Family History

After my dad died in 2007, I was spent a lot of time going through the many things he left behind in drawers, cabinets and a shed next to his house. Among them, was his duffel bag (photo below) from his military service on board the ship LST 23 in the south Pacific during World War II. In addition to his uniform (pictured here) was a journal of those years.


Before being deployed to the war zone, he spent time on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where he received his radioman's training. On one of his journal entries from that time is a single entry for the day: a woman's name. My first thought when I read it was, "I need to ask him about this -- who was she, and what did they do?" Then it hit me like a ton of bricks: I could never again ask him anything -- ever again. The history of his life was now limited to what I knew, and what I could learn from his writings and photographs.

He was quite proud of his heritage and the Davidsons' role in the history of San Bernardino, so about 15 years before he died, he sat down and wrote the story of his life -- in pencil, by hand. He had impeccable penmanship, which I tried to emulate when I was younger, until -- like many people who turned to keyboards to "write" -- it deteriorated into an almost-unintelligible scribble.

I'm fortunate to have my dad's writings and the memory of many conversations about his life. My mom is another story, however. Overshadowed by my dad's persistence in documenting and sharing his family history, I realized I knew far less about Mary Ann Swanson, the shy, well-read writer and editor from Colton High School my dad married. And now, at age 82 and with her memory fading quickly, my opportunities are limited.

What I find fascinating about my mom now -- and my dad in his later years -- is that while she can't remember if she ate breakfast that day, she can name the names of all the classmates in the photo of her high school yearbook staff.

In her book "Infidel," Ayaan Hirsi Ali describes growing up in Somalia and learning the oral history of her clan and memorizing the names of countless generations of ancestors. Unfortunately, most of us know very little about our family histories, mostly because we don't take time to ask, or to document it.

Yesterday, while spending Christmas with my mom, the subject of her many paintings came up. As she often does these days, she wanted to discuss what will happen to the paintings (among other things) when she dies. She lost the ability and the interest to paint years ago, but in the '70s and '80s, she was very prolific and quite good at it. Among the paintings she did are two that I want to keep in the family.

One of them is shown in the photo at the top of this page -- an oil painting depicting the gas station her dad, George Swanson, owned and operated at the corner of Valley Boulevard (in those days, U.S. Highway 99) and Alder Avenue in Bloomington, Calif. If you click on it, you can see a larger version (shot with my iPhone, so not the greatest quality), that shows the Swanson name above the door. My mom and her parents lived here the 1930s and '40s. This version doesn't include the two rooms her dad added on later, but she recalls living for a long time in one room and using the outhouse behind the station.

The second painting (not shown here) is a wonderful depiction of Gallagher's Stables in Big Bear Lake, where she was born in 1928, and where her grandfather (and my middle-namesake) Patrick Gallagher kept horses. I've often wondered if it's the same location where you can now rent horses and ride around the south shore of the lake. I guess I'll never know.