Love Letters & 100 years

From a letter dated July 17, 1942, addressed to "My Most Beautiful and Beloved Wife":

My Darling I've been been so busy with samples I'm near worn out. How we'll ever make it by Sunday I don't know -- I may have to go down Sunday morning and make some sort of set up with James -- If so I'll let you know for sure even if I have to telegraph. So don't worry. If that happens I'll come down Monday & Tuesday and rest with you. (In bed)

***

Recently, my mother, Brad's daughter and youngest child, has underwent breast cancer treatment, so we've had a lot more time to spend together. Just the other day though we did something that I've been wanting to do for a long time - went through a trunk of my grandparent's things, trying to piece together their history. Many pieces of memorabilia were among the items we found. Here are a few:

My grandmother's wedding dress.

It was, I swear, only 12" wide as she was *tiny* due to Grave's disease, a hyperactive thyroid disorder, that was "cured" when they removed her thyroid gland; Brad Keeler's high school yearbooks, which prove to me that greatness cannot always be measured by academic or athletic achievement as he was not on any of the dean's lists (in fact, it appears, from one of the autographs in the book, that he made many trips to the dean's office!), nor was he involved in sports, or any other club for that matter, save for the photography club, the only record of him personally in the book. The club was responsible for taking the senior class' portraits, but no portrait of him appears in the yearbook, except the group photo of the club; also, we found newspaper clippings and photographs galore, including some rather racy (for the time) photos he took of his wife, my grandmother, as well as letters that he wrote her when she was spending the summer in Laguna Beach while he continued his work at their home/factory on Delay Drive.

Here is a photo of my grandmother Catherine, sitting on the very trunk that my mother and I went through:

This was taken on her birthday, June 18, 1944, two years after the letter excerpted above. She was 32 years old.

My mom and I had gone through the entire trunk and had moved on to a box of my grandmother's belongings taken from her home after she passed away in 1979. These letters stayed in her direct possession all that time - 27 years. So much had happened in those years, the years between when Brad passed away and when she did. It would not be inaccurate to say that she fell apart after his death. What kind of love does that to a person? Only the most intense, I would think.

Here is their wedding photo. Aren't they adorable?

The sunglasses, I am told, are not because he wanted to look cool, but because he had the measles!

February 4 would have been Grandpa Brad's 100th birthday. Happy birthday, and happy Valentine's day to one very loving and lovely couple.

Happy 99th Birthday Grandma Catherine!

Dear Brad Keeler Artwares enthusiasts,

A few tidbits to share:

First, last February would have been Brad's 99th birthday, and today would have been my namesake's (they were born the same year), so I'll give you a little bit of background about her here.

Catherine Maude Gutting was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Jennie and John Gutting. When she was a teen her family to moved to Southern Calfornia. She had one sister and twin brothers, one of whom went on to become Chief of Police of South Gate. ***Feb 18, 2013 - CORRECTION: Catherine had TWO sisters - Elizabeth and Ethel - and THREE brothers - John, Clarence, and James Earl; none were twins. John later became Chief of Police in South Gate; he was the one with twin sons. (Much grattitude is owed my Uncle Brad & my mom Heather for noting these corrections, and many apologies for not making the corrections months ago when they were first noted - where has the time gone?)***

When she was 22 she married Brad Keeler. By the time I met her she was in her sixties. Some of my earliest and best memories are of spending time with her: I would stand behind her and "do" her hair in a style which I called the "Lucy O Ball" (Lucille Ball!), or she would read to me from one of the many Golden Books she gave me, or from the catechism (she was Catholic). When she died I was only seven years old and I inherited a number of pieces from her collection, including one that bore her name (so, one from after Brad died and before the factory shut down). Here it is:

Also, thinking about Father's Day, and the not-so-long-ago Mother's Day: A few years back we took my mom out for a Mother's Day breakfast in downtown Riverside, after which we walked around a handful of local antiques stores. I was searching for something to display my recently-acquired tulip tea set and found what I thought was the perfect thing. I paid for it and brought it home, and then my brought something out: A photograph of my grandmother Catherine standing in front of a nearly identical display shelf! I had no memory of the shelf in her house, but surely somewhere stored in head was an image of this "perfect" display piece, and it was the same as hers!

The only downside to this "perfect" shelf is that it collects some serious dust! But I'm glad to be continuing on the tradition.

***

Speaking of Mother's Day, I received as a gift this past Mother's Day a beautiful pair of quails. For some bizarre reason I can't make this photo go the right direction, so I recommend turning your head rather than the computer monitor to view it in the correct orientation...! :

***

In reader news, since January, I've been contacted by at least a dozen of you -- looking for information about his work, offering information about the pieces you own, and generally thanking me for providing some history about his life and work. You're all the reason I'm doing this, and while my blog posts may be sporadic, I am always just an email away, and make every effort to respond in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, sometimes things do get lost in my inbox -- correspondence for my other occupations as a writer, editor, and staff for the nonprofit literary organization Inlandia Institute, as well as all the junk mail that I get, tend to overwhelm my inbox. So if you don't hear back from me right away, please feel free to drop me a second email as the first may have gotten lost.

Here is a recap of the pieces described in the emails that I've received.

- a pair of cranes, 713 & 714, described by Lake Vortex as "rare", which have been in the reader's family since 1954 at least!

- a pair of Chinese pheasants, 38A & 38B:

 

- Rooster cookie jar

- Peacock/Peahen pair, 701 & 702

- A bird & a duck, without specifc item numbers listed; here is a photograph of a duck & a couple of birds from my own collection.

- Fish pitcher

- A siamese cat ceramic lamp, which I don't a photo of, and which I am slightly mystified by: I have never seen one, and the search I did turned up a man named Howard Ball who worked for Leland Claes, a ceramics artist who specialized in ceramic lamps, many with siamese cats. One theory that I have is that perhaps Howard tried to recreate the lamps under the Brad Keeler label, but I have no definitive evidence at this time. For the curious, here is a page about the Leland Claes lamps:

http://www.tvlamps.net/claes_lamps.html

- AND! A family member - daughter of my grandfather's brother - found this site. She also has an extensive collection of his work that I am hoping to post photos of at some time.

***

Thank you all for your interest in this site, and for any family members or others who might have known Brad Keeler who are reading this: I'm always happy to make corrections! Just let me know. :-)

Happy Collecting!

Update from my Uncle Brad

The photo above was taken outside the family home in Glendale, as pictured in the photos in the earlier post. In the photo stands my grandfather Brad Keeler, my grandmother Catherine, who is presumably pregnant with my mom, Heather, and my uncles Brad (firstborn and namesake, right side, his mom's around him) and Patrick (who died of a heart attack at the age of 36). 

I've just received word from my Uncle Brad, via a letter from his wife, my aunt Sharon, that some of my facts are incorrect. Just goes to show how family fable can and does go awry sometimes!

I have made a couple of corrections to my previous post, but in short:

1.) Brad Keeler never had a glass eye, though I assume (?) that he did lose functioning in one of his eyes after an incident with a car while working at this father's gas station in Glendale; and

2.) He did not die after working in the yard of the Laguna Beach home he and his family were renting, but in a hotel in Los Angeles while overnighting there with his Grandma Catherine. Also, he apparently had a heart condition that required that he maintain a rice diet, so will have to learn more!

I am now curious which hotel, and what kind of heart condition.

Watch this space for further updates!

Finding Grandpa Brad

For months my mom had been hinting at wanting to take a trip to Forest Lawn in Glendale to visit her father's grave. Over the years we have made infrequent trips, and she has fond memories of picnics on the lawn even as a small child, when her dad was alive, because other family members had also been laid to rest there.

I had been hedging just a little bit, because it's such a long drive for us, but when the opportunity and the time came available (my children were on summer vacation) we all made the trek and I am so grateful to her that we did.

First, if you have not been there, Forest Lawn is immense -- and lush. As you drive in you are greeted by a massive, Tudor Revival-style structure, a pond with sculptures in and around it, swaths of green open spaces, and trees that tower and merge above the winding asphalt roads.

My mom went in to double check she had the right key (yes, key -- more about that later). When she returned I started up the minivan again and we proceeded down the road, making our way through the cemetery past sections with fantastic names like "Wee Kirk O' the Heather" and "Little Church of the Flowers".

After driving around for a bit we finally came to the Court of David. Once we had parked and made our way into the Court, we thought it would be simple to go in and find Grandpa Brad's grave. How wrong we were. First, the courtyard itself is lush and invites reflection -- it's a square, with a large sculpture at one end and other sculptures scattered throughout, with benches and grass and trees.

All along the sides are enormous bronze (at least, I think they're bronze) doors, each leading to a separate "Garden of Memory". We had to find the right one, and then once inside had to scroll through the rows of graves trying to find his. My mom's recollection of where it was was pretty close, but still, when it's ten years between visits, it's difficult enough to remember how to find the section let alone which row.

But, as indicated by the very first photo on this post, we did eventually find it.

The flowers were plucked from a nearby bush and placed on his grave by his great-grandson, my youngest son, Bradley, of course named after him.

Once we were done here we left through the door came in from, but going out the inscription reads "Garden of the Mystery of Life." Mystery, indeed. One minute you're here, the next you're not. Or, sometimes, you linger for a few days before you pass, like Grandpa Brad. [If I'm getting the story straight, he was trimming a tree in the front yard of the home they were renting in Laguna Beach {clearly not getting my story straight! see below} (the new factory in San Juan Capistrano was under construction and they had plans to move, thus the temporary rental -- but what a temporary rental it was; one of these days I'll get some photos of that house, which was spectactular, with a steep stairway down to the beach below) when he began to feel strange. He didn't know he was having a heart attack and so did not go to the hospital and instead stayed in bed for several days before he finally passed. But who at his age would guess they were having a heart attack?] My Uncle Brad, Brad Keeler's firstborn, has corrected me: Brad Keeler and his wife, Catherine, were staying in a hotel in Los Angeles when he suffered the heart attack. Apparently he had an ongoing heart condition that required he mainatain a rice diet. I will have to learn more about this and will post more when I do.} He was only 39.

I am now a year older than he was at that time.

So, as I was saying, after reentering the Garden of the Mystery of Life we found our way to the mausoleum where the family crypt holds the others: Bradley B., Grandpa Brad's grandfather; Rufus B., his father and an acclaimed ceramacist and tilemaker himself (just google Adamson House and you'll be in for a treat); Mary B., his mother; and Byron R., one of his younger brothers. His brother Phil just recently passed away but is not interred here. His sister Jeanne (Jean) is still alive and well as of this writing.

After we left Forest Lawn (which is home to the resting places of some other names that might be familiar: Mary Pickford, a silent film actress who is buried in the same "garden" as Grandpa Brad, as well as Marilyn Monroe, and Michael Jackson) we found the house that Grandpa Brad had custom built and which my mother remembers best.

The lot is gated but we managed to get the caretaker's attention, who was chasing a deer off the property (see photo above), and he let us in to look around.

But I'll save that for another post!

Oh, and along the way we drove past the gas station that Grandpa Brad worked at as a young man, and where he (not so famously) lost an eye while working on a car. Did you know that? He had one glass eye. There's your Keeler trivia for the day. [CORRECTION: My aunt Sharon, wife to my uncle Brad Keeler, my grandfather's namesake, has written to me to inform me of a couple of corrections, one being that Brad Keeler never had a glass eye! I was sure that was the story my mom had told, so will now hopefully getting in touch with my uncle to clarify more so that I can be sure to get my history correct.]

More soon, and happy collecting!