Early Life
Randolph Steven Kraft's was born in Long Beach on March 19, 1945; the fourth child and only son born to Harold and Opal Kraft. Kraft's parents had immigrated to California from Wyoming at the outbreak of World War II; his father, Harold, worked as a production worker, whereas his mother worked as a sewing machine operator.
The Kraft family lived a modest existence, and Kraft's mother undertook a succession of jobs to supplement her husband's salary. Nonetheless, Kraft's mother always found time for her children, whereas Kraft's father seldom attended any social gatherings with his wife and children, and was later described as being "distanced" from his family. As a child Randy was doted on by his three older sisters and mother although he was known to be accident prone.
In 1948, the Kraft family moved from Long Beach to Midway City, California in neighboring Orange County. The Kraft's new family home in Midway City was a small, wood-frame Women's Army Corps dormitory on Beach Boulevard that Kraft's father, Harold, himself renovated into a three-bedroom house.
In Midway City, Kraft attended Midway City Elementary school, where his mother served on the PTA. As a scholar, Kraft was noted for his intelligence by both classmates and teachers alike. By 1957, Kraft was deemed intelligent enough to attend accelerated classes at 17th Street Junior High School.
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“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
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