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HAROLD CRESMER LINES MATERNAL GENEALOGY
HAROLD CRESMER LINES maternal grandparents are JOHN HOWARD CRESMER and LENA ERNSTINE (GERHARDT) CRESMER.
John Howard Cresmer was born November 15, 1860, at the family homestead farm located near the city of Creswell, Hartford County, Maryland. John Howard Cresmer died December 9, 1951, at the age of 91, at Riverside, Riverside County, California and is buried in the family plot with many of his children in the Evergreen Cemetery, Riverside, California.
JOHN HOWARD CRESMER's father was JOHN GUTHREY CRESMER who was a native of Odenberg, Saxony, Germany.
JOHN HOWARD CRESMER's mother was SOPHIA (HARTLING) CRESMER, of Leipsic, Germany. John Guthrey Cresmer was a farmer as was his father before him. The family was strong in the Lutheran faith to which their ancestors had adhered. John Guthrey Cresmer was born on _______________________, 1816, at ____________________ and died on September ____, 1876, at the age of sixty at Creswell, Hartford County, Maryland, and is buried there.
SOPHIA (HARTLING) CRESMER was born on _________________ at Leipsic, Germany and died on ______________________ at San Jacinto, California where she was buried.
JOHN GUTHREY CRESMER and SOPHIA (HARTLING) CRESMER were married on at Oldenberg, Saxony, Germany before immigrating to the United States in 1838 and settled on a farm near Creswell, Hartford County, Maryland.
In Germany the family name was "KRETCHMAR" or "KRETCHMER" but when they arrived in the United States the immigration official mistakenly changed the spelling and pronunciation of the name to "CRESMER."
JOHN GUTHREY CRESMER and SOPHIA (HARTLING) CRESMER had eleven children of which John Howard Cresmer was the eighth child. Two of their children died shortly after they were born. John Howard Cresmer's older brother Herman served in the Maryland Regiment during the Civil War and then moved to Fresno, California. John Howard Cresmer's brother Frank moved to Riverside, California and became a merchant owning a general dry goods store. John Howard Cresmer's brother Edward located in Colton, California and became a shoe merchant. John Howard Cresmer's sisters remained in the Baltimore, Maryland area.
JOHN HOWARD CRESMER married LENA ERNSTINE (GERHARDT) CRESMER on _____________________, 1882 at Baltimore, Maryland. John Howard was twenty-two years old and Lena had just turned eighteen. John and Lena were first cousins. LENA ERNSTINE (GERHARDT) CRESMER's father was Theodore Gerhardt who was born on _______________________ at ____________________ Germany and died on ______________________ at ____________________.
LENA ERNSTINE (GERHARDT) CRESMER's mother (Kretchmar) Gerhardt was born on ______________________________ at _____________________ Germany and died on ________________________ at ________________________.
Theodore and Ernstine Gerhardt were married on _____________________ at ________________, Germany and immigrated to the United States. Theodore became a manufacturer of shoes.
THEODORE and ERNSTINE GERHARDT had six children as follows:
(1) Annie (Gerhardt) Preston born 1861 and died 1947.
(2) Elizabeth (Gerhardt) Geltmacher born 18___ and died _____.
(3) John Gerhardt born 1867 and died 1952 at Portersville, California.
(4) LENA ERNSTINE (GERHARDT) CRESMER
(5) Rose (Gerhardt) Raymond born 18 and died 19 at Baltimore, Maryland.
(6) Henry Jacob Gerhardt born June 19, 1879, at Baltimore, Maryland and died February 23, 1944, at Riverside, California. Henry Gerhardt married Serena Matilda (Bitsburger) Gerhardt on ___________________ at Baltimore, Maryland. Henry and Serena had one child, Wilton Henry Gerhardt born July 18, 1909, at ______________________ and died December 31, 1980, at Riverside, California. Serena Gerhardt had died on _______________, 1909, at Baltimore, Maryland. Henry Gerhardt married his second wife Bessie Belle (Campbell) Gerhardt on _______________, at Riverside, California. Bessie (Campbell) Gerhardt was born May 25, 1890, at Riverside, California and died September 18, 1937, at Riverside, California. Henry and Bessie Gerhardt had two children: Paul Donald Gerhardt born July 10, 1917, at Riverside, California and died August 30, 1990, at ____________ Arizona. Thelma Ellen (Gerhardt) White born January 24, 1922, at Riverside, California. Thelma married Gilbert (Bud) Isaacs on at Redlands, California. Thelma and Gilbert had a daughter: Nancy Ellen (Isaacs) Forster born May 30, 1945. Thelma and Gilbert Isaacs were divorced on _________________. Thelma married Travis Martin White on _________________ at Riverside, California. Thelma and Travis had a son: Travis (Tab) Martin White, Jr., born September 16, 1955 at Riverside, California and a daughter: Elizabeth Frances (White) Champion born June 18, 1958 at Riverside, California.
JOHN HOWARD CRESMER received the equivalent of a high school education in Baltimore, Maryland, and graduated when he was 15˝ years old. John spoke and wrote both English and German. While attending school John and his brothers helped with the farm chores at home and in addition worked part time in a wooden barrel factory. John Howard's father, John Guthrey Cresmer, died at the time John was completing high school.
John Howard's older brother Herman was fighting in the Civil War in 1861, and then moved to California. Due to these circumstances, John, his mother Sophia, and the remaining children formed a fruit and vegetable canning operation in order to support the family. The canning procedure was a new development and the small business was successful although John was only nineteen years old. John and his mother Lena worked sixteen hours a day for almost five years until the plant burned down in 1881.
At the age of 22, John Howard Cresmer married Lena Ernstine (Gerhardt) Cresmer and after the canning plant burned down, John, Lena, mother Sophia, and the remaining children moved to Weldon, De Witt County, Illinois and built a new canning plant in 1882. The family named the new plant "Cresmer Brothers Canning Company." Their reason for moving to Illinois was to take advantage of the large corn production in this area. The family invested all of their assets in this plant including a supply of canning tin. A year-long drought hit the farms, killing all the corn crops which brought disaster to the canning plant and it went broke.
The Cresmer family gave up canning and followed their relatives to California in 1886. John Howard, his wife Lena, and mother Sophia settled in San Jacinto, California.
Due to John's woodworking skills he had learned in barrel making and in the building of canning facilities, he obtained work in a planing mill manufacturing window sash and doors. Later in 1899, he became a partner in this mill owned by John Shaver, a longtime county supervisor. Between 1886 and 1889, John also built wagons and carriages. This led John to the making of cabinets and then an occasional coffin in this small rural town. Due to his coffin building he also performed the function of undertaker! Lena was called upon to dress and prepare the departed for viewing in the caskets. A few years after John started making wagons, carriages, cabinets and products of the planing mill, a tremendous earthquake flattened San Jacinto and vicinity on Christmas Day, 1899. John seized the opportunity and became a building contractor and within a year had eighty employees and became the major builder in the cities of San Jacinto and Hemet. He not only built houses, but built or rebuilt half the businesses downtown, a hotel, three schools, a hospital and civic buildings over the next few years. John Shaver, the mill and hardware store owner, was John's financial backer.
John wanted to expand his business and an opportunity appeared when A.W. Miller of Riverside, California wanted to sell his local planing mill so that he could start manufacturing automobiles. (Miller eventually went broke.) John made financial arrangements and bought the A.W. Miller mill and a large house on the corner of Eighth Street (now University Avenue) and Park Avenue and moved his family there. His mother Sophia died in San Jacinto before the family moved.
John built a new planing mill and contracting headquarters in 1904 which covered two-thirds of a city block on the south side of Eighth Street (renamed University Avenue) between the Union Pacific Railroad and the Riverside Canal. The new business was named "The Cresmer Manufacturing & Mill." The planing mill made a full line of wood products including doors, sash, screens, moldings, turnings, stairs, cases, cabinets, and fancy woodwork. The mill was 2˝ stories high with its own steam power plant and large electric motors turning many shafts and belts (very modern in 1904), operating saws, drills, lathes, sanders, planers, air compressors, vacuum systems, etc. The mill averaged fifty employees and was the major supplier of finished woodwork in Riverside, San Bernardino, and portions of Orange and San Diego Counties. John also ran his general contracting business with some twenty employees plus sub-contractors, building houses, schools, civic buildings, and churches. Some notable projects were the Santa Fe railroad yards and station in San Bernardino, six Santa Fe stations, Arrowhead Springs Hotel, Los Angeles Cecil Hotel, Riverside Mission Inn, Murrietta Hot Springs Resort, Soboba Hot Springs Resort, University of California Citrus Experimental Station (later U.C.R.), Riverside County Hospital, Riverside General Hospital, Patton State Hospital, Riverside City Jail, Riverside County Courthouse, Chino's George Junior Republic, and many civic buildings, schools, and churches in neighboring towns.
John was innovative and was one of the first contractors to use pre-stressed concrete beams and pre-cast concrete walls on the two Riverside Hospital projects. He invented the pre-cast hollow walls used on the Riverside General Hospital for the first time. These pre-cast sections had the advantage over building heavy forms for concrete walls, better insulation, and more sound proof. John perfected and built all the store fronts for all of the Woolworth Department stores on the west coast with their distinctive curved glass display windows. The mill built in 1904 burned to the ground on April 25, 1927, after an earlier evening fire in the adjoining Stebler-Parker Box Company had been extinguished. The mill blaze could be seen for a distance of 15 miles and fire trucks from Riverside stations and assisting trucks from San Bernardino, Redlands, Corona, and Colton could only contain it. The pumper trucks sucked water from the Riverside and Gage canals to fight the fire because the city water mains were sucked dry. This action saved the surrounding buildings across the street.
John formed a new corporation and built a new concrete one-story mill of several buildings covering six acres on Third Street adjacent to the Santa Fe Railroad tracks at the north end of Park Avenue. (The buildings are now occupied by the Blue Banner Packing.) John's son-in-law, Allie M. Lines, was a stockholder and elected to the board of directors of this new business. The mill flourished until The Depression hit about 1931. The mill and John's contracting business began a financial decline due to depressed building activity and because steel and aluminum were replacing wood for window frames. Building contractors also stopped using the mill products because John's contracting business was in direct competition with them. In 1937 he lost the mill as the corporation declared bankruptcy and he entered into a general contracting partnership with the mill's engineer, Eric Emtman. They named the new business "Cresmer and Emtman" and opened their new office in one third of the new building they had just completed for Allie M. Lines Plumbing shop. Their business prospered and they moved their business around the corner to Vine Street, across the Union Pacific Railroad tracks from the location of the old burned down mill. John retired from the partnership in 1944 as he was 84 years old. His children Clarence, Eunice, Blanche, and Roland still lived with him in the big Park Avenue home. When he retired he lived off the income from a duplex apartment he had built on Eighth Street and a rental house he had built on Park Avenue next to the old family home. John also did estimating for fire insurance companies to establish fire damage costs and replacement costs. The state also used John to estimate the value of condemned buildings. His last construction job was to help an old friend's son build a house. At the age of 89, John helped Carlos De Llamos build his house by arranging sub-contractors and personally, with his own hands, formed the concrete foundations and footing, installed all the sills, beams, sub flooring, framed the walls, roof rafters, and the shingling of the roof. When his daughter, Elsie, saw him up on the roof installing shingles at the age of 89 she really bawled him out!
John was inventive and always tinkering with ideas that seldom worked out for him. Some of his ideas were good and other people successfully developed them. Some examples: automobile engine oil pressure gauge, automobile gasoline gauge, automobile turn signal and turn signal lights, automobile soft tire signal, automobile electric windshield wipers, automobile steering device that folds down so that the car can be steered while lighting a cigar, a flint-kerosene cigar lighter, a copper ball radio antenna-lightning rod, automobile air compressor for flat tires, windmill electric generator for recharging batteries, electric devices and alarms to prevent burglaries, a curved rear view mirror to obtain a wider view, a playing card shuffling machine, and many more items used in his mills to vacuum sawdust, heat glue, belt and machinery safety guards. He wasted a lot of money and time trying to promote these ideas.
John was always a sucker buying mining stocks or drilling for oil. Two wells in which he was one of the principal owners located on Signal Hill, Long Beach, are still producing eighty years later, but he sold his shares and lost it all by "wild-catting" for oil in the Chino hills. John consistently lost playing cards at the Elks Club in his later years. He eventually lost the duplex on Eighth Street to defray the cost of his gambling debts.
John was active in church and civic affairs. He was an officer and regular attendee in the Elks Lodge and the Moose Lodge and his family and relatives took part in lodge picnics and Christmas activities. In his middle years he enjoyed hunting and fishing. He often would take fishing trips, camping out in the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, with a few employees or business associates. Outside of lodge activities his family was not included in his recreation.
John was one of the first persons to own an automobile in the City of Riverside. He and his son, Walter, both drove his early cars including a Stanley Steamer. The race driver, Barney Oldfield, who raced around the Corona City track, was a friend of John, and Allie Lines took several photographs of them at the track. John was always working on his cars and attempting to make improvements on them with his inventions. John and three other men interested in potential forest land and mining prospects made one of the first automobile trips from Southern California to Northern California. This trip was made when few paved roads went beyond the city limits of most towns. They followed wagon trails, moving rocks when necessary and dirt so their car could scrape along. On steep downhill runs, they cut down a tree and towed it to reduce their speed and save their brakes. They forded streams and often used block and tackle to pull the vehicle out or up a hill. On this trip they used six tires, ten inner tubes with many patches, one clutch repair, plus several brake and minor engine repairs. Tents were blown down in one rain storm! They traveled for five weeks and didn't accomplish any of their original goals.
John's original house in Riverside on Eighth Street and Park Avenue had only five bedrooms and was not large enough for his expanding family so he built a new home within a year on the corner of Park Avenue and Pleasant Street. This new house had a large kitchen with a kitchen table that could seat eight adults. The kitchen had a six foot long wood burning cast iron cook stove with double ovens, and a high back with a shelf to keep dishes or pots warm. It also had water piping in the firebox and behind the ovens that supplied hot water to the hot water storage tank for the kitchen sink, laundry and bathrooms when the solar heater built into the roof wasn't working due to clouds. In 1930, a natural gas kitchen range with oven was added and the basement furnace was changed from coal to natural gas. Lena still used the old wood stove to cook and bake. When she did the ironing she still heated the irons on the old wood stove. On Thanksgiving or Christmas, Lena would bake three large turkeys and six or eight pies for her family and over a dozen relatives and their children.
The house had a laundry room adjacent and west through a doorway with an outside wall of windows above four wash tubs and an electric motor-driven rocker type clothes washer that John invented and built of wood and covered with water-tight galvanized sheet metal. A back door, a small porch, and steps down to the driveway were located at the rear corner of the house. A small room in the corner of the laundry room contained a toilet, wash basin, and shower stall (something new in those days.) At the east and opposite end of the kitchen from the laundry room was the door to the sunny sewing room which had windows to the backyard and along the front porch. The Cresmer girls spent much of their time here ironing, sewing, or just visiting friends as it had a half dozen chairs plus two sewing machines.
North of the kitchen was a formal dining room which was normally used only when guests were eating as the family ate in the kitchen. The table and chairs were set for twelve persons but were usually expanded for holidays. John had a leather covered couch along the north wall of the dining room where he rested after meals. Lena had a 6' x 6' alcove on the south side of the dining room next to the front porch where she rested in her rocking chair. This alcove had a small wood burning Ben Franklin stove and full length windows to the porch. The remainder of the south wall between the kitchen and dining room contained a buffet up to the kitchen door.
The west wall had a doorway to the 8' x 10' hall, cloak room, stairway, basement entrance, and apartment entrance. The east wall had full-length French windows and door that faced the front porch. The north wall, beyond John's couch, had an 8' sliding door into the music room.
North of the dining room was the parlor/music room at the front corner of the house with large plate glass windows on each corner looking out to the porch with a fancy etched and cut glass door to the porch. This room contained a piano, Edison Music Box, a Victrola, (and later a radio) and music stands for Blanche's choir practice. Clarence practiced his saxophones in his upstairs back bedroom! Outside, across the porch, was the main entrance to the porch from Park Avenue. The west wall of the music room/parlor had two sliding pocket doors that opened into the library.
The library had built in book shelves on the south wall (which was a common wall with the cloak room and stairway), brick fireplace with book shelves on the west wall (which was a common wall with the apartment living room), and a window seat along the north wall facing the porch. This room had no outside door.
The porch was "L" shaped with the longer side parallel to Park Avenue and the shorter side parallel to Pleasant Street. The porch was made of concrete at the same level as the house floor, eight feet wide and two feet higher than the ground level. It had eight foot wide steps at the end next to the driveway at the sewing room exterior door, ten foot wide steps at the porch's main entrance opposite the music room/parlor door, and four foot wide steps at the end parallel to Pleasant Street at the apartment front door. The porch had a brick wall one foot thick from the ground level up to 30" above the porch floor. The porch had a roof over it that extended back to the floor level of the second story. West of the entire area including the stairway, cloakroom, hall, dining room, music room and library was an apartment with the front door at the west end of the porch and the back door at the laundry room. This apartment had a front room at the end of the porch next to the library, a bedroom, a kitchen next to the stairway/cloakroom hall with a door between the hall and the kitchen, and a bathroom next to the laundry room. The lady that lived in the apartment worked as housekeeper, seamstress and children's nanny. The stairway led up to a "T" shaped hall with bedrooms and baths. Delta's bedroom was above the apartment, Clarence's bedroom above the laundry, the main bath at the end of the hall, then John's and Lena's bedroom above the sewing room, then Eunice, then Ernestine's bedrooms over the dining room, then another bathroom, then Roland's room, then Blanche's room on the corner above the music room. Storage room was above the library.
The yard included lawns down the front (Park Avenue) and the side (Pleasant Street) from the porch to the sidewalk. A gravel driveway extended down the backsides of the house with one entrance on Park Avenue and one entrance on Pleasant Street so that the driveway circled the house. South of the house and driveway was a barn-garage with a hayloft, manger for the cow and two goats, spaces for three automobiles, (a grease pit for a mechanic under one stall) and a tool storage room with a work bench and supply shelves. At the east end, and outside the barn was a chicken house and pen and then a vegetable and flower garden. The cow and the goats were kept in a small yard at the west end of the barn.
Their future son-in-law's father, Aaron Lines, lived west, and next door on Pleasant Street in a smaller three bedroom house. This is how Elsie and Allie met.
Lena Ernstine Cresmer worked hard as a housewife and mother doing chores for this large family without complaint. Lena was quiet and spent most of her time coping with hardship and sacrifice. During their marriage starting at her age of eighteen she had twelve children in twenty five years burying Viola at age three from typhoid fever, Ilenas at age eight months, Violet at age seven months, and Paul at age seven months. Roland was in the army during World War I and did not return home from Europe but after the war remained in the New York area until 1940. Lena enjoyed having her children live in the big old home and she enjoyed having her brother Henry's family live within five blocks and enjoyed having her and John's relatives visit. Almost every summer her relatives from Baltimore (Edna Hair, Jackie Hair, Gertrude Fowler, Joseph and Roland Fowler, etc) would spend several weeks at her house because their husbands worked for the railroad and they got free passes.
Auntie Rose (Gerhardt) Raymond was always a favorite guest at the Allie Lines' when the Baltimore relatives came west.
JOHN HOWARD CRESMER and LENA ERNSTINE CRESMER were blessed with twelve children who are listed in the following chronological order of their births:
JOHN HOWARD and LENA ERNSTINE CRESMER's married children and their families are as follows:
WALTER HOWARD CRESMER married ELIZABETH (MARTENS) CRESMER on November 3, 1918 at Riverside, Riverside County, California. Elizabeth (Martens) Cresmer was born July 28, 1983 in the state of Oklahoma. She died January 16, 1991 at Riverside, Riverside County, California and is buried at Crestlawn cemetery in Norco, Riverside County, California. Walter Cresmer was employed by his father John Cresmer Planing Mill Enterprises until 1937. Walter then did gardening and lawn maintenance. Walter and Elizabeth Cresmer had two children:
KARL EDWARD CRESMER born September 18, 1921 at Riverside, Riverside County, California and BETTY MARIE (HICKS) CRESMER born August 26, 1926 at Riverside, Riverside County, California and died February 17, 1988 at Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada and is buried at Las Vegas, Nevada. KARL EDWARD CRESMER married HARRIET LENA (CRESS) CRESMER on December 20, 1947 at Riverside, Riverside County, California. Harriet Lena (Cress) Cresmer was born December 22, 1919 at Queens, West Virginia. Karl and Harriet Cresmer had one daughter CAROL ANN (CRESMER) WILEY born September 11, 1951 at Riverside, Riverside County, California. CAROL ANN (CRESMER) WILEY married JEFFRY ALLAN WILEY on April 11, 1947 at Riverside, Riverside County, California. Jeffry Allan Wiley was born September 21, 1950 at Riverside, Riverside County, California.
JEFFRY ALLAN WILEY and CAROL ANN (CRESMER) WILEY had four children: Heather Ann Wiley born August 23, 1975 at Riverside, Riverside County, California. Cara Ann Wiley born September 21, 1978 at Riverside, Riverside County, California. Jeffry Allan Wiley Jr. born June 21, 1981 at Riverside, Riverside County, California. Jeremy Allan Wiley born October 23, 1986 at Riverside, Riverside County, California.
BETTY MARIE (CRESMER) HICKS married JAMES ROSS HICKS on December 25, 1951 at Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada. James Ross Hicks was born April 24, 1928 at Moab, Utah and died January 19, 1994 at Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada and is buried next to his wife and son.
BETTY MARIE (CRESMER) HICKS and JAMES ROSS HICKS had two children: Russell Ross Hicks born July 8, 1954 at Riverside, Riverside County, California and died August ____, 1975 at Panguitch Lake, Utah and is buried with his parents at Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada. Roger Ray Hicks born April 25, 1957 at Riverside, Riverside County, California.
DELTA ROSALIE (CRESMER) GERNANDT married HORACE GEORGE GERNANDT on October 14, 1933 at Santa Ana, Orange County, California. They had no children. Horace Gernandt was born August 9, 1909 at Hamilton, Ontario, Province of Canada and died December 29, 1992 at Rough & Ready (Grass Valley), Nevada County, California and was cremated and had his ashes dispersed over the forests of the Northern Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Delta Rosalie (Cresmer) Gernandt graduated from Riverside Girls High School and graduated and obtained her teacher's credential from the University of California at Los Angeles (U.C.L.A.). Delta taught kindergarten and occasionally other elementary grades for thirty years at Ontario and Glendale public schools. When Delta and Horace moved to La Canada, California, she retired from public school teaching and taught in a private school. Horace Gernandt was employed by the Edison Electric Power Company surveying and drafting for new power transmission lines. Delta and Horace always had colorful flower gardens specializing in azaleas and over a hundred varieties of iris. Horace was a "rock hound" and amateur lapidary who had a complete shop of rock cutting, grinding, and polishing tools. He had drawers filled with specimens of rocks all cut and· labeled. Delta and Horace shared every Christmas morning for twelve years with the Harold Lines children when they were young. The community of Rough & Ready was named by Mark Twain when he lived there! Their lovely home was surrounded by flowers and a half-acre of pine trees filled with birds, squirrels, and an occasional deer. The Harold Lines family visited yearly. The Gernandts, Allie, and Elsie made many trips together through the western states sharing their mutual hobbies of fishing, camping, photography, and sightseeing .
CLARENCE EDWARD CRESMER married CLEOPATRA KATHRYN (WARD) CRESMER on April 7, 1905, at Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada. Both were residents of Riverside, California at the time. Cleopatra was born an orphan and the exact date is unknown but she has always used April 28, 1914, at Roanoke, Roanoke County, Virginia. Clarence was always known by the nick-name "Bud" and Cleopatra by the nick-name "Cleo". Bud played the tenor, alto, and bass saxophones in the high school band, Riverside City Band, lodge bands, and in World War II he was in the U.S. Army Band. After he completed high school he earned his living playing in ballroom dance bands in Riverside and San Bernardino until he started working as a shop man and delivery man for Lines Plumbing in 1947. He continued to play saxophone in dance bands on many weekends. Bud retired from Allie M. Lines Plumbing in 1970. Cleo worked in the clothing/sewing manufacturing industry while Bud was alive. After his death she worked as a volunteer for the Veterans Hospital at Lorna Linda providing transportation.
Clarence lived in the John Cresmer family house on Park Avenue with his father and sisters until he married Cleo. After they were married they rented and moved into the old Aaron Lines house on Pleasant Street that Allie owned. The house had been remodeled with some new foundations, a floor furnace, a second bathroom, two small bedrooms, new roof shingles, and interior and exterior paint just two years prior. Bud and Cleo eventually purchased this house where Cleo now resides.
ELSIE RUTH (CRESMER) LINES married ALLIE MEEKER LINES on April 19, 1914 at Whittier, Los Angeles County, California. Both were residents of Riverside at the time and moved into a house at the south end of Park Avenue. Allie was born October 17, 1883 at Batesville, Arkansas and died at the age of 97 on November 21, 1980 at Encinitas, San Diego County, California and is buried next to his wife Elsie at Evergreen Cemetery, Riverside, California
Elsie Ruth (Cresmer) Lines moved with her family from San Jacinto, where she was born, to Riverside, California when she was eleven years old in 1900. John Cresmer first moved his family into a five bedroom house on Eighth Street (now University Avenue) and Park Avenue. This house was too small so he built a new house on Park Avenue at the corner of Pleasant Street. This new house was next door to Aaron Lines, Allie Lines' father.
Allie's father Aaron Lines had fought in the Civil War with the New Jersey Volunteers and in the Second Battle of Bull Run and Manasia Junction, in Maryland, the North lost 12,500 men killed and 4,263 captured. Aaron was one of the captured and spent the next eighteen months in the infamous Andersonville Prison. Aaron was one of the few prisoners who survived over a year due to exposure, unsanitary conditions, malnutrition, and scurvy. The prison was an open air stockade without any tents or shelter. Only a few prisoners had a blanket or burlap bag for cover and only the clothes they were wearing when captured. The nights were freezing. Aaron had to give up his boots at gun point! The stockade had a small stream and the upper end was their only source of drinking water and the lower end for sewage. Their food consisted of small rations of dried corn, peas, or beans with salt pork. Aaron testified before a government investigation that in the mornings he would find a dozen or more prisoners dead within fifty feet of where he slept. Aaron survived because he and a few other prisoners sang for the southern officers at dinner and then they were allowed to eat potato skins and garbage from the officers' table!
After the war Aaron settled in Batesville, Arkansas and married Eliza (Reaves) Lines and their only surviving child was Allie. Eliza died five years after Allie's birth. Aaron moved to Montecello, Indiana with Allie in 1889 and married a widow, A. Maria (Bushnell) Lines. Aaron, Maria, and Allie moved to Riverside in 1898 and built a house on Pleasant Street near the corner of Park Avenue. Allie's formal education stopped in the eighth grade in Montecello, Indiana. When the Aaron Lines family settled in Riverside Allie was fifteen years old and worked for his father for a short time.
Aaron was a cobbler making boots, saddles, and harness tack. Allie cared for the customer's horses. Allie obtained employment at Potter Plumbing when he was seventeen years old taking care of the plumbing crew's horses and then becoming an apprentice plumber. He also started studying "International Correspondence School" courses in English, Math, Mechanical Drawing, Plumbing, Steam Fitting, and Carpentry which he completed over the next six years. Allie became a journeyman plumber and worked at Salt Lake City, Utah, and in California at Oakland (after the San Francisco earthquake), Pasadena, and Long Beach. Elsie and Allie corresponded daily during his work at Long Beach as there are over one hundred post cards in evidence! Allie passed his examination and became a Master Plumber and started a plumbing contractor's business in 1914.
Elsie was twenty five years old and Allie was thirty one when they married in 1914. Their honeymoon consisted of a month long trip to Yosemite National Park in their new Ford coupe. This was quite a camping trip with few good roads in those days and they often spent nights in farmers' barns. Photography was Allie's hobby and some of this trip is recorded on photos.
Elsie was active in the First Christian Church following the lead of her father John Cresmer. Elsie was a Sunday School teacher for sixteen years. Allie did not participate as he said that he had been raised a Presbyterian. Elsie was active in the Girl Scouts and with Allie were the major builders of the Girl Scout Campgrounds at Idyllwild, California. Elsie and Allie were active in the Masonic Lodge where he became the Grand Master of the Evergreen Lodge. They were also in the Isaac Walton Club and Allie was an active member of the Y.M.C.A.
Elsie and Allie's home on Park Avenue (two blocks south of Gerhardt's and six blocks south of Cresmer's) was developed on a partial hillside one-half acre of trees, shrubs, lawns, paths, stairs, arbors, fish ponds, tea house, raised stage of concrete, a school house with blackboards, 25'x 50' concrete deck in front of the stage for seating or dancing, a covered outdoor kitchen including a sink and a stove, portable picnic tables to seat fifty people, children’s playground including a slide, three swings, six rings, and a jungle gym. The entire area had electric lighting and irrigation sprinklers. All the driveways and paths had arbors with vines growing on them of many varieties. Beyond the house was a two story garage built on the upper and lower driveway. Beyond the garage was a chicken house with special outside hinged flaps so that eggs could be gathered without entering the chicken yard.
When the worldwide depression hit Allie and Elsie in 1932, good fortune came to a halt. Allie's employees dropped from over twenty-five to one besides himself. They had assumed mortgages on properties after paying more than fifty percent down and could not make any additional payments. They were able to hang on to their home, one business lot and one duplex rental apartment in Long Beach because they were paid for in full. They lost two other duplexes, three rental houses, several residential lots, a house and chicken ranch near Arlington, and the stock in the Cresmer Manufacturing and Mill. They consolidated their losses and assets over the next few years and had "Cresmer and Emtman" build a new plumbing shop on Eighth Street two doors west of the Union Pacific Railroad. These business financial losses discouraged Allie's entrepreneurship and Elsie took over running the business from behind the scene making all the major decisions and the bookkeeping. They had only one plumber and a helper employed. After Karl Cresmer graduated from high school, Elsie hired him as a plumbers helper. Blanche Cresmer had worked as a stenographer and assistant bookkeeper for Allie Lines until he laid off his employees in 1933. Elsie helped Blanche obtain a job as clerk at City Hall.
Elsie continued running the business behind the scene during the World War II years as it was mostly plumbing repairs, time and material jobs, retail sales, and no contract bidding. Elsie made all the important decisions. During this time, in 1944, Allie went totally blind on a fishing stream two miles from the camp site where he and Elsie had set up a tent in the high Sierra Nevada Mountains. He stumbled and fell along the stream in terrible pain until two other fisherman found him and helped him back to camp. Elsie rushed him to Bishop, California and then he was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Los Angeles where he was treated. It was determined the problem was caused by Glaucoma. Allie lost the sight completely and permanently in one eye and ten percent in the other eye which gradually deteriorated until he was totally blind the last two years of his life. Elsie ran the business until their son Harold returned after the war in 1946 and became active in the business. The last ten years of her father's life he was mostly retired and Elsie paid for his Elks Club activities (including some gambling debts), a box of cigars once a month, and some of his clothing.
Elsie was a good seamstress and made much of the family's clothing and Ruth's many costumes. Elsie enjoyed camping, fishing, and picnics. Allie and Elsie loved to travel by automobile and took many trips through the western states and a few to the east and southern states,
ELSIE RUTH (CRESMER) LINES and ALLIE MEEKER LINES had two children: RUTH ELIZABETH (LINES) NASH and HAROLD CRESMER LINES. Ruth was born March 26, 1915 at Riverside, Riverside County, California and died September 5, 1967 at Arcadia, Los Angeles County, California and is buried at Duarte Cemetery, Duarte, California. Ruth changed from the First Christian Church to the Presbyterian Church during her high school years. Ruth married RICHARD WARD NASH on November 19, 1938 at Riverside, Riverside County, California in the Calvary Presbyterian Church. Richard Ward Nash died on August 19, 1972 at Pasadena, Los Angeles County, California and is buried beside his wife, Ruth Nash, at Duarte Cemetery, Duarte, California.
RUTH ELIZABETH (LINES) NASH was an "A" student and a member of the High School Honor Society. Ruth was an Eagle Girl Scout and in the Masonic Order of Job's Daughters was a Queen. Ruth played the piano quite well and could read music. Ruth played leading parts in high school plays and danced ballet in the Redland's Bowl Summer Concert. Later after finishing college she acted at the Riverside Community Playhouse. Ruth taught ballet dancing to ten or younger girls during the summers on the large concrete (25' x 50') deck under the shaded trees and myrtle covered arbor at her home. Her younger brother Harold and his friends enjoyed sliding and slipping on the concrete deck after the dance lessons as Ruth had applied "Dance Wax". Ruth also earned money teaching adults ballroom dancing on Friday nights. Ruth also directed and held plays on the stage in the home/park with her and her mother sewing all of the costumes for the neighborhood children.
When Ruth was ten years old she became good friends with Isabel Hutchings who lived at the Mission Inn and whose uncle was the owner and builder of the Mission Inn. The two little girls spent many days playing in the objects of art stored in the underground tunnels of the Inn where the public was not allowed. Some days the entire Girl Scout Troop would play "hide and seek". Few people knew that the Mission Inn supplied steam heat to more than a dozen buildings in downtown Riverside through these tunnels including Citizens Bank, Franzen's Hardware (Westbrook's Hardware), Loring Theater, Library, Congregational Church, and the Enterprise Newspaper. During Prohibition these tunnels were used to smuggle alcohol from Franzen's to the Inn!
A former nurse who cared for Aaron Lines' invalid wife was a widow named Mrs. Nitsy. Allie allowed her to live in Aaron's house rent free after Aaron died. When Mrs. Nitzy died she provided funds in her Will for Ruth's college education. As a consequence Ruth inherited six thousand dollars for her education and was able to go to and graduate from the University of Southern California (U.S.C.), belong to a sorority, and live in great style, (just like the rich kids!) in the middle of the depression.
Ruth returned to Riverside and lived with her parents for a short time before she married Richard Nash. Richard (Dick) Nash was also a graduate of the University of Southern California and a member of exclusive "Skull and Crossbones" honor society and a Phi Beta Kappa. Richard was editor of the university Daily Trojan Newspaper. When Ruth married Richard he was the "City Desk" reporter (top reporter on the paper) for the Riverside Daily Press newspaper, and then he became the Sports Editor (which was his main interest). Richard obtained work with the Los Angeles Times/Mirror and moved his family to Whittier, California. Richard also "ghost" wrote several books for popular college coaches and did radio sports announcing. Dick had what is called a photographic memory and his hobby was memorizing railroad time tables. His next and final employment was as Publicity Director at Santa Anita Thoroughbred Horse Race Track at Arcadia, California. The Nash family lived in Arcadia during these years.
RUTH ELIZABETH (LINES) NASH and RICHARD WARD NASH had two children: BONNIE GAY (NASH) WADE and NANCY LUCILLE (NASH) ZAMPELLI. Bonnie Gay (Nash) Wade born on March 23, 1943 at Riverside, Riverside County, California and Nancy Lucille (Nash) Zampelli born on March 29, 1950 at Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California.
BONNIE GAY (NASH) WADE married JOHN MANFORD WADE on December 16, 1961 at Arcadia, Los Angeles County, California, in the Methodist Church. Bonnie and John Wade had four children as follows: Paul Richard Wade born January 4, 1963 at Arcadia, California. Becky Joy Wade born December 29, 1965 at Covina, California. Sarah Melanie (Wade) Salisbury born October 28, 1969 at Covina, California. Timothy John Wade born May 29, 1981 at Poway, California.
Bonnie and John Wade lived their early married life in Glendora, California near their parents then in the early 1970s built a new home at Poway, California where they now reside. John Wade works for Hewlett-Packard Electronics.
NANCY LUCILLE (NASH) ZAMPELLI married TERRY LEE MAXSON on October 24, 1969 at Pasadena, Los Angeles County, California. Nancy and Terry Maxson had two children as follows: Derek Stephen Maxson born May 22, 1970 at San Diego, California and Alyssa Noelle Maxson born November 22, 1976 at Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
NANCY LUCILLE (NASH) MAXSON divorced Terry Maxson on September 2, 1986 and married JIMMY LEE ZAMPELLI on November 3, 1990 at Fallbrook, San Diego County, California. Jimmie Lee Zampelli is self employed Distributor and Vending Machine Operator in north San Diego County. Nancy (Nash) Zampelli teaches sixth grade in the Escondido School District, San Diego County, California. Nancy and Jimmy Zampelli live in Fallbrook, San Diego County, California.
ELSIE RUTH (CRESMER) LINES and ALLIE MEEKER LINES second child was HAROLD CRESMER LINES born March 28, 1920 at Riverside, Riverside County, California. Harold married PHYLLIS JUNE (MADDOCKS) LINES on March 10, 1943 at San Jose, Santa Clara County, California in the Westminster Presbyterian Church. Phyllis June (Maddocks) Lines was born May 25, 1920 at San Jose, Santa Clara County, California. Phyllis was nick-named "Maddy" by her high school friends based on her last name "Maddocks".
Harold was very active in the Y.M.C.A. from the age of ten through his fortieth year and averaged twenty five hours a week at the "Y" during his school years. His mother worked at the plumbing shop all day so after breakfast Harold would walk to school and then after school Harold would walk to the "Y" which acted as a baby sitter! Harold earned his yearly "Y" dues and the fee for two weeks at the summer camp on Catalina Island by working at the "Y" facility cleaning, sweeping, painting, and sand blasting etc. Harold's father took him camping and fishing many weekends teaching him woodsmanship i.e. (how to read a compass and map, how to locate water, how to mark a trail, what things are edible, how to start a fire, how to trap animals, how to skin and cure pelts, how to build a shelter, etc.) Allie would not only tell Harold but would actually perform the act of skinning or building a shelter in the snow or desert etc. Harold earned his first split bamboo fishing rod and fly reel by selling thirty subscriptions to Outdoor Life Magazine when he was ten years old. He was given his first 22 caliber rifle when he was in the third grade and was drilled in safety and only allowed to use it for supervised target practice for two years. In the sixth grade he got his first shotgun and trained on shooting clay pigeons until he became proficient and then shot quail, doves, ducks, and pheasant. Harold did not like larger game hunting. He prefers fishing and still fishes in his seventies. Harold insisted that each of his children graduated from a rifle safety training school. His son Ronald earned an "Expert Rifleman" rating and his daughter Susan embarrassed some of her early boy friends by out shooting them with the shot gun! The Harold and Maddy Lines family enjoyed the outdoors and took many camping or house trailer trips in the western mountains including Canada and Mexico.
Harold was not an outstanding student scholastically but received passing grades. In school he was president of the Y.M.C.A. Leaders Club and High Y Association. He was Photographic Editor of the high school annual, Senior class vice president, president of the Jr. Lion's Club and Manager of the Varsity Basketball team. He also earned money promoting dances at the American Legion Hall and "Big Name Band" dances at the Civic Auditorium.
He was on the varsity swimming team, worked as a life guard during the summer and sold newspaper advertising during the school year. These jobs paid above average for a student and enabled him to pay for all of 'his clothes, college tuition, books, and board and room while away at college. He bought a Model "A" Ford roadster in his senior year for $125.00, rebuilt the engine, and installed new brakes, repainted with three coats, (olive green with new yellow Kelsey-Hayes racing wheels), wind wings, and chrome horns. Sold it in 1945 for $350.00 after 30,000 more miles. Harold graduated from San Jose State University with an AB degree in Journalism and then graduated from Northwestern University Naval Officer Training School at Chicago, Illinois.
Harold took a summer off before he went to school at San Jose and hitch-hiked around the United States with a school friend for $50.00 each. Sometimes sleeping in newspapers and sometimes in penthouses. They had to ride a box car on a freight train from El Paso to Dallas. Traveled with a real "con man" from Shreveport to New Orleans. Lived in an apartment in New Orleans for two weeks on Rampart Street of the famous French Quarter. The con man arranged this while he conned himself into the Roosevelt Hotel. Harold and his hitch-hiking friend stayed a few days in Baltimore, Maryland with his relatives, Hair and Fowler, and Aunt Rose bought them all ice cream banana splits. Next the two hitch-hiked to New York City to visit Harold's friend's father who had been divorced from his mother when he was five years old. The father was so happy to see him, he tried to make up for fourteen missing years! It turned out he was a millionaire living in a New York penthouse apartment. He gave them $50.00 each day, tickets to the 1939 World's Fair for three days, took them to see three musicals (Hell's A Poppin, Louisiana Purchase, and Forty Second Street), and went to a professional football game where they were introduced to the coach and quarterback. They dined at "Toots Shore" and several ethnic places. He even arranged for two school teachers (in their forties) who were attending Columbia University's Graduate School have the two boys teach them how to drive their newly purchased car while returning to their home state of Washington. They left them at Salt Lake City and they ended up good drivers, especially after some mountain roads. They hitch-hiked the last few miles back to California, after spending a "religious" night in a Mormon home in St. George, Utah!
Harold and Phyllis met while both were attending San Jose State University. Phyllis was a nursing major (four years of college in those days) but quit school in the middle of her senior year to marry Harold. He had just graduated from Midshipman School and had only a ten day leave before reporting to San Diego and then proceeding aboard ship to South Pacific war zone. Their wedding had been pre-planned so that Harold flew to San Jose from Chicago, married at the Westminster Presbyterian Church in San Jose, wedding night in the bridal suite of the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco, then a honeymoon fourteen hour Greyhound bus ride to San Diego. Upon arrival at San Diego Harold learned that the navy had changed its plans and that he with a crew of 250 officers and men were to stay in San Diego for further training for four months. Next the entire crew boarded a train bound for a ship at San Francisco. A special car was added to the train for the wives of the married crew members so that Maddy was able to travel with Harold. Upon arriving in San Francisco the crew was notified that the ship had already sailed with another crew. In the confusion the crew and wives dined on cans of "C" rations until the navy decided to reverse the train and house the crew at Fort Ord Army Base, Monterey, California. After a twenty hour day even army cots in barracks seemed comfortable. The crew lived in army barracks and the Lines rented a cute little house with a big fireplace at Carmel by the Sea for two months. The crew mustered each morning to find out if it was shipping out that day, only to find out that it was dismissed for another 24 hours!
What a life! Fun on Carmel Beach, parties, dining out, fires in the fireplace, because everybody thought that it could be the last night before they entered the war and might not return home. In a few weeks it came to a rushing halt as Harold and Maddy hurriedly said goodbye. The wives waved to the ship from Coit Tower Hill as it departed from San Francisco. The crew departed on the U.S. Mount Vernon for New Caledona in the South Pacific. The crew made landings at the following islands: Tulogi, Guadalcanal, Rendova, Doke Doke, Munda, Treasurey, Choisel, (where future President Kennedy's P.T. Boat was sunk) and Bougainville. A three week leave at Sidney, Australia after Munda was welcome! After eighteen months in the South Pacific Harold returned by ship to San Francisco where Maddy rejoined him for a ten day leave. They tied four 5 gallon cans of rationed, hard to get gasoline, onto the Model A Ford and camped at Yosemite. Then proceeded back to San Diego which was Harold's next duty station. A few months after this the war with Japan ended and Harold soon became a civilian again.
After the war, in 1946, Harold joined his parents in Allie M. Lines Plumbing. Harold and Phyllis had saved eight thousand dollars while he was in the navy and this was applied for part interest in the business. Harold expanded the business and bought his parents out in 1954. (His parents still owned the property and building). Harold was active in civic affairs and served on the Riverside County Grand Jury for a year. He was also a member of the Riverside Uniform Building Code Committee, Riverside Military Affairs Committee, Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce, Board of Directors of the Y.M.C.A., Building Committee for the new Presbyterian Church, Board of Directors of the Lion's Club, Board of Directors for United Fund, Red Cross, u.s.a., and an active member in the Elk's Club. Phyllis was busy with their children in Scouting, Riverside Women's Club, and Junior League.
The state condemned the property where the plumbing shop was located on Eighth Street for the construction of an underpass. Allie and Elsie took this payment and bought property on the corner of Arlington Avenue and Indiana Avenue. They in turn sold a portion of this to property to Union Oil and a Mercedes-Benz dealer which more than paid for the new shop building which they rented to Harold. In 1950 Harold and Maddy built a new house on Maplewood Avenue in Riverside when their children Susan and Ronald were less than two years old. Laurie was born five years later and all three children were raised in this house. In 1959 Allie and Elsie bought a house across the street and a half block west of Harold's house after selling the old house and yard on Park Avenue. In 1972 Harold sold the business and his home and he and Maddy traveled for a year in a house trailer. Harold and Maddy then moved to Encinitas where their children now lived. Elsie Lines had died in 1962 and Allie had become totally blind in 1978 so he was moved to a nearby convalescent home where he was visited daily and enjoyed talking about past years.
In 1973 Harold went to work for the State of California Contractor License Board. He investigated complaints concerning construction in San Diego County gathering evidence and testifying for the Attorney General in court. He retired from this state work in 1983. Harold, Maddy, and Maddy's ninety-two year old mother who had been living in San Diego all moved to the state of Washington where their children Susan and Ronald had settled. Since retirement Harold and Maddy had spent almost half their time visiting in the northwest. Maddy's mother, Mary Luella Maddocks, moved into a retirement home in Marysville, Washington, three miles from Ronald's family home and just seven miles from where Harold and Maddy lived in Arlington, Washington.
PHYLLIS JUNE (MADDOCKS) LINES parents were EARLSTON LEROY MADDOCKS and MARRY LUELLA (THOMPSON) MADDOCKS. Earlston Maddocks was born November 4, 1894 at Waldoboro, Maine and died September 5, 1963 at San Jose, Santa Clara County, California and is buried at the National Veterans Cemetery, San Bruno, California. Mary Luella (Thompson) Maddocks was born April 11, 1896 at Piper City, Illinois and died December 5, 1993 at Arlington, Snohomish County, Washington and is buried next to her husband Earlston in the Veterans National Cemetery, San Bruno, California. Earlston and Mary were married August 10, 1918 at San Jose, Santa Clara County, California. Mary's father David Stuart Thompson was a school teacher (back in Illinois in a one room school house that taught all the grades) who moved to San Jose with his wife Mattie (Brown) Thompson and their two children, Mary Luella (Thompson) Maddocks and Robert Roy Thompson (Captain U.S. Navy). Earlston Maddocks had enlisted in the U.S. Army at his home in Maine at the age of sixteen and saw duty in the Philippine Islands during World War I and Mary met him at a Victory Parade in San Jose. He was the Top Sergeant of his company. Mary Luella was a student at San Jose State Teacher's College when she met Earlston. The war ended and he became a civilian and was employed as a motorman on the San Jose City Electric Streetcar system when they married. When their newborn daughter Phyllis was six months old they moved to San Francisco where Earl was employed as an electrician in the new Ford Motor Company plant. The Earlston Maddocks family, including Phyllis and her two twin brothers, lived at San Francisco until 1928 when they returned to San Jose. Mary worked as a counter sales person for a bakery and Earlston operated a delivery truck and sales for a competing bakery until 1939. They both started work as Ward Attendants at Agnew State Hospital and continued there until they retired in 1960.
PHYLLIS JUNE (MADDOCKS) LINES had twin brothers born March 19, 1924 at San Francisco, California. The twin boys names were: ROBERT ALLEN MADDOCKS and RONALD GOBEL MADDOCKS. Ronald died at the age of nine on June 3, 1933 at San Jose, Santa Clara County, California and is buried at Oak Hills Cemetery, San Jose, California. Robert Allen Maddocks married Patty (McCaskill) Maddocks on at Annapolis, Anne Rundel County, Maryland. Robert Allen Maddocks and Patty Maddocks adopted a son Richard Allen Maddocks. Robert Allen Maddocks died December 27, 1957 at Annapolis, Maryland and is buried at Hillcrest Cemetery, Anne Rundel County, Maryland. After graduating from San Jose High School in California Robert worked as a civilian store keeper and then store manager at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. Patty Maddocks is the Executive Secretary of the United States Naval Institute.
PHYLLIS JUNE (MADDOCKS) LINES graduated from San Jose High School in 1938 and attended San Jose State University for three and one half years before she left to marry Harold. Phyllis was a nursing major because she hoped to be an airline hostess and at that time a R.N. Degree was required in order to be eligible to train for this occupation. During her teen years she was active in church activities, belonging to the Christian Endeavor group of the Presbyterian Church. Every summer church conferences were held in the nearby Santa Cruz Mountains and this group along with other ones attended many meetings as well as week-long camp conferences. When Phyllis was nine years old, she learned to drive. Her father had a delivery truck, and he taught her how to shift the gears, shift, brake, and so forth. Living in a small country town, there were many streets with little or no traffic to worry about. While Harold was overseas Phyllis worked for the San Jose Mercury Herald Newspaper.
HAROLD CRESMER LINES and PHYLLIS JUNE (MADDOCKS) LINES had three children: SUSAN EARLENE (LINES) JOHNSEN, RONALD AARON LINES, and LAURIE ANNE (LINES) JONES.
SUSAN EARLENE (LINES) JOHNSEN was born November 1, 1948 at Riverside, Riverside County, California. Susan married Philip William Bimer on August 29, 1969 at Riverside, Riverside County, California. Susan and Philip had one child, FELICIA BIMER born December 23, 1971 at San Diego, San Diego County, California. Susan and Philip were divorced in 1977. Susan married MICHAEL HOWARD JOHNSEN on September 11, 1982 at Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California. Susan Earlene (Lines) Johnsen and Michael Howard Johnsen had one child: THOMAS MARTIN JOHNSEN born February 14, 1984 at San Carlos, San Mateo County, California. Susan's father, Harold, had a fit because Susan and Michael (with her doctor's permission) decided on a home birth supervised by two registered nurses as mid-wives. Harold was in the kitchen boiling water!
FELICIA (BIMER) TUPOLO, daughter of Susan and Philip Bimer, married Willie Tupolo lIon July 4, 1991 at San Diego, San Diego County, California. Felicia and Willie have two children: ILEIANA MARIE TUPOLO born June 2, 1991 at San Diego, San Diego County, California. This birth made "Grammie" (Mary Luella Maddocks) a "great, great, grandmother" and the local newspapers carried photographs of the five generations! WILLIE TUPOLO III was born August 3, 1993 at San Diego, San Diego County, California.
SUSAN EARLENE (LINES) JOHNSEN graduated from Riverside High School and one and one-half years of Junior College when she left to enroll in dental technical training. After graduating she worked as a dental technician in Santa Barbara and San Francisco, California. Susan had taken Spanish in high school since the seventh grade and because she is Bilingual many doctors could see the advantage of hiring her over some technician of equal skill. Susan stopped working for a few years after Tommy was born but started to work again for doctors setting up computer systems in their offices. Mike taught Susan how to operate computers and she is extremely proficient. Susan now works for Cellular One Communications headquarters at Portland, Oregon, which is only fifteen miles from their home in Vancouver, Washington. Susan solves problems that customers have operating their phones, customers deciding what system is the most economical for their use, and correcting billing problems. The corporation also uses her to appear before the public in customer relations. Susan's employer furnishes her with a cellular phone at no charge with out long distance restriction so she phones the Lines more than once a week from her car on her way home or shopping.
Susan's husband MICHAEL HOWARD JOHNSEN was born October 23, 1946 at San Francisco, San Francisco County, California. Michael's father is Arvid Manfred Johnsen (a true Norwegian) and his mother is Nelda (Howard) Johnsen. Michael graduated from San Francisco High School and San Mateo/Skyline Junior Colleges. Susan and Michael have lived at Vancouver, Washington since 1984 when the company he then worked for promoted him to regional supervisor of all of their retail stores in the states of Washington and Oregon. The corporation Michael worked for was "Chess King", a men’s retail clothier, whom he had worked for as district manager in California. This new position supervising a dozen stores including sales, inventory management, personnel etc. kept him on the road driving hundreds of miles or flying (which Mike hates) was too stressful so he decided to be self-employed. Michael has his home office room filled with computers and printers where he publishes news letters on marketing and sales technique to subscribers.
Susan and Michael are active in their local Baptist Church. The family enjoys the outdoors and attends church campground sessions. Mike is a Green Belt and Tommy is a Green Belt with Blue Stripe Karate gymnast in the city recreation department. Susan is also active in community work programs sponsored by her employer Cellular One establishing pride, cleaning poor neighborhoods, planting trees, helping poor people help themselves etc.
Although Susan's daughter FELICIA TUPOLO lives in San Diego they visit each other at least twice a year. Willie and Felicia lived with the Johnsen's for six months before their daughter Ileiana was born. All of the Tupolo relatives live in the San Diego area. Felicia's father Philip Bimer and her two half-brothers also live in San Diego.
RONALD AARON LINES born November 9, 1949 at Riverside, Riverside County, California. RONALD AARON LINES married KRISTIE ANN (MCMEEKEN) LINES on October 15, 1988 at Marysville, Snohomish County, Washington. Ronald's faith was Presbyterian and Kristie's Episcopalian. Kristie Ann (McMeeken) Lines was born at Seattle, King County, Washington on February 16, 1958 and in less than a year moved with her mother to Kodiak Island, Alaska where her father was a crab fisherman. Kristie and her family including two brothers and three sisters lived on Kodiak Island, Alaska from 1959 through 1976 when her mother and children returned to live in Marysville, Washington.
RONALD AARON LINES and KRISTIE ANN (MCMEEKEN) LINES have two children: JAMIE ANN LINES born July 17, 1990 at Everett, Snohomish County, Washington and JOSEPH AARON LINES born July 11, 1992 at Everett, Snohomish County, Washington. The Ronald and Kristie Lines home is in Marysville, Washington but the hospital where the children were born is six miles south in Everett. At the time of their births (Grammie) great grandmother Mary Luella Maddocks and Kristie's parents all lived in Marysville and Harold and Phyllis Lines lived seven miles north in Arlington, Washington.
RONALD AARON LINES graduated from Riverside Polytechnic High School where he played tackle on the varsity football team. Ronald attended Northern Arizona State University for one year as forestry major. The Vietnam War was threatening so Ronald decided to fly to Europe with a knapsack on his back! He lived in "hostels" and by his wits through Germany, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Yugoslovia, Austria, Greece, Egypt, and Italy. When Ronald was in high school he worked summers as a helper in Lines plumbing and then as a pot scrubber and vegetable washer at the White Sands Restaurant in Riverside. When he returned from Europe he worked as a steak and lobster cook at the Cask "N" Cleaver Restaurant in Riverside. Next he shipped aboard a tuna boat from San Diego and made four trips commercial fishing in the waters off of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Between these fishing trips he helped in the remodeling/building of the new restaurant "Albatross" in Del Mar, California. When the Albatross opened he was one of the cooks and was soon promoted to top managing cook running the entire kitchen staff. Next he moved to the kitchen of the world famous Snow Bird Resort at Alta, Utah. This resort has two hotels, condominiums, apartments, and four restaurants and Ron worked in the main hotel restaurant. After a short time the managing chef took an interest in Ron and started to train him in all phases of becoming a chef de hotel. First he worked in preparing the daily salads and salad bar under the salad chef's guidance. Next the Executive Chef had him work in the bakery and soon he was in charge of the bakery which baked for all of the restaurants which included all types of bread and fancy pastries. The various nut breads were especially good. The chef trained Ron in many fine points in food preparation for finer eloquent dishes. Ron skied from his apartment to work every day, and then took the lift back to his apartment. In the winter he also skied on the slopes during his time off work. Snow Bird averages 6' of snow and has over a dozen outstanding slopes. The chef arranged for a free suite in the hotel for a few days one summer for Harold and Maddy to visit and go trout fishing which was appreciated.
The Executive Chef said that Ron would have to go school in New York or France to become a real chef! Some of Ron's friends from the Albatross Restaurant and Riverside had moved to Sandpoint, Idaho and with stories of great hunting and fishing soon tempted him to join them. Ron moved to Sandpoint, Idaho and was employed by the Garden Restaurant. Ron bought his first house here. Ron fished in Lake Pend Orielle (pronounced "Pond-a-ray") where Sandpoint is located and also in the nearby Canadian lakes and skied at nearby Schwietzer Park. Harold and Maddy visited several times and enjoyed the fishing.
Next Ron worked as a cook at an exclusive fishing and hunting resort, Rainbow Lodge, on Lake Iliamna, Alaska. In 1981 the cost for each guest per six day stay was $2,850.00 which included the lodge (limited to a total of twenty five guests per week), meals, and sharing a guide and a float plane with another guest, but did not include fishing gear or the cost of flying to the lodge. Only multi-millionaires from around the world were guests and they were served their native dishes or whatever they wished with special items flown in from everywhere. Melons cost the owners $75.00 and a bowl of fresh fruit averaged $100.00. On his day off Ron would take a float plane trip or fish for huge salmon in the rivers.
The next seven years Ron worked for Dunlap Towing aboard a large ocean tug boat, the Malolo, as cook and able body seaman traveling the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea. The barges they towed carried fifty or more tractor-trailers, a dozen or more large Caterpillar tractors, around fifteen 30' to 50' long fishing boats all on one load and sometimes they towed two barges. This work paid high wages but was extremely dangerous when high winds hit, and they usually did, or ice would build up three inches thick on everything and make the tug top-heavy. When the ocean froze over, the thick ice would puncture the one-half inch steel barge hull so they would stop their northern trips and in the winter take loads to the Hawaiian Islands
When Ronald married Kristie he stopped this dangerous work where he was at sea for five to ten weeks and started work for the Washington State Ferry System in the Puget Sound area. Most of his work is around Anacortes, Fidalgo Island or Friday Harbor, San Juan Island or trips to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. With these routes he usually is only away from home for three days at a time.
KRISTIE ANN (MCKEEKEN) LINES attended public school in Kodiak, Alaska and graduated from Kodiak High School. The population of Kodiak is about 3500 and is somewhat isolated so Kristie learned to shop by mail through catalogues and to appreciate fresh fruits! The family lived on high enough land that they survived the tremendous tidal wave that hit Kodiak during the "Good Friday" earthquake that hit Anchorage, Alaska in 1964. Kristie's father Louis McMeeken operates a King Crab fishing boat off Kodiak Island during the season then returns to Washington when winter arrives. This work is very dangerous as at least one boat, and often more, are sunk every year. Kristie's mother Genevieve was born and raised in the city of Snohomish, Snohomish County, Washington. Louis and Genevieve divorced and she married Jim Morrison. Kristie is employed by Hewlett Packard Electronic Plant in Marysville and is in charge of the Receiving Department.
LAURIE ANNE (LINES) JONES was born November 14, 1955 at Riverside, Riverside County, California. Laurie Anne (Lines) Jones married CLYDE LEROY JONES on May 20, 1978 at Carlsbad, San Diego County, California. At the time Laurie's parents, brother and sister lived at Encinitas, California and Clyde's mother lived at Cardiff by the Sea, California. Clyde Leroy Jones was born February 21, 1955 at San Diego, San Diego County, California.
LAURIE ANNE (LINES) JONES and CLYDE LEROY JONES had two children: DESIRAE ROSE JONES born June 11, 1979 at Vista, San Diego County, California and KATHRYN BROOKE JONES born March 27, 1981 at Vista, San Diego County, California. The Clyde Jones family first lived in Vista, California and later moved to Escondido, California where they bought their home.
Laurie Anne (Lines) Jones attended schools in Riverside, California including Riverside Polytechnic High School but finished her senior year and graduated from Encinitas High School, Encinitas, California. Laurie was active in the "Tick-Tockers" daughters of the National Charity League. She spent many hours helping children at the California School for the Deaf at Riverside as a volunteer. After graduating from high school Laurie worked at Tri-City Hospital at Vista, California.
After Laurie and Clyde were married she worked as a school bus driver for the Oceanside School District. During this time she also worked one summer driving buses at Los Angeles for the 1984 Olympics Games. Clyde is a carpenter but when construction work slowed down he and Laurie made a living gathering seeds and selling them to large commercial nurseries. This was not a little two-person operation as they often had a dozen (Mexican) laborers picking the blooms, laying them out to dry, removing the seeds, and packing the final product. They gathered seeds from allover southern and central California and Nevada. Laurie did the bookkeeping and learned to identify more than a hundred varieties of seeds. Much of their seeds were used for "aqua-seeding" landscapes, highways, factories, real estate development, and golf courses. Some of their rare palm seeds were valued at one hundred dollars a pound!
Clyde graduated from Cardiff By The Sea High School. Clyde's father was Lloyd Wilson Jones and his mother is Evelyn Mayer Jones. Clyde's father worked in the aircraft industry and his mother worked as a retail clerk and her last ten years as a union representative of the Retail Clerk's Union in San Diego County. Clyde was raised in the Cardiff by the Sea community a block from the ocean so naturally he became a good surfboard rider. Clyde's occupation is carpentry and he has been construction foreman on projects at Sea World, Navy Submarine Base, San Diego U.S.O. Building, etc. Clyde fell some twenty feet to the ground while working on the Escondido Fire Station in 1992 and injured his back and neck. He is lucky to be alive! He is currently at home under several doctors' care and receiving occupational therapy and medication. Since Clyde was injured, and not able to work, Laurie works at The Clay Factory as a jewelry artist making clay dolls.
Laurie, Clyde, Desirae (Desi), and Kathryn (Katie) have always had close ties with Harold and Phyllis because they lived near to each other. They shared picnics, fishing, swimming, vacations, holidays, and baby-sitting together. The Jones always included the Lines in their big Thanksgiving dinner and shared the two children's Christmas. For two years the two families, plus Felicia, rented cabins on Rock Creek in the Sierra Mountains and enjoyed a fishing and sight-seeing vacation. In 1988, Desi and Katie joined the Lines and their great-grandmother, Luella Maddocks, on a train trip to Washington in two deluxe bedrooms. Desi and Katie have always been outstanding students and both have been on the honor roll since seventh grade. Since the Lines moved to Washington, both Desi and Katie have flown up to visit twice and Laurie also visited for awhile. The entire Jones family moved to Marysville in the fall of 1989 but returned to California a year later.
Last Updated on 3/26/2006 by Paul R. Wade
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