The 5 Lew Kids
As Adults
MOVED TO PRIVATE

Calvin Charles Lew 

(January 12, 1961) lives in Lincoln, California, not far from where we all grew up in northeast Sacramento. He has been working for Save Mart grocery (formerly Albertsons and Lucky) for many years in their warehouse. He turns 62 in January 2023, but may continue working for another year before he retires. His second wife, Joanie Fernandez, was a regional manager for Save Mart, until she had a stroke in mid-2022. They travel more than any of us nowadays, mostly around California with their RV, but also to Cabo San Lucas. They are also avid golfers, which is something they do on most of their trips. 

Calvin discovered he was a half-sibling from a DNA test in 2020. Jürgen had previously taken a DNA test which showed the half-sibling status. Through the DNA test, a likely cousin in New Mexico contacted Calvin and told him who is likely father is. But the person who might be Calvin's half-brother there is not interested in following up on that and does not want to take a DNA test. (Jurgen wonders if the man who whistled for the police to take him and our mom to the hospital when he cut his hand at 1411 Q Street might have been Calvin's dad.)

Calvin has four children from his first marriage: Stormie Dawn (9/3/87), Cari (Carissa 6/3/90), Calvin Jr. (7/20/92), and Gabby (Caroline May, 5/8/95), and one child with Joanie, John Pierce (10/8/02). They all live in the Sacramento area. John is currently studying engineering at Sacramento State University. Cari has a son (Julian 1/30/11) and Calvin Jr. lives in Yuba City and has three kids (Easton 10/7/18, Laney 8/3/20, and Caleb 12/15/21).

Monika Jean (Lew) Masuda 

(November 2, 1959) was small and thin when she was young because of her allergies to foods. She had to have a special diet separate from the rest of us. But she survived and eventually became a cardiovascular technologist, graduating from Portland Community College and Oregon Health Sciences University in 1989. While in college in Roseburg and Portland, she also took photography classes and set up a darkroom in her bathroom.  

She has two boys from her first marriage, Micah (7/17/79) and Nathan (11/10/80). Lauren was born between them (5/20/80) and she got to know them well growing up. For example, the three of them went to Oahu, Hawaii, to visit Ronnie and Mark with our mom in July 1993. 

Micah is currently an electrician for the City of South Lake Tahoe, where Monika also lives. He and his wife, Heather (10/4/81) who is a real estate agent. They have two kids: their daughter Hudsyn (8/2/12) and their son Landen (9/7/15). They are about the same age as Lauren’s kids, Isla (8/21/12) and Liam (12/9/16). Nathan grows marijuana in Sacramento for sale to dispensaries and is not married. He rents a duplex that we siblings inherited from our dad (we call it the "24th Street house").

In addition to Oregon, Monika previously lived in Utah before moving to South Lake Tahoe where she now lives. Her partner is Nathan Chen, a Chinese American who grew up on a farm in western Washington. He is retired from his former business and is now a ski instructor at the Heavenly Valley Ski Resort. Monika is also an avid skier and outdoor person. 

Veronica (Ronnie) Anne (Lew) Button 

(December 9, 1957, to May 10, 1996) As mentioned previously, Ronnie lived with our Chinese grandparents in San Francisco from about age 2½ to 5, before she started school in Sacramento. Like our mom, Alan, and Monika, Ronnie was very interested in photography and inherited Alan's old darkroom equipment from high school. She continued that interest after high school, getting Bachelor's degree in photography/art in college. After college she worked for a time for Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco. 

Mark Button was Jürgen's friend at UC Santa Barbara. He and Ronnie first met at Jürgen's graduation in 1978. But it was on the Colorado River trip through the Grand Canyon that Jürgen organized in mid-1985 that they got to know each other really well. After she and Mark married in 1988, Mark and his brother-in-law founded the OddzOn Toy Company, which introduced the "Koosh Ball", and which made them multimillionaires who retired young. Ronnie and Mark tried hard to have children. After many failed attempts, she was in the early stages of a pregnancy with triplets when she suddenly died of a brain aneurism in 1996. 

Even though we all went to St. Philomene Parochial (Catholic) school, Ronnie was the only one of us who was religious in adulthood.