Eloise Waldron: picking green beans, ice cream, Fort Ord

3/23/07 My first job was picking green beans on a farm in Alliance, Ohio. I was 12. The work was so hard I only worked one day. Later I worked in an office, Spring Holzworth store. My husband to be and I worked on the same floor. One day we decided to go roller skating. I’d never been before, I thought I could roller skate, but I couldn’t even stand up. He skated with me, held me up, and a year or so later, he proposed to me. When the store was sold I was out of a job and because I was engaged, nobody would hire me. There was a rule: one job per family. I was married in alliance in the church library on October 1938. I wore a dress I made myself. It was teal blue. I wore a brown had and high heel shoes. It was a matter of money. I was 12 when the Depression struck. We always had enough to eat. We lived on a farm. People from the cities would come and pick blackberries on share. My father was worried about losing the farm.

When you asked me to describe the town I grew up in, well, I couldn’t sleep that night, I got to thinking of it and I went to my desk and found an old map with all the counties listed on it. There was my home town. I couldn’t go to sleep. Marlboro, Olio had 2 churches, 2 general stores, a grocery store, the school I went to. My uncle Jim lived next to the store. He was a twin to my grandfather who lived down the street. In school they always asked me to spell my name and I hated it. There was a peculiar mixture of names. Most folks were distantly related to us. My mother called them 6th cousins. There was a barbershop, a bar with a pool table. Next door was the ice cream parlor. My mother belonged to the Daughters of America. My dad belonged to the Mechanics. It was mostly for social life. We had 2 churches, a Christian one and a Methodist one but they didn’t believe in dancing. I liked to dance—down the red brick road to Alliance. The roads were made of brick from Alliance. There were many industries there, brick, steel—even Morgan Industries. Morgan had a mansion; he had guests from other countries so he had every room decorated in the style of each country. After my parents died, I didn’t go back. They also built airplanes there. It was a thriving city at one time.

I was baptized in a church in Alliance, Ohio. There was no baptismal font there. The font was a big tank. I was 12. We went to catechism, we learned the 23rd psalm and the 10 commandments. We had to stand up in church and answer those questions. I was baptized three times in the church font, but my sister was baptized in the creek. They came to our farm, the minister took you, put his hand over your face, and dunked you down three times.

—Eloise Waldron


I remember my uncle Jim taking us down for ice cream. The house my grandfather lived in was bought by the barber. I remember my uncle Jim, he have me lightning drops, it made my stomach ache go away. He lived in a nice house but he only lived in one room and he had a summer house out back by the garden. The rest of the house was furnished but he never lived in it. He got married a second time but she didn’t live with him. It didn’t take. She couldn’t leave here mother.

—Eloise Waldron

My husband was drafted and sent to California. I came to California in 1945, the war was over but he was still in the army, at Fort Ord. We came out by train, 3 days and 3 nights. I remember seeing palm trees in the fog. We were here three months living in a canvas motel in Pacific Grove. A tent house with sheets for walls!. It was so warm here by comparison, I never wore a coat. We eventually moved across the street to an all wooden house. We later bought a house in San Lorenzo. He had no job but the bank gave us a loan. My husband changed jobs every year and a half. That’s what gave me gray hair. So when the kids were 11 & 14, I decided to get a job. I worked for the department of employment in San Jose. I planned on coming here to Fremont when I knew I could no longer maintain my home I moved here. I’ve been here 5 years. 

—Eloise Waldron