Eveline Anville
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Eveline Anville
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Red Bank Oaks History
Lorenzo Irish and Eveline Anville [Knight] Irish - Testimony by Enville C. [Gilliam] Spaulding First I will give my impressions of Grandma [Eveline] Irish, perhaps because she was rather an impressive sort of person and was greatly admired and loved by her grandchildren. She was what every child expects a Grandmother to be, including having a terrific sense of humor. I think I first realized that when I went to stay with Grandma [Eveline] and Grandpa [Lorenzo] during my high school years. She had been a teacher and was quite well acquainted with all the classics of literature. She would read them with me when I had such assignments in my English classes. She was a good cook and they always kept a cow. Of course that gave us fresh milk to drink and use in cooking, and plenty of nice fresh butter which Grandma [Eveline] made. Her sense of humor and sense of the ridiculous was remarkable and there were many times when we laughed over something we had read, or said. Grandpa [Lorenzo], who had practically no sense of humor, thought we had fallen off our rockers. Grandpa was very deaf tho’ and perhaps that was one reason that he couldn’t seem to get a joke, as we saw it. He had been a soldier in the Civil War and had become deaf because of the big cannons being fired too near him. I suspect that he might have become deaf anyway. Grandpa [Lorenzo] was not an educated man – perhaps going thru elementary school. I don’t think I ever heard much said about his schooling. He was a fine man, and wanted all the best for his grandchildren. He was essentially a rancher and made the living that way until his health got to the place where he could not do the hard labor on the ranch. They sold the ranch and moved to Red Bluff, and about the only ranch work he did after that was to help his son [Carroll Irish] during rush times when extra help was needed at lambing time and shearing time – he [Carroll Irish] had a sheep ranch. When my cousins, Almeda and Ethleen Irish were ready for high school, they too came to stay with Grandma [Eveline] and Grandpa [Lorenzo]. I was in my last year of high school when Almeda started as a freshman. That one year was quite a year. We all had the good sense of humor – I guess it runs in the family – and many a laugh did we have. Grandpa’s quietness and reserve did not keep us from having many a laugh. Once in a while, Grandma [Eveline] would let us have a party. Those would be on Saturday night, of course. Grandma [Eveline] always insisted that we must be at home on school nights to have plenty of time to study our lessons for the next day. After Grandpa [Lorenzo] passed away, Grandma [Eveline] sold the house and about that time Ethleen had decided to go to Chico Normal School, so Grandma went down there to keep house for her and her very close friend, Grace Minch. Grandma always said she had been through high school three times, and through college twice. Well, that was Grandma – she could always see the funny side of things. I had married before Grandma [Eveline] sold her house, and we had come to Red Bluff to live near her home. My little son, Tom, went often to stay the afternoon with Grandma. She always had a choice bit of some sort of sweet to offer him – especially lumps of brown sugar. Well, Grandma was quite a person, some would call her a “character,” and Grandpa [Lorenzo] was his dear quiet self, and as good as gold. They were ancestry one could be proud of. |
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Copyright © 2008
Red Bank Oaks Property Owners' Association
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