Autobiography of Ralph Raymond Beal, Jr.
(Copyright©1998 by Ralph Beal. All Rights Reserved.)
Chapter One-Palo Alto
I was born in Palo Alto, California on May 18, 1916 at the Palo Alto Hospital, located at the corner of Embarcadero Road and Waverley Street. The family doctor was Dr. Harry B. Reynolds, who was responsible for my arrival in good condition. The hospital was subsequently demolished and a green area now is located at the spot.
My parents, Ralph Raymond Beal and Merle Naioma Bertsche Beal resided at a rental house in Palo Alto at 2 Tasso Street where they had lived since their marriage on June 15, 1913. They were married at the house built by her father, George Grant Bertsche at 221 Kipling Street which had moved off of its foundation as a result of the 1906 earthquake, and was then moved back (and which still stands).
My grandfather, George Grant Bertsche constructed a house for my parents at 755 Hamilton Avenue, which was completed and occupied in 1920. It was built without any central heating, since it was in California. There were two bedrooms and a sleeping room with about six windows which lowered into the wall, making it an indoor-outdoor room, and to which I was assigned because the fresh air was supposed to be good for my health. Boy, was it cold in the winter!
The only heat in the house was a small metal stove located in the dining room, which was central to the house. I remember as a small boy dashing from my sleeping room to the stove to warm my jeans before I put them on.
This house was sold to a Mr. Alfred Werry, who owned the Werry Electric store on University Avenue, in 1935 for $12,000. It is still standing and occupied by Mr. Werry, his daughter Ellen and her husband, and Mr. Werry has refused 50 times that amount from prospective buyers.
My first friend was Bob Sumner, who lived in a big three-story house at the corner of University Avenue and Fulton Street. The principal carpenter involved in building that house was Herbert Hoover, who was working his way through college at Stanford. Bob and I had many years of close friendship.
My first school was Lincoln Avenue Elementary, and I was noted for resisting attending. There was a diagonal path across the grass-covered area between Fulton Street and Middlefield Road, fronting on University Avenue. The neighbors were accustomed to hearing me scream that I didn't want to go to school as my mother dragged me by the hand across that lot to the nearby school.
As I progressed through the grades, I attended the Addison Avenue School at about the fourth grade. My most vivid memories of the Addison Avenue School are the rainy day sessions when we had to spend all of our free time sitting on the floor along the walls of the main hallway for what seemed hours at a time.
My next school was the Channing Avenue School which was fifth through seventh grades. For some reason I was skipped half of the fifth grade, which made me a mid-year student when I entered High School. My memories of the Channing Avenue School include riding my bike daily and parking it in a row of racks under a shed for weather protection. I remember the day that, when approaching the rack at a good speed, my foot slipped off of the brake pedal when I applied the brakes and I hit the back of the rack with a crash and my lower body flew forward into the handlebar support. I'll never forget that feeling! Another remembrance is Mr. Spaulding's candy store across the street on Channing Avenue. He had small paraffin bottles filled with a sweet syrup, and as I recall, they sold for the huge sum of 1 cent. He also had jaw breakers and all sorts of candy canes and licorice sticks. I often spent my weekly 5 cent allowance in his store. One of my school friends at this time was Bob Mollenhauer, and one day when climbing a tree in front of his house on Forest Avenue at the age of 10, I fell and fractured my left elbow. My birth doctor, Dr. Harry B. Reynolds set the fracture at the Palo Alto Hospital on Embarcadero Avenue, and I spent a long time regaining the use of that elbow. Bob Mollenhauer became a doctor, and during World War II he was General Hap Arnold's personal physician. Bob now lives in Santa Rosa, California.
The Channing Avenue School was of all wood construction, and the floors were oiled with something like crankcase oil occasionally, which made them very slippery on rainy days when your shoes were wet. It was one of our tricks to run and slide toward the staircase and try to stop before you went down the stairs. The Principal was very narrow minded about this kind of rainy day play.
During these years we had several dogs, and I remember Wotan, a German shepherd who was so difficult to confine that my Dad built a run behind the garage. The dog barked constantly and was eventually poisoned, probably by the next-door neighbor. Later we had a beautiful Airedale, called Pal, and he was my pal. His favorite trick was having me straddle him while wearing my roller skates and then he would pull me for many blocks at a time. He really enjoyed this kind of exercise. His main vice was chasing cars, and we found that the only cure was to have somebody with a noisy car fill a water pistol with ammonia and, when he started to chase the car, to shoot him in the face. I can guarantee that this worked. I'm sure that today's Animal Rights people would object to this method of dog training. Somewhere along the line we had a Chow named Tang, but he and I never became friends, as he was my mother's dog.
All of these years, Bob Sumner and I were the best of friends, and we rigged a tin-can telephone with a kite string line between our houses, and used to talk on that. I can't believe it now, but it really worked.
Graduating from Channing Avenue School I entered Palo Alto High School as a member of the class of 1933 1/2, due to my advancement in Grammar School. This caused a split schedule of most of my classes, and made it difficult by having to take the second half of the class before the first half, especially Chemistry and math. My math teacher was Mr. Shippey, and he was great and I learned all I needed for my college experience from him. The chemistry teacher was Mr. Renner, who was young, and he liked to dazzle the class with demonstrations, like the time he mixed some Hydrogen with Oxygen in a small bottle and then lit it. The explosion nearly wrecked the Chemistry Lab., but we learned how water is made. My French teacher was Mrs. Sophie Cramer, and, although she knew her subject, it never really connected in my brain. Another outstanding teacher was Mrs. Fay Younkin, who taught English and grammar. She made a lasting impression on me. The mid-year schedule allowed me to take only one semester of typing, and I learned all of the letters, but never mastered the numbers. This bugs me to this day, especially when using the computer. I don't remember the seventh grade Music Appreciation teacher's name, but my exposure to the classics stayed with me for the rest of my life.
My athletic career in High School consisted mostly of soccer during gym class and after-school football, where I played left tackle on the second team. My most vivid recollection is playing in our big game with Redwood City (My wife Margie's High School), and having the opposing tackle do a war dance on my back, while my face was buried in the muddy sod. I ended up with a broken nose and an admonition from my mother to give up football. That gave me a good excuse to quit while I was behind, so I never lettered in football.
Social life was different in those days. The girls wore Middies and Bloomers for their gym appearances, and were not easy to date (even if you had 30 cents for two milkshakes at the Peninsula Creamery). An occasional movie matinee date at 15 cents each was also common, but few of us could afford to take our dates to Sticky Wilsons for ice cream after the show. The biggest event was the Junior Prom, where the gymnasium was decorated with paper streamers and the swimming pool had a lawn sprinkler placed on a float in the middle for decoration. I do remember live bands, and especially Griff Williams, who played at one of the dances. There were nearly as many chaperones as there were dancers.
When I was a Junior, I was allowed to buy a 1920 Model T Ford touring car for $20.00, which I had earned trapping chipmunks when camping with my folks on the Eel river near Laytonville. An eccentric millionaire paid me with a $20 gold piece and released them on his Palo Alto estate. That car taught me how to overhaul engines, grind valves, repair transmissions and add used oil daily (which I salvaged from gas stations in a 5 gallon milk can). In fact, I bought a junked Model T for $5.00 for spare parts, which I kept in the garage, much to my parent's horror. My grandfather Bertsche was a Farmers Insurance agent, and my total insurance cost was $15.00 per year. During my Senior year, I traded up in 1932 to a 1929 Model A roadaster, at a cost of $195, which greatly improved my ability to obtain dates with some of the prettier girls, like Jane Kingsley. I wonder whatever happend to her. I also dated Helen Newmark (Wilson), who I discovered many years later widowed and living in Carmel.
I had enough credits to graduate with the class of 1933, so I graduated in June 1933, completing High School in 3-1/2 years.