REWALKING THE PAST

Yesterday Jerry and I celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary. We married on August 1, 1975 in Orange County, California and lived there, except for 22 months in Turkey, until we retired in June of 2000, at which time we relocated to the "Inland Empire." We decided that a fitting celebration this year would be repeating one of our favorite things to do on a summer evening in the OC. This included eating our dinner at our favorite local deli in Santa Ana, driving down to Newport and walking out on the Balboa Pier, eating a frozen banana, looking at the lovely views, and then heading home, happy and content.

We started off at Benjies, the best Jewish deli in Orange County. Our repast included matzoh ball soup, potato latkes, and a plate of chopped liver, egg salad and potato salad, accompanied by genuine Jewish Rye bread! There are no comparable delis within driving range of where we live, so when we dine at Benjies it is like being in heaven.

Next we drove down to Balboa, parked the car at the foot of the pier, and headed out to see if the fish were biting. The air was fresh and clear as a bell, the evening warm with a slight breeze. Jerry led the way.


The fish were, in fact, biting. Since we aren't fishermen, we can't tell you what was being caught, but all up and down the pier I, being a tinch squeamish when it comes to caught-fish and cut up bait, simply had to keep my eyes focused straight ahead, because there was a lot of flopping going on around the pier edges!


There's a cute little restaurant called Ruby's at the end of the pier, and if we hadn't just had our Benjies meal, we wouldn't have been able to resist the wonderful smell of fried fish and chips!


The frozen bananas used to cost $1.25 but now were up to $3.25. Nevertheless, we didn't let price stop us. The bananas were huge, covered with chocolate and nuts, and totally wonderful. I took my own picture while I was eating mine, and while it isn't all that flattering, it will certainly show you what we have been missing all these retirement years!


After finishing our special treat, we took a walk along the Balboa bay. I grew up going to the beach at Balboa, lying on the sand at this very location. But now, it is a private beach, set aside for owners (or renters) of houses that line the bay side of Balboa. But what a view those people have.


We finished off the evening by walking back to the pier, retrieving our car, and taking a picture of the sunset as we called it a day.



The "going home from work" traffic was off the freeway by the time we got on it, and in an hour we were pulling up to our snug little apartment in the IE. It was a wonderful celebration!

IN GENEALOGY, IT'S WORTH THE WAIT

When I was a kid growing up in Long Beach, California my mom used to tell me little things that happened in her life as a child. She grew up on a farm in Kansas, and she was faced with tornados instead of earthquakes, acres of crops instead of Victory Gardens, and stifling heat instead of afternoon breezes off the ocean. I was always interested in these stories and of course believed every word she said.

Among the stories was one she told about coming out to Newport Beach from their home in Caldwell, Kansas in April of 1920. She said her dad had some kind of illness that he felt the fresh salt air would help. He had tried Colorado Springs before and had experienced no change, so California was next on his agenda. Mother said she started first grade in the Newport Beach schools but that in a few months her dad packed everyone up - everyone being his wife, sons Bob and Byrd Jr. and daughters Florence, Virginia and Marie - and headed back to Caldwell.

When I started doing genealogy in 1984, occasioned by my mother's death and the realization that I was carrying around in my head lots of details about the life of the Ryland family and no one to confirm it with, I tackled the job of proving every thing she told me. None of her younger brothers or sisters remembered the California story, so I decided that when I finished with the major, more important part of my research, I'd tackle the Newport Beach story. I figured I'd run down to the Newport Beach School District to see if I could find any corroborating facts.

I never got around to it.

In 1984 I had located a fairly close Ryland relative, Verne, who still lived in Caldwell and as luck would have it, two of his three children lived here in California. One of those two had already done some research on the Rylands and over the years we swapped details and ideas. Verne died in 1997 and in the years since, his son has methodically gone through some of his dad's memorabilia. So imagine my surprise when one day in the mail I received a copy of a postcard that Verne had kept all these years (above). It was sent to Verne's mother by my grandma Ryland and gave me the confirmation I needed of my mom's trip to California. The postmark tells when and the postcard shows where.

Imagine! Almost 20 years after starting my research I received something new and surprising. In the scheme of things it is not all that important, but we who research understand that every tiny "find" adds one more dimension to the story we can leave for our children. Right now it probably doesn't matter to them, but it matters to me. And someday they are going to find this as interesting as I do.

Patience and serendipity, two important values for the genealogist.