Swordmaker, very good story. Did you write it?
Yes... but the story is essentially the story that was told to me by Irene Boyd( neé Smith), my parents' first landlady. When she told us this story, Irene, a devout Catholic, took her Bible and swore on it that the story was true. I believed her.
My parents moved to Sacramento in 1938 when my dad got a job as an aircraft mechanic at McClellan Army Air Base. They did not have enough for a deposit on an apartment but Irene took pity on them (it was raining) and rented them a third floor flat on the corner of 22nd and I streets. Irene lived in the first floor apartment... which is where I heard the story when I was about 13 years old.
(By the way, my mother's 91st Birthday is Friday.)