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Robinett, Velma (audio interview #1 of 1)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - Velma Robinett was interviewed in her North Long Beach home. TOPICS - family background; farming; schools; rural life; WWI; and churches;farming; churches; family background; 1933 Long Beach earthquake; and oil industry;Signal Hill Ebell Club; North Long Beach Women's Club; family business; farming; churches; and WWII; 4/9/1990
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- 2022-10-21
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- *** File: shvrobinett1.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-1:20)... Brief introduction Robinett was born in Maryville, Missouri in 1910. Her father was a school teacher who also farmed and her mother taught school before she married. One year, when her father was hurt, her mother took over to finished the school year from him. Her mother grew up in Nebraska and her father in Missouri. They moved to Long Beach in 1913 when Robinett was three years old. (1:20-5:42)... Robinett's maternal grandmother and uncle had earlier decided to move to Long Beach and her mother and father decided to come and join them. Her uncle worked also moved to Long Beach and worked as a house mover. When her parents arrived in Long Beach, her father was employed in various jobs, including selling insurance and working in a lumberyard. They attended the First Baptist Church. Her father raised peanuts in their yard and owned a cow. The family moved to a home on Alamitos Avenue and when it rained, their house flooded. There was a foot of water in their house and outside, the water came up to her father's chest. The family moved out using a rowboat that her brother built. They rented a home on Pacific until they were able to move back into their home on Alamitos. Her father then purchased property in Signal Hill. (5:42-12:24)... Around 1915, Robinett's father purchased twenty acres of land in Signal Hill on the corner of Spring and Cherry. He raised vegetables and operated Jones Dairy. As Robinett was growing up, she had a lot of household and farm chores. She alternated morning and evening milk deliveries with her brother. After she delivered milk at 4 am in the morning, she walked to Burnett grammar school where she peeled applies and potatoes in the cafeteria and helped the teachers to fill up the time before school started. A teacher once told her that she was dumb. Robinett believes that she was simply worn out because of her responsibilities. After walking home from school, which was about 7 miles from her home, she had to work on the farm and help with household chores. On the weekends, her family sold vegetables at the public market in Long Beach. Anything left over was sold door-to-door. Her mother sold cottage cheese, ketchup, and butter. She also sold chickens and turkeys to hotels in downtown Long Beach. (12:24-13:59)... Her family's home in Signal Hill was located near a swamp and every once in a while tramps came by begging for food. Her mother did a lot of canning and dried fruits and vegetables on their roof. Once when she was home alone, she heard a noise and saw a tramp looking in the door eyeing her brother's shinny cornet. It "scared the pie" out of her. (13:59-15:26)... Her father built two houses in Signal Hill. The first house where her family lived was moved when Midway Fishing Tool wanted to build nearby. It later became the office of First Western Pest Control. Her father built their second home on Peck Street and it was eventually rented by a paint company. This house later burned down. (15:26-21:26)... During WWI, Robinett and her siblings collected materials to aid in the war effort. Her mother donated all of the pits from the fruit on their farm and they were used to make gas masks. When the war ended, Robinett climbed on top of their barn and to celebrate. Her mother did all of her own canning, as did Robinett when she had her own family because it was the only way to support her family. Her parents raised all kinds of vegetables. They sold tomatoes to the local canneries. Excess milk was stored in cans and left on Cherry Avenue for someone to pick it up. Once a month they went to Los Alamitos in their horse and buggy and collected beet pulp from the sugar beet factory which they fed to their cows. There were other farms near her home. Her family also rode to Orange to pick up food, which was an all day affair. (21:26-22:28)... Robinett only wore shoes when she went to school and to church. Her family owned one horse. She tried to ride the horse to school but whenever she did, the bigger boys untied it and allowed it to get into people's gardens and her father also needed the horse to plow part of the time. (22:28-23:14)... There were very few houses in Signal Hill when her family moved there. There was a small grocery store located a couple of miles from their home. When her family got it's first loaf of "store boughten bread," she was impressed as she was when she got her first ready to wear dress from a shop. (23:14-23:56)... Robinett's family had one brother and four sisters. Her oldest sister was named Mildred and she married an Owings. Her brother was named Oliver Wendell Jones. She was the next child and her next younger sister was named Irene Ada Jones. At the time of the interview, she was living in a guest home in Anaheim. Her youngest sister was Mary and she lived in Claremont at the time of the interview. (23:56-25:42)... When her family moved to Signal Hill there was a barn on the property they lived in that barn until her father finished building their house. There were no neighbors in the immediate area, only open fields. The only girl that she sometime walked to school with lived about 4 miles away. (25:42-26:41)... Robinett's family moved to 1471 Rose when it was time for her to go into the 8th grade. She attended Jefferson Junior High School in Long Beach and that was the 1st year Long Beach had junior highs. Then her family moved again and she went to Poly High School for 4 years and graduated from Poly in 1928. (26:41-28:01)... Her parents did not employ farm hands to help with their farm. They sold various vegetables, animals, and dairy products. Her father owned close to 20 Jersey and Guernsey cows. He bought truckloads of hay to feed his cows. (28:01-28:33)... The family bought shoes and other items from Wise Company or the Army/Navy store in downtown Long Beach (28:33-30:02)... Other than going to Los Alamitos and Orange, Robinett did not travel too far away from Long Beach and Signal Hill. Her family attended Bethany Baptist Church on Olive and Hill. Her parents once tried to give her a birthday party and no kids came to the party out in the country. Robinett, however, made friends with one girl who saw her delivering milk and left a note in the bottle says she's like to meet the little girl who delivers milk. They met and became friends. End of tape *** File: shvrobinett2.mp3 (0:00-1:15)... People who lived on farms had to have many skills and do many jobs. Robinett was left to care for her younger sisters. She ironed clothes by heat the iron on the stove and they used kerosene lamps. (1:15-5:43)... When oil was discovered on Signal Hill a fires often broke out because drillers did not know how to contain the oil. The oil usually ran down the streets until it was capped. Eventually, her father started renting his property out to oil companies and people operating oil-related businesses. At one time, there was a restaurant on their land, then Midway Fishing Toll replaced it. After that, her family moved to Long Beach (5:43-7:10)... When her family moved off their farm, her life completely changed. They lived on Rose until their house was built on 20th. Her father quit farming and managed his Signal Hill property. She continued to live with her parents until she married, 4 years after the moved off the farm. (7:10-8:23)... Robinett met her husband on a blind date set up by church friends. Her father had been her husband's in Sunday School teacher at Bethany Baptist church. They attended Bethany Baptist until her oldest son was a couple of years old. She then switched to Community Presbyterian Church so that her son would not have to cross any streets and could go to church activities by himself. She and her husband were married for 57 years before he died. (8:23-12:29)... Robinett's oldest son was 6 weeks old at the time of the 1933 earthquake. It was very hot and sultry the day of the quake. She was fixing dinner and her husband was holding the baby when the quake hit. Both of them tried to get the door unlocked so they could get out the door. When the the shaking stopped, they turned the radio on and heard there was going to be a tidal wave. They got themselves ready and packed their car in preparation of this disaster; however, they never really believed a tidal wave could reach north Long Beach where they lived. One of their neighbors had a barbecue and another had a well, so they cooked outside and had water. She made her baby a bed in a clothes basket. Later she went to stay with relatives in Gardenia until their gas and water were turned back on. (12:29-15:06)... Robinett's husband was born in Cleveland, Ohio and his family moved to Pasadena when he was six months old. Later they settled in Long Beach and his father started Sanitary Plumbing Company, which has been in her family for four generations. His mother's mother, whose family name was Chanda, owned Chanda Court. (15:06-17:36)... Robinett and her husband had four children. She and her husband decided to move to north Long Beach when they married because it was a comfortable distance from their families. They put a down payment on their house and paid off their furniture before they got married. Her husband did not like to purchase anything on credit and paid cash for everything. They married in 1929 in the beginning of the Depression. She and her husband faired better than others because they did not have outstanding debts when they married. (17:36-21:27)... North Long Beach was known as Virginia City when she and her husband moved there. Their parents thought they were "nuts" when they decided to live in north Long Beach because it was not developed. Robinett used to come to meetings of church's Ladies Aid society in the house where she was living at the time of the interview. Ladies' Aid society didn't meet at the church, but in individual homes. When Robinett found out the house was for sale, she immediately wanted to buy it. When she and her future husband asked her parents for a loan to buy it, her parents took them all over Long Beach showing them other houses they might buy, but finally relented. During the Depression, they did not have a telephone and her husband could not afford to drive to work everyday to see if work were available. A butcher near their home, who had a phone, would come by and tell her husband if anyone called him about work. (21:27-23:44)... The attended Community Presbyterian Church which was located in a bungalow when they first moved to north Long Beach. They helped the church raise money for a more permanent building. When her older son was ready to begin school at Grant elementary, he would stop at a real estate office across the street from the school and the realtor would help him across the street so he could go to school. At the time, she was home with a new baby. During WWII, a nearby grocery store saved bread for her so that she could feed her 4 children. (23:44-25:44)... Robinett and her family lived on a dead end surrounded by about forty acres of vegetable farms. She liked this arrangement because it was a safe place for her children to play. When the agricultural land was divided and sold for housing, her street was extended. Her oldest son attended Grant elementary school for two years and then she enrolled him and her other children in Progress School, a private school in Long Beach. Her youngest child went to Hamilton Junior High School and another child spent two years at Jordan High School. (25:44-26:01)... Her husband worked at Sanitary Plumbing, which was started by his dad. When his did dies, he bought out the business and ran it until he became ill when his son took over. At the time of the interview, her grandson was working there, too. It's the oldest plumbing business in Long Beach. (26:01-30:04)... Robinett describes several photographs of her family's life in Signal Hill. One shows dairy cows, a horse named Prince, turkeys and the barn that her family built; others show buildings in Signal Hill and her family members. She shows favors she makes every month for Meals on Wheels, residents of a rest home on Atlantic near her home. End of tape *** File: shvrobinett3.mp3 (0:00-2:55)... Brief introduction. During WWII, there was so much work in the plumbing business that her husband bought supplied by the carload rather than piecemeal as he had done before. He also hired several men to help with the work. When they moved into their house, there were many fruit trees, berry bushes and other things growing there. She canned fruit every year and cooked and sieved the fruit to make baby food. As time went on, she canned less and they eventually cut down the fruit trees and planted flowers. But she kept the fish pond that were in the yard when they bought the house. (2:55-8:10)... Robinett's mother was an excellent seamstress and cook, but she doesn't believe that she learned to work with her hands from her mother. She enjoys community work and led a Girl Scout troop for 10 years. She also participated in her son's Boy Scout activities. She has 5 grandsons who are Eagle Scouts and 2 granddaughters in Girl Scouts. Robinett continues to be involved with church activities. She taught Sunday School for 25 years and is currently the Community Service Chairman for her church. In this capacity, she manages the Meals on Wheels program, among other things. Throughout her life, she also has been responsible for caring for the elderly and sick members of her own family. (8:10-9:48)... While living on the Signal Hill farm, Robinett did not know very many people who had sugar beet and other vegetable farms. Most of the people she met at church were city folk. The only transportation they had on Signal Hill was a horse and buggy. Some people also drove Model Ts when they could afford to purchase them. (9:48-12:19)... Robinett's father deeded land to the City of Signal Hill to build a sewer system. A few years ago, her family gave more land for a newer sewer system. About half of their land, at the time of the interview, houses the Signal Hill auto mall. Robinett was not involved in her family's business until 1961, at which time she became the manager of her family's land. (12:19-13:33)... When Robinett family came to California, the rode the train that went right down Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach. Her aunt and uncle met them at the train station and it was raining. There were also circus parades along American Avenue and the kids got out of school to watch them. (13:33-20:02)... Robinett's mother was active in church activities and the Signal Hill Ebell Club. In addition to volunteering at the Veteran's Hospital, Robinett served 5 terms as president of the North Long Beach Women's Club. Originally Dove Houghton, whose family donated part of the land for the park near her home, organized the club in her home. Then club meetings moved the the clubhouse at Houghton Park until WWII when the clubhouse was reserved for soldiers. After the war, meetings at the clubhouse resumed until about 10 years before the time of the interview when a child care center was established there. Most of their meetings are now held at the Methodist church. The North Long Beach Women's Club created a historical room at Houghton Park but it was vandalized on several occasions and the remaining furniture was donated to Rancho Los Cerritos. End of tape
- SUBJECT BIO - Velma Robinett's family farmed and operated a dairy on twenty acres in Signal Hill before oil was discovered. After oil was discovered, the leased the land the oil drillers and to oil related businesses and moved away. At the time of the interview, the land was part of the Signal Hill Auto mall. In this single interview, Robinett discusses being born in Missouri and coming to Signal Hill as a little girl. She helped out on the family farm including delivering milk in a horse and buggy. When her family moved off the farm, she continued to attend school and graduated from Poly High. Then she married the son of the owner of the oldest plumbing company in Long Beach and they moved to North Long Beach when that area was still regarded by her family as "out in the country." At the time of the interview, she continuing to live in her North Long Beach home and participating in neighborhood civic activities as well as managing her family's real estate investments. The interview was conducted as part of a project to document the history of Signal Hill. INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - Velma Robinett was interviewed in her North Long Beach home. TOPICS - family background; farming; schools; rural life; WWI; and churches;farming; churches; family background; 1933 Long Beach earthquake; and oil industry;Signal Hill Ebell Club; North Long Beach Women's Club; family business; farming; churches; and WWII;
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