Ron's aunt and uncle

Whittier, California  (1953)

Left:  Charley Madison Plummer (1904-1973)

Right:  Virginia (Kaczmarek) Plummer  (1909-2002)

Uncle Charley, born and raised in Los Angeles, California, often marveled at the rapid

growth of that great metropolis.  During his childhood, he said, the city limits extended

a mere eight blocks in all directions.  Beyond that, one encountered only dirt roads and

rolling countryside.  Charley left home before his sixteenth birthday, lied about his age,

and joined the U.S. Navy.  Eventually, he made it a career, rising to the top enlisted rank

of Chief Quartermaster.  Charley spent virtually his entire career at sea, with only a few

months at a time on shore, in between ship assignments.  His first tour afloat, aboard the

battleship USS Texas, lasted seven years.  In December 1928, Charley was assigned to

the USS Tulsa, a patrol gunboat, and spent the next six years patrolling the coastlines

and rivers of China.  Charley retired from the Navy in December 1936, at age thirty-two.

At the time, enlisted men could transfer to the Fleet Reserve with sixteen years of active

duty, and Charley exercised that option; however, he was recalled to active duty in July

of 1940, as the Navy prepared for the inevitability of war.  Charley spent the duration of

World War II at sea, in both the Pacific and Atlantic theaters of operation, first aboard

the destroyer USS Schley and later on the escort carrier USS Wake Island.  In October

1945, with the war over and much of the fleet in mothballs, Charley retired once again.

Virginia had been married twice before, with Leslie N. Vincent (Aug 1926 - June 1940)

and Thomas Stevens (July 1940 - July 1943).  With Vincent, Virginia had two daughters,

Yvonne Helen (1929-1998) and Virginia (Chryss) (1931).  Leslie and Virginia ran a small

photography business together in New York and were quite successful; however, Vincent

became unfaithful, so Virginia divorced him and forced his deportation to Canada.  Her

second husband, Navy Chief Water Tender Thomas Stephens (1909-1943), proved to be

an ideal soul mate and father-figure for the two girls; but, tragically, he went down with

his ship, the USS Maddox, off the coast of Sicily in July 1943.

Charley and Virginia married in 1946.  During the initial ten years of their life together,

they lived first in San Pedro and later in Whittier, California.  In 1956, they moved with

their young son, James Lincoln (1950-1978), to tiny Gold Hill, Oregon.  There, Charley

enjoyed the peaceful solitude of the scenic Northwest, and Virginia became a successful

real estate broker throughout the Rogue River Valley during the 1960's and 1970's.