A LOOK BACK -- JERRY PERSON

Our last column began with a look at a remarkable lady and the

matriarch of the Stricklin family in Huntington Beach -- Sarah “Sadie”

Stricklin.

We left off with the Stricklin family coming to California for a

summer vacation in 1919. But first, why did Stricklin change her name to

Sadie? Family lore has two possible stories.

The first is that she disliked the name Sarah because the school kids

teased her by calling her “Surrey.” The other story is that she had a

cousin who called her “Sadie,” and Sarah liked that much better, so she

changed her name to it.

Stricklin, husband Oscar and their three children arrived at her

sister Nell’s home in Whittier for the summer. Housing was scarce, and

they couldn’t rent a house that allowed children.

Her family tells of how they found a house. Before setting out to find

one, she sent her children to the cemetery to play. When she found a

place, Sadie was asked if she had any children. She told the truth --

that they’re all in the cemetery. She was able to rent a two-room house

on Friends Avenue in Whittier.

Sadie went to work in a cafe as a dishwasher with her daughter Nell

and their aunt Annie for $10 a week. Oscar Stricklin did everything he

could to keep his wife in California, but she was homesick.

By now, he had a good job, but she wanted to return to Illinois. He

agreed to go back for her sake, but when she saw how much he cared for

her, Sadie Stricklin agreed to stay in California. Her husband got a job

with Standard Oil, and they moved to Huntington Beach. But her family was

still in Whittier, so they moved back there to live. Sadie Stricklin

thought Huntington Beach was “a real dead place” to live.

Oscar Stricklin would commute from Whittier to Huntington Beach for a

year. Their third son, Oscar Jr., was born in Whittier in 1925, followed

by their second daughter, Phyllis. During the Depression, the family grew

and canned their own vegetables. Sadie Stricklin was a wonderful cook,

but one time she bought a bottle of liniment from a door-to-door

salesman. Its bottle looked just like the one of vanilla flavoring and,

you guessed it, the cake tasted just like Watkins liniment.

The family were members of the Wintersbury Methodist Church, and one

of Sadie Stricklin’s duties in the church was to be in charge of

communion. During World War II, she sewed for the American Red Cross, as

well as for her family. She began keeping a diary on Jan. 1, 1944, and

until 1981 she recorded the important happenings in her day-to-day life.

They continued living on the Stricklin homestead at 17292 Goldenwest St.,

but as the years went by and they grew older, she would be visited by a

family member nearly every day.

By 1983, Oscar Stricklin had passed away and Sadie’s memory had begun

to fade. That year she went to live at Pacific Haven Care Center. The

family gathered around Sadie Stricklin to wish her a wonderful 100th

birthday on Oct. 28, 1989. A little more than a month later, on Dec. 1,

1989, Sadie Stricklin joined her husband to continue their love forever.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.