Chapter 1

My sister Julia and I were born during The Great Depression in San Francisco California – she on June 22, 1932 and I on December 29, 1933. My father, Homer C., divorced, married my mother, Adeline Victoria Keller. She had one child, Wendel Rudolph. She found it necessary to have her son raised by her sister, Hilda Bowen, because as a single parent and working as a telephone operator during that era, it became too difficult for her to raise her son. Later, my father indicated that he did not wish to raise him. My mother and father never told my sister nor I any reason for this.

Born in Rich Hill, Missouri, my father came to San Francisco during the Great Depression (1930s) for work and found it with the SF Chronicle Newspaper as a mailer—where the newspapers would come off the conveyor belt and be bundled for distribution. 

My parents were simple people. My mother went only to the 8th grade and my father had two years of high school. They did not drink unless they were offered one socially. I never heard them use profanity and they never argued, never. My mother was an especially kind person. My father only used corporal punishment once because I teased my sister.

My mother and father both played the piano. My father would play the piano and my sister and I would sing songs such as “Embraceable You,” “Harbor Lights,” and “Always,” to name a few. 

My father built me a chin-up bar in the backyard of the house. He also built a punching bag stand in the garage where the punching bag could hang from the above stationary holder. My father could, in rhythmic style, punch the bag with his left shoulder, elbow, hand, and then repeat this same maneuver with his right hand. 

Since we lived close to Ocean Beach on 48th Avenue, I would sometimes walk just a few blocks to the ocean to fish. Perch was the easy catch. On one occasion I did catch a striped bass.

Tod Powell, the SF Chronicle Sports Writer, agreed to write an article about a commercial fisherman and his boat harbored in Half Moon Bay. I was lucky enough to get a free trip on the excursion. We all caught black snapper and other fish. However, the highlight of the fishing trip for me was the 24-pound lingcod that I caught; it was almost as big as me! Mr. Powell wrote an article, with a picture of this fish and me. Not bad for an eleven-year-old.

My maternal grandfather, Ludwig Von Keller, became a barber after his arrival from Heidelberg, Germany in the 1930s. He had a barber shop on Haight Street about three houses east of Masonic Avenue on the south side of the street. I remember him cutting my hair with the older handheld type clippers. After cutting my hair, he gave me a round, yellow, hard candy the size of a quarter with a gold wrappe