Our Wedding, November 16, 1979



Pat Kemp (Kritlow), my maid
 of honor and me.

My friend, Pat Kritlow, reminded me today about my crazy wedding. Gordon and I were married 34 years ago today, November 16, 1979.

We were both letter carriers in Corona del Mar, CA and I loved the little church on my route. Although neither of us is religious, we thought it would be a nice place since I delivered their mail.

Keep in mind he was 41 and I was 29 and both of us had been married before. I already had a daughter, Jennifer, 10, from a previous marriage. We had no plans for other children.



Herbert Wilson, best man and Gordon's step father, his mother, Eileen Wilson
on the left. My mother, Alice Hansen and my step father, Ed Hansen on the right.

The pastor started off with telling us about marriage, the sanctity, commitment, etc. and then he started in on children. We had to take classes and understand what marriage and raising children were all about. Wait, didn’t he remember what we had said?

Jennifer Lippincott and Mary Kemp.

When the "interview" was over, and we were out of earshot we both started laughing. We were NOT getting married there!

We didn’t want to get married at "city hall" so after checking around I found a minister with a Chapel we could get married in. I thought it was a good sign his name was the Reverend Wright. I had Wright’s in my family. It was a nice office building with a courtyard and the "Chapel" was a separate room with a wallpaper arbor and an arched trellis and lots of chairs in rows. With close family invited there were about 15 people there.

Upon arriving we checked in with the secretary. The Rev. Wright was finishing up with another wedding and they went out the backdoor. He led us into a small room next to the "Chapel" to sign the papers and pay him. It was $50 cash only. Twenty-five dollars went into one pocket and $25 into the other. It seems $25 got reported as income and the rest . . .  And for only $5 more we could get a picture and for another $5 we could get a recording. We declined.


Gordon's brother, John Wilson and Gordon. Definitely the long
and the short of it, hair wise. One of myfavorite pictures.

So we all filed into the "Chapel" and proceeded with the ceremony. It started off as the usual wedding ceremony but pretty soon the phone started ringing in the office and kept ringing. He pounded on the wall and told her to answer it. Still ringing. So the Rev. Wright put down his book, went into the office and answered the phone! It seems he and his secretary were having a disagreement and she was refusing to answer the phone! A few minutes later he came back in to finish the ceremony. He had forgotten his place, the fact that it was not a double ring ceremony and our names.



My mother, Alice and my niece,
Jorli Baker.

It was quite hilarious, at least to Gordon and me. It also kept my mother from crying and Gordon’s mother wasn’t sure we were actually really married.

Oh, and a few weeks later, while delivering the PennySaver, I found an ad for the Reverend Wright in it. He advertised in the PennySaver!

It couldn’t have been a better start for our marriage and on reflection, I sure wish I had paid the $5 for a recording!

DYING IS HARD WORK. SOMETIMES YOU CAN ONLY HOLD THEIR HAND.

My mother, Alice, has died. After my brother, sister and I spent the last three days of her life with her, she died, peacefully on Sunday, July 7. 

After leaving for home Saturday night, I remember telling my sister, Nina, that Mom would probably die now that she got to spend time with all her children. She died the next day after a short walk in the wheelchair. While visiting with my sister and her husband, she just faded away. She was surrounded with love and was in no pain. Although it is sad to see her go, it was a good death. She was such a warm, loving, vibrant woman and a wonderful mother and role model. 




She was a fun loving person. Her much repeated motto was “If you aren’t having a good time, it’s your own fault.” She lived that. She would always have something to look forward to. Even the smallest thing, like going out to lunch with the girls.








While never religious, she taught us right from wrong and how to treat others. We grew up “color blind.” I don’t think she knew what prejudice was. Living in Texas for a while, her best friend was Sadie from across the road. She wanted to go out to lunch with Sadie and she kept refusing. Sadie finally had to tell Mom that she couldn’t go because it would be frowned on. You see Sadie was the sweetest, most generous person around, but she was African-American. Mom was very saddened by that. She really didn’t like Texas much. Too many religious prejudices, race prejudices and it was too darn hot! She moved back to California.

She taught us table manners. I remember recently having lunch with her and my grandchildren, (her great-grandchildren) 13 and 17 at the time. I reminded them that Grandma Alice, even at her most forgetful (she had advancing Dementia) would poke them with a fork if they put their elbows on the table. Sure enough, at some point one or the other put their elbow on the table and was rewarded with a fork to said elbow.

She was a hard worker. Our father, Dewey David Baker, died when he was only 44, a massive heart attack. She was just 40 with three kids to raise. The only job she had was working in a pharmacy. She took on more hours and also took on the job of serving food and cleaning up for the local caterers. A side benefit of that was the leftovers! Whoever heard of leftover Prime Rib! She was the queen of “planned overs” as she liked to call it. The “joke” in our house, if you could call it that, was if the house ever caught fire, grab Mom’s recipe box. That’s where she kept the checks from her catering jobs until she got to the bank. I have that recipe box. Such memories.

She eventually remarried. Dating was fun for her, but hard on us kids. By this time she had also taken in, and became guardian of, our cousin, David Word. It was a full house. My brother and cousin gave every date the once over and some didn’t come up to snuff. Some got nicknames. Old Weird Harold and Superman come to mind. She loved to dance and went to dances as often as she could. After a succession of dates with some very nice men my mother met Ed Hansen. He loved my mother and didn’t let the ribbing and shenanigans of Mom’s kids deter him. They married and had 29 wonderful years together. 

My mother nursed Ed through Alzheimer’s Disease until his death. She told me after his death that she didn’t want to remarry, but she wouldn’t mind having a “Saturday Night Man.”

She did love the boys and the babies. Taking her out to lunch was always a kick. She always wanted to sit where she could see everything. Babies especially held her attention. She was always wanting to know “How much for that baby.” Luckily the families always took it as a compliment and let Mom talk to the babies. Now men were another thing altogether. She always said Hi and usually got a Hi in return. I remember sitting her down at the coffee shop part of a Barnes & Noble. When I returned with her coffee, which was her favorite beverage, there was an older gentleman sitting with her. He introduced himself and remarked that he hoped it was okay that he joined our table as my mother had so graciously invited him to sit. Of course I said yes. We had an enjoyable fifteen minutes of conversation until he needed to go home to his wife. Another time at Polly’s Pies she waved at a nice older gentleman, he came over to talk to her and I realized he was the same as her, he had Dementia as well. As his companion watched the interchange, he asked my Mom to marry him and gave her a big kiss! She loved it. His companion smiled and led him away.

She had a fierce sense of humor right up until the end. One day taking her to lunch, the restaurant we went into was not crowded. The hostess, a cute young lady, said “take any seat you want.” With that my mother reached over, pinched her butt and said “is this seat taken.” Oh - my - gosh! Luckily, the young lady laughed and told me she had a grandma just like her. She took no offense, but I made sure I watched Mom closely after that! 

Abiding by her wishes, we kept her in her mobile home where she had lived for 35 years. We had some wonderful caregivers for her. Last November, when she no longer knew where she lived, we moved her to Salt Lake City to a wonderful care facility. My sister lived close by and was able to keep an eye on her. Mom told us she didn’t want to stay there forever, but she did think it was a nice place to visit. They loved her and took wonderful care of her. As with any person with memory issues she could be a handful. But when they found out that she behaved much better when she had a male attendant, if there was one on the shift, he took care of Alice. All with our blessing. We knew our Mom!



Our sister, Nina, visited a lot and my brother and I came up whenever possible. At least one or the other of us was there every couple of months. Sadly, even with regular visits, as soon as we left, she forgot we had been there. At least she still knew our names and sometimes the names of our spouses.

Our last visit, we all came to see her together. We took her for walks in the wheelchair, brought her coffee and talked with her and sat with her and held her hand. She was very happy to see us. We could see her fading. She left us knowing she was loved and cherished.

Mom, have fun with your friends, Mom and Dad and even your sister, Adelma.

I love you, Mom. 

Sort of a Mystery of Charles and Carrie Baird

I haven't used this blog much but I have been collecting "stories" about my ancestors through genealogy. I thought I might share a few. This is about my great-grandparents on my mother's side.

Sort of a mystery of Charles Boettner Baird and Carrie Chapman Young Baird and their son, Douglas Baird Wright

I grew up with the story that Grandpa Wright's parents were killed in a car accident and made him and his sisters orphans. As the story goes, they went to live with a neighbor and one day another neighbor looked over the fence and said you have too many, we will take the little boy. And that was how Grandpa Wright went to live with the Wright family. Being a kid, I never thought too much about it. We had met his two sisters, Aunt's Charlotte and Idabelle. Both were married and had a good life.

Since becoming interested in genealogy all the main "characters" have died and I have been piecing things together. The story was not too far off as it turns out.

Using Ancestry.com, death records and census records I have found that sometime between 1900 and 1910 Charles Baird and his wife, Carrie, died. The 1900 Census shows them living at 129 Carr Street in Los Angeles. When I found this census I was surprised to find that there was another child, a girl, named Elizabeth Mary Baird! I'd never known this.

By the 1910 Census, their daughters, Charlotte and Idabelle had gone to live with the Vawters. Charlotte and Idabelle Baird are listed on 1910 census as "Wards," living with the Vawters at 504 Cherry. When looking at a map during that era this was just a street or two over from Carr Street.

Their son, Charley Baird (seems to have been born Charles or Charley in late 1900) went to live with the Wright's. The Wright's house at, 128 Carr Street, was just across the street from where he lived with his parents before their death. So maybe the "over the fence" comment is not too far off.

Douglas Baird Wright abt. 1955

Charles, renamed Douglas by the Wright’s, is listed with the Wright's as an orphan on the 1910 census and as their son on the 1920 census. The Wright's had no children and, as we were told, always wanted a son named Douglas. In the 1920's Douglas officially changed his name to Douglas Baird Wright.

Their oldest daughter, Elizabeth Mary Baird, was 17 in 1910 and I couldn’t find her anywhere in the Los Angeles area during that time frame. After much searching I finally found her on the 1910 Census living with a Boettner relative in Brooklyn, New York.

By the 1920 Census Elizabeth was shown as Mary E Montane, having married Peter Montane sometime between 1910 and 1914 when I found her on a passenger list returning from Cuba to New York.

The 1930 Census shows she married at 17. She and Peter and their only daughter, Charlotte are now living in Santa Monica, probably to be near her brother and two sisters.

All of the children remained in the Los Angeles area. Douglas lived in Newport Beach, California for a while in the 1930's, building the third house on Lido Isle and living there for a many years while maintaining a Chicken Ranch on Santa Isabelle St, in Costa Mesa, California. During WWII they lived on the ranch. Douglas and his wife, Mae, eventually moved back to Los Angeles County.

Looking through old pictures recently I found some old notes that said that Grandpa Wright's "real" parents are buried at Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles. As the note says Charles died of TB and Carrie "died of overwork." I called the Cemetery and found that Charles Baird was interred on 8 January 1902 and Carrie Baird was interred on 29 Jan 1904. They are both at same place in the Cemetery. I am trying to track down their death certificates, I wonder what they will say?