Reza Gostar
The San Fernando Valley was quite different in the 1940s.
It was filled with orange groves, street trolleys littered downtown Los Angeles, the terms “nifty” and “swell” were a part of the youth’s vernacular and people were swinging to the sounds of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw.
Robert Shirley, 86, with wife Nancy Shirley, 88, are currently taking History 11 and ENCORE program classes ranging from cinema appreciation to the Bible as literature at Pierce College.
“It keeps us out of the bars,” Robert Shirley joked.
Robert Shirley first began taking classes at Pierce in 1957 and continued to do so as part of his Certified Public Accountant (CPA) licensing requirements.
He stopped taking classes in 1987 because he retired. Now the renewed interest in Pierce is due to personal growth and enjoyment.
The married couple shares an admiration for the modern day student.
“They’re [the students] going to school and working at the same time,” he said. “We just went to school. It was not like it is today,” he said.
“I remember coming here [Pierce] once every other day and picking avocados,” recollected Nancy Shirley. “There were avocados trees everywhere.”
The Mason Walkway, the tile roof buildings and the country store, which was on Mason Avenue, at Pierce are a few of the most memorable fixtures the couple recalls.
“There used to be a country store here that sold eggs, milk, avocados and citrus fruit,” she said. “Everything was made or grown right here.”
As well as Pierce, he also remembers swinging to the sound of big band music at The Palladium and his wife misses the vaudeville style of theater that was popular then.
To them, downtown L.A. was a different place then it is today, too. There much was less hustle and bustle due to a smaller population then.
“To a large extent, it had a small town feel,” he said. “The city was full of vacant lots.”
Nancy Shirley loved to visit Westlake Park which was later renamed after General Douglas MacArthur and is more well known as MacArthur Park.
“There were electric boats on the lake,” she said. “Griffith was really pretty then. I used to have picnics there.”
Geology was not the only difference between then and now. The country was recovering from the Great Depression. World War II came knocking on America’s doorstep awakening a “sleeping giant.”
Robert Shirley lived in a country that was in state of panic after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He believes the paranoia had affected the way people lived in L.A and other communities.
“The whole city would be blacked out,” said Robert Shirley. “When you drove on PCH you were only allowed to have your parking lights on.”
At the age of 21, two weeks after graduating from the University of Southern California, he enlisted in the U.S. Army as a military policeman.
“I was kept out of the infantry because of my eyesight,” he said.
Stationed in Texas at a prisoner of war camp, he guarded soldiers, mostly from the German Africa Corps.
“They were treated good and fed well,” he recalled.
He remembers how the prisoners he guarded listened to the same big band music that was popular then.
Nancy Shirley, who studied drama and English at USC, worked with the Red Cross at the time doing her part and for the war effort.
Having a great respect for education, she believes that it must serve its purpose and be enjoyable.
“One thing that is very sad is a sense of hopelessness that people have,” she said in reference to today’s generation and their need to have more aspirations and hopes.
“The most important thing schools can do is develop good citizens and as much as possible– make them ready for life,” said Robert Shirley.
Both widowed, the Shirleys are in their second marriage and have been together for 13 years. Together they share five children, nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Their oldest child is 62 years old and their youngest great-grandchild is 2 years old.