In the first person: We are the Wrights of Wright Hardware
The first time my grandmother ever really yelled at me was the summer of 1989. I was 15 and running from the police. She stood beside her blue faded, wood facade station wagon, with a fistful of toilet paper and lungs of fire. I was booked with adrenaline, barreling down Santa Isabel Avenue toward Newport Boulevard in Costa Mesa.
My grandmother, Evelyn Wright, died last year. She was 95. Facts and dates don’t do any justice to her story. She lived, died, was born, went to church, always bought a ton of groceries and was a lot of fun.
She was a proud woman, known to be friendly to strangers and to take pictures of everything. She could talk to anyone. And she did: the waitress, the mail carrier, the coffee shop owner and the cute boy who moved in next door. I benefited from her confidence in the way she introduced herself to the people.
“We are the Wrights of Wright Hardware,” she would say as her chin ticked up.
I always felt second-hand pride to be the granddaughter of the Wrights. My grandparents built their hardware store building in 1956 with the motto, “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.”
Previously, my grandfather and great-grandfather ran a lumber business, which they started in 1937 on the same property. They would buy houses, take them apart and sell the wood and appliances at the store.
When I was growing up, Wright Hardware was well known for its antiques and unique metal parts for older machines. A vintage steam engine was a staple of the display window at the shop. It was sold to Disney and shipped to Paris for one of its theme parks. My grandmother blocked the flatbed that was hauling it away — just to take one last picture.
In 1989, my uncle, Jeff Wright, opened his own branch of the family business selling sheet metal. He hired my grandma to do his payroll and bookkeeping. She worked in the front office and often met me for lunch at Mimi’s.
She always wore a bright blazer, with a white blouse, dark skirt and black closed-toed shoes with nylons — a vision of the 1950s American dream. Where everything was safe. Everyone had a role.
She liked her home and fashion choices buttoned up and proper — juxtaposed by her shenanigans, and her never-throw-anything-away mentality. After she passed, I found a shoebox containing tissue-wrapped frosting from her wedding cake.
Evelyn’s oldest child, Kathleen (my mother) likened her childhood to the Carrie Fisher book and movie “Postcards from the Edge.” Like the movie, Grandma never seemed to be running on a plot or conflict, but interesting things always happened.
She was the life of the party and loved to attend the women’s overnight retreats with her church. On one such weekend she returned with a limp and told me she hurt her leg playing ding-dong ditch. She was 68 at the time.
In my mom’s analogy, Grandma was the Shirley MacLaine of the prayer-chain potluck. She’d throw parties, invite people over and then wait in her room at the top of the stairs until all her dinner guests had arrived and then walk down to make her grand entrance among the casseroles and potato chips — 20 minutes late to a party at her own house.
She always kept a Marie Callender’s pie on hand in case somebody stopped by. And the good throw pillows and hand towels had to be ready to go at a moments notice — just in case there was a knock at the door.
Grandma’s faith was important to her. She was very involved in her church. Her family founded Central Bible Church. In the 1980s she made her home at Newport Mesa Christian Center and recently at Harbor Trinity in Costa Mesa. She attended bible studies and was a devoted prayer-chain volunteer.
Grandma was born Evelyn Beardsley and was raised on a small farm on 23rd Street and Orange Avenue — across the street from Lindbergh School. Her father paid her a nickel for plucking chickens, and the family was pleased to share their food with people in need during the Great Depression.
She would meet my grandfather in fourth grade at Lindbergh School. She didn’t fall for him until she was 20. By that time, he had already asked her out five or six times. Each time she said, “no.” Her calendar was full. It was nothing personal. But Granddad assumed she didn’t like him and stopped asking.
One night, she had a dream about him where they locked eyes in a crowd. The next time she saw him, he looked different. She had a crush. And he didn’t have a chance. She was too beautiful and he couldn’t turn her down.
They married at the Methodist Church on 19th Street and Harbor Boulevard, which still stands to this day across the street from Triangle Square. The night before her wedding she decided that her cake with the white, buttercream roses was all wrong. She spent that night painting the roses yellow of the aforementioned wedding cake.
They built a house on the Beardsley farm with wood that was donated from Wright Lumber. They rented an apartment on Balboa during the construction and passed the days fishing at the jetty. Granddad played jazz with friends and his trusted saxophone on Balboa street corners. It must have all gone by so fast.
I imagine my grandparents and who they were before I knew them. I imagine their time together, planted by Grandma’s dream that sowed a life and a family of four children.
When Grandma passed, each of my daughters sat beside her bed. One painted her nails pink bubble gum and the other read her a letter. Grandma was asleep, but we knew she could hear us.
I told her I would be a grandma like her. And I was looking forward to the day when I could make trouble for my kids and wrangle their children on antics and escapades. I reminded her of the night that we had the run-in with the cops when I was 15.
I reminded her that on that fateful day, I greeted her with an armload of her floral, quilted toilet tissue and asked her to take me toilet papering. “No,” she said, “not with the good toilet paper. That is for the company.” She told me she would have to ask Granddad if it was OK. After speaking to him for mere seconds in the other room, she told me Granddad said it was OK as long as we only toilet papered her brother’s house (Uncle Bob). I asked her if it would even count because his wife, Aunt Doris, was blind. She didn’t answer.
We made a run to Vons on 17th street at 10:45 p.m. We were the rebels of the night. We picked up the cheapest toilet paper in bulk, pantyhose and a small peach pie — in case of company.
We silently arranged streamers of Slim Priced, Vons-brand bathroom tissue in the bushes and on the front of Uncle Bob’s porch. Until the Costa Mesa Police Department’s helicopter showed up to the party and its spotter beam was squarely on me. I ran and hid beside the sanctuary of the station wagon before charging down the street.
My grandma saw me run and started yelling, “Emily! Don’t run from the police ... Don’t run from the police!” She waved me back to the front lawn and ordered me to continue my work. The chopper stayed for a moment, then left.
How would they have called it in? What would the police have done anyway? After all: We were the Wrights of Wright Hardware.
Emily Bees is a freelance writer who lives in Costa Mesa.
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