User:Francis Quail/sandbox

My Grandmother, Mom and I are all California Blondes making our own history and treasuring our ancestry. Our forefathers really did their best to make this world a better place and we are honored and humbled by the task to carry the torch to the next generation. Grandmother’s ancestors and relatives came from Scotland, France and Germany in the sixteen hundreds to homestead in Virginia and Pennsylvania. They were mostly bankers, lawyers and scholars who helped build their communities and ultimately our nation.

The true historians of our family that are alive today have been my Grandmother and my Mom. Grandma Jean is in the seventh generation of the Michael Kern family who immigrated from Europe in the early 1800's where they farmed and educated their sons as lawyers, bankers and international businessmen at fine institutions of higher learning such as Harvard and Yale.

Grandma Jeanne was born as Virginia Jean Kern, the youngest daughter of Howard Lewis Kern of Charles City, Iowa in nineteen hundred and twenty three. She was ten years junior of her sister Myrna Quail Kern Chase who married the son of the inventor of the first adding machine named after Grandmother's brother in law- Monroe Chase.

Interviewing Grandma is always great fun and full of specifics like: Birthplace- Newark New Jersey Schools- Prospect Hill Country Day School, Ohio Weslyen. Married to Harold Delancy Gregory on in May 1945. Her heritage was one of a debutant and a privileged young lady. Great Grandfather Howard Kern knew he wanted to be an attorney when he was seven years old and as the story goes, he carved his name in a tree with Attorney at Law as his prophetic title. Howard was the youngest of seven boys and became the Attorney General of Puerto Rico not long after his graduation from Harvard in 1911. Woodrow Wilson appointed the eloquent and honorable Howard L. Kern as Govenor in nineteen hundred and seventeen. He served as the U.S. Head Marshal and Govenor until nineteen hundred and twenty four when he resigned and returned to his law practice in New York City.

He and his young family move into the Govenors Mansion in San Juan, which didn't include Grandmother yet, she was born after their arrival back to New Jersey. Grandma's recollection of her parents were more about their home life and large brick home on and acre of land in what was then upscale Newark suburbia. She recollects that they had two garages, one for their Packard with a bumper seat, the kind that folded out from behind the rear window of the sedan. Her mother had a special hat and laced scarf with matching gloves that she wore when driving.

Family photos concur with amber elegance, Grandmother's upbringing was with lace topped boots and girdles, fine etiquette and steamer crossings on the Atlantic for European Holidays or VIP First Class passes on the R&R Railroad while "Pops" was the Attorney General for the rails. Her remembrance of this noble life is rather casual and modest considering her father was a Surpreme Court Lawyer, who introduced and passed important cases such as the Jones Act of 1917 and was responsible for ushering in the first Telephone Switchboards as the Vice President of International Telephone and Telegraph (IT&T). All of us grandkids think it's really neat that our own Great Grand Father was so accomplished and is actually in Who's Who.

What my Grandmother remembers most is her dad's integrity and true concern for others and love of justice, honor and adventure. He was competitive and a good athlete as well. He won the national title in Tennis while at Harvard and always enjoyed a good round on the courts with Grandma when not swimming laps for exercise with his girls.

What were Grandmother's fondest memories and who were her best friends? "Velvet", she answers. Her first cat, a treasured confidant and companion in a grown up household of servants and social guests. She recalls hiding under the grand piano eating straight from a peanut butter jar while her mother hostessed afternoon teas with only the finest china, polished silver and wicker loungers on the screen porch.

Her other great pals were the husband and wife black butler and maid, who Grandmother adored and snuck through the separate servant stairwell to join for late night hot coco and stories around the coal burning stove on chilly nights. They taught her songs and fun dances that lent to happy memories and warmed an otherwise drafty kitchen.

Howard Lewis Kern's sister outlived him and actually came to visit the Gregorys in what is still our family home in Manhattan Beach, California. My mother, Jannet recalls she had a cozy lap and lots of smiling wrinkles that jiggled when she laughed. Auntie Bess and her brothers and sister were  born in Charles City, Iowa, which my Grandmother says is where the story the Music Man took place. It was hometown U.S.A., just like mainstream of Disneyland with wooden boardwalks, ice cream parlors and barbershop quartets. It's fun to picture life in the days when the Kerns lived there and even better to imagine when they moved west to California to join their cousins who had founded a town and county named after their own kin- Kernville and Kern County!

Oh, Grandmother and Grandad only visited the cousins who had settled inland. They preferred the beach life in Southern California and preferred to would vacation in the High Sierras where they could scale rocks like Half Dome in Yosemite in the afternoon and be enjoying a campfire in the Giant Redwoods by nightfall. They loved the great outdoors and Grandma always credits her Dad for instilling a love of nature and adventure.

Grandpa Kern would take the family to their summer cottage in Banf, Alberta, Canada where they would canoe and savor the beauty of the lake and mountains. They love horseback riding and although they all were trained as English Equestrians, Grandmother and her Dad favored riding in Western discipline. To this day she wears her buckskin jacket that he bought her while in Banf. Family and friends evolved for Grandmother, especially after both of her parents passed before she was twenty three. She and Grandpa moved to California and finished their education at the University of Souther California. They were eachother's only family and best friends, they were sweethearts and inspiration as they joined the baby boomers and brought up their own family of three in a sleepy little coastal town known as Manhattan Beach- my own hometown where I grew up with my Mother, Jannet Gregory and Father and four brothers there in the Gregory Homestead two blocks from the beach.

Family roots go deep there in Manhattan Beach and many of Mom's childhood neighbors also still live within a four block radius. So, hanging out at the beach or park or just walking to the store with Mom or Grandma is a stroll down memory lane. Between the two of them, they know somebody that lives or lived around each corner and which home was built, torn down or remolded when, how and by whom. Legacies continue and new neighbors are welcomed and ushered into the ultra outdoor sporty environment of our hometown U.S.A. there on the west coast.

Grandma still calls my Mom by the nickname she gave herself when she was three. evidently, little Jann liked a waitress at the Newberry's Fountain (snack bar) who was a pleasant woman who would always say, "Okie Doakie" to my Mom, who afterwhich introduced herself as "Ukie Dukie"- an affectionate family name that has stuck.

Ukie attended grew up in Manhattan Beach, earned her swimmers badge when she was five and tagged along to her big brother's and sisters scout meetings and mother's Red Cross Life Guard Training Classes. Ukie grew up either in the water at the beach and the Biltmore Plunge on the Strand in Hermosa Beach, California. Jean taught swimming and synchronized swimming and directed an annual aquacade with Tibby Bova who became a lifelong friend and collegue.

Ukie had the honor of opening the first aquacade when she was three. Star of the show, she wore a lifesize peacock fan made of a banner of colored battened satin that resembled the NBC Mascot. Holding the wings in her litlle suntanned arms Ukie walked out on the end of the diving board and displayed her wings while the announcer said" This program is brought to you in living color!" A sign of the times, because color television was a new technology just on the horizon and most people only had black and white reception in their homes. This was 1959.

Ukie attended the Mc Martin Pre-School in Old Downtown Manhattan Beach Blvd. when it was next to the lumber yard that eventually became the Safeway and now has been the Vons for about thirty years. This was back in the day before Sketchers owned half of the town (exageration) and the Kettle Restaurant was a Richfield Station that had gas wars with the Mobil across the street. The Lamar Movie Theatre had "Orange Crush" afternoon matinees that all the kids would go to in the middle of a hot summer day and trade in bottle caps for silly prizes and a few extra cartoons. This was before World Class Volley Ball competed with triathlons and Iron Man titles. Ukie's beach life was simply salty and sandy picnics at the shore, where the worst thing that could happen was to for a bully to put a sandcrab in her bathing suit and watch her run.

Summer campouts in Sequoia meant adventure and watching Grandpa Hal (the x-marine) swim upstream in the snowmelt and savoring morning bacon and egg cast iron sizzle, blue jays and big bears to hide the peanut butter from.

Hikes and hunting down berries and secret swim holes- summer for the Gregorys our west was always not too far from the sunshine, fresh air and lots of water! Ukie and her siblings attended Miss Dawn's newly established private school in Rolling Hills that was in search of a name. Grandma suggested naming it after her own alma madder Prospect Hill Country Day back in Newark. Miss Dawn loved the idea and properly fitting named the popular school, "Rolling Hills Country Day".

Grandpa Hal's job with Hughes Aircraft Company in Culver City transferred him back and forth between Lancaster, New Mexico and back a couple of times, so the Gregorys had the pleasure and benefits of military life,  Officer's Clubs and great local skiing in both Mountain High, California and Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Summer's were spent poolside or camping in the cool of the mountains with horseback riding (Western of course) and month long French Emmersion Camp Retreats in Deer Isle, Maine.

Elementry school for Ukie, or Jann and her siblings was during the cold war and air-raid drills, friends with bomb shelters, sputnik and man's first walk on the moon. Sodas had cyclamates and beauty queens would "walk a mile for a camel". John Wayne played cowboys and indians and the civil rights movement shuttered at the thought of J.F.K.'s assassination.

Mom remembers the day when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot. She was in the second grade, Mrs. Smith's class. Their regular lessons were interrupted with an emotional assembly call by the Miss Dawn. All the student and faculty met at the flag pole and listen in shock while the announcement was read that the President of the United States had been shot and killed while driving in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas.

Mom remembers understanding what this meant, but only superficially. She was about eight years old. All classes were canceled for the rest of that day and the following three days while the country and world morned and awaited for our great president to be buried at Arlington Cemetery.

For the kids in the neighborhood that meant vacation time, slumber parties, popsicles and getting away with bouncing from house to house while the parents stayed glued to the black and white televisions so not to miss one tiny bit of breaking news. This kind of media attention really evolved after this. Now anybody can broadcast breaking news with Twitter, U-Tube and Facebook. Grandmother says she grew up listening to the radio and that the movie about King Edward was so true to life that she was amazed at how much technology has changed-especially in her lifetime! She's nearly one hundred years old now!

Mom agrees, things have changed a lot even since the fifties when typewriters were manual, them electric without correction tape, then with correction tape, eventually word processors came out and now, all we have to do is talk into our bluetooth and we can email or text a message anywhere in the world!

We all agree that no matter how much things change, the most important things in life is life, love and happiness. I am ever so grateful that my ancestors had the motivation and vision to come here to this country and to make a difference in their families, communities, nation and globe. It is an awesome responsibility and challenge to keep our dreams alive, step up to bat and do what it takes to get the job done and to do it well.

I am inspired by learning more about my family's history and want to pass it on to the generations to come! CLC for FKQ