Nina's Notes: Granddad

My Granddad was hired by Coca Cola as a sign painter in the mid 40s. He worked for Coca Cola in San Francisco until he retired sometime in the 60s. This is a picture of him somewhere in the city in 1968, his union card and a receipt for a roll of film that shows him being called "Mr. Coca Cola", (probably because that is how the photo shop knew him, by his place of work).

My Granddad never talked about his work or even his past to me. I knew he worked for Coca Cola because one of the benefits was getting a case of Coke each week, which was a big deal, since both sides of my families were Mormons (Granddad brought home Coke and my other Grandpa smoked! Both are no-nos for Mormons.) I didn't know much about Granddad until my Mother got much older and we had time to chat and then after she passed away I came into a lot of ephemera that has been saved over years. Granddad had quite a life, his mother died in childbirth, he was raised by either a family friend or an aunt, he was a sailor in WW1, married a Utah Morman girl (and had a real hard time being accepted into the family), was a purser on merchant ships during the depression and eventually found a home and a job in SF.
I have some of his letters written in the 1930s while he was shipping in a previous blog post: https://njoy00.blogspot.com/2013/06/granddads-letters-from-1934.html

Here we have proof of Granddad going to a public school in Manchester, Iowa in 1908. He would have been 9 in 1908. Manchester is about 40 miles from Fayette, the town he was born in. The story passed down to the family was Granddad was cared for by an aunt. His dad didn’t feel he could care for him since his mother died shortly after giving birth to Granddad. However his school records indicate he had a guardian named Mrs. Stowe or Mrs.Storie and there is no family name starting with Sto… in any of the genealogical records. So even though he had 2 older brothers and 2 older sisters he wasn't raised with his family.

By 1917 the US was involved in WWI and Granddad joined the Navy. He would have been 18. Later he would use the Navy training to become a purser on merchant sailing boats.

Granddad did continue to have family connections with his older sister, Edna. This is a picture of him in his US Navy Dress Blue Uniform with Edna and her daughter Lucille. Lucille was born in 1913, so this picture was probably taken between 1918-1920. In later years Aunt Edna and Lucille continued to have very strong ties to all of Granddad's own, growing family.