Emma Thomas was born on 16 August 1894 somewhere in the San Joaquin Valley
near Fresno, California.
She was the 5th of 11 children.
Her parents were Manuel Perreira Thomas and Maria Rosario Rodriques,
both from Pico Island, Azores.
Both parents immigrated in 1894.
The Thomas family worked hard
and became quite well off for immigrants.
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| Back row is: Amelia, Belle, Manuel Jr., Rose, Emma Front row: Grandma is holding Uncle Frank, then I think it is Lucy, then Grandpa is holding Alice. Elvira has not been born yet. |
Emma was a serious child, and grew to be a serious adult.
I rarely remember her laughing out loud.
That is not to say she wasn't kind.
She was, in her own quirky way.
She was a loving great-grandmother who doted on me,
and I loved her dearly.
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| Emma with one of her sisters, always dressed so beautifully! |
I think one reason Emma wasn't very happy
was because she was stuck in an arranged marriage
with a man not of her choice.
The story, as she told it to me, went like this:
Her father had hired a young man, 25 year old "JJ" Carvalho,
to work on the ranch.
Emma, at 15, was curious and friendly.
One evening, she had gone to collect eggs and saw JJ in the barn,
milking the cows.
He said hello to her,
and they began a conversation.
It was all innocent,
and she certainly was not romantically interested in the worker,
who was 10 years her senior.
However, fate was to intervene.
Her father happened by, heard them talking,
and stormed into the barn.
He grabbed Emma's arm and announced,
"There will be no lovers here!"
A few short days later, Emma and JJ were married!
Later, I would find letters and postcards to each from former "friends"
who perhaps they would have rather married.
I would also find in Emma's possession
her marriage portrait,
with Grandpa torn off!
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| JJ and Emma at their wedding. Notice his tanned working hands. |
Being stuck in a marriage he didn't want
may have been what drove JJ to drink so heavily,
there's no way of knowing now,
but he did have a passion for drink.
That didn't make for a happy marriage.
In those days, however, the man was the boss,
and Emma's job was to cook, clean, and do as her husband told her to do.
She was a very strong woman,
who often worked right beside him on the ranch,
which grew over time into a thriving business.
Soon they produced apricots, walnuts, corn, wheat, and had a small dairy.
That ranch, over the years, provided work for many Portuguese immigrant cousins!
In time, they had a family of their own to care for.
My Grandma Mary was the eldest, followed by my Uncle Alfred, and then my Aunt Alice.
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| Back row: Alfred, JJ. Front row: Mary, Alice, Emma |
As was common in those days, families lived close together.
My Grandmother Mary's property bordered her parents' property,
so I spent a lot of time "out at the ranch"
which meant running between the two places.
Grandma taught me a lot of things;
how to butcher and clean a chicken,
how to milk a cow,
how to dig for worms,
how to process apricots with sulphur for drying,
how to make Portuguese Sweet Bread,
Portuguese Beans,
Soupas,
Vina de Olhos,
and Cuerves.
She also "let" me sweep the floors, scrub the tub, and help her wash dishes and clothes.
Grandma did have a vicious sense of humor. I find myself smiling as I remember ...
I remember her always making me tie up my hair
before washing clothes in her old wringer washer,
which she'd drag out of the shed once a week.
It looked a lot like this one:
If I forgot to tie up my long hair,
I'd hear the story for the 100th time about how
"I knew a girl once who didn't tie up her hair.
It got caught in the wringer and pulled all of her hair out of her head!"
That scared the snot out of me!
I'd run inside and tie up my hair!
She taught me the realities of living on a farm!
I guess I was about 5 or 6 years old.
My Grandma Mary and Grandma Emma and I were going to drive
to a nearby town to visit Aunt Alice.
I had been watching a nest of eggs hatch,
and there was one egg left.
I could hear it pipping inside.
I begged to take it along.
Finally, both grandmas relented.
We wrapped the egg up in one of Grandpa JJ's old socks,
and I took it along in the car,
holding it carefully in my lap.
The egg hatched while the women were visiting,
and I had so much fun playing with the new fluffy chick.
I named it "Tardy."
I played with that chick every day.
A month or so later,
I went back to Ma and Pa Cato's house (where I lived).
I then took a trip to visit my mother down south for a couple of months.
(It must have been summer vacation)
Upon returning and going "out to the ranch" to visit,
one of the first things I asked was,
"Where's Tardy?"
Grandma Emma got a twinkle in her eye
and guffawed!
She looked me in the eye and then said, "Where's Tardy?"
"You want to know where Tardy is? I'll show you, come on!"
I followed her out to the washing porch,
where she opened the big deep freeze and pointed to a package
wrapped in white paper.
"There's Tardy!
He's in there waiting for your Avô's dinner!"
I was shocked!
But I didn't cry.
It was just one of the important lessons you learn
when you grow up on a farm.
You don't name your food!
For years, there was no indoor plumbing out at the ranch.
When it was finally put in, people (including me) still used the outhouse
if we were working outdoors.
This was a real problem for me because Grandma had geese
and those suckers were MEAN!
I don't know if you've ever been around a flock of geese,
but they can be more frightening than a barking dog.
They hiss, and wave their wings, and they can stand up quite tall!
Whenever I needed to use the outhouse,
I'd have to go through the geese.
And in order to get back to the barn,
I'd have to go through them again.
Needless to say,
I spent a lot of time inside the old wooden outhouse,
coming up with escape plans.
To this day, I'm more afraid of geese than spiders!
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| Emma with my cousin, Vern Lee, my brother Mark, and Me on Christmas about 1956. |
Little girls can get really dirty on a farm,
so every few days Grandma would tell me to go into the casinha,
where she would run hot water
in the giant cast iron tub and I'd get a bath.
She would scrub me until I was red,
washing my face, hands, feet and legs,
at which point she'd soap up a washcloth and say,
"Here! Wash your coo!"
Didn't take long to learn what my "coo" was!
Soon I'd hop out into a fluffy towel and get dressed,
just to get dirty all over again.
I still remember the scent of the soap . . .
Grandma always wore a dress.
I don't remember ever seeing her in pants, ever.
She wore a big white bib apron over her clothes when she was working.
When she dressed up, she always wore a pretty sparkly pin on her lapel.
My Grandmothers had always promised me I would inherit their jewelry.
When my Grandma Mary died,
my uncle's wife hid away the best of grandmother's costume jewelry.
She told me what I saw in the drawers was all there was,
then after I left,
she sold it on Ebay.
I found the auctions and
I had a friend buy my grandmother's favorite pins and earrings for me
so I do have them and treasure them.
I have one for each of my granddaughters,
when they get old enough to take care of them.
Emma and JJ's 50th Wedding Anniversary was a big event.
Friends and family came to help celebrate.
I have the guest book and I remember so many of those people...
they're all gone now.
JJ died when I was 8 years old.
It was a very sad time for me.
Grandma stayed out at the ranch,
and I'd go out and stay with her whenever I had the chance.
I'd wait and window and can still see her 55 Buick coming up the road.
That thing was like a tank!
In fact, Grandma drove it until she was quite old.
And then, as often happens, there was an accident,
which was not her fault.
One bad thing about living in the Valley is the tule fog.
It can be so thick that you literally have to roll the window down
and stick your head out the window
to be able to see the white line
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| Driving in tule fog! |
Grandma was coming home from church one Sunday morning in heavy fog.
She stopped at the corner of Elder Avenue and 10th Avenue,
opened her window,
and listened.
She saw nothing.
She heard nothing.
And so she turned left onto Elder.
She felt a bump - just a bump...
A guy on a chopper doing over 100 mph hit the front of the car.
He flew over the car and hit the only telephone pole within a great distance.
It killed him instantly.
It also caved under the front left wheel of the car,
and my Uncle refused to have it fixed.
He thought Grandma was too old to drive.
Boy that made her mad as a wet hen!
She insisted it wasn't her fault... and it wasn't.
A week or so later,
I went out to the ranch.
I was worried about what she might be thinking.
She had, after all, killed someone.
I thought she might be depressed.
Aunt Alice said she wasn't talking much.
So I asked her, "Are you ok about the accident?"
Her response?
"That damned S.O.B. shouldn't have been going 100 miles per hour in the fog!"
I just had to laugh out loud!
That was Emma!
Here we are visiting a few weeks after the accident.
Emma, her great-granddaughter (me)
and her 3 great-GREAT-grandsons (my sons)
She was out digging weeds when we arrived.
The wrecked car is in the background to the left.
As Grandma Emma got older,
she spent some time at Grandma Mary's house.
Grandma Mary had moved to Nipomo, over at the coast,
and the weather was easier on Grandma during the winters.
She spent time pulling weeds and working in the yard,
or cooking and cleaning.
She wasn't one for sitting around.
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| With my brother, Mark, who died that year in a plane crash. |
As with all of my wonderful Grandparents,
it was a sad day for me when she died.
She lived to be nearly 94 years old,
a good, long life.
I often think about those carefree days out at the ranch
and wish I could return
to smell the cows,
to hear the meadowlarks in the early morning sunshine,
to hear the meadowlarks in the early morning sunshine,
and to feel the hot dust wafting up between my bare toes
as I run out to play in the cornfields
or to look for kittens in the haystacks.
When my sons or I cook Portuguese food
if I close my eyes,
the fragrance works just like a time machine,
and I'm transported in an instant.
Life was good back then.
Growing up in the 50's in Hanford was good.
Growing up in the 50's in Hanford was good.
Wasn't it?
Yes, it surely was.
A simply precious time.
