Recollections of Lorene London and her sister
Rolen met and married Evelyn Luper in 1939. When he brought her home the first time she was cute and lots of fun. I loved having a sister-in-law. She was 15 years old (not much older than I was). They were at our house that Christmas. I remember Rolen bought her lots of clothes and she was going to have their first child. We were all excited. Rolen and Evelyn lived in the city in an apartment. Evelyn was at our home when she went into labor. Ronald Ray was born - he was so very tiny! Mom said he was so little we were lucky he lived. Rolen was the proud Pop. About one and one-half years later they had Donald Gene - they were both cute little boys. They seemed a sweet little family.
On December 7, 1941, World War II started. What an upheaval in our lives! Both Rolen and Lawrence went into the service. Rolen the 8th Air Force and Lawrence the 45th Division. Before we knew it they were shipped overseas. Evelyn would bring the boys often and we loved having them. Dad was trying to get into some kind of defense work.
Sometime in there Evelyn left the kids with Mom and Dad. She just left. I can imagine how overwhelming it must have been for an eighteen or nineteen year old to be left with two babies. At any rate, Mom and Dad filed for custody of the boys. Later Mom said this was necessary for them to be able to receive allotment payments from Rolen for the boys care. They just became our little brothers.
'During World War II, the construction of new homes in Oklahoma almost stopped. Both daddy (Emery London) and Uncle Coin (London) were carpenters and work was scarce. Uncle Coin decided to go to California and work in the war industry because two of his boys were service members and he wanted to support them. Daddy decided to take his family and go with Uncle Coin's family.
Lorene said that daddy closed up the house in Mustang and moved to Oakland to work in the war industry. Lorene and her sister couldn't agree on whether Jewell and Thresa had worked out there.
Lorene and her sister also had different recollections of this time. Lorene's primary recollection is that it was a difficult time. Sis's most vivid memory is how nice the apartments were that they lived in. Lorene kept saying that this was a difficult time and I tried to draw her out several times about why she thought it was difficult.
Sis remembered how pleasant the housing was. The Emery London family had never lived in an apartment before, always a house. But, Sis remembered that they stayed in very nice, new apartments. The apartments were fully furnished with nice furniture. The apartments had bedroom furniture, dining room furniture and a fully stocked kitchen.
Lorene said again how difficult this time was. I asked her why it was difficult and Sis said it was because they had to leave their friends and family and so had no friends in Oakland. Lorene agreed that was why it was so hard.
While there, Emery bought his wife (Jewell (Jobe) London) two pairs of pants suits. He wanted her to be dressed in the latest style. But, mama was old fashioned and wouldn't wear them. She thought it was not lady-like and that women should wear dresses. Papa thought he had done the greatest thing buying these for her and made her wear them a couple of times, but she never wore them after that.'
References:
(1) Recollections of (Dorothy) Lorene (London) Davidson in writing about her brother Rolen London in 1996.
(2) These are the recollections of Lorene London and her sister, May 9, 2005, at the home of Lorene (London) Davidson, in Arlington, Texas.
