Stories about Mom and Dad

As I grew up, all of our birthdays fell between August 8 (Dad) and October 5 (JR), so the roughly two month span felt very much like a pre-Christmas season as I got a little older. I can only remember 1 or 2 birthday parties but they were always shared with David and always closer to his birthday. As we got older, we got to pick a spot for dinner (from a limited selection of restaurants) and a cake flavor.  There was this awful Chinese restaurant in Bakersfield we'd go to and order something sweet and sour, then a local bakery made a light fluffy cake they called a champagne cake... The next few additions to the family fell in the family birthday window as well. It wasn't until Rebecca was born in March that the trend was broken. We were all together for Dad's birthday one year; I think Anna, who was born in the Birthday Season as well, was 2? or 3? at the time? I think Rebecca was there so that would mean she was 3... Anyways, we were getting ready for cake and presents an...

I was reminded today that I should continue with stories... I have a few short anecdotes about Dad's family. Grandma Hampton (Dad's grandma) had all sons; I'm not sure of the geneology and can't tell you how many, but they all had nicknames; Dad's dad was Slim, and one of his brothers was Slick. I don't know where the names came from. When the family all got together, inevitably the boys would be in the kitchen with their mother, telling her dirty jokes which delighted her. Grandma Hampton had a house on Ann Street in Ventura; the house is no longer there. When Dad would visit with his family as a child, she would kill a chicken and cook it for them all. Apparently she made great chicken and dumplings. The grandkids could play in the yard as long as they left the rain barrel alone! Ventura water was awful (very minerally) and she used the purer rain water to wash her hair. Dad mentioned a tragedy in the family, apparently a bunch of kids were in the back of a pi...

Seems like this is a good time to briefly write what I remember about the moon landing. It felt like we always followed the Apollo missions as a family; we'd watch the blast offs, we'd watch the splashdowns and recovery when they were televised. Both Mom and Dad seemed really interested in it all, and we were as interested as kids can be. I remember all of us sitting down to watch the moon landing. If I recall correctly, it was on a Saturday morning; I remember this because it was in the middle of the Saturday morning cartoons David and I always watched. I just assumed that they would land on the moon, hop out, look around, Bugs Bunny style. I was not quite 8 years old at the time. The landing seemed to take forever. I recall there was some fear that the moon lander would sink in dust and disappear. Once it was safely on the ground, the astronauts ran through a series of checklists before their moon walk. It took forever. I whined about missing my cartoons. Dad told me to...

Edwin Bardach's first wife was a Jewish woman; they had two girls. I'm going to guess that the girls were born in the 1890's but I do not know for sure; I have tried but have been unable to find information on whether the survived the Nazi occupation. His second wife was die Tante (the Aunt); I don't know her name but that's how mom and cousin Peter referred to her. She was moms moms sisters illegitimate daughter who was raised as a sister of Aunt Annie's (moms moms other sisters daughter). I think I have this right. She and Edwin divorced with no children and no animosity; she met the love of her life and went to live with him in Saalbach, near Zell am See. His wife would not grant him a divorce so they lived together until their 80's when his wife passed away and they were able to marry. His third wife was Sofia Famfoolie, mom's mom. There's a book on the Mischlinge (Jewish/Catholic mixed kids under Hitler's regime) that tells their story a...

This story is from Anna:  The last time I saw Oma was the summer of 2011, and the last thing she did for me was to give my husband and I a memory to last. Her home butted against a property with a massive, gorgeous, flourishing lemon tree. My husband, Tyler, loves fresh squeezed lemonade had been thinking about this lemon tree during our entire trip. Finally, on the last evening we were there, he inquired about what happened to the lemons. Oma, in a most clear and direct manner, explained that the neighbor had no interest in sharing the lemons and at the end of the season most would fall off the tree and rot. It was obvious that this royally pist her off - I assume because she never wasted food.  We, however, were welcome to take as many lemons as we wanted, she said. I have rarely seen Oma with this emotion, but there was venom in her words and revenge on her mind. I politely declined, not wanting to stir up any trouble, but my husband jumped at the opportunity. I th...

After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, I remember telling Dad that I'd donated to the Red Cross. Dad got furious and told me NEVER to donate to the Red Cross; they were horrible people and the organization shouldn't exist.  Here's that story, and the story of what happened to Uncle David. Let's see if I can get all the facts in here... Slim Hampton (Edwin Earl Hampton Sr) separated from Ange Atkinson Isham Hampton (Atkinson was a middle name, not a previous married name) when Dad was still a teenager...  He was living with another woman in Coalinga working for Keck (yep, that Keck). I know nothing about the other woman. Ange at that time was running a boarding house, and both boys were living with her; I don't know if Slim paid her any child support, or if they had a boarding house before Slim moved out. Dad had interesting ideas about food. You ate what was put in front of you; you didn't talk much while you were eating; and you didn't change the food...

You never think much about what happens to servicemen who are deployed at the end of a war, especially not as large of a war as WWII was... Dad was in or near Manilla when WWII ended and the task of bringing everyone home started. He was told that he might be there for months before there was room on a transport to get him home. He ended up spending a few days before he was able to secure a spot on a very very crowded ship on its way back to California. I don't know if Dad had much to come home to; I know he married Marilyn shortly after the war, and was with her for close to 10 years, but I don't know if he knew her before he left. His father, Edwin Earl Hampton Sr (Slim), had died of a heart attack in 1940. Slim and Ange (nee Ange Atkinson Isham) had separated a couple years before his death. Ange ran their house in Wasco as a boarding house, and had the two boys with her, while Slim had moved to Coalinga or near there, and had taken up with another woman, who I know nothin...