THE SHIRLEY STREET GANG

In the early summer of 1959 my kids’ dad and I decided it was time to buy our first house. With baby #3 on the way we needed more space than an apartment was able to provide. We wanted a third bedroom and a fenced yard. And we really wanted some playmates for our kids.

At the time, Joe was driving a Coca Cola truck in the Costa Mesa/Newport Beach area, so it seemed logical that we should house-hunt in Orange county. We discovered a new tract being built in Westminster, near Garden Grove, and there we found exactly what we needed at a price we could afford.

The little house we picked on Shirley Street had 1140 square feet, with three bedrooms and a big back yard. The selling price was $15,250 and since Joe was able to use his VA loan, the monthly payments which included principal, interest, taxes and insurance would be $99. To qualify for the 30-year loan Joe had to be making $345 a month in, and luckily we barely squeaked through. In late summer our house was ready for occupancy and with the help of our friends and family we carted load after load of our goods from Long Beach to Westminster. We didn’t really have much in the way of furniture to move, so it just didn’t make sense to hire a moving van.

We lived in the Shirley Street house for five years before a job change took place that sent us elsewhere. But those five years were among the best in our lives. Most of the men of the families were, like Joe, vets of the Korean War. Most of us had pre-school or elementary school children, though there were a few teenaged girls just of the right age to baby sit. And many of us women were still having babies. Very few of the mothers worked outside the home. I do believe we were the last generation to be able to stay home and be a housewife without a guilty conscience.

We had an exceptionally compatible neighborhood. We had lots of block parties for the adults, birthday parties for the little kids, holiday parties – and especially big parties for one of the neighbors, Cliff Pike, who was still in the Navy and often went on another tour of duty. We partied him farewell and partied him welcome back. We developed a baby-sitting co-op which worked like a charm for a number of years. We belonged to PTAs together and for a while to the Westminster Women’s Club. To my knowledge we did not have any “Peyton Place” activities.

Now all this is not to say we didn’t have our little occasional problems. Politics was not much a problem until the John Birch Society era arrived; there were some mighty conservative stalwarts on our block and some bleeding heart liberals, so we all had to tread lightly for a while. Religious fervor to elect a Catholic president caused a few to feel somewhat offended, but these thing blew over without permanent damage. We considered these people our friends and we all remained friends.

Little by little as our kids grew older and our husbands moved up in their jobs, families moved elsewhere. However, a few stayed so many years that their houses were paid off.

The picture above is our Shirley Street group – minus a few who had moved too far away to attend – taken about 1985. As nearly as I can recollect, there were close to 30 children belonging to just those women pictured above. Over the years we had several reunions – and it was great fun to see everyone again. Most of us are still around, many of us stay in touch, and a few of us are getting into the great-grandchild era. But you’ll understand when I say that Shirley Street seems like just yesterday.

It was a wonderful place to be living in 1959.