This is the fourth in a series on the pages of Dad’s photo album dedicated to each of his siblings. Today’s page is the one dedicated to his brother Earl.

This is a view of the entire photo album page dedicated to him.

The single photo on the page appears to be a small print of a studio portrait. I thought perhaps it was a proof (and it may be), but there is no studio imprint on the back. Uncle Earl was born in 1911, so he would have been about 17 in this photo.

It is a mystery why Dad did not put any other photos of Earl on this page.

The account of the siblings’ time in California seems to weave through these sibling photo album pages. And though there is nothing on Earl’s album page to connect him to that trip, he was there. And the story ultimately ends with Earl as we go through these pages in birth order, because none of the younger siblings were old enough to go. As I mentioned yesterday, Dad reports that Earl was working for Hills Brothers Coffee while in California. Dad doesn’t say what his job was.

Dad went to California with Ed in the fall of 1929 (as mentioned yesterday) and came back to Oregon with Earl in his 1929 Chevrolet Roadster in May 1930. He does not elaborate on why he decided to return to Oregon at that time, or why Earl was returning then also. He does not give any additional information regarding when the other siblings moved to California or when they returned to Oregon. My speculation is that they needed the incomes of all four brothers to cover rental of the house and the housekeeping arrangement with Ann. So I don’t imagine the others were there a long time before Dad and Ed arrived, and I doubt they were there a long time after Dad and Earl left.

So at least for Dad, the entire “California episode” was no more than nine months long. For the rest of his life, though, he would recount how glad he had been to return to Oregon then and how green Oregon looked to him from the moment he crossed the border from California.