Mary Louise Van Dell (Van der Ploeg) Bingham
Born
2 June 1935 in Bell, California to John Van Dell and Annie Louise
Alderman. I have one older brother and one
younger sister. My parents liked the
name Mary and Louise is after my mother and maternal grandmother.
When
I was about 4 years old my aunt married to my Dad’s oldest brother came up with
a new surname and the family must have liked it enough to change from van der
Ploeg to Van Dell. The reason for the
change is the name was hard to pronounce I was told. My nicknames were Memmel by my father and his
clan and also bug. Once in a while it
was jitterbug. I was a child that could
not sit still for more than a few minutes.
Father came to California from New Jersey as a child
because his father thought the family would be healthier and have a better
life. My grandfather was a widow with 7 young
children. His parents, a brother, Pete,
and a cousin my Dad’s age, Bill, came with him by train. My mother born in Georgia came to California
from Alabama as a young married woman with her first husband who was in the US
Navy. I understand she married this man
hoping for a better life. They came with
her older sister, Elizabeth, and her husband who was also in the military. My mother did not have a good life losing
both parents at an early age and living in poverty.
I don’t remember the first couple of houses we lived
in around Bell, California. The first
one I really recollect was a housing complex in East Los Angeles. There were approximately 8 two story
apartments in each complex and we lived in one second to the end. We had a kitchen, living room, two bedrooms
and one bathroom for the five of us. We
had modern plumbing and electricity and later a dial telephone. We moved to
Richmond, California when I was 10 years old and got our first TV. I lived there until my last two years of high
school when we moved to El Cerrito, California but still in the Richmond School
District. This home was quite a nice home.
After high school graduation (1953) my family moved to
Pasadena, California where I lived for three years.
I graduated from Pasadena City College (1955). I had worked part-time in a insurance office
and after graduation worked full time for an insurance agent, Charles L.
Arthur. In the spring of 1956, I took a
trip to Hawaii with a PCC friend, Barbara Keyston. We took the cruise ship, the Luraleen, over
and flew back home.
Shortly upon my return I met my eternal companion,
Gerald Bingham, at an engagement party.
I worked with the bride’s Mom and Jerry worked with the groom. The following March 9, 1957, we were married
in the Chapel of the Roses in Pasadena.
I was not raised with religion and Jerry was not involved in this church
at that time. A minister of my uncle
David Van Dell married us.
We first lived in Huntington Park and about a year
later purchased a home in Bellflower, California. I quit my job as a secretary for the
assistant purchasing agent at Thermador Products when our first child was born,
Janet Louise, 18 May 1959. Eleven months
after our second child Michael John, 10 April 1962, was born we moved to
Pleasant Hill, California. In the summer
of 1969 we moved to Fresno, California where we were in partnership with my
Dad, a jewelry and giftware store. I
worked part time helping to get it set up and going. In July 1972 we opened up our own jewelry and
giftware store in Stockton, California (lived in Lodi, CA) but closed it down
due to competition in 1985. We then
purchased an existing durable medical supply company (Lodi Sickroom Supply)
where I worked for the first few years.
In June of 2001, we moved to Alpine, Utah due to inspiration we received
to do so.
I do not have many early childhood memories and I
believe it is partly because there were things that were not positive and I did
not want to remember except those are some of the things I do remember most.
My father was domineering, outgoing, intelligent,
impatient, ambitious, and a hard worker.
I guess he would be called a workaholic as his job was his life and his
social world. He often gave someone a
nickname. He loved is family including
his siblings and was generous to them.
In fact, he was generous to any who was honest, fair and loyal to
him. Once he took a job that was not
very promising because of his loyalty to his boss. He did not graduate from high school but was
very successful in the business world with Snap-on Tools Corp. He was very devoted to my Mother when she
became seriously ill and tended to her every need which is something he did little
of before.
My mother was insecure, lacked self-esteem, and had
problems with depression. She loved her
family and was a very devoted mother and wife.
She loved babies and liked animals, music and had a good singing voice. She was small, only 5 ft. tall but quite
brave when it came to things such a trying to kill a snake and rescuing a woman
that was attacked behind our house. (My
Dad was in the house for the last one.) My
brother John Edwin (2 plus years older) was outgoing, intelligent, confident and
a nice person. He was patient particularly
with his wife. My sister Helen (5 yrs younger)
is more reserved, not as outgoing and more like my mother in many ways. She is very generous, loves her children and
saw to their needs as a single parent.
She also loves animals.
I waited for the day I could play poker with my
parents and aunts and uncles on Saturday night in Pasadena. I watched them play from the time I was very
young. Our whole family really didn’t
play any games together but poker and a little bingo. As an older child, our family went high school
football, to the midget auto races and some pro football games like the SF
49ers. During this time, we also would dine out. In younger years, I played some with my
siblings like Monopoly, and with playing cards.
I liked to color, play with paper dolls and as I got older was a fan of
a number of movie stars. I liked to go
to movies, play with neighbor friends. I
remember putting on plays and musicals and playing softball and kick the
can. I also like to play store and be
the cast register. They always said I
was a fast runner as a child. I was a
Brownie Girl Scout and took piano lessons until I thought I was too busy as a
teenager to practice.
The chores I did mostly were the dishes, cleaning my
bedroom, cleaning up after our dog and some cleaning house. I know my brother and I both wanted to wash
the dishes and would fight over it. I
did not like to iron but my least favorite was cleaning up after our dog,
Smudgy. I always shared a room with my siblings
and later just with my sister until I was 18 years old. While living in
Richmond (I was age 10 to 16) our bedroom was at the back of the house. We lived in a neighborhood where some tragic
things scary things happened so either my sister or I wanted to be the first to
go back there after dark. My Dad was
more cautious than my Mom when it came to hearing noise outside at night. I remember many times turning all the lights
out so we could peek out better.
I was a good, obedient student who never wanted to get
into trouble. My best subjects were
math, spelling, art and physical education.
I did not like science as not all subjects were easy for me. I always felt my brother and sister had more
of my Dad’s intelligence but I was more like my Mom, with much less. I had a speech impediment that gave my voice
a nasal sound and I was very conscious of it and this made be very shy. In grammar school I had to go to special
speech classes which I did not like that did nothing for me. It wasn’t until I
was in junior high that it was discovered why I talk nasal. I have no uvula and my palate is
paralyzed. Therefore, I hated current
events and would take a ‘F’ rather than get up in front of the class. I attended grammar school at Dakota St. in
East Los Angeles, and for two years in Richmond, Ca. At the time we moved to northern California,
my teacher considered my skipping a grade which later could never understand
why. My middle grades 7 through 9 were
at Longfellow Jr. High School and Richmond High School, again in Richmond. I graduated from Pasadena City College with
an associates’ degree in business. I did
not participate enough in any extra circular school activities to mention. I was in the senior play as a dancer.
I almost always wore bangs that were short in earlier
days and in style. I never had very long
hair. In high school we wore at triangle
scarf on our head with the tie at our chin.
Also, small scarves tied at our neck.
We curled our hair with bobby pins.
I always did my mother’s as she thought she could not do it
herself. I worn white suede shoes or
brown/white saddle oxfords (Spaulding brand) with socks rolled down to our
ankles. Skirts length was below knee and
little on long side. We never wore pants
or shorts to school.
I
don’t recall any high school heroes but did collect pictures of movie
stars. In fact, I wrote to a number to
receive an autograph picture. I never
sang because of my bad voice although my mom had a rather good voice. I liked many of the popular ballads and rock
and roll music. I always loved music and
often listened to it.
Our first family dog was a red chow named
Tootsie. We then had a mongrel dog named Smudgy who
looked like a shaggy sheep dog. We found
her in a vacant field near our house. We
tried to have a kitten a time or two but they did not last long. My dad did not like cats.
I remember two childhood friends named Wendy and
Courtney when living in the apartment complex. Typical of three friends, we did not always
get along well. Darlene Durflinger who I
met in junior high became a very close friend to this day. I have kept in touch with several other high
school and college friends.
I had no religion growing up and never attended church
with my family. My parents knew an old
widow, Laura, who took my brother and me to church a few times when small. I went a couple of times with a friend as an
older child. The religion was Methodist. Because I married an LDS man, I was contacted
at different times by missionaries. Finally in 1967 I was ready to receive them
and baptism followed in Walnut Creek on 1 April 1967, the same year our
daughter was baptized. It took me
several years (and Jerry too) to be converted to full activity. We were sealed in the Oakland Temple in 29
July 1972 with our three children. I
have never been without a temple recommend since then. My membership in the church along, with my
family, are my most prized possessions.
Over the years I have served some in Relief Society, more in Primary but
mostly in the Young Women Program, about 20 plus years. In all three organizations it was almost
always been in presidencies. In February
1998 we left for the Philippines Manila Mission to serve as senior
missionaries. It was one of greatest and
most rewarding experiences we have had.
We would have served another mission if it weren’t for me being
diagnosed with cancer in 2002. For the
past 8 years I have been heavily involved in family history work and receive
great satisfaction from it. I have seen
that temple work has been done for thousand of my ancestors, mostly my Dutch
line. I have over 25,000 names in my
personal ancestral file.
