The Heads

The Heads are a large family, and probably even larger of a clan than the Hoards. My grandmother (Ernest Hoard's first wife) was Leona Head Hoard. Everyone called her Mom. This seemed to happen naturally enough, and she never said anything to dissuade us grandkids from calling her this. Mom was Mom, and we will always call her that, no matter what.

Mom lived in Turlock, California, for many years, raising two girls, Ima Jean and Wanda. Ima Jean is my mother. Aunt Wanda still lives in Turlock. My mother tells stories of growing up on Hawkeye Road, and the house that her father built (Ernest). She tells us girls (my sister and I) stories of how they behaved during the great Depression, how they were when they were in high school (Turlock High School - yea Bulldogs!) and some of the things their friends did. Imie and Wanda's aunt Janie came to live with them at one point. Janie is Mom's youngest sister, but only a mere four years older than my mother, and two years older than Wanda. They were more like sisters. Janie was the wild one of the group, according to my mother. But they had a lot of fun.

Janie and her family came to visit us when I was girl many times. They moved all over the United States, because her husband, my (great) uncle Jerry, was in the Marines.

My mother loves to tell about their dog, Butch, when she and Wanda were girls. There is only one picture of Butch that I can remember in my mother's album, but he was a fine looking black dog with some white spots here and there. Mother also tells about Bessie, their one lone milk cow that sometimes went wandering out on her own and getting sick on eating the wrong things. My grandfather also raised bees at this time.

Leona and Ernest divorced when my mother was about 14, a freshman in high school. This had a terrible impact on both girls, since divorce was not a very popular thing in those days. Shortly after this, World War II broke out, which continued the trauma of the divorce, plus teenage uncertainly and insecurity too. This was all natural parts of growing up, but made much more difficult in trying times.

My grandmother managed well after the divorce, she went to work, paid off the house on Palm Street, and bought a really neat retirement cottage in Aptos, California. She didn't do so badly for herself, buying a brand-new car in 1967 for her retirement, selling the Turlock house, and moving to the coastal paradise in Aptos with mountain ferns, trees, all kinds of birds and squirrels, and a garden to keep her happy in her maturing days. The only thing I remember the most about my grandmother Leona was her fried potatoes. No one could outdo her fried potatoes (or any okie cooking) on that oil-burning stove of hers at the cabin. We visited her as often as we could, but it was quite a trip over there. We went to the beach and collected all kinds of shells - this in the days when such things were plentiful there. There were all kinds of things to explore there in Aptos and Capitola. She knew all the neat places to go to, and accompanied us there on many occasions. She also had her best friend living a few cabins down the road, Cecil and her husband Jim. They also had a cool cabin, with a spiral staircase down the middle, no less.

My grandmother came from a family of 8 children. My grandmother was the oldest of these, so there was Leona, Evadna, Thelma, Golda, Finis, Fred, and Janie (and I forget the exact order they were born - see the next page for the order of their birth).

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