From Paul Kemp Jr.....
Hi Kemps of all generations wherever you are,
One of the last remaining grandchildren of Elva Mary Kemp has passed away yesterday, during the morning hours. She was 94 years old, born in 1918.
Her name was Pat Boone and she was the daughter and eldest child of our Uncle Willard “Shine and/or Bill” Kemp. Uncle Willard was married to Nellie Kemp who passed away in 1925, leaving her two children motherless at an early age.
For whatever reason Uncle Willard was unable to care for his two children, Willard Jr. (Billy) and Pat, and so Grandmother took them in to her household and raised them for many years during the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. Uncle Willard was a true very colorful character in his own right whose own story you would enjoy but we’ll save that for another time.
Don’t forget that Grandmother Kemp had had eleven children of her own and from time to time had a few others that came to live with her at various times and places.
In the very early 1930’s, when I was three and four years old, I was a frequent visitor at Grandma’s big three story house in Hollywood on Heliotrope Drive. At that time Uncle Jack (Jack Bradford Kemp) was living there along with our cousin Bob Schwartz, and cousins Billy and Pat. Also living there was a young man named Duggan (the only name we ever knew he had) that Grandma had taken in because he had been orphaned and was homeless and had been sent to Grandma by Mr. Bullock, the owner of the famous Bullock’s Department Stores in Los Angeles. And a huge Great Dane dog by the name of Prince. What a household!
Duggan finally went to sea as a merchant seaman and disappeared during WWII, never to be heard from again.
I was often visiting Grandma’s Heliotrope house, and at my age of four, Pat was fourteen and Billy was about eleven, I believe........and Billy was one pretty wild character at the time from what I picked up from the family. Cousin Billy spent WWII in the US Coast Guard, mostly in Alaska and after the war married a lovely and very sweet woman by the name of Dean who eventually gave birth to a son they named Willard Jr. (Billy again!) and a daughter named Dean (again). Both of these children, Billy and Dean, are living in So. California and Dean (aka “Honey”) has been responsible for taking such wonderfully good care of Pat in her last few years and helping manage her affairs. Again, Honey and Billy are Pat’s niece and nephew.
Pat had her own room up in the 3rd story of that Heliotrope house and Billy lived in a very small room behind the kitchen’s back porch. On the back porch was an “ice box” with real ice in it that the ice man delivered every week......no fridge then as we know them now. Grandma would give me a nickel and let me walk down to the corner drug store soda fountain where I could buy a “cornucopia” - aka an ice cream cone. So help me, that’s what she called them! The Heliotrope house was the last house on the block just behind the retail buildings along Melrose Avenue.
Pat has always complained that Grandma favored “her boys” so much that she got short changed in the attention and affection that she needed and we’ve all noticed that her personality always included mannerisms and devices that would draw moderate attention to herself. Undoubtedly Pat had been denied a normal family life and upbringing and so she developed an attitude of survivorship that probably stood her very well in life as she matured and grew older.
Sometime in the 1940’s Pat married Bill Boone who was medically draft exempt and who was an expert aviation mechanic with Lockheed Aircraft there in southern California. Bill Boone was a truly wonderful man and husband for Pat and took wonderful care of her for the next 45 years until he passed away in 1995. Bill became an expert technician in Lockheed’s Space Division and worked for years at the Lockheed missile launching facilities at Vandenburg Air Force Base at Lompoc, California until about 1975 when he was transferred to their Space Division in Sunnyvale and they came to live near us in San Jose, California. Nancy and I were living then in Saratoga, California. We had a huge reunion then and got together often until they moved back to So. California in the early 1990’s. I always loved Pat and Bill.
After Bill Boone passed away, Pat continued to live in her mobile home in Irvine, California where she would hop onto her little electric scooter and drive over to the markets and stores at 90+ years! I can’t get over that image.
Brother Tom took over the formidable duties of handling Pat’s financial and legal affairs for years, until he passed away and Richard inherited the even more formidable task of these affairs as she grew older. Honey (Dean) took over this responsibility for Pat’s last couple of years and beautifully handled Pat’s housing and medical issues right up until her passing and is still having to deal with her affairs and final estate.
Pat won many honors as President and other office holder in the largest women’s club in America. She attended their annual meetings all around the country until she turned 90 or 91 years old by checking her scooter on the airplane and flying wherever.
Pat was a true Kemp piece-of-work. Those of us who knew her will never forget her.
I thought some of you might enjoy having the above information about one of your more remote family members.
-Paul Kemp Jr.
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| Brothers Paul Sr, Jack, and Willard |
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| Willard, Billy, Pat |
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| Bob Schwartz, Pat, Joyce, Billy, Laurin Jr. |
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| Pat with Bob Schwartz |
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| Pat, Bob Schwartz, and Doug McPhail |
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| Pat, Willard, Billy, Elva |
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| baby Paul Jr (far left) - Pat and Billy (far right) |
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| Billy and Pat |
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| Pat with Marie Kemp |
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| Bob Schwartz, Paul Jr, Pat, Billy, and Prince |
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| Pat and Willard |
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| Pat with her brother, Billy, and his wife, Dean |
