Inlaw by Marriage: "Grandma Sharp"

 

JL writes about his maternal grandmother:

On the 9th of April, 1913, my (Oregon pioneer) grandmother, Fleda Edna Wooldridge, married Paul Luther Hall in the county of Sacramento, California. She was 19; he was 26. She was the mother of Evelyn, who would marry Johnnie and become the mother of Jon, Dean and Patty.

In 1931, Grandpa (Eli) Sampson, along with friends Heikki & Mikey went to California to look for gold. While digging for gold, they made 50 cents per day. Eli then started making and selling (through word of mouth) homemade beer. He did that for two years.

  

Sometime between then and the later 30's, Dad (Johnnie) worked in a rock quarry in California, and thought he would die from the heat.Later, possibly during the time of my mother's “practice  marriage,” Dad “hitched” a ride on the railroad to Sacramento to check out an old girl friend (?) [picture above]. It must have been fall or winter, because he thought he would die of the cold in the mountains before & after the Rogue River valley. Evidently, the girl, who was a teacher or nurse, wasn't interested in this guy who traveled like a hobo!jl

[Edna later married Zwicker, who was a butcher, and bore Evelyn's younger brother; then she married a painter, Fred Sharp.  Edna was sturdy pioneer stock. She was still going strong, and still driving her car, into her 80s.