Jack Brown’s Earliest Entrepreneur Experience

 Jack Brown’s Earliest Entrepreneur Experience

The Brown family enjoyed a wide range of living locations - from big city to remote ranch!

While Daddy was born in Los Angeles, the family had spent a number of years in Eagle Rock, preceded by Highland Park.  Then in 1918, before his Uncle Fred left for France, and before Daddy’s grandmother (Narcissa) died, the family purchased an almond ranch close to Three Points and near Lake Hughes (which was their mailing address).  That is the ranch that Grandma took Daddy ‘home’ to after he was born; and a place that they visited even after it had been sold.  We have a number of photos taken at the Old Ranch, as it was called:

Kay holding Jack; Bubbles; Jiggs; Walt; in the almond orchard.

May, Jack, and Walt.

Walter and his son Jack, on the woodcutting band-saw fashioned from an old vehicle, I believe.

A number of photos of Jack were also taken ‘in town’:

Grandpa (Walter) with his son (Jack)

Dadda and Mammah with baby Jack.

How cool, to have a beautiful sister to give him a wagon ride - and a handsome big brother to take him for a ride in the car!  But then, he had cars of his own - and girlfriends who joined him for photos!

1929 approx Jack w-Kay and Walt, in Walt's Maxwell

....this photo of Daddy reminds me of one of my brothers!  : )

...on the front of the Studebaker...

 

And Daddy had a red fire engine, that had a bell on it, which he was very proud of: 

Over the years, Grandma compiled a list (four pages long!) of addresses of homes they had lived in.  On the page between Daddy’s birth and the move to Grants Pass, a number of addresses are included:

When Daddy saw this, he commented that his Aunt Peg always wrote with a green pen; perhaps they were at her house in May 1928!

But I still haven’t described Daddy’s earliest entrepreneur experience.  When he was about 5 years old, while they were living in El Monte, he decided to sell some magazines.  So he gathered up a bunch of Grandma’s treasured Sunset Magazines, put them in a bag, and went door-to-door around the block, selling them for 5cents each!  (My research suggests that Grandma likely paid 25cents each for them.)  He says that when Grandma found out, she retraced his footsteps, and managed to buy back most of her magazines.

This bag, which is in a trunk Linnea cherishes, may have been the very bag he used!  At the very least, it is something that we grandchildren played with when we found things in the trunks to use for dress-up:

Daddy also related that when he was 5 years old, he had some new boots that he got for Christmas, and he wanted to take them along when they went to visit his Aunt Peg; but his parents wouldn’t let him take them - and then it snowed at his aunt’s house!  This photo may be from that incident:

Grandpa and Grandma (Walter and May) moved to Oregon in May of 1934.  The photo below was taken in February of 1934, and includes all six of the Brown brothers, together with wives and children born by 1934:

(If you click on the photo, you will be able to view a larger version.)

Next week we’ll learn a little about the move to Grants Pass, and continue the story of Daddy's life.  In February I will share more about Walter Brown’s life, and his many homes - from Georgia to Texas to Washington DC to California to Oregon - and a bit about his brothers and his sister, as well.