[Music] My name is John Ross McMillan. But I'm always called Ross. Once in a great while somebody called me Mack. I was born December 20th, 1902 on a cold, miserable, greeny day. My attendants were Aunt Lizzie and Grandma Stuart. Dad was kept busy all the time, keeping hot water and keeping that old house warm. When I was about four years old, roughly, the family moved to San Luis Obispo, where we could go to school.
My dad had worked the ranch himself and with some help, and did a very good job of it. He was able to provide for his family, but don't forget mother. Because with all us kids, she was hard work at that old Minnesota sewing machine all the time. She'd take one pair of overalls, but got pretty well shot, tear that up, make patches for the knees, and then the second time around it would be patch over patch. And we went to school barefooted most of the time.
Question: Dad, can I interrupt a minute and ask a question? You said that was on... Are you shutting it off now? No, I just want this to be on the record. You said with all those kids, can you put down on this tape how many kids there were when you moved from Shandon to San Luis Obispo?
I don't know how many there were. Well you had two older brothers. Well how many were so when you when you moved from Shandon to San Luis Obispo in about 1906 or 1907 you would have had a brother Stewart and an older brother Jim. Well the the ones that I know that were born later were Roland, Eleanor, Roland, and Florence.
Question: They were all born in San Luis Obispo? Yes. Well, then you didn't name the rest of your brothers and sisters. Who were the rest of them? Born in Shandon?
Well, as I remember... The oldest brother was? My oldest brother was Stuart, and then James. I came third. Philip was fourth. Marion was fifth. Irv was sixth. Florence was seventh. Roland, who was eighth, and Ellinor, who was number nine. As I remember, the three last names were born in San Luis Obispo, but I just can't guarantee that part of it because I just don't remember.
Anyhow, we went to school in San Luis Obispo. We were about a little over a mile and a half from the school. And we walked for our first years and later years in high school. By that time, there was a bus running, a school bus.
Question: How long did you go to school barefoot? I mean, did you always go barefoot to school? I went barefoot through grammar school. Did the other kids go barefoot? The other kids went barefooted too.
Question: And so how far did you have to walk to school?
About a mile and a half. So in San Luis Obispo right now today, where was the school located that you went to? because you didn't talk about where the house was, but it was out on Orchard Road.
And that was what you meant as the ranch where your father worked hard. - The school who was on Nippomo Street between Pismo and Pacific. That has been torn down. And I believe that the name of the school that's there now is Emerson. - Oh yes, uh-huh. So that's where we went to school. There's a two-story building, the building's out at the back wood sheds where they used to have big stacks of wood where the janitor would haul it in on the wheelbarrow to the different rooms. I don't know how he got it upstairs. - What did he do with the wood? - Had the fires going and the wood stoves. We had wood stoves in each classroom. We had wood stoves in the classrooms.
Oh, I see. And then, I guess when I was in about the eighth grade, we used to have what they called manual training. And that was given up at the high school. So we would go from our school up to the high school take manual training. Some would go on their bikes, others would walk.
What did you learn in manual training? What was that? Manual training is a wood shop. Oh, okay. It's what it's, what it amounted to. But these years of all us kids and my mother keeping them dressed and fed. She was doing the cooking. We got old enough to help do the set the table and clear the table off and things like that. And then as we got older, we learned how to boil water, which didn't help too much, but we did make our own Cambridge tea, which was nothing but hot water with a little sugar in it. But, uh... Where did it get its name? I don't know where that name came from.
But anyhow, as I said, mother had that sewing machine downstairs in that downstairs bedroom. And you called it a certain kind of sewing machine? What did you say that was? - A Minnesota? - A Minnesota. - Yes. - A treadle, no doubt. - That's right. It was a treadle. And then Dad had a desk in there, and the telephone was right there. So, the desk, in wintertime, Dad did more of his work that he had to do like the rest of us.
He was busy in the wintertime with exception on Sunday afternoons when he would get into church work. And he was clerk of the session for years and years. And so he always had plenty of work to do. Then as our kids, the rest of the kids, grew up and that Stuart went to Poly. And then after that he went to an industrial school in Oakland.
Now I have a question about Stuart going to Poly. When he went to Poly, what kind of a school was it?
Well, he was learning the mechanics.
It wasn't a college?
No. No, it wasn't. Like, it wasn't high school, though, was it? It was very similar to high school. Oh, had he graduated from high school and then went to college? I don't think he is. I don't know how far Stuart went.
Okay. And then James came along. The next, well, Jim went to high school, graduated from high school, and then he went to University of California at Berkeley, where he graduated and immediately accepted a position with the American Telephone Company as an engineer, and he spent his working days with that company in the Bay Area.
Stuart returned to San Luis Obispo. Now I want to ask you another question about Stuart because I interrupted before. After he went to Cal Poly, then where did he go on from? Then he went on to this industrial school in, well, it's an industrial school, but I forget what they call it, in the Oakland area. to what was he going there to learn what mechanics all that okay type of thing so after he went to school in Oakland and he must have lived up there for they lived yeah they lived together there who James was going to Berkeley oh and Stewart was up there at the same time right okay yeah and when Stewart finished at the industrial art school he returned to San Elizabeth yeah he came back to
Sam was a best friend and he worked for a sustainable company on the path the way after on the way out to the Polytechnic School. Do any mechanical type of work that he knows? No, just beddling, gasoline, fuel, would toss in drums around and all that kind of stuff. And then I was working by that time with a central supply company. And so whenever we needed help, we called on him. And it wasn't long until he was working steady for a stare and then he became sick and was sick on the job.
Was he married at this time? Uh, nobody got married.
During the time he was sick? Just about that time. He was uh... What was his wife's name? Edith White.
Oh, Edith White. Was she a San Luis Obispo? No, she was from over in the valley, I think. But anyhow, Stuart had been going with Edith White, who was a teacher there in the state schools, and her home, I believe, was somewhere over in the valley. And so I'm just trying to think then they got married. And they were married less than a year when he became very, Stuart became very sick.
And we were told then that it was, oh, in the meantime, Stuart had been off, he had enlisted for World War I But the armistice came along So that was the end of the war, but they came and took him anyhow after the armistice and He was down in the South Pacific and all through there now He had been at Central Supply. Yes, and then he went into the service after World War one was over Is that what you're saying? Well, I don't remember the the time element, but anyhow He was in the in the war And then Well after he came back and all that he was married So he was in the South Pacific. Yeah, he was in the South Pacific and the doctors there said that he had picked up some sort of a jungle fever and that was his troubles. Well, that wasn't the troubles at all. It didn't take long to develop it. We didn't hear much about cancer at that time, but it was cancer that he had and he was at home where they lived in the regeri apartments. He was there for some time till then they moved him up to the General Hospital and that is where he died.
So, in the meantime while they were working in the center supply he also was going back and forth to Templeton where the granite rock company had a sand plant and he used to run that but just he would go over there only when somebody wanted to sand shift and the real baddest spur in there. So after he died, I don't remember just exactly how things went, but I know Irv had gone to Poly and graduated from there. And then he went on to San Jose State, where he went through the, he graduated from the junior college there. He and Phil went to school together there and lived together. And then after he graduated and all he came back and he went to work for Central Supply along with me.
And we were there and that plant started up, it was just a bare plant that was stuck up there and for no reason at all. But anyhow, that was in in 1924 that I went to work for them, January 15th. And then after the big depression, when things just all went out of haywire, but in the meantime, we had built concrete retaining walls at the backside of the plant, built a concrete batch plant across the street. The company bought up a lot there with a house on it. And then pretty soon they bought the second lot right next door to it, tore that house out and then build a big warehouse back in there which gave us lots of room and then there was another lot to us he lots down the street that they bought now you can't tell me that they bought all that stuff and that we weren't making them money we had to be making the money before they've never put out that kind of money.
But anyhow, during all this time, the workload at home was getting less on mother, because the kids would be able to buy their own clothing or most of it and all that. And, let's see, then I forgot.
Question: Well, you really didn't tell about your own schooling and and because you're kind of going in order Stuart and Jim and yourself So how far did you go in school?
Well, I'm going to drop back away now In grammar school I Graduated from a grammar school then I went to high school and I was, I don't know if you know what a milk rack is, but it's where all the fans of milk are put up to let the cream set. And I had taken that thing out and then scrubbed it. And after it dried, I painted it. And I did that out between the milk house and the take house. And I caught a bad cold out there. And I was laid up with pneumonia for a long time, so much time that I lost the whole year at school.
So that put me a year behind. And then when things got going again at high school, I was riding around the circle at the Emerson School and going too fast on a curve.
What were you riding? Riding my bicycle. And it skidded out from under me and it came down on my arm and cracked that. And then I also— Where did you crack it in your— Right in here. In the forearm between your elbow and your wrist? You could feel where it was. Oh.
I went up through here. playing soccer at the school. I got ready to give the ball a good kick, but some guy stood up beside me and kicked the ball to the one side so I was just kicking the air. And as I lay one up in the air, I naturally went down backwards with my right hand under me broke my right wrist and I was taking bookkeeping and all that kind of stuff. Well that was the end of that. There was another school year that I lost.
Well now I have to ask you, the first fall when you cracked your arm between the elbow and the wrist, had it healed before you broke your right? Yes, it had. So, uh... So you lost another year of school? So I lost another year of school. But in high school, I enjoyed taking part in operettas and things like that. It seems like that is right.
What did you do?
I can remember singing a solo down at the old Elmwood Theatre. I can't think of the words now, but maybe they'll come to me sometime.
And you were in high school.
But anyhow, my brother James had been the janitor at the library. Now I forget how he happened to get this job, but he had it. So I was trained to follow up with him if for any reason he couldn't do the work and had rehab center or something. I would fall in and do the work. So, my last days in one or two years, I guess, while attending high school, I was also the janitor at the library. And, of course, on the Saturdays, I meant to work all day keeping those old Bermuda lawns And anyhow, I finally got through that. And after I graduated from high school.
Can I stop you? Yes. When you were in high school, did you play any other sports besides soccer?
Now, I know you played soccer and you rode a bicycle, but I thought someplace, I heard that you ran track or you played basketball?
I played baseball as a minor substitution on the baseball team at high school. And I did play, I was on the basketball team. I was a guard. And, uh, some, some, I was someplace years ago when I told somebody in San Luis Obispo that I was your daughter And they said, "I remember Ross playing basketball and he was very good." That was... Oh, I was the best. Oh, okay. [Laughter] Yeah.
Did you run track? No, I was no good. I tried that.
Basketball was your best? Yeah. And of course we played a little tennis yesterday. between our own, not as a member of a team or something like that.
So after I graduated, I had to get a steady job and I decided I was not going to go back to school. So I- You mean you decided you weren't going to go on to any, like, like Phil or Irv or Storter Jim? That's right.
What made you decide not to do that? Because you're a very intelligent person, so...
Because here I had my sister, had called up when I was Missed two years in school. She called up with me. And my folks went out of Forty-Center to college.
Now, which sister are you talking about? Mary. Okay. worked and loaned her the money to go to school. All of which was paid back after she started teaching. Where did she go to school? At San Jose State. She graduated from San Jose State. And I think the first job she had, She was teaching over at a place they call, it's called Fremont now. But it was a... Central...Centerville or something like that? They used to...Centerville. Somewhere in there. So, she went on and then Florence came along.
And I don't know if Florence ever finished high school or not. stubborn sort of oppression and walk it everything and everything. So after a while, the folks finally got her to take up nursing. So she entered the nursing school at in Santa Barbara and She hadn't been there too long, but once and once you get a chance to come home on weekends but the folks who notified one time that she was sick and Anyhow it turned out to be polio. So we went down to see her on the weekend and they took us upstairs on the elevator, clear up on the roof and we walked across the roof over to a special room. It was built up there They called the isolation ward and that's where they kept her. So that was a tough break for her.
Do you remember how long she was, do you remember, months or years? She was out of circulation for at least a month. I don't remember how long. But she didn't, was she paralyzed in any way that you remember? Well, did you miss her hands? Well, I know her hands shook a lot, but that seems to run in the family. Shaky hands. Yeah. But I know she did even more than the others. And let's see in there. It seemed to me that you worked for it. I'm not sure. But it seemed to me that she worked around the 15-cent store. Well, she never got back to nursing after she had polio. That was the end of the nursing. That was the end of the nursing.
And then Rollie comes along. And he went through a grammar school and all, and went to high school part of the time, and wouldn't go the rest of the time. and get a little job here, a little job there, but no school. So, finally he got...
Did that upset your parents?
Oh, sure. Because it sounds as though they were very anxious for each of you to have more education. I'm thinking back at that time everybody didn't go to college and everybody didn't have additional education after high school, but it sounds as though your mother and dad wanted... Oh, they did very much. ...you kids to have all the education you could.
I remember the longest job that I know that he was on was on the tunnel job, bringing the water through the mountains at questa to the raid over to Camp San Luis Obispo. There's a pumping plant near Santa Margarita. I don't know if you remember that or not, But he was on that job, boring his way through the mountains. Just what he was doing, I have no idea. So, then, somehow or other, I guess he was going to go out and meet the world, set the world on fire, and he went out to the Bay Area and he'd get a job there the last little while enough I guess to pay for his board and room and then finally he went with the Otterville, the Otterville Tire Company. Well didn't he go in the Army someplace? He went, I know he went for Goodrich, FB Goodrich, or BF or whatever it is, but... Yes, he did. He went in the service. And he was down in the South Pacific the same time that Irv was, because they met somewhere out in the Philippines.
That's right, right? Those two boys were both down there. So there was three of the family that were down in that country. And then that's when he came back and he got a job with a Goodidge Tire and Rubber Company in the San Francisco area. And he was there until he became sick and supposedly having a very bad back from moving heavy objects or something, but it all turned out to be cancer. And he died from cancer in the hospital in San Francisco. Same building where Florence had died.
Well, Dad, do you think that it was always cancer?
Don't you think that in the beginning he had injured his back, but I don't think it was always cancer? because it seemed to me that he there were many years where he had problems with his back but well it ended up being cancer and it ended up that he did have cancer and that was the cause of it. Whether he had this somewhere and there he got married. Yeah well he got married when he was in the service down in Texas. He married Norrie, Lenora, something.
So that brings us down to number nine. And number nine went through the grammar schools and the high schools, San Luis Obispo, then she went up to the Bay Area and went to a business college. She graduated from there, came back to San Luis Obispo, got a job at the courthouse, and she was in this one office for a long time.
Honestly, she got sick and tired of it. Supposedly, somebody else in the office always telling her what to do. And it was not their business at all. So she got a transfer to another office that actually paid less money. And she was there in that office until she retired at, I don't know, 65 or 70, something like that. And in the meantime, she was at home.
Well, after, I forgot to come in there when Philip's death. We kind of skipped over Philip because at one time I think you talked about him that he and Erv lived together when they were going to school at San Jose, but I don't think you ever talked about what after Phil completed whatever he did at San Jose. I don't know if he had two years of school or four years of school, but we didn't really talk about what kind of work he did. Phil was in San Jose, I think, for two years.
And most of his time after that, the biggest part of it, was spent at the post office at California Park, taking a school. And then he spent a lot of time with the Farm Bureau people. I don't know just exactly what that amounted to. Was that a pain job at the Farm Bureau or a volunteer? I have an idea that was volunteer. And I don't even know if we talked about what Irv did, because I know when he came back from school, you said he worked at Central Supply. But I don't know if we ever talked about the fact that he had, you did mention he had been in the service he had been in the South Pacific, but I don't know if you mentioned all the years he worked for the post office. Well, after the depression, when they closed the plant down, sold to the SP mailing company who was right next door to them. And I was moved to Santa Cruz and Irv was moved to San And after some time at San Jose, he was ordered to do a certain job and he absolutely refused to do it. So they ferried him right in the spot. Do you have any idea what that was? They wanted him to do? No, I forgot. Something that had taken your life and your hands anyhow, and he wouldn't do it. So he went right back to San Luis Vista, went to work for the post office, and he was there for the rest of his life, till he came down with cancer. And one of the things about Irv that is memorable is that he did a lot of radio work where he did little skits and it was heard over the local radio station. Herb always had a liking for the theater. And they had what they call little theater there, much of the local people, you know, that put on plays and things. And I think the most important one that he ever did was as Captain Fremont, when they dedicated a monument there on the block of a street corner and he was dressed up as Fremont and took the part of Fremont. But he always enjoyed that kind of stuff. Oh, was Captain Fremont a San Luis Obispo person? Because I know there was a Fremont Hotel, a Fremont movie theater is still there. I don't know what to do. Oh, okay. How that, well what part Fremont had in San Luis Obispo? He must have had something to do there. Well, let's see, where were we? Where was Tootsie? Well-- Yeah, we had talked about Irv. And one of the things was that when Irv came back to San Luis Obispo, I think he lived at home with mother and father. And I think that we had talked about Philip. And Philip had worked most of his years at the post office at Cal Poly and what I recall is that Cal Poly decided to run the post office themselves about early in 1955, something like that, was just before I moved to San Luis. And gave the work to the Poly students. Right, so Phil was out of a job at Cal Poly in the post office apparently didn't have any other place to put him. And so then he stayed home at the ranch and took care of your mother and father. By this time, my folks were getting elderly and where somebody should be watching them. So Phil stayed home from then on. And Irv lived at home and Eleanor. So Phil would be there all day. Her would come home from work about 4.35 o'clock and jump right into the kitchen and start getting dinner ready. Well, I don't know what Phil was doing. Probably doing politics with some neighbor or somebody. Well, what I remember is that Irv was very, very personable. So when he worked for the post office, he was a walking male carrier and he carried a big heavy leather case over his shoulder. And he was very good at visiting and just so very personable. He just would always stop and visit with people and a lot of pleasantries and a storyteller. Some of them got, you know, he would stretch the story and make it real good. Her was a PR man. Right. And Phil was more of a historian and liked to talk family history or... hand-filled used to write letters to the editor and newspaper articles. Yeah, more of the politician, huh? Very much so. Okay. Very much so. But anyhow, we finally got along to Tussie and got her out of school. So that was less, just two of them at home with the folks. And Tuzzi went up to the Bay Area and went to school there, learned to become a, I don't know what her, whatever it was, bookie for something. Then she came back to San Luis, went to work for the courthouse and spent all of her days there. And, but then when the folks got old, and, matter of fact, after they both had died, and Irva died, and then Phil was there. He was taking care of the San Luis property and the Shandon interests. He was trying to do that. So just to clarify, after Phil started taking care of your mother and father, that was around 1955. and both your mother and your father died in 1962 and then after they died, Irv... Did Irv die ahead of them? I don't think so, but I'm not sure. We probably had that written down someplace, but I thought that they died before Irv. And the reason I'm saying that is in 1962, Bob and I bought our house in Laguna Lake and moved in in June. And your grandmother, my grandma, came to that house. I think I have a picture of her sitting in the living room, so I know that I think, I think, Grappamill and your dad had died earlier in the year and then she was at that house to visit and to see our house and then she died shortly after that, I think in 1962. But Irv and Phil and Tootsie would come over fairly often to visit and to see Keith and Karen. And so that's kind of how I remember those things is by the association of them being at the house. And if one of the kids had a birthday, they might come over and have birthday cake and ice cream with us. So I think Irv died after your mother and father. And it seems to me that he fell down in the parking lot behind the post office and hurt his back. And my recollection is then shortly after that, that developed into cancer and that he had cancer that started from some spot in his back and it ended up taking his life. And so then there was just Phil and Tootsie at the house in San Luis Obispo. And so then Phil, as you say, was running the properties in Shandon and San Luis Obispo. and then Phil, after Phil died. - And do you remember what year Phil died? - No, I don't. - Well? - 17 years ago, I think. - Actually, this is how I remember that. Christina was not quite a year old, just under a year old. And right now, she's going on 21. So I guess it's been almost 20 years since Phil died. It doesn't seem possible, does it? So it must have been 1976, around Memorial Day. I think he had... Memorial Day didn't nearly die on... I don't know. But I was thinking that it had been around Memorial Day in 1976. Well, anyhow. Did he have a massive stroke or something, Phil? Well, he had something one night and 24 hours later he had something else. Like a stroke? Yeah. But anyhow, Tootsie was finally left there at the house, and I had been after them even when Phil was living. To try to get rid of that property so that they wouldn't have to worry about it, trying to take care of it. And so, finally I guess he happened to be in the right spirit. Now can we just go back for the sake of time and say okay, this goes your parents both died in 1962 Yeah, and now we're clear up We're up into the 70s more than 10 or 12 years have passed, right? Yes, and you're trying to get them to get rid of that property What do you want to do? Well, I want you to tell me about about the property you were trying to get them to get rid of Well, I was just trying to say how many years it was that after Philip died I Started working on to see To get rid of this property. Oh, no nothing doing. She couldn't do that. She couldn't do that So why one day I I guess I got her in the right mood or something happened. She says, "Well, okay, it's okay with me." And I says, "I didn't lose any time then." As a matter of fact, Phil was still living. Because I can remember going to a real estate man, and he was a big shot, told us about, "Well, you couldn't sell property like that around here. have to go into the Los Angeles area, a place like that. And well, he wanted 10% straight up. And there would have to be so much newspaper advertising, we would have to pay for that. We paid, would pay for everything. That's what this guy had. And Phil was the one that said this was a good guy. And see when we walked out of there, he had a different opinion of the fellow. So we never went back there, we just had... Then we tried to get rid of it ourselves. [no audio]