A Personal Reflection: Goodbye to 754-3093

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Blog Post #50

By Tonya Graham McQuade

Talking on the phone in the kitchen on Kendree Street

Recently, my dad had me call to cancel the phone line at their home on Minta Lane. He and my mom are moving to an assisted living facility, and even though he’ll be going back and forth between the two for a while, he said they could just use their cell phones. I also cancelled the internet service and Direct TV, but neither of those carried the same weight for me as canceling the phone number with which I grew up: 754-3093.

We moved to Antioch when I was four years old. My dad had accepted a teaching job at Antioch High School in Industrial Arts, and my parents purchased the house at 2300 Kendree Street. I quickly began meeting some of the neighbors, and soon found myself roller skating with Suellen, Tonja, and Trina who lived next door.

That Fall, I started Kindergarten at Turner School and met my first school friends: Karen (who lived just one street away) and Margaret and Sandra (who were quite a few blocks away). I also met Jamie, whose mom was my teacher, but Jamie was in the other Kindergarten class and didn’t become a close friend until we had the same teacher the following year.

As we grew older and began exchanging phone numbers, “754-3093” was the number my friends would call to reach me. No area code was required in those days, at least if you were calling locally. I can still remember many of my friends’ old numbers, even though I haven’t called them in years. Ask me if I remember any of my current friends’ phone numbers. Ha.

Back then, we had one phone in the kitchen, with a cord that was not very long and a rotary dial. Even when the push-button style became much more common, we still had a “dial phone” because, according to my dad, the “push button type” cost more. I don’t know if that was actually true - I just remember how long it took to dial numbers with 9’s and 0’s like ours.

There also wasn’t a whole lot of privacy when you had to talk on a phone in the kitchen. At some point, my parents added a phone in their room, and I do remember sneaking in there sometimes to make calls where I could enjoy some peace and quiet and not worry everyone was listening to my conversation.

When I was in eighth grade, we moved to Minta Lane, into a house that my parents built. Our phone number moved with us – and we added an upstairs phone extension that I could use. Eventually, we got a phone with a longer cord so I could bring the phone into my room. Ah, that felt like such a luxury! LOL. I still had to argue with my brothers about who was or was not “hogging” the phone (it was usually me), but still, there was more privacy than talking in the kitchen.

Of course, kids back then still had limited “phone control.” There was a good chance your parents would answer the phone, so you couldn’t exactly “hide” who was calling you, and callers faced a good chance of having to interact with your parents. Some did this better than others, earning your parents’ praise or “concern.” Young people today, who grow up with phones in their pocket, don’t know how good they have it.

In college, I had to adjust to a series of new phone numbers each year, tied to the dorm room or apartment where I was living. Sharing a phone with roommates was not always easy – nor was settling the bill at the end of the month. “Who made that long distance phone call?” was a common refrain. “Not me,” was the usual response.

Still, through my various living situations in those college years and the early years of married life, my parents were always there if I needed to chat. All I had to do was call 754-3093. Of course, by then, I had to add the area code, which had changed from 415 to 925. And, back then, every long distance call cost extra, so you had to weigh the number and length of your calls carefully. We wrote more letters back then – at least, I know, I certainly did.

I’ll never forget the first phone call I made to my parents from Osaka, Japan, where I had moved after college to teach English. My dad couldn’t believe how clear the call was. He thought I must be calling from somewhere nearby – that I must have decided to return to California early. No, I said, I’m calling from Japan. Truly, the wonders of modern technology, we both thought.

Now, of course, long distance calls are included in most (all?) people’s phone plans; and email, texting, Facetime, and Zoom have changed the way people communicate globally. When Anna was living in Hong Kong and Italy, and when Aaron was living in Japan, I could easily message them, email them, chat with them, or talk to them through Facetime where I could even see their faces and get a look at their apartments or the world around them. So amazing!

I could never text 754-3093, nor could I see my parents when I spoke to them using that number, but that number always meant home. It’s where I knew I could find them. It embodied my early history, my early friendships, my early romances. It was the “permanent” number that didn’t change while so many others did. It was the emergency number I listed whenever I traveled to other countries; the number I called when I had my own “emergencies” and needed help.

Now, if I call that number, I hear that it has been disconnected. My parents have moved on, at least for now, to TreVista Senior Living in Antioch. My father will still be spending time at the house, but he said their friends can call them on their cell phones.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “I’m sure,” he said.

So, it’s time to officially say goodbye to 754-3093. You’ve served the Graham family well for fifty-four years. I'm sad to see you go. May someone else connect with you in the future.

The House on Minta Lane

I hope you've enjoyed this blog post - the 50th I have written! Recently, I was excited to learn that my blog was chosen as one of the “15 Best San Jose Blogs and Websites in 2025,” coming in at #10. Check out my website for more information about my writing, to see some of my photographs, and to easily find additional blog posts. You can also sign up for my quarterly newsletter by emailing me at tonyagrahammcquade@gmail.com or by subscribing on my webpage.

Watching Grandpa Spin the Potter’s Wheel

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Blog Post #49 

By Tonya McQuade

William Adolph Graham – or WAG as he always signed his pottery –

at work on his potter’s wheel in Calimesa, California, in the early 1970's.

Recently, my father gave me several more pieces of my grandpa’s pottery as he and my mom continue to downsize. I’ve always treasured the pottery my grandpa, William Adolph Graham, was able to create – especially since I can remember watching him sit at his potter’s wheel making some of these pieces. It amazed me to watch a lump of clay, helped by a little water, turn into a towering piece of artwork at his hands, and it’s something I’ve always hoped to learn myself someday. 

One of my favorite pieces is also one of his tallest at almost 18 inches. It sits on a prominent shelf in my living room, next to two other pieces he created, atop the wall unit my father built. I love that there are family ties to so many of the pieces of furniture and artwork in our home.

Three of WAG’s vases, sitting atop the wall unit my father, Douglas Graham, built, and in front of a line of books I also inherited from my grandfather

Three of WAG’s vases, sitting atop the wall unit my father, Douglas Graham, built,

and in front of a row of books I also inherited from my grandfather.

William Adolph Graham was born July 15, 1911, to Henry Hunt Graham and Francis Ethel Deakin Graham in Tooele, Utah. After graduating from high school in Twin Falls, Idaho, he hopped a train to California. There, about ten years later, he met and married my grandmother, Margaret Ruth Traughber. My father, Douglas William Graham, was born soon after, followed by two more daughters – my aunts Donna and Mary. 

The family moved around a lot in those early years, but by the time I knew my grandfather, he had settled in Southern California. I remember visiting him at homes in quite a few different locations there – Calimesa, Onyx, Bakersfield, and Visalia among them. It was in Calimesa, according to my father, that WAG started making pottery. He took some classes, bought himself a potter’s wheel and an electric kiln, and also made a gas-fired kiln. “He wanted to get good enough to sell it,” my father said, “but then he moved on to the next thing.”

Some of his pieces I have had for quite a while now, sitting on various shelves in my house. Apparently I need more shelves - I’m running out of space!

These three sit together on a high shelf in my dining room.

I love the etching on this one!

This one serves a utilitarian purpose: a Chip & Dip Bowl.

Some of the newer pieces have had to displace other items that were previously on display. Perhaps I will need to set up a rotation schedule for my artwork! LOL. I really do love the tea set below, though, which actually has four matching cups that go with it. It brings to mind this quote attributed to Lao Tzu: "We mold clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that makes the vessel useful." I’ll have to be sure to actually USE this teapot sometime, as well as the above Chip & Dip Bowl.

Tea Pot with Sugar Bowl and Creamer (with four cups that match)

And I think these are some of his prettiest vases:

I would love to see how he made this one!

They all have such unique designs; the one on the far left sits on a base.

This one, we use in our kitchen to hold plants:

And here’s one that can be used as a pitcher:

In putting this post together, I also learned that my father had to teach ceramics one summer, the one time he taught summer school at Antioch High School. The course included both wood shop (which he taught many times as an industrial arts teacher) and ceramics (which he only taught that one time). He had my grandfather bring his potter’s wheel to Antioch so my dad could practice making pottery for several days. He said he actually became pretty good!

My father, Douglas Graham, practices at the potter’s wheel as my brother Cam looks on.

He told me a story of one memorable lesson he had the class do – and it sounds like one they would remember! He explained the instructions ahead of time to his students. They were going to be “monks” working at a monastery making bowls, each student forming their bowl in the shape they wanted with their own hands, operating under a vow of silence. 

When they walked in the next day, the students entered into a dark room filled with the sounds of Gregorian chant music. They were each given a lump of clay and a candle – the only light they would have to work by. My dad said they all took it very seriously, and no one talked. They kept their vow of silence. As he recalled,  he really liked teaching ceramics because, unlike with woodshop, “there was no right way to do it.” He didn’t really like teaching summer school, though – he needed time to “follow his own bliss” – so that was the only time he taught ceramics.

My grandpa also liked to follow his own bliss. Over the years, he had many hobbies and artistic pursuits, often taking classes to learn new skills. In addition to his pottery, I have some of his paintings and pencil sketches, including an amazing portrait of an eskimo, some beautiful landscapes, and a couple of Bodie outhouses. He became fascinated by the many outhouses scattered around the well-preserved ghost town of Bodie after a visit to Bodie State Historic Park in Bridgeport, California, and he sketched quite a few of them.

Portrait of an Eskimo

Mountain Landscape

Desert Landscape

Bodie Outhouses

I love that he had such a creative spark – and I love that I now have such a great sampling of my grandpa’s pottery. My parents also still have quite a few pieces, as do my brothers and my aunts. Hopefully someday, I will be able to add to my collection with some pieces of my own. With my retirement fast approaching in June, I may finally get the chance to sign up for a pottery class. Until then, I’m happy to be able to admire and display WAG’s beautiful artwork.

I hope you've enjoyed this blog post. Check out my website for more information about my writing, to see some of my photographs, and to easily find additional blog posts. You can also sign up for my quarterly newsletter by emailing me at tonyagrahammcquade@gmail.com or by subscribing on my webpage.

A Letter from California - 15 Sept. 1860, Placer County

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Post #23

by Tonya Graham McQuade

Civil War letter written by James Calaway Hale, 

with flag sewn by his daughter, Mary Ann "Mollie" Hale,

which he carried with him through the war

Today, I'm sharing an excerpt from chapter 7 of my draft of Missouri Daughter, my historical fiction novel that incorporates the Civil War letters written by my GGG Grandfather James Calaway Hale, to wrap up my earlier posts (#13-19)  about family members who headed West along the Oregon Trail and Mormon Trail - some to California during and after the Gold Rush; some to Walla Walla Washington; and some to Salk Lake City, Utah.

This chapter includes a letter from a friend from Andrew County, Elias Edwards, who made the decision to stay in California. I love his descriptions of the California scenery and social customs and troubles of the time, and I'm very impressed by his vocabulary and writing style. While the actual letter is dated September 15, 1860, I change the date in the book to March 1863 for the sake of the storyline.

The excerpt I'm sharing opens with Bailis (my great great grandfather) and Mc (McDonald, Mollie's brother) heading to the post office after a fishing trip.

Missouri Daughter, Chapter 7:

... Two letters were waiting for them at the post office in Savannah: one from Papa and one from their old friend Elias Edwards, who had been living in California for quite a few years now. They had not heard from him since he had left, so both Bailis and Mc were excited to read the news.

“We’d better wait to open the letter until we get back to the house,” Bailis suggested. “We don’t want the others getting upset at us for spoiling the fun.”

 

They stopped to pick up Mollie and Jimmy before heading down the road to take Mc home. There was plenty of excitement when they all walked in with the giant catfish, crappy and trout, two letters, and 75 cents from their catfish sale that Mc presented to Mama with a grandiose display. Mama beamed at him, and it made his heart glad. Then she eagerly urged them all to sit down and asked Mollie to read the two letters.

 

Mollie decided to start with the letter from Elias since it had been many years since they had heard anything from him:

 

March 1863 – Iowa Hill, Placer County, California

 

Dear Mollie and Family,

 

I received a letter from a friend of mine a few days since in the vicinity of Savannah, Missouri, who informs me that it is your request I should write to you a letter and that if I do, you will answer the same. Many years have elapsed and many changes taken place since I last saw you all, and although it has been my lot to form many new acquaintances and fond ties of friendship, I still remember you all fondly.

 

I hear, Mollie, that you and Bailis have now married. Let me offer my best wishes for your happiness. As for myself, sad to say, I find myself having to answer to that accursed title of Bachelor. You request me through my friend to write a good and long letter. Sadly, a good letter is something I am not capable of doing, and to write a long one gives birth to a question in my mind as to what subject would be the most interesting to you. However, I have selected the longest sheet of paper that I could find, and should I find interesting matter enough to fill it, I suppose you will give me credit for the effort.

Actual 24", double-sided letter written by

Elias Edwards, dated Sept. 15, 1860 

 

I suppose you often read glancing accounts of this country and that you often converse with those that have been here and shared the inconveniences of a California life (from which you have no doubt become as conversant as with the geography and general customs and habits of the country as I am myself), a repetition of which would only serve to wear your patience. Notwithstanding, I consider it due to myself and to the state in which I live to say that nature has done its part for the Pacific Coast. The climate is of the best, the sail of the quickest, the water of the purest, the Bachelors of the plentiest, and the hauls of the fastest.

 

If you have an eye for scenery, you ought to come to this country. Travel when you will on the Pacific Coast, and you will daily see something new to excite your admiration. The valleys of California are decidedly the most beautiful part of the globe I ever laid my eyes on. The mountains of California are also blessed with some very interesting scenery, and the climate is equally as pleasant as that of the valley, although the fact of its being so very rough and hilly makes the mountains not so desirable a place to live as the valleys. But yet in consequence of their mineral wealth, the mountains are thickly populated; in fact, the improvements that have been for the last few years continually going on go to prove that people are continually becoming more permanently located, and I think the time is not far distant when the mountains of California will be second to no mountainous country in the United States.

 

The time has been here that good society could not exist, but the emigration of the finer sex has wrought a material change in the last few years, and I am proud to say that at the present time society is tolerable good and still improving. There are some churches and Sunday schools established throughout the state. There may be found in almost every little town and village in the state a Masonic Lodge and an Order of Odd Fellows. We have good schools – also singing and dancing schools. We have social parties. We have good and well-conducted balls. In short, we have everything in this country that there is anywhere, but the great difficulty is we have too much vice and too little morality.

 

Also, we have too many old bachelors and young men and not enough old maids and young girls. There appears to be a great many ladies in this country at the present day, but yet in comparison to the opposite sex there is but few. I have never heard of an old maid in this country yet; in fact, few girls live single here to see their eighteenth birthday. A great many gain in the enviable pleasures of matrimony at the age of fourteen and fifteen years, while others become impatient and place themselves under the protection of some fatherly old bachelor at the age of thirteen, in the majority of instances marrying men of about twice their own age. The fact of the girls marrying so young here makes them a scarce article in the market. To give you a more correct idea of the matter, I will just state that within the last year there has been some eight weddings in the vicinity, the girls ranging in age from fourteen to eighteen years and the men they married from twenty-five to forty-five.

 

It is impossible to get up a ball or party in this country without the attendance of married ladies, a great many of whom expect the young men to go and take them the same as though they had no husband nor no half a dozen brats to leave at home. To illustrate the matter more plainly, I will just say that a few nights since I attended a ball – what we call a very good ball – the participants of which consisted of eighteen females of the following description: eight married ladies, six juveniles, and four young ladies; thirty-four males as follows - three married men and thirty-one young men and bachelors from the age of twenty-one to fifty. The above is about an average for this country.

 

The scarcity of young ladies is a great drawback to this country. So now, dare I say to widows, old maids, and young ladies – you want to marry and be of service to your country and add to the rising generation, come immediately to this country and redeem some of the despairing bachelors from a life lonely, miserable, inconvenient, and contrary to the plans of God.

 

One year ago I paid the valleys a visit – was gone from here some four months. In my travels over the valleys, I saw and made the acquaintance of your Uncle Jahue Brown but have not seen him since I left there. I shall expect an answer from this letter immediately. Please give me all the news. This is not very fashionable paper that I have written on, but if you will only send me long, full-filled sheets of the same lines, I will be satisfied.

 

From Your Faithful Friend,

Elias Edwards

 

Elizabeth’s ears perked up at the mention of her brother Jahue, from whom she had not heard any news in several years. He had never been good at writing letters or keeping up with the family, and he tended to move around a lot so it was hard to know where to write to him. She was glad to know he was alive and well. Just two years before, her mother had written to her from Tennessee, desperate to get in touch with Jahue because he had some debts that had come due, and his land was going to be sold to pay the debt if he did not take care of it. Elizabeth wondered now what had ever come of that. She did not like to recall how anxious her mother had sounded in the letter.

 

Jahue was quite similar, she thought, to James’s nephew Enoch, the prodigal son of James’s oldest brother Lewis. When Enoch had first journeyed to California, Lewis went more than a year without knowing whether he was alive or dead – then finally, a letter came one day. Soon after that, Enoch had traveled all the way to the Sandwich Islands, two thousand miles west of California in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! No one in the family could fathom such a journey, but Enoch eventually returned home with heart-stopping tales of tropical forests, dancing natives, giant banyans, swaying palms, delicious pineapples, sweet-fleshed coconuts, colorful fish, breaching whales, and spewing volcanoes.

 

Now, Enoch was back in California, married and living in Butte County. Last she had heard, he was serving there in the Union army. Elizabeth wondered what that must be like for Lewis – having sons fighting on both sides in this dreadful war. At least with Enoch living thousands of miles away on the west coast, it wasn’t likely he would ever encounter one of his brothers on the battlefield.

 

Suddenly remembering where she was, Elizabeth returned to the moment at hand. “When you write back, Mollie, please be sure to ask Elias if he has a postal address for Jahue,” she requested. “I know my poor mother would be glad to hear from him. In her last letter, she said she wasn’t sure if he was alive any longer.”

 

“I will,” Mollie reassured her. “I wonder how the two of them ever met!”

 

“It sounds like Elias would rather not be a bachelor,” Bailis said, with a tinge of jealousy in his voice. Elias clearly had fond memories of Mollie – perhaps too fond, Bailis thought. “I think he’s hoping we will encourage more of the young ladies here to set out for California!”

 

“Well, if this war keeps going on, there might be an abundance of ladies both old and young here in need of husbands,” Mollie said, with a sense of sorrow in her voice. “So many of our brave Southern men are leaving their homes, never to return.”

 

“So true,” Mama said with anxious concern. “Perhaps it’s time you read Papa’s letter. I want to know if his medicines have been working.”

 

Mollie opened the letter, then looked up with worry and fear in her eyes. Papa was no longer in Arkansas – his letter, dated a week ago, was coming from the General Hospital in St. Louis.

Benton Barracks, where "Papa" (James Calaway Hale)

spent time in and out of the hospital for almost two years

I hope you've enjoyed this "peek" into Missouri Daughter - which I hope to see published sometime in the future. In my next blog post, I'll be sharing one of my favorite letters - from "Rachel at Rebel Rendezvous" - who tries to convince Cousin Bailis to see the error of his ways and join the Southern cause!