The San Bernardino Sun published an article about my grandmother. I've copied the text below; he original is available here.
Woman had glam, zeal
Debbie Pfeiffer Trunnell, Staff Writer
SAN BERNARDINO - While her future husband was away serving in the Army during World War II, Clelta Inez Spelman did not sit idle.
Instead, the fashionable young woman and a friend opened a dress shop called Cover Girl on Ocean Avenue in the south end of San Francisco.
Then and later in life, as a young doctor's wife in San Bernardino, she was a hard worker.
"She took care of it all, from selling high-class fashions in the 1940s to working like a horse when we were children," said her daughter, Sandra Gail Bauer of Santa Ana.
Spelman died Jan. 4 at Redlands Community Hospital, 13 days after celebrating her 86th birthday.
She was born Dec. 22, 1920, to Grace Gatewood Winkler and Clarence Emmick, who at one time was an engineer on a riverboat on the Ohio River.
Spelman, named Clelta for an orphan her mother once cared for, was raised in Evansville, Ind.
Her favorite times in childhood were visits to her grandmother's farmhouse in Owensboro, Ky.
She used to talk about waking up on the farm and smelling hash - and biscuits and gravy - cooking in the kitchen, recalled Bauer.
Life on the small farm was harsh in the winter. It was bone-chillingly cold, and Clelta had to go outside to empty the family's chamber pots.
She graduated from Benjamin Bosse High School in Evansville and moved with her family to San Francisco when she was 18.
There, her family acquired a five-story apartment building next to Sutro Museum in Ocean Beach.
She lived in an apartment in the building and worked for her uncle, Eugene Emmick, who at the time owned most of the movie theaters in San Francisco, according to family members.
While working at a box office at one of the theaters, Spelman foiled an attempted robbery.
"She ducked down in the box office and the guy left," recalled daughter Heidi O'Connell of Sacramento.
During her time in San Francisco, Spelman attended UC Berkeley for a year and volunteered at the Junior Officers Club.
It was there that she ran into a young Army medical officer named George Spelman.
They played pingpong together, and it was love from then on.
While George was serving in the Army, Clelta and a good friend opened the dress shop, where she worked as the main buyer and seller.
Running the store also turned into a family affair.
Her sister, Retha Emmick, now Newell, considered the store her closet and was always coming in to borrow dresses.
Her mother would come in and sit in the store and encourage her daughter to be a stickler for the prices.
The store was so successful that Clelta and her partner opened a second San Francisco dress shop, also named Cover Girl.
She left her successful business behind when she and Spelman married on Christmas Day 1948 in Las Vegas, then took up residence in a rental home on Eighth Street in San Bernardino.
Eventually they settled in a home of their own, on Maywood Avenue, where they raised their three children.
In the early years, Spelman did much of the bookkeeping in her husband's medical office in San Bernardino.
The couple also purchased apartments next to his office, and she was active in managing them.
In addition to running the apartments, she got into the antiques business with Retha, and the two sisters put together an extensive cut-glass collection.
Clelta still dressed to the nines. Bauer remembers raiding her mother's closet and dressing in her fancy outfits.
"She was very, very glamorous,", "but eventually became aware of pedal pushers and wore them until the day she died."
The Spelmans traveled extensively to Mexico, Hawaii and Europe. On one trip, they bought a Mercedes-Benz in Europe and brought it back on the Queen Elizabeth 2.
The couple's greatest tragedy was the loss of their son, Roger, in an automobile accident when he was 32. One of Clelta's last requests was to be buried over her son's ashes in the family plot near San Francisco.
Her family described her death as a crushing blow.
"But it is a blow that seems to promise transformation into peace and strength from having had her," said her husband.
She is also survived by three grandchildren.
Woman had glam, zeal
Debbie Pfeiffer Trunnell, Staff Writer
SAN BERNARDINO - While her future husband was away serving in the Army during World War II, Clelta Inez Spelman did not sit idle.
Instead, the fashionable young woman and a friend opened a dress shop called Cover Girl on Ocean Avenue in the south end of San Francisco.
Then and later in life, as a young doctor's wife in San Bernardino, she was a hard worker.
"She took care of it all, from selling high-class fashions in the 1940s to working like a horse when we were children," said her daughter, Sandra Gail Bauer of Santa Ana.
Spelman died Jan. 4 at Redlands Community Hospital, 13 days after celebrating her 86th birthday.
She was born Dec. 22, 1920, to Grace Gatewood Winkler and Clarence Emmick, who at one time was an engineer on a riverboat on the Ohio River.
Spelman, named Clelta for an orphan her mother once cared for, was raised in Evansville, Ind.
Her favorite times in childhood were visits to her grandmother's farmhouse in Owensboro, Ky.
She used to talk about waking up on the farm and smelling hash - and biscuits and gravy - cooking in the kitchen, recalled Bauer.
Life on the small farm was harsh in the winter. It was bone-chillingly cold, and Clelta had to go outside to empty the family's chamber pots.
She graduated from Benjamin Bosse High School in Evansville and moved with her family to San Francisco when she was 18.
There, her family acquired a five-story apartment building next to Sutro Museum in Ocean Beach.
She lived in an apartment in the building and worked for her uncle, Eugene Emmick, who at the time owned most of the movie theaters in San Francisco, according to family members.
While working at a box office at one of the theaters, Spelman foiled an attempted robbery.
"She ducked down in the box office and the guy left," recalled daughter Heidi O'Connell of Sacramento.
During her time in San Francisco, Spelman attended UC Berkeley for a year and volunteered at the Junior Officers Club.
It was there that she ran into a young Army medical officer named George Spelman.
They played pingpong together, and it was love from then on.
While George was serving in the Army, Clelta and a good friend opened the dress shop, where she worked as the main buyer and seller.
Running the store also turned into a family affair.
Her sister, Retha Emmick, now Newell, considered the store her closet and was always coming in to borrow dresses.
Her mother would come in and sit in the store and encourage her daughter to be a stickler for the prices.
The store was so successful that Clelta and her partner opened a second San Francisco dress shop, also named Cover Girl.
She left her successful business behind when she and Spelman married on Christmas Day 1948 in Las Vegas, then took up residence in a rental home on Eighth Street in San Bernardino.
Eventually they settled in a home of their own, on Maywood Avenue, where they raised their three children.
In the early years, Spelman did much of the bookkeeping in her husband's medical office in San Bernardino.
The couple also purchased apartments next to his office, and she was active in managing them.
In addition to running the apartments, she got into the antiques business with Retha, and the two sisters put together an extensive cut-glass collection.
Clelta still dressed to the nines. Bauer remembers raiding her mother's closet and dressing in her fancy outfits.
"She was very, very glamorous,", "but eventually became aware of pedal pushers and wore them until the day she died."
The Spelmans traveled extensively to Mexico, Hawaii and Europe. On one trip, they bought a Mercedes-Benz in Europe and brought it back on the Queen Elizabeth 2.
The couple's greatest tragedy was the loss of their son, Roger, in an automobile accident when he was 32. One of Clelta's last requests was to be buried over her son's ashes in the family plot near San Francisco.
Her family described her death as a crushing blow.
"But it is a blow that seems to promise transformation into peace and strength from having had her," said her husband.
She is also survived by three grandchildren.
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