Photo taken at the Junior-Senior Prom, Oklahoma A&M
College-Stillwater , 1946.
From left: Charles Smith - Carolyn Lucas - Pat Lucas Holcomb - Chuck, blind date.
When my sister Carolyn died she took a largday.e chunk of my life with her.
I miss her every day.
"Little Sister" is my tribute.
LITTLE SISTER
She comes to me in dreams, my little sister does. Last night
we met in San
Francisco,
window shopped, sat at a sidewalk café, laughed at the sights and sounds of a
great city. I woke with a smile for the first time in months.
Is it the
end of grief? No, it’s just a brief return, through dreams, to happier times.
On another level grief remains. I thought I had used up all my tears. Not so.
They are a bottomless well.
Through
time’s telescope I see her yet, the little sister at my heels, the bossy one in
training to be a mother. Her brown eyes snap with curiosity and she fusses with
her hair, walking slightly bent as if trying to catch up with herself. Too soon
we leave childhood behind and go out into the wider world, free to make our own
decisions, free to make our own mistakes.
Where is my
little sister, the one who didn’t ask questions when I showed up in her college
dorm after a disastrous wartime marriage? I was the foolish one, married too
young, divorced and humiliated too quickly. She welcomed me into her circle of
friends, got me a date for the prom. Gone was my bossy little sister. In her
place was my new best friend.
She married
her prom date, the handsome boy who loved to dance, and time passed in a
flurry. When they didn’t have children, they adopted a baby girl. I was sitting
in the bleachers at a local high school, watching out brother play baseball,
when she came climbing up through the empty seats, the baby in her arms, so
eager to show off her new daughter.
It broke
some kind of physical or emotional logjam and she had four little boys in rapid
succession. Now she was a farm wife living on Old Route 66, coping with wind,
dust, school activities, muddy boots, and snowy television beamed in from Amarillo. She cooked big
meals, served boarding house style, for custom combine workers who followed the
wheat harvest all the way from North
Dakota.
Life
unfurled slowly. I moved to California>
my little sister stayed where she was but we kept in touch.
And the
years picked up speed. The handsome boy who loved to dance was an agriculture
teacher, a farmer and finally a cattle broker for many years. They left the
farm and moved to Oklahoma City,
putting him closer to the stockyards where he did his work. His final illness
was my little sister’s descent into hell.
When my
husband died and I moved back to the Oklahoma
City area, my little sister helped collect furniture
from relatives to fill the apartment she helped find for me. For a few years we
spent precious time together.
But my
little sister was lonely after her husband died and she decided to move back to
the western Oklahoma
town where they had farmed are reared their children. Things didn’t go as
smoothly as she anticipated. She was more a creature of habit, accustomed to
city living, than she had realized.
She missed
the cafes and the shopping centers. She missed the daily paper she liked to
read while she drank her morning coffee. Getting her TV up and running took a
while and she couldn’t always get the programs she liked. Still, she took it in
stride, and we talked on the phone every afternoon.
One day she
complained of a pesky pain, some kind of infection, she thought. She ended up
in the hospital, and from there she moved into a nursing home. Just before her
birthday a brother, a younger sister and I drove out to visit. Her children
were still bringing in some of her favorite possessions. She was in pain, so
thin her hands were almost like claws, but her dark brown eyes still snapped
and she was in a cheerful mood. We chatted and laughed about old times. Before
our planned return visit, quite suddenly, she was gone.
Everywhere
I look now, I see her. My apartment is filled with things she gave me, homely
things she didn’t need and I did – a floor fan, a floor lamp, a heating pad, a
walking cane, an old sweater, a man’s plaid shirt, a pair of walking shoes, too
wide for her slender feet but a perfect fit for mine.
Behind my
computer desk hangs a framed snapshot taken more than twenty years ago at a
café in San Francisco.
Studying it one day she said, “I wish I still looked like that.” I could have,
and should have, told her she looked even better than she did on that long-ago
afternoon. A lifetime of caring for her family, being everyone’s go-to person,
loving children and grandchildren, all of it aged her beautifully.
And now it
is a Sunday in June. Our family gathers at a famous steak house. The handsome
boy who loved to dance and my little sister ate here almost every day. Their
cattle brand is burned into a couple of the tables.
The
restaurant is a museum. Buckboards hang from the ceiling on the main floor. The
walls are covered by paintings – Indians, cowboys, western landscapes – and
artifacts – rugs, animal skins, spurs, lassos. A trophy buffalo head glares
down at us.
The lively
couple who started a family more than fifty years ago – the patriarch who ruled
it and the matriarch who mothered it – are surely here in spirit. Their
children are settling comfortably into middle age; the grandchildren have
matured well; the youngest great-grandchild is three days old. The gathering is
a tribute to two lives lived fully and joyfully.
It is the
right time and place to say a nostalgic goodbye, and to say with love, thank
you. Thank you for everything you meant to us. Thank you for simply being who
you were.
Copyright 2014
Patricia C. Browning
Leo was born 16 Feb. 1909 in Vista Grande, San Mateo County, Calif. and died on 15 November 1983 in Hanford Calif.
He and Georgia Gowin married on 9 April 1934 in Los Angeles , Ca.
They purchased a Los Angeles Times newspaper distribution district (route #40) from Leo’s father Howard. Leo and Georgia divorced during early years of the war.
Leo joined the Navy in 1942. He trained at the Naval Training Center in Farragut, Idaho and was a Storekeeper. "Sea Bee’s " training was at Port Hueneme (why-knee-me) California before shipping out to the Pacific theater in the Solomon Islands (Bougainville) and New Heberdes Islands (Espiritu Santo). Although he was not on the "front lines" his unit experienced continuous bombings from the Japanese.
He sent "war souvenirs" to his son Jerry which included shrapnel fragments, Japanese bayonet, hand grenade, a clip of rifle ammunition, and a mortar shell....still in his possession.
He married Patricia Gibson in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 8, 1958 . The address on Leo’s S.S. card is 39 Justin Dr., San Francisco, CA. It is not known when he lived at this address...it has not appeared on any other document. His father Howard (Jerry Howard Cokely dob 1881) owned a barber shop in San Francisco when Leo was born. A post card addressed to the barber shop congratulating "Howard" on the birth of his son is included in the personal memorabilia retained by Jerry Cokely dob 12-25-34. A map showing the shop's location is included in the three ring document binder in Jerry Cokely's possession.
He was left handed.
After the war he lived on the ranch at 9700 13th Avenue, Hanford with his father until his death on 30 Nov. 1947
The quaint country house was demolished and replaced with a new home built on the same property possible in the early or mid-1950's. This is a very rough estimate.
He maintained a forty acre grape vineyard (wine grapes) which later became an alfalfa ranch, then a wheat ranch and later a cotton ranch. Human cotton pickers were employed, dragging their typical nine yard sacks to hold the cotton, before the mechanical cotton picking machines were invented. The hand pickers were known to throw in a couple of dirt clods to increase the weight of their harvest thus increasing their payment.
He sold the ranch, with certain conditions, a few years before his death. At his death Pat moved to a double wide home in Hanford and the new owner of the ranch planted the entire forty acres with walnut trees.
His wife Pat worked for several years as a legal secretary, newspaper reporter, travel agent and traveled extensively but Leo had little interest in traveling although he did make one trip to Alaska with Pat.
He had a "ham radio" receiver and a scanner for the local law enforcement and emergency services which he enjoyed monitoring as he reclined in his stuffed living room chair. He was pleased to "pick up" overseas ham operators and radio transmissions. Jerry introduced him to the Heath Kit electronic kits and he constructed a weather station and a digital clock. The kits came with hundreds of tiny electronic parts and an instruction book on how and where to solder them to circuit boards in order to make it work.
He enjoyed having a cat and during his granddaughters (Sandy and Suzie) visits "George" received plenty of attention. Another cat "Momma cat" blessed those girls with a kitten which they had for many years.
Leo was an outgoing person who found it easy to start up a conversation with nearly anybody. Maybe this is why he ventured into the insurance sales business for a brief time.
Throughout his life he maintained a keen sense of humor and had a "good supply" of jokes to tell.
While maintaining the ranch he also worked in the liquid ammonia fertilizer business and distributed liquid ammonia to various ranches in the Hanford area.
He drove a school bus for many years, in the autumn of his life, for the Kings County School District. He maintained a "disciplined bus" and the students likely respected him for that. Any student who repeatedly failed to follow school bus rules found him or herself watching Leo's bus pass them by resulting in the parent having to take the student to school. It was a most effective discipline tool.
He never expressed an interest in any religion but respected his son's family's decision to become members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
He enjoyed watching the satellites cross above the ranch in the night sky and was very impressed with the immensity and endlessness of space.
At his request his remains were cremated in Hanford Calif. and his ashes were scattered in the poppy patch (flower garden) on the ranch at 9700 13th Avenue, Hanford CA by his wife Patricia Cokely.
Obituary in the Fresno (California) Bee dated Wed., Nov 16, 1983; " Leo. R. Cokely, Hanford---Cremation for Leo R. Cokely, 74, will be held at Whitehurst McNamara Funeral Chapel. Mr. Cokely died Tuesday. He was as a farmer and he was employed by the transportation department at Hanford High School. Mr. Cokely was a World War II Navy veteran. Surviving are a wife, Pat; a son, Jerry of Utah; and two grandchildren."
Obituary from the Logan, Utah "Hearld Journal"; "L. Cokely, Leo Rex Cokely, 74, Hanford, Calif, died Nov.15, 1983 in Sacred Heart Hospital in Hanford, after a brief illness. He was born Feb. 16, 1909, a son of Jerry Howrd (mispelled) and Lulu Cokely. He married Patricia Gibson March 8, 1958. He served in the U.S. Navy as a storekeeper and served in the South Pacific during WWII. He was a retired rancher and school bus driver for the Hanford School District. Surviving are his wife of Hanford; one son, Jerry H. Cokely, and two granddaughters, all of Wellsville."
Both obituaries are in possession of Jerry Cokely.
He sent his mother a souvenir copy of the 1942 Christmas dinner menu from the U.S. Naval Training Center in Farragut, Idaho. He wrote a letter to his "Ma" on the back of the menu informing her that he was eating well and expected to stay in Idaho after training. The menu is in the possession of his son Jerry Cokely.
His original Honorable Discharge from the U.S. Navy is also in possession of Jerry Cokely.
Leo had a tailor made Navy uniform which he gave to Jerry after he enlisted in the USN in 1953. The uniform fit and he wore it with pride although non-regulation uniforms were verboten.
In his later years he enjoyed making pomegranate jelly from the bush near the front of the house at the ranch. It was not an impressive looking bush but the yield proved to be delicious. In 2006 the neglected bush was still surviving and had dried fruit still hanging on a few branches. Jerry and his family cherished taking a few containers back to L.A. after their visits
