M. 2 Jul 1949 in Pasadena, California
Husband: Thomas Milton Mitchell
D. 4 Aug 2016 in West Hills, California
When Margaret Elizabeth Bolheres was a young adult, she moved halfway across the country, and the decision to relocate was in many ways the pivotal act of her life. Margaret was born on April 12, 1922 in Minneapolis, Minnesota to James John Bolheres and Minnie Louise LaBrie. She joined an older sister, Helen, in the household, and the girls became constant companions early on. Margaret's father was a Greek immigrant who operated a restaurant in Minneapolis, working long hours, seven days a week. As a result, Margaret became very close with her mother and numerous relatives on that side of the family.
In 1925, Margaret’s family left Minnesota for the warmer climate of Florida. She later recalled the adventure, traveling by Model T and camping out each night along the way. The family spent a year living in Jacksonville, where a younger sister, Lillian, was born. Then they moved back to Minneapolis and resumed their lives there.
Lillian, Helen and Margaret in about 1929.
Health issues arose when Margaret was 7-years-old with both she and Helen contracting diphtheria, causing them to be quarantined for a couple of weeks. While Margaret got better, Helen did not, and soon after, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. For the next two years, Margaret watched as her sister wasted away, until the girl reached a point near death. Their parents sent young Lillian to stay with an aunt, but Margaret at age 10 remained in the house. On June 24, 1932, Margaret and her parents gathered at Helen’s bedside. As the girl grew weaker, she uttered, “I’m going to Hollywood,” then stopped breathing. Margaret always thought Helen meant to say “heaven,” but the word came out as “Hollywood.”
Helen’s death had a great impact on the family, and especially Margaret. With the guidance of an aunt, she took up the Catholic religion that her mother no longer practiced, and made her First Communion as a teenager. The years of the Great Depression also affected Margaret. With money being tight, the family moved from a private house to a series of small apartments, and by 1938, they lived in a cramped place above a Minneapolis pool hall. For a time, Margaret and Lillian attended a special school for poor, undernourished children, which they liked to refer to as “skinny school.” After the 8th grade, Margaret entered Marshall High School in Minneapolis, and she received her diploma in June 1940.
Margaret's high school senior portrait, 1940.
Events the following year would provide a turning point in Margaret’s life. During the summer of 1941, her father went into the hospital for a routine operation, but he died from complications. This left the family without support, and Margaret and her mother each took factory jobs. Then the invasion of Pearl Harbor created a need for female laborers, and by the end of 1942, Margaret worked for the government as an ammunitions inspector.
Margaret became friends with a coworker, and as they heard of better job opportunities in California, they dared each other to quit and move there. And so one day, they did. The two arrived by train in Los Angeles on a bright sunny day in March of 1943. During the war, it was nearly impossible to get a room to stay, a fact they didn't know beforehand. Luckily, Margaret’s mother had notified her two sisters, Julia and Elsie, who already lived in L.A., and they were waiting for them at Union Station. With the aunts’ help, the two girls soon found a tiny apartment, and Margaret got a job at Firestone Tire & Rubber. Her friend decided to bail out on the adventure and moved back to Minnesota within a couple of months. But Margaret made a go of it, and by late June, her mother and sister Lillian moved to California as well.
Over the next few years, Margaret worked in various factory jobs, usually alongside Lillian. Margaret made two trips back to Minneapolis; after the second one, she never again visited her home state. In October of 1946, Margaret and Lillian interviewed at a factory that made sweaters. They were offered jobs, but something didn’t seem right, and as they rode the bus back home, they discussed whether they should work there. Just then, the bus drove past another company that had a big sign looking for workers, and they impulsively got off to check it out. It was Hoffman Radio Corporation, and they were hired on the spot to work on the sub-assembly line.
Margaret and Lillian helped build radios for the next few months, but unfortunately there was a layoff at the end of January, letting both of them go. They worked at a few other places before being rehired at Hoffman, this time for their new television assembly line. It was an exciting time because TV was just getting started in Los Angeles, and in the early days, Hoffman even got involved in some of the local broadcasting. The 1948 Hoffman Christmas party was actually televised, and Margaret was chosen to appear onstage briefly to present a TV to a charity, a moment which was shown on KTLA.
Margaret on TV at the 1948 Hoffman Christmas party.
As they worked on the TV assembly line, Margaret and Lillian lived in a small house with their mother. One Saturday morning in September 1948, the phone rang, and Margaret picked it up. Surprisingly, one of the technicians at Hoffman was inviting her to spend the day at the L.A. County Fair. She eagerly said yes. His name was Thomas Mitchell, and they had so much fun at the fair, that they started dating each other. Things progressed quickly, and by the spring of 1949, the two decided to get married.
The wedding took place at Chapel of Roses in Pasadena on July 2nd, and not long after, Margaret quit her job to become a housewife. At first, the newlyweds rented an apartment, but in May 1950, Lillian got married, and Margaret and Tom decided to move in with her mother. Sadly, this arrangement lasted a very short time — Minnie Bolheres suffered a fatal stroke on July 20th.
Margaret’s grief for her mother hit hard. She didn’t know it at the time, but she was in the early stages of a pregnancy, and when the baby was born the following March, he had a hole in his diaphragm, living for only an hour. The following year brought another tragedy. Margaret and Tom had moved to the town of Downey, and during her second pregnancy, she suffered a miscarriage after tripping and falling in front of their house. In 1953, they moved back into her mother’s old house, and Margaret finally gave birth to a baby who survived.
Margaret and Tom at home during early 1950s.
Like many couples of the post-war area, Margaret and Tom used the GI bill to purchase a new tract house, and they moved to Inglewood in 1954 where two more children were born. Margaret became focused on being a mother, but not everything was easy. In 1960, Tom admitted to having an affair which resulted in an out-of-wedlock child. For a time, he moved out of the house, but Margaret took him back on the condition that his child be kept a secret, and they resumed their life together as if it never happened.
In the early 1960s, Margaret’s family moved several times in quick succession, first to Garden Grove, then to Mountain View and then back to Inglewood. In 1966, money became tight, and the decision was made to relocate to the San Fernando Valley. For two years, the family shared a house with Tom's step-father, a Filipino immigrant named Johnny. At the end of 1968, the family bought a house in Canoga Park (later called Winnetka) and this would be Margaret’s home for almost 48 years.
As her children became adolescents, Margaret began working small jobs in order to bring more money into the household. Some were factory jobs, while others were piece work done at home, making such things as feather flower arrangements and motorcycle helmet bags. During the early 1970s, she was hired at a company that printed wedding invitations. After a few weeks, they promoted her to be a proofreader, but the boss was mean, and one day, she quit on the spot. The next day she got hired as an assembly worker at Dataproducts, a company that made computer printers where she would work for the next 13 years.
Margaret retired from Dataproducts in 1988, which led into an unexpected phase of her life. The year before, Tom, who was semi-retired, answered an ad to become a movie extra, and now she decided to join him. For the the next 14 years, Margaret worked in dozens of movies and TV shows, as well as an occasional commercial. The assignments varied, with either the two working as a couple, or each of them as individuals. A phone call would come the night before with vague instructions of when and where they were to show up; only when they arrived would they find out what it was for. The jobs covered a wide range, from such things as being in a crowd at a sporting event, to walking down the street on a TV crime series, to working on a sitcom with a live studio audience.
Often, they weren’t picked to be on camera, but when they were, their images could become a part of something famous, and Margaret had many memorable jobs. One was in the 1988 movie When Harry Met Sally, where she can be seen over Meg Ryan’s shoulder at a table in a roadside cafe.
Margaret in When Harry Met Sally.
Margaret was also in four episodes of Seinfeld, most notably the subway episode in scenes with both Kramer and George. In October 1989, she was on Arsenio Hall as part of an entourage of little old ladies protecting Howie Mandel (she later repeated the role on the American Comedy Awards). And in a 1998 remake of the movie Psycho, Margaret’s face filled the screen for a couple of seconds as she answered the door for an investigator.
By 2002, arthritis in Margaret’s knees made it so difficult to walk that she was forced to give up her movie extra career. Tom did the same, and together they spent the final years of their lives at their home in the San Fernando Valley. Tom passed away first, dying in his sleep on November 10, 2007. She survived him by almost 9 years, and died at the age of 94 on August 4, 2016.
A Personal Anecdote
Margaret was my mother. In mid-July 2016, I knew she was not in great shape, but she was still living at home and I regularly talked to her on the phone. A friend was visiting me at my apartment in Portland, Oregon, and one evening, we headed out to have dinner at a restaurant. As we got off the elevator in my building, something caught my eye on the television in the lobby. The TV always showed sports channels, but this one time, it was tuned to a sitcom: Seinfeld. “There’s my mom!” I blurted out. And it was a scene from Monk’s diner where she was prominent in the background.
Later that evening, my mom fell at her house, and had to be taken to the hospital. She never recovered, and died 10 days later. Mentally, she was not able to have conversations anymore which put an end to my phone calls. We thought she was headed for long term care, and I didn’t consider getting on a plane to visit her until it was too late. So the last time I saw my mother when she was still alive was on a TV screen in that episode of Seinfeld. The scene was when Jerry and George discussed a trip to Los Angeles to search for Kramer, bringing the theme of “going to California” full circle.
Children:
1. James Michael Mitchell — B. 26 Mar 1951, Los Angeles, California; D. 26 Mar 1951, Los Angeles, California
2. LIVING
3. LIVING
4. LIVING
Sources:
My firsthand knowledge
The stories of Margaret E. Mitchell, 1998
Minnesota Births and Christenings, 1840-1980, FamilySearch.org
Minnesota Death Index, 1908-2002, FamilySearch.org
California County Marriages, 1850-1952, FamilySearch.org
Social Security Death Index
