# 123 CARING FOR THE GRANDCHILDREN
Alfred Jolley (1877-1916) was the middle of the three
children born to James Jolley (1843-) and Sarah Litchfield
(1855-1885). His sister Laura Elizabeth was born in 1873 and his brother
Frederick Litchfield Jolley was born in 1880. It was when mother Sarah died, aged 30,
that the family began to disintegrate. Father James moved often to find work
but eventually he was unable to support the children. Alfred was 12 when he
entered Barnardo’s Stepney Causeway in London. Alfred remained there for seven
months before he emigrated to Canada as a Home Child and it most likely that
that he never saw his brother ever again.
FREDERICK LITCHFIELD JOLLEY
Fred was born April 30, 1880 in Rushden, Northhamptonshire, the younger brother to Laura and Alfred Jolley. He was 5 years old when his mother died. Unable to provide for the children, his father placed the two young boys in the Barnardo Home at Stepney Causeway, London. Seven months later, Alfred shipped off to Canada, leaving behind10 year old Frederick.
A year later, August 20, 1891, Frederick sailed to Canada
aboard the Numidian. He came to Toronto, but soon went to the USA. (Hard
to believe that an eleven year old would strike out on his own like this!) Alfred mentions that Frederick had found work
in a furniture factory in Rochester. (This suggests that the two brothers were
in some contact.)
By1901, Fred had moved to Detroit and was working as a house
painter. He married Gertrude Benson on November 12, 1901; he was 21, she 18. Two
daughters, Laura and Gladys, were born.
In March 1918, Fred came back across the border and enlisted as a
sapper with the Canadian Engineers 7th Field Company. But two months
later, and before he was shipped overseas, he was discharged as medically unfit. It was found that Fred had a serious and chronic heart disease; this would have left
him short of breath, fatigued, and unable to sustain even moderate exertion.
The Canadian Expeditionary Force simply could not keep a man with a failing
heart in uniform. Doctors attributed the cause to lead poisoning; this makes
sense as Fred was a house painter and exposed to such toxins.
But not to be deterred, Fred returned to the US and in
August he enlisted as a private with the US 12th Engineers, B Company.
He was sent to France where he most likely laying track,
building sidings, maintaining locomotives/rolling stock or working as part of
the track gangs that kept supply lines open for the armies; he was not front-line infantry. Railway engineers were vital to the
supply chain behind the front. He returned home to his family in April 1919.
For health reasons, Fred was unable to work.
Sometime in the 1920s, the couple moved to Bostonia, a semi-rural suburb
outside San Diego, California, known for its citrus groves and 5-10 acre truck farms
(vegetables, poultry). No doubt, Fred moved there for health reasons; the warm,
year-long, dry air would have been a much better climate for his heart
problems. “Families often reported that a relative with heart troubles perked
up simply by being able to sit outdoors year-round, breathe clean air, and
avoid the harsh winters of the Midwest.”
Fred died June 11, 1949 in California, aged 60. Gertrude died in San Diego County on January 13, 1973, aged 90.
Los Angeles National Cemetery
One thing that stands out about Fred and Gertrude was their dedication
to family. Perhaps, because he very well understood the pain of family
separation, he and Gertrude stepped up to take in, and care for, their various grandchildren.
SECOND GENERATION
LAURA HELEN JOLLEY (1902-1991) Laura was the older Jolley daughter. Lack of records makes her story complicated. In 1922 and 1923, she gave birth to Benjamin and then Eileen Jolley. (Family lore names the father as a Stefan MacKowiak, but I cannot locate a marriage certificate nor birth registrations for either child; both children always used the Jolley surname.) In 1925, Laura married Fred Cadman (a Home child) and they had two daughters, Shirley born 1926 and Betty born 1927. Shirley stayed with her mother and Betty went to live with her aunt Helen (Bennett) Sherwood, Gertrude’s sister. (Family lore says that Fred died about 1920 in an industrial accident but DNA evidence suggests that he may have deserted his family, moved to Arizona and changed his name and started another family.)
In the mid 1930s Laura moved to the San Diego area and married Leo Renno. She died there Aug 27, 1991, aged 88.
It was while Laura faced difficulties in her first marriage that her parents, Fred and Gertrude, stepped up, and Benjamin and Eileen moved in with them in California. On the 1930 census, Ben was 8, Eileen 7 years old. This was the beginning of the Great Depression. It was not uncommon for extended family to take in their grandchildren, but life would have been a struggle with a medically fragile Fred unable to work much, and Gertrude carrying the weight of feeding, housing, clothing, caregiving and creating an emotional anchor for the children. Together, Fred and Gertrude tried to build a sense of safety and routine for the children despite strained finances. And the grandparents’ resilience, affection and loyalty must have made it work.
GLADYS DORIS JOLLEY (1907-1937) Gladys was the younger daughter, born in
Detroit on January 26, 1907. Gladys was working as a salesgirl when she met an
Italian-born musician named Mario Thomas Giarusso. (He would later anglicize
his surname to Garrison.) They were married in Detroit on Jun 3, 1922. He was aged 22, Gladys was 16. A son,
Lawrence Vincent, was born the next year and a daughter, Leone May, in 1929.
The family moved to California. In 1935, Glady was granted
an absolute divorce (back in Detroit) from Mario on the grounds that he had
been sentenced to the San Diego Jail. Mario had been caught in Nebraska (using
an alias), returned to California and found guilty of forgery.
On Monday June 21, 1937 Gladys and her ex-husband met at the San Diego county probation office where he was handing over money for the care of their two children. Though they left the office together, Gladys went to the 165 foot Cabrillo Bridge in Balboa Park and leaped to her death. She suffered a broken back and neck and a fractured skull and died an hour later in hospital. Two notes were found in her small beaded purse. One was addressed to her sister, Laura, and the other, to her ex-husband hurriedly scribbled on the back of a grocery bill, read: “Dear Tom, I told you I was going to jump off the bridge and you didn’t try to stop me. You didn’t even put your arms around me, although you said you loved me. Well, don’t think I done this because I still love you—for I don’t—I hate you. Gladys” Another account said Gladys was despondent because her former husband refused to remarry her. Newspapers described her as a “pretty 30-year old divorcee, mother of two children.”
Mario would rejoin his family in Massachusetts. Again,
it was grandparents Fred and Gertrude who brought 14-year-old Larry and 8-year-
old Leone to live with them.
THIRD GENERATION
Fred and Gertrude raised four of their grandchildren—two
girls and two boys. The girls both married and raised families. Both grandsons
served in the military during World War 2—Vincent as a marine corps sergeant
and Benjamin as an army sergeant.
Grandson BENJAMIN FRANK JOLLEY (1922-1945)
In 1940, Benjamin was working as a farm labourer near San Diego. (The previous year, he reported a yearly income of $75 which must have helped with the family’s $7 monthly home rental.) On November 12, 1942 Ben, aged 20, was drafted into the US Army. His basic training and early assignments are not known, but like many young men, he would have moved through a structured system of training camps before joining the Replacement Depot that fed soldiers into front-line units after casualties. On July 6, 1944 Ben was assigned to C Company, 116th Infantry, part of the 29th Infantry. Only a month earlier, the 116th suffered heavy losses as it led the D-Day Invasion at Omaha Beach. Although Ben did not land with them on June 6, he joined a regiment that was now fighting its way through the hedgerows of Normandy, depleted and in desperate need of reinforcements. Less than 3 weeks after joining the unit, on July 25,1944, Ben was promoted to Sergeant, a sure sign of his leadership and steadiness under pressure. Promotions came fast in the summer of 1944 because losses were so high. The Normandy fighting was intense and on August 8, 1944, during the final stages of the campaign, Jolley was wounded in action and evacuated to a hospital. He rejoined C Company in December 1944 as it prepared for renewed offensive operations. The winter combat was harsh. By early 1945, the 29th Infantry had crossed into Germany, fighting through fortified towns and river lines as Allied forces pushed towards the Rhine. It was during this phase on February 25, 1945, that Ben, aged 22, was killed in action.
The US President posthumously presented the Silver Star to Sergeant Jolley for gallantry in action against an armed enemy. The citation read “After advancing some distance east of Julich, Sergeant Jolley's unit was temporarily halted by intense enemy fire. Without hesitating, Sergeant Jolley daringly proceeded to lead small groups of his men forward by fire and movement to within a short distance of the enemy positions. Shortly thereafter, Sergeant Jolley led tanks forward to neutralize the positions. Although Sergeant Jolley lost his life in this encounter, his courageous and skillful leadership contributed materially to the success achieved by his company. His actions reflect great credit upon himself and the Military Service.” Jolley was also awarded the Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster. He is buried in the Netherlands American Cemetery.
Grandson LAWRENCE VINCENT GIARUSSO/GARRISON (1923-2007)
By the mid-1930s, Larry appears to have anglicized his surname; professionally he went by Vincent. Larry enlisted in the Marine Corps during World War II, and while serving on Midway Island in the Pacific, fellow Marines paid him to make sketches of them that they could send home. After his discharge from the Marines in 1947, he enrolled in the New England School of Art in Boston, where he studied for three years. After a short stint driving stock cars, he moved to San Diego in 1951 and went to work for Rohr, an aircraft company, as a production efficiency expert.
Four years later, he opened an art studio to devote all his time to painting and as a portrait artist of couples, families and children. But he started to feel restricted by the structured nature of portrait work so, in 1963, he switched to painting nudes. He took to the form immediately and spent the next four decades trying to capture the graceful line and subtle tones of the human body. Garrison often said that he was captivated by the elegance of women and wanted "to put women on a pedestal." The challenge of capturing the human form was Mr. Garrison's passion. “There is nothing more difficult than painting nudes," he said in a 1983 interview . "Everyone's a critic. If I paint that tree, then it doesn't matter if the branches go this way or that way. But, everyone knows what a body is supposed to look like."
He was known for his style of creating “soft skin”, a balance of delicate colour and style. Several times during his career, his work was the center of media attention. First, in 1980 when his work was destroyed in the MGM Grand Hotel fire in Las Vegas, and again when a portrait was stolen, then recovered, in the home of a celebrity art collector. Works by Garrison, who painted under the name Vincent, are on display in more than 300 private galleries around the world and his nude paintings grace many walls in casinos throughout Las Vegas. Described as “boudoir-style”, “pin-up art” or “mid-century figure painting”, his works are collected by enthusiasts of that aesthetic; prices at auction seem to range between $200-$1500.
Aside from being a celebrated artist, other interests included sailing, racing cars, building custom cars, travel and photography. Larry Garrison died April 12, 2007, in his La Mesa home after battling prostate cancer for three years. He was 83 and was survived by his three children.
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