Part 3:
Dad, Robert Armour Wilson (Mostly Pre-Betty)
Dad, known as Bobby to his family and friends for a very long time, was born, as I've written earlier, in Council Bluffs, Iowa on July 29, 1913, in their home at 118 North Seventh Street. A Dr. Mel Bellinger delivered him, and was their doctor as long as they were in Iowa. Clearly the Wilson and Bunger families were close, because his baby book is full of lists of all sorts of things done for him and given to him by grandparents and cousins, aunts and uncles - all of whom apparently loved him as much as his parents did. He was indeed adorable - a beautiful tow-headed, blue-eyed baby who, though he had one clubbed foot at birth, quickly grew into a healthy, happy, bright little boy who was the absolute idol of his parents. If his later IQ scores were any indication, he must have been a very quick and precocious child - his memory was phenomenal and never failed him. His mother, who also kept one for me, made the huge "baby book" for him, and it's the source of most of these early details and dates - even if I ever knew of them, my memories are not so flawless!
His very earliest days were spent in Iowa. His father's various enterprises took him all over the map, and the family traveled to other mid-Western states and cities as well, to visit grandparents and other relatives, moving to Norfolk, Nebraska, where his Wilson grandparents lived, on April 15, 1915, when Bobby was 2, and then back to Council Bluffs in August of the same year. He managed to break his arm at four, and at five, started kindergarten at Bloomer School on Willow Avenue, in Council Bluffs, and finished first grade there. Their many trips didn't keep him from having a string of pets - when a car hit his first dog, Auntie Vi's first husband Herbert gave him a red pig to take its place. Then, in July of 1919, when he was turning six, the whole family immigrated to Los Angeles - more specifically Beverly Hills, California, and they lived in that general area for most of their lives. The trip was made by car, and they zigged and zagged, visiting and sightseeing along the way, which was a great adventure for him. Interstate Highways were still far in the future.
Bobby was a sociable, witty, loving, and also inevitably spoiled-rotten little kid. Though he was an only child, he had boy cousins within a year or so of his age, girl cousins several years older and younger, and got along with all of them. As a youngster he never lacked for friends, family, or company that I heard about. Viola's young son, Burton, stayed with them at times, and after she was divorced, both lived with them. In his baby book is a wistful letter from Burt, who was probably about 7 or 8 when he wrote it, to his cousin Bobby, who had moved to California, leaving him behind in Michigan or Iowa. He was so clearly lonely and missing his cousin, that it is hard to read with dry eyes - especially in light of what happened when they were grown. His cousins Bonita June (later Bonnee) and Helen, Dorothy, Betty and Margie who were all younger than he was, showed every sign of being nuts about him, and all his life thought of him as a protector and all around big brother. (Much later, when I was a little girl, he gave Betty Rebasz away in marriage - I howled right out loud in church, because when he walked her down the aisle, I thought he was going to marry her!) Not only he and his parents, but apparently most of the Wilson-Bunger clan and many of their friends and relations eventually made the trip west, and they remained close-knit the whole time he was growing up and long after. As there is never a mention or picture of his grandfather Bunger among all the mementos, and only one picture taken when Grandmother was a fairly young teenager, I am assuming he must have died sometime after Fern was born when Grandmother was 17 and before Dad was born when she was 32. (Poor Ida lost her eldest boy in the Spanish American War in 1898 as well, and then Floyd and Jay were both in W.W.I -1 think she had a worrisome life.)
Like his Dad and grandfather, he loved mechanical things, and spent hours designing and building them as a little boy. He made models all through his life, and it was no surprise that he graduated from building 'forts' when he was a kid, to designing and building houses as an adult. But he also loved to read, and devoured books by the thousands, many of which he remembered almost verbatim. By the time he reached high school age aircraft fascinated him, and I remember going to the little museum near the LA airport with him years later. He could name every craft, and tell all about its components and capabilities without even looking at the titles and descriptions in the cases. He started taking flying lessons as a young adult, but a freak accident caused a flaw in his sight that kept him from getting his license. He and Uncle Mac were clowning around at the beach, and Mac splashed water into his face. By rare chance, a pebble in the water hit him in the eye, and literally gouged a little hole in his vision. It kept him out of WWII.
In Beverly Hills High, he was very, very, popular. He ran track and played second-string football, but was so slim he knew he'd never make Varsity, so he became a yell leader instead. Known as 'Whitey' because of his tow-colored hair, he weighed all of 135 pounds, at 6'2". No matter. He had a handsome face and rather elegant style - he always dressed well and liked clothes - and he had a wonderful time. Too quick for his own good, he was a somewhat indifferent student; he was busy goofing off and clowning in class, and he could always ace the exams by skimming the material. But he did all the extra-curricular stuff to the hilt. He was in plays (we have a program from "The Firefly" in which he played an "English Officer". My friend Eve Kendall's mother, Cricket, was in it with him,) and had a ball in shop classes, and dated or just had fun with all sorts of pretty girls and goofy boys. His baby book is full of pictures with his many friends, and he was a social being all his life.
Because he was so sweet natured and such fun to be with, everyone usually overlooked his being occasionally a bit flaky, and not seeming to take life very seriously. If he could be self-centered (he WAS spoiled) on occasion, I think he was incapable of being deliberately cruel. And more often than not, he found thoughtful, witty ways to please the people he cared for. He was a truly kind person. And he was FUNNY. Clever - lively - and inventive all his life. I remember our gift one Christmas when Bob and I were still living in L.A. - he arrived about a week before the day with this 7' tall, red-foil-wrapped, HEAVY something-or-other that had to be wheeled in on a dolly. We speculated and surmised, but were totally clueless as to what it might be. When the kids stripped off the wrapping Christmas morning, the family present was revealed in all its glory - a big ficus tree, be-flowered and birded with origamied dollar bills and foil wrapped coins -$100 worth. We couldn't bear to pick the "money-tree" for weeks, but when we finally broke down and let the kids start taking their share; the fun lasted almost to Valentine's Day. He made a $30 money-bush for Mack the same year.
There was an innocence about him that never quite went away. And he never really understood how deeply people felt about him. Under the jokester and the sweetness lurked a strange lack of confidence in his own abilities to really perform well or be truly loved. I remember him saying he felt he always cared more about his friends than they cared about him.... a feeling I thought described me, too, for a long time. I think that deep down he believed that only his parents, my mother, and I, really, truly loved him as much as he loved us. And yet, when he died, an amazing number of people mourned, feeling, and saying, they'd lost their best friend. He just never realized they cared so much. It is strange and sad that people who are so well loved and intellectually capable can be so unaware of those enormous gifts.
Somehow he met Mac or even, possibly, Genie, and got brought into the Geddes menagerie of teenagers from Fairfax and Beverly Hills Highs. Both my parents reminisced often about how much fun the kids had who hung out there - playing card and board games, singing and dancing, or just horsing around. On any given night, there might have been 10 or 15 teenagers at the house. His friends Bill Bossert, who was my godfather, (an honor I don't think meant much to him,) Sid Stein, Johnny Guedel, Jack Sayers, (the best man at their wedding, and because he was head of promotion for it for many years, the source of endless passes to Disneyland) Jimmy Henderson, and Fred Haslund all stemmed from that time or even from primary school - they stayed friends for many years. (We visited Fred and Wilma Haslund in Seattle in 1962, and they and lack Sayers helped celebrate Mom and Dad's 50th Anniversary in 1985, albeit from their homes as they were all pretty frail by then.) They went to the beach and the nickel movies, and played miniature golf, or tennis or badminton. They all got jobs as extras in the films being made at whatever studio Lala was working in, and Man-Man hired them to do odd-jobs at the paper he managed. Dad even edited a bi-monthly youth insert for that paper.
About mid-way through Dad's high school years came the 1929 financial crash that wiped out his family's finances; money was tight after that; maintaining a car was beyond the means of most kids, but the odd jobs that the Geddes parents provided were a big help, and somehow Dad managed to keep some sort of vehicle going through it all. People could drive as young as age 12 in those days, (no licenses - you just had to be big enough to see out the windshield) and cars were a big deal with the Wilson men. (When I was a teenager and frustrated because I was too young to drive while I was in High School, he admitted to me how much fun he had had cutting school and driving down to Long Beach Harbor with his buddies.) The extra work also allowed him to help his parents and sock away enough to start college. But just as he was on his way to enroll in Santa Monica City College, the money he had saved for tuition and books went into the landlord's hand instead, under the threat of eviction. It was a real blow, and a huge waste. I've wondered all my life what else he might have accomplished if he had honed that remarkable mind with better education.
Dad really loved the Geddes family. Will was a serious mentor for him even beyond providing him with work, and helped him mature in many ways. He and Mac were friends for the rest of their lives, and Genie was loved like the sister she became, but since my mother had already graduated by the time he met them all, and had a lively work and social life outside the group, it took a few years before they really became a duo. At first, he just admired her, and kept dating pretty blond little Enid Edwards who was in his class at BHH, but after he graduated too, they were drawn to each other more and more.
They were soon separated, despite their mutual attraction. After graduation in 1931, because their financial situation was so dire, Dad took off with his parents for the gold-mining expedition on the American River, near Lake Tahoe in Northern California. Grandmother cooked for the crew, and with hard work, apparently they were successful enough to gain a little financial leeway, though they made no great finds. They came back to Los Angeles sometime later with enough to pay rent and eat until both Granddad and my father found jobs. Dad worked at one place, six 12-hour days a week, for $15 per week, and Granddad didn't do much better. He had had a business that apparently failed in the crash, but he did whatever he could.
Their 2 year engagement was long even for that time, and frustrating to both my parents, but they were faithful to their families and each other, and their help was too badly needed for them to leave home permanently any sooner.
Mom did get a temporary break in there - she went on a long-remembered motor and camping vacation with the Ames family, up through California and Oregon, and along the still undammed Columbia River, with its huge falls that were all drowned by the lakes formed behind the dams when they were built. That loss to both esthetics and Indian fisheries brought hydroelectric power to the rural northwest, but years later when Mother saw the Columbia again, she mourned the grandeur that had been sacrificed, and savored again the memory of the salmon trout they had caught on the trip. They traveled across Idaho and all the way to Yellowstone and back. (In 1990, when we helped Mom move into the Reiten guest wing after Dad's death, I found a cutwork embroidery tablecloth - unfinished - that she told me she had started on that trip. It reminded me of all the lovely clothes she made for me that never got fasteners except safety pins!) Carol told Stephanie, who told me, about a thick letter Mom received from Dad, somewhere along the way. She opened it with great anticipation, only to find page after page of blank paper, and finally, at the bottom of about the 20th page, the note "This is my life without you. All my love, Bob."
By the time they finally married on February 14, 1935, things must have begun going better, and my grandparents were able and willing to provide a truly beautiful evening wedding for them at St. Thomas Church, with hundreds of guests, and candles, flowers and music to fulfill Mom's most romantic hopes. Their honeymoon was postponed, though, as my dad's boss wouldn't give him any time off.