My Journal
From:
A Vagabonds House
Don Blanding - A poet who lived in Carmel
The roof must have a rakish dip
To shadowy eaves where the rain can drip
In a damp persistent tuneful way;
It’s a cheerful sound on a gloomy day.
And I want a shingle loose somewhere
To wail like a banshee in despair
When the wind is high and the storm-gods race
And I am snug by my fireplace
August 28, 2021
Recently I came across an article announcing the sale of a home once owned by Kim Novak, in Carmel. $12 million for a house today isn’t unusual, certainly not in Carmel anyway, but it’s far more than my first encounter in 1964.
Pictures reveal the cottage style house built of stone and timbers. Prominently perched atop an exposed rocky outcropping jutting out from the continent as if to challenge the Pacific Ocean, saying “give me the worst you have.” Exposed as it is to the ocean’s fury that crashes the rocks, pounds the windows, drives over the copper roof, all this serves to separate living here from the places sited more securely. Walking a cobble path toward the front door, reality fades, this is a place to escape a less adventuresome world. Still, this setting, enticing as it is, isn’t the reason this home for sale caught my attention.
There is another house further down the Pacific Coast Highway along Big Sur south of Carmel, that has always stirred my imagination. This house preceded my discovery of the Kim Novack house by a few years. The subject of a spread in House Beautiful magazine in February 1961. This home was designed by Nathanial Owings (A principal at Skidmore. Owings & Merrill) and built for his family. Described, not by me, as the perfect sighting of earth, sea, and sky in the design of a home. For me, the perfect house in the perfect location; like a nested bird on a promontory yet part of the Pacific Ocean it looks toward.
I recalled an article in Life magazine in 1964. Included was a photograph of Mrs. Novak in a bathtub inside this home in front of a large window with ocean waves crashing into the rocks just beyond the glass. Modestly shielded by soapy water and a towel held to her neck, Kim looked provocatively into the camera, directly at me. That’s how I’ve always remembered the scene. If only I could possibly share this home in that setting with Kim Novak; life for this eighteen-year-old boy could not be any better. I never fell out of infatuation or maybe it was more simply lust. Watching her today in “Bell, Book and Candle” with Jimmy Stewart never gets old.
Today, I would not hesitate to buy this house if I could only afford it. To just sit by a fire in the living room watching the ocean waves crash into the rocks and reminisce on the emotions and optimism of youth.
Though by design anchored firmly to the earth it appears perched ready to spread wings and lift into the sky and out to sea. A home could not be placed more directly in the face of the elements; I can only imagine how fiercely the wind and weather intrude on this setting, yet from what I’ve seen through magazines; inside this home is warm comfortable and secure. The love of architecture has always been part of who I’ve become, but this house when first seen at age fifteen cemented in me a passion to build the perfect home one day.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
As a psychology student in college some forty plus years ago my area of interest was perception. I remember little of what I may have concluded; yet I have no doubt that it is this interest that remains at the center of my fascination with motivation and the role our perceptions play.
There are aspects of our personality that most likely are genetic, but soon after birth we become immersed into a lifelong drama. As both playwright and actor, we begin composing this story no sooner than we become aware of the audience; at first just our parents, but soon enough the entire world. We will continue to play to our perceived audience for the rest of our lives. Of course, this so-called audience is comprised of other actors/writers playing on the same stage. This interaction leaves us increasingly aware, at times frustrated at how we expect to be perceived. Because our life is played out concurrently with writing and performance, our script becomes the filter through which we continue this composition until it is complete. As the leading character each of us develops this filter – not to be confused with responsible, reasonable, compassionate, or good, it is what we decide – it is our personality. The script we write is forever being edited and refined, until our responses become predictable. It is for this the reason, advertising, movies, politics and so on, influence our lives so much. We become aware of what suits our story such that we accept or reject only what we as principal actor can use in pursuit of the performance. What becomes intriguing are the multiple stories being played out on the same stage in concert with so many different writers and actors. Is there any wonder life is filled with so many conflicts and confusion? However, underlying all this is the tension between the inner consequences – our moral compass, our conscience – of our pursuits apart from the audience and our quest for immortality. As we begin to approach mortality, we must reconcile this play we will take a lifetime to write, and in that time, we see that it becomes increasingly impossible to edit or re-write. We’ve written and acted out with not just ourselves, but with the many friends, enemies, and family whom we have woven into this increasingly complex if still predictable plot. Most important is the reconciliation of our performance with God. To what extent has our perception of God influenced our little drama? One more complexity to be written into this performance.
Thursday, April 8, 2021~ Morning at Millcreek Drive
On this early morning – not so different from any other – I steady myself as my feet touch the floor following another night’s sleep. The morning sunrise perseveres despite my half-closed eyes – abruptly some mornings, more gently with others. As the light shines through our bedroom window, it beckons me to step into a new day. The sunlight, still low in the spring sky, shines brightly through several south facing windows, the light lifts my spirit as it describes my path through the house. I meander slowly down the hallway toward our kitchen. The morning light shines differently from the softer evening sunset when the light bids a gentle adieu to our day. Gone from my day, the changing pattern of light can remain a memory of the day now past, beyond the horizon it becomes someone else’s morning.
With the doors behind my chair opened to our patio the air is cool drifting past my chair. It’s always nice to hear birds singing as the morning shines on this early quiet, a Mockingbird sings for a mate reminding me of my grandmother sitting at her piano singing “Listen to the Mockingbird Sing”. There’s the distant cry of a baby waking with the new family that has moved in over our back fence. Most mornings the sound of a train’s horn drifts the mile or so from RR tracks passing north of us – transporting fresh fruit from local packing houses out to the main line west of town and then, to who knows where. I’ve always enjoyed the melancholy sound of a distant train. Just as with the light, the morning horn is not the same as nighttime, which seems more forlorn or melancholy and yet the only difference being that the trains don’t know morning from night. This train I’m hearing today is the same one I heard sixty some years ago laying in my bed at my childhood home in Exeter, twelve miles east of where I sit now. As I lay awake then, I could hear the train pull away from one of the many packing houses just behind our house. I could hear it progress out to Venida Corner two miles north then turning toward Visalia it will become the horn I hear this morning . . . there persists a yearning attached to this sound, hinting at some distant destination. Years ago, there used to be a crop-dusting airport beside these same tracks (owned by a friend, Mike Albaugh). The sound of prop-planes taking off at dawn has much the same effect on me as hearing the train’s distant horn. I think this might have something to do with the familiar, reassuring sound of men working – part of making the day happen, the assurance that our lives can move forward without concern. Perhaps it’s a man with hammer and saw or the driver in his truck dumping trash cans at the curbside just beyond our front door. All this describes the new day just beginning.
Back in the kitchen alone, I start the coffee brewing, the tinkling of a sugar bowl lid as I lift then set it down, the ting of my spoon as it’s laid down on the counter, the subtle gurgle of hot water passing through the coffee grounds into a pot; these otherwise mundane occurrences form a more intimate tapestry of sound within my morning routine . . . different from the sounds beyond the open door behind me.
Despite those just mentioned intrusions on the quiet, the sound of silence still surrounds me in its most palpable expression first thing in the morning. Perhaps, because our mind remains quiet as we linger from the night’s rest, I am acutely aware of the quiet, knowing that it won’t last.
Sitting with a cup of coffee and newspaper I hear of the tik-tock from my grandparent’s clock from where it sits on the mantel, gently interrupting my thoughts. As my day begins to speed up – as the days seem always to do – this momentary awareness of the clocks presence from across the room will soon enough fade into the ever-increasing cacophony of another day, before long I won’t hear the clock chime on the quarter hour. . . a precious moment of awareness lost to the day. The quiet is a welcome prelude to my day. Yet I’m comfortable that I'm not really alone. I know that my wife Jackie remains in bed asleep down the hall. Still, my thoughts wander as I sit here. What if one day should happen when she’s not there to awaken, to find her way into the kitchen to join me? Certainly, the quiet time I value would take on a different presence . . . not that of peaceful reflection, but a time of despair. Not a pleasant thought and not something I anticipate, but still one that intrudes briefly into this otherwise peaceful morning.
On some mornings any manor of things can happen, not always the same thing but it seems there’s always something. Sometimes my quiet can be assaulted when tree trimers arrive with multiple chain saws and a debris grinder working in someone’s yard nearby. Perhaps it’s the helicopter as it flies low over our house on its way to the nearby hospital – to transport someone who isn’t having a good start to this day. Because some mornings happen to be an ‘every-other’ Wednesday, the street cleaning machine passes in front of our house twice to cover each side of the road. The beep-beep of a backing delivery truck pierces through all the other sounds, becoming noise. Any break to this cacophony becomes filled by the 8:00 o’clock late for work traffic on Millcreek Drive, just beyond the front door.
Time to move on . . . it has been pleasant morning for reading my newspaper (on the iPad these days) with a cup of coffee at hand. I hear Jackie stirring down the hall in our bedroom. I relax and pour a second cup of coffee.
Thursday, August 10, 2023 ~ The first day of school
For this first summer in our new home, we’ve had our share of hot days, but not so many and not too hot as to have become memorable; we’ve had more than our share of those years. Today remains in the 80’s allowing me to sit comfortable on the patio and write; for me a true blessing. An added joy to this particular afternoon, is that this is the first day of school.
We live across the street from the CVC (Central Valley Christian) elementary school. The kindergarten playground is directly across from where I now sit. With coffee this morning I watch and listen as mothers and fathers deliver their five years old children to their first experience at school. The children seem excited for this new adventure; at least until their parent leaves them, this I don’t see. I also don’t see the mixed emotions in the parents as they walk to their car. I think the teacher deals with all this pent-up excitement and the hint of anxiety by first thing letting the children onto the playground, certainly the best place to make new friends. The children do nothing slow or with the least bit of timidity. The boys never seem to walk, running from one situation to the next, from riding a tricycle to climbing the monkey bars to kicking a ball lying on the playground. Boys chase other boys and girls alike. The girls cannot go two minutes without a screak for who knows what. At once chaos and beautiful music that only that special person, the kindergarten teacher can endure for the day. This, the joy of a new world outside their first five years. The excitement of exploring a new world with new friends. Their lives are simple for now, I can hope anyway, I only know what I can observe. Their excited headlong pursuit reflects the innocence of childhood; one of Gods special gifts.
As the afternoon presses forward, I notice on the large expanse of grass at the end of our street that young men are gathering for the start of football practice. One of the many rituals for boys, the start of football, something they have looked forward to for years. The bonds made on the football field will last a lifetime. Practice did start last week, still I feel this is too soon, we started the week before Labor Day. I guess it doesn’t matter it’s hot during all of August. My coach in 1962 would let the grass grow extra long to make us work much harder in the evening heat. Its overwhelmingly nostalgic for me, but non-the-less such a pleasure watching from may patio chair as these young men fit another piece into the puzzle of their lives. As in my own life, the pattern of memories.
Closer to where I sit, I see a teacher emerge from her classroom followed by what look like second or third grade children holding hands two by two as their teacher leads them, I don’t know too where. Someday many of these children will become less willing to follow obediently, but for now let them remain children. Life should always be like a Saturday Evening Post cover.
It’s five o’clock and the younger children have been picked up by their parents. At the end of classroom buildings near football practice I notice two young girls approach with the bounce of junior high school. They are still young but have moved to classrooms next door. Not yet teenagers but in their walk, how they carry themselves you see a glimpse of who they will become. They’ve gained a little more confidence in who they are, no longer children on the playground. A group of younger girls join them on the grass, the older girls break out pom-poms and begin teaching the younger girls cheer leading. Of course, all this in proximity to football practice. I have watched the culture of support and inclusion that permeates this community. The older kids, the parents and including grandparents living in the Sierra Village are always in support of each other from kindergarten through high school. This community we now live in was built for retired family. I guess you would have to say from start to finish all are looked after.
Football practice is winding down with wind sprints – Oh how I hated those. A few parents are folding their chairs. They’ll wait outside the gym to take their young football player and perhaps a cheerleader home.
It’s begun to sprinkle, a good finish to this nearly perfect end of a summer day. I started today with coffee watching children arrive, I’m ending with a glass of Chardonnay while listening to Andre Previn jazz piano, enhanced by the smell of rain on the parched ground.
How the San Joaquin Valley Grew and Changed (Picturing California’s Other Landscape)
Heath Schenker
Rapid changes accompanied the Americanization of the Central Valley, and the process that shaped and reshaped the region were reflective of those that eventually domesticated the entire western frontier. The gold rush had stimulated the repopulation of the San Joaquín Valley, which was virtually decimated of its native dwellers the Yokuts during the preceding Colonial period. By the middle of the 1850’s, Americans were using most of the southern valley as a great ranch and pastureland in anticipation of the food demands from the gold fields and burgeoning urban centers. Without efficient transport, livestock proved the quickest way to make money during this volatile era. But during the 1860’s, the south valley pastures would gradually retreat in the face of environmental events and new economic opportunities afforded by transportation improvements. Severe flood and drought sequences destroyed incalculable animals and rangelands. As a result, a substantial portion of livestock-keepers departed the region.
This period also saw a strengthened transportation network of roads and the arrival of the Southern Pacific railroad in the early 1870’s. As was true elsewhere in the west, the presence of the railroad in the South Valley stimulated dramatic economic and demographic changes. With the advent of rail transportation, California’s expanding cities, and the international demand for grains, an increasing number of residents and new immigrants to the South Valley began to pursue economic opportunities as farmers rather than as ranchers. Beginning in the late 1860’s and continuing through the early 1800’s, the pastures of the South Valley were progressively transformed into wheat and barley lands. . . .
During the 1870’s the landscape of the South Valley gradually changed as more intensified and diversified land use practices emerged. Irrigation was the key to the successful implementation of intensive farming, but early endeavors were initially hindered by both legal and technological restraints. An important hurdle was overcome by the passage of the Wright Act of 1887, which strengthened the access of cooperative irrigation districts to stream water. Moreover, greater access to water was complemented by new sources of power and technology inventions. Irrigation from wells benefited enormously during the 1870’s from the development of steam drilling rigs and wind driven pumps. By the 1880’s, wind energy was being supplemented by steam and gas-powered engines that enabled farmers to pull water from aquafers under a greater variety of valley terrains. Finally, the development of increasingly efficient farm machinery and refrigerated storage and rail cars allowed farmers to grow and ship to market a greater variety of produce. At last South Valley inhabitants had acquired the power to gamble on farming as a profitable livelihood.
Thursday, August 10, 2023 ~ San Joaquin Valley
Anonymous:
Here, in the Central Valley, I walk every evening with our aging basset hound, which no one would ever mistake for a wolf. As I walk, I keep my eyes fixed on the sky as the cobalt of twilight moves slowly from east to west overhead, preceded by lavender and sapphire, succeeded by indigo and darkness. When the dog stops to sniff the grass in our neighbors’ front yards, I look down at the gardens and see the clarified reds of tulips and washed yellows of daffodils shimmer away from their petals. There is a particular brilliance to the colors of dusk in the months between the vernal equinox until the summer solstice. This period of blue in the evening is as intense and prolonged as the sandstone red sunsets in the desert, and more stunning in depth of color and nightly duration than twilight at the coast or in the Sierra. It is as if molecules of blue reflecting from acres of green plants across the expanse of the valley bounce against the sides of the Coast Range to the west and the Sierra to the east and collect overhead into jewelry of color.
I came upon this description of the central San Joaquin Valley over twenty years ago in the Valley Voice, a weekly news paper here, in the central San Joaquin, though sadly no longer. I have kept it because it is such a beautifully written piece. I have not been able to find the author or determine if it’s part of a larger piece. Still, I can’t think of a better introduction to my writing about this same valley. At times when I reread it, I wonder and worry… can we still live up to such a loving description of this valley.
So, this is the place I was born, a place I’ve spent a lifetime, interrupted briefly by time spent in the Navy and a short stay in New York City. This is where I’ve been educated – grammar school thru college – built several careers, married, retired, and will soon enough be buried. I have at times contemplated moving on. For all its abundance the valley continues a sparce place to make a living, much less find the enticements found in other places I’ve traveled. Yet, here I am, those opportunities that beckoned me have faded. This is become my place for life long friendships, the comfort of family and perhaps most important, the security that comes with deep familiarity. I know the people, even if not personally… though sometimes I feel that is changing as well. I can walk down the sidewalk in Exeter and take comfort in knowing things are the same, or nearly so, as when I came into this world almost eighty years ago. If I meet someone that I can’t place, I ask their name, if I recognize it as an old Exeter name then I know we are on common ground, if not, they are likely new to town. If someone doesn’t seem to remember me, I will mention my father and they’ll inevitable respond with, “of course I knew your dad well, a good man”.
The places we call home do change and it’s true you can never go back once you’ve left. But if you’ve stayed, you become ever more aware of how much remains just as it always was. Not long ago, standing in the Exeter Cemetery, I glanced around at the people standing near me, all familiar faces I’ve known for a lifetime. I see across the narrow country road behind me are the orange trees that have stood surrounding this spot since before I was here. As the service draws to a close, I can hear a half mile away, a train sound its horn as it approached Kaweah Avenue, just as it has countless times much further back than I can know. For this moment in time, it might just as easily be sixty years past as last month.
In our valley sometimes it seems as though we sprint toward summer… the warmth of May reminds us once again, the heat will build thru August into September – that it gets hot in summer, hasn’t changed. What has changed is that there just doesn’t seem to be enough water to fill the creeks and ditches that irrigate the crops and those spots when as a young boy, I could swim with friends… riding our bikes into the country to strip down and jump into the cool water off a train trestle. That it can be hot and dry here is just a fact of life. Still, we debate, is this the cycle of things or real change. These excerpts from letters written by family in the 1800’s offer a good case for cycles.
My great grandfather Adolphus wrote to his mother sometime in the early 1880’s from the ranch a couple of miles south west of Visalia.
“It has not rained enough here this winter to do any good, though I hope we will have some rain yet. The snow is rather scarce back in the mountains, and I fear it will not be enough to overflow our creeks to irrigate. I am going up above a mile or two to on the ditch water is coming down and if the snow does not fall to quick, I think we will get water enough to irrigate considerable yet.” (the blanks are difficult to read)
In a letter from my great uncle Ozro he refers…
…to cattle dying and becoming poor from the drought.
This from the autobiographical record of Tulare County about my great grandfather…
On January 11, 1862 a flood covered his land with water, and there seemed to be three waves passing through the valley. On December 24, 1867 a second flood coming in one wave would cover everything.
Anyway, from my personal experience over the past sixty five years, I believe the weather in our valley has changed. But, that said, as is often said “…if you don’t like the weather, just wait.”
The weather will always be a factor in what we do here. This place is about agriculture. If you’re not a farmer or rancher your lively hood still remains tied to this aspect of life in the Central Valley. In the center of California, we live in the richest agricultural local in the world, the diversity of all this is too much to recount. Our lives here are measured by the seasons, none is more important than “…a time to plant”. Springtime in the valley is that time of year when everything comes to life. New blooms on the orange, almond, peach, and plum trees fill the air with perfume and multiple shades of white, pink, and red blossoms spread across the orchards as far as you can see. Driving into the foothills surrounding our valley you’re greeted by rolling green hills accented by large swathes of blue, yellow and gold wildflowers. Standing in all this color are the yearling calves beginning to graze their way onto our tables. Back into the valley, new plantings are changing the brown dirt fields of winter to green with all manner of crops, much of this is feed for the multitude of dairy cattle all around these counties. I’m told there are more cows than people here. The seasons change soon enough, and fall seems, all of sudden, to be upon us… the dust from harvest covers everything. Harvest is “…a time to reap” when all this growing is picked, mowed, and round up. Of course, the dairies never stop milking day in day out all year round. Those trees filled with blossoms in the spring have been picked clean of fruit. The trees and vines begin their transition… becoming the rich yellow, gold, and red tapestry that is particularly enhanced at sunset, the earth beneath, a carpet of color. The Orange trees present their color differently with their bright orange and yellow fruit, peaking from around their bright green leaves. This valley does indeed feed the world. “…and the seasons they go round and round” and it’s time once more when we look eastward for snow in the Sierra Nevada’s. There is a collective sigh of relief when the snow revels itself. Years before, when I owned my stores in Fresno, the mood of the people coming in noticeable changed with the first rain. This is our source of water – a life line – filling the rivers, creeks and ditches used to irrigate and transform this once broad, grass filled plain into the cornucopia we live in today.
This familiarity I have mentioned, for me has come down through multiple family lines having settled here from one hundred ten and one hundred sixty years ago for two of my generational lines. My great grandfather Adolphus and his brother Ozro arrived in the mid 1850’s. Often I try, especially when driving the country backroads, to imagine this valley when they arrived. Certainly, they would not recognize what it has become. My mother knew them as a young girl, I didn’t ask her, perhaps she didn’t think to ask either. What was it like wagon training to California across a hostile country? What did it look like then? How do you build a 2,200 acre ranch from nothing in middle of the early San Joaquin Valley?
“The great Tulare Lake was known, and stories of luxuriant grass, the fertile soil, the clear mountain streams pouring from the foothills, the beautiful groves of Oaks, the abundance of game, the innumerable bands of antelope, elk, and wild horses had been told, and men were eager to occupy so fair and promising a country.” (From a ‘Brief Sketch of the Early History of Tulare County’ in the introduction to the “Historical Atlas Map of Tulare County”) Just seven years before the arrival of my grandfather and uncle, the Woods party was massacred by the Kaweah Indians six miles north east of Visalia. This was unsettled territory, beautiful and unspoiled. Still, it took strong, single minded men and women to make it home.
Yokohl Valley, two miles east of Exeter, in spring time.
Ozro Mitchell (my great uncle)
This is a letter Uncle Ozro sent home to Missouri, not long after establishing their ranch, stretching south to the banks of Tulare Lake.
April 9th, 1865
Dear Brother (his brother-in-law John Roseberry) and Sister (His sister Amanda),
I seat myself after reading your letter of February 10. I was much relieved to hear of your condition being no worse than it was. We have peace and quietude in our state, yet, though I hear there was some rioting in San Francisco when the dispatch was received that announced the death of President Lincoln. There were four Democratic presses destroyed by a mob and I see the Governor has proclaimed they shall not be re-established. So, you can see how military power is in advance of the law in our state. I shall say no more on politics at present more than inquire of your politics. Which I wish you to give me in your next letter. I wish you to wright me which side Roseberry thinks is right.
As to the general news of our country, I have but little to say. Times has been very dull here for the last two years, though now times is beginning to look up. Stock of all kinds is a fair price. I have been on horseback for the last thirty days gathering cattle. I expect to rest about five days then commence again.
I am going to follow trading in stock the balance of the time I stay in this country. I have been growing stock most of my time I’ve been in this country. I have not done well for the last two years on account of the drought which caused thousands of cattle to starve. This is the most fluctuating place of all kinds of business in the world which makes it a splendid place for a man to speculate in property. One of my neighbors offered his stock of hogs one year ago for $500 and I was aiming to buy them but did not have the means on hand. This spring he sold the same hogs for $5,000. I am going to buy some beef steers in a few days which will cost me $15 per head or 3 cents per lb. I will sell them for $50 or $60 each. Steers one year ago in spring sold for $10 per head, last winter the same steers sold in San Francisco for $120. This is owing to cattle dying and becoming poor from the drought.
I will now, John tell you my opinion about your boys that is in the service. From what you all wright and from what people say, that I see from that part of Missouri. It will be a poor place to live even after the war is over. I should advise them to come to this part of the country. This is good country for a man to settle in, a very healthy country. From what you wright about that country, it will be many years before people will be safe to live there even after peace is made.
I can't read this letter about my uncle on horseback in this same setting in the valley as described by Maynard Dixon in his poem.
Someday I shall make a camp at that place.
So far so loan upon the empty planet
Close to that ground there shall be a camp for me.
Low against the brightness of the west
Lies the long Coast Range, cut clear
From Diablo, faint in the north to the blue southward spur
That ending in mirage hides Coalinga.
There is bending prairie grass at that place, and swales
Where little pools have dried,
White-diamonded in rings of alkali.
And two good saddle horses I shall have,
And a lean brown cowboy there to ride with me;
And I shall stay awhile, easily, and dream
In that place in the sun and meditate
Upon the generous largeness of this earth,
The nameless intimacy of grass and sky;
Upon the confident placidity of animals
And the wonder of cool water
Drawn up from deep solid ground, — and then —
The wailing of coyotes in the night;
All these and the innumerable stares.
Maynard Dixon (January 24, 1875 – November 11, 1946) was an American artist. He was known for his paintings, and his body of work focused on the American West. Dixon is considered one of the finest artists having dedicated most of their art to the U.S. Southwestern cultures and landscapes at the end of the 19th-century and the first half of the 20th-century. Married to Dorothea Lang, a world-famous portrait artist in her own right.
He was born Lafayette Maynard Dixon in Fresno, California, named after his maternal grandfather. His family of aristocratic Virginia Confederates had found a new home in California after the American Civil War. His father was Henry "Harry" St. John Dixon, a former Confederate officer turned rancher. His mother, Constance Maynard, a well-educated daughter of a Navy officer from San Francisco, shared her love of classic literature with the young boy and encouraged him in his writing and drawing.
Adolphus Mitchell (my great grandfather)
(From History of Tulare and Kings Counties Biographical Record of the San Joaquin Valley, California
By Prof. J.M Guinn, A.M.)
The life of Adolphus Mitchell has been closely identified with the early history and development of the state of California, and he is numbered among those pioneer settlers who have been instrumental in its progress for many years. He is the son of Lewis and Mary (Duff) Mitchell (my 2nd great grandparents) and as such a representative of an old and honored family, members of which have taken part in the wars of the new as well as the old world. His grandfather, Solomon Mitchell, was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and fought under General Pickens in South Carolina. While Lewis Mitchell, father of Adolphus, and the son of Solomon was a soldier in the war of 1812.
On Lewis’ mothers’ side, the Duff family is of Irish decent. His grandfather, Robert Duff was a Major in the Irish Rebel Army (IRA). When the Irish had lost their cause Mr. Duff came to America; with religious difficulties related to his being part of the IRA, he was dressed in women’s clothes while stowing away aboard a ship headed to America. Along on this trip were his mother and father who would pass away during the trip and was barred at sea. Robert would eventually locate in West Virginia and wed Mary (Powell) Dickerson, also of Irish decent. Their daughter Mary E. Duff born in West Virginia would wed her husband Lewis Mitchell on February 3, 1819 in Rogersville, Tennessee who was born in South Carolina.
Adolphus Mitchell was born in Hawkins County, in Eastern Tennessee on May 28, 1829. In 1836 he moved with his parents to south western Missouri, in what was then called Barry County; later changed to McDonald County. His brother Ozro would be born June 4, 1831 soon after their arrival. Adolphus would attend the common schools there; but at the time there was a serious lack of facilities and the education was marginal. The lights used in what school building there was, were pine knots and candles. His entire time of attendance here was nine months, during the last two months he was over twenty years of age. None the less, Adolphus was raised on the frontier and accustomed to facing hardships he would unflinchingly forge ahead as a man well suited for work in what was soon to become his new home in California
Adolphus had remained at home until he had reached the age of twenty-five, at which time he started out with oxen and wagons west toward the coast; but decided to leave them at Green River (I’m guessing in western Wyoming) and with mule and horse packed from there. Along this northern route (the Oregon Trail) he would have many encounters with Indians both warriors and friendly. In Idaho he would turn south eventually crossing over Donner Pass. Adolphus would
arrive in California on August 5, 1855, at the head waters of the Little Yuba River, Sierra County. Undecided about what to do next he worked for wages in the mines before deciding to not follow the miner’s life for what he saw as their bad luck. He would soon move south to Mariposa County and remain there until 1857, before moving south into Tulare County.
He had crossed the plains with his brother Ozro; there was also a Mrs. Billups (of who I have no information) in the party as well; he would later find her keeping a restaurant in Visalia, where at the time there were only three places of business and the homes were crudely built with canvas roofs. Upon arrival he also met Colonel Baker, founder of Bakersfield, who advised him to buy land. This he would do until he eventually owned twelve hundred acres in the area six miles south west of Visalia. Upon buying his first acreage he would embark into the cattle business, buying one hundred fifty head of Spanish cattle at $12.50/head. The following spring, he would sell fifty head at $30.00 each.
On January 11, 1862 a flood covered his land with water, and there seemed to be three waves pass through the valley. On December 24, 1867 a second flood coming in one wave would cover everything. Throughout his struggle to gain a foothold in the new territory Mr. Mitchell had the full support of his younger brother Ozro Mitchell, who would pass away in December,1906 in the home of Adolphus, where he had lived since the had arrived; he had never married.
Mr. Mitchell returned to Missouri in 1869 leaving Visalia with his property in the capable hands of his brother, on the 9th of June, arriving home later in the same month. He remained longer than first expected, being taken with an attack of Typhoid in July and was obliged to remain for fifteen months.
While home in Missouri he reconnected with Susan Bogle, who had been born in Cannon County, Tennessee and whose family had also moved to Missouri in 1859. They were married on October 2, 1870 in Newton, Missouri. They would return to Visalia by stage from Stockton and continued raising cattle. They would bring five children into the world; Mary who remained unmarried; Walter Franklin who continued working on his father’s ranch and would marry Mary Quinlin of Fresno; Addie who married Edward C. Jones of Visalia; Chester, deceased; and Arthur Galen who is also working on the ranch. At one time Mr. Mitchell owned about twenty-five hundred acres of land but has since divided the property among his children.
When the railroad came through Adolphus would expand his efforts toward the cultivation of wheat, delivering to the railhead in Goshen, which was at the time a business center for Tulare County. At some point the railroad proposed moving the Visalia courthouse but as the constitution prohibited moving it more than once and it had previously been moved from Woodville, it was blocked from moving to Tulare. A hard-fought battle ensued to keep the courthouse in Visalia, but through the diligence of its citizens it remained, Adolphus’ participation is unclear. By this time Mr. Mitchell had rented another sixteen hundred acres for cattle in what in what would become Kings County. By his owning cattle on this land he apparently was involved in this division, but again his part is unclear.
Adolphus Mitchell would take an active interest in all public matters and is a progressive, energetic citizen, but never consented to holding office, though asked. Since 1856 he has proffered many projections concerning the welfare and growth of his adopted state that have in most cases materialized. A self-made, self-educated man, he is public spirited and interested in all that tends to the prosperity of his community. He is well known throughout the county as a most successful man.
So this is the central San Joaquin Valley as I know it. A much bigger story, of which I have written but a short bit here referring to some thoughts on this place as my home and the heritage that binds me. Having been born and raised in Visalia and Exeter was to impart a connection, that, though not impossible, becomes increasingly difficult to sever. As I have said, leaving was a thought at one time. To take that step is to take it while young. These days, as it has been for some time, to move on from here would be quite difficult. So this is it… I can only pray to remain in this place for as long as it takes.
Tuesday November 21, 2023 ~ Mother and Daughter Revisited
Four years ago, I wrote of a “pretty little girl” attending church with her mother. This morning I came upon a photograph expressing the complete antithesis to my writing in 2019. My original entry follows here, then some thoughts on the accompaning photograph.
March 3, 2019 ~ a pretty little girl
She was such a pretty little girl. . . perhaps three and a half or four years old in a simple, going to church dress, with blond hair to about her shoulders, maybe it was a little longer. Her dark eyes intent on her mother’s face, as mother held on, her small body arched backward, such that they were eye to eye, their faces ten or so inches apart.
The music was not overwhelming, considering the size of the church, nearly filled with worshipers. A violin and piano supported the choir while the congregation serenely filled in, creating a quiet, meditative tapestry. The sun shone through a large stained-glass scene extending down one whole side of the sanctuary behind the alter, the filtered light reinforcing this spiritual tableau.
Wisps of the girl’s hair kept falling across her face as her mother gently blew the hair back each time. The girl’s eyes never blinked as she continued focused on her mother.
As I watched, I wondered if this young girl would remember this intimate moment with her mother when grown. I hoped so . . . I wish that it will become a gentle loving memory of her mother, from this oh-so-brief moment in time.
With this photograph there is no caption but given the events of recent weeks I’m sure this occurred within the Palestinian settlement of Gaza following the Israeli invasion. In contrast with my first observation described above this picture becomes to me more than the obvious. Still, I’m unable to make a simple comparison between the two circumstances. One child in the perfect security of her mother’s arms in surroundings that I had hoped would become a fond memory many years hence. The young Palestinian girl in midst of absolute destruction. . . surrounded by the complete loss of all she has ever known. Can there be any comfort in her mothers’ arms? Are mother and daughter so traumatized that any memory becomes a nightmare, mercifully, hopefully to be someday forgotten? The first mother and daughter will leave their granite clad church walls through secure bronze doors into a beautiful, abundant spring morning, while the other
mother and daughter wander with nothing left standing before them. They may even ask if God has indeed abandoned them, and yet I wonder that they are able to call on God’s name at all. (Does God favor the Jews over the Palestinians? Such that I am able to understand these things, I must say no, this would not be the God I know.) Yet in this photograph where does the mother turn? I wish that I could know what will happen to them. Not just for tomorrow or even in the next year but for their lifetime. What does the future of mother and daughter hold? What will their memory be? No one can know and I am not sure if I can say God knows – and by that, I mean until I no longer walk this earth that we struggle to understand – until I’m able to understand Gods role, if at all, in how these two mother and daughter stories were played out as they have.
One scenario left me with hope, the other with despair and too many unanswered questions.
3 ~ S
