by Herman Branin
Photo: Earl and Herman in front of the store
From sometime in the 1920’s I think it was probably about 1925 until 1947 my mother either worked in or owned a store in the main business block on Florida Avenue in Hemet. Originally the business was owned by her mother-in-law, Olive Warner. It had a soda fountain, ice cream, candy, sandwiches and gifts. It was located next to the Hemet Theatre, a very opportune location for this kind of business.
Olive’s husband, Ed Warner, had a store on the other side of the theatre. Ed was my step-grandfather and was married to my grandmother before I was born. He sold tobacco, cigars, cigarettes, magazines, newspapers and candy bars. He had a root beer barrel with the best root beer in town and a popcorn machine. During prohibition he sold a variety of products for making homebrew. The main thing I remember about his store was that he had a radio and at World Series time several of his men friends would gather there to listen to the game. I probably got my first exposure to major league baseball when I was six or seven years old listening to these games. We didn’t have a radio at home. Ed always made a score card for each game and kept a record of the game.
I was probably three or four years old when my mother first started working for her mother-in-law. I have no idea of who took care of me as I can’t recall those days. By the time I was five years old (1926) and in kindergarten we were living with my mother’s parents and I would walk home from school.
Sometime before 1928 my mother acquired the store. I don’t know if Olive gave it to her or sold it to her for a small amount. Since my father gave nothing for support Olive may have felt she was giving us something from which we could make a living. Because of my age I didn’t spend any time at the store until 193l or 1932. In 1931 my mother was given an eviction notice. Bill Martin owned the theatre, the store occupied by Ed Warner and the store of my mother. He passed out the word that my mother hadn’t paid the rent. My mother was furious and wanted to post all her rent checks in the window but Ed Warner talked her out of it. Bill Martin wanted to rent the property to Bill Mincer who had a barber shop across the street. Dick Gauld a property owner who had business property as well as residential property owned the property next to Martin’s and this property extended to Carmelita Street which intersected Florida Avenue. He had a vacancy next to Martin’s which was over twice as big as the Martin store. My mother and Ed Warned agreed to move to Dick Gauld’s store each taking one half. This was completed in 1932 when I was in the fifth grade. My work began after this move.
My brother, who was three years older, and I would go to the store in the morning with our mother at 7:00 AM and do the cleaning. We would then go to school. I usually went home after school. Our normal hours for the store were 7:00 AM to l0:00 PM seven days a week. On weekends I was usually at the store about eight hours each day. Ed Warner didn’t work in the store on Sundays so we had to take care of his business on that day. By the time I was a freshman I usually worked in the store after school. From ninth grade until graduation I was at school until 5:00 PM for athletics, plays and other school activities. I did get time off at night to take part in any scheduled school activities. I could do my homework at the store so I kept up with my studies, but with school and work seven days a week I was a busy boy. From 1936 through 1941 my summer work weeks usually ran 80 hours. From October to June until my brother went to college we each got alternate Sundays off. That is one of the reasons I retired at age fifty-five. I figured by then I had worked for forty two years which was long enough.
During the summer especially during the apricot harvest when we had hundreds of laborers in the valley we had our best sales on Saturdays. On that day the three of us quite often worked seventeen to eighteen hours, and usually stayed open to 12:30 or 1:00 AM. No child labor laws then. In the Fall of 1935 my grandfather, Herman Johnson, with whom we lived, fell from a ladder while shaking walnut tree limbs so that the nuts would drop and broke several ribs. The biggest source of income for the Johnsons was selling chicken eggs. Since my grandfather could no longer take care of the chickens this task fell to my brother and me. My grandmother would gather the eggs and pack them but she of course couldn’t wrestle the 100 lb feed sacks so my brother and I would feed the fowl first in the morning before going to the store. My grandfather was able to take over the feeding in about a month or six weeks but not the cleaning of the chicken houses. My brother and/or I cleaned one chicken house each Saturday morning before going to the store until we got out of high school.
In 1937 Ed Warner wanted to retire. Olive lived full time in Oceanside as she had for several years as she didn’t like the summer heat of Hemet. My brother and I bought out his interest. No formal papers were signed and I always considered it my mother’s property. She probably thought my brother and I would take more interest if we had ownership. I never told her I hated the business and was waiting for the day I was finished with it.
My brother graduated from high school in 1937 which was the end of my sophomore year. He was to attend junior college for two years and then I would attend junior college for two years. After that we would determine what we would do. In his first year of college my brother had a lot of illness ending finally in a tonsillectomy. He lost a lot of school, didn’t do well and withdrew. This meant he didn’t get his two years in before I graduated from high school so I had to stay at home for a year and work while he completed his second year. My brother must have felt about working in the store as I did as he joined the navy after completing junior college. Regardless I knew I was going to start my higher education in the fall. I started at Pasadena Junior College and soon got a job in the school cafeteria. I was able to arrange my schedule to go to classes from 8:00 AM to noon and work from 12:00 to 4:00 PM. I was thus able to pay for all my expenses except room and board and I went home every other weekend to work in the store. I obtained $30.00 a month from the store to pay my room and board.
My mother started using high school girls part time to help her in the business. In the fall of 1941 I transferred to San Diego State and through a friend obtained a place to get room and board for $22.50 per month that included three meals a day. I soon got a job in the gym to give me some spending money and the store only had to provide me my room and board. I continued to go home every other weekend to work. The second semester 1942 I obtained another job with the city of San Diego as a playground supervisor at a school in Logan Heights. The hours were 3:00 to 5:00 week days and eight hours on Saturday. With the two jobs I was able to pay all my expenses and except for an occasional Sunday when I might go home and give my mother some help I was free of the store.
When the semester ended I went on a forty-eight hour week with the City of San Diego and remained living there. In August I went into the Army and my relationship with the store was at least put on temporary hold. I returned home in November 1945 with the intention of returning to college in 1946 for the spring semester. I had $100.00 a month coming for three months from the army and I anticipated this would carry me until money from the G. I. Bill for college would start in February 1946. After a few weeks I could see my inaction bothered my mother so I started doing odd jobs rather than go back to the store. When the word got out I soon had more work than I could handle but I would go to the store sometimes in the evening or on Sunday to give my mother some relief.
In the summer of 1946 when I came home I again did odd jobs and only went to the store to give my mother some time off. I finally decided that I was going to have to get my mother out of her business before she broke down. Therefore, in 1947 I told my mother I would not return to college for my final semester unless she sold the business. This she did within a few months without me telling her I never intended to carry out my threat. I can only look back on those years from 1930 to 194l with wonder as to how we managed to hang on. The business did get us through the “depression” probably the worst in the history of the United States. If you added up all the hours my brother, my mother, and I put in from 1930 to 1941 I bet the earnings would be less than ten cents an hour.
During the war years the hours of operation were cut drastically because of blackouts on the west coast and a cut back in the products she sold. I believe except for Friday and Saturday nights she closed when it got dark and therefore had a little life for herself.
In hindsight now it is too bad I did not save the first copy of the many comic books that came out in the 1930’s such as Superman and Batman.