Gilbert Charles Burns

1908 - 1992  (84 years)

• Name	Gilbert Charles Burns
  Birth	1908	Oakland, California
  Gender	Male
  Death	1992	San Diego, California
  Biography	26 Jul 2004  [1]
  	From an interview with Gilbert's daughter Loretta Mary O'Berg on 26 Jul 2004: Gilbert was really unusual, extremely intelligent but not very practical. Grandma Mary's sister Fay was in New York at the same time as Gilbert when he went to Columbia University in New York. He was interested in poetry and literature. He was so brilliant that the professor turned the class over to Gilbert to teach it, and he did. And of course he was a fine musician. He played with the San Francisco Symphony during the depression. He played the clarinet and then the saxophone. Also during the depression he worked the ships to the Orient: he played in the ships orchestra. He brought back interesting cravings from Hong Kong and Japan. He was quite the ladies' man, I guess you might even say boarding on a gigolo. He would always get some woman to take care of him. When he came back I guess he met my mother at that time. His Uncle Tom Boyd in Honolulu offered him a job in his mortuary. The stipulation was he would have to start from the very beginning from embalming. Gilbert was a pretty far out person but that was more than he could take, he lasted six months. It was too much, he couldn't handle it. Uncle Tom was awful, very sadistic, not a nice person. Gilbert gave up a fortune, he couldn't handle that. Then he played at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in the evenings. During the day he was also involved in a car dealership. He sold two cars to Mickey Rooney in one week. Mickey demolished two cars in one week, he had a body guard he was so wild. Gilbert would also smoke marijuana with all the stars that came over to the Islands: Errol Flynn, Cesar Romero. My mother should have been married to a farmer. She had all these beautiful evening gowns because she would go in the evenings and sit in the audience while he was playing at the Royal Hawaiian: in fact sometimes she would take me. In those days you could do that. It was in the ballroom at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, which was very beautiful, it was right on the beach. I would just curl up on the sand outside and sleep if I got tired. But most the time I enjoyed seeing all the ladies in their beautiful dresses, it was nice. This was not a happy marriage: my mother preferred to be in jeans and digging in the ground and making a home. Gilbert was not interested, he was interested in beautiful clothes and jewelry. In those days men wore a lot of jewelry, cuff links, chains and fancy watches. We went over in 1937 and came home in 1941. We caught one of the last ships out of Honolulu coming back to the mainland. Luckily, it took the roof off my school, It was a good thing we got out of there in time. Gilbert wasn't supposed to sail with us, he was supposed to go back [to work]. Detroit told him they were going to get one more shipment of cars and then the shipments would be cut off. We all knew that we were going to be attacked, but we didn't know when. Gilbert got so drunk on sailing day and passed out he ended up sailing home with us to San Francisco. We moved to Oakland with my grandmother Ready. Gilbert was classified 4F and he couldn't be drafted. Gilbert got a job in Richmond at Kaiser ship yards for awhile. Here he was: this sensitive poet doing meanly work. If you were classed 4F you had to do defense work. So then we moved south to Seal Beach. Both my parents got jobs at the airplane factory. My mother didn't have any math background but she ended up being a tool and die designer. They manufactured war planes. Gilbert got a job as a janitor and would come around and sweep up the piling at her desk, this was war. Gilbert played with Arty Shaw for awhile: his real love was music, Classical and Jazz, during this time period. After the war we came back to Oakland and we lived in grandma Mary's house on 57th Street, in East Oakland, we fixed it up. Gilbert really started drinking at this time. He was playing at night but he wasn't getting good jobs. My mother was working at Lurence's -- it used to be Safeways -- making ice cream. Things were really bad for the marriage. On the weekends, of course my mother worked all week and so it was only on the weekends for cleaning house and we had a farm in the backyard on 57th Street. Chickens, rabbits and ducks because you couldn't buy meat during this time, it was rare that you could get meat. A lot of people were raising animals in their backyards then. Gilbert would have nothing to do with them mother would have to kill, clean and cook them. There was always work on the weekends and Gilbert expected to be served a nice breakfast. Gilbert would say come on Loretta, my sister usually didn't join us because she was younger and wasn't interested in the beach. He invited mother too but she would say "If I go who is going to do all this work, mow the lawn, do the wash, clean the house?" She was left behind and I always felt guilty. We would always go to Lake Temascal to swim. Gilbert was fun, my mother wasn't. She always played the martyr. They ended up getting divorced. The Burns family wasn't happy about that. He was a spoiled brat. I think it was because he was the only son. He was smart: he knew how to work everybody. He had a such a strange sense of humor. When we first moved to Hawaii, there was a terrible depression in Hawaii. Jobs were very rare so what did he do? One day he put an ad in the paper: "Need 100 workers, please apply at (he gave an address)." 1,000 people came looking for a job and he stood there laughing. Yes, both my parents were Communists. They both joined the Communist Party. They were really into socialism. They were into unions, shared wealth, good things for humanity. I remember handing out the Daily Worker -- which was a Communist newspaper -- at the Alameda shipyard during WWII with my mother and father. My sister stayed with me for awhile, after my divorce. One day we decided to look him up and we found his number. I stayed in touch with Fay and Grandma. Grandma came to my home she could see that we were doing very well financially, so she didn't leave me any money but left Collette about $1,500.
  Person ID	I186	Walsh - Wilson Family Tree
  Last Modified	19 Jun 2013

  
  

  Father	James Edward Burns,   b. 12 Feb 1867, New Jersey d. 29 Jan 1959, Oakland, California (Age 91 years)
  Mother	Maria Constantina Wiser,   b. 31 Dec 1871, Aarau/AG, Switzerland d. 22 Mar 1961, Merritt Hospital, Oakland, California (Age 89 years)
  Record ID Number	MH:F75
  Documents » Slide Show		James E. Burns and Family - 1920 United States Census The 1920 U.S. Census shows James E. Burns, age 54 born in New Jersey circa 1866 (father born in England, mother born in New York), a waiter in a cafe, living with his wife Mary C., age 46 born in Switzerland circa 1874 (father born in Switzerland, mother born in Germany). With them is their son Gilbert C., age 11 born in California circa 1909. Also in the household is Otto Wiser/Wyser, age 37, James Burns' brother-in-law. Otto was born in Australia circa 1883 (father born in Switzerland, mother born in Germany). Otto is a machinist's helper at a shipyard. They are living at 821 20th Street, Oakland, California 94607. Otto and Mary C. were naturalised as U.S. citizens in 1895. Source Citation: Year: 1920; Census Place: Oakland, Alameda, California; Roll T625_89; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 91; Image: 789. Source Information: Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009
  		James E. Burns - 1930 U.S. Census The 1930 U.S. census shows James E. Burns, age 62, born in New Jersey, a waiter in a restaurant, living with his wife Mary C. Burns, age 54, born in Switzerland. They own their home, with an estimated value of $4,000. Living with them is "Gus Wise," age 45 born in Australia, a machinist in a factory. This is Otto Wyser, whose nickname was Gus. Source Citation: Year: 1930; Census Place: Oakland, Alameda, California; Roll 101; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 15; Image: 708.0. Source Information: Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2002. Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930. T626, 2,667 rolls.
  		James Edward Burns [misspelled Burke] and Family - 1910 United States Census The 1910 census shows James E Burns (age 42, born in New Jersey, married 17 years) living with his family at 573 Jones Street, Oakland, California. He was a machinist with Union Iron Works. Living with him: his wife Mary C., age 35; daughter Florence, age 13; daughter Eugenia [Virginia?] age 3, and son Gilbert, age 1 1/2. Also living in the household is Annie Wyser, sister-in-law, age 24 [possibly Fannie Wyser, b 1884], a cashier at a dry goods store. Located, despite spelling mistake on surname, by Cathy Key.
  Family ID	F74	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Bernadette L. Reay,   b. 20 Nov 1908, San Francisco, California
  Children	1. Loretta Mary Burns   2. Collette Reay Burns,   b. 18 Oct 1937
  Family ID	F77	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	15 Apr 2009

  
  

• Photos » Slide Show		Gilbert Charles Burns
  		Gilbert Charles Burns (in centre) with Ida [Wyser] Boyd and Emilia [Wyser] Wilkinson Photographed in Hawaii (judging from the lei) - date not known.
  		Yosemite - Winter 1928 From left to right, back row: 1 - Fred Storan Mann 2 - Gilbert Charles Burns, brother to (4) and (5) 3 - Dorothy Constance Mann, daughter of Fred (1) and Loraine (4) 4 - Loraine Florence [Burns] Mann, wife of Fred Storan Mann 5 - Virginia Loretta [Burns] Richardson, mother of Barbara Florence Richardson (6) Left to right, front row: 6 - Barbara Florence Richardson 7
  		Maria Constantina [Wyser] Burns, Collette Burns, Bernadet [Ruth Reay Burns, Gilbert Charles Burns, Virginia Loretta [Virgie Burns] Richardson, Diane Richardson

  
  

  Documents

  Obituary for Mary C. Burns from the 23 March 1961 issue of the Oakland Tribune, page 51

  
  

• Sources

  [S1] Cathy Key, Cathy Key, 14 Apr 2009, E-mail.