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Soon after their fourth child Carolyn was born on June 14, 1946, Alvis gave up farming
and moved the family to Modesto, where Geraldine’s parents had already relocated. He
bought a grocery store, but continued to play music in every free moment.
“One time my
mother caught Sandy in their room with Daddy’s fiddle,”
Alvidine recalled,
“and he was
playing a little song. Well, she about fell over dead. He had to have been about 9 years
old. When Daddy came in from work, she said, ‘I want you to come listen to this.’My dad
just went berserk and, from there, he taught my brother everything he knew on the fiddle.”
Alvis and Geraldine hold their children Sandy and Alvidine, early 1940s
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