To my son from mother on Mother's Day 1991

But for the Grace of God
I'd be a lonely soul
Instead, I'm rich in memories
of loved ones--young and old
I remember my sweet mother
She was--Oh! So giving
I'd give everything I have today
To have her here--still living!
I'd hug and kiss her everyday
I'd live close by her too
I'd surely do different, to make up
For all the things I didn't do!
Today--all I have are pictures and memories
of her--and I hold them so dear
So I guess that will have to do
Till I die, and once again hold her near
I remember all my children
All have their own sweet charms
I wish they all were little again
For me to cuddle in my arms!
As they age and marry
They bring me special pleasures
The ones they choose as mates,
And their children, are real treasures!
Having had so many children
I'm haunted by the things I didn't do!
But like my own sweet mother, who had ten
I know mine all love me too!

by Edie Holdgrafer 1991

COWBOY JIM by Edie Holdgrafter

Mom and Jim are now together










COWBOY JIM





GONE NOW, THIS SWEET MAN; FROM EARTH TO HEAVEN ABOVE
LEAVING LOVED ONES HERE, WITH SWEET MEMORIES OF LOVE
YOUR TEACHINGS AND LOVE FOR US, WILL STAY DOWN DEEP INSIDE
IN OUR HEARTS, OUR LOVE FOR YOU; WILL FOREVER, THERE ABIDE

WE WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HAPPY SMILES UPON YOUR SWEET FACE
ALL THE THINGS YOU DID; WE WERE AMAZED AT HOW YOU KEPT PACE
YOU DID SOME REALLY WONDROUS THINGS, NOT EVERYONE GETS TO DO
WORKING FOR ROY ROGERS AND TRIMMING AND RIDING HORSES, TOO
THERE WAS NOTHING YOU COULD NOT HAVE DONE IF IT CAME YOUR WAY
WE WILL ALWAYS KEEP YOU SPECIAL; IN OUR HEARTS EVERY SINGLE DAY

REST IN PEACE, NOW, GOOD MAN
FOR YOU HAVE EARNED YOUR PLACE TO BE
WHERE YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT
AND SEE EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO SEE
LOVE FOR YOU WILL ALWAYS BE IN MY HEART
REST IN PEACE, MY SWEETHEART


RIDE EM COWBOY, HOPE IT'S ON SPARKY!
Edie, May 2000

A Kid I Once Was (part II) by Edie Holdgrafer

Part II

Several very nice things that the people were all used to and were taking for granted started disappearing. I never really could understand why they stopped all the streetcars that would take people in any direction down the main street, connecting everywhere to make transportation excellent and economical too. Next, they tore down the cables that ran them and that was a huge job creating confusion in traffic. For all those used to traveling by streetcar they now had to either walk, buy a car, or take a gas burning new bus, which really created fumes to rise. Eventually this kind of "fumes" was named SMOG. Then naturally came the removal of the streetcar tracks which took several years of congested traffic with street closures and lane closure signs. I started my driving about that time so all this was soon forgotten, never questioned, and life just went on. My opinion is: IF STREETCARS WERE STILL THE MAIN TRANSPORTATION IN THAT WHOLE AREA, MUCH MORE GOOD WOULD HAVE COME FROM IT ALL. BUT THAT IS JUST MY OPINION.

About the same time this was happening, it was decided it would be cheaper to import our oil from other countries, so SIGNAL HILL and all oil wells were shutdown, supposedly for no oil to be taken. But over the years what happened to that oil reserve? We still have to import our oil but now it is owned by foreign countries and regulations put up on it. NONE OF IT MAKES MUCH SENSE ANYMORE. WHO owns the oil that is in our own country? We have more untapped oil in Colorado than the whole world has. It was once said by sources unknown that we Americans WILL SAVE OURS. What a blindfold the government has put over our eyes.

My first husband was George. He was 3 years older than me. I got pregnant and we had to marry. I think it was July when his folks drove us to Quartzite, Arizona where we married with a justice of the peace. It was so terribly hot we thought we would die in the little 34 Ford we were in. No air-conditioning in the cars at that time. We survived the trip, however, and Gail Ellen was born that following January. She was a delightful little daughter and I fell into into life as a wife and mother. Another child. Tracey Jeanne was born several years later. Life was lonely for me even though we owned our own house. I went to work for Pacific Bell Telephone office and was a long distance operator for about one and a half years. George was also an employee of the telephone company and he worked in the operations department and also worked graveyard shift. During the mornings George would be sleeping and I would take the girls to the babysitter's house before going to work split shift-- which was 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. It was a very miserable position and I could not take it one morning on my day off when George came home about 6 a.m. with a crowd of people. I packed up the kid's belongings and a few of mine and took off for Bakersfield to be with my sister Evelyn and Melvin Powers. I lost my job for leaving with no notice and ended up going back to Los Angeles again and finding a job. It was not long till I found out I was PREGNANT again and told George I needed help--but he refused to believe the baby I was carrying was his. I arranged to live in Rosamond in the little house my mom ended up living in later on, but Hazel's husband George Stemwedel was ill and dying of cancer and could not stand the noise of my two girls playing out in the yard. I understood, and called George to come and get the girls. He did, and I somehow made my way back to Los Angeles and arranged with a doctor there to adopt out the child I was carrying. I ended up getting $75 a month for my expenses and arranged living with a lady who had lost her husband and had 2 kids to care for. I babysat and gave her most of the money -- and all I had money for was cigarettes. Just had to have cigarettes in those days. Pregnant or not. They did not know there was a problem with tobacco then. Shortly after the baby boy was born in 54, my friend, Ed O'Connor, came home from Korea and we were together for 19 years and had the 6 boys. We lived together until George got the divorce, and then we married in Las Vegas. It was not long after I married Ed that George wanted me to stop seeing the girls. He claimed it was too hard to manage them after Ed and I had them for weekends, etc. His mom told me I should just back off, that it was confusing my two girls--and they were having to get spanked a lot. So, I bowed out and George knew where I lived for 10 years after that, and I never had a word of the girls at all.

That was in 1955. Tim had been born and we all went on with our life--Ed trucking and being gone most of the time and would only get 2 or 3 days off before taking off again for another 6 weeks or more. His being gone most of the time made him more potent for getting me pregnant cause pregnant I got--even though I was using the methods they had then for birth control. Guess they did not work too well cause every year and a half or so, I had another baby. After the twins, I went 4 years before Bart was born, but that was only because I had 2 or 3 miscarriages. All together 12 pregnant times to endure and only got to raise 6 boys out of the 9 children I had given birth to. After the twins were born, Ed leased his own truck as was making good money--times were especially good then in the late 50's and early 60's. We did own a home for a while and he leased his truck from Bekins Van Lines until he broke down and traded that truck back east for a new truck and presto. It was not long till he kept getting sent what they called "deadheaded for a destination" and not getting paid for those miles or any problems with the truck--or anything. They did this week after week till Ed was gone 6 weeks to 3 months before he would pop in for 3 days and turn around and be gone again. He finally went bankrupt and we lost our cars, our home, etc. We moved over to Pomona and he went to work for other companies and we got by. Pomona was 10 years of our life and the END of another marriage.

A KID I ONCE WAS by Edie Holdgrafer

Part I

And in the beginning.....

I was born Edna Frahm in Bakersfield, California, in 1931. My mother had taken the train to get there to have me. She and the rest of the family lived in the small town of Mojave. It was a little town where everyone knew each other and watched over the little ones at play in the park or on the streets. There was some cars but not too much for traffic, so it was fairly safe as a kid to play step on your shadow, hide and seek, and all the children games. A few memories I had in the first 10 years of life are scattered and few, like riding a bicycle, swimming in the school, tap-dancing, tricks on the bars, acting in plays, etc. I was quite shy and got picked on a lot, but most of the ones that picked on me knew my sisters and were afraid of them, so it was done moderately. I can remember no real close friends at that time. My mom was the milk lady in town and drove the milk truck around the whole town setting out milk, butter, and whatever other products they delivered to the homes at that time, like cheese and cottage cheese. My dad somewhere in the first 10 years of my life was in my life to the point where I can remember him reading Nicodemus stories to me. They were popular kid books of the time. But, then something changed for he moved up to Tehachapi and lived alone and I would only visit on certain weekends once in a while. I was afraid of my dad, though I do not know why. He looked like Boris Karloff (a very handsome man) and was about 6 feet 4 inches or so.

I remember staying with my sister Hazel in Tehachapi and going to school alone for some time. I don't know why my mom did that to me other than my dad died about that same time and I did not see a funeral or anything, other than to be told that Dad died. I don't remember anything other than a very lonely childhood and then suddenly in school one day, a group of people came to my classroom and pointed out several children of which I was one. Next thing I knew it was a pick of several children to be taken to a location in Red Rock Canyon for a movie production that was to start Loretta Young and Robert Preston. The name of the movie was "The Lady from Cheyenne." It was fun. All us children were given different costumes to put one, which incidentally were hoop skirts, without the hoops and big brim bonnets to make us look like they did in the 1700's--in the days of the early West. IT WAS FUN. I even got to touch Loretta Young, running to her and pulling my mom to see "the tiny waist" Loretta Young had. Probably no more than 16 inches around. Mine at 10 years old was bigger I think. For the next few years I remember being on movie sets in Hollywood and being put in costumes and put in different locations, with crowds of others for filming, doing different things, walking on the sidewalk with others, playing on merry go rounds, playing ball, running, laughing, playing tag, whatever they told us to do. It was fun. Doing this had taken us to Los Angeles to live and I loved it! Streetcars to take you anywhere at all. So convenient. I would get on the streetcar on the corner where I lived and it would take me all the way to the beach going one direction and all the way to downtown Los Angeles the other way. Hollywood, if I stayed on and wanted to go that way. It was the same if you took the opposite streets that went North and South. It was a marvel of transportation. Los Angeles had it made.

The war broke out and we ended up in it in 1941 and all was suddenly changed with new laws of curfew being put upon us for our safety as well as Dark Shades to pull down to cover any lighted window and sirens to listen for. Once in a while a siren test would make everyone rush to pull down curtains and get under a table to practice, just in case one day the real thing came along--we would be used to it. But it didn't. Those years were the best years for me that I can remember. John Muir Junior High School. I had a neighbor friend to walk with and we were close. I had never had a "friend" before. Then little by little through those junior high school years, I met more and more friends and by the time we were all to high school, my friend Bonnie, who was my first friend, and lived in the same apartment four-plex, would leave together and walk about 6 blocks and pick up 2 more friends and the 4 of us would walk another 4 or 5 blocks to pick up a few more and so on and so on and by the time we got to Manual Arts High School, we had about 7 of us all together and we would do just the opposite on the way home. It was about 3 miles to school and another 3 miles home and we did have fun. Then in the 11th grade came boyfriends for us and we did not all walk together anymore. Our boyfriends would pick us up or we would take the streetcar or some such thing. We still got together though, on different occasions. I ended my school years at 11th grade, and then started my married life and the life of being a mother. My childhood days had ended.

stay tuned for part II