BIOGRAPHY: By her husband, James F. High III.
Roni became interested in Genealogy at the same time I did. She took many pictures and wrote extensive notes about them. It was her idea that genealogy would be much more interesting if our descendants could see pictures of their ancestors. These pictures are on 35 MM slides and therefore must be scanned to be included in this genealogical database. This will take some time and I am in the process of scanning them now (12/3/2003). I will attach some of them as part of her album.
Roni was born in Iowa and when she was about 12 years old, her family moved to El Monte California where she finished High School. She went to work for a company in Whittier California and was working for them in the office when I met her. I was working for IBM installing a 1440 computer in their office.
She became a computer programmer and worked on Mainframe computers as a COBOL programmer for the rest of her life. She was an excellent analyst/programmer.
We moved from Huntington Beach California to North Bend Washington in 1980 where we lived until 1988. She worked for the Boeing Company most of the time we lived in Washington. I have many documents praising her abilities from her employers.
One day while I was working in Los Angeles, she called me from Washington and said that she had just got back from her annual medical examination and was told that she had lung cancer. When I asked her what the Dr said about the prognosis, she said that he said "Hope for the best but plan for the worst". She quit working at Boeing shortly after that and we moved from Washington back to California. We lived her last day's in Chino Hills California.
Roni and I used to ride motorcycles in the California desert. We had some of our most memorable times in the desert. She wanted to be cremated after she died and have her ashes spread in the desert.
On June 21, 1989, shortly before her death, Roni said to me:
“After I’m gone, go out to the desert and while you lay on your back in a sleeping bag, looking at the stars, if you feel a soft breeze on your lips, that’s me.”I took her ashes to the California desert near her parents house about 5 miles south east of Ocotillo California. Her family and I walked out into the desert and scattered her ashes over the sand dunes.
A few weeks before she died, Roni said “After I’m gone, go find yourself a good woman”. This shows what a selfless and loving person Roni was. She was dying and thinking of me.
Louise was a bing drinker. He was killed by a car hitting him while he was crossing a street drunk in Tuscon Arizona. He was rushed to the hospital where he died on the operating table.
This is an autobiography by Pamela Gibson
I was born in Lancaster, California just north of Los Angeles. From there my family moved to El Monte, Whittier, Garden Grove, and finally to Huntington Beach, California. I graduated from Ocean View High School in Huntington Beach California in 1980 and shortly after graduation moved to Seattle, Washington. I lived there for about a year and then moved to the Okanogan area. It was here that I met my first husband. In March of 1983, when my first born, Louis, was a few months old, we moved to the Rogue Valley area in Oregon. And it is here in the Valley that I still reside. In 1986 my oldest daughter was born and named after her Grandmother, Veronica. In the first part of 1991 I divorced my first husband and lived with my boyfriend, Dennis, for 2 years. We had one daughter, Desiree, in late 1991. After a 10 year engagement, Tom and I married in September of 2004. We have one daughter, Danielle.
I am a descendant of Humphrey Turner who sailed to America with is wife and children in 1628. Many Turners in the early years held prominent positions in congress, fought in the revolutionary and civil wars, and were Harvard and Yale graduates. With every new generation Turners migrated west. It was my ggg-grandfather Isaiah, who moved to Iowa in the 1800’s and my grandfather who moved his family to California about 1954.
Leo was a tailor by trade.
His mother died during childbirth while delivering him.He had an older sister named Toni.
His father married another woman and they had two more children.
His stepmother was not nice to him. She starved him etc.
By the time he left for the U.S. he was 12 years old and undernourished.
His sister Tony moved to New York.
His stepsiblings wrote only one time.
When Leo's father took him to the ship for America, he attempted to take the money Leo had received from his maternal grandmother which she had made by selling clothing.
Leo landed in America at Ellis Island. He then went to Indianapolis where his mothers brother, Leo, had a farm. He worked on the farm, saved some money and then went back to his maternal grandmother in Russia.
After he Married Anna and their first child, Henry was born, Leo emigrated back to New York and stayed with his sister Toni.
He faithfully wrote to Anna sending her money to live on but Anna never returned any mail. His sister kept telling him that she was probably just taking the money and not bothering to write him. She said that Anna was not good enough for him and after all she was just a low class Russian peasant while we are Hungarian. Anna was getting these letters and in them Leo kept asking her why she didn't respond. Anna went to a fortune teller and took along Leo's vest to bring something of his with her. The fortune teller told her that she saw a lot of water between them and some women was burning her letters. Anna asked what she could do and the fortune teller said to give her Leo's address and she would write her brother who also lived in New York, and ask him to go see Leo and find out why. Anna gave the fortune teller Leo's address and her brother went over to see Leo. The fortune teller’s brother told Leo what was happening. Leo told his sister; Toni and Toni said that she was burning the letters that Anna sent him so that Leo could find someone up to his level. He promptly moved out and never spoke to his sister again.
Their children were born as follows: Henry in England; Lena in New York; Al and Jerry in Indianapolis and Esther in Los Angeles. With each pregnancy Leo kept going farther west and after finding work he would send for Anna and the children. When he finally ended up in Los Angeles, Anna's best friend Mrs. Gross came with her. They decided to stay in Los Angeles once they got here.
Anna came to the U.S. through Ellis Island with her first child Henry when she was about 24 years old.
She grew up in an extremely rustic town in Russia. Clothes were washed in the river and they bathed in the same river.
Anna rarely spoke of her childhood.
She left Russia and went to England with her father because their was conscriptions in Russia and most of the eligible young men were either being drafted or leaving Russia to avoid the draft. Anna was 22 years old, an old maid by the standards of those days. Her father decided to take her to England where there was a better chance to marry her off.
About the same time, Leo, her future husband, was going back to Hungary from America to get his grandmother.(The one who gave him the money and told him his uncle Leo in Indianapolis was waiting for him). He told his grandmother he would come and get her. On his way to get her he had to stop in England because he has stored his money in the bottom of his trunk and some sailors found and took it. There he was in a strange country with no money and could hardly speak English. He remembered that his father had told him that if he got in trouble he should go to a Synagogue and they would help him. He found a Synagogue and the rabbi found a home for him where the family taught him to be a tailor for room and board. One of the temple people thought he might like to meet Anna and the cucumber story ensued.
The person who set up the meeting contacted Anna's father, Morris Tributz (Soon to be Cohen). They were living in an apartment in England. Knowing that her father needed to go back to Russia and that he missed the rest of the family very much, she knew that she had to make this meeting with Leo develop into a marriage. So, for the sake of her father, whom she adored, she prepared herself for the meeting (She originally was in love with someone else who left for the U.S. and never contacted her.
Anna loved cucumbers but they did not love her. On the day she was to meet Leo, she "gussied" herself up. She wanted to look especially attractive so she decided, after eating the cucumbers that she would wear an extremely tight corset and she dressed with this very constricting corset underneath her clothing. When she heard the nock on the door, she went to open it and fainted from the lack of oxygen. The next thing she knew, she awakened and her father said that Leo wanted to marry her. She said, fine, but she did not even remember what he looked like.
Anna was a good wife but an even better mother. She was dedicated to housework and to making sure that Leo was neat and put together. That was not hard since Leo was an extremely fastidious man. Because Leo did not drive at the age of 45, Anna learned to drive and she did all the driving. She was big on volunteering and helping people.