The 5 Lew Kids
Early Years in Downtown Sacramento

We initially lived in downtown Sacramento. As mentioned in Mom Comes to America, our first house was at 1411 / 1413 / 1413½ Q Street, which our dad had bought before he married our mom. When Alan was born in 1955, we lived in 1413½, which was a small apartment that our dad built attached to three garages facing the alley. We moved into 1411 (downstairs) when Jürgen was born. 

We had a peach tree, orange tree, and a vegetable garden in our backyard, along with a grassy area to play in. Our mom said that it was a nice neighborhood at that time, with many Europeans among our neighbors.

Even though all five of us kids were born in that house, none of us really remember living there, except Jürgen remembers getting an electric train set for Christmas in that house (that was 1959). (Alan also remembers the train, but mistakenly thought it was in the 1325½ Q St house.) On Christmas eve, our mom would take us out to look at Christmas decorations and when we returned, our dad would have all the presents out for us. That year, when we came home, our dad had set up the train set on a plywood board. There is a video of showing how excited we were when we got home to get that, along with baby Monika who was less than two months old. Uncle Bill's family had also come over for Christmas eve in that video.  

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Alan Remembers: I was born on April 13, 1955, at Sutter Maternity Hospital in Sacramento, California. According to my mom, my eyes were originally blue. I had no hair at first, but when I did, it was originally blond, then brown, and then black. My mom named me after Alan Ladd, who was a popular movie actor. My mom had a crush on him, as well as Clark Gable. My middle name is after my German grandfather, August Berg. 

The only thing I remember of that first house was when I had chicken pox, I looked out the window at the kids in our driveway below and played my accordion. I would have been 6 years old then. I always thought it was the upstairs window, but maybe it was downstairs. 

Our Mom Wrote: Monica's allergy started when she was 2 months old; allergic to eggs, milk, orange juice, etc., bananas and other fruit, Sobee(?), wheat cereal. In hospital Aug. 16, 1960, for 2 weeks, clears shortly, then get worse again. She is on rice cream now, has constipation from Sobee(?). Back in hospital beginning of Sept. 1960 in San Francisco. She is allergic to rice, also to dogs & cats, house dust, wool. At 2 years she has no more rash, only asthma. She to avoid the above foods. She only eats vegetable and vegetables and meat. She also like jello at 6 months.

She also noted that Alan was asthmatic at times and allergic to animals and flowers. He was also had a nervous condition that the doctor said was due to stress at school and he cries easily. Calvin was allergic to eggs and oranges and had asthma attacks, although they were mild. Jürgen and Ronnie had no significant health issues when they were little.

When Jürgen was 3 [1959], when asked what his favorite breakfast was, he would always say "spaghetti and meatballs."

When Calvin was 3 [1964], he changed a TV ad jingle from "you can tell it's Mattel, its swell" to "you can tell it's Mattel, it smells"

When Alan was 4 [1959], he saw a plane and called out excitedly, "Mommy, it's making the sky dirty!"

1962-3

Alan has a nervous condition. Might be that he has too much to do, with schoolwork and accordion lessons (started Summer 1961). He is better now (April 1962). He eats good and is getting fat around his waist. He is exceptionally good in school, makes good grades and is independent for his age. He was an honor student in the 1st grade. Alan is a confident and popular boy, not shy, helpful to his friends, and takes over at play with other children -- an organizer.

Jürgen is still tall and frail. He is on inch taller than Alan. He is always tired and is still bashful with strangers and new things.  He is witty when around people he knows well, quiet in school, and liked by his friends. He wets often. But his shyness is improving slowly, and he has stopped stuttering. He lives on fruit and juices. 1963: Jürgen was an honor student in the 1st grade. He is not bashful anymore. And he wets no more.

At age 7, Alan goes to the store for me and talks to the neighbors and keep me informed. Both Alan and Jürgen like to ride their bikes and know their way around town. They bathe, dress, and tie their own shoestrings. 

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Our Mom Wrote: Alan went once with Jurgen next door to our house and got into the mailbox. They had a good time tearing the letters apart. The next day there was a knock on my door. Two FBI-men came into my house and wanted to see Alan and Jurgen Lew. Well, they were fast asleep in the bedroom and the FBI-man took one look and gave me a lecture about tampering with the United States Mail. -- I felt like a criminal that was given some time to repent! Those two boys never really told me that they were sorry about this incident. [That was probably 1959 or 1960.]

When Alan was in first grade, he wanted me to let him have a white rat. I did not like that idea and said, NO!. He wrote his own note and gave it to the store. The store gave it to me: "Plees giv my sun a rat. - Mrs Lew"

Alan Remembers: When I was 2, I taught my brother, Jürgen (age 1), how to open the gate to get out of our backyard. My mom says I was always climbing things, and it was hard to keep me from getting into mischief.  

There was a neighbor boy, David Giobson, who was a couple of years older (and much taller) than Jürgen and me. We slept over at his house at least once, but I thought he was too dangerous because he seems so wild and so much bigger than me. I was afraid of him. (Our mom says that we each had our first sleepover at David's house, for me on May 4, 1962, and for Jürgen on May 18, 1962. But my memory was that we both slept over there together.)

I would get a ride to school but had to walk home. I attended half-day kindergarten at McClellan School (I think it was where a newer William Land Elementary School is located today). I had a problem with a bully (a black boy) and my parents switched me to the other half-day class. But then I had another bully, a Mexican boy who lived a block away from me. (His older brother later became a friend of mine.) I don’t remember any specific friends who were boys in kindergarten, but I remember having some girlfriends.

Jürgen Remembers two Mexican boys across the street names Diego and Paul. Diego was probably the bully Alan encountered in kindergarten. Alan became friends with Paul, who was a year older, after kindergarten. Diego and Paul liked to play with matches and would often get into trouble. Diego burned down a large tree and a barn behind their house, for example.

The R Street railroad was behind their house, and we used to put pennies on the track for the trains to flatten as they went by. Alan remembers at least once hopping on the train and riding it a few blocks. Looking back, that was fun, but a very dangerous thing to do!

Jürgen also remembers our first house having a brick incinerator on the alley where our dad would burn our garbage every day. (Mable also remembers doing that in Flagstaff when she was little.) The daily burning of garbage and leaves resulted in poor air quality in most US cities in the 1950s and 1960s. Alan remembers the first Earth Day, when he was a freshman at Jesuit High School on April 22, 1970 (Jürgen's birthday). A priest in one of his classes held a funeral for the planet Earth. 

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Alan and Jürgen used to celebrate their birthdays on the same day. There were always many children at our parties because it was the baby boom and there were lots of kids around who were our age. Johnny and Billy Hurtz (not sure of the spelling) lived around the corner from us and were the same age as Jürgen and me. Our mom and their mom used to exchange babysitting, so we played with them a lot. Alan doesn't remember that, although he does recognize them in an old photo. 

Our mom said she was surprised how easy it was to take care of Jürgen, Ronnie, and me. She thought maybe it was our Chinese genes. But she also said Jürgen and I used to fight a lot as we got older, though not as much as other children. She also said that all five of us started to walk when we were 9.5 months old.

Monika was born in November 1959 and from the start she was extremely allergic to almost all foods (or so it seemed). She also suffered from eczema from about 3 weeks to 3 years old. Soon after her birth, she needed to go to the UC San Francisco Hospital for 1 to 2 months, during which we stayed in San Francisco (though I do not remember that).

At that time, Ronnie started staying with our grandparents in San Francisco. Initially, Ronnie only stayed week at a time with them. Eventually, she stayed with them full time, until 1964 when she returned to start 1st Grade at St. Philomene school. (She attended kindergarten in San Francisco.)

Calvin was born in January 1961 and our dad said he sold the 1411 Q Street house in December of that year to the State of California. The original plan was to build a California State Museum on that block, but that never happened.

The next house we lived in was 1325½ Q St, which was the downstairs unit of a 2-story duplex. We started renting that new house January 1962. There was a small corner store at the corner of 13th and Q Streets, which was the only store Alan remember buying candy and things from.

Our mom said we went to San Francisco every other weekend in those years to see Ronnie and our grandparents. We would stop about half-way (around Davis) to take a break and have a snack by the side of the highway, which people did back then. We would also buy yummy cha-siu bows (barbecue pork buns) and chicken bows ("daih bau" - "big buns") in San Francisco's Chinatown to take back to Sacramento. Our mom did not always go with us on those trips.

That second house was only a block away from our first house. But it was a very interesting block. Facing our house, to our right/east, were a couple of houses with Chinese families and kids. To the left were 2 houses with white families. Beyond them were some houses with black families. Facing away from our house, directly across Q street were more white families. And to the right of them were Mexican families. 

Our mom said that every Easter us kids would get brand new clothes to wear and she and the girls would get brand new hats. Our dad would wear a suit and the boys would wear ties and we would all go to mass at St. Philomene. Afterward we would go to the Capitol Park in downtown Sacramento (at least when we lived downtown).

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Alan Remembers: I went to Holy Angels Catholic School for 1st and 2nd grade. Fortunately, I did not encounter bullies there, and I continued to have my girlfriends (Chinese and Mexican, as I recall). Marbles were a big deal back then and we would set up rolling challenges where we could win (or lose) marbles from other kids. It was gambling and the school eventually banned those games.

For a while, Jürgen and I were into fishing. We would go to a pond near Holy Angels school. I remember getting up before sunrise one day and going over to a Mexican boy’s house to go fishing. We would use tortilla dough as bait, and he told me to get some from a cabinet. When I opened to door, it shocked me to see the cupboard covered with cockroaches. I got some dough, and we rode off to the pond. That really stuck in my mind. I wrote a short story about it in a creative writing class at American River College.

Sacramento gets hot in the summer, and we never had air conditioning in our downtown houses. I recall how all the neighbors would sit out on the steps (all the houses were 2-story) in the evening to cool down on a hot summer day. Also, no one locked their doors in those days.

My early childhood years, before moving to the suburbs at age 8, were kind of crazy. I could go anywhere and everywhere that my bicycle could take me. I think my mom was too busy with all the smaller kids, and anyway, she could do whatever she wanted growing up in Germany (as I noted previously), so I think she took the same attitude toward Jürgen and me.

Something our mom wrote reminded me that I got hit by a car when crossing the street on my bike on June 26, 1961 (6 years old) at the corner of Q and 15th Streets (Fremont Park). I remember flying through the air and ending up in the middle of the intersection. My bike was destroyed. But other than some black and blue bruises, I was OK. (And I think it was my fault trying to beat the light.)

I remember riding with Jürgen several miles to the southern part of the city once (to the Campbell Soup cannery, which is no longer there). We would always ride to downtown Sacramento, which was several blocks and on the opposite side of the State Capitol Park. I remember the Fox movie theater held special matinee movies for kids that cost 2 soda bottle caps to get in. We would ride our bikes to attend those movies all by ourselves.

Jürgen Remembers jumping off a doghouse at our 1411 Q Street house and cutting his hand on a piece of broken glass.  [Our mom wrote this was on March 9, 1960.) He was maybe around 3 years old. He had a big gash in his bleeding hand. Our dad was at work and our mom did not have car. Jürgen remembers that a man, who was a good friend of our mom's whistled loudly to catch the attention of a passing police car. The police took Jurgen and our mom to the County Hospital where his hand was stitched back together. Alan also has stitches in his left knee from an accident in the 1411 Q Street yard, but he does not remember anything about that.

Our Mom Wrote: Alan cut his head (left side next to eye) climbing on our backyard fence in May 1959 and needed stitches. [I remember that event and having a scar. But it seems to have disappeared now.--Alan] 

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We Almost Move to San Francisco

We rented the 1325½ Q Street house because the plan was to move to San Francisco. In August 1962, our dad had found a house in San Francisco, and we all went there for the day to check it out. It was a narrow, 3-story house (maybe Victorian?) near Fulton St and Divisadero St (near the Golden Gate Park Panhandle). Our mom approved and out dad stayed in San Francisco at our grandparent's house/apartment on Fulton St., while our mom brought us kids back to Sacramento. 

But San Francisco was not supposed to happen. 

The next day, our mom took us kids out for a drive and broke her leg in a car accident. We had gone for a ride in our green Pontiac station wagon. Calvin was 1½ years old and Ronnie was in San Francisco. We were driving on a rural road south of Highway 50 with Alan in front and the others in back. None of us wore seat belts back then. Our mom tried to pass another car and the next thing we knew, we had rolled and landed upside down by the side of the road. Our mom broke her leg, and Alan got a hole in the left corner of his mouth that needed stitches. Everyone else was fine.

Our mom was stuck in bed at home after that. We had hired a woman to help my mom out around the house when she could not walk. She had to have a second operation in January 1963 when the steel plate in her leg did not take.

The Panhandle is very close to the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, which was the center of the Flower-Power and Hippy movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is hard to imagine how different our lives would have been had we moved there. 

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Monika Remembers standing at the front door of our 1325½ Q Street house and watching men in white robes taking our mom away on a stretcher. Many years later, our mom told her that they were taking her for physical therapy after she broke her leg.

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Our parents bought and moved into our 2224 Tallac Street house on October 7, 1963. Jürgen (2nd grade) and Alan (3rd grade) had started at St. Philomene Catholic School in September. The new house was close (3 miles) to where our dad worked at McClellan AFB.

Our dad also bought the 1325½ Q Street house in August of that same year. He rented that house for a year and sold it in August 1964 and bought a house on Marconi Ave and Bell Street, near our Tallac Street house. Our grandparents moved into the 1325½ Q Street house in 1964. 

I wonder if our dad sold the 1325½ Q Street house to our grandparents. They lived there until 1974 when the City of Sacramento bought the house, and they moved back to San Francisco Chinatown. Our first two houses were torn down stood as parking lots for decades. Today, the first house is the site of a community garden, and a condominium or apartment building is on the site of the second house.

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Monika Remembers that she, Ronnie, and Calvin would often stay up to a week downtown with our grandparents, probably to give our mom a break when our dad was in Southeast Asia (on and off from 1965-1973). They would play with kids on the block, and there was neighbor who became friends with them. His wife was in Japan and he would take the 3 of them to movies, the State Fair, parks and other places. Our mom seemed to know him well, and they even spent a night at his house. Nowadays, of course, something like that would be frowned upon. 

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Ronnie started kindergarten at age 4 (Fall 1961) in San Francisco and spoke good Chinese. According to our mom, her 5-year-old birthday wish (December 1962) was to come home to Sacramento, which she did probably in Summer 1963. My mom said she needed to improve her English to start first grade at St. Philomene (Catholic) School in Fall 1964. My mom says Ronnie forgot her Chinese quickly after moving back in with us.