From his first moments as a bawling baby in 1948 to his days rifling through the news and visiting his grandchildren as a silver-haired man, Lyn Hardy lived what many would consider to be the quintessential American life. He grew up in a part of Fullerton, California, where everyone knew everyone else. A wiry, sandy-haired boy, Hardy would carouse on the streets, racing on roller skates or shrieking as his friends shot him with cap guns. When they got tired, the boys would climb up the orange trees scattered around the neighborhood or clamber into a friend’s treehouse. Their blue jeans would always end up scuffed – either from dirt or from the green residue that came from the tree bark. “That was just part of the day,” Hardy said.
Fullerton was split in half by a railroad track, and the lives of the children on the southern side, mostly Mexican and Black, seem to have it different: “The wrong side of the tracks,” invoked by Hardy, was full of migrants who would come seasonally to work the crops for low wages. They’d come in waves in the summer, and live in camps with poor conditions. He knows that at one point a Mexican labor leader tried to organize the workers to strike for higher wages – but Hardy spent his youth isolated from politics and the wider world. While he heard about the civil rights movement in high school, it didn’t affect him personally, nor the way he viewed others. “There probably was” racism at his school, Hardy said. “I didn’t really recognize it at the time.” He had good friends from the north and south side of the town, and race wasn’t a factor.
Still, Hardy’s childhood had its hardships. When Hardy was younger, his father, who had worked for 29 years as a postal worker, was forced to retire by high blood pressure and diabetes. He ended up taking care of the home while Hardy’s mother worked full-time as a secretary. “He was there for me when I needed him,” Hardy said. “We spent a lot of time together.” Hardy’s dad would watch his Little League games and teach him how to paint and repair appliances around the house. When he passed away, Hardy was just 14. “It was hard,” Hardy said.
From then on, Hardy and his mother would go on shopping trips, out to dinner and on small trips – little things that added up. Hardy was born more than a decade after his two siblings, which meant he was the only one living at home with his mother when his father died. “She was glad she had me,” he said. “It worked out well for her and me.”
In high school, Hardy also met his partner in love – a gorgeous girl named Yvonne Coleman. His school had what was called a girl-date dance, where the girl asked the boy out instead of the other way around. Yvonne asked Hardy to dance, and he said yes, and they hit it off. They ended up being married for 52 years, until Coleman’s death in November 2020.
“We laughed a lot. We had a lot of fun,” Hardy said. “We had a lot of fights, but we would always make up and never stayed mad very long.”
Hardy lives now in a VNA Senior Living Complex in Somerville. When his wife passed, Hardy realized that he had never lived alone – he moved straight from his mother’s home to one with his wife – and the complex provided an affordable community.
“I have a lot of friendly people I enjoy meeting,” Hardy explained. “We have meals together and we have different activities, different kinds of games and things like that. It’s fun.”
Hardy also has the freedom to drive and spend his days as he wishes – mostly with his grandchildren. His calendar is full of his medical appointments and their concerts, sports and school events.
“I’m really proud of them,” he said. “They keep me going.”
A stronger
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This is an interesting profile! But how did he go from California to Massachusetts?