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| LtR Melvin, Emuel, Esther, Vera, Jesse 1915 |
My dad called her “Ma.” If we
had ever used that name for our mother we would have been punished. He took us
to see her for the first time when I was about seven. She couldn’t have been
more different from our other grandmother, Jennie Caroline. Instead of living a
farm life surrounded by children and grandkids, Ethel and her husband Ray, who
was not our real grandfather, managed an apartment complex in an older part of
Los Angeles. The halls of the building were dingy-dark and smelled of stale
tobacco. Their quarters were small. We had to be quiet so we wouldn’t disturb
the tenants. She had no toys for us to play with, no treats, and there was
nowhere to go outside—just a busy street with more apartment buildings.
Fortunately, we never stayed long. Usually we were just picking her up to go
with us somewhere—to Uncle Mel’s or Aunt Vera’s for dinner. She had never
learned to drive.
Mom said she had had lots of
husbands. Later I learned that not all of her partners were husbands. My
grandfather had died at thirty-two, (Emuel Bachman Jr) leaving her with two
young sons and a daughter. Their first child, a daughter named Mary lived only
a short time. She and her father-in-law, (Emuel Sr.) a stern Swiss immigrant,
did not get along and a few months after the funeral she took my Aunt Vera and
went to California with a man named Tingy, leaving the boys, Melvin and Jesse
for Emuel to raise. Except for a visit when he was about twelve, My father did
not see her again until he was grown and married.
Her name was Esther Rozelva
but she went by Ethel. I never did know why. She wasn’t more than five feet
tall and was shapelessly plump. She wore loose, old-lady flowered dresses and
black, thick- heeled walking shoes. She would plop a little round hat on her
head and fuss with her purse, talking to herself while she decided if
everything she would need was in it. She had the raspy voice of someone who had
smoked too long and drunk too much but she had given up the former and didn’t
do the latter, at least when we were around. She talked to us in a kind of
high-pitched baby talk that sounded strange, “I bet you can’t wait to go to
Dizzyland. That’s what I call it, Dizzyland.”
After that first visit she
always sent us a card with a dollar bill in it for our birthdays and at
Christmas. The few times she came to visit, my mother endured her with
difficulty. She wouldn’t eat when we did and then wanted special food. She
slept late, a thing which my mother couldn’t tolerate in anyone. She pouted
like a child if things weren’t just right and never decided whether to go with
us someplace until the last minute. She
didn’t pay much attention to my sisters and I. I think she just didn’t know how
to communicate with us.
After her husband Ray died a
few years later, my Aunt Vera and Uncle Gib moved her to an even smaller place
near them until she became incontinent and senile. They put her in a rest home
where she spent the remaining six years of her life, oblivious. We visited her
occasionally. She didn’t know us. She would have fits of anger at Ray for dying
and then say she just wanted to go and be with him. Vera and Gib did volunteer
work at the home and saw her every day until she died at 88. A few months
afterwards my sisters and I each received a card with twenty dollars from Aunt
Vera—our inheritance from Grandma Ethel, she said.
Esther's family:
Father: William COLEMAN b: 9 DEC 1836 in Thorncote, Northhill, Bedfordshire, England
Mother: Amy GIBSON b: 20 MAR 1838 in Litchfield, Medina, Ohio
Marriage 1 Harriet Rosett CRAGHEAD b: 23 JUN 1869 in Smithfield, Cache, Utah c: 5 JUL 1869 in Smithfield, Cache, Utah
Marriage 2 Rosa Merle HARWOOD b: 2 SEP 1883 in Shipdham, Norfolk, England
Sources:
Death: July 18, 1984, Los Angeles, CA
Father: William COLEMAN b: 9 DEC 1836 in Thorncote, Northhill, Bedfordshire, England
Mother: Amy GIBSON b: 20 MAR 1838 in Litchfield, Medina, Ohio
Marriage 1 Harriet Rosett CRAGHEAD b: 23 JUN 1869 in Smithfield, Cache, Utah c: 5 JUL 1869 in Smithfield, Cache, Utah
- Married: 29 SEP 1886 in Logan, Cache, Utah
- Sealing Spouse: 29 SEP 1886
Harriet Rosety COLEMAN b: 27 APR 1888 in Smithfield, Cache, Utah
George COLEMAN b: 1 DEC 1902 in Smithfield, Cache, Utah
Marriage 2 Rosa Merle HARWOOD b: 2 SEP 1883 in Shipdham, Norfolk, England
Sources:
- Abbrev: Ancestral File (TM)
Title: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Ancestral File (TM). June 1998 (c), data as of 5 JAN 1998une 1998 (c), data as of 5 JAN 1998.
Repository:- Name: Family History Library
Salt Lake City, UT 84150 USA
Repository:- Name: Family History Library
Salt Lake City, UT 84150 USA - Abbrev: LDS Historical database by Vern Taylor
Title: LDS Historical database compiled by Vern Taylor Dec 2003