Forward by Byron R. Mayo, Nov. 7, 2012 I Idolize
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Forward by Byron R. Mayo, Nov. 7, 2012 I idolize my father. It was inevitable. I suspect every kid given half a chance will put his dad on a pedestal. I know many kids never got that chance and I feel all the more fortunate for having the relationship I did with him. He wasn't perfect by any means, but his flaws were too few to keep me from making him my hero. I feel like he opened the doors to the world for me and invited me to do anything and be anyone I wanted. Most of my own memories start about age 5 when he started teaching me to play chess and buying me science kits monthly, both things that opened doors and started journeys that became my life for which I forever thank him. Everyone who knew him thought him utterly charming. But he was a very quiet, very private man and as we grew older I realized just how little I really knew of him. Dad's memoires were begun in his retirement at the age of 74 in 1996 and arrived in the mail chapter by chapter as a serial novel over several years. Dad's creative energy was boundless and he very generously took up this project at my urging so I could know him better. It should be noted that at the same time, Dad was writing and editing the VOMPC Petanque Times for the Sonoma club and game that became his second family and passion in retirement. What started out as an intended 6 chapter life story became 17 chapters that cover the period from 1922 to 1943. And between talking and writing and playing Petanque with Dad during this period of his life many of the layers he opened up helped bring us much closer together. It also turned out to be quite a tale! Dad loved writing, he majored in Journalism at the University of Oregon and learned to turn a phrase and express himself in very engaging prose. Thus his memoires turned out to be not just his story - they are a story of the Roaring Twenties, The Great Depression, Prohibition, the tide of War... a story of a life reflected in the prominent people and events of his time and his personal place woven into that time. It's a story he tells with love and candor, with energy, humor and thoughtfulness, and in the end, it's a story worth reading whether you knew Byron Willard Mayo or not. For the few of us who have read this, it was surprising, revealing and entertaining. And I greatly wish he would have written more. The understanding of the influences that shaped and in some ways flawed my father make me love and appreciate him so much more. This is not an ordinary life. Dad was not an ordinary man. I am proud to present the gift of my father's memoires to his friends, relatives and anyone who enjoys a great tale. This is it. Dedication This will be a very personal and revealing memoir. For Cathye and. Byron Robert: It will provide you with new insight into the environment, people and experiences which influenced my life—and indirectly, your own. For dear Mary: It will provide you with an even deeper understanding of the lucky kid who grew up to be yours. I love you all 1928—Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, Henri Matisse painted "Seated Odalisque,” Jack Sharkey became world heavyweight boxing champion, Herbert Hoover was elected president of the United States in a landslide victory over Al Smith, George Gershwin wrote “An American in Paris,” Sonja Henie won her first Olympic ice-skating gold medal, the country’s Number One pop song was “Makin’ Whoopee,” the Jazz Age was drawing to a close—and my parents were divorced, after 15 years of marriage. I was six years old. At the time, I was devastated. I loved both my mother and my dad very much. I remember my dad, Byron Albert Mayo, as a fun-loving man of integrity and good common sense - with a joyful Irish sense of humor. When my mother left him and filed for divorce in the summer of 1928, he was head timekeeper for a Portland, Oregon, construction company. At that time, my mother, Dellavina—everyone called her Della—was a vivacious, ambitious young woman. She wanted more. Much more. With the divorce, she soon discovered she had settled for less. ONE Family Connections y great-grandfather, Louis Martell, emigrated to the United States from French Canada following Mthe American Civil War, searching for fame and fortune. He never found either one. But he did discover a petite and pretty French teenager named Mary. Born near South Bend, Indiana, she was living with her family in Lake County, Michigan, at the time Louis spotted her. They were married in January, 1872. I still own a formal, tintype wedding portrait of the two of them. He was a handsome, swarthy, rakish-looking character. Louis and his teen-age bride settled in Berrien County, Michigan, in a Catholic district colonized by French-Canadian émigrés. He felt right at home. Their first of six children was born October 27,1873. The eldest was Josephine, who later became my grandmother. She was followed by Fred, Lillian, Elizabeth, Phoebe and Noah, the youngest. There was a span of almost 20 years between the birth of Josephine and Noah. (The family pronounced the name Noah as NU- WEE—a French-Canadian corruption rhyming with Dewey—which I always found pretty funny.) Josephine grew up to be a plain but passionate woman, still unmarried at the mature age of 22. She did much of the cooking for the entire family. Then, she met my future grandfather, James Thad Dewey, a lusty, hard- working, French-speaking, ranch hand from nearby New Buffalo, Michigan. She'd found her man. *** Born August 2, 1874, Jim Dewey came from French and English stock. His mother was Margrit Gugine, a French-Canadian. His father was Phelix Dewey. He had two brothers, Albert and Sam. Albert eventually married and had three children—all boys. Sam remained an untamed bachelor all of his life. Jim Dewey and Josephine Martell (he called her Jo) were married in the late summer of 1896—and my mother was born some three months later on November 24. She was an only child. But she was not truly alone. My mother and Aunt Phoebe Martell were both about the same age. They played together as children. And they remained close throughout their lives. *** Times were hard in Michigan at the turn of the century. My great-grandmother, Mary Martell, had died not long after the birth of Uncle Noah. Jobs were scarce. Unemployment was high. The future did not look promising. Meanwhile, the railroads were promoting the good life in the Pacific Northwest. After much family soul-searching, they succumbed. The entire family— Martells and Dews—headed West. They settled in Vancouver, Washington, across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. All except Sam. For reasons I still do not know, Sam broke away from the family and moved to Chicago. “He changed his name to Sam Constantino. And traveled, he did...with a rough crowd,” my grandmother once told me. She let it drop there. It was some 30 years before the family heard from Sam again. *** In Vancouver, Washington, the Martells and the Deweys started over. They were strong, working-class people. My mother entered second grade in the local Catholic schools. However, it was a painful experience for her, At that time, she could speak only French-Canadian, with some smattering of English. And she once told me that she endured teasing and taunting from other kids. This may be one reason why the family went out of its way in later years to avoid speaking or teaching French to me as a child. They also clung to a mistaken and distorted determination to bury their French-Canadian past and become totally Americanized. During my earliest years, for example, while it was common for my mother and my grandparents to speak in French around the house among themselves, they switched to English whenever I was around. As a result, I did not grow up with bilingual capability. One of my genuine regrets. *** My mother did not attend school beyond the fifth grade. When she was about eleven, my grandparents along with Aunt Phoebe moved to Oregon City, Oregon, where they started a new life on the Diamond A river boats. These were shallow-drafted, double-decked cargo boats with huge rear paddle wheels. Along with the cargo, they herded giant log rafts to the saw mills and the paper mills of the lower Willamette and Columbia rivers. My grandmother, Josephine, worked on the boats as a cook. My grandfather, Jim Dewey, worked as a deck hand and logging roustabout. My mother and Aunt Phoebe, not yet in their teens, went along for the fun. They spent much of their time studying from schoolbooks and fishing over the side. “The deck hands watched out for us. And we did a lot more fishing than reading,” Mother once admitted. This was probably the beginning of my mother’s lifelong love of fishing—for food and fun. By the time they were in their teens, Phoebe and my mother were also helping out in the galleys, and eventually won cooking jobs of their own. Come the weekends, however, folks could always find them at the popular dances held every Saturday night in Oregon City.