Key Words:
Charlie Clevenger
Growing up in Claremont
Claremont Businesses
Claremont History
Summary
[Tape 1] Mr. Clevenger recalls his father, Charles (Charlie) A. Clevenger, who served as the first chief of police in Claremont. He describes his father as very friendly and recalls his father’s police dog, Pep, who would accompany his father during his official police duties. He recalls some of Claremont’s well-known citizens from his childhood: Frank Wheeler, William Renwick, Mr. Garner, Mr. Crookshank, and Mr. Abernathy. He recalls working for George C. Booth at his dry-cleaning business, Booth Cleaners.
[Tape 2] He talks about growing up with seven sisters and meeting his wife in Pomona. He shares about how they would put out wildfires in the hills when he was younger. He talks about his childhood and his sisters. He discusses starting his own dry-cleaning business in 1942. He remembers some of the older homes that were built when he was a child, and that they would go swimming in the reservoirs on the orange groves.
[Tape 3] He describes Claremont as a college down, but that the colleges were “separated from the working people in town.” He talks about the flu epidemic in 1928?, which killed a lot of people.