Esther completed one year of high school and married young.19

My grandmother describes her father’s store when she was young –

LLOYD’S GROCERY, my father’s store, [was] built for him in the early 1900s… In those days it was a fine store, and carried about everything. Besides a full line of groceries and meats, there was a notion counter, a full line of tobacco products and (one of the joys of childhood) a big case of PENNY CANDY. Any child with a penny could choose between a long stick of licorice, a tiny cupful of “niggerbeans,” chicken feed, or tiny printed hearts. Mr Balay (Ben’s father) was a big part of the store. We loved him. There were very few phones in those days, his job was to drive around the neighborhood every morning taking the orders, never in too much of a hurry [not] to enjoy a visit or a cup of coffee with a customer. Back at the store, the orders filled, he took the same route in the afternoon to deliver them. And, of course, [there were] monthly charge accounts, some never paid. It was a warm, friendly store.

My father writes,

My mother, Esther Lloyd, graduated from South Denver High School. She had no thoughts of further education. Her growing up years had not been easy. As the oldest girl in the family, she had many responsibilities in raising the younger ones, while her mother was pregnant or otherwise ill much of the time.

Mother told me that, after she and Dad had a few dates, he said, “I wish we could get married.” Her answer: “Why can’t we?” They did.

My grandmother had a strong sense of dignity and of elevated ancestry, and I remember her talking about her descent from the family of Revolutionary War General Israel Putnam. Her sense of elevated ancestry was accurate, even more than she knew, and without her tales of the Putnam family I never would have begun this work.