personally and financially during the Great Depression. By all accounts Jack was not a nice man, and had few redeeming qualities...but that's a different story.
After their divorce Zada held many jobs including: working at a café, owning/running her own small diner (Zada’s Diner), as a Dental Assistant and as a Switchboard Operator for the Telephone Company.
Her daughter Beverly remembers helping her mom study for the Switchboard position to help her “learn the board”. Zada was a hard worker and managed to bring in enough money to support her family and pay the mortgage on their house which was 15 dollars a month at that time.
It was when Larry was on leave from the Army that he and Zada met.
Larry joined the Army in 1943 during WW2, and was on leave in Cheyenne Wyoming in 1945 as the war was ending. Cheyenne was/is only a short distance from Scottsbluff Nebraska where Zada and most of her family lived. They married there after a short courtship.
Beverly had been staying with her grandmother Leola (AKA: Ma), when Larry and Zada joined them for Sunday dinner. Ma had cooked a large supper, and when everyone was at the table, Zada announced she and Larry had gotten married.
The marriage took place on Jan 9th of 1945 and they told everyone on Sunday January 14th when Beverly was 13 and ½. She remembers being really hurt that her mother hadn’t told her about the wedding but everyone soon adjusted.
Before Larry entered the Army he had purchased a car in Claremont New Hampshire where his family was living at the time.
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| Photo 1: Frank & Larry. Photo 2 Frank & Zada (Frank was Larry's Father) The car is the one mentioned above. |
When they finally arrived in Claremont, they stayed with Larry’s mother, Cora Kelley Copp. Beverly remembers Cora as being a “heavyset woman” who was "nice and worked hard". Cora’s apartment was a two room, with a bed in the living room, and was located above a store. At the time she had two of her daughters living with her, Evelyn and Francis.
Evelyn would come home, open up a can of milk, mix it with water and drink it for lunch. She was a busy woman who worked and dated, so they didn’t see much of her at all. Francis, the youngest of the sisters was kind of a shy girl. She was the same age as Beverly so they became good friends until Beverly began dating and they drifted apart.
Larry and his new family soon found an apartment, and then moved into another one. In the first apartment there was only one bathroom on the entire floor, and all the residents had to share --which Zada did not like at all. The second apartment was better but had a ‘history’. Beverly remembers reading a magazine article which told of the murder of the previous tenant. Their building was just down the street and around the corner from Cora’s.
They only stayed in Claremont a few months, but while they were there, Larry worked as a delivery man for a bakery and Beverly went to school. She found a job of her own at a local shoe factory, earning enough to buy her own school clothes. At work she sewed ‘uppers’ for shoes and the men at the factory called her ‘buttercup’.
Smoking was a big deal at that time…everyone was doing it, and Francis and Beverly were no exception. After school, they would walk over to Mildred’s to visit and to smoke. Mildred was “a lot of fun” and let them smoke.
Mildred and George had two cute little boys. One of them was called ‘junior’ so he must have been named after his dad. One time she took him to the store with her and he threw a really good fit. She was embarrassed said “that was the end of that” and she didn’t take him out with her again.
Mildred’s husband George worked a long time at a local factory making tools and took really good care of his family. Beverly remembers he bought his wife a new fur coat every so often, and she looked really nice in it. She laughs at the memory because while Mildred would look really sharp in the fur, underneath she would often have an old ratty dress-- evidently ‘comfort’ was the name of the game back then for Mildred.
George was into photography and bought an expensive camera before he and Mildred left on a trip for The World's Fair in New York. It was an exciting trip and they rode "in style" in their new car. While they were at the fair their brand new car, and all their posessions including the camera were stolen.
After a few months, Larry, Zada and Beverly moved back to Scottsbluff Nebraska (and then later on to Twin Falls). ‘Something’ always seemed to happen on their trips, and on the way back to Scottsbluff, Beverly remembers looking out the window and seeing a tire roll off the road and into the median, then a big "clunk" from behind. They quickly pulled over to the side of the road as the runaway tire was off their trailer.
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