Patricia Crantford Raygor - Part 1

1930 - 2020
The dash in my mother’s life was full of action and adventure and some pain.
Little Patricia Crantford was born in a suburb of Philadelphia, on a Wednesday (under the sign of Aquarius). She was born to Gertrude and Horace Crantford – older parents who were certainly from another era.  This was Horace’s second family which already included a 20-year-old daughter and a son.

As she grew, Patti took piano lessons and needed tutoring in reading.  Her little brother Clayton joined the family, then their grandmother Eunice Heg moved in with them.  Packed into the family sedan, in 1937 they moved to California where she grew up.

Patti would later recall they were poor as church mice, but what they lacked in money, they made up for in style.  She calls their décor the original shabby chic!  Grandma Eunice had grown up with her grandparents in the toney Chicago suburb Highland Park in an elegant mansion with a second story ballroom and servants.  By Patti’s day, the money was long gone, but the elegant manners and the extensive and proper vocabulary took center stage.  While the furniture was old, it was newly upholstered whenever needed.  Learning tailoring from Grandma Eunice, Patti always wore stylish, if homemade, clothes and always with the proper accessories.

The family settled in Glendale, a suburb between Los Angeles and Pasadena, where Patti developed a lifelong passion of going to the beach and watching the Rose parade.   She and Clayton explored the wilderness areas in the neighborhood which were still plentiful in the late ‘30s!  They especially loved picnicking by a little bubbling spring in one of the nearby foothills. They either roller skated or rode bikes on their excursions, and on occasion took the street car (on their own).

As a girl, she called herself an ugly duckling.  In the third grade, she was the tallest person in the school - towering over all the kids and even the principal!  She also had a noticeable overbite that made her joyful smile all the more endearing to others but deepened her own lack of self-confidence.

Because her homelife was punctuated by her father’s drinking and intermittent work habits, she found solace in two critical pieces that defined the puzzle of her childhood: the nearby library full of interesting books and her girl groups. 

Each week she took her little red wagon to the library and filled it with as many books as she could check out. After thoroughly reading each one, she would return for more the next Saturday.  At home, the family library consisted of one set of grocery store encyclopedias and a Webster’s dictionary.  During dinner, if there was any discussion allowed over the classical music, it was generally an argument about history, her father’s favorite subject, which required fact checking along the way.

The girl groups started with the Girl Scouts camping adventures.  She fondly remembered her summers spent hiking and sleeping on the ground at Catalina Island.  She also used her little red wagon to peddle cookies from door-to-door, unfortunately without much success.   Unlike her social father and mother, she was shy which doesn’t make for a good salesperson.  Because of her shyness, her father couldn’t see much value in her, and because she was skinny, her robust mother would say, “At least you have nice legs,” the closest thing to a compliment she ever heard when growing up.

One Sunday morning in December when she was on the back porch polishing her school shoes, she heard the radio announcement that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor.  Soon a soldier with a pup tent and an anti-aircraft gun took residence on the neighborhood’s empty lot.  Feeling sorry for him, she would take him homemade cookies which he gratefully accepted.

On the fourth of July during the war, fireworks were forbidden, but that didn’t stop Patti!  Using her junior science kit and supplies from the pharmacy, she made her own!  For years she marveled that she could entertain the family and that no one was hurt!

One night, the whole family heard sirens blaring and searchlights glaring.  They ran out of the house and watched a dogfight right overhead!  The searchlights were aimed at the small planes as they shot and dodged gunfire.  Seventy years later, Patti would meet the man who wrote a book about that Battle of Los Angeles.  He said she was the only eyewitness to the event that he had ever met. Today it is considered an urban legend that never happened.

In high school she joined an ad hoc girls club to socialize and try adventures around the region like heading 100 miles up to Big Bear Lake in a delivery truck just to see snow.  None of the girls were prepared for the cold, they were far more comfortable on the beach. One spring break when they all went to hazy Oxnard Beach 60 miles away by streetcar, she got the first of many sunburns.

Her first real job was as a temp at the 7-story Broadway department store in downtown Los Angeles.  Because of her constancy and desire to succeed, she held a variety of jobs in the store like answer the employment office phone and run payments from the salesperson to the cashier.
One Christmas, they surprised her with a fresh turkey which she had to maneuver all the way home on the streetcar!  (Her mother was thrilled with the gift!)  Her favorite job there by far was assisting in the design department working with fabrics and designers who could turn a ho-hum room into a showplace.  This gave her a dream!

In college she excelled at drafting ahead of the men (much to their chagrin). But even though tuition was free, all the other expenses ate into the money she earned to help support her family.  So, she decided to get a real job and join the Army as a draftsman!  She applied at the recruiting center in downtown Los Angeles where the recruiters acted blasé and bored.  That is, until she finished the aptitude/IQ test.  Hers was the highest score in all of Los Angeles county – ever!  She had never realized that she had an IQ of 160 which more than qualified her for Mensa and any position she wanted in the Army.

She loved being a WAC (Women’s Army Corps). She said it was just like the scouts, but on a grander scale!  She mastered every task they gave her, so they asked her to become an officer.  Years later she finally admitted what she perceived as a failure: she declined the offer.  She didn’t think she was leadership material because she thought she was lazy. 

One of the most unusual assignments she had was as a fashion model!  In 1949, Edith Head designed new uniforms that every woman in the Army would wear.  They needed statuesque WACs with presence to model the new uniforms.  PFC Patti fit the bill!  She got to go to New York, visit Broadway, and be photographed by professionals.  Her image still appears in papers all over the US via internet.

In 1950, while in drafting school at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, she was asked by a long-forgotten soldier on a date to the Rod and Gun Club.  The date turned out to be ho-hum, but the night changed her life!  Across the crowded room she met eyes with the dreamboat who would become her best friend and life partner, Sgt. Lawrence A. Raygor, confirmed bachelor. Six weeks later they were married at the little chapel on base and stayed in a loving committed relationship until he died 39 years later.

Look for Part 2 Next!

John Billington and His Family

As a new member of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, I was thrilled to be able to sign up my 4 grandkids in the Junior Society.  I also wanted to share information about their ancestors, the John Billington family. 
Unfortunately, almost everything I found about him was written from a very negative point of view.  So I conducted a deep-dive search and found a very different picture of him than what William Bradford wrote.  (Imagine if your biggest enemy wrote your history for your descendants!)
Here is what I found about the John Billington family to share with their 13th great grandchildren:

In 1620, long ago when going to school was a luxury and there were no cars or planes for travel, 102 strong and adventurous men, women, and children left their warm homes and sailed on a small ship across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World.  They landed in what today we call Plymouth, Massachusetts where there were no friends to welcome them and no houses to protect them. 

Some left England because they wanted the right to worship God and pray without being told how to do it by the king.  Some left because they wanted a better opportunity for their children.

These Pilgrims included your ancestors, John and Elinor Billington and their teenage sons John, Jr. and Francis.  When half of the Pilgrims died from cold and thirst that first winter, our ancestors survived and tended to the sick by keeping them warm and fed – and did it without grumbling or complaining.

John Billington was one of those who signed the Mayflower Compact, the first American agreement that said all men had the right to vote for their leadership!  He was considered a friendly, fun man who laughed a little too much for 1620.  In fact, when the men were exploring the forest for a place to build their town, they came upon an Indian deer trap with a rope and a deep hole.  While one of the men was explaining what it was, William Bradford pushed his way through to see what it was. He stepped right into the trap which swung him upside down into the tree!  While everyone giggled, John Billington laughed the loudest!  Would you have laughed, too?

After more than 90 days cooped up in the Mayflower, young Francis was so bored he decided to have a little target practice!  In the wooden boat!  Near the powder kegs!  He could have blown up the whole ship, but he didn’t.

Once all the Pilgrims got off the Mayflower, John, Jr. spent his time hunting and exploring.  One time he wandered more than 30 miles away!  He was found by a warring Indian tribe who brought him back covered with beads and feathers.  This was the first time the Pilgrims got to meet with that tribe and pay for the corn they took when they first arrived.

Unfortunately, John Sr., who was protecting his land from a known poacher, shot at the man and nicked him in the shoulder.  He rushed him back to town where the man died, but not before the poacher told everyone that John had murdered him.  As a result, John was hung by William Bradford, the man who was swinging in the tree while John laughed. 

Later, when Elinor was a widow with 9 grandchildren, a newcomer demanded that he should have her land because she was old.  She wanted to give it to her family, but the town officials took it from her and gave it to him.  When Elinor complained to her friends about it, this newcomer sued her for slander!  And won!  She was whipped and fined for complaining about losing the land that she had earned as an original Pilgrim.  Would you have complained if they took your land?

The Billington family came from Lincoln County in England.  They had moved to London where John was a merchant whose business wasn’t doing so well.  That’s why he decided to take that huge risk and buy a one-way ticket to the New World for his family.  Aren’t you glad he did?  That’s why we are here!