Had picture taken in uniform – cup – ribbons – instruments – cap and gown. Senior tea held, tea and cookies
May 31  Kids have measles

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
In elementary school Larry usually received Bs, but one time when he got a couple of Cs Dad said that was not acceptable and refused to sign his report card. Mom signed it for Larry but my brother was impressed that Dad insisted on him getting better grades. As long as his grades were As or Bs, they were satisfied. In high school they didn’t pay as much attention. They generally weren’t interested in the school activities of the children and did not attend many events. My brother was involved in music, sports, and the school newspaper. He was on the track team hurdles, ran the 440, 880, and the mile, and played basketball. He was an average team member. He often played concert solos and only one time did both parents come to a performance. As Dad was a member of the Elks Club, on occasion he saw Larry perform there. Dad thought Larry should be spending his time doing something worthwhile, something more useful than playing the tuba. He also saw no need for him to go to college; he was needed at home to work in the store. That didn’t stop Larry. Max Hagemeyer, Larry’s mentor and music teacher, encouraged my brother to go to San Jose State, and he did, majoring in music.

Jun 4  Got Green & Gold. I have 20 some pictures in it. Got bill for Wildcat from Johnson. Saw Parlie and Balcom. Signed books all day. Mom went to San Francisco
Jun 5  Claudia got award as most beginning progressive student in Grammar school.
Jun 7  Graduation!!!! Played in band and sang in chorus. Mom and dad there. Sat in first row. Got driver’s license, passed all the tests, missed only one question.
Jun 8  First day on job at Moccasin powerhouse. Guy showed me a lot of things and how to take readings.
Jun 13  Hitchhiked to Sonora and from there Jake took me to the Angels Camp band rehearsal. Home by midnight. Asked Mom and Dad about car.

Note from Larry: Moving out of the house the day I graduated, I got my first big job as an electrician at the Hetch Hetchy Powerhouse in Moccasin outside of Yosemite National Park. A company town, Moccasin was owned by the City and County of San Francisco. The powerhouse was built as part of the Hetch Hetchy Project system to generate electricity for San Francisco, 134 miles away. It was a great job in 1951 and I made $1,000 that summer, enough money to cover most of my college expenses my first year. I got the job because the wife of one of the electricians worked in Dad’s store told me about it.

Jul 4  Went on picnic with whole family at Phoenix Lake. First went to Parrots Ferry. Carleen only one who didn’t go. 

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
1951 • Sonora ~ My sister wore plaid skirts, silk neck scarves, and had a cashmere twinset for each day of the week, bought with her money from her job at the movie house. She jitterbugged with Pat, JoAnn, and Joyce, walked arm-in-arm with Cassie Jo, and gossiped with Shirley and Phyllis. From a distance, Betty, Lorna, and rest of the younger girls in their class looked up to Carleen and her gaggle of girlfriends. During the hot summers, she and all her friends drove to Strawberry or swam at the pool in Columbia, and sometimes she took me with her.

They were deep in conversation on their way home from school—their stride in unison, their arms linked, their shoulders touching—when Carleen looked up to see a woman wrapped in a head scarf and green coat careening towards them on the sidewalk. Carleen shifted her books to her other hip and steered her two friends across Washington, weaving between the traffic of autos and lumbering timber trucks.

“Isn’t that your mother?” Cassie Jo and Phyllis whispered in unison.
First it was Mom smoking and drinking in the front yard, then it was her hanging out at the King of Clubs, then it was the gossip around town. And now this. Carleen was beginning to hate Mom.
“No,” Carleen said quietly, staring straight ahead, “that’s not my mother.”
She left her friends at the corner and charged to the store to find Dad.
“Dad! Do something about her!”
“Ignore it,” he told Carleen, “just ignore it. There’s nothing any of us can do about your mother, about her behavior, her drinking, about any of it. Nothing.” He turned away. “Enough. Go home.”

1951 • Larry’s diary (age 17)
Aug 24  Got San Jose catalogue. Mr. Wisler sent me word that I could have a scholarship if I went to College of Idaho but I am now all set to go to San Jose State College
Nov 11  Mom drove me back to San Jose as she was bringing Claudia down for eye trouble.
Dec 21  Went to Sonora High School and saw Xmas program, choir and band. Gave short talk to student body, talked about San Jose State, worked in store.
Dec 23  Got $18 check for working in store. Took in about $1,200. Picked out overcoat for my own present $54.00.
Dec 24  Got shirt-Carleen, tie rack-Charlie and Velma, kerchiefs-Claudia, blanket-Mom and Dad, overcoat and pajamas.
Dec 25  Went to midnight mass with Carleen. She got hope chest for Xmas and I gave her tennis racquet
Note: As Larry did not write in his diary for part of 1948 and much of 1949, he used those blank days for 1952 entries.

1952 • Larry’s diary (age 18)
Mar 13  Hitchhiked home to Sonora. Rode with Burden and school teachers. Applied for job as bus driver for crippled kids.
Mar 14  Painted whole kitchen with green paint while mom was gone to San Francisco as a surprise for her. It turned out a good job but the color was odd. Took everything out of cupboards and put knobs on
Mar 19  Wrecked dad’s car. Car rolled completely over in gully and was total wreck and they took me to hospital. Had stitches and a sore back. Car insured.
Mar 20  Doc said back and bones ok so can go back to school next quarter.

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
When Mom left in May of 1950, Dad hired Ima Deaton to help out with us younger girls. She lived with us for a while; then during the next two years she just came off and on. Now that Carleen was sixteen and running the household, she told Dad to let her go altogether. She felt Ima didn’t do much and that he was pouring money down the drain. Ima married a cowboy in Jamestown at the end of April, so she wouldn’t be coming to help anymore anyway.

May 1952 • Sonora ~ For the umpteenth time, I don’t know why she left,” my sixteen-year-old sister snapped. “No, I don’t know when we’ll see her again, no, I don’t know where she went and no, I don’t know if she’s coming back. Now don’t ask any more questions. Mom was gone, and this time Carleen knew she wasn’t coming back. My oldest sister was in charge now and there was no need to discuss it again. Our lives continued. Spring faded. Summer passed. Fall blew into winter. The first time our mother left was in April 1950, before I turned two. She returned, but knew she couldn’t live a life she didn’t want. She once told Larry she didn’t know what to do, that she’d go crazy if she didn’t get away, that she had to leave. In early May 1952, packing everything she could carry in her two leather suitcases, she finally left for good. Mothers didn’t run away in those days, except ours did, and Betty never forgave her.

1952 • Larry’s diary (age 18)
May 8  Letter from dad, Mom in Las Vegas working. Took $50 from bank

May 1952 • Letter from Mother to her sister, Verda Day:
Monday, Las Vegas, Nevada 1952
Dear George and Verda,
I don’t suppose Carl has let you know yet, his pride would keep him, but I have done it, burned all my bridges behind me.

Don’t let George get any wild ideas about coming over here after me. I’m here and I intend to stay, how long I don’t know. I have a job and a good place to stay. I was pretty sick when I got here what with nerves and all and then I had bronchial pneumonia. I have been down with pneumonia all week and the day it was the worst, the doctor wanted me to go to the hospital. I didn’t have the money for a hospital as Carl gave me a $100 bill and told me to get out and not bother him or the kids again. Well, I will never go back but he can’t stop me from writing to them and I will. Maybe some day I can have them with me, at least part of the time.

Now, you can tell Mom or not. I won’t give anybody an explanation or tell them my reasons. That is my own business. She can just cross me off and you can too. If you all do, I don’t blame any of you. You can do as you like no matter what happens, I will go on living, whereas if I had stayed in Sonora I would be dead and by my own hand, and believe me, I would have made a better job of it this time than I did 2 years ago. I felt it better to be alive and separated from all those I love, than dead.

As to the future, I have no plans. I don’t intend on filing suit for divorce even after six weeks. I haven’t the money for one thing, for another I am not interested in another man and that is about the only reason I can see for getting a divorce, so one can remarry. Not me. I am going to live from day to day and let each day take care of itself. Let tomorrow come. At least I’ll have a chance of being here for tomorrow no matter what it brings.

I will tell you this much why I left. I was well on my way to being a lush. I had begun to like and enjoy the taste of whiskey and I was using it as a substitute for happiness. That’s no good, liquor never solved anything, and I was afraid sooner or later someone would tell the girls their mother was a drunk. Carleen already knew I was drinking so I felt that was one reason to get out. The other reasons are between Carl and I and neither one of us will ever talk about it. I’m not going to hit skid row over here. I just want to be left alone and work my life out myself. If you do write to me, please don’t write anything that is going to make me feel any worse than I do. My nerves are about shot and if I am to hold down a job I have to keep a hold of myself or I will lose it and I need it. If you feel you have to get moral with me and reproachful, I would rather you didn’t write at all.
Love, Noreen.

1952 • Larry’s diary (age 18)
Jun 8  Met Dad in San Francisco. Saw car, 49 Olds. Ate at Omar Khayyams, had Armenian food. 
Jun 19  Took Claudia out. Got first letter from Mom in Las Vegas. Grades were held up because I didn’t turn in gym clothes.
Jun 24  Took Betty and played tennis. Mom sent $1.00 to each of the kids.
Jun 28  Unpacked belongings and cleaned up room. Played records all day. Threw out papers and junk. Wrote letter to Mom. Had french bread and popcorn for supper with cheese.
Jun 30  Got grades, 1.87 for school year and 2.2 for quarter. Telegram from Dad, job at Moccasin open. Looked at typing job and gardening work. 

1952 • Larry’s diary (age 18)
Aug 5  Letter from Mom, return address San Jose. Forwarded from 7th St. Says she is down to 110 lbs.
Sep 5  Dad left for Fales hot springs over Sonora Pass. Will be gone for one week. Treana Rotelli and I take care of store while he’s gone. Paying me $50.00 per week.
Sep 9  Letter to Dad from Mom asking why I don’t write
Sep 11  Dad got back from vacation. Had to go through Tahoe
Sep 14  Dad paid me back $200 and still owes me $300.
Sep 15  Drove back to San Jose to get ready for school.
Sep 25  Wrote letter to Dad. Returned typewriter to Tom S. Voice class intros. Hot today.
Sep 27  Letter from mom with picture and postcards, she has good job in Nevada.

Sep 1952 • Second letter from Mom to her sister Verda Day:
Tuesday P.M. Las Vegas, Sep 1952
Dear Verda,
As I did not receive an answer to my letters I guess I am going to be given the silent treatment. It’s a little hard to understand. I can see why Mom would cut me off of all contact because I left the kids. I don’t think she would blame me much for leaving Carl, but the girls are different. I know no one has suffered as much over it as I have. I have been sick a lot and was in the hospital again for four and a half days two weeks ago. I have a viral infection in my respiratory tract, and it is especially bad in my throat, of course. If I can just stick it out, I think this climate will in time help me get well.

I am working at a place called “Bentley’s Trading Post”, 205 Fremont St. I like it, the people are different, nearly all tourists from all over the world. They do a terrific business, it is a jewelry store, camera shop, souvenir and novelty items. They are open from 8 A.M. until 10 or 11 P.M. I stay from 1 P.M. until they close. I close up, check the registers, make out the bank, turn off the lights, etc. As soon as they get some good help, I will run it myself at night. I guess the owners haven’t had a night off in six months. They pay me good, last week I got paid $60, and I like them. He is a very crude sort of person, very fat and a cripple, but good natured when he is feeling good, but boy, can he chew a person out when he doesn’t. He never has me yet. He starts to chew hell out of me but before he gets started, I just snap right back at him and stand there and call each other everything we can lay tongue to, while his wife who is a tiny little thing just stands back and laughs. She says thats the only way to handle Jack, just don’t take anything off of him, and I don’t.

I have a tiny little apartment, one room, with a bath and a kitchenette. It’s not much but its O.K. There is a washing machine in the shed for all the tenants to use, so I can do my own laundry, For this dump I pay $60 a month, but its a lot better than what some have for that money. Believe me, I have sure learned the value of a dollar since I have been getting some, but it sure feels good to get a pay check on Saturday night.

Well, tomorrow I have to be at work at 8 A.M., so I guess I had better try and get some sleep. That’s about my biggest trouble now is no sleep.

I would appreciate knowing how Mom is anyway. I am afraid she will die and no one will tell me. I usually get the Sacramento Bee and I look for news of the family, but have never seen any. I am dying inside of lonesomeness for the kids but I can’t go back to them. Carl wouldn’t let me but then I won’t go back to him. I had to leave or die so I guess I just have to take it and keep on missing them. Carleen has written to me three times and they aren’t very nice letters to get so I know she feels like I am no good too. Well, I guess I can’t blame her. Poor kid.

If you want to write my address is 205 Fremont St. I don’t care what or how you write, but I wish you would write. If I don’t hear from you I won’t write again. I am half in the notion of just up and leaving, going to Arizona or someplace and try and forget I ever had a family and never writing to anyone again. I don’t know why I do as I guess no one wants to hear from me anyway. Well, I’m going to bed now.
Love to all, Noreen.

1952 • Larry’s diary (age 18)
Oct 22  Newman club meeting. Letter from Mom with $5
Nov 11  Went to Sonora for Armistice Day. Mom cooked supper. First time she was home since last April or May, I did not expect to see her. Went to Oakdale football game and both Mom and Dad were there to see Carleen perform as band majorette
Nov 15  Called dad and he will send me money he owes me so I can get my car fixed (new motor cost $269.53). Car in Escalon where it broke down
Nov 19  Missed Student Activities meeting, thought it was tomorrow. Got check for $250 from Dad
Nov 22  Motor in car cost $269.33 paid $250.00 and charged rest. Letter from Mom giving new address in Ogden, Utah
Dec 23  Mom came home from Ogden, Utah by train to Stockton where Carleen picked her up. Took in over $1,000 almost every day for a week or so at the store
Dec 24  Whole family together to open presents. Carleen didn’t even thank mom for expensive watch, hurt mom’s feelings. Dad gave me good watch, also got radio, car mirror, suitcase, books, ties, shirts, lots of hankies
Dec 25  We went to midnight mass real early and got a seat, long. Mom cried and I didn’t know what to do.
Dec 26  Drove mom to San Jose and left her at hotel, had car tuned up at Escalon free of charge, took hour or more. Slept in San Jose and left for San Francisco 4 A.M. and just drove and walked around in morn.
Dec 29  Picked Mom up at hotel and drove her to So. Palo Alto to apply for government job. She found an apartment on Third Street for $15 week.

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
1952 – 53 • Sonora ~ Carleen met Chuck at the end of her junior year when she was seventeen. He graduated four years ahead of her at Sonora High, and was 21 and pumping gas on the corner at Paneros 76 station when he took a shine to her. In April of her senior year, he told her he loved her and asked her to go steady. She broke up with Paul Raggio, her boyfriend from Angels Camp, and every day thereafter, she wore Chuck’s green letterman sweater: Sonora High, Class of 1949. His class ring shared the gold chain necklace with her crucifix. He took her swimming at Parrott’s Ferry in Columbia and to Mountain River Lodge downstream from Jacksonville; she’d jump in his car after her candy counter job at the Sonora Theater, and he took her to the December high school Winter Ball. Carleen made her dress from daffodil yellow taffeta covered in tulle and wore a shawl of black velvet. Like Mother, she sewed beautifully.

At the end of January 1953, Chuck proposed to Carleen in the front seat of his black Hupmobile. They drove to Stockton to Rogers Jewelry Store for rings, where he bought her a beautiful Heirloom diamond mounted in a 14-carat gold setting for the goodly sum of $220. Under the circumstances, it was a formality for him to ask Dad for her hand. My sister was pregnant.

1953 • Letter from my mother to her mother in Chico, postmarked Sonora, Mar 9, 1953:
Monday:
Dear Mom,
I think you are entitled to the whole story. When I came home I did the best I could here, but it hasn’t worked. All the time I was here Carleen had just had everything her own way, all the money she wanted, so she didn’t like it so well when she no longer had $5 a day handed to her, but there was no open break until she took $10 from me. I had worked like a dog getting this house ready for her wedding, with only Betty’s help. I washed all the windows, curtains, sanded down the dining room set, varnished it, recovered the seats, washed all the woodwork, cleaned cupboards, cleaned and cleaned and cleaned until I was so tired I could drop. All the time she never lifted a hand to help me so Saturday I told them I was through, if she couldn’t or wouldn’t help me then I wasn’t going to do any more. She didn’t appreciate it a bit. We were all home, except Larry. I wish he had been here. Carleen answered me back and in these words, “I don’t see why you had to come back here any way, we were doing all right you G-D- bitch,” that’s exactly what she called me. I got up and went for her. I was going to slap her face, no one could talk to me like that, especially one of my own kids. Carl stepped in and kept me from her, we started struggling, me trying to get away from him all the time, finally he grabbed me by the shirt and he said, “By God, you asked for it,” and with that he hit me in the chin with his fist, knocked me clear across the room and out cold. Then when I was down he kicked me. He had sent the kids upstairs except for Carleen who was screaming, “Kill her, kill her,” but Claudia came back down just in time to see it all. Some how my finger got cut almost to the bone and there was blood all over me. The poor kid (Claudia) was screaming and scared to death. He got out a towel and threw it in my face. Claudia took it and started wiping the blood off of me. He left then and went over to the store and came back with some boxes and cord and told me to start packing my stuff and get out. My fist instinct was to go but by then Cathy, Claudia and Betty were hanging on to me begging me not to leave unless I took them so I said this time the shoe was on the other foot, it wouldn’t be me that would leave. I put the kids to bed and then called the doctor, he came down to his office and took a look at my jaw, he thought at first it was broken, but decided it wasn’t. I am going to see him again today. I have two great bruises on my leg, evidently where Carl kicked me, a bruise on my arm and a bump on the side of my head, besides the cut finger but you should see my chin. After I saw the doctor I called a lawyer and made an appointment to see him yesterday. We talked for about two hours. He will file papers for a divorce for me on the 16th and he advised me not to do anything until after the wedding and I agreed. He told me to come home and offer to go ahead this week and play the part of the mother of the bride so there would be no embarrassment for any of us for the sake of the public, which I did. They, Carleen and Carl, both told me they didn’t want me either at the wedding or reception.

I told Ross that would be what they would say but he said thats O.K. at least you did the right thing, you made the offer. Carleen is just a kid now but when she gets some sense in her 10 or 15 years from now she can’t hold it against me or say I never even attended her wedding.

He told me I was entitled to half of everything. I told him all I wanted was custody of the girls, reasonable support for them and the household furnishings. I’m going to leave it up to Judge Warren as to how much support. I don’t know what Carl will do, he always said if I divorced him he wouldn’t stay here. Well, he lets on how he cares so much for the kids, we’ll see if he does by his actions. Mom, when he hauled off to hit me, I saw his eyes, there was pure murder in them, he would like to have killed me and he didn’t pull his punch anyway, my jaw shows that.

This all happened Saturday night, and Sunday morning he went to church just as thou that made everything allright.

Ross said that he has had a great deal of experience with these fellows who are always hail fellows well met, put on a good front in public, attend church and a regular good Joe, but at home are dirty so and so’s, and he said they are just the kind I like to cut the ground from under.

Now Mom, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but I might need some outside testimony. If you want to write your opinion of Carl when you first knew him and what your opinion of him is now, and just why, it might be of help to me. What makes it hard is he puts on such a good front, no one will believe just how he is at home and I don’t want to have the kids testify against him. Ross said a letter from you giving an honest opinion would carry weight. Pray for me.
Love,
Noreen

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
This letter wasn’t the whole story, it was her story. My mother had read too many True Crime stories. She needed evidence for a divorce and she was busy gathering it—even if it was false—hoping to win Nellie over to her side. Of all the people in the world whose opinion mattered to my mother, there was only one. That’s why Mom was afraid to tell her staunchly Catholic mother the truth of the situation: she wanted a divorce, and she needed grounds to allow it.

March 1953 • Sonora ~ On March 13, 1953, Carleen turned eighteen. Two days later, three months before her high school graduation, and nearly four months pregnant, in front of two hundred family and friends in St. Patrick’s Church, Carleen married Charles Evans Albertson. My sister was happy she was getting married and going to have a baby. The vow that weighed heavily on her was forsaking all others. She was worried about what would happen to me. Who would comb my hair, button my shirts, and Band-Aid my scraped elbows and skinned knees? You could see the concern on her face as Chuck escorted her down the steps of St. Patrick’s. Holding her in the crook of his arm, Chuck sweetly protected her from the rice thrown by well-wishers.

Forsaking us was the only wedding vow Carleen wouldn’t keep; over the next thirteen years, Betty, Claudia, Mother, and I would end up under their small roof at one time or another.

Apr 27, 1953: Noreen Clemens files for divorce in the Superior Court of Tuolumne County after 20 years of marriage and five children. It was uncontested. The nine-page document discloses the reasons for divorce, property settlement, custody of the children, visitation rights during vacation times, and the amount of child support to be paid.

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
Sep 1953 • Tuolumne ~ Our family scattered like a drop of Pick-Up Stix. Mom was now living in San Jose. Larry returned to college. Carleen, Chuck, and the baby would soon leave Sonora and move to Southern California. Claudia stayed with her best friend JoAnn Davis to begin her eighth-grade year. Betty did not want to go to high school in Sonora, so she and I were sent to Tuolumne for three months to live with the Guidicis.

Santos Guidici—they called him Sanch—worked in the box factory at Pickering Lumber in Standard. He and his wife Mary were also Catholic and good customers in Dad’s store. They may have owed Dad money and offered to repay him with childcare, or perhaps simply out of kindness offered to take us in. I went to Summerville Elementary to start kindergarten. Betty went to Summerville High to start a different life.

End of 1953 ~ Along with everything else, Dad’s store was having financial difficulties. Trying to keep his head above water he worked all day running it, then in the evenings worked at Ben Franklin up the street. Adding to his misfortune, the Pickering Lumber Mill, the largest industry and employer in Tuolumne County, closed down. Over the years Dad had extended credit to many who worked there, and he continued to do so as everyone hoped the mill would reopen. It didn’t, and they couldn’t repay him. No matter how hard he tried to make ends meet, he couldn’t.

With this final straw, my father surrendered to the opposing forces in his life. He declared bankruptcy, sold all his merchandise, dismantled the sound booths, emptied the windows, and closed his store. Sometime around September 1953, he had a breakdown and spent three days in the hospital. When he got out he moved to a single upstairs room in the old City Hotel across the street from his store, a stone and adobe brick establishment that at one time was Sonora’s only first-class hotel but was now a run-down rooming house. After he closed the store, he worked at Ben Franklin full time, then went to work for Curnow’s Home Appliances. He stayed in Sonora a few more months, just long enough to pay off his creditors, then moved to San Francisco to also start a new life, this time as a small fish in a big sea.

The court allowed Betty, who was thirteen, and Claudia, who was eleven, to choose which parent they wanted to live with. Betty chose Dad but went to live with Carleen in Southern California. Claudia stayed with the Davises for a year. As I was only five, I was awarded to Mother.

May 10, 1954: Affidavit filed for Final Judgment of Divorce, signed by Noreen Clemens on Apr 28, 1954

Aug 3, 1955: Marriage of Noreen Ellen “Babe” (Chatfield) Clemens & Raymond D. “Ray” Haynie, in Carson City, Ormsby Co., Nevada

Aug 3, 1955: Marriage Index, Carson City, Nevada:
Name: Noreen E Clemens
Gender: Female
Marriage Date: 3 Aug 1955
Marriage Place: Carson City, Nevada, USA
Spouse: Raymond D Haynie
Marriage Description: Carson

1956: U.S. City Directory for San Jose, Santa Clara Co., California (pg 347):
Haynie, Ray D (Noreen E) Mechanic Automotive Engineering Co h 1231 Settle av

Jan 2, 1956: Death of Nellie Belle (Chamberlin) Chatfield (age 82), mother of Noreen “Babe” (Chatfield) Clemens, at home on Boucher in Chico, Butte Co., California. Nellie is buried in the Catholic Section of the Chico Cemetery.

Jan 3, 1956: Chico Enterprise, Chico, Butte Co., California:
Nellie Chatfield
Recitation of the rosary will be held in the Brusie Funeral Home this evening at 8 o’clock for Mrs. Nellie Chatfield, who died at her home on Boucher Street Monday.
Mrs. Chatfield was born on Mar 7, 1873 in Kansas City, Mo., to Frank and Emma Chamberlin. She resided in Chico in the same house the entire time.
Mrs. Chatfield was a charter member of the Catholic Ladies relief society.
She is survived by eight children: Charles J. of, South San Francisco; Leo W., of Camptonville; Mrs. Nellie McElhiney, of Oakland; Arden, of Yountville; Mrs. Ina Fouch, of Yuba City; Mrs. Ray Hayknee, of San Jose; and Roy E. and Mrs. Verda Day, both of Chico; a brother, Willard Chamberlin of Corvallis, Ore., two sisters, Mrs. Ada Whitaker and Mrs. Mamie Rosborough, both of Baker, Ore. 21 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren. Mrs. Chatfield lost a son, Gordon in World War II and another son, Howard, three months ago.
At 9:50 a.m. Wednesday the cortege will proceed to St. John the Baptist Catholic Church where requiem mass will be offered for the repose of the soul.
Those who desire may have masses said in lieu of flowers.

May 15, 1956: Letter from Noreen (Chatfield) Haynie to her sister Verday (Chatfield) Day:

Jun 16, 1956: Marriage of Gordon Lawrence “Larry” Clemens (age 22) and Marian Louise McLellan, in Upland, San Bernardino Co., California. This was the first and last time my parents were in the same room together.

Sep 15, 1956: Marriage of Claudia Clemens (age 14) & Bobby Milton McDaniel, in Sparks, Washoe Co., Nevada

1957: Divorce of Noreen “Babe” (Chatfield) Clemens & Raymond D. “Ray” Haynie, living at the time in San Jose, Santa Clara Co., California

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
October 1957 • San Jose to the Islands ~ A year and a month into Bobby and Claudia’s marriage, Bobby was transferred to Barbers Point, a naval air station about 20 minutes from Honolulu. My mother got the notion that she and I would move there too. Mom wanted to be near Claudia, she and Ray had just divorced, and as she was not concerned about what would happen to Betty, we followed in their wake. Mother had to get permission from Dad to take me out of the state, but as Dad’s new wife had no interest in sharing him, it was prudent for him to acquiesce. It worked out quite well for Irene, and also took the heat off Dad with no longer having to choose between her and his children.

Mom proclaimed we were going to live in paradise, so a month into my fourth-grade year—while the world still moved at an unhurried pace, when it took eight hours to fly on a Jumbo DC6, and before it was a state—we moved to the island of Oahu.

1957: Postcard from Verda Day to Nella May McElhiney (Mom’s sisters):

Feb 1, 1958: Marriage of Elizabeth Ann “Betty/Liz” Clemens (age 18) & Anthony Leo “Tony” Duchi, Jr., in Whittier, Los Angeles Co., California

From the summer of 1958 through graduating in 1966 from high school, I lived with my sister Carleen and her family in La Habra, California. During that time Mom, as well as my siblings and their children, were often at the house for holidays, to play cards, or just hang out. Dad also drove down from San Francisco to visit and for my Confirmation and school graduations.

Jun 1959: my sister Liz and our mom, Noreen:

Oct 7, 1967: Marriage of Catherine Frances “Cathy” Clemens & Robert Kenneth “Bob” Sevenau at Holy Name Church in San Francisco, California. My mother did not attend the wedding.

Through Any Given Door, A Family Memoir:
Fall of 1968 • Whittier ~ Over the years Mom managed to get along. She worked for room and board with a small monthly salary for clothes, her car, doctor bills, and prescriptions. By the end she couldn’t hold a job, the hospitals wouldn’t keep her, and everyone in the family refused to take her in. No longer permitted to carry her suitcase through their doors, the children she abandoned had abandoned her, not to punish her, but to get away from her.

In September she turned 53. In early November, the week before she died, she was mugged and robbed. Badly shaken, it may have been the final incident that pushed her over the edge. On November 9, she checked into a small motel on Whittier Blvd. The following morning she was found by the maid. My mother took her own life not because she’d gone mad, but because she was done.

What remained of her life was packed in her small Hillman. The front bench-seat held her clothes, small feather pillow, and jewelry; the back seat had her black and gold Singer, button collection, and sewing box. In the trunk were her pots and pans and meat grinder, her mother’s round deco mirror, and her family pictures. On top was her blue Samsonite overnight case, filled with bottles of pills that through the years kept watch over her like toy plastic soldiers with white caps, standing silent sentry atop her dresser. 

There was no funeral, nor flowers or friends; only her children came to witness her ashes ensconced high up on a wall in a small cemetery in Brea. Standing there, the five of us were filled with a mixture of relief, regret, remorse, and resentment; we said goodbye and left.

Nov 9, 1968: Death of Noreen Ellen “Babe” (Chatfield) Clemens (age 53), my mother, and the 10th of 10 children of Charles Henry Chatfield & Nellie Belle Chamberlin, in Whittier, Los Angeles Co., California; suicide. Cremated and inurned in Memory Garden Memorial Park in Brea, Orange Co., California.

Nov 1968: California Death Index:
Name: Noreen E Clemens
Gender: Female
Birth Date: 29 Sep 1915
Birth Place: California
Death Date: 9 Nov 1968
Death Place: Los Angeles
Mother’s Maiden Name: Chamberl (Chamberlin)

Sep 16, 1986: Death of Carl John Clemens (age 80), my father and the 8th of 13 children of Mathew Sylvester Clemens & Barbara Nigon, in Santa Rosa, Sonoma Co., California; of prostate cancer.

Sep 1986: California Death Index:
Name: Carl John Clemens
Gender: Male
Birth Date: 25 Sep 1905
Birth Place: Minnesota
Death Date: 16 Sep 1986
Death Place: Sonoma
Mother’s Maiden Name: Nigon

Note: The stories herein are excerpts from THROUGH ANY GIVEN DOOR: A FAMILY MEMOIR, which is posted as a web series at www.sevenau.com

2020. Catherine (Clemens) Sevenau.