Isaac's Last Days

Ruth, Isaac (left) surveying the farm from the veranda and Henry tending his plants

When Henry and Ruth moved back to the Santa Cruz Mountains, they lived there three years before Ruthalee was born. Though she was only 6 months old when Isaac died, Ruthalee remembers her mother's fear that in Isaac's near blindness he might inadvertently hurt Ruthalee's eyes. Maternal fears about eye injuries seemed to be common through most of the 19th and 20th centuries.