Southern California I didn't really know my grandfathers as they died while I was preschool age. I do remember my mother's father; grandpa Edison would try to play tag with me. One time he went with my mom and me to the grocery store. We stayed in the car while she ran in for just a few minutes but I became very concerned about what dire things were going to happen to us if she didn't come back. Grandpa tried to assure me that he could take care of things and could even drive the car if necessary. Another time I remember he took me to visit one of the neighbors and bought me an ice cream cone. My grandma Edison lived many years longer until after I was married and Laurie was born. She loved to tell me stories about her childhood on the farm in Minnesota, growing up with her two brothers. Prairie fires were a constant threat in those days and one time when they saw smoke heading their way she was left in the house to care for her baby brother while the rest of the family went to work on making fire breaks. She was convinced she was going to die, and crawled into her baby brother's crib with him and her parents found them both fast asleep when they returned. Grandma Edison caught polio while just a child and remembers her dad found some kind of vibrating machine with which he spent hours massaging her legs. After she recovered, one leg was shorter than the other and she always wore a raised shoe on one foot. Grandma moved to southern California as soon as she could, to get away from the snow, and there she met my grandpa. She had a degree in domestic science from Carlton College and loved to cook. She opened a "sweetshop" in Culver City. It was frequented by some of the people working on the movie making sets that were there in the 1920's. She said she could make a dozen pies before breakfast. I was born in Altadena, California, a suburb of Pasadena. My parents met at Lynwood Academy and were living in Lynwood when I was born. When I was two, they bought five acres in San Fernando Valley and built a house. Grandpa and grandma Edison came to live with us at this time. It was a great place to grow up with plenty of room to roam and make pretend forts, etc. I started first grade in the new San Fernando Valley Academy. It had just been moved to a new location on Lassen Street. I remember grandma took me on the train to Vancouver, Washington to visit her nephew, Adolph Vraspir. I loved riding on the train. My dad worked for Schrillo Aero Tool Company and my earliest memories are the company picnics at Disneyland. Our neighbor, George Clement, worked at Ace Drill Bushing. Both were companies with Seventh-day Adventists in management and they consequently hired a lot of Adventists. Southern California has a lot of attractions besides Disneyland. There was also Knott's Berry Farm, Marineland, Griffith Park, Universal Studios, Huntington Library and the ocean beaches are just minutes away. Every summer the SDA Camp Meeting at Lynwood provided ten days of inspirational meetings and visiting with friends. I can still picture in my memory the front page of the local newspaper with an article about the Adventists and a picture of acres of canvas tents set up back-to-back in long rows. The junior tent was a big airatorium with two big fans to keep the roof up. There weren't a lot of campers and motorhomes in those days. Just a few along a fence in the far corner. The best part to me was in the basement of the cafeteria where every kind of craft was set up for the kids. Everything from leather working to plastic models was there. One year Desmond Doss came and spoke and had a book signing afterwards. A friend and I had our picture taken with him and it was printed in the local newspaper the next day. When my sister Elaine was a baby, grandma fell and broke her leg. It didn't heal properly and she went from doctor to doctor for help, but they kept telling her to stay in a wheelchair. She always suspected the doctor that set her leg in the cast didn't do it properly. As I got older, it was often my job to push her wheelchair around the church or store. We were members at the Van Nuys Seventh-day Adventist church. They had a great Pathfinder club. We got together with all the other clubs at Lynwood Academy for a big Pathfinder fair. Other times we went on campouts to Death Valley and Mt. Whitney. My mother was talked into going on the Mt. Whitney outing as a counselor as was also Esther Hilmer's mother. They each bought a couple outfits of new clothes for the occasion and someone got the bright idea that it would be easier to buy shopping carts to carry everything instead of putting it on your back in a backpack. My sister, Lana, and I were part of the Pathfinder club. My youngest sister Elaine also came with my mother. We all started hiking up the trail from Lone Pine, but the ladies with the shopping carts found it very slow going trying to get over rocks and tree roots, etc. They were soon left far behind. I've always wondered why the Pathfinder staff allowed them to do something like this. The leader of our Pathfinder club was our youth pastor, Elder Middag, who later went on to head up the entire North American Division Pathfinder department. The trail starts out fairly steep switch backing up the side of the mountain and then levels off just before arriving at a lake where the group planned to camp the first night. My sister Lana and I made it to this lake after several hours that included sheltering from a thunderstorm. When it started getting dark, and my mother and her group hadn't showed up, I decided to go back and look for them. I finally ran into them about a third of the way back down the mountain. They had finally ditched the shopping carts behind some rocks and continued carrying just their sleeping bags and some food items. It was dark by this time, so we couldn't see to continue hiking and found a place to roll out the sleeping bags. They were cheap bags and I remember this as one of the coldest nights in my life. I shivered until I was too exhausted to shiver any more. Morning finally came and we made our way up to the rest of the group. They had all had a nice supper and retired for the night without a worry about what happened to the rest of us. We ate some breakfast. All my mother's supplies were still back down the trail somewhere. My mother wasn't enjoying this camping stuff at all and after some discussion, decided to take her children and head back home. Bob Quigley, the pastor's son, asked if he could go with us. I guess he hadn't slept well either. We headed down the trail we had hiked up the day before. My mother was watching for the big rock she had hidden her shopping cart and camping supplies behind. We couldn't seem to find it. Then we noticed someone had recently built a fire next to a big rock along the trail. I found a stick and started poking around in the ashes. Soon, my mother identified a piece of unburned clothing. I kept sifting through the ashes until I found the car keys. Evidently someone coming along after my mother had been searching for something to burn to warm up and somehow discovered my mother's stuff even though she thought it was out of sight. It was a very cold night.