I want some coffee!

My parents would roll their eyes at what I think were the good ol' days in Lockeford, California. But to my mind it was when I had just gotten my first car (a 1941 Chevrolet) and I could manage to drive to Lockeford on my own. We lived nearby in Stockton- that's about 14 miles SSW of Lockeford. The Ross & Deveggio residences were in the west side of town and it was a very easy driving through farm land. Close enough that, after Standard Stations, Inc in Cordelia Junction and commuting about 110 mi round-trip every day, I took a job at a then brand-new Chevron Station in Lockeford until I was ready to leave in the fall to start college in Los Angeles. But time has marched on and that brand new Chevron Station is now a privately owned automotive repair shop... This was once a brand new Chevron Station in the center of Lockeford ca. 1957. Though he no longer owned it, right next door was a grocery store that was once named Ross Grocery- owned by my maternal grandparents Lewis ...

When I was growing up, my maternal grandparents, the Rosses, lived in Lockeford, California. Lockeford is dribbled along California Highway 88 which is coincidentally the town's Main Street. Lots of traffic but more importantly (as I recall it) lots of truck traffic! Which was a challenge if my grandmother Mae Violet Ross was to receive a visit from her sister Ann. Ann was married to Louie Deveggio and their house was almost directly across the street. So it took a little care to make sure you weren't going to get run over when a visit was in order. Formerly the Ross residence in Lockeford. The only thing missing is the sign post out front that said "PHONE" and pointed to the phone booth on the porch. The Ross house above is little changed from my recollection in the 1950s. Even the picket fence is still there. At some point the Ross's sold the house to their daughter Catherine and her husband Ladoit Tucker. Ladoit repainted the house and I contributed a tiny bi...

After first being drafted then 6 weeks later rejected by the US Army, my father Bill Bowman returned home to Reno. Thanks to my mother's boss at Bell of Nevada my father was able to find employment right away. But that job required some training. The telephone company taught him how to climb telephone poles without falling off, how to repair telephone lines and how to fix lead-sheathed telephone cables.  When training finished he was assigned to work with a guy name Max Goodman as a splicer's helper. One spring day in probably 1944 Max and my father got a trouble call to repair a transcontinental telephone cable. Those cables were a really big deal because it was one of very few communication links between east coast and west coast during war time. That made it vitally important to national security. The cable was buried and apparently followed the route from Reno to Sacramento through the Sierra Nevada Mountains via what is named Donner Pass. Not remotely associated with bur...

I grew up during World War II. Well... to the extent having some disjointed memories specific to the war constitutes 'growing up'. I was born in 1938 and must have been about 4 years old when a war-related image was embedded in my memory. I clearly recall a small map on the front page of the Stockton Record which depicted the front lines of the European theater in about 1942 or maybe as late as 1943. We Bowmans had somehow managed a trip from Reno to Stockton (close to 200 miles with rationed gas- that was a lot of ration coupons!) to visit my paternal grandparents, John Oscar (JO) and Ida Frances Bowman.  I also recall on that visit that my grandfather was livid about some employee at the warehouse at Sharpe's Army Depot where he was the supervisor. The driver had come so close that he had damaged my grandfather's shoe with a sharp metal edge on the forklift. Apparently that sharp edge had cut thru the leather essentially destroying that shoe. This at a time when you w...

I'm referring to ' the good ol' days ' long before my time here on planet Earth. Days when Asians (from what is now Russia) first arrived here in what is now the USA. I promised myself I would write this piece in mid-2023. I did such a crap job I set it aside to try again another day. Maybe this is 'another day'... Before we Euro-transplants populated these United States, Canada, Mexico and all the other countries and states we see today in the Americas - from near the North pole to near the South pole - these lands were populated by what we refer to today as indigenous peoples. And according to academics who study those theoretical populations, those early residents probably arrived from Europe and Asia thousands of years before there were calendars. I recently heard on NPR that the earliest human settlements in what is now the United States may date as far back as 40,000 YBP*... something like 42,000 years ago. To my limited exposure to our ancient history the...

This is a unique family story. And it requires some background about the roll of churches and our US government during the 1700s through the early 1900s as it pertains to Native Americans. First the family story... In the late 1800s, I think it was about 1896, my paternal g-m Ida Frances Penn Bowman was living in south-central Arizona. The Penn family was living in or near Silver King which is in Pinal County about 70 miles due east of Phoenix and about 3 miles north of Superior, Arizona. From 1870 until about 1900 Silver King was an active silver mine and my Penn relatives lived there (or perhaps close by; photos at the time show small buildings which may not be houses). Stacey Penn worked for the mine as a teamster moving silver ore via horse drawn wagon. As I understand it he owned his own horses and wagon(s), so possibly he was an independent contractor to the Silver King Mine. Ore wagons hauling silver ore to the Silver King Mine stamping mill. Maybe Stacey Penn's wagon &...

In the 1800s, wagon trains were an aggregation of travelers going to the same or nearby locations in a distant part of the country via (ta-dah!) t eam-drawn wagon. We've seen the movies that depict that group travel, helping one another to get thru the pain of crossing the United States at a time when there were no roads. All the while carrying with them everything they owned, or more likely only what they needed once they arrived. As I understand it, a very large number of wagon trains started in the vicinity of St Louis, Missouri. A capable leader was located and that person received a sum of $$ to guide the train across difficult country. On occasion that required passing through territory controlled by one or another of the Native American tribes who cared for and hunted on that land. Not many of those tribes were happy about the trespass especially if one or more of the travelers had had enough and decided to stay right where they were, squatting on traditional tribal land. My...