Ora Carpenter Omerza history, 11th installment

On 10 March 1946 our little daughter Madge arrived. She came on a Sunday morning. We left for the hospital about 7 a.m. It was foggy and damp and I thought what a day for such a happy event to be about to take place. I was so glad to have a daughter. I planned so many things we could do together.

During the war years Em had worked in the shipyards and then had opened a repair shop on Venice Blvd. It was doing very well but his boss ran out and he was unable to get another place as the building industry was at a standstill during the war. He was looking around for a place for his business and he talked to our next door neighbor. He was a would be actor but he had to work at something to support himself between acts. He had a large building in back of his house where he held barn dances every Saturday night. He also had something else going he wanted Em to go in with him. He said he had studied the Mormons United Order and this is what he wanted to do. He had three or four friends (would be actors) and he wanted them all to go into his business. I don’t know exactly what the business was. I do know it entailed welding and Em was the only welder in the group. Em got pretty excited about it and wanted to know what I thought. I told him it wouldn’t work. It didn’t work for the Church and it wouldn’t work for him. Em was a hard worker. He would give it everything he had. As far as I could see the other men didn’t know what physical labor was. They were all to put into the business, all work and all draw equal salary. I couldn’t talk Em out of it. They started the business. It was going great, but when it came time to draw the salary and the profits had to be divided between four or five people Em was doing most of the work, it got a little old.

After that fizzled out he and Vic decided to go into business. Vic and Helen wanted to move to L.A. from Sacramento. I certainly wasn’t against them moving to L.A. I thought that would be great but I couldn’t see Em and Vic working together. Their personalities were so different. It just seemed like I was against everything he wanted to do. I voiced my opinion and then kept still. It was one against three, so I knew I didn’t hold a chance. Vic and Helen and Em found two houses up in Kegal Canyon. It was out north of San Fernando Valley. It was up in the mountains and the houses were just summer cabins. We were to live in one Vic and Helen in the other. They were both on the same property. Again here I was in disagreement. There was so much work to be done on the houses to make them liveable for permanent residences and besides and besides who wanted to live up there miles from any thing. Jay was about ready for school and he would have to ride a bus for miles and miles. We lived two blocks from the school. One house was rented so they fixed up the other one for Vic and Helen. They spent most of the money we had on fixing the one so we just left the other rented for awhile. It was pretty up there. Helen and Vic both were perfectionists when it came to house keeping and yard keeping. There was plenty of yard it not much house and Helen worked night and day to perfect it. Em wanted to go up there almost every weekend, until Helen complained that she had to do all the work in the yard and we just came and enjoyed it. The business didn’t go too well. Mostly family conflict. Finally Em got tired of the whole thing and gave up the business and decided he didn’t want to live up there either. There were a few hard feelings between Helen and Em but they were soon resolved.

Em’s Mother was living with Helen for awhile. She worked at times and lived with Helen in between jobs.