Free B000U5KFIC EBOK by Janet Lowe Page B

joined the Los Angeles law firm of Wright &
Garrett, which later became Musick, Peeler & Garrett. The firm had a respected name in the legal community, but was relatively small compared to others in the city. Charlie started out at a salary of $275 a
month. He felt fairly affluent at the time, having accumulated $1,500 in
savings.s
    Once he was settled in California, Munger went about making connections with the same type of people he would have associated with had
he stayed in Omaha.
    For the most part, he stuck close to the law community. Charlie connected with old California families and with Midwesterners seeking to
replicate their culture under more favorable weather conditions. Gradually he joined social groups that would help further his connections-the
classic downtown men's club, the California Club; the Los Angeles Country Club and the Beach Club.
    CHARLIE'S PARENTS HAD PROTECTED HIM from the sorrows of the Great Depression. With luck he landed far from the battlefields of World War II.
But his luck gave out. In the 1950s, the decade considered most felicitous
for America, Munger walked unsuspectingly into the darkest experiences
of his life.
    "I think I must have been very young when my parents splits," said
Wendy Munger. "I don't remember his living in the house, but remember him picking us up on weekends. A divorce is a terrible thing. Teddy died
at nine, I was five, Molly seven."

    Because she was older. Molly remembers much of what happened
when her parents divorced in 1953. Charlie and the first Nancy had married young and now, "They fought, yelled at each other. It was abundantly
clear they weren't happy," explained Molly. And when it was obvious the
Mungers could no longer live together, "They handled themselves in a way
that was exemplary. They said all the right things. We're not happy with
each other. We need to be apart. We love you guys. It won't affect our relationship with you."
    Although she was just a preschooler when her parents' marriage
broke up, Wendy Munger felt sure of one thing. The divorce wasn't his
doing, but I don't know [why they separated]," said Wendy. "A less wellsuited pair hardly exists on this earth. They were just babies when they
married."
    As is the case with so many families, the children didn't fully understand what caused the irreconcilable differences between their parents,
one a serious young lawyer and the other a free spirit, but they quickly
grasped the consequences of the decision to end the marriage.
    "He lost everything in the divorce," Molly continued. Her mother
stayed in the house in South Pasadena, but despite his absence, Charlie
went to great lengths to help the children realize that he was still their father and responsible for their well-being.
    "When the divorce happened, Teddy said, I'm going to live with
Daddy," Molly recalled. "He didn't."
    Though he was in California, far from those roots, Munger got
through that time by following the rules he learned in Omaha. "He was
living in dreadful bachelor digs at the University Club," said Molly. "But
there was not slippage. Every Saturday he was there. Every Saturday he
was cheerful. He took us to the zoo, pony rides, took us to see his friends.
Divorce in the 1950s was not a normal thing. We were very, very conscious of having a traumatized life compared to what else was going on.
He drove this awful car-a yellow Pontiac. He always had great style,
expressed it in his clothes but the car made it look as if he had not two
pennies to say hello to each other. This yellow Pontiac had a cheap repaint job. I remember going up to the car in the University Club garage,
and I said, 'Daddy, this car is just awful, a mess. Why do you drive it?' 'To
discourage gold diggers,' he replied."
    Charlie and the first Nancy had been separated a short time when
they were told that their son Teddy was gravely ill with leukemia, a disease that had taken the life of Teddy's maternal grandfather.