An Edgar Allen Poe Jr. buried in Clovis

Question: Is it true that a man named Edgar Allen Poe Jr. is buried at the Clovis Cemetery?

– JoAnne Lucas, Clovis, president of the San Joaquin chapter of Sisters in Crime, a mystery writers group

Answer: Edgar Allen Poe Jr. — whose middle name is spelled differently than the famous writer — died in 2007 at age 82 and is buried at the Clovis Cemetery.

His wife, Velda “Penny” Poe, of Clovis said her husband went by Allen Poe.

He was not related to writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe, who died in 1849.

Allen Poe, born in 1925, was named after his father, Edgar Allen Poe Sr., who went by Edgar.

Edgar Poe’s parents picked his name because they “liked the name Edgar and had a friend named Allen. They didn’t realize what they’d done,” Penny Poe said, in bestowing a famous sound-alike.

Allen Poe grew up in Lindsay. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps on the ground crew of the camera plane for the Enola Gay, the bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.

After the war, Poe ran the Oak Knoll Ranch north of Woodlake and later worked as a salesman and sold real estate.

Allen and Penny Poe were married for 57 years and raised three children.

Penny Poe said her husband took a lot of teasing about his name as a child.

For many years “he wouldn’t let me tell people his whole name. He said he didn’t have time to explain,” she said.

Q: What is the history of Triple J Drug at Ashlan and Cedar avenues? As a boy, I bought a lot of model airplane kits there.

– Mark Caglia, Fresno

A: The Triple J Drug and Variety Store opened in the Ashlan Park Shopping Center on Nov. 10, 1962.

The 27,000-square-foot store was operated by Arthur L. Jorgensen and his wife, Margaret Ann Jorgensen. The building, inventory and fixtures cost $500,000.

Triple J had a pharmacy, coffee shop, a 34-seat dining room and an outdoor garden shop.

The store employed 25 people.

In 1969, the Jorgensens opened a second Triple J Drug at Palm and Bullard avenues.

The Ashlan and Cedar store was sold in 1976 and the name was changed to Li’l General Stores. The store later became a Thrifty Drug Store.

The Jorgensens had five children. Arthur Jorgensen died in 1998. Margaret Ann Jorgensen at one time operated Sheri’s dress store and made a career change in her 50s to an insurance agent. She died in 2006.

Q: I remember going to an ice skating rink in Fresno in about 1946. Where was it located?

– Mildred Duckhorn, Sanger

A: The skating rink you recall may have been the Fresno Ice Rink, which opened on Feb. 5, 1942, near Olive Avenue and Fresno Street.

The $125,000 building had a trussed, barrel-style roof, an 85-by-200-foot ice surface and banked seating for 4,200 spectators. The rink was also called the Fresno Ice Arena and later the Fresno Sports Arena.

In 1943, the rink closed and was converted to a defense plant, where the Lockheed Aircraft Corp. assembled sections of military aircraft.

A skating rink reopened there sometime after the war ended in 1945. In 1951, a new owner remodeled the building for public dancing.

Later, the McClatchy Broadcasting Co. and The Fresno Bee bought the building and remodeled it for public ice skating, according to the book “Fresno County in the 20th Century.”

Rink manager Julius Schroeder wasn’t charged rent. Instead, the owners required him to donate 10% of his net profits to the Fresno Zoo’s “bear fund.”

The rink was torn down in 1956.

By Paula Lloyd / The Fresno Bee