Lola May Kirk Miller Howe

January 25, 1883 – April 18, 1957

My grandmother, Lola May Kirk and her mother Martha Ella Sayles Kirk Hasman.

The first and only time I met my Grandmother, Lola, was at the apartment in Oakland where Uncle George and Aunt Eileen were living around 1952. I must say that she made a dramatic entry through the front door wearing a broad brimmed hat and sporting a cigarette attached to a long holder. I was blown back by her appearance as I had expected a little old lady similar to Aunt Cora. Instead, here was this woman that was more like Rosalind Russell or even Tempest Storm.

Her eyes fixed on me, and with a grand gesture, she swept across the room to embrace me with a wet kiss and an exclamation something like, “Oh, my, here is my wonderful grandson.”

It was never revealed to me why on this occasion we were all together to share ourselves with our long absent mother and grandmother. Later I came to learn that she had lung cancer, and that this was intended to be a reconciliation or sorts before she died.

During the weekend we had together, I felt that she truly was glad to see me, but there was also a tension in the air because we had nothing much to talk about. It was more like a group of strangers at a cocktail party trying to be polite, knowing that everyone would go home sooner or later. Indeed, my grandmother was estranged from us; her grandson and her daughters.

At the end of our visit several days later, we took her down to the Oakland bus depot where she boarded a Greyhound bus back to Los Angeles. I remember her waving to us from the bus window with tears in her eyes. Even at my young age I wondered if she was mulling over the decisions that she had made in her life; abandoning her husband and three children for another man and another child, a half-brother to my mother, aunt, and uncle.

In the picture, below, Lola, her second husband Lee, and son Bob are duded out like Hollywood celebrities just in from a do at the country club. Aunt Cora looks like the sweet old lady that I always remember.

I think this picture was taken in Los Angeles (or Oakland) where my grandmother lived. From left to right, Bob Howe, my mother’s half-brother, Aunt Cora, my grandmother and Lemar (Lee) Howe, her second husband. The picture is dated June 5, 1932.

I’ve always had the feeling that my grandmother dreamed of living in the fast lane. She probably wasn’t cut out to be a farmer’s wife living on a sheep ranch in the middle of nowhere.

According to Irene, while living at the ranch, my grandmother started corresponding with Lee when he was in San Quentin Prison! Apparently, this was through some kind of "pen pal" program through a church. The correspondence bloomed into some kind of relationship, and my grandmother talked my grandfather into hiring him when he got out. Subsequently, adultry and pregnancy exploded the family.

Aunt Eileen's husband, George, told me that my grandfather was willing to claim the new child, Bob, as his own if she would give up her paramour, Lee. My grandmother, was either smitten with her lover, or just wanted to get away from the ranch, or both, so she declined my grandfather's offer. Consequently, they were divorced, and my mother, Eileen, and Mardin stayed with him.

The whole melodrama proves the rule that truth is stranger than fiction.

Lemar, my grandfather’s hired hand, became the ticket to the new life, even though I don’t think they ever had any money to speak of. Why else would my grandmother have to take the bus from Los Angeles to Oakland to see her grandson?

How I wish I’d been more attentive to ask Irene more about my grandmother. Irene was more like a sister to my grandmother than a niece. There must be more to my grandmother's story, but it is now lost.