In the last few years, my mom lived in Colorado near my sister, Sandi. Many knew her as the woman with the glittery shoes, but few know about her early life. A native of Texas – and just as tough as everything you’ve heard about women from Texas – she settled in for most of her life in California.

Here are a few stories: We thought for a long time that we were descended from native Americans because our great-grandmother on Mom’s side married a man named Ward, and he looked like the Indians we watched in dozens of TV shows and movies. One picture shows him in a flat-brimmed hat, dark –skinned, high cheekbones. Yet, the ancestry checks show that I am descended from the Irish from the Vikings with no native American blood. So, if this story is true…

From my sister, Squid: If you’ve ever read Grapes of Wrath, you know a bit about Mom’s childhood. Her parents moved from TX to Bakersfield where her mom and dad worked picking fruit in the labor camp known as Weedpatch. She remembers playing with the empty fruit boxes in the orchards with her little brother, Charles, waiting for her folks to call out for them to bring more empty boxes when theirs were full. Mom remembered the move to California in a jalopy that barely made it. Grandma had saved Mom a clean white dress and bonnet on the trip. When they crossed the California border, they stopped at a gas station where grandma gave her a sponge bath and dressed her in those clean white clothes so they wouldn’t be looked down on as “Okies.”

Mom grew up in California and went to Tulare High School with Bob Mathias, an Olympic star. My mom met my dad in California, but I cannot remember the details. Early, they lived in Hanford, then moved to Visalia.

Delano, California had a Harvest Day parade on the first weekend of October. When I was six, Mom made clown outfits for my brother and me, painted our faces, and let us walk in the parade. In the category of CLOWNS, we won second place – ten silver dollars. I kept one of those dollars for years, but I don’t think I still have it (unless it’s in the “Childhood” box in the garage). Tom Edick won first place because his clown looked like it was walking on its hands. We made our own costumes from then on, but never won any prizes.

(Pictured: The Harvest Day Parade around 1961. From the right, my brother, Phil, dressed as the Lone Ranger, me dressed as Tonto- complete with dress shoes and socks. Political correctness was 50 years in the future!)

She worked as a receptionist for a dentist in Delano, but I don’t remember her working in Sacramento until Dad died. Then, she worked at the Sacramento DMV. There she met Gaye, who became her best friend. She traveled and took more vacations with Gaye than she ever took in her entire life.

At one point, my mom took up painting, and her first painting was a picture of a barn on a snowy hillside. She called it “Barn in Snow.” It was a good first attempt, but my brother and I always found it kind of funny because we were both pretty good artists. I think that painting still survives.

In the 70s, most church folks were worried about the influence of rock music on their kids – the drugs, the hippie-dom, the free love. Our church had a meeting with parents of high-schoolers to discuss it. After she’d heard everything people had to offer about the detrimental effects of rock music on kids, my mom stood up and said that she really was enjoying the new album by Paul McCartney. (I think she liked “Sing-along Junk” from the solo bowl of cherries album.) She really never cared about what people thought of her opinions (Remember, she was a Texas girl.) Later, she took some piano lessons and the first song she learned was “Yesterday.” It convinced me to take some lessons from the same teacher.

In the mid-Seventies, mom met Bill Winegar who eventually became her second husband. Again, her horizons expanded with cruising and golf. They built a house in Rancho Murrieta, California and later moved to Sun City outside of Phoenix. Later, they moved back to Folsom, California to be close to Bill’s sons. After a brief time in California, she moved to Colorado. My mom is interred next to Bill at the National Cemetery in Dixon, CA.

(Pictured: My mom at age 22 holding me – doing my best impression of Winston Churchill, my grandmother, Ethyl, and great-grandmother, Marva.)