Hamilton Elementary School, Pomona, CA: Sep 1937 - Jun 1938
Roosevelt Elementary School, Pomona, CA: Sep 1938 - Jun 1939
Hamilton Elementary School, Pomona, CA: Sep 1939 - Jun 1945
Fremont Jr. High School, Pomona, CA: Sep 1945 - Jun 1948
Art Center School of Design, 1956-1959 ‏(more than 3 years)‏, Los Angeles, CA;
majored in Transportation Design; minored in Product Design.

Ray's name growing up was Leland Ray Jones; when he went into the military, it was changed to Ray Kirby.

Army Medical Corps ‏(Korean Conflict)‏: Jan 1949 - Feb 1952
Basic training at Fort Ord, CA; Medical Training at Brooks Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, TX. After he completed his schooling and became a Medical Corpsman, he was sent to Letterman General Hospital, Presidio, San Francisco, CA. His basic duty was working at the hospital, but on occasion, he worked on the Hospital Train. When they had enough patients in from overseas, they were put on military railroad hospital cars and transported to various places in the U.S., such as, Walter Reed Army Hospital, Washington DC and Brooks Army Med. Center, Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, TX. He took care of these patients while they were being transported.
While he was at Letterman General, the spousal allotments were cut; because of this he was transferred into the Inactive Reserves. When the spousal allotments were reinstated, he was recalled to Active Duty, Nov 1950.
In Nov. of 1950, he was sent to Fort Lewis, Tacoma, WA, for refresher training; then, to Fort Ord, CA, to work as a medic there.
He was home on leave for Christmas 1950. When he came back from leave, he was sent to Fort Lewis to be shipped overseas with a field hospital out of Tacoma, WA. At that time it was not known whether they were going to Japan or Korea. When they crossed the International Dateline, the final orders were opened; they were for Japan.
The biggest part of 1951, was spent working in a hospital in Tokyo, Japan. The latter part of 1951, he came back from Japan; and returned to inactive duty. He was unable to find work, only small jobs that didn't last; so he decided to join the Air Force. When he notified the Army Reserve, they discharge him.
His time served in the Air Force was from Feb 1952 - Feb 1956, at March Air Force Base, Riverside, CA

After Art Center School of Design, worked for North American Rocketdyne Division, Van Nuys, CA
Renners, West LA, CA
Ralph M. Parsons, downtown Los Angeles, CA, Nov 1961 - Feb 1967
TRW for three years, Redondo Beach, CA
Hughes Helicopter for one year, Culver City, CA
Northrop, Aircraft Division, Art Dept., Hawthorne, CA, industrial artist; then transferred to the Flight Test Dept.; later he was promoted to the B2 Division, Pico Rivera, CA, as an Engineer Specialist. He worked for Northrop for 23 years, from 15 Nov 1971 until his retirement in 1 Jul 1994.

After retiring in 1994, he worked for Santa Monica Ford ‏(12 plus years)‏ as a driver, delivering cars and making trades.

Memories of Places Where I Lived and Things I Did
by Ray Kirby, 16 Nov 2009

- About 1934, my mother, my brother Richard ‏(a baby,)‏ and I lived next door to my grandparents, John and Mollie, in a little house they owned at 1398 W. Grand Ave., Pomona, CA.
- About 1936, we lived in an apartment/small house on the alley at 11th Street and Parcells. While we lived there, I started school at Hamilton Elementary. I remember playing "Annie Over" while we were there. There was a vacant lot nearby with a big sign in the middle that read "No Dumping". That's where I learned to ride my bike by climbing up on the sign so that I could get up on my bike. My sister, Evelyn Jones, visited us once, maybe more, when we lived there.
- Next, we moved into a two-story house on Hamilton Blvd. We moved there with neighbors; we shared the house. I attended Roosevelt Elementary School during that school year. I remember when we wet down the back porch and played "slip and slide" on it. It was fun until I slipped and knocked out my front tooth!
- During WWII we lived on 3«sup»rd«/sup» Street, the third house west of Hamilton Blvd., south of the railroad tracks. My sisters, Jewel and Dorothy visited us and stayed for a short while. Jewel stayed longer, and that's when she met and married Don Snow, 7 Dec 1943. When my uncles, Delmar and Vercill, came to visit, I knew who was coming by the sound of the car. We had a Victory Garden in the back. I remember growing big Banana Squash. Sometimes Grampa Loofbourrow came by and picked us up to take us fishing at Puddingstone Dam. Grampa made dough balls for bait to catch Crappies, and used bamboo poles with worms for bate, to catch Blue Gill. Grampa made a great contraption for catching Crappies. He used a window blind spring, tied a stick on one end and the line on the other with gang line hooks. When it made a "zing" noise, we knew that there was a fish on, then we would pull in the line.
- Finally, we moved to 1408 W. Grand Ave., into a little house that Grampa had fixed for us, in back of their house. We had mallard and white ducks, and Rhode Island Red and Banty chickens. I raised rabbits, sold the hides, and we ate the meat. The neighbor gave us goose eggs and I cooked them for breakfast. I was still attending Hamilton School. Cousin Johnnie and I used to run all the way home from school.
- I remember hiking in the south hills with Johnnie's dog, Snowball, and our dog, Laddie. Beyond the Polly Wog Pond, there was a concrete square reservoir ‏(about 8X8 feet)‏ for watering the cattle; we went skinny dipping there. We caught polly wogs from the Polly Wog Pond We made rafts out of old wood lying around to float on the pond. Johnnie and I used to climb the cliffs in the old "Cut Out". One time Johnnie got in a hornets nest and got a lot of bites. We made kites and flew them on the hillside.
- In the mid 1940's they started farming the side of the hill by Prospect Dr. ‏[This area is now a golf course.]‏ They grew hay there and then baled it. We moved the bales around and made forts out of them. In the spring, we also made wooden sleds to slide down the hill on the green grass.
- About 1946, Grampa got Jewel a bike. She didn't use it; so I used it to deliver newspapers until I earned enough money to buy one of my own. I started to Fremont Jr. High School about this time, and I rode my bike to school. Both Cousin Johnnie and I had paper routes at that time.
- After I graduated from Fremont, I started working at Paul's Shoe Repair Shop. I shined shoes for $30 a week. Then, I started washing dishes at the "The You and I Lunch" cafe next door. I was able to get free breakfasts and lunches there; so it was a better job. I rode the bus back and forth to work. My dog, Laddie, would always come to meet me when I came home from work. The bus stopped by the front driveway. The times when the bus came by, and I wasn't on it, Laddie was so disappointed. I was still working there when I joined the Army in 1949.