About Albert Loughner
My Dad was born in Jeannette, PA, on May 3, 1929 along with his twin brother, Lee. I really know nothing about his early childhood, he never talked about it with anyone it seems, not even my Mother.
I do know that as a young adolescent he worked in the Jeanette Glass Company factory in town. His memories of this experience were not fond; I got the impression it was akin to hell. Today the factory is nothing more than a rusting skeleton. Dad had a nickel-sized dark smudge of a tattoo of sorts on his right knee. When I was a young child I remember asking him why it did not wash off. He told me about a time that he and his brothers were running along a railroad track and he fell and scraped his knee severely. He explained the everlasting smudge was coal dust that got into the wound and could not be washed out.
Life must have been miserable for my Dad by the age of seventeen because he left town on his own and joined the Army Air Corp. This would have been in 1946, one year before the Army Air Corp. was abolished as a branch of the Army. My Dad did not talk much about his experiences other than I know he was a skilled mechanic and his last duty station was on the Aleutian Islands. I recall him telling me that he worked on Northrop P-61 Black Widows. Although not produced in large numbers, the Black Widow was operated as a night-fighter by United States Army Air Forces squadrons in the European Theater, the Pacific Theater, the China Burma India Theater and the Mediterranean Theater during World War II. On the night of August 14, 1945, a P-61B of the 548th Night Fighter Squadron named "Lady in the Dark" was unofficially credited with the last Allied air victory before VJ Day. After the war, the Black Widow served in the Air Force as a long-range, all weather, day/night interceptor for Air Defense Command until 1948, and Far East Air Force until 1950.
At the end of Dad’s service in 1950, he and an Air Force buddy named Don Donahoe, headed for Southern California. Dad would have been 21. This dawning decade opened new and unique economic opportunities in California, which further created a population boom that effected the state’s racial, social, and political climate, defining much of what the state has become today. You can imagine the excitement of 1950’s California with the rise of “fast food” restaurants and drive-ins like A&W Root Beer, a baby boom, the all-electric home as the ideal, the advent of television and TV dinners, abstract art, the first credit card, the rise of drive-in theaters where young couples could find privacy in their hot-rods, and a youth reaction to middle-aged cinema. Older viewers were prone to stay at home and watch television, while young people wanted new and exciting symbols of rebellion. Hollywood responded to audience demands with the rise of the anti-hero with stars like newcomers James Dean, Paul Newman and Marlon Brando. Sexy anti-heroines included Ava Gardner, Kim Novak and Marilyn Monroe.
Not too long after Dad’s arrival in Los Angeles, California, he met a glowing, exuberant young woman named Eleanor Dixon. They were introduced by mutual friends and soon fell in love. They married in 1952. My Mother was studying to become a lab technician and Dad was working at the Los Angeles Times as a stereotyper. His job was to make lead printing plates cast from a matrix molded from a raised type printing surface. These plates were the size of a newspaper page, formed in a half-circle and very heavy. As the lead was poured into the molds it would splatter and the floor and leave lead splatters all over my Dad’s pant legs.
I was born two years later in 1954. Mom and Dad purchased a new three-bedroom, two-bath house in the new Orange County city of Garden Grove. Mom stayed home to care for me and Dad made the daily drive to and from downtown LA, a distance of about 30 miles. This commute soon became too much for my Dad to endure so he and Mom rented the Garden Grove house and moved back to LA to live in my Great Grandmother’s house in Inglewood. My Great Grandmother, Florence McKay, moved in with my Grandmother Lolita, a short distance away on Seventh St. in LA.
The ensuing four years in Inglewood were very good for Mom and Dad. As I got older, I remember a huge, orange 1957 Plymouth Belvedere with tall tail fins. On Dad’s 29th birthday, my triplet sisters were born. This caused a monumental shift in family dynamics and prompted my parents to move back to their home in Garden Grove in 1959. Dad went back to his long commute to the LA Times while my Mom struggled as a new mother with four little kids. I remember those early years in Garden Grove with very fond memories. Some years later, Dad went to night school while driving to and working at the LA Times and The Garden Grove News. It seemed to me Dad did this for a very long time. I remember him attending Lumbleau Real Estate School. He got is real estate license and worked for a time as a realtor for Lemmon Realty. This kept the family afloat while he went back to night school to get his real estate appraisal license.
You have to hand it to my Dad; he worked very long hours for many years to achieve his goals. He was hired as an appraiser by a small company in Costa Mesa called Volney Brown. Again, Dad pursued his goal and was hired as an appraiser for United California Bank. While raising a family in Garden Grove, he was driving to Pomona as a member of the Bank’s Riverside/San Bernardino appraisal office. Dad drove many miles and long hours surveying residential and eventually commercial properties all over the Inland Empire. Some of my fondest memories with my Dad were on trips with him during the summer. We would go to his office, where I knew most of the appraisal personnel, and then on to the Riverside or San Bernardino Recorder’s Office. Dad would pore through thick books to look up the plot maps of subdivisions and commercial properties. We would then drive for what seemed like forever to remote locations known as Murrieta Hot Springs, Palm Springs, Victorville, Yucca Valley, Lake Elsinore, and past March Air Force Base to the little towns of Perris, Hemet and Ramona. I went with my Dad on these trips at least a couple times a week each summer.
In time, Dad became the Senior Appraiser and Manager of the Pomona Appraisal Office. This territory was the largest in the state and required Dad to have a staff of five. This position lasted a few years. Eventually, Dad was promoted to Vice President and Chief Appraiser. This position was in the 62-story First Interstate Bank building at 707 West Wilshire Blvd., in downtown Los Angeles. Dad was very proud of the fact that this was the tallest building west of Chicago. Although Dad had to spend time in downtown LA, his position allowed him to work remotely from a variety of larger bank branches. Due to its proximity to home, Dad spent a lot of his time working from the Anaheim office on Harbor Blvd. for many years, with infrequent trips into LA for meetings and such.
My mother, Eleanor, died after a long illness in September, 1978. My Dad was devastated beyond what I thought was survivable. It took quite some time and some very lonely periods, but Dad eventually brought himself out of the depths of this loss. His doctor, who helped him get through this period, introduced him to a vibrant woman named Carolyn Allen. Dad and Carolyn were married in Carolyn’s backyard in Fullerton. Dad moved in with Carolyn and rented the Garden Grove house. Dad and Carolyn were very happy and Dad always told me how proud he was of Carolyn’s “self-assured, get-it-done, won’t take no for an answer” personality. She was very good for my Dad at this point in his life and gave him a reason to live. I remember many Friday night dinners at the Velvet Turtle in Fullerton and La Puente. Dad and Carolyn, and Leigh Ann and I, would meet after work for wonderful dinners and conversation. Dad was very happy during this time. He had a new life with Carolyn and he enjoyed his work very much and took great pride in it. I recall several verbal scuffles he told me about with commercial loan officers because they wanted Dad to inflate property values on multi-million dollar projects. Dad refused to put the bank in a position of potential loss and always held his ground by backing his position with numbers. My Dad was the most honest person I ever knew. Even as a child, I cannot remember one time he lied to me.
Dad and Carolyn did a lot of traveling, in addition to their Paris honeymoon. They went to Italy, Russia, England, France, and undoubtedly places I cannot recall. They also did extensive travel in the US to New York, Florida, Texas, Georgia, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, San Francisco and Las Vegas. These were happy times for my Dad. Then in 1992, Dad suffered a heart attack and had a seven by-pass performed. At the time this was close to a record for survival. It was a tough time for Dad, and Carolyn as well. Along with heart attack and by-pass surgery can come depression, and Dad suffered with this for a while. He was convinced the surgery was so drastic that his long term survival was in doubt. Funny thing was, much to Dad’s surprise he not only survived, he lived almost another 20 years! I do not recall the exact date of Dad’s retirement from First Interstate Bank, but it was not too long after his heart surgery. I think retirement was hard on my Dad initially because he had been used to being so busy most of his life.
There are many times now that I think about calling my Dad and then remember he is not there to take the call. I miss him.
Jim Loughner, Woodstock, Georgia May 3, 2012
https://www.geni.com/people/Albert-Loughner/4915096167690065601
