Since I featured my maternal grandparents yesterday, I guess it is only fair to feature my paternal grandparents Claire and Fleta today. My sister Susan really got to know them well, although by the time I came along, my Grandfather Hoyt was retired and they were spending the winter in California each year. The photograph on the left show them at an anniversary celebration, superimposed upon a photograph I took of their house in the South Side Brainerd neighborhood of Chicago on my trip back there a few years ago. The place looks a little worse for wear these days, but when my grandparents lived there the front and backyards were filled with flowers - my grandfather was a great gardener. My father Nelson had his dental office in what was once the front bedroom of the house, and the front porch was his waiting room. After work each day he was able to visit with them before coming home, which I think was a really nice thing.
Grandfather Hoyt worked for the Rock Island Railroad at their offices on the South Side, and when he retired was able to spend the winters in Newport Beach, California. In the photograph on the right, my grandparents are posing on the rooftop of what I assume is the place they rented there. This was before Newport Beach became the haunt of the rich. When they decided to move to California full-time, they found a very pleasant trailer park in nearby Costa Mesa to live in, and my grandfather continued his gardening there, too. They both spent many happy years there, but I have never considered them to be "Californians, just transplants..
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