Fearless Females - Aunt Pearl - best baseball scorer 1910

Pearl Victoria Blanding was a fearless female, and during Women's History Month I thought I’d write about her: my great Aunt.  Pearl was not a straight-laced Victorian lady, despite her middle name.  She was born 22 Mar 1892, but that never stopped her from getting younger through the years.  At one point, on her Catholic conversion baptism certificate, she crossed out her birth year of 1892 and wrote in "1900."  Her age was also eight years reduced on her ID as an office worker at Santa Anita Race Track in 1936.  She figured it helped her be employable, and she never acted her age anyhow.  

     Pearl was born at Madison Lake, Blue Earth County, Minnesota, but didn't stay there long.  Her Blanding family and some cousins migrated to Dooley County Georgia about 1900, supposedly to avoid the snow and raise peaches.  But after an epidemic of diptheria killed her little cousin, the Squier family returned north.  Pearl's father then took them to Palm Beach, Florida, where he was a carpenter for the Breaker's Hotel.  But California called, and the family took the train ending in Los Angeles in 1903 where she grew up in her family's boarding houses on Staunton Ave and also on 21st Street.

Who can resist girls boxing?  Pearl on right - Los Angeles

      When Pearl was 17 she was feeling her oats and became interested in the national past-time, baseball.  After all, that's where the guys were, and she dated them frequently  She received post cards from them from all over the west and Mexico.  I knew Aunt Pearl always loved the Dodgers when they came to Los Angeles in 1958, but I never knew the background of her fascination with the sport.   

  

  The postcard from Long Beach, above, says in typical jargon:  "Oh! you kid. Do you think you could outshine this kid in a bathing suit.  I am rooming with Baldwin, a big league p. (pitcher?) certainly tells me a lot of dope, pretty good fellow too.  Jess"

From the California Digital Newspaper Collection I learned that at age 17 Pearl was an avid baseball league scorer as written in the Los Angeles Herald newspaper: 

  " Play Fast Ball in City League" Dec 13, 1909.  "Shonley struck out ten men and was effective at all Stages of the game."  "Miss Pearl Blanding, who did the Scoring, has the reputation of knowing as much about The national game as either McGraw or Chance."  [Art Shonley and Pearl's sister Fern Blanding, were married briefly in 1911].   

Then on Feb 14, 1910: " Winter Baseball"  "The National Lumber company team has the distinction of having the only woman scorer in Southern California in Miss P. Blanding.  Miss Blanding is an expert in following the game and could give the male members who make an attempt at score-keeping cards and spades."

    

  She was always up for a party, or a song.  She became Catholic to marry her Irish baseball player love, Dan Critchley, and she fit right in to the culture, celebrating St. Patrick's Day with the zeal of a leprechaun, seemingly every day of the year.  Pearl fit right in, holding her own with a drink, a joke, or a song. 

Dan Critchley, 3rd from left, back row

    Aunt Pearl was not known in the family for being practical or conservative in her living or spending habits.  She was a bit of a free spirit.  After she married her third husband I knew that she loved dinner parties and card parties.  When I was a teenager she gave me a negligee that had belonged to her party friend, Auggie, (Augustine Cole), I believe she was the governess of  Francesca, the granddaughter of actor Edward G. Robinson and his wife Gladys.  Aunt Pearl often mentioned Francesca.  I suspect the negligee came as "no longer wanted" following Edward and Gladys' 1956 divorce.

Pearl with third husband, Pat Hunt, and perhaps Francesca 

   Aunt Pearl may have been considered a bit of a gray sheep by the family, but she outlived her sisters, despite her cocktails and lack of compliance with diabetes.  She also kept some of  the family history papers together (in her own way) and passed them down to me.  

Pearl

An update from Donna

I've been busy after getting back from Colorado after Christmas.  The weather in Hawaii has been wet and windy, but still happy to be here than under the snow and storms some of the mainland has received.
   The greater Rees family of Wales has had a sad week with the passing, March 10th, of Tony Lythe (Anthony Frederick Arthur Lythe), husband of Cristabel (John) Lythe, my 3rd cousin once removed.  Cris' great-grandmother and my great-grandmother were sisters in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, daughters of patriarch Elias Rees born 1811 in Carmarthenshire.  Tony was a Welshman through and through, born in Breconshire, and always proud of his heritage.  A wonderful person, he will be missed.

Tony Lythe

   Better news on the Welsh side, is that another descendant of the same great-grandmother's sister, Janet (Rees) Davies is coming to Hawaii to visit me.  The visitor is Helen Medlock, a part of triplets, who all visited me when they were 13 years old with their mother, Judith.  Now Helen is grown up and has been traveling on her own.  I am looking forward to seeing here again, and showing her more of the sights of Oahu.

Helen Medlock and her brothers in 2001

 

Advent Calendar -Christmas Memories - Santa Claus

YIKES!  Could you love this face?

We  enjoyed our visits to the department store Santa Claus every year growing up in Los Angeles.  I think we would find him at the Broadway or May Company stores.  But it was when Santa came to our house Christmas Eve to pass out some presents that really was the best.  I don’t know why I wasn’t terrified by the Santa who came to our house, as you can tell by the photos, the mask was a bit scary.  I started getting suspicious of who that Santa really was when I noticed he wore the same type of dress shoes that my father wore, and that he even had an identical Masonic ring.  And where was my father every time Santa arrived???  The last time Santa came, my Uncle Wally Hague and his kids were visiting.  Uncle Wally said he had to run to the store and disappeared, then Santa arrived and this Santa sounded exactly like Uncle Wally.  But it was great fun, and the littlest kids were in awe.  And who could doubt any of it when you would get that special gift – from Santa!

 

 1946   I was only a year old, and maybe sleeping?  Santa was wearing Dad's robe.

1947

A great Christmas - Santa brought me a doll and baby buggy

 

1950 - Looks like Santa brought be something great in the box
 that he took from his bag (a mailbag).

 Yes, it was a doll, a "Toni" doll, I believe.  My favorite. 

On Christmas morning our routine was to get up early to see if Santa had returned to come down the chimney and fill our stockings that were hung on the mantel.  Before going to bed on Christmas Eve we would leave a tray with cookies and milk for Santa (always gone in the morning) and a carrot for Rudolph (a big bite removed).  

   At one point I remember asking my grandmother, Minnie Wallace Hague, if Santa Clause was real.  I remember she said, "His spirit is real and he lives in your heart" - I don't think I quite understood that answer, but I thought it was nice that she didn't say "No."

Christmas Memories - Outdoor Decorations

  I remember that at some point we had outdoor lights on the edge of the roof of our house.  Nothing extravagant, but once the neighbors did it we all had to do it, I guess.  I climbed the ladder to the roof and would help my Dad put up the lights.  I recall being quite small when climbing up to the roof.  What was my Dad thinking!!  Well, I did whatever he thought I could do.  I remember jumping out of a tree once, with his encouragement,  and he caught me when I was five in Idaho.  And then there was the time I got the courage to jump off a diving board and he was in the swimming pool to rescue me if needed (Long Beach, Calif).

   Anyway, I'm not sure of the year we started putting up outdoor lights, but this is a photo of our house on Cimarron Street in SW Los Angeles in 1961.

  Below are two neighbors across the street from us that year.  We loved seeing the lights along our street.  In the past we'd drive to the Coliseum in Los Angeles and see the lights outside of it.

 

 

 

 

My Neighbors' houses --- this is the way we did it in 1961 in Los Angeles, California

 

 Below is a photo for our Christmas card in 1959 as we might be ideally pictured putting up decorations on our porch.

 

Christmas Memories - Christmas Cards

 Christmas Cards were special from our house.  Even before I was born my father (Alfred Vincent Hague) sent out photo Christmas cards that he created, including the processing and printing.  When I got older I helped my father (along with my brother and mother) in the dark room built inside our garage in Los Angeles.  Inside the darkroom a red light enabled us to see the pans of developing chemicals for dipping each card through, after exposing it to the original negative with light.  Once that was done the cards had to be washed of all the chemicals.  We did this in the bathtub in the house.  Rinsing, rinsing rinsing.  Then each had to be dried.  Finally they were stacked and put in "press" or wooden box with a screw down top to flatten them out just before they were totally dry.  From there my mom addressed each envelope and they were finally mailed to our family and friends.
   Follow my brother, Richard, and me throughout the years in the cards below:

 

           

  

Christmas Memories - Holiday Foods

The foods I remember at our Christmas table were very consistent through the years.  My mother prepared the Christmas dinner and relatives came.  We always used the Franciscan china, rose pattern, dishes. 
    Of course turkey was the main course, along with mashed potatoes, a vegetable like frozen green peas with little pearl onions (my favorite) but also corn, and green beans.  Flakey biscuits were served hot and butter provided to melt inside.  Olives would be in a dish, I only ate the black ones; the ones without the seeds were best as they could be pushed onto the fingers for fun.   Cranberry sauce gel from the can was sliced and set in a dish, gravy was made, bread crumb stuffing created, and some kind of sweet potato (I never ate any of that stuff).  Maybe Aunt Pearl brought the sweet potatoes.   We kids drank milk and the adults might have water. 
     The most important food for me was the pumpkin pie dessert.  I love pumpkin pie.  When I was two, at a family reunion in Des Moines, Iowa, they found me under the dessert table eating a whole pumpkin pie before dinner.   I can eat pumpkin pie plain, but I love it with vanilla ice cream.  Whipped cream topping is OK, and another way we liked it (my mom’s influence) with to top with a bit of honey and sprinkle with walnuts out of the nut grinder.  My grandmother, Grace Blanding Senker, had a farm in Los Molinos, California where she, and step-grandfather Roy Senker, raised both honey and walnuts, so we always had a good supply.  They also raised prunes, but I abstained from them.  However they dried prunes and stuffed them with a walnut half and rolled them in sugar.   (I think this is what they did with the dried prunes, substituting them instead of dates - I could be wrong)    It was a popular Christmas gift to other relatives, and a nice dish of them graced the table when the pumpkin pie came out.
   Speaking of pumpkin pies, when I had my own daughter, after Halloween, I thought I’d make a pumpkin pie out of our jack-o-lantern.  I used the trial and error method, and unfortunately it was one big error.  The pumpkin was cut up into pieces and placed in the oven, but it never seemed to cook until soft.  I tried to mash it up, but it insisted on staying crunchy.  I made my own pie crust, but after too many attempts at rolling out a nice dough, I gave up and smashed the dough into the pie pan until it was somewhat flat.  With that, I baked the pie, and it turned out ---- a crunchy mess.  So much for my pie making skills.   That’s the only pumpkin pie I couldn’t eat.



Best photo I have of the Christmas table

   I don’t seem to have any dinner table photographs digitalized (on my project list), but this photo shoes show the Franciscan ware covered dish for the mashed potatoes, and a basket from Mexico lined with a napkin holding the hot rolls.  A casserole dish for the stuffing and a glass of milk can be seen.  The people are my Aunt Pearl & Uncle Pat Hunt in the foreground, my grandfather, Leonard Pearce, and my mother, Nadine Hague in the back.  That wall paper in the dining room was very popular in the 1950s.

Christmas Memories - The Tree

We always had a live green Christmas tree in Los Angeles.  We would go to a Christmas tree lot and select the perfect one, often a fir tree.

Donna & Dick at Christmas Tree lot... we only bought green ones, however. 1951

   I think we usually found a tree lot on Manchester Ave west of Western Ave.  In the 1940s and 1950s the trees would never be perfect, but we thought we’d found a good one, if it had one good side.  Dad would pick up extra branches to do some “repair” when we got home.  Dad would tie the tree to the top of our car and we would ride home feeling very special and happy to have the tree.  Once home Dad would get out his drill and drill strategic holes in the trunk to plug in the extra branches - to fill out the tree and reduce “empty spots.”  

My first Christmas Tree 1945

    Mom would have a place ready for the tree in front of the living room (also known as the “Front Room”) bay window.  Rotating the tree was a work of art, to be sure the best side was facing the living room.  The challenge was to always have the base filled with water so the tree wouldn’t go dry until after the New Year.

     A white sheet was put on the floor and a pretty Christmas skirt would complete the base.  Then the boxes of Christmas trimmings would come down from the attic space.  I liked to go into the “stereo closet” (a closet Dad used for his stereo and electronics equipment), go up a step ladder,  removing the wooden cover and lift up into the attic .  It was fun to see all the things placed here and there in the dark attic.  Since I was little, I was able to get to the boxes and help hand them down.

Glass ball and big screw in light with tinsel icicles

    The lights would have to be tested every year.  They were big screw in bulbs at first, then the smaller push in bulbs in later years.  But the "bubble lights" were the premier lights of the tree, clipped onto the branches just right so they would bubble up inside the glass shaped like a candle.   If one of the tree lights was out, the whole string was out and it was quite a job to test each bulb to make sure it was OK.  That was the slow part of the job.  Then the light strings would be wound around the tree.  Mom would have the keen eye for the placement of the light strings, and the other trimmings as well.  After the lights were on Dad fixed up a light switch to turn on all the strings.  It was fixed to the center trunk of the tree for convenience. But later the switch went to an extension that could be placed on the piano next to the tree.

A bubble light on the tree branch - slightly askew

    The silver or gold garlands were next.  These were of a smaller diameter than are sold today.  They were looped around the tree.

    Then silver tinsel was hung, strand by strand on the branches to look like icicles.  If we were tired at this point, there might be a few tinsel clumps of strands instead of individual shimmering strands.

     Finally the best part was putting the decorations and glass balls on the tree.  That was our job as kids.  Mom would sit in a chair, and from the old May Company cardboard box would unwrap each glass ball, lovingly wrapped in tissue paper the year before.  We used all the same decorations every year, and only rarely got something new.  New ornaments were usually one for my brother, Dick, and one for me.  We coveted our own ornaments every year.  One I liked was an ornament made into a design of beads, with a yellow theme.  Hard to describe.  I’m not sure where it is anymore.

   The last thing was the top ornament, usually a pointy spire top that ended just at the ceiling level.  I don’t think we ever used an angel.

Nice full tree by 1956

   Finally when all was in place, the lights would be switched on and we would all marvel at the sight of our beautiful tree.  Dad always told the story of when he was a boy in Des Moines and they used candles on the tree.  When he and his brother and sister would come downstairs Christmas morning the tree had appeared and the candle lights would be aglow.  They were only allowed to have the candles on a few minutes that morning, as the adults were deathly afraid of fire from rambunctious kids knocking over a candle.  So it was an eventful year, perhaps around 1917 when Dad’s father, Alfred G. Hague, surprised them with a battery box powered set of tree lights.  He was so pleased that the lights could be kept on whenever they wanted, and it would be safe when the kids opened their gifts.  As Dad would tell it, he was always eager to get all the gifts under the tree.  When it seemed all were gone, he rooted around to be sure none were hiding under the tree branches.  While doing this some of the tinsel (made of lead I think) touched the battery box causing a spark and the spark ignited the tree.  So there was their “safe” Christmas tree going up in flames.  Luckily the fire was extinguished before damaging the house, but Dad’s father was quite discouraged with the safety of his tree that year and the new electric lights.

Beautiful glowing lights back in 1950

      The last thing to make our tree complete was when presents would slowly be placed under the tree, every day a few more would magically appear, as someone would have shopped for a gift and get it wrapped in the days before Christmas Eve.

    Through the years I always had a real tree, until I move to Hawai and my daughter married.  Since I was living by myself, I just had a table top tree, or used a little ceramic tree made by my mother that had little plastic beads in it and a light bulb inside to make them glow like lights. (top plastic star on top is broken off!)

 I would spend Christmas at my daughter’s house when she wasn’t living in Germany.  By the year 2001 I figured artificial trees had become good enough to use, so I bought one with lights already on.  My daughter and family came to Hawaii and the tree was beautiful.  A few purchased evergreen boughs helped provide the Christmas tree fragrance.  

      I have a trunk full of Christmas tree ornaments in my attic.  Last year it was up to my grandson to move the Christmas things in and out of the attic.  I lovingly think of the history of each of the ornaments as I, my daughter, or my grandchildren, place them on the tree.  I tell them the story of each special ornament.    I’m going to take digital pictures of the important ornaments so no matter what happens to the precious and fragile glass decorations, the images will always be ready to take me back to happy family memories of my Christmas trees.

Donna, Alisa, Braden, Emily by artificial tree in Hawaii 2011 - no icicles or garlands