History of John Smith Griffin
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La Canada - 1947

I was so sure I had failed the examination that after a week's rest I started studying again as I felt sure that I would have to take it over again. About two months later the results came in the mail at the office. I shook so hard I could hardly open the ,envelope and I was dumbfounded when I read that I had passed the exam and would be admitted to practice in California in the near future. This was a tremendous load off my mind. I had received a number of offers to go into private practice in Los Angeles and of course I could not even consider them until I had first passed the bar examination. Although I did not accept them later, I am convinced that being a member of the bar in California has helped me immeasurably in my work.

Finally I received notice that the duplex owned by Nephi Anderson in Burbank had been vacated and was available for us to move into. I went up to Berkeley and helped get things all packed. The government paid the transportation expenses of the family and as none of them had ever been on a plane I arranged for their trip down to Los Angeles on Western Airlines. I cleaned the house, got everything I was going to take down in the car together and loaded the car and supervised the loading of the moving van and then took the family to the airport. Paul, who was almost six at that time was so excited that he actually got sick and developed a fever and was quite ill for a day or two after they arrived. We had a doctor and he told us that it was nothing but excitement. After loading them on the plane I headed for Los Angeles in the car. My cousin Tenn met them at the airport and put them up for the night, and by the next morning I was in Los Angeles and we moved into the duplex. It seemed good to all be together again (July 1947), even if it were in a timy two-bedroom duplex.

One thing and another delayed our plans to start building and it was not until mid-August, that they got a bulldozer in and pushed out the orange and lemon trees to put in the foundation for our home. I took a couple of weeks off on leave and helped as much as I could. First-I cut up all of the orange and lemon trees so that we would have fire wood. I recall that I picked off all of the green lemons on the lemon trees thinking that they would ripen and that it was a shame to waste them. Obviously we never used them as there were more good ripe ones right off the trees than we could ever use. Our lot was right near the dividing line between the orange and lemon grove and so we had both kinds of trees. They saved seven orange trees and five lemon trees that still produce fruit, though not in the quantity that they produced when we first moved in.

I helped with the rough carpentry work, and assisted in raising the side of the house and in putting on the roof. It was hard work but I learned a lot and was there to see that things were done properly. I found that Nephi would come on the job for a few minutes in the morning and possibly in the afternoon, and that was it, and the rest of the time the carpenters Just did as they thought best. My friends have kidded me since about building a home with steel reinforcing because I went around putting extra nails in places where I thought they were needed. I found though, that Nephi's attitude was to get the house built and not worry too much about how it was done. It was well that I was on the job as much as I was. During the next five months I put in long, long hours. I would frequently come up to La Canada direct from work, eating a sandwich,and stay all night. I bought some surplus army bunk beds that we still have to sleep on. Week ends and all evenings were spent on the house. I did all of the painting and put in all of the glass besides doing all the cement work and laying the flag stone on the porches. It was hard to keep ahead of the carpenters and not hold them up, but I saved more than $1500 on the painting alone. Dad got me the paint and the glass at wholesale, and of course the labor was a major item.

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