Happy Birthday, Uncle Morris

 Happy Birthday, Lester Morris Burford, Jr. 

16 March 1939 - 01 Aug 2022

Spring Break

 Gonna take a little spring break. Can't say why, exactly. Just feel like I need a bit of a re-set. 

Be back soon.

Downey House, Part Two

Here are some more pictures from my parents' house in Downey, California 

Dad, Mom, Grandma (Cleffie) at Christmas

Karen, Morris, Leslie (and Freddy the dog) at Christmas

Dad, Grandma and Billie Jo -- they got socks for Christmas!

Buck and Judy, Tracy and Tammy, Becky, Mom

Mom, Dad, Cleffie

Downey, California

 I got a little ahead of myself. Before my parents moved to the apartment in Whittier, they lived in Downey, California, from 1979 until 1992. Their house was on Donovan Street. It was a great house, and welcomed a lot of guests through the years, and hosted a lot of celebrations, accumulating a great treasury of memories. (More pics later.)

Downey house, front and back

Dad's cactus garden, patio - that's Papa Burford resting on the porch swing.

While they lived there, Mom worked at Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk.

Dad and Morris and another man (I don't know his name) bought and operated Die Cast Products. (I don't know exactly where they were located.)

Whittier

 Some time around 1992 my parents moved from Downey, California, to an apartment in Whittier, California. These pictures were taken in that apartment.

Dad, Mom, Heather (granddaughter)

Nesting dolls, xmas tree, 40th anniversary gift (framed photos and cross stitch), Cleffie's thimble collection.

Dad, Heather

Mom, Dad, Rick

Leslie & Dave, Karen & Jon

Heather

They lived in this apartment until 1997 when they retired and moved back to Michigan.

Cleffie's Apartment, finale

Most of these pictures are of my mother. They were taken in my grandmother's apartment in Watervliet, Michigan, during the 1990s. 

Happy Birthday, Papa Burford

 Some pictures of my grandfather, Lester Burford. Today is his birthday. He would be 113 years old.

All these photos above were taken at my parents' house in Downey, California in the 1980s.

The top picture is Papa and Grandma in the porch swing at their house in Bald Knob, Arkansas, in the 1970s. The bottom picture is at Mom & Dad's house in Downey CA in 1985.

These pictures were taken at Mom & Dad's in Downey, the year Papa got a metal detector for Christmas. That's Uncle Morris helping him figure out how to use it. (My dad is in the background of the top left picture.)

Papa died 24 August 1990 and is buried in Hunter Cemetery, Hunter, Arkansas

Rest in peace, Papa.

Cleffie's Apartment, Part Four

Cleffie's Apartment, Part Four

 

I'm assuming this last set of pictures was taken later than the others, because of her gray hair. However, she spent quite a few years switching back and forth from coloring her hair and letting it go gray, so it's hard to really say. She lived in this apartment from about 1992 until 1999 when she ran off and got married (well, that's how my mother described it). Cleffie met up with an old beau from her teen age years at a family reunion. (Well, they weren't blood-related. His brother had married one of her cousins way back in the day -- which would sort of explain why he was at one of our family reunions.) They decided to get married, and she moved from Michigan to Arkansas, in the area where she grew up.

Cleffie's Apartment, Part 3

 More pictures taken in Cleffie's apartment in Watervliet, Michigan, in the 1990s.

PHOTOS: Wathada and Cleffie

Cleffie, outside the building

Cleffie, Dianne (me). This would have been spring of 1992, I think. I don't know why we were opening presents -- Mother's Day, maybe? Looks like we have been to Walmart, too (of course!)

Mom gave me a haircut while we were there.

Cleffie, Wathada

PHOTOS: Top left - Lowell and Bernice (brother and sister of Cleffie). Top right - Charles and Evalee and one of their grandchildren. Evalee was one of Cleffie's sisters. Bottom left - Charles. Bottom right - Charles and Elaine. Elaine is Lowell's wife.

* * *

After Charles died, Evalee rented an apartment in this same building. She lived there until she died, nine months after Charles' death.

More pictures of Cleffie's apartment

 More pictures of Cleffie's apartment in Watervliet, Michigan, 1990s.

My mother painted the paintings on the walls

The framed photo on the desk is uncle Bob's son, Gray Burford

Christmas decorating

Billie Jo and Heather (Heather is Cleffie's great-granddaughter. Billie Jo is Heather's mother, my brother John's first wife.)

Cleffie's granddaughter Leslie (daughter of Morris Burford) and her first husband Dave Beukelman.