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On October 25, 1938, Gerry gave
birth to a daughter. They named her
Alvidine, a combination of Alvis and
Geraldine.
“Oh, I hated my name all
my life,”
Alvidine laughed.
“People
would always mispronounce it. They
couldn’t say it right, so I never did
go by it. The family always called
me Dina.”
Al worked long hours as a farm
laborer and continued to pursue
music on the side. On October 12,
1940, Alvis Coker, Jr. was born in
Bakersfield. The family called him
Sandy. During World War II, the
Cokers moved to Richmond in the
San Francisco Bay area, whereAlvis
worked in the shipyards as a
journeyman welder. Their third
child, Linda, was born there on July
7, 1943. After the war, the Cokers
settled in Lancaster, California.
“My
dad had alfalfa and he farmed,”
Alvidine explained,
“but on
Saturday nights they had dances
there with my dad’s band.”
Geraldine ‘Gerry’ Coker around the time she met Alvis
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