A Look Back

Laurel Glen Fruit Farm

(Theres is not date on this picture only "Santa Cruz News")









In "Grandfather Dakin's Farm" Ruthalee Dakin Mauldin tells the story of her 1991 visit to the house at Laurel Glen where she grew up during the 1920's.

"You will probably find it very different from the way it was when you lived here," said Bill Weston, the current owner.

Bill's wife Danny and my sister Alice had met by chance at an optical office in San Jose. After Danny had given her address as Laurel Glen Soquel, Alice asked her if she knew the Dakin place. It was quickly established that Westons now owned the Dakin place and were living in the house that Grandfather built in the 1870's while they built a new home above the old apple orchard. Then she issued an invitation to a tour, so here we were.

Bill opened the back door and as we entered the kitchen I saw the was right about the changes. The kitchen had once been a dim, cozy place. It had had a wood-burning cook stove, the business end of which held water pipes that wiggled around in its innards, absorbing heat to provide hot water for baths, laundry and dish washing. There was plenty of wood from the orchards and forest around the farm to keep a fire burning and even when it went out in the night a slight aura of warmth remained in the morning.

In one of the early renovations the walls of the room had been pushed out to include not only the old screened porch, but also part of a tiny bedroom that had been mine. It is a light, bright room. Gone is the old stove, the old sink and, of course, the old table at which Papa, Alice and I had sat on the evening of my eighth birthday. Mama had died a couple of weeks before and Papa was trying to be cheerful for our sakes. He read stories by the dim light of a kerosene lamp. We had had electricity, not for long, but we had it. That night the lights had gone out. It seemed symbolic.

We went on past the bathroom with "modern" plumbing into the dining room. Its shape was as it had been. It had had to be relatively large, because Grandmother and Grandfather Dakin had run a small resort in the summertime for a few years. there had been five tiny bedrooms upstairs and three or four rooms in a "bunkhouse" across from the back door. If all were filled there would be a minimum of nine people to feed. Grandmother and Aunt Alice must have had help for cooking. These guests came from San Francisco on the train and the two young men of the family, Papa and Uncle Wilbur, hitched horses to the surreys and met them at the depot in Capitola.

As we moved across the dining room toward the veranda that still stretches out from the long west wall of the house, we came to the door of the only remaining downstairs bedroom. It had not changed. For me the little room held two of the most vivid memories of life in this house: one was the morning I had climbed up onto her bed and Mama had lifted the covers to give me my first glimpse of Alice, the tiny, tiny little sister who'd been born a few hours before. The other was the night, almost exactly 4 years later, that a nurse brought my sister and me to stand in the same doorway for our last glimpse of our mother. The nurse must have known Mama was dying, but just pointed out how good Mama was about taking the medicine she was being given at the time. Useless medicine. She had pneumonia and there was not yet any penicillin.

The little group had moved on and I turned from the doorway to join them. The living room was almost unchanged, although the openings into the adjoining rooms had been greatly enlarged. The old fireplace, no longer usable, was still there. It had been the focal point of all evening gatherings. Even in summer, nights in the Santa Cruz mountains are cool. Papa worked at entertaining. I remember his striding back and forth under the oak trees down near the carriage house memorizing stories. Someone told us that once when a number of neighbors were gathered around the fireplace he slipped out unnoticed and in time, knocked at the door dressed as a tramp. Even though everyone there knew him, he was not recognized as he caught them up in his well rehearsed stories.

Last, we came into the sun room, made by a couple who had lived there with their invalid son. It had been created from the front bedroom, the south veranda, the front hall and the once gracious staircase landing. The Newell post was gone and some crummy stairs had been stuffed into a closet area.

Looking out from the windows that were where the veranda had been we could see, down the drive and up to the left, the remaining one of the three cottages that had been there during the resort days. Each had had its own cooking and toilet facilities. This must have meant its own outhouse. (The main house had quite a large privy--two little rooms with three seats in each! There was a vine-covered board enclosure across in front of the doors and down the side toward the house. How did the folks from San Francisco feel about these primitive arrangements? We will never know, but some must not have been too unhappy as there were repeat guests over the years.)

At some time two of the cottages burned down. When Alice and I lived on the farm, the remaining cottages were occupied by renters who took over the orchards and the grain field. In his youth Papa had worked for Phoebe Hearst, William Randolph's mother, and had learned to speak Spanish in order to go to Mexico for her. With his Spanish he was able to communicate very well with the renters even though they were Portuguese. Even with the crops taken care of, Papa's focus still was on horticulture. He had been 60 years old when Alice was born, 64 when Mama died, a little late to learn to take care of two children and himself. Our mother's mother over in the little town of Sunol fell heir to my sister and me. Papa moved into the cottage and sold the farm. People named Brown used it for their summer place for several years and now it is the Weston's.

What a treat to be able to wander about the old house again! There was more to come: our host and hostess invited us to see their new home. As we walked toward it, on the right was the big laurel tree that had been the shelter for my solitary play with imaginary friends. On the left there had been an old barn, the barn that had had corrals on two sides, one for our Jersey cow, Jewel, and one for the riding horse, Bess, and assorted workhorses. Below the barn, through the pear orchard and a few redwood trees is Moore Creek. Grandfather dammed it to make a tiny lake for guests to use for boating and swimming on days when the young men didn't take them to the beach and the boardwalk.

Looking up through the apple orchard we saw the Weston's new home. It is an impressive structure, set in a place that gets maximum sunshine. Inside it is unusually beautiful, filled with fascinating, beloved things from both their families.

The old house is unoccupied again, but when the Weston grandchildren visit they can stay there, unknowingly surrounded by the spirits of past generations of occupants and guests.

Henry Dakin Remembered

This is a transcript of a letter to the editor by Robert Burton dated August 4, 1955 under the banner: Voice of the People.

About Henry Dakin

Editor: Your picture of the Laurel Glen Fruit farm in your July 31 number of the Sentinel-News brought back many pleasant and interesting memories of its late owner, Henry Dakin.

Henry Dakin possessed all the sagacity, wisdom and inventiveness one might inherited from Maine and Vermont parents. His ability was along horticultural lines. Some years back the California Cultivator featured his farm as a horticultural wonderland. Of special interest was the orchard of avocado trees which is said to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest, such orchard in California.

During his youth, Henry had done a tour of duty in Mexico as foreman on one of the Hearst ranches. He became interested in avocadoes in their native home, expecially the Fuerte variety, which he claimed to have introduced in California. Far from confining his activities to the Laurel Glen farm, at certain times of the year h3e would disappear for a month or two with a bundle of grafting and budding wood en route for southern California, where he became one of the most famous budders and grafters of these trees in the commercial orchards; which were just beginning to be established in that land, which he considered no better than what he had at home. Many such trees are also found in Santa Cruz county and city. The original trees are still on his place and in good production under the care of Ray Bethel, former city water foreman of this city.

Tourists who return home from Hawaii often bring home macademia chocolate candy as a famous exotic rarity may be interested to know that there are very old and large macademia nut trees on Henry's place and, what is more, they are in bearing. Being native trees from Australia, very little was known about them until recently, when they began to cultivate them in southern California. It is difficult to know how Henry procured the origiqanl trees or seeds.

There are hundreds of acres of walnut trees that woe their good and uniform quality to Henry's grafting.

An ornamental to which he gave much thought was the English holly. In their native habitat these trees come as either male or female trees. The male tree is the most symetrical and beautiful, but, of course, only the femalebears the berries of traditional Christmas fame. Henry, by close observation, found a sport (mutation) on one of the trees which bore both male and female characters. This became the foundation stock for considerable budding and grafting of these trees.

His place was so full of various varieties of fruit trees that it was a handicap when it came to cultivation and marketing.

Far from being a recluse, Henry was a most gregarious and public spirited man. Knowing at frst had the difficulties of marketing fruit in these early days, he associated himself with such men as the late Fred Hihn and other progressive growers into an association for the marketing of apples. In due time it failed. When asked for the reason, Henry said:

"Men working together or jointly will make mistakes they never would make by themselves."

A deeply religious man, not of trhe sectarian type but from a conviction which comes from deep and silent contemplation with God and his great works, he acquired a sortr of prophetic outlook and an intimacy with his soul.

One of his most common topics being the weather, especiallythat part which pertains to the rainfall. He claimed that by communion with god he could not only prophecy, but also set the amount of rainfall. He was, therefore, a frequent visitor at our weather station to consult the past and present records.

Not until after his death did we dare say much about it for fear Henry might come inot disrepute for having spoiled the sset of cherries, the drying of clothes, the wettingt of picnics or the dampening of weddings. Thatwas our secret even if wewere not convinced. Henry was firm in his beliefs, and you did not change him by arguing.

His passing was a distinct loss to his many friends, who admired in him his honesty, his loyalty, his self education, which bordered on wisdom, and his industry. Heleft theworld a better place because of better people and better trees.

Crippled in his old age and unable to carry on political discussions as formerly, he called us to his death bed at last for what might have been a confession. His last words were: "Watch Roosevelt; he is responsible."

That was after Pearl Harbor. Henry can, therrefore, be said to have been a staunch Republican, the Maine and Vermont variety, until his dying day. Like his ancestors, he w2as a great lover of freedom and of our institutions.

He is buried in the Soquel cemetery, near the road he so often traveled on his way to Santa Cruz market and friends; also past the school house where he received the fundamentals of his education for which he was ever so grateful.

Robert Burton

1187 Prospect Heights

Ruthalee Dakin Mauldin: Robert Burton, as I recall, was a science teacher at Santa Cruz High School. He and Mrs. Burton had three or four children. They were interesting, vital peole. During WWII he went somewhere in the Pacific to grow fresh produce, especially melons. These proved more helpful in enabling the wounded to live and recover than the chemical vitamins. While there he made exquisite plates of configuration, foliage, flowers and seeds of the local vegetation. Wish I could remmber where he was! He said he had to hire natives to beat the bushes around the melon fields to keep the rats from coming and eating the crop as it ripened. Mondy meant nothing to these people, but Mr. Burton could do slight of hand tricks that kept them coming back to keep the rats out for him.

Late Autumn

This was written in Henry Dakin's hand on the back of the original photograph:

Oldest Fuerte Avocado in northern California, planted 1912. This photograph taken in 1931 when it bore over 2300 fruit, and I had this enlarged for my avocado exhibit at the state fair; where I took Third Sweepstakes besides prizes on individual varieties. I also took 1st prize on Royal Isabella (Concord) grapes and 2nd prize on dried Imperial Prunes. This picture will be in the 1500 copies of the Avocado Association Year Book for 1935.

"Late Autumn" was written by Ruthalee Dakin Mauldin and included in El Portal, the annual Phelan Literary Awards publication of San Jose State College, 1941, when she was a senior. It is fiction to the degree that names have been changed.

You don't have to read this story. It's rather a family affair, so maybe you won't want to. That's what I like about stories; they are like people. You can look at them if you want to, but if you don't want to, you don't have to; or you can pick them up for a while, and then forget them for a while, and when you come back, maybe they're there, and maybe they're not.

Anyway, last Sunday was a perfectly beautiful winter-is-coming day. Midterms were coming too, but they just didn't count when my cousin Andy drove up in his new car with his mother, and Aunt Claire, and her two children, and asked if I'd like to go for a ride with them. Would I!
I squeezed in between young Nancy and her baby sister, Martha Jean. We had soon left the valley and were in the mountains. It had rained. Everything--the air, the madrones, the redwoods--made one think of the lettuce fresh from the refrigerator. The tires made crisp noises on the pavement, and we talked about the gay, stupid things families talk about.

Aunt Peg had suggested that we go to the ranch for apples; so, after many miles of smooth highway, we turned up the narrow, rutty, private road and stopped at the cottage. As I struggled out to see if Mr. Charles were home, a hearty "Hey, there!" greeted me from the vine-screened porch.

The man and I followed as the others drove on, up past the big, old farm house to turn around. They started past us toward the cottage again, but he stopped them.

"It's all right to park here. I'm alone now, you know. The renters moved out last week."

It all seemed so still. The rain had washed all the noisiness out of the air and seeped into the sandy soil with it. My aunts got out slowly, drinking in the beauty of the wooded farm. They had been here often, of course, for Mr. Charles was their brother-in-law. Back in the old days when their sister had been alive, they had come here for summer vacations. Aunt Peg's family had been little, then; Aunt Claire, a high school girl; and Mr. Charles' two children, very small for he had married late in life and even now didn't look old for his seventy-odd years.

"I haven't any apples picked," he said in his strong voice, inclining his head toward them a little, trying to see what they wanted him to do. "But it won't take long to pick some." Turning toward the house he offered, "Would you like to go inside and look around?" he took a key case from his pocket and fingered through the keys with worn, stubby fingers, indelibly lined with earth, the fingers of a man who loves the soil.

"My goodness!" said Aunt Claire. "It's been ages since I've been in there."

As he stepped up to open the door, he brushed past a huge triangular iron dinner gong that hung there rusting. Not so many years ago small, determined hands had rung it to call Mr. Charles from the orchards to dinner. I wondered if the voices of Aunt Claire's children as they played now, calling the inevitable farm kittens, raised any haunting memories in his mind; but their shouts didn't seem to disturb the silence after the rain; he gave no sign.

Andy and I followed him as he went down to the barn. We had been together in the old days, probably following him around just like this. He took a bucket from the old carriage room and went to the orchard where he climbed trees and picked our fruit with the rough carelessness of familiarity. Each of us pulled off a firm, red apple and took a generous bite, oh, how good! Full of the rich sweetness of the passing autumn, the snap of approaching winter, and the trickling of the rains.

We carried on a slow conversation, asking him questions sometimes.

"Do you think you'll have much rain?" Andy asked once.

He turned to us, breathing a little hard. "Yes," he said, "but it doesn't hurt things much on account of the storm ditches Father put in when he cleared the land."

His father's storm ditches were symbols, tangible things to be busy at, imprints on the earth kept visible, yesterday and in the present, undeserting.

Andy and I continued our random remarks until he turned to us again.

"Do you remember Mrs. Hilton?"

We nodded.

I went to see her the other day. She always gives me a cup of tea. My, the children are real young ladies and gentlemen.

"I always go to see somebody after I get my errands done. Can't do much here when it's so wet.

We knew it wasn't the wet earth. It was custom. Probably as a young man when he was at home, he had taken his mother in to town if the errands warranted taking the carriage. We knew that in the summers we had been here, he had taken some of us in to show us off to elderly ladies and other folks who belonged to the Farm Bureau. But inevitably he returned to the farm. It was part of him. The apple trees were old, but they were heavy with fruit, so heavy that untended branches split down the trunk from the weight. The corral behind us was thick with scented weeds, but once the hooves of old horses and young, spirited beauties had worn it smooth. The cow corral held only rotting wagons, but once there had been cows there who had given pails of rich, foaming milk, and had had wobbly, wondering-eyed calves. We knew! We had seen and we had imagined, and now the grey emptiness was splashed with the colors of vivid memories.

He came down all too soon, with his bucket full. The aunts had come from the house and were munching apples, too. The children were running up and down the road and hugging the kittens. Aunt Claire was having trouble keeping up with them. She had been to a dance the night before, and one leg ached.

"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Charles as we walked back to the car.

"Oh, all the men I danced with were so darn tall! They kept swinging their feet forward, like this, and I had to swing my leg way back to keep from being stepped on."

"Don't they have any consideration for their partners?" he asked. "You know, when I was in San Francisco, the year before I went to work for Mrs. Grey, I went to a dancing school there. Every once in a while they'd have a fancy-dress ball. Well, the instructor's sister, Mrs. Wendell, was quite somebody, and she came to one of these balls with a great long train, -- beautiful thing! But during the evening I found myself on this train, and I couldn't get off. I was embarrassed! Ha! By gad! But nothing happened. Every time she moved I was in the air.

It was one of his favorite stories, and he told it with pride and amusement. He could have talked all day, but we were in the car, ready to go.

"You're looking well, Richard," said someone for the third time.

"Yes. I have to keep well, if I'm going to be alone all winter. I have to get out, you know and keep the ditches open."

"Do you have rubber boots?" asked Aunt Claire.

"No, I haven't," he said, "but I have to get 'em. You know, if my feet just imagine they get wet, I get a cold right away."

"We'd better start if we're going to get home by supper," suggested Aunt Peg.

"Thanks for bringing them over," he said to Andy, inclining his head with a look that was glad yet shy and wistful, a little.

"Well, thank you for everything, " said everybody. "Good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye."

I didn't look back and wave and wave, as I sometimes have; so I didn't see him standing there, short and stocky, with his good-bye smile, and that apologetic look in his kind eyes; but I know just how he looked, trudging back to lock up the big empty house where he hasn't lived much since that summer when Mrs. Charles died. Her people found that, with his grief and his bachelor ways, he couldn't take care of his small children; so they were taken away. And I know how he looked when he jogged back down the hill to his cottage to eat his home-made soup, and listen to his radio and read his Bible, and remember, and sometimes write letters.

He gave me a letter he'd written me and forgotten to mail. It told about the renters being gone, and his hating being alone now more than ever.

It is raining tonight, and I hate to look at it raining up there, and washing all the sounds into the sandy earth. That's why I'm glad people are like stories: you can look at them for a while, or you can forget them awhile. I can't look at his life very long, as he's living there now. Maybe you could. Maybe I'm sensitive. But maybe it's because, even though I don't know much more about him than you do, he is my father.

Henry, Ruthalee & Alice

This scene of Henry, Alice Irene and Ruthalee together doing chores would be repeated often during the days following Ruth's death, though the girls were older (4 yrs and 8 yrs) than pictured here.

After Ruth's death, it was difficult for Henry to care for Ruthalee and Alice. The extended family supported as best they could but Henry was a man of the farm and had great interest, but little skill, in raising his daughters. Ruthalee and Alice began to catch colds. Henry was involved in the production rather than the nutrition end of the food supply.

The Roth family lived across the road from the Dakins. Mr. Almon E. Roth was a Law professor at Stanford. The memory that continues about the couple was that Mr. Roth hired his law students during the summer to build their home in the Santa Cruz mountains. He didn't have much use for new work clothes and his ragged appearance evidently got to Mrs. Roth to the point of intervening without permission. One night after Almon had finished, Mrs. Roth took his pants and threw them in the fire, an event that was heard across the road in the Dakin household! Unbeknownst to Mrs. Roth, Mr. Roth had bullets in his pocket which exploded in the fire. Gratefully, no one was on the receiving end. Except perhaps indirectly, as Mrs. Roth bore the burden of that memorable story.

Mrs. Roth was the one who after several months had a talk with Henry. She convinced him that he would not be able to care for his two daughters under the circumstances. Arrangements were made for Ruthalee and Alice to join their grandmother Chamberlain in Sunol. This is one of those events that separates the older generation from the ones that have come since, at least as the older generation likes to make us think. They are loyal to a sense of necessity, a sense that such things had to be done, that it the obvious thing to do and not to be grieved about later as if it were terrible. But if you look around their eyes, the corners of their smiles, they give themselves away. I think it is unspoken, but intentional. We will hear it in the affection and pain of the story in the next posting.

Henry continued on the farm to do what he had known and loved for so long and, really, could not do otherwise. His girls, having the opportunity to live with their loving and protective grandmother, were fortunate beyond measure, though dealt yet another loss. What really was the choice? And if there was really no choice in the matter and everyone was cared for, what great harm was there? It is difficult to argue with logic, even if one's heart moves involuntarily in another direction. And so it was.

We will catch up with Alice and Ruthalee, and their roller coaster ride that traversed the next 3 years, after a few more postings. First, there are several memories to re-capture about Henry as he continues to care for the land at Laurel Glen.