Beside my car, newly married and somewhere in Topeka, Kansas, heading west, 1957
CHAPTER FOUR
Kansas City 1957
B
ILL AND I CAME HOME AFTER GRADUATION, summer began, and we started going out regularly again. We talked a lot about Bill’s future and mine, about my teaching, about his Army Reserve commitment as a result of being ROTC at MIT and what that might mean, and mostly about his new job in El Segundo, California. Bill had been recruited by several companies. They did that in those days, recruit people right out of college, paying for their expenses to get to interviews. He was offered many good opportunities, but he accepted a job with Standard Oil Company of California, which is the predecessor of Chevron and was then headquartered in San Francisco, California. His work would be in Southern California. He chose Standard of Cal because as he said, “I grew up in the Midwest. I went to school in the East. I’d like to try the West Coast for a while.” California was truly regarded as the Golden West then, Hollywood and beaches and sunshine, and we were young. It sounded exciting. He was about to start this next phase of his life, head into this brand new situation by himself, driving across the country and settling into this new place. It was exciting and scary. Good-bye Kansas City, circa 1957
Shari Ward
Bill had to be in Southern California just after the Fourth of July. Bill’s dad provided the down payment on a car for him. He couldn’t afford to buy it outright, but figured Bill would soon be earning his own money and could pay off the car himself. With that, everything was in place for his big move. Except me. I started to see the reality of his move and what Bill truly meant to me.
A Proposal In the Driveway The last night before he was set to leave, we were Standard’s logo in 1957 very nostalgic. I’d been hanging around with this guy when Bill started with for a long time! And the next day he would be on his the company way to a new home thousands of miles away. It was a huge jolt to me to think I might never see him again, really a devastating thought. We’d been on and off for six years, but he’d always been there, and I couldn’t imagine life without him. Perhaps I had taken Bill for granted. We were sitting in my driveway in Kansas City, and I told him just that, “You know, if you leave, I have a feeling that I’m never going to see you again.” It was a terrible feeling. I really knew I’d never meet anyone like him. He replied, “Well, then I guess we’d better get married.” I said, “Well, I think you’re right.” That was the proposal. Really romantic! We talked about it a little bit, how we could work this out, the timing and all. I had a signed contract with a district near Kansas City to start teaching school in the fall. I’m sure this kind of thing happened a lot with young teachers, especially in those days, especially women, but I would have to decline the contract and look for a position in Southern California. I thought I could do that though. We talked through the complications, and he said, “I think we should go tell your parents.” It was eleven o’clock at night. I wasn’t sure about that! My folks were usually in bed by ten, and of course, they were totally aware of our history. Even in high school, when Bill was away for his two weeks of summer ROTC training, I dated somebody else. There was also my mother’s attitude towards Bill. 66
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“I think they’re probably going to be asleep,” I told him, but he insisted we go tell them. I believe it was because he didn’t want me to back out! We went inside, and of course, they were in bed upstairs. “I think I’d better do this,” I told him. I knocked and entered their bedroom. “Mom, Dad, I just wanted to tell you that Bill and I decided that we’re going to get married.” There was absolute silence. “Probably the end of September,” I started nervously. I have no memory of what my parents said after that, just that I came back downstairs and told Bill, “I did it.” Bill went home and informed his parents. They were absolutely delighted at the news. They had always liked me. Bill left the next day as planned, but he called me every night from California, describing the sunshine and beaches and his new work, and we talked about what our life together will be like there and about our wedding. That was really exciting. I started planning the event. We set the date for Sunday September, 29th, which would give Bill time to get acquainted with his job and to find a place for us to live and for me to work in Kansas City for the summer and earn a little more money. The planning, though fun, was really not a big deal. Weddings can, of course, be grand and complicated affairs, but my parents were not wealthy people, and Bill would be flying home just for the wedding, and we didn’t have a lot of time. By necessity, it needed to be a simple affair. I wanted it that way anyway. So, that became a theme of my summer, other than my work, coincidently, in the oil industry, same as Bill.
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My Work In the Oil Industry I had worked every summer while I was in college, my least productive year being the summer after my freshman year. After having trouble finding a job, I had ended up being a counselor in a Jewish community center day camp for preschool kids. Every Friday, we did the blessing over bread ceremony. I learned the Hebrew for the ceremony. And I took the kids on hikes all the time to try to tire them out, because they had so much energy. At the end of my sophomore year, I was lucky. An oil firm called Skelly Oil Company with its headquarters in Kansas City, was hiring summer help. When I applied, the manager I spoke to said, “I’m sorry. We’ve already filled our positions, but we’ll keep you on our list.” I didn’t know what I was going to do, but a couple of days later, their personnel department phoned saying, “We have an opening. Can you start tomorrow?” “Absolutely!” I told them. I worked in the production logistics department at Skelly for three years, every summer when I was home from MU. It was before computers, in the day of carbon copies and writing everything by hand. One of my tasks was to post tank car prices of fuel. I had to figure out what the tank car price would be if the price fluctuated by this amount and that amount and note it with multiple decimal points. I bet I screwed that up all the time, and they probably wondered what in the heck was going on! But they kept inviting me back.
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I worked for the same boss every year in a goodsized office. There were three full-time gals in the office that I really enjoyed. Their names were Nalda, Jenna and Katie. Nalda was a hottie and dressed in a very provocative way. She had an apartment with a balcony that overlooked a busy road, and she liked to sit on her balcony in her short shorts and wave at the guys that drove by. That was Nalda! Jenna was a really sweet lady with children. She told me how she made pancakes for her kids that looked like Mickey Mouse. Katie was single, young, not uneducated beyond high school, and very overweight, but she was very sweet. I enjoyed hanging out with all of them.
I had heard that if you sent a wedding invitation to the President and Mrs. Eisenhower you would receive a reply, though under no circumstances was I expecting them to show up. It was just another souvenir for the memory book.
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It was fun, but I did not learn much from that job. Maybe that if you showed up on time, were congenial and busy all day, you were a “good employee.” I don’t remember anyone ever checking my work—maybe one reason Skelly went out of business; no oversight! In fact, the summer before I got married, I addressed most of my wedding invitations at work. Obviously, I didn’t have much to do. My boss, John, however, was very complimentary. At one point early in my work there he said, “You know, we really would like you to come to work for us full time when you graduate from college.” I don’t know in what capacity that would have been. I said no. I was committed to teaching school. And in that third summer, of course, I was soon going to be a bride and was going to California. But it was a great place to work, and I got my $297 a month!
A White Wedding Before the Golden West Bill and I decided on a traditional wedding and reception in the 2nd Presbyterian Church in Kansas City, a local church. We never really stayed with the church or attended any regularly, but being our local church, it was the logical choice and affordable. I paid for much of the wedding, partially by my choice and partially 2nd Presbyterian Church, Kansas City because my parents didn’t have the money. I didn’t really talk this over with them. It was just something that I felt that I should do. My parents had paid for me to go to college for four years, and now I was getting married. My mother was doubtful of their investment. “We sent you to college, and you’re never going to use that education.” Of course, I did use it, but at the time, it seemed to me like a nice way to pay them back for putting me through college, to pay for as much of our wedding as I could. 70
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My mother did go with me when I was looking for a wedding dress. I chose a long white gown and a veil. But otherwise I did all the arrangements: the flowers, the food and cake at the reception, and all the other components, including the wedding gift display. Back then, you would have a rental company come out to your home and put up shelves with white cloth on them so you could display the wedding gifts you received prior to the wedding. My future mother-inlaw would bring her friends over to our house to look at all the wedding gifts. Once everything got going, my mother bought into the whole wedding program. It was going to happen. The reception was to take place at the church right after the wedding. I had several reasons for this. I didn’t want it to be a big party because several of my friends’ receptions just turned into drinking binges. We were all so young, in our early twenties. I didn’t want that. Also holding the reception at a hall or somewhere would have been another expense. And Bill and I would be leaving directly after the reception. He only had a week off for both the wedding and the long drive back to California. After all, he’d only worked for Standard for about three months. When Bill flew into Kansas City, we had three days: one day to buy our rings, get his tux, and finish planning our trip to California; another day for our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner; and one more day to get married, but it was still a wonderful celebration. I had three attendants, my future sister-in-law, Gayle, who was actually nine years younger but a very mature young lady, and two of my sorority sisters, Sandy Meyer and Joann Tierney. Bill’s best man was his best friend from MIT, Wayne Rahiser, with whom we stayed in touch for a long time. What a great guy! The other fellows were high school friends. Bill’s folks paid for the rehearsal dinner at the Wish-Bone restaurant, which was an old, elegant three-story house with fireplaces and antique tables, crystal goblets, shiny silver work and white china. They specialized in family-style fried chicken dinners served with mashed potatoes and green beans, but the meal started with the famous Wish-Bone Salad. The dressing was a recipe by the owner’s Sicilian mother and was so popular that selling Kansas City Authentic Italian WishBone Dressing became an entirely new business. The Wish-Bone owner sold the dressing business to Lipton in 1957.
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The church was fairly good-sized, and we had about 100 guests. After the ceremony, we had just cake and punch (the simplicity of an afternoon wedding), then I changed into a red suit with a little hat, part of my trousseau, Bill changed from his tuxedo into a suit, we got in my car, and started our journey to California. The original Wish-Bone Restaurant, Kansas City Standard of Cal graciously paid to move us, so their hired movers came in and packed everything up, the china and silver and many other wedding gifts and shower gifts, and my clothes and personal items. I’m still trying to get rid of of that china! In one of our moves, I gave it to Dave and Misty. “You don’t have any fine china,” I said. I had it all professionally packed and sent off to them. When I moved to Rossmoor, Dave said, “Remember that china, Mom? Well, it’s still in the same condition it was in when you sent it to us. Here it is!” It was still in the bubble wrap.
Honeymoon On the Road The drive to California, with a few stops along the way, served as our honeymoon. When we left the church, our first stop was Topeka, Kansas. We went out to dinner at a Howard Johnson. I’m sure with me in my little red hat—which I took off after a while—and Bill in his suit that everybody in the restaurant knew we were newlyweds. Topeka, Kansas, was a small city then with about 80,000 people. Next we stopped in Colorado Springs, then Richfield, Utah. We didn’t have much money, of course, but it was all fun. There were no big four-lane highways in 1957. We drove on two-lane roads across the U.S. Studying the map, Bill discovered we could cut off a lot of the driving distance between Richfield, 72
Our wedding photo in the newspaper
South Tejon Street, Colorado Springs, CO 1957
Driving through Utah (The Lost Valley of the Goblins), 1957
One Woman’s Journey
Utah, and Las Vegas by taking a country road. Las Vegas was our last stop before Los Angeles, and for a treat, we planned to spend a night at the Sands Hotel. When we cut off onto this road, a car behind us did the same and stayed right behind us the entire way. When we pulled into the Sands, this car pulled in at the Sands too. A couple got out of the car, so we all introduced ourselves. Though I can’t remember the wife’s name, I sure remember the husband’s name: Shotgun Henry. They were from Las Vegas, 1957 Odessa, Texas, and he was the Coors Beer distributor in Odessa. They were such a nice couple. We told them we were on our honeymoon, and they were effusive in their congratulations. We all checked in. Bill and I had no money, zero, to gamble with or anything else, but we had set aside enough money for dinner at the floorshow that evening. During the day, we walked around Vegas and along the strip and went to Hoover Dam.
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In the evening, we dressed and went down to the show. When we queued up in the line to get in, we saw the couple with whom we had shared the road. They were ahead of us in the line and waved. “Mrs. Shotgun” came back to us and said, “We would like you to join us for dinner, and we would like it to be our treat.” We accepted. Over dinner in the Copa Room, we heard a lot about their life and their difficulty in having children, but they were as nice as they could be. This was followed by a typical Vegas floorshow with nearly nude showgirls. The orchestra, led by Antonio Morelli, The Copa Room at the Sands in Vegas started playing and the dancers, or Copa Girls as they were known, came down from the ceiling on swings. I wish I could remember if there was a headliner that night and, if so, who it was. In 1957, the Sands was a big deal, with 200 rooms and frequent performances by the Rat Pack. Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, and Danny Thomas were often the stars. The strip had only really gotten established in the early 1950s (the presence of multiple military bases in the desert around Vegas during those Cold War years provided an enthusiastic clientele). The Sands was one of the most renowned casinos at the time and the seventh one ever built on the strip (founded in 1952 by a Texas oil tycoon, but partially owned by crime bosses like Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello, who had shares in the hotel).
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The next morning we drove through Bakersfield and then south into the LA area toward our new home. Bill had rented a little house for us in Manhattan Beach. When we got to the top of the hill on Manhattan Beach Boulevard, I looked down the hill at my new home, and all I could see was beach, ocean, palm trees, and blue sky. It was absolutely heaven. I said to Bill, “Why does anybody live any place else?” We drove down the hill smiling and eager to start our married life together.
Manhattan Beach Pier, California, 1950s, my new home
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