My aunt had a
colorful name. Violet was my mother's youngest sister. My mother,
Wilma Falk, was 12 when Violet was born on 11 Mar 1924. There were 2
other sisters between them and a baby brother was born in 1927.
I decided to
check happenings in Violet's life in the 22 years before she was
married in 1946 by using the Newspapers.com website.
Since she lived in Harrisburg Oregon the nearby newspaper in Eugene
did include her name in over 30 issues. Also I found a mention in
the Corvallis paper when she attended the England family reunion in
Corvallis in 1930 with her parents and siblings. Since she was only
6, I wonder if she would have remembered that.
Reading
about her activities in the newspaper, I learned a number of new
things about her. When she was 5 years old in 1929 she attended a
Sunday school party. In 1937 she was attending Busey school and
appeared in two of the plays presented at the school pie social. She
was the only eighth grade graduate from Busey school that year and
went on to attend Harrisburg High School. She did well in school,
listed on the honor roll at least 3 times and graduated in 1941 with
a class of 17 as the salutatorian. She appeared to be active in
school: she was vice president of her junior class; appeared in the
junior class play, played in a trumpet trio for the school band
concert and went with the group to the coast for the Senior “Skip
Day.”
She
also was involved with the church as in 1939 she went with a group of
Christian Endeavorers from Harrisburg to Portland. She played in a
trumpet duet for the 1939 Christmas Sunday School program. I never
knew she played the trumpet.
The
newspaper named Violet as one of those who attended the bridal shower
for her sister Lois in 1939 and again for the wedding shower for her
sister Erma in 1941.
At
some point Violet moved to Eugene where she was employed in office
work. The 1944 Eugene city directory lists her as Violet Falk as a
secretary at Oregon Mutual Life Insurance Company. Oregon Mutual was
located at 132 E. Broadway in the Miner Building, room 343. I have
memories of visiting the Miner Building, although it was not for Life
Insurance. Violet was living at 710 Lawrence and her phone number was
2977. According to Google Maps today, it is ½ mile from where she
was living to where she was working and it would take about 11
minutes to walk that distance.
While
living in Eugene Violet still had friends. She was the maid of honor
at a wedding and was in charge of the guest book at another, plus she
was listed as a guest at a couple of bridal showers. She joined the
Business Girls club, aka the Employed Girls club at the YWCA. In 1946
she was the chairman of their social committee and helped with at
least 3 of their dances. She also served as a Junior Hostess for the
USO, and received a 200 hour pin at their closing meeting in February
of 1946. I read a little more about the USO Junior Hostesses and
discovered they had some fairly strict rules: no slacks allowed, no
smoking inside the USO areas, no drinking alcohol on the job, no
dancing with other women and no refusing to dance with a service man
unless he was “ungentlemanly.”
Finding
out more about my aunt from reading in the newspapers made me wish
that I had talked with her more often and asked questions about her
life.
I am sure many of us can sympathise with your wish that you had spoken more to a relation, but left it too late. There is a Violet in my husband’s family tree, but I must admit I never thought of looking at “colourful” Christian names fir this prompt.
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