My Mom, Arch

My Mom was born Archangelina Gabrielle Colombier in the Spring of 1949.  Her birth parents were a pair of kids just out of high school who belonged to the same parish as her adoptive parents, Henri and Clarette.  Most of the parishioners were working class Mexican Americans.  Henri and Clarette had moved to Southern California three years ago from Montreal, Canada, where they ended up when her parents fled France just before Hitler got there.  Henri had gotten a job teaching French Literature at a state university.  Clarette was a music teacher and ended up working for a few of the elementary schools in the area.  Childhood illness made Clarette unable to have children.  They were considering adoption when the Pastor announced that a young couple were seeking a family to adopt the child they’d unintentionally created.  Henri and Clarette immediately volunteered.  It did not matter to them that the young couple were Mexican and they were French.  They wanted to be parents, and there was a child who needed a home.  The only thing the birth parents insisted on was naming the baby.  It seemed like a small favor, though the name wasn’t announced until the baby was born.  Henri and Clarette kept their word.  She was called “Arch” almost from the beginning, however.  (Her parents were enamored with the story of Jean d’Arc, but wanted to use the English equivalent.)

Arch grew up a typical Catholic Baby Boomer.  She went to private school, feared the Nuns and their discipline, and did very well in school.  Between her parents and her parish, she learned both French and Spanish.  She also ended up singing in the parish choir, which was now being led by her mother.  That’s where Arch met her future husband Iggy Ruiz and his friend Anne Kaplan, when they were about 14.   The three of them started spending a great deal of time together.  Arch and Anne went to the all girls’ high school, and Iggy went to the all boy’s.  Both Arch and Anne fell for Iggy, and she fell for both of them, just in time for the Summer of Love.  Anne left for Stanford, and Arch and Iggy stayed behind.  Anne met Harold Blythe at Stanford.  She brought him home for a winter holiday, and Arch and Iggy immediately knew the four of them would be together for a very long time.  

Anne went to nursing school, and ended up working at the local hospital’s maternity ward, where she stayed for 30 years.  Her parents retired and began to travel the world.

Arch and Iggy wanted kids, and Anne and Harold didn’t.  So Arch and Iggy got married in 1973 and had me 2 years later.