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GRAINGER Charles

 

Date of birth : December 25, 1875, Santa Paula, California.

Date of death : December 10, 1954, Inglewood, California.

 

Practise: companion of Della Mae Monroe.

 

Portrait : 

 

On December 25, 1897 he married Fannie Harriett Atwood (April 24, 1878, Santa Paula, California - December 4, 1913, Santa Paula, California). They had 2 sons Olivier Atwood Grainger (January 2, 1899, Santa Paula, California - March 9, 1959) and Elvin Benjamin Atwood Grainger (January 11, 1902, Santa Paula, California - December 2, 1952).

In the  1890's he had worked as an oil well driller on a California oilfield (Associated Oil Company of Lost Kills, Kern County).

1915 : he sailed for India and from there, reached the South-East of Asia where he was a foreman on the Burma oil company drilling.

 

After his return in south California, he was employed by the Shell company (), but in a sporadic way.

 

January 1, 1917 : during a dancing party for New Year's Eve, Della met a tall and charming widower, Charles Grainger.

The following days, he visited her almost every evening at Westminster Avenue.

For Della, Grainger's life was so far more exotic than all she could have dreamt of with her first husband, Otis Monroe.

He lived not far from Della's, 1410 Coral Canal Court, in an humble two-rooms bungalow, which overlooked on the many canals of Venice.

Living together without being married was not much allowed, at that time, than abortion or divorce, but, yet, Charles and Della looked cloesly to the idea of sharing Coral Canal Court.

Della made her called Mrs Grainger and nobody fell for it.

Several clues let believe that this idea was Charle's one. His job prospects were more than uncertain and he hoped new contracts abroad.

Furthermore, he had to provide for his sons, remained in North California.

He certainly hadn't been keen about the idea of being legally responsible for Della and her duaghter's support.

Both discreet with this new father and upset to see her mother living a situation which irregularity didn't provide her any emotional stability, Gladys wasn't happy. She showed it to Grainger by being either silent or in a fool mood. So Della started to find her daughter irritating, all the more so as she was waiting for Charles Grainger's offer to live with him.

May 17, 1917 : Gladys married John Newton Baker.

Della Monroe declared that her daughter was 18 years old (actuallay she was aged 15) under the pretext of no evidences about her real birth date.

Della, smiling, attended the wedding, then gave a room to the newly weds at Westminster Street, and quickly moved in Charles Grainger's bungalow.

1918 : he found a job not in petroleum but as director of the Pickering Pleasure Pier of Santa Monica, where he had a regular salary.

Della's relations with her previous husbands having been very disturbed, she often lived apart from Charles Grainger, for days or even weeks.

 
1921 or March 1922 : Della went back to Charles Grainger's home, then, left him again.
 

1921 or March 1922 : Gladys left the marital home and rented a bungalow at 46 Rose Avenue, Venice, she shared with her mother.

Gladys signed a lease in Della Monroe's name, in which she agreed to sublet 2 rooms, to be payed as a manager and to pay 100$ a month to the absent owners, Adele Weinhoff and Susie Noel.

End of June 1922 : the last check hadn't been mailed. Then, there was a fierce argument between Gladys and Della, each one of them accusing the other to waste the money. Because they were both jobless, the main part of their income was given by Charles Grainger, the rest consisting in an humble sum sent by John Baker.

Theit short experience of roommates ended in July, after a threat of eviction.

Della, with Grainger's permission, left and lived in an empty bungalow he owned in Hawthorn.

End of 1925 : Gladys learned she was pregnant.

Not living with Grace McKee anymore, separate with her husband and enmeshed in the divorce requirements, she came back to her mother to have a support.

Della reacted badly to her daughter's condition; with an indignation all the more justfied than she was still called Mrs Grainger, she ignored her daughter's wails and travelled in South-East Asia as she had already planned to, with her lover, Charles Grainger, who had been sent ther by the Shell company for his job.

February 24, 1926 : Della applied for a passport () to go (or join) Charles Grainger in Borneo, a trip scheduled for March 30, 1926.

On the request, the date of the wedding of Della and Charles Grainger was written as having took place on November 25, 1920.

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