We began preparing for the move. For me preparing was mostly mental and emotional. Salt Lake had been my home since I was born, and this was where my father, sister, brother, Grandma Knapp, and Jim's family all resided. I would especially miss my grandmother who had been like a mother to me since Mom passed away. The only consolation was that my sister, Georgia, had moved with her husband to Riverside, California. She would now be only several driving hours away. I had always been very close to her. And I did have an aunt and uncle, Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Bruford, who lived very close to where we would be.
It was early summer when we packed our three little girls into our red Buick and headed for California. The company paid for our move, including all the packing, so we just had to get ourselves to our new apartment in Inglewood, close to Jim's work sight. Our apartment was in a large U-shaped complex and our unit was on the second floor. It was a nice apartment with lots of children so Jeanie made immediate friends. The could play on the grass in the center of the "U". It was safe fifty years ago. Jeanie also loved the fact that we lived within walking distance of the Inglewood horse racing track. We could walk there and watch the 8th race for free. (I assume there were eight races on race days). Jeanie loved horses from the time she was that little until now, and she loved to watch them race.
Two things that I remember most about living in Inglewood was, one, we were able to purchase an automatic washing machine (no dryer) but an honest to goodness automatic washing machine, and two, we were able to afford nice gifts for the children that Christmas. It was that Christmas that I made the reindeer stockings for the three girls. As you might expect they were a project from Relief Society. Those stockings became a tradition for all the rest of our children who were to come. One even made it to Spain one Christmas where Jon was serving on a mission. That first Christmas in California seemed so strange to me. To be truthful I didn't like it all. The sun was shining and there was no snow! There HAS to snow for Christmas. It's just not Christmas without snow.
The second hardest thing for me in California, next to sunny Christmases, was getting used to the freeways. They scared me to death. Utah had no freeways and I just couldn't get used to going up the on ramps and merging into traffic that was going 65 miles per hour. Jim kept telling me that I had to increase my speed as I approached the freeway so that I would be going as fast as the traffic as I tried to merge in. That was so scary! But we had to get on the freeway to visit Aunt Dorothy which we did quite often. She invited us to dinner almost every Sunday, and Uncle Bruford loved to take pictures of the girls while we were there. Photography was his hobby.
For six months, Jim was trained in weapons systems for military aircraft which were manufactured by Hughes. His responsibility would now be to train pilots and other military personal on how to use these systems. But those military people would not be coming to Hughes for the training. Jim would have to go out in the "field" viz. to air bases on the west coast. Now I understood what a "field engineer" was. He, that is we, would have to do some traveling. I really didn't mind because I hadn't been to many different places in my life. His first assignment was to Kingsley Air Force Base in Klamath Falls, Oregon. We would be leaving in January, right after Christmas. I was kind of excited, but still a little scared. For the first time I would be living with no family anywhere close. I realized how dependent I had become on my family. I knew it was time for me to "grow up" and be independent.
