“When I was a little girl my mother would not allow me to tell anyone I was Cherokee because people would look down on you,” says red-headed, blue-eyed Millie Batchelor. “But,” she adds, “I’ve been proud of it all my life.” Six years ago, Millie gathered with an enthusiastic group of friends to form the
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“Overalls! Oh my Lord,” says Erma Giussi. “You had to wash every day or you’d never keep up.” From her cozy Sonora living room, Erminia Paradisa Girardi Giussi is looking back to 1926 where she can still see herself washing the family clothes on the back porch of her childhood home behind the old Tuolumne
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Bob Kinsinger always intended to be a world traveler. It’s a passion he has nurtured his whole life. Now 87, the retired university and foundation administrator has crisscrossed the globe dozens of times – very often floating slowly beneath a colorful hot air balloon in hundreds of trips to more than 30 countries. He has
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“If you don’t stop wasting, you’ll land me in the poorhouse!” was a phrase that many of us who were Depression babies grew up hearing. Poorhouses have been with us for hundreds of years – and many people have been forced to go there as a result of economic failures. They existed in almost every
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Was he a talented treasure hunter or the crazy son of an English lord? Only Thomas Stoddart knew for sure.
‘We cut weeds, worked on the roads or cleaned out the rivers. Each of us would get just a little work, a few days at a time, and then someone else would get the work. Can’t even remember how much they paid us. Just some kind of money.’
– Holly Rice on work during the Depression years
By Deanna Maurer and Suzy Hopkins A few months ago Joe and Amy Haratani, seated next to 26 empty chairs, were stunned to find themselves receiving a standing ovation from a Modesto Junior College graduation crowd. The thunderous applause was part appreciation, part apology. It came 68 years after Joe and Amy’s late sister, Nobu,
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This photo appears in the Autumn 2010 issue of Friends and Neighbors courtesy of Fran Trout of Sonora, along with a story about longtime educator Dario Cassino. The names of each of the students, also provided by Fran Trout, follow: First row: Larry Lavignino, Mike Ghiorso, Jane Wreath, Donna Upwall, Barbara Aroz, Esther Miller, Terry
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Blanche Aphecetche has completed a remarkable genealogical trek that spans several continents and countries, and details the lives of the lives of hundreds of relatives from Shakespeare’s time to the 21st Century. The result: five huge volumes of family history with an astonishing level of detail, recounting the life histories – including many of the
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“I was a happy-go-lucky girl.” Mickey Nichols is relaxing into the story of her 98 years. Orioles are visiting the feeder outside her living room, and she’s comfortable in an easy chair. Her memory is excellent, so there’s a lot to tell. It’s a surprise that the stories she chooses are not always happy and
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