The Working Years, by Dick Votaw (part 1)
After graduation from Claremont Men’s College on June 6, 1951, Doree and I found a small house to rent in a court near the railroad tracks on Second street in Pomona. The word small is entirely accurate as we may have had 400 sq. ft. of space. There was a bedroom that only one of us could stand on the floor at any given time; the other had to be out of the room or on the bed. There was a kitchen and a living room and a bath off the bedroom and that was it. The rent was $50.00 per month. There were four little houses in this court and Doree’s brother, Bert, and his wife lived in the one next to us. When the trains went by we all knew it and the house would shake, but we were newly weds and who cared about the outside world? After a while we were able to ignore the noise except when our friends came over and reminded us.
I soon went to work at Pomona Box Company with my Dad as Payroll clerk and the person in charge of keeping the inventory records. My starting wage was $1.12 per hour. Doree starting working for her Dad as a Dental Assistant. In 1952 after his graduation, Don Votaw came to work also and he started learning the business in the warehouse and in the manufacturing section. As time progressed I took on more and more duties and eventually became the bookkeeper after Alden Griffin retired. I got into some sales work gradually which I will talk about later.
In May of 1952, my Uncle Vernon died (Eleanor’s Dad). This is the time then that Uncle Clayton offered to take Dad in as a partner in the business. My Uncle Howard was also invited to come into a partner arrangement after Vernon’s death. This was a very exciting time for me as I was learning a new business, learning how to be a good
husband, and was privileged to be able to work with my Dad. He was a very patient man and a good teacher and took me on occasion on some of his sales trips.
He wanted me to know his customers as he probably had in mind all the time that I would eventually take over what he was doing. I learned his customers in Los Angeles and became acquainted with our competition as there was plenty of that. My Dad was a person that other people learned to love and respect and they knew he was an honest man. I know this was the reason he made and kept so many friends and customers.
After a few months living in our cramped quarters we went apartment hunting and found a new apartment over a garage in San Dimas. It still had only three rooms, but they were much larger and we could actually be in the same room together without being crowded. Our rent went up to $75.00 per month. On May 29, 1952, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary and took some vacation time to return to Carmel. We both like this place very much and often returned there during the years.
In June of 1952, with help from family, we put a down payment on our first house in Whittier, a 1100 square foot mansion. We had no idea how we were going to fill up all those rooms. It consisted of three bedrooms, one bath, living and dining room combination and a kitchen. The address was 9118 Hornby Ave. The property came with the front yard all ready landscaped for us, and it was our job to take care of the back yard. We had no skill at this task, but we did get some grass to grow as we do have pictures of me mowing the yard.
Some of these photos look like they might be from Dick & Doree’s honeymoon trip. None of them have captions written on them, and we have no information about their honeymoon, so we can only guess.
This news article appeared in the Whittier newspaper in the summer of 1952. As well as giving information about the new house in Whittier, it informs us that Dick was already started at Pomona Box Company with his dad. The information about the location of the nearest school seems wrong to me. When I went to East Whittier School it would have required me to cross the boulevard if we’d stayed in the house on Hornby, and it was a junior high school.
This telegram bearing the exciting news of the move to Whittier was sent to Dick’s parents, who were at the beginning of their trip to England for the Quaker conference.
Dick and Doree’s apartment in San Dimas.
Our family lived in that house on Hornby for about 5 years, which were the first 5 years of my life, so I have a few memories of it.
The house had no fireplace or chimney, so I remember being quite concerned at Christmas time about how Santa Claus was going to gain access on Christmas Eve to get my presents to me. Mom told me that he could come through a window, and that kept me quiet, although I think I was still doubtful.
The back yard was great, and I remember playing out there. We had a swingset with a slide. The archives include movies of us kids playing out there. There was also an incinerator, where we would take out the trash to burn it. Trash burning became illegal before we moved to our next house, because the smog problem in L.A. county was becoming so much worse.
I started kindergarten in September of 1957 at Mulberry School. I still four years old, since my birthday was in October, and there must have been quite a bit of discussion about whether or not to start me at that age. I regret the decision – I was probably mature enough physically and mentally but not emotionally, and this led to problems for the rest of my school years since I was always one of the youngest in my class, and never really developed socially. But of course my parents had no way of knowing what would happen, and did what they thought was best for me.
In the middle of my kindergarten year we bought the house on Davista Drive, still in East Whittier but north of Whittier Blvd. I changed to a new kindergarten class at Ocean View School, and my teacher was Mrs. Wolf (a scary name, but a nice teacher) who was actually part of our church.
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