Family Stories - Two Men named Harry and Lucille

Family Stories

Two Men Named Harry and Lucille

   This week, I'll tell some stories from my dad's side of the family.  Quick listing:

Sandy was the child of Jack and Joan

Jack was the child of Harry Ezra Houk, Jr. and Lucille Russell

Harry Ezra Houk Jr. was the son of Harry Ezra, Sr. and unknown

Harry Ezra, Sr. was the son of Johan, the Dutch/German immigrant

Lucille was the daughter of Lildon Opal and Rando Lee (Jack)

      When Johan left San Francisco for the safer climate of Southern California, he settled down.  He married and had a large family.  Although Johan was settled, he wasn't any more honest.  One of his sons, Harry Ezra Senior my ancestor has as corrupt as his father.

   Harry, Sr. was a swindler.  The railroad had come to Los Angeles and farmers from the midwest were coming here by the thousands.  They were in search of farmlands that weren't as subject to drought, blizzards, and grasshoppers.  They had heard that California, especially Southern CA was truly the Golden State.  The big crop wasn't wheat or corn, but citrus-oranges, grapefruit, etc.

   As these hopeful farmers got off the train they would usually be met by real estate agents of the day, Harry, Sr. among them.  Harry didn't have a license, but he was charming.  He would load the farmers into his wagon and take them on a tour of available real estate.  That is, real estate that he said was available.  One of his favorite things was to take the farmers out to the San Gabriel River.  It was a seasonal river.  It could be a raging current during the winter and spring, but during the summer it was a dry bed.  With rich soil.  

   After doing a sales job on them, Harry Sr. would drive the farmers back to downtown Los Angeles.  He'd have phoney paperwork ready and they'd go to the bank to withdraw the down payment. Harry would take their money, give them worthless paperwork, and vanish.  

   Harry Sr. was charming, as I said.  He managed to convince a woman to marry him and they had a son, Harry Jr.  Sr.'s wife died when Jr. was young.  So Jr. grew up a vagabond.  They lived in boarding houses, never for very long.  When the real estate con wasn't working they made money other ways.  Jr. talked one time about selling oranges from the back of their wagon.

   The vagabond life did not suit Harry Jr.  He wanted a stable life, with a steady job, a wife, all that normal stuff.  Now times were changing.  Motion pictures and motion picture making had come to Los Angeles.  Harry Jr. saw the potential.  When they had a bit of money, Harry Jr. had bought a camera.  Not like the modern ones, this was an old, black and white film camera.  But with it Jr. started taking pictures of neighborhood kids.  He'd  borrow a pony and take the classic kid on pony photos and sold them.

   Jr. started hanging out with other photographers, learning more of the trade.  Eventually he was old enough and got a job as a projectionist at an early movie theater.  He had broken with his father by then.  With enough experience, he was able to get a job as a projectionist with one of the movie studios - Paramount.  He worked for Paramount the rest of his life.

   As adults, Harry Sr. and Jr. were very different men.  Harry Sr. was the charming, outgoing one.  Junior was tall, slim, and quiet.    Jr. seemed very European, very polished.  While he was quiet, still, shop clerks would rush to take care of him.  There was just something about him...

   It was while Harry Jr. was working at the studio that he met Lucille.  At the time she was working as a clerk in a store in Hollywood, near his studio.  She was cute, lively, and very star struck.

   Lucille's background was very different.  Her mom, Lildon, had been a Harvey Girl.  For those unfamiliar with the term. a quick history lesson:  When the railroads first joined the U.S. there were no train cars serving food.  The passengers who wanted to eat were given short periods of time to exit the train to find food while the train was taking on fuel, water, and baggage (or horses, or cattle, etc.).  Often, in smaller towns this was a real problem.  A brilliant man named Mr. Harvey invented restaurants that were at stations, tied to railroad time tables.  When the trains pulled in everything was ready and the passengers wishing to do so could have a reasonable priced meal during the waiting period.  Served to them by good looking, well trained,farm girls.  Harvey recruited heavily from the farm areas of the midwest.  The girls got trained as waitress or cooks, made their own money, had a chance at marrying someone outside the area, and best of all, got off the farms.  The fact that the girls lived in dorms and were chaperoned well, didn't change things.  Being a Harvey Girl gave a girl a bit of fame and a chance at a better life.  Harvey was always recruiting because the Girls were always getting married and quitting.

   Lildon was, as I said, a Harvey Girl.  She came from a farm in Minnesota.  She didn't marry a millionaire or even a cowboy or rancher.  Instead she fell in love with and married a railroad employee named Rando Lee from Virginia.  For some reason everyone called him Jack.  Things went well for the young couple.  They even had a daughter, Lucille.  Then Jack came down with TB, a common ailment for railroad workers.

   Instead of moving to Southern California and living in a bungalow (the usual cure), Jack and Lildon went to Arizona.  Perhaps they tried Southern California and that climate didn't work.  So instead they traveled around hot, dry Arizona.  Somewhere I have a school photo of Lucille from that time.  I think she was around 7.  It was at a one room school near or on an Indian reservation.  She was the only non Indian child in the photo.  I can't imagine how that affected Lucille.

   Eventually Jack recovered from his illness.  He was not able to return to his railroad job though, so he retired.  With his retirement money the family moved to Los Angeles where he opened up a large barber shop in the downtown area.  I have a copy of the opening day advertisement.  It read, "6 chairs, no waiting."  I don't know if Jack was a barber or not.  I know that he ran the business.  successfully.  They had a home not too far away, I believe in Eagle Rock.

   I need to talk about Lildon.  She was rather a complex woman.  She was hard working and devoted to both of her husbands.  And her husbands were devoted to her.  Spoiled is another term.  Lildon was not a good mother.  Perhaps she didn't want to share the spotlight with a female child.  We don't know.  Perhaps if they had been able to have a male child she would have gotten better.  But they didn't, and she didn't.  Lucille grew up feeling out of place.  Both of her parents loved her, but her mom, for what ever reasons, was unable to show it.  Her father, Jack, was her source of love and support.  His illness had to have been hard on her.

   Lucille tried to be like her mom and was partially successful. She was beautiful.  And charming.  And hard working.  She was, after all, trained by her mother.  We would have considered her a bit of a high maintenance woman.  But then, so was her mom.

   So Lucille and Harry Jr. met and fell in love.  Next week I'll continue the story.