Picked Off the Cherry Tree: The Life and Times of Robert L. Hamilton

By Linda Hamilton and Robert Hamilton

The Life and Times of Robert L. Hamilton as told to Linda A. Hamilton. In Picked Off the Cherry Tree, Bob Hamilton recounts fascinating stories of a lifetime that started with his adoption and the challenges of growing up poor but loved in Indiana. Moving to Long Beach, California, he made lifelong friends, learned how the upper middle class lived, and blossomed into a leader. Thanks to his mother's insight, he was "always going to college," even if no one ever discussed where the money would come from. At U.C. Berkeley, he experienced life changing events including the loss of a girlfriend to polio, the discovery of a mentor and surrogate father, and a trip to India that would change his views of the world forever. Clearly evident throughout the stories is a deep love of family and friends and the integral role of laughter, hard work, honest salesmanship, and integrity in the life of "Hambone".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257568451

Book preview

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CHAPTER 1

That Charming Boy in Indiana

THE BIRTH OF BABY BOY BIGGS

I was born in Hammond, Indiana, in April of 1934 but my adopted parents did not take me home until about June of that year. I was born at 4 lbs. 10 oz. and when my adopted mother-to-be came to the hospital to see me, she said all she could see were two big blue eyes on a little scrawny baby. But she wanted a baby so badly she selected me. She always said she picked me off the cherry tree.

I did not realize until about a year ago that based on my birth weight, I was probably a premature baby. That’s probably why I didn’t make Phi Beta Kappa (I’m still developing). Nowadays, of course, they keep babies alive at one and a half pounds, but in those days four pounds, ten ounces was probably a big deal.

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That’s me when I had just recently become Robert Lloyd Hamilton, 1934.

I was born Baby Boy Biggs. That was the name written on my birth certificate. My birth-mother’s name, I was told, was Dorothy Biggs. My birth-father’s name was Joseph Davis. Now, my mother could very well have lied about this, but she told me that my birth-mother was a clerk in a bank and Mr. Davis was the head of the bank. He got my birth mother pregnant, but he was a married man and that is why she gave me away. I confronted my mother about this, because I always thought the story might not be true. I said to her one day, years later, Now Mother, you should really tell me if I am your child!

No, you’re not, she said, I did adopt you.

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Me at six months old.

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Bundled up at nine months old.

LUCILLE DEBOK HAMILTON

Her father died when my mother, Lucille, was still in her mother’s womb. He was probably drunk, coming home from a bar. He was a red-haired man; that’s where my mother got her reddish hair. He stepped off the curb and got run over by one of the very few cars in Hammond, Indiana.

A banker came to my mother’s house after he died and gave my Grandmother 25 dollars. He said, We are awfully sorry and we would like to make it up to you, and presented the money. Shortly thereafter, my mother was born. It was 1911.

At that point she had two siblings, Jack, who was mentally disabled, and my Aunt Marietta. Jack was probably five years older than my mother and my Aunt Marietta was two and a half years older than my mother. When Jack started to reach adulthood, he was more like a twelve or fourteen year old mentally. They finally put him in an institution because they worried about his behavior as he got older. He started getting interested in sexual things and that wasn’t too good. So, anyway, there they were. My mother’s mother with a brand new baby and no husband and a 2-1/2 year old and a 4 or 5 year old with mental problems. So, she married another man.

Unfortunately, he was really only interested in having sex with my grandmother; she was still very young--I don’t know if I’ve ever seen any pictures of her or not--and he had no interest in the three children. He just wanted to get rid of them.

When my mother was eleven, her mother died of a blood disease. Then this man definitely did not want these kids around. Jack was in an institution. Marietta, who was 14, was employable. They farmed my mother out. She was sent to live with a family and work on a farm when she was only twelve years old.

The new family treated her like an indentured servant. These people were very mean to her. To add to her problems, my mother had poor vision. She needed glasses terribly, but they weren’t addressing the issue. That’s when she decided that she would go to the convent and become a nun.

She joined a nunnery, not as a novitiate but as a worker. The people were okay there until she was about 14 years old. Then one of the priest’s hands got too personal. So she decided she better get the heck out of there. She went out on her own and started working to support herself at about 15 years of age.

Obviously my mother was smart, but undereducated. She got a job working for two dentists. The main dentist’s name was Dr. Carver. She worked as a dental assistant, not dealing with teeth—she had no training—but putting things away, that sort of thing. She did a good job because she was smart, but she had been living on the street so her language was full of slang like dem, dose, and ain’t.

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My mother at 20 years old.

One day the doctor asked her, Lucille, do you want me to correct you? Do you want to improve your language?

And she said, Yes, you are welcome to correct me. So he and the other dentist worked on her language.

She stayed with her dental assistant job for about two or three years. During that time, she lived in a dormitory with other young women. And she said she had an awfully good time. This was in Chicago and it was a pretty swinging town then (1932/1933).

At one point, she was dating a guy and found out he was a member of Al Capone’s gang. He had money; they went and did things. She liked that, but then on one date, he used the F-word and that was it. She would not go out with him again. If she hadn’t been so offended, I might have been a part of the Chicago mafia.

I don’t know how she met my dad but I really think she knocked him over. Here was this zippy looking young woman who had her hair styled with curls. She was not a handsome woman but she had street confidence; she was a woman who had been around. She married him when she was 22 years old and got me when she was 23. She was already sterile at that young age so she couldn’t have a child naturally.

She told me she wanted a baby so badly, even before she married my dad, that she thought of stealing one. Of course, she was smart enough not to want to go to jail for stealing a baby, so she stole my dad instead.

I’ve got a picture of her from those days. She was cute as a flapper, and she was out doing her thing. I really think she got pregnant and when they aborted the baby they decided, whoever made the decision--maybe it was Dr. Carver--whoever did the abortion made it so Lucille couldn’t have babies, or they screwed up the abortion. She told me she had some operation and then she was infertile. She would never admit to having an abortion.

I don’t know exactly when she found out but I know it was before she married my adopted father, Cecil Hamilton.

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The day Mom brought me home, June 1934.

CECIL HAMILTON

My dad was the youngest of eight children so he was very immature from a worldly standpoint and my adopted mother was very mature. I am sure when he ran across her she surprised him because she had been all around the city and knew how to be out in the world. He was really very impressed with my mother.

He wanted to get married and so did she, but in the last ten years of her life, she revealed to me that she didn’t tell him she was sterile until after the marriage. I was stunned when I found that out. Back then, 72 years ago, adoption was really not done that much, and also men like to have their own children, and she did not tell him. Wow, that blew me away.

But she said to him, Cecil, I want to adopt children, and he said, Okay. So, they both adopted me.

When he would leave in the afternoon to go drink beer, my father would often say, You got your children, now I want to do what I want to do. I don’t agree with his attitude, but for her not to have told him, that was really kind of amazing.

My dad’s parents were Charles and Lulu Hamilton. Grandpa worked for the B and O Railroad. He had the job of raising and lowering a crossing gate. In those days they would have a tower at an intersection and he would sit there with the train schedule. Sometimes it would be coming at one or two o’clock in the morning and you better be damn sure you’re awake. When the train was a mile or two away, he would put the gates down and then after it went through, he put the gates back up. He controlled it electronically from the tower, but he had to be there to make it work. He did that for many years.

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My father, Cecil Hamilton.

My grandparents went for a visit to California in 1937 or 1938. They really liked it out here. Once back in Indiana, they bought a trailer and when Grandpa retired in 1939, they dragged it out to Long Beach and lived in a trailer park, surviving on his pension. In those days it wasn’t a mobile home, it was a trailer park.

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With Grandpa and Grandma Hamilton at Junior High School Graduation, 1949.

A TRIP TO CALIFORNIA

The Depression was still bad and my dad was out of work so he followed his parents out to California for the first time in 1939. My parents’ marriage was okay then, and he brought us out to live with him. I don’t remember much from that trip, but there is a picture of me on a pony and I do remember we lived in this little apartment somewhere near Santa Monica.

I remember the pony guy coming around and my mother finding me somewhere and putting me on this pony and slapping on a little hat that he had.

While in California, we also went to see this woman preacher named Amy Temple McPherson. She was like an Oral Roberts. We went down to hear her speak inside this building. There was a big crowd and the plate came around. The preacher was up on the stage and I will never forget she said, I don’t want to hear change. I want to hear folding money!

I asked my mother, What does that mean? She wants dollar bills, five dollar bills, ten dollar bills. She doesn’t want change, she explained. I don’t remember what my mother put in but it wasn’t folding money.

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Above: Learning to Walk

Below: On Tricycle, 1935.

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One day my dad took me down to the ocean. We were standing on the pier when a truck pulled up and started dumping oranges in the ocean. I said to my father, Why would they do that? He told me, The price of oranges is very low and they want to drive the prices up. I’ll never forget that, watching these thousands and thousands of oranges go into the ocean. Back in Indiana at Christmas time if you got an orange in your sock that was a big deal. We didn’t have any money, so there might be a little toy in your sock, but an orange was a big deal. Any present was wonderful.

My father couldn’t find a job in California. World War II had not begun in America yet and wouldn’t, of course, until December of 1941, so jobs were still scarce. He felt his chance of getting a job was better in Indiana so we headed back several months later, which was too bad. Probably our lives would have been a whole lot better had he found a job on that trip to California.

BACK IN INDIANA: CHITS AND RUDE STOREKEEPERS

We were back in Indiana and the Depression was very serious and my father did not have a job. I can’t remember a lot from that far back. I do remember when Roosevelt came into office. It made us Democrats very happy because he figured out how to help poor people like us. It wasn’t food stamps but we had some kind of chits for food. You could take them to the store and get groceries. Mom often sent me.

I will never forget my mother would say to me, Okay, go down and get bread or whatever I was supposed to buy, but don’t go in Store So and So because the owner would not give us credit. When we didn’t have any money, I imagine the storekeeper was rude to my mother--my dad would never have gone shopping for food--so she avoided that store. I remember going down and buying things from certain stores and not going to others, because they had been rude to my mother.

Then my Dad got a job with the WPA and started working. It was during the summer. We went out one time and they were laying asphalt for a road. It was hot as the dickens that day and the asphalt was so hot it was bubbling.

My dad usually had a job after that but he always kept money for beer. He would give Mother some money, but never all. We never really had the full amount of money and the amount he did give to the family always varied. I told myself: I will never be like that.

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Me at three, summer1937.

HITLER AND THE FIRE

Once he found work back in Indiana, we moved into a second floor apartment. I was five years old. One day, I was walking up the stairs toward our apartment door and I could hear somebody screaming. When I got closer I realized the screaming was coming from the radio and it was in a foreign language. I will never forget this. As I walked in, I asked my mother, What’s that? It was Hitler. My mother was Dutch so she could understand German. She was listening to Hitler rant and rave probably about Jews or about expanding Germany. That had to be around 1939. My mother did not say anything more to me about it. Years later I thought, Oh, my god, I heard Hitler when I was five years old.

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Me at around three years old with our dog.

That apartment was above a bar and I remember one night someone pounded on the door loudly to wake us up. There was smoke that made us cough. We got out of bed quickly and crawled on our hands and knees out of the building. If that person our hands and knees out of the building. If that person had not knocked on our door, we would have all been asphyxiated. By that time, I was about six. I don’t remember being scared, just amazed.

Before the trip to California, when I was three or four (around 1937), I remember we lived in a garage that had been converted into a residence. I don’t think there was any rest room in this garage. I kind of remember there being an outhouse that you had to visit to go to the bathroom. Funny, I don’t remember where the shower was or anything like that but that’s the first place I remember.

REMEMBERING MOM’S BIRTHDAY

The other thing I can remember from that same place where we had the fire was that my mother always made sure that I knew when her birthday was coming.

My mother wanted to be loved. I remember saving my money. I don’t remember how I got money at six years old, but I saved some and bought a little wooden sewing box because my mother was a seamstress. The box had needles and thread in it and was hand painted so it probably cost a couple of dollars. I went out and bought it myself and gave it to my mother for her birthday. She was very impressed.

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Charming the camera at four or five years old.

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Mother had strong opinions; she was an old Dutch woman. If you had a job, you worked hard, and you didn’t lie, and you didn’t cheat. And if you had a job, you did the best you could because they were paying you money.

I’ll never forget one time when I was five or six years old. She had given me enough money to get two ice cream cones. I went into the store, bought them, but on the way home, I dropped one of the ice cream cones. I kept the one in my hand and the one I dropped I gave to my mother. She started to cry. She couldn’t believe that I would give her the damaged cone. I still remember that. I didn’t realize how immature that was. I just knew that it shocked me that she would be upset that I would give her the damaged cone. I thought, Wow. She loves you, but you better earn it. You better toe the line. I just tell the story that I was loved, but I better make sure I didn’t forget her birthday (Bobby, the good boy!).

ENTERTAINMENT & FOOD IN THOSE DAYS

Despite being poor, I had lots of toys as a child. When I was around five, I had my picture taken and I had 20 or 30 toys and silly things surrounding me.

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There wasn’t any TV in those days. My mom and dad were always working. But I had friends. I was out with pals playing baseball, doing things like that and of course, in those days you had special radio programs. I remember Captain Midnight and the Lone Ranger. Oh my Gosh, Lone Ranger was a big deal! But that was mainly it, listening to the radio and playing sports, mostly baseball. We didn’t play soccer in those days. I left that for my kids.

One of my favorite home-cooked meals as a child was chicken and noodles. My mother learned the recipe from my grandma, Grandma Hamilton, how to take flour and egg and make noodles and then put them into this big pot with the chicken. This was a big thing, because whenever we had chicken noodles it meant we had some money. My dad and I would each have a big bowl and chomp on the pieces of chicken in it. The heart of the chicken is only about as big as your thumb, but my dad and I would have a war to see who got it put on their plate. That was a big deal: who got the chicken’s heart. Of course now, I haven’t eaten heart in years, I mean lions like to eat hearts, but I’m a pussy cat.

If I got the heart, my dad would say, Oh my god, Bobby got the heart, I should have gotten the heart.

When we didn’t have money, one thing we ate was called Spanish soup. It was spaghetti with red beans and tomatoes. The tomatoes were always out of a can. If we had money, there was hamburger in it.

We also liked potato soup. It was made out of eggs and potatoes and milk and again, if we had money then it had hamburger in it also. Those were two of our staples: Spanish soup and potato soup. Those were big favorites. My dad liked steak.

SCHOOL IN INDIANA

I started my education in Indiana after that trip to California in 1939. I remember going to first grade in a place called Lakeport. I went only one year there and then we moved to another place in Hammond, Indiana and I went to two or three other grade schools as we moved around.

I was a good student in elementary school. I liked to read and I thought that if you were in school you should get good grades. I am sure my mother discussed it and I thought that was my job: to get good grades. I also had a very good attendance record, which was kind of funny, 100% attendance. I wouldn’t stay home unless I was dying.

We were poor. My parents weren’t educated. But I always really liked school. My mother was smart enough to have flip cards and things like that, teaching me letters and words. She thought very highly of education, which was, of course, beneficial to me. And so by the time I got to first and second grade--I don’t remember going to kindergarten, although I probably did--I was already very well schooled.

THE DOCTOR’S HOUSE IN BLACK OAK, INDIANA

In about 1941 my mother, who had some medical training-- she wasn’t a licensed vocational nurse yet; that would happen later--came across this doctor named Dr. Vracin. Dr. Vracin was a nice guy and he owned a house in Black Oak, Indiana. My mother and dad gave him some money and bought an interest in the house and paid him monthly. That was the first house we ever owned. The doctor worked out of one room. Patients would come in the front door and wait in the hall and Dr. Vracin would treat them in the den. We lived in 80% of the house and he had 20% of it for patients. He had the right to have office hours there several days a week. My mother arranged it all and worked for him as part of the mortgage payment.

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My dad worked for Inland Steel at the time. And then the war came. Dad was frozen in his job and didn’t have to go into the service because his job was considered important defense work. During that time, my mother also became a welder.

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Like Rosie the Riveter, my mother became a welder during World War II.

By 1943 or 1944, my mother was a welder, working on ships. We used to kid her about being Lucy, the Welder, like Rosie, the Riveter. Since she was a seamstress and loved to sew, she really loved welding too. When you weld, you have to make a seam and she used to love to show us how her seams were perfect.

As I mentioned, my parents were gone a lot. I was, without thinking about it, a latch key kid. But I was always a goody two shoes so there was never any problem about me running away or drinking or doing anything crazy.

During that time, my mother also started taking in welfare children. She would be given $20 or $30 a child per month and she would take care