My Grandfather, Jack's Father, Harold D. Leddy

Harold D. Leddy

Jack Leddy, Harold D. Leddy, Margaret Leddy (my grandmother) and Don Leddy (Jack's brother)

Harold was born May 18, 1892 and died in September 1967.  He met his wife Margaret at U.C. Berkeley. He served in WWI with the Engineers digging trenches.  Jack says he was strongly influenced by the French.  The story is that when he came back his hair was completely white even though still a young man.  He was said to have suffered from a mustard gas attack.  Harold eventually became a lawyer.  There is a story that his teeth were very crooked and that one day, to improve his delivery in trials, he had all his teath pulled.  For as long as I knew him he had false teath.  Harold, Margaret and their family moved from Pasadena to Bakersfield maybe in the 1930s. Their place in Bakersfield still exists on Oleander Drive.  It is a two story California bungalow.  My Dad had the attic room with windows on three sides.  When he was young it must have been filled with electrical equipment.  I remember that the floor in the kitchen was tilted because of an earthquake.  During the Depression, for a while, the Leddy family had a place in Mountain Ranch, California.  Eventually that place burned down. Late in life Harold and Margaret moved to Costa Mesa. Their son Jim often lived with for some of that period.   Harold loved to read and he also loved used book stores.  His study in Costa Mesa had quite a few books.  He also loved to gamble.  When we were kids he would take us to the race tracks and give us two dollars to bet.  Jane says that once we went to her and said that we needed more money: we asked her to take us to the race tracks so that we could bet some money.  I remember that when my grandpa took me to the races I always bet $2 for the favorite to show:  I usually made about fifty cents.