Mom's Dream House
Mom's Dream House View #2, originally uploaded by lavocado@sbcglobal.net.
Sometimes, Mom and I would take a more scenic route to the Safeway. We walked on Grandview, where the houses did not look all the same. This barn-red house was her favorite. I am happy to see that it looks much the same as it did fifty years ago. The major difference is that the lot was divided and a house stands on either side of it where gardens had been planted before. The wishing well is still there.
There were houses on Grandview when the rest of Mar Vista was "nothing but bean fields" as the old-timers loved to recall. My grandmother's cousin Bird had lived on Grandview in the 1920's. I didn't know who she was, but I was fascinated by her name. I must have met her at one time, but her name is all iI remember. I found out later it was a childhood nickname, and her real name was Helen.
I always wondered what kind of beans they were. Now Mar Vista has an historical society, and I learned that they were Lima beans, and that the first Lima beans in the United States grew in Mar Vista and Santa Monica,