Levi Freeman Case - from Uncle Gordon's website and Viewpoint

(The original birth certificate for Freeman Case listed him as George Case, apparently Maggie named him for her older brother George Spencer, then changed it to the name he grew up with: Levi Freeman Case. His birth certificate was modified to reflect his proper name when he joined the Navy in 1942.)

Born in Long Beach, California, Levi grew up in the Los Angeles Area, surrounded by his father's and his mother's brothers and sisters. Levi Freeman (“Freeman”) followed in his father’s and his father’s and his father’s footsteps in the building trades and became a lather in Los Angeles. During the depression, building activity dwindled, and several parts of the Case family in southern California supported themselves by making and selling on the street, Cases' Texas Tamales.

Following the lead of Freeman's grandmother, Sarah Percy Black/Spencer of Decatur, Texas, much of the Case family were active members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Los Angeles after they arrived from Texas. Through the church activities, young Levi, who went by his middle name Freeman, met Alys-Mae Barkwille. Alys-Mae and her mother were a moderately successful professional singing act, and Freeman tried to accompany them on his guitar and sing along, but he turned out to be slightly tone-deaf and gave it up (ah, that's where I get it from (yes, this is a note from Candace)). He finally did marry Alys-Mae July 22, 1933 in South Gate, CA. Alys-Mae quit the singing act and joined the Case family tamale business.

Freeman and Alys-Mae separated in 1941 and divorced in 1943. When the Second World War broke out, Dad joined the Navy, and was a Carpenter's Mate 1st Class in the Pacific Fleet.

During the War, Alys-Mae cared for their children when she could afford it, and at other times we were with friends or relatives. We were cared for, for a while, by Flo Case, daughter of Dad's brother Deward. In late summer of 1944, Leighton and I were placed with Ione Stellway in Bellflower. My mother was convinced Mrs. Stellway was a relative of the Cases, but I have not been able to place her in the family--maybe she was Deward Case's wife's mother/sister/aunt(?). A few blocks down the street, our brother Eugene Case was living with--I think--our uncle Deward Case.

1945. When WWII ended, Freeman returned to the lathing trade and lived for a short time with his 2^nd wife Lucille in Lemon Grove, CA in a trailer-home parked on the George and Ida Mae (Case) KRAFT property. Leighton, Eugene and I were all there at one point, bedded down in the Kraft home. Next door was Dad's sister Hazel, her husband Walter Meyer and their sons. The marriage to Lucille did not last too long . . . I was sent to live with my mother, while Leighton and Eugene stayed for a while longer.

Freeman later married a war-widow, Helen (Culka) ALLEN, and took on supporting her four children and his three sons. For a time, Freeman, Helen and her children Loretta, Larry, Collette and Barbara, and Freeman’s Leighton, Eugene and Gordon all lived in a small home on Bliss Street in Compton, CA—a very full house. It quickly turned out to be too crowded, and about 1948, his 3 boys moved to Hayward, CA one at a time to live with their mother and her husband Richard Shrank.

Helen and Freeman had one child, daughter Lynette Sue CASE.

They were avid fans of Monopoly, and when Canasta became popular, they shifted to that card-game, playing for decades almost every weekend with friends and relatives. Dad and Uncle Deward were quite close during that time. We went surf fishing together and their hobby for a while was brewing home-made beer—long before the advent of micro-breweries. Freeman Case retired in 1972 and moved his family to Apple Valley, CA. Helen Case died in 1981 after a five year battle with melanoma cancer.

Lynette CASE married Larry Kachelmeyer--yet another carpenter. Lynette and Larry have two daughters: Emily Ann Kachelmeyer (Watts) and Katie Lynn Kachelmeyer (Conger.)

Freeman developed "minor" prostate cancer at 75 and Alzheimer’s disease about 1989. Lynette’s husband built an apartment over their garage for Freeman to live in after he developed Alzheimer’s, and he lived there until he died in 1992.

I Live in Hope

I live in hope that one day Uncle Mike and I will not be the only ones posting on this blog. Uncle Gordon promised to drop in and check it out . . . here's hoping that's soon. Then I won't have to post as much.

But, nevertheless, here I go. The uncle we lost before I had a chance to get know him is Uncle Eugene. He is the middle child of the Case brothers: Leighton, Eugene and Gordon, and an older brother to Uncle Mike and Uncle Rich. Here's what Uncle Gordon has posted on the family genealogical website about him.

Eugene Richard "Red" Case, was born September 10, 1935 at Compton, Los Angeles, CA

Died: June 3, 1959, Woodland Clinic, Woodland, Yolo, CA
Parents: Levi Freeman Case and Alys-Mae Barkwille

Married: Diana Louise Stevenson, Yuma, AZ

Children of Eugene and Diana are:
Eugene Richard Case, Jr.,
Jeanette Ann Case,
Daniel James Case.

Eugene Case was born second child of Levi and Alys-Mae Case. He, along with his brothers, lived with various relatives and friends after Freeman and Alys-Mae separated. After attending schools in Southern California, he lived with his mother Alys-Mae, her husband Richard Shrank, and his two brothers Leighton and Gordon in Hayward, Alameda, CA.

Eugene graduated from Hayward Union High School in 1955, where he had evidenced a talent for math, writing and participated in school plays. He played the lead in “My Heart’s in the Highlands”, about an elderly gentleman reminiscing about his childhood in Scotland.

Eugene was early interested in all things automotive. He once brought home a car to restore ( I think a ’36 ford) but he was too busy and didn’t have the necessary money, so we broke it apart with sledge hammers and axes, and it was sold for scrap. We “hung around” a Hayward truck stop so he could talk to the truckers about their trucks, and engines and he was a charter member of the Hayward Head Hunters, an early car club. Eugene worked after high school as a body and fender repairman, at a shop in Hayward. The shop owner had a sprint car that he ran frequently at the old Bayfair Speedway in San Leandro, CA, where Eugene learned to drive in races.

He attended one semester of Auto Engineering classes at U. C. Berkeley, but left , he always said, because they would not allow him to wear Levis--but I know he was distraught over a sweet-heart that had dumped him, and I think the theoretical world was just not for him. After leaving college, he left for Los Angeles to be “where the action was”. In Los Angeles, he worked at Sonny’s Muffler shop, where he became an expert welder and racing engine balancer. Eugene devised and sold Red’s Headers, a custom header kit, with quick-remove plugs that allowed exhaust to be routed around a car’s mufflers, for road racing. In Los Angeles, he drove for several racing teams:

Eugene’s ’49 Mercury, raked 2 feet, with high-powered engine and pressure fuel system was a frequent winner in Los Angeles area street-drags. It was also an easy target for the L.A. P. D. and after too many citations, in the summer of 1956, he and Diana moved to Tulare, CA. In Tulare, Eugene, Diana and his younger brother Gordon lived together for a short time, while he tried out the quiet life as Engineering draftsman for the Morrill Rake Co.

The rural life did not suit Eugene, so he and Diana returned to Los Angles where he became a mechanic and semi-professional driver for the well financed Sanchez racing team organized specifically to set world records.

It was easy to understand the lure and excitement of that drag-racing world. The car Eugene last drove, was one he built himself in 1958-59. I was a streamlined, unlimited-class dragster. Drag cars then had two gears, neutral and high, they were powered with super charged V-8s fueled with a mixture of Nitro and Methane. After being started with a push-car, and then hand pushed to the starting line, they were revved until running smoothly. When the starting light blinked, and the race was on, the cars roared to almost a dead-stop, as the tires squeeled, bit and then hurtled down the ¼ mile strip to speeds approaching 200mph in about 8 seconds.

The last time I saw Eugene alive was a pure coincidence. In February of 1959, I was in the Navy's electronics school at Treasure Island, San Francisco, and on the spur of the moment decided to hitch-hike to Mojave and surprise our Mom for her birthday. I was standing on the shoulder of Hiway 99, about 15 miles north of Bakersfield, when a black Chrysler station wagon towing a streamlined dragster pulled up to a roadside coffee-shop on the other side of the highway. Eugene and his crew were in that Chrysler on the way to a drag-meet, and we had a nice lunch together before he went North and I went South. Little did I know at the time that it would be the last time I talked with him---

That team’s car had some promising runs at Bonneville salt flats, and was a frequent winner in the California drag scene, until one May Saturday in 1959, at the Yolo County, CA airport drag race, the throttle stuck and Eugene went across the end of the strip in excess of 200 mph and the drague chute could not stop it from going end-over-end.

After 3 days of intensive care at the Woodland, CA clinic, Eugene died June 3, from massive injuries. He was buried in the Crestview cemetery, Porterville, CA after a funeral in which brothers Leighton and Gordon, and racing friends from Los Angeles were pall bearers. Also present at the funeral, in addition to Mom and Richard Shrank, Granny and Grandpop Barkwille---Dad and Helen, Uncle Deward Case and Aunt Louella.

November 1, 1959, Smokers, Inc. a Bakersfield, CA car club held a “Red Case memorial drag race and donated part of the proceeds to Diana and her kids.

So there's a little bit about the uncle we lost so early in life. Uncle Gordon thanks so much for being so diligent in gathering the family history. I know it is an expensive, time consuming effort but I love reading everything about our family.