An Irish-Catholic Tale, Part VI

It has already been mentioned that the girl to the far left of the picture is 10 year old Sara. She's wearing a dress she made herself out of flour sacks. While that may have been the beginning of her sewing projects, it certainly wouldn't be the last. What would come to an end, just a few years from when this picture was taken, was her formal education. But quitting formal schooling cannot mean that Sara was uneducated. Perhaps she was the first homeschooler in the family? We've simply followed in her footsteps!

Sara was a gifted and self-taught artist, seamstress, poet, barber/hair stylist, cook, and graphologist. Thankfully, she was quick to share her talents with others.

Who knows exactly when the first call for help came to Sara? All that's really known is that she was needed, badly, and she was more than willing to come with her suitcases in her hands. In the early 20's through the 60's, it wasn't unheard of for multiple generations to live together to share the work and expenses. Young Sara was needed to help her sisters in raising their children. The first one who needed her had only one young son.

Marjorie, standing behind her mother Nellie in the photo, was suffering from tuberculosis. Still a scary disease today, the effects of tuberculosis back then were devastating. At this time, the entire U family was living in Minnesota, which was hardly a climate friendly to tuberculosis. It was decided in 1918 that Sara would move with Marjorie to California in hopes that the warm climate would help Marjorie recover. Grandpa U moved the rest of the family to Los Angeles to join them in 1920, though oldest daughter, Maime, stayed in Minnesota at first with her husband and their young children, where she was visited by her younger brother, Matt, and his fun-loving friend, Chet.

The move didn't have the effect on Marjorie that was hoped. She died at age 22, leaving her husband and 2 year old son behind.

Next to need Sara was her sister, Taddy. She and her husband, Frank, lived in Long Beach and had five children. Frank spent his days at the oil fields of Long Beach. With Marjorie gone, it seemed logical that Sara would come to help with the children and household chores when Taddy went to work to help a bad financial time.

Eventually, Maime and her family came to California as well. Though Maime's not in this picture, I suspect it was taken at the time that Sarah was living with Maime and her brood in Randsburg, an old mining town in the Mojave Desert, California. There Sara had a dry goods store called Sara's Shop. Not bad for a girl with a 6th grade education!


Here, Sara's in the top row, far left. Her parents are on the far right. In the front row is her youngest brother, Bill. Taddy's on the far right. Aunt Mary Ann notes that she had never seen Sara looking so glamorous.


But back at the bungalow in Hawthorne, things had been going downhill fast for Rosie. When she was just the age of 35, her husband had died of complications due to alcoholism, and now she had five children to raise on her own.

She may have thought about moving her own parents into the detached garage, which had long been converted into a room for the two boys, John and Terry. Sadly, her mother died the same year Rosie lost her husband, 1945, but Grandpa Matt soon moved into the garage with the boys.


While she cared for her children and cooked Grandpa Matt his favorite Irish meals - boiled ham, cabbage, oatmeal, fried scrapple with syrup, and lots of potatoes - it was becoming harder and harder to go it alone. Aunt Mary Ann writes:

Our mom was one of the earliest to qualify for a new, recently created government assistance program called "Aid to Families with Dependent Children", AFDC, or as it's most often called today, "welfare." She often said that ours was exactly the situation that the program was made for — a mother with small children, suddenly left a widow without financial support. She received a small amount of money for each minor child. It added up to something like $160 per month, and she was careful to make it last. They had made the final payment on the house just weeks before my dad died.

In fact, Chet and Rosie had been looking for a larger home. Rosie became so thankful that they never moved! She would not have been able to afford a house payment.

Aunt Mary Ann also writes:

Johnny (age 12) started working at part time jobs to help my mom right from the time our dad died. He worked at a place called "Hammond Eggs," an egg and poultry ranch, and he worked in a tool and die place and various other jobs while going to high school. He often hitch-hiked to school. My mother used to feel embarrassed and a little angry when the "worker" (a social worker) would make unannounced visits to our house to make sure there was no fraud going on with the assistance. She mainly looked for evidence of a man living there or some sign that we didn't really need the money. Once Johnny's clodhopper shoes were on the floor in the living room (he was about fifteen at the time) and they made the social worker very suspicious. My mother hated having to explain about her growing son and feel defensive when she was barely able to put food on the table.

Still, she carried on until the baby, Rita, was ready for school. Ultimately, she knew it was time to work full time. Who would care for the house and children? What Rosie really needed was a wife!

Who on earth should she call?
Thankfully, she didn't call Scary Nana with Black Cats. She was pretty well entrenched with Helen and Joe. Besides, her health was frail and there was that whole pious and solemn thing. Rosie tried to keep her home a house of fun and laughter, so that would never do.


But there was one who was born for a life of service to others. Rosie must have thought about her sister and the visit she and little Johnny paid to her so many years (and children) ago in the desert. Would she drop everything and come? It would mean the world to Rosie if she did.

Of course, Sara did. She moved in with Rosie in 1950. Rosie was so relieved to know her children would be in Sara's excellent care while she went off to work. Sara would be the one to prepare the meals and keep the house in order. She would also teach each of the girls to sew, cook, clean, crochet, and take care of themselves. Again from Aunt Mary Ann:

Aunt Sara was a great seamstress, and she made clothes for us. Before she came, we got mostly charity donations. We did have to buy school uniforms, and I remember it was a big expense for us. We wore them until they were faded and falling apart.

Everyone seemed thrilled with the arrangement. Everyone, that is, except this little girl:
This is my MIL, Kathleen, at age 2. She tells the story of Sara's arrival with a smile and a twinkle in her eye, now, but it wasn't so amusing to her back then. Eight year old Kathleen had her mother's number, and she liked it that way. As she tells it, she pretty much did as she pleased. For example, if she didn't like what Rosie had prepared for supper she would simply head to the kitchen and fix herself a sandwich.

Then Sara moved in.

Their first dinner together was a meal Kathleen didn't particularly care for. As usual, she headed for the kitchen to make herself a sandwich. Sara exerted her authority then and there by calling Kathleen back to the table. She could either eat what was prepared or she could go hungry.

The horror! Her days of manipulating her mother and doing as she pleased were over.

Still, it was a win-win situation for all involved. The children thrived, and all came to have a special love and reverence for Sara. Aunt Mary Ann remembers how excited Sara would be when the girls were in high school and would bring home their new literature books. Sara would devour them. Sara and Rosie would also teach them all, in subversive ways, never to take themselves or their difficulties too seriously, which Aunt Mary Ann correctly labels as both a blessing and a curse.

Rosie and her children, c. 1958. Top row: Rosie, John (26), Terry (20). Bottom row: the amazingly beautiful trio of Rita (14), Mary Ann(18), and Kathleen (16). Uncle Terry refers to these as the "porcelain portraits" because of the way every blemish was removed.

Grandpa Matt lived in the garage room with the two boys until his death in 1948, just two years before Sara moved in. But he wasn't the only male from the U family who would eventually live in that room.

Her two brothers, Matt and Bill, also suffered from the disease of alcoholism. They came to Rosie's house on and off over the years as the children were growing up, sometimes sober, usually not. After sobering up at Rosie's, they often stuck around and did various repair jobs and yard work. They collaborated on building a large addition to the bungalow on the back of the house. At first, it was the three girls' bedroom, and then it became Sara's room after all the girls moved out.


This is a 1960's photo of Sara, Bill, Rosie, Nora, and Taddy. Bill mysteriously stopped drinking in the 60's after a head injury. He stayed in Hawthorne with Rosie's friend, Irene, until his death in 1987 (just a few days before Irene died herself).


Sara, Taddy, Rosie, and Nora. Both photos were from Rosie's back yard. This one was probably from the 1970's, shortly before the deaths of Taddy and Nora.

Things were going well for the R family, but there were many trials still ahead. The boys had completed their education in very different ways. Each of the girls finished their high school educations, taking the same (and one very different) paths.



Oh, and the best was still to come!