Part 1 June 1948-August 1949

Walt and his 1940 Studebaker Champion

Poster by Jean Wyatt 1948

Introduction
 Who would think that a young wife’s letters to her folks during the first precious years of marriage would
turn out to be letters of love to her adult children and grandchildren? Although the letters record only the first 4
years of their marriage, they show all the love and caring that were shown by Jean for her children and parents
during her whole life.

The day after the wedding at the Glendale First Methodist Church, Walt and Jean traveled up to Palo Alto,
where Dad was going to Stanford on the GI Bill, and Mom was to work in an office at or near the school, to get, as
she put it, her PHT (putting hubby through). She wrote to her Mom and Dad, Marion and Warren Ellison, who lived in
Glendale about twice a week. Mail delivery was twice a day back then.

During these years of 1948 through 1953, they lived on a shoestring, living in a one room tourist cabin near
school, renting a small house and eventually buying a home, which they watched being built, on Emerson Street. During
these years, Dad left Stanford before graduating and took a job at Hiller Helicopter; they engineered their first
child, Ken, and met and enjoyed visiting with many friends. Both were very creative, had hobbies; ham radio,
woodworking, cooking, knitting and sewing. Both loved to explore by riding their scooter, and enjoyed going to movies
and football games.

They took a short trip to Sequoia and later, a month long honeymoon cross country and also made their first
trip to Yosemite. Walt’s mother, from Long Beach, met and married Tom Sanderfer and moved to Orange Cove. There
were many visits back and forth, for all, to Glendale, Orange Cove and Palo Alto.

Very few problems were discussed in letters of course, waiting for visits and phone calls, but the couple
seemed to enjoy a charmed life where nothing much went wrong and problems were small ones. What comes through
most is love and affection between Jean and her parents, which made a safe haven for Walt, and eventually their
kids, too.

The engineering field was both booming and uncertain in California in the 50’s and 60’s and Dad worked for
many of the aircraft companies before and after marriage. The amount of work, and one’s employment, depended on
government contracts, and Mom commented once that the most difficult times in their marriage were the times when
Dad was unemployed.

No mention was made about why Walt left Stanford, or why there are no letters during the first couple
months of 1951. A single 1953 letter, with certainly welcome, news that the family was moving to the Los Angeles
area, was found separately in Marion Ellison’s file.

We know that they did move to Garden Grove eventually, after spending several months before and after my
birth at the Ellison’s. Jean had a bout with kidney stones and so the transition there in Glendale probably made it
easier to care for her while finding a home in Orange County.

Many weeks have gone into the safe keeping of these letters which are a valuable peek into our past family
history and I dedicate this project to my sister, Karen and my brother, Ken, (whose first bath is duly recorded here
for posterity), and to our children, Greg, Linda, Jolie, Christopher, and Madeline. Warning: Do not require in-laws to
read these letters.
Respectfully submitted, Susan (Wyatt) Langley, Jan 1, 2009

Notes- Mom’ choice of blue ink was hard to reproduce…color scans were used to make some letters easier to read.
Jean wrote with a fountain pen, or a pencil, (which says she preferred). Letters were written on single
sheets or on a folded sheet like a book. Mail delivery was twice a day and stamps were 3 cents.
r

Before the Wedding-Walt had a couple tests of his prospective bride. One was to take her for a hike up Mount
Verdugo in Glendale, a 6 mile hike to 1800 ft, and the other was to have her learn Morse code by translating his
letter, luckily only this one that we know of. See 1948 notes for the translation.
Guess, she passed the
test.
Jean and Walt Wyatt’s Wedding Day June 30,1948
1949
v
Hiller UH-12 Prototype 1948-10 Photo WCWyatt
"Dewey Defeats Truman" was a famously incorrect banner headline on the
front page of the Chicago Tribune on November 3, 1948, the day after
incumbent United States President Harry S. Truman beat Republican
challenger and Governor of New York Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948
presidential election in an upset victory.
This is one for the books," an elated President Harry S. Truman proclaims
while holding up the Chicago Tribune in this famous photograph.
 Ellison’s Christmas tree ‘49

Notice the lace tablecloth(who

made that?), hand sewn shirt, hand
knit argyle socks and crocheted
pot holders.

See Midgie on the shelf?

The tree has real metal tinsel.

See Jean and Walt’s photos up high

and who has hat dog statue,
remember that?

Look for a new TV set in place of

that shelf in the next few years.

Photo WCWyatt
 1948 Calendar 30 Wedding 00 Letters Nov. 25-27 Ellisons visit Dec 24-27 Home for Christmas
e

January February March

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October November December

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
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Notes
1948
Pre Wedding

1948-6-13 1 Letter written in Morse Code –translation!

Sunday Morning
Hi Sweetheart Darling,
It’s a beautiful morning. The birds are chirping and the squirrels are running up and down the trees. It is
bright and clear out and the sky is a clear blue with a few thin streaks of white clouds drifting slowly by in
a lazy breeze.

Boy oh boy do I wish you were here!!! I would really (b eat you up?)!!!
Things are going along swell. I think I have an excellent chance of making good grades this semester.
There are only two thousand up here this summer. During a regular quarter, there is around five thousand.
My homework is coming along swell. I am all caught up with my work and am going to start working ahead
this afternoon.
-over-

Instead of three meals on Sunday, they have a brunch at nine forty-five. As soon as I finish this letter I
am going to get dressed, eat my brunch and then go to church.

Translation of 2nd part of continued Wednesday evening letter:

Hi Sweetheart, I love you and sure miss having you around this week.

The Year 1948

What Things Cost:

Car: $1,550
Gasoline: 26 cents/gal
House: $13,500
Bread: 14 cents/loaf
Milk: 86 cents/gal
lb of Hamburger Meat 45 cents
Science and Mechanics Magazine 20 cents
Movie Ticket 60 Cents
Postage Stamp: 3 cents
Stock Market: 177
Average Annual Salary: $3,600
Minimum Wage: 40 cents per hour

Jean’s Letters
Jean wrote with a fountain pen, or a pencil,(which says she preferred). Mail delivery was twice a day
in 1948. Letters were written on single sheets or on a folded sheet like a book. Pages 2 and 3 would be on
the inside. Pages 1 and 4 would be ‘on the front and back covers’. This made for so many scans that the
first year has been printed with the rest of the years to be read on screen with the computer.
 902 Tait St Oceanside

631 South Coast Highway

1948-9-15 Stanford Motor Court, $56.00 per month, Mrs. Wiggins, landlady. Now the Creekside
Inn, at 3400 El Camino Real, is a boutique hotel and friend of Stanford University and Stanford Hospital. We are conveniently
located just one mile away from the campus. The Creekside Inn is part of Palo Alto's history. In 1955 the property was but a small
30-room hotel amongst the oak trees with cabins looking over the creek. Over the years the Creekside Inn has expanded to a full
service 136-room property, consisting of delightful small buildings surrounded by oak trees, gardens, and Matadero Creek.
Doris Greenbaum
Doris and her husband moved to Barron Park in 1950 when they bought the Stanford Motor Court (now the Creekside Inn) on the
corner of El Camino Real and Matadero Avenue. She tells what she learned about its beginnings as the Grove Auto Court. She also
describes El Camino and tells of a Barron Creek flood in the early 1950s.

http://www.zanemacgregor.com/vintage%20postcards/vintage_postcards.html
Lots of postcards from Palo Alto here. The best find is this one, below:

Grounds along Barren Creek behind Creekside Inn.

1948-10-2 1 Hiller Helicopter, formerly United Helicopter

 STANLEY HILLER, JR.- With his eye on the goal of producing a low-
cost, easy-to-fly helicopter since 1939. the Founder-President of Hiller Helicopters received CAA approval
for his three-place Hiller 360 in October, 1948, and promptly began a world- wide commercial sales
program which sold more civilian helicopters than all competitors combined in 1949-1950 Military
production was begun in 1950 with the granting of Army and Navy contracts. Today both military and
commercial models are produced in a plant which has increased personnel seven-fold in the last 18 months.
Stanley Hiller flew the first successful American co-axial helicopter, the XH-44, in July 1944, when he was only
19 years old. It also featured the world's first successful all-metal rigid-rotor blades. Hiller had learned to fly from
his father at an early age.

. In July 1947, development began on a production prototype called the Hiller 360 or UH-12. This helicopter was
developed with three-across seating, a 160 hp vertically mounted Franklin motor, an overhead control stick, and
two wooden rotor blades. The prototype, the 360X, first flew on 11 November 1947, and was publicly
demonstrated one month later. It was heavily marketed for agricultural use. With a $20,000 price tag, it was far
less expensive than any other contemporary helicopter. Three more pre-production aircraft were built to speed
civil certification, which was granted in October 1948.
1948-9-16 1 Stanford University

By the mid-'40s returning soldiers and newcomers were swelling the ranks of Stanford University,
bringing undergraduate enrollment from a bit more than 3,700 in 1945 to 8,200 in 1947. Although
facilities jammed, construction on campus was limited by continuing material shortages. But in 1945,
Stanford established its first Planning Office to study space, soon figuring out that it could eke out more
space in classrooms, labs and dorms, just in time to meet the post-war demand from discharged veterans.
Realizing there simply wasn't room on campus for students, the university snatched up the Dibble
Hospital site in Menlo Park, renaming it Stanford Village and providing 300 apartments for married
students as well as 1,500 dorm beds.
1946- Students flood back from World War II. A housing shortage and an increase in married students
changes student living patterns. The Stanford Business School Alumni Association is organized to bring
together the 700 graduates the school has in 1946.
The post-war years were a time of tremendous growth and change as Stanford expanded its
national reputation as a leading university. A record 8,223 students showed up for class in Fall 1947,
including many former soldiers taking advantage of the G.I. Bill of Rights
With servicemen and women returning in droves, the employment picture for the class of 1948 is
rosier than at any time in the School's history.
At graduation all the spouses . . . received P.h.T.'s (Putting Hubby Through)

Football at Stanford
The Big Game Pranks
California has a venerable history of campus practical jokes,said Neil Steinberg, author of "If at All
Possible, Involve a Cow: The Book of College Pranks." "The golden age of college pranks was the 1950s,"
said author Steinberg, who traces the phenomenon back to colonial times.
Sometimes, beating the crap out of the other guy in football just isn't enough. Pranks are commonplace
during the week before the Big Game, the football match between Cal and Stanford.

Minors pranks, such as painting the other school with the color of one's own, are routine and hardly worthy
of mentioning.

1948-Street bonfire rallies (a.k.a. riots) reach their peak at Cal. There are 144 bonfires, and anything that
can be burned is used ... including benches, advertising signs, an ice cream truck, and parade reviewing
stands.

The Axe is stolen from Cal. One Monday in June an equestrian trio discover it leaning against a tree by the
Stanford golf course.

1950s- Cal's Deutsch Hall begins its annual "Stanford Goalpost Hunt" tradition. This story shall
unfortunately remain incomplete until we can obtain accounts from Deutsch Alums.
1948-9-19 Roasterette
1948-10-11 Kirk’s Steakburgers
Still in exsistance today-2008
BEST BURGERS: KIRK’S STEAKBURGERS 75 Town
& Country Village, Palo Alto
Why They Won: Above and beyond the burger, there is Kirk’s
Steakburger, one-third of a pound of flame-grilled chopped steak (as opposed
to lesser-grade ground beef). Fans of the 50-year-old institution rave about the
pineapple steakburger, the lightly battered wedge-cut fries and the onion
strings. Kirk’s would probably take the “Best Milkshake” category easily, if there was one; they make
theirs with Italian Torani syrups, so you can get almost any flavor imaginable. A burger and milkshake:
God bless America. Kirk's was the best burger place by a long shot. Over on California avenue, burgers
done to order on the grill but you could watch.

1948-10-19 6 -Charles Moulds(a relative of Marion Ellison’s) Men's Wear in Los Altos
On Sept. 9, 1947, the first issue of the Los Altos Town Crier hit the streets and the mail. The 8 1/2-by-
11 inch single-fold shopper contained an introductory letter from publishers Warren Goodrich and David
MacKenzie
Advertisers included J&S Food Store, Gene Tarbell Fine Apparel, Skerry's Sporting Chance, Los Altos
Hardware, Watson's Jewel Box, Village Shop, Larry Nelson's Los Altos Pharmacy, Brier Lea Studios, F.W.
Williamson Chevron Dealer, Sims Nursery, Los Altos Food Center, Charles Moulds Sportswear for Men,
Sam Kahn's Corner Pharmacy, Bullock's Dry Cleaners, Main Hardware & Supply Co. , plus Bolander's,
Taylor's Bake Shop, Lowe's Delicatessen and Hillyer's Fine Meats, all at the Foodliner.
Over the next few months we'll take a look at the Town Crier's coverage of the events that have shaped
Los Altos over the last half century, and at some of the colorful people who covered those events.
Oct. 31, 1946 A hitching post and watering trough gave a novel touch to Main Street and individuality to
a new men's clothing store opened by Charles H. Moulds. A former manager at Roos Brothers in Palo Alto,
Moulds sold men's furnishings, sports clothes and work clothes in his new shop.
April 10, 1947 As reported in the April 10, 1947, issue of the Los Altos News, Frederick (Ted) Bullock
was elected president of the Los Altos Business Association for the ensuing year, succeeding Lawrence W.
Gentry. Other new officers were Charles Moulds, vice-president.
According to the Oct. 28, 1948, issue of the Los Altos News, Halloween pranksters completely demolished
the watering trough at Charles Moulds' store on Main Street. The trough was irreplaceable, according to
Moulds, who had purchased it at an antique store in Los Angeles. He brought it up to Los Altos especially
to accent his store.
Jan 26, 1950 In the news: CBS Television began broadcasting "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts" as an
answer to Ted Mack's "Amateur Hour Show." "Your Hit Parade" became the country's favorite musical
show.

Using an iron hitching post in the form of a "pick-a-ninny", which stood outside the store as its trademark,
vandals smashed windows of the Charles Moulds Men's Shop last Friday night. Damage was estimated at
$500. Moulds called it "purely malicious destruction, since no merchandise was taken."

1948-11-2 Election of 1948

"Dewey Defeats Truman" was a famously incorrect banner headline on the front page of the Chicago
Tribune on November 3, 1948, the day after incumbent United States President Harry S. Truman beat
Republican challenger and Governor of New York Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 presidential election in an
upset victory.
This is one for the books," an elated President Harry S. Truman proclaims while holding up the Chicago
Tribune in this famous photograph.

The paper's erroneous headline became notorious after a jubilant Truman was photographed holding a copy of the paper during a
stop at St. Louis Union Station while returning by train from his home in Independence, Missouri to Washington, DC.[1] Truman's
joy was no doubt increased by the gaffe from the staunchly conservative Republican Chicago Tribune, which had once referred to
Truman as a "nincompoop". In a retrospective article over half a century later about the newspaper's most famous and most
embarrassing headline, the Tribune wrote that Truman "had as low an opinion of the Tribune as it did of him."[2]

For about a year prior to the 1948 general election, the printers who operated the Linotype machines at the Chicago Tribune and
other Chicago papers had been on strike Taft-Hartley Act. The Tribune had switched to a method where copy for the paper was
composed on typewriters and photographed and then engraved onto the printing plates. This process required the paper to go to
press several hours earlier than usual.[1]

On election night, this earlier press deadline required the first post-election issue of the Tribune to go to press before even the
East coast states had reported many results from the polling places. The paper relied on its veteran Washington correspondent
and political analyst Arthur Sears Henning who had accurately predicted the winner in four out of five presidential contests in the
past 20 years. Conventional wisdom,[3] supported by polls, was almost unanimous that a Dewey presidency was "inevitable", and that
the New York governor would win the election handily. The first (one-star) edition of the Tribune therefore went to press with
the banner headline "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN".[1]

1948-11-22 1 Restaurants of the Peninsula

1948-11-22 1 L’Omelette

L'Omelette in Palo Alto

 Quote "We ate here a few times c. 1970. It was torn down to make a strip mall, see Herb Caen, 1995
column,

And so it goes: Louis Borel's Chez Louis in Palo Alto, a landmark since 1932, when it opened as the beloved
L'Omelette (or ``L'Ommie's'' to generations of Stanford students), closes in May, [1995]"

The last of the great old restaurants of Restaurant Row came down in 1995. It was known for years as L’
Omelette, a cozy, wood-paneled restaurant that looked something like a French farmhouse. Legend has it
that through much of 1940, Jack Kennedy, while on a stint at Stanford Business School, held court at a certain
L’Ommies barstool surrounded by a regular throng of groupies.

Having thrived through the ‘50s and ‘60s, L’Omellette became Chez Louis in 1981 after new owner and
French chef Louis Borel took over and entertained the likes of Joan Baez, Bill Walsh and Hewlett and
Packard. But after 20 years, the old master could no longer compete with the chain restaurants that had
closed in on him. As Borel told the San Francisco Chronicle with a tear, “It doesn't fit. You can't make it fit.
It is a restaurant from another era.” In 1995, the old place finally came down, bulldozed to make way for the
Walgreen’s that stands there now.
1948-12-6 Linoleum Block Christmas Cards

The best part about linoleum printing is how satisfyingly quick and easy the printing is. Carving the block is
another story.

This wallet
was created from the Tandy Nanette Wallet Kit using the pattern
that came with the kit. The background was dyed black with oil dye,
the rose was colored using Cova Color The project
was stained with Tandy's Antique Stain. The entire
project was double loop laced.
v
1949
q
v
Marion Ellison
PS’s
1. We are packing the formal to mail so watch for it.
2. Did you get your other’s Day card and did you like it? I’ll write my letter tomorrow nite.
First Anniversary Cake 1949 Photo WCWyatt
at Walt’s Mom’s home in LB
…..Continued in ‘Dear Folks’ Letters by Jean Wyatt Part 2