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A Small and Very Friendly Town
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Title
A Small and Very Friendly Town
Series Title
Collection Guide (External)
Created Date
December 13th, 2017
Published Date
May 7th, 2018
Description
Early Brea settlers, Willa and Gerald Bowland recall their lives in Brea, California. Recorded at Brea Historical Society.
Transcript
W = Willa Bowland
G = Gerald Bowland
Interviewer = Linda Shay, Brea Historical Society
W: [points to a house in a photograph] I was born on the corner of West Ash and South Madrona, in that bedroom, on July 7, 1930. And I've lived in Brea my entire life so far.
Interviewer: "Haven't moved out?"
W: Haven't moved out. I moved two miles away from my birth home.
Grandpa Russell came in 1912. He was a jeweler. Watch maker. And my grandmother was - had a music store.
My father was just a young teenager and he was free to roam the hills, which he loved, and he managed to catch a little bobcat and tamed it. Named it, Stutts, and my grandmother did not like that little cat because it would sleep on the counter of her music store and scare all her customers. So, daddy had to give that little kitty away.
G: Came to Brea out of the Ozarks, in Arkansas, with my family in 1938. My dad looking for a better life 'cause he's just a poor farmer. And with a '32 Chevy sedan for myself, 2 younger brothers, and an older half brother, and my mother and father; and it was kind of an interesting trip because you can see we were packed in there. It wasn't exactly, "Grapes of Wrath", but it was pretty crowded.
Text: "What was life like during Brea's early years?"
W: Just a small, very friendly, town. All the merchants knew who you were and you'd go in shopping and if you didn't happen to have enough money, they'd say, "Bring it next time."
Text: "Brea during World War II"
W: They had an airplane air watch on top of the high school. My dad was part of that. And he - I think one night a week, he had to go and stay there. There were two or three of them at a time.
Interviewer: "And you're talking about plane spotters, correct?"
W: Plane spotters. And we had blackout curtains. And it seems to me like there was a siren and then you had to put your blackout curtains up and turn off the lights in different rooms. We had ours so it was just in the living room which had two windows facing west and windows all the way across the room facing east. So we had those black drapes. And, you know, it just was, life goes on.
Text: "What did you do after the war?"
W: And then we bought our little home on Orange Street and stayed there and we had it paid off when we moved in...
G: '60? In 1960?
W: In - yeah, in ten years. We - nine years. We had it paid for.
G: Payments were 45 dollars a month.
W: [laughs] And it was just a two bedroom and we had four kids by then and we moved to the home we're at now on Elm Street and had another child. So we ended up with five. Three daughters and two sons.
G: By the mid '60s, they were making a big push. Girls weren't encouraged in science too much. It was a guy thing. And so, I was not that way because, remember, I had three daughters. So, I had a model rocket club that started in the mid '60s. The second one in the state. It took me a year to get a permit from the City Council, the School Board, the Fire Marshal; and I was launching model rockets off the - we have pictures there - of the junior high playground.
I had a young lady in that class, Katherine Pittman - I can see her in my mind today. Little red head and freckles and braces; and she was my example of females getting back in science. She went on to be a doctor, da-da, da-da-da-da...
I got my - I got my pilot's license in 1980 or '81. I'd take my kids flying. From my classroom. 'Cause I loved to do it. And it became an interest thing to these kids to be 12, 13, 14 year old. I'd take 'em flying and let 'em fly the airplane.
Creators and Contributors
Creator:
Orange County Public Libraries
Contributor: Brea Historical Society
Contributor: Shay, Linda
Interviewee: Bowland, Gerald
Interviewee: Bowland, Willa
Contributor: Brea Historical Society
Contributor: Shay, Linda
Interviewee: Bowland, Gerald
Interviewee: Bowland, Willa
Subject Topic
Subject Entity
Genre
Spatial Coverage
Temporal Coverage
1930 to 2017
Language
Media Type
Format
mp4
Extent
1
File
Generation
Copy
Copyright Statement
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This item may be used for non-commercial and educational purposes.
The opinions expressed in OC Stories do not necessarily reflect the position or policies of OC Public Libraries or its partners and no official endorsement should be inferred.
Images are courtesy of story tellers and affiliate organizations or used in accordance with fair use and Creative Commons.
Music and sound in accordance with fair use and Creative Commons [ http://creativecommons.org ].
Country of Creation
United States
Contributing Organization
Contributing Organization Contact Information
Email: ocstories@occr.ocgov.com
Phone: 714-566-3055
Phone: 714-566-3055
Organization Websites
Link to Internet Archive
Additional Technical Notes for Item
Original file was named, "OCDS BOWWG 01.mp4". It was renamed to, corcl_000164_prsv.mp4.