Our "Gram" was born Pearl Richards, either in Kansas or in New Mexico as I try to remember the story, but her father, Charles Richards, took his family to California eventually and landed work in the Warner Brothers First National Studios in Burbank where he became Chief Timekeeper and his employment there was probably attributable to his being a Mason. So he and my Great-grandmother Richards, whose maiden name was Martin (I cannot recall her first name but I remember meeting two sisters of hers, Maude and Trixie), raised our grandmother Pearl and her two brothers Chuck and Frank as the Hollywood cinema industry and the town called Burbank were growing along with the rest of the nation.
Our Grandfather, John Eli Barcus, whom we nicknamed 'Pop' (although he would have preferred Grandpa) was born in St. Joseph, Illinois in 1901 the third child and first son of Charles Barcus and Elizabeth Fiock Barcus, on the farm that I believe they were taking over from her parents who were of German descent and apparently spoke German at home so that Elizabeth Fiock was unfamiliar with English until she began school (her mother's maiden name was Denhart and there were numerous Barcus-Fiock-Denhart Family Reunions over the years so we definitely have a German connection). I believe there were fourteen Barcus children total who lived beyond early childhood. They worked hard on the family farm and I think most of them went on to build their own farms. But our Grandfather John and his cousin Howard Denhart decided they would go to California (perhaps around 1919) and so they loaded up a Model 'T' Ford and drove West with the city of Long Beach their intended destination, and either their money ran out or the Ford needed repair and they found themselves in Burbank.
Howard Denhart eventually returned to the Midwest but John E. Barcus took a job with Standard Oil and married a smart strikingly-gorgeous blue-eyed brunette named Pearl Richards. Their first son, John Charles Barcus, was born November 30, 1926. There were ups and downs of course including John E. losing his job. But the Burbank City Manager at that time, Mr. McCambridge, was a friend of the Richards family and hired the young man who would remain a Burbank employee from before the onset of the Depression until his retirement at age 70. Their children were John Charles, Donald Earl, James, and Mary ("Mary Ann" until she was old enough to keep it to Mary). After they divorced both our grandparents remarried and Grandpa John "Pop" had a daughter, Linda Jean, with his second wife Marjorie.
Further notes on our Richards family connections:
Our Gram Pearl told me she remembered her Great-grandmother Fulton using the expression, "I hate that worse than the Devil hates holy water," which seems like it would be a traditional saying among Irish Catholics, and either the Richardses or the Martins were relatives of the same Mr. Fulton who invented the steamboat Clermont in the 1800s; Bob Richards, the Olympic athlete whose picture was on Wheaties boxes during the 1950s was a cousin or a nephew to our great-grandfather Charles Richards. A minister, Bob Richards wrote The Heart of A Champion and spoke at least once to the Father/Son Banquet at John Muir Junior High in Burbank (before any of us attended).We Barcus/Richards grandchildren started showing up in 1949 after our grandparents divorced but it's good to see that they have been succeeded by great-grandchildren and even great-great-grandchildren so far.
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