The Cracker Box Home on Hendley Street

Jack and Alice were about to embark on a life journey together, “for better or for worse,” with no idea of what better or worse would be. What happened next propelled them into a dream they didn’t even know they had.[1]

Alice’s attractive face and slim frame in modestly stylish clothes made her a shoo-in for a job at Kress’s cosmetics counter. The manager of the five and dime hired her at twelve dollars a week. Good money for a young woman of twenty about to be married.

Jack and a partner traveled the roads of Sonoma County to unload and place new furniture in a home or make minor adjustments to a stove or refrigerator. Being on the road appealed to Jack, who knew Santa Rosa by heart from his youthful newspaper route. A raise from twenty-five to thirty-five cents an hour plus overtime brought in a reasonable income. He and Alice would start married life on a good financial footing.

Jack and his 1941 Pontiac
on their honeymoon

Jack had to ask his boss Dana Poulsen for time off so he could take Alice on a honeymoon. He admired and respected Dana, who owned Poulsen’s Furniture Store, Poulsen’s Appliances, and Jobbers Electric Company.[2] Dana worked long, hard hours, devoting his life to his business, a strong role model for Jack.[3]

I went to Dana Poulsen to ask him for a week off so that we could have a honeymoon. He didn’t answer me yes or no. Instead he said,

—Well, where’re you gonna live?

—Well, I really don’t know. I imagine we’ll live in Alice’s apartment on Third Street.

—Whoa, whoa, whoa! You’re not gonna do that. You have to buy a house!

—Jeez, Dana, I don’t have any money. I can’t buy a house. I owe about $600 on the ’41 Pontiac, so I can’t buy a house. I don’t have any money.

—Well, you don’t need any money.

Dana Poulsen knew what he was talking about. By age thirty-six he owned a successful furniture business.[4] By forty-six he had bought his own home in downtown Santa Rosa. He valued it at $15,000, three times most of his neighbors’ homes.[5] At one time or another he employed Jack, all his siblings, and even his father.[6] He was a man to listen to. Jack’s head must have been spinning when he left Dana’s office.

Dana told me how to get ahold of a realtor and start looking at homes, which we did. The fellow’s name was Chapman, and we knew him through the Methodist Church. He started showing us new homes for $2950 to $3450.

—You’re wasting your time. We don’t have any money like that. We can’t afford anything like that.

—Well, I’ve got an old cracker box over on Hendley Street. I’ll show you that.

304 Hendley Street, Santa Rosa, California, 1942

He showed Jack and Alice a small, single-story home that was already pretty old. The owner, Mr. Dewar, wanted $2050 for it. Jack began negotiating.

—How much of a down payment would you want?

—Well, I should have a hundred and fifty dollars.

—We don’t have a hundred and fifty dollars.

Mr. Dewar had already bought a new home, so he was anxious to sell 304 Hendley Street. He countered.

—If I let you move in, do you think you’d have the down payment in three months’ time?

Jack and Alice put their heads together. With what she was making and what he was making, they decided yes, they could do that.

—OK. Go ahead and move in.

So he wrote up a little contract. He wanted twenty dollars a month payments at six percent interest. That meant that out of twenty dollars we were paying about twelve dollars interest, but still paying something toward the principal.

The contract for sale of 304 Hendley Street

On Wednesday 1 April 1942 James and Jean Dewar drew up the contract for the sale of 304 Hendley Street, and on Friday 3 April they and Jack notarized the sale agreement.[7] Two days later Jack and Alice were married.[8]

In one week, at just twenty-one years old, Jack and Alice became homeowners and newlyweds. The strength of their marriage commitment would be the center of their life together, their emotional anchor. Their home would be its physical anchor, and this modest beginning taught them an investment lesson they would build on throughout their lives. They took time off from work, honeymooned, and then moved into their little “cracker box.”

More men were called to register for the draft, older men and now men as young as eighteen.[9] On the day Mr. Dewer drew up the sale agreement, the local paper reported the induction of eighteen more Santa Rosans into military service.[10] Married now, Jack’s chances of being called up were diminished, but that was about to change.

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[1] Unless otherwise noted, the events in this post are inspired by or transcribed directly from Jack’s telling. Jack J. Kellar, interview by Judy Kellar Fox, December 1993; cassette tape recording and transcription held by the author.

[2] Betty (Kellar) Lowdermilk (Goleta, California), interview with Judy Kellar Fox 18 October 2017. Betty, Jack’s sister, worked briefly for Dana as well.

[3] 1940 U.S. Census, Sonoma County, California, population schedule, Santa Rosa, ED 49-40, sheet 13B, visitation 351, Dana Poulsen; digital image, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 September 2017); from NARA microfilm T627, roll 350.

[4] 1930 U.S. Census, Sonoma County, California, population schedule, Santa Rosa, ED 45, sheet 11B, visitation 298, Dana C. Poulsen household; digital image, Ancestry; from NARA microfilm T626, roll 222; FHL microfilm 2,339,957.

[5] 1940 U.S. Census, Sonoma County, California, population schedule, Santa Rosa, ED 49-40, sheet 13B, visitation 351, Dana Poulsen, and others on sheet 13B; digital image, Ancestry; from NARA microfilm T627, roll 350.

[6] John M. Kellar, Mary Idella (Muth) Kellar, and Herald Kellar interview by Betty (Kellar) (Grimes) Lowdermilk and Al Grimes at Betty’s home in Modesto, California, 26 October 1963; digital copy held by the author.

[7] Jean Dewar and James Dewar agreement 1 April 1942 on price and terms of sale and Jean Dewar, James Dewar, and Jack J. Kellar, Agreement for Sale of Real Estate, notarized 3 April 1942; Kellar family collection in possession of Judy Kellar Fox. The sale was recorded the day after Jack and Alice were married, perhaps then establishing it as community property rather than Jack's separate property. For California’s community property law, see W. W. Smithers, “Matrimonial Property Rights under Modern Spanish and American Law,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review and American Law Register 70 (May 1922): 260, 261, and 262, “Matrimonial Community Property”; digital image Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/jstor-3314134 : accessed 29 December 2017).
[8] Sonoma County, California, Marriage Licenses 38: 221, no. 5305, Jack J. Kellar and Alice M. Streeter (1942); Office of the County Recorder, Santa Rosa.

[9] “Youths 18-20 Will Sign for Draft Today; Three Million More Will Be Registered by U. S. to Complete Age Groups 18 to 65,” The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, California), 30 June 1942, p. 1, col. 3.

[10] “On the Home Front,” The Press Democrat, 1 April 1942, p. 1, col. 1.

A Little Smooching

Jack Kellar and Alice Streeter, first photo
together, 1938

Even as a teenager Jack knew what he wanted. He set his sights on a girl he met at a soda fountain where she made hamburgers and milkshakes. He was sixteen, Alice just seventeen. She must have given him just enough encouragement, because he didn’t give up until she married him, but that was four years later. He loved to tell the story of his persistent pursuit:

“On our first anniversary of going together, when I was seventeen years old, we drove up onto the end of the road at Montecito Heights, parked, did a little smooching, and I asked Alice to marry me. This was the reply, “Ha ha! Oh Jack, we can’t get married. You have to have pots and pans to get married.” Well, hell, pots and pans were the last of my thoughts as far as getting married. We’d get the pots and pans someplace, but . . . Anyway, it didn’t happen.[1]

“A year later on our anniversary up at the same place, the end of the road at Montecito Avenue, did a little smooching, asked her to marry me again. No soap! She was willing to go together, steady and everything, but not to make a commitment to getting married.

“Age nineteen. Up at the end of the road again on our anniversary. Did a little smooching, then I said, ‘I would like to have you marry me.’And do you know what she said? ‘OK.’”[2]

Alice and Jack, April 1939
Santa Rosa High School

When Jack first proposed to Alice in the summer of 1939, both had just graduated from high school. He lived at home in Santa Rosa, California, and delivered furniture for twenty-five cents an hour. For fun and extra cash he played bass viol in a dance band. In the fall Alice, a native of nearby El Verano, began her freshman year in fashion design at Santa Rosa Junior College. They listened to the radio, to big band tunes and news of Nazi Germany rolling over Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France.[3] Jack’s second proposal coincided with the German bombing of London, begun 7 September 1940.[4]

Alice and Jack, 1940, second proposal

Although newspaper headlines and radio broadcasts shouted out news of war in Europe, it was far away. War was a backdrop to the life of these teenagers, nothing they needed to be concerned about personally. Jack and Alice were preoccupied with working, making a living and enjoying being together. That fall passage of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 set the stage for registration of men to fill the military’s quota of soldiers.[5] At nineteen, Jack was too young to register at the time of the first registration.[6] His head was full of plans for his future with Alice.

War still raged on the eastern and western fronts when Alice accepted Jack’s third proposal in the summer of 1941. He was still underage at the time of the second registration in July.[7] Months later war crashed into their reality on 7 December 1941 with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.[8]

We went to church and after church we went over to David’s [Jack’s older brother] & he said he had heard over the radio that the japs had bombed Pearl Harbor. Boy that sure was a hell of a day. I’ll never forget what a lump it put in my throat. We rode around nearly all day and listened to the radio reports & news casters about the attack.[9]

Alice and Jack at Yosemite, summer 1941
at the time of the third proposal

Jack and Alice lived only an hour’s drive north of San Francisco, where the mayor declared a state of emergency.[10] Right at home, the Sonoma County Council for Defense called for a special armed guard of bridges, public utilities, and water supplies, fearful of sabotage by enemy agents.[11] President Roosevelt declared war on Japan, and then Germany and Italy.

Within weeks the Selective Training and Service Act was amended to include registration of all males from eighteen to sixty-five.[12] This time Jack, twenty, was eligible. He presented himself at the third registration, one of over 1500 Santa Rosa men who registered that February weekend, many of them his high school classmates and friends.13]

Now the war was close and personal. Fueled by constant news headlines about Japan and the Far East, fears for the safety of the West Coast increased. The FBI rounded up members of a Japanese military society in San Francisco and Sacramento.[14] The local paper reported, “It was estimated that a large percentage of the 1,800,000 men in the 20-21 bracket will be called to service.”[15] That was Jack’s bracket.

Jack Junior Kellar draft registration card
14 February 1942

Still, life went on as before, and Jack and Alice were married four months later on Easter Sunday, 5 April 1942.[16] Their youthful enthusiasm carried them forward, making plans for the home and family they would create together.

Distant war would test them in unexpected ways.

Mr. & Mrs. Jack J. Kellar, 5 April 1942
Santa Rosa, California
Maid of honor Betty Kellar, Jack's sister, and best man Floyd Streeter, Alice's brother

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[1] In middle age Jack and Alice built a home in a development that had been a walnut orchard when Santa Rosa, California, was a rural, agriculture-oriented town. From their places at the kitchen table they looked up to the hill that had special meaning for them, Montecito Heights.

[2] Jack J. Kellar, tape recorded autobiography, begun 4 January 1998; two two-sided ninety-minute cassette tapes in possession of Judy Kellar Fox, Aloha, Oregon, 2017.

[3] “New Soviet-Nazi Move Near; Shattered Warsaw Gives Up,” The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, California), 28 September 1939, p. 1. “German Army Enters Paris!” The Press Democrat, 14 June 1940, p. 1.

[4] “Conscription Measure Passed by House; London Blasted in Terrific Air Raids,” The Press Democrat, 8 September 1940, p. 1.

[5] “Selective Training and Service Act of 1940,” United States Statutes at Large, vol. 54: 885–97, chapter 720, §2; digital image, Constitution Society (http://www.constitution.org/uslaw/sal/054_statutes_at_large.pdf : accessed 21 October 2017).

[6] “It’s ‘R-Day’ for U. S.! Nearly 10,000 Young Men Expected to Register for Draft From Sonoma County,” The Press Democrat, 16 October 1940, p. 1, cols. 3, 6, and 8. Jack was born 4 September 1921. See Butte County, California, Birth Certificate, Book C: 282 (8 September 1921; 8 December 1943), Jack Junior Kellar.

[7] “It’s R-Day Again in U.S.; 750,000 More Will Sign Up for Draft; Army’s Selective Call to Be Speeded Up to 75,000 Each Month After Registrations,” The Press Democrat, 1 July 1941, p. 1, cols. 1-2.

[8] “Battle Spreads!” and “Heavy Toll of Life, Damage Taken in Opening Attack,” The Press Democrat, 8 December 1941, p. 1, banner and col. 7.

[9] Jack J. Kellar letter 7 December 1943 from “Somewhere on East Coast” to Alice M. Kellar; Kellar family collection held by Judy Kellar Fox, 2017. David was Jack’s elder brother, David E. Kellar.

[10] “S.F. Ordered In State of Emergency,” The Press Democrat, 8 December 1941, p. l, col. 3.

[11] “Civilian Defense Forces Guarding Vital Areas Here,” The Press Democrat, 8 December 1941, p. 1, col. 2.

[12] “Selective Training and Service Act of 1940,” Statutes at Large, vol. 55: 844, chapter 602.

[13] Jack J. Kellar, registration card, 14 February 1942. Also, “New Manpower Reservoir—Nine Million Men Register,” The Press Democrat, 17 February 1942, p. 1, col. 2.

[14] “FBI Raids Trap More Aliens,” The Press Democrat, 17 February 1942, p. 1, col. 5.

[15] “New Manpower Reservoir—Nine Million Men Register,” The Press Democrat, 17 February 1942, p. 1, col. 2.

[16] Sonoma County, California, Marriage Licenses 38: 221, no. 5305, Jack J. Kellar and Alice M. Streeter (1942); Office of the County Recorder, Santa Rosa.