The following article appeared inthe Wednesday, February 15, 1989 Edition of the Ojai Valley News on Page A-10. It is reprinted here with their permission. Photos were added by the Ojai Valley Museum.
Just sniff the valley’s air to detect crisis
by
Bob Bryan
Special to the News
Emperor Hirohito of Japan was coming to visit this country but where would we put him up for the night?
Blair House in Washington, D.C. would not do for various reasons. But there was Williamsburg, the reconstructed colonial village, where the emperor’s safety could be secured and where His Divinity could taste something of early America and its charms.
Williamsburg is a national treasure and was restored through the generosity of the Rockefeller family. Another dream American treasure, the National Gallery of Art, was brought about through the generosity of the Paul Mellon family.
On a smaller scale but with generosity of spirit to equal those millionaires, we have our Edward Drummond Libbey, who drove West with John, his chaffeur, in his Packard limousine (Libbey sat in the front seat with his driver) and fell in love with the Ojai Valley. Our park, our post office, the Arbolada, to mention only a few, are because of this man.
Edward Drummond Libbey
And now the community and the valley that Libbey fell in love with faces crisis. The word crisis is not idly used. Just check out Ojai Avenue most any hour of the day or drive to Ventura in the morning or evening. Or take a good sniff of our air on certain days. Something quite deadly is happening to our valley.
They say that a frog placed in a frying pan filled with boiling water will jump out immediately. But put the frog in a pan of unheated water and slowly but surely heat it up and the frog will not seek to escape until it’s too late.
Frog in a frying pan.
Are they turning up the air and the traffic in this frying pan of a valley? And are some of us frogs jumping before it’s too late, jumping to Oregon where, they say, the water is pure and the air clean? Or jumping to the Midwest where report has it that houses are cheaper and the neighbors friendlier?
Of course, the temptation to jump is there for all of us as our citrus orchards skyrocket in value or our homes come to represent small fortunes. (“Let’s leave, Gertrude, while we can still get through Casitas Pass.”)
Some nights, when I can’t sleep, I ponder the problem of our valley. What to do? Perhaps, we could get a present Midas, say a Donald Trump, to simply buy up the Ojai Valley and declare it off limits except to specially designated visitors who would have parking permits, like at the Getty Museum in Malibu. We natives, on designated hours, could engage in cottage industries for the benefit of the gawkers. (“Is he really writing a novel, Mummy?”)
Another idea that comes to me in the quiet reaches of the night is to bring back the old Burma Shave signs? Remember those? You probably don’t but either one of your grandparents can tell you about them. They were the literature of our youth.
The Burma Shave signs were strategically placed along the highway, where, traveling at a modest and legal forty miles per hour, they could be easily read. They rhymed and were pithy and pungent statements on a variety of subjects, all humorously presented. And with a final pitch for Burma Shave.
Example of a “Burma Shave” sign.
Here’s a “Burma Shave sign” we might place at staggered intervals along the entranceways to the Ojai Valley:
“Don’t be a frog and jump the pan; Be a pal and turn around and go home.”
The following article appeared on the front page of the Thursday, January 7, 1954 edition of “THE OJAI” which is now called the “Ojai Valley News”. It is reprinted here with their permission. The author is unknown. Photos have been added by the Ojai Valley Museum.
Mother Dies, Family Critically Hurt In Holiday Accident
Still on the critical list of Southland hospitals following a New Year’s Day accident which killed Mrs. Jewell T. Mashburn, 49, Ojai, are four members of her family, her son Harold, 28, his wife, Arlou, 23, and their two children, Thomas [“Thomas” is a first name, but the boy goes by his middle name, “Drew”], two, and Michael [“Michael” is incorrect; “Mitchell’ or “Mitch” should have been used], seven months.
The head-on collision occurred on Highway 101 at Malibu when the Mashburn car traveling south struck another car going north driven by Robert Jenning, 74, Sierra Madre, which swerved across the highway into the path of the Mashburn car. The Jenning car apparently swerved to miss hitting another car which had suddenly stopped in front of it. Both Jenning and his wife were uninjured.
Mrs. Mashburn, wife of Ojai real estate broker Clyde Mashburn, was killed instantly while the family was taken to Santa Monica hospital for treatment. The Mashburn’s were enroute to visit Mrs. Mashburn’s niece in Los Angeles.
Funeral services were held Tuesday afternoon for Mrs. Mashburn at the Loma Vista chapel of the Mayr funeral home.
Born Sept. 17, 1904, in Pleasant Hope, Mo., she had been a resident of Ventura County for 25 years. Besides her husband, Clyde, she is survived by her son, Harold of Ojai; a daughter, Mrs. Betty Jean Loomis, Ojai; three brothers, Charles Teeters of Ivanhoe; Glenn Teeters of Lynwood, and Fred Teeters of Ojai; three sisters, Mrs. Nora Voris and Mrs. Verda Barton, Ivanhoe, and Mrs. Willa Buckner of Santa Paula; her father, Thomas Teeters, Ivanhoe; and two grandchildren.
Rev. Emmett Parks officiated at the services. Burial followed in Ivy Lawn cemetery.
FROM LEFT to RIGHT: Drew, Jewell, Mitch and Harold Mashburn at Jewell’s (Harold’s mother) S. Lomita Avenue home in Meiners Oaks. This photo was taken on the morning of New Year’s Day 1954.FROM LEFT to RIGHT: Drew, Jewell, Mitch and Arlou Mashburn sitting on the front porch of Jewell’s S. Lomita Avenue home in Meiners Oaks on the morning of January 1, 1954.Clyde Mashburn and his daughter-in-law, Arlou Mashburn, months after the horrific automobile accident. Notice Arlou is using crutches. This photo was taken just days after Arlou was released from the hospital. Photo taken at Clyde’s S. Lomita Avenue home in Meiners Oaks in 1954 or 1955.
This article appeared in the Fall 2017 issue of The Ojai Quarterly, and is posted here with permission. “The Art of Dennis Shives” exhibit is on view at the Ojai Valley Museum from Oct. 14, 2017 through February 25, 2018.
Dennis Shives His Way
by
Mark Lewis
For the better part of seven decades, self-taught Ojai artist Dennis Shives has followed his own path, often while going barefoot. Now, that long and winding road has led this notable free spirit to the Ojai Valley Museum, which this fall is honoring him with a career-retrospective exhibit. After forging a career on his own terms, far from the art-world limelight, Shives finally is ready for his close-up.
THE BUILDING was nondescript, an unassuming stucco affair fronting on El Roblar Drive west of Padre Juan Street in Meiners Oaks. But its display window was lit up at night, and something in it caught the eye of the artist Gayel Childress as she passed by one evening in the early 1980s.
“There was this wonderful wooden Gatling gun in the window,” she says. “I said I had to meet whoever made that.”
The creator turned out to be Dennis Shives, an artist and woodworker who used the building as his studio and the window as his gallery. Childress discovered to her delight that Shives’s hand-cranked Gatling gun actually worked, except that it fired rubber bands rather than bullets. He had crafted it a few years earlier using wood left over from another project – oak, ash, a bit of walnut – and part of a bronze light fixture he had salvaged from the Smith-Hobson House while it was being converted into Ojai’s City Hall. Childress was charmed by this whimsical, one-of-a-kind creation, and by the man who made it.
“I’ve been a fan ever since,” she says. “He really is a wonderful artist.”
That’s high praise coming from Childress, a co-founder of the Ojai Studio Artists group. Nor is she the only one who thinks so.
“A really incredible talent,” says Khaled Al-Awar, who in years past has featured the Gatling gun and other Shives pieces in his Primavera Gallery in the Arcade.
“He’s brilliant,” agrees Danna Tartaglia, who sells Shives prints, and framed photographs of his “Making Faces” rock art, in her Tartaglia Fine Arts gallery. “He’s an original – maybe the original Ojai artist.”
But Tartaglia and Al-Awar agree that Shives is not the easiest artist to represent, because of his unconventional attitude toward his career. He insists on asking dauntingly major-league prices for his major pieces, in part because of all the work he puts into making them, and in part because he seems too attached to his creations to let them go.
Partly as a result, Shives has struggled all his life to make a decent living, and to win wide recognition in the art world. Nevertheless, he has remained true to his chosen vocation. And now, on the eve of his 70th birthday, the spotlight finally has found him, in the form of a career-retrospective exhibit opening Oct. 14 at the Ojai Valley Museum. Which prompts the question: After a lifetime of wandering in the wilderness, is Dennis Shives ready for the red carpet?
“The Art of Dennis Shives” at the Ojai Valley Museum.
BORN in Santa Paula in 1947, Shives mostly grew up in Ojai’s Upper Valley, where he attended the Summit School. Later he attended Matilija Junior High and Santa Paula High, from which he graduated in 1965. As a child he was drawn to art, due in part to encouragement from his maternal grandmother, a talented amateur painter.
“I always knew I would be an artist,” he says.
But he hated the art classes he took in high school and at Ventura College. There were too many rules about how to make art, and too much emphasis on how to make a living from it.
“I really didn’t learn anything in school,” he says. “So actually I’m self taught.”
The point of art classes, as Dennis saw it, was to tame the wildly creative urges that welled up within him, and channel them in approved directions. He declined to submit. He was a classic case of the child who refuses to color inside the lines.
“They are trying as hard as they can to kill that thing within you,” he says. “You’re supposed to be who you are. People need to do what they need to do, instead of sitting and copying other people.”
Despite his interest in the visual arts, the first career he pursued that of a musician. A true child of the ‘60s, Shives grew his hair long and tried his hand at rock ‘n’ roll, playing harmonica and singing with the Ojai All Stars, the house band at a rowdy, rough-and-tumble dive called the Ojai Club (located where Ojai Pizza is today). This was a fraught period when the local flower children and the local rednecks were frequently at odds.
“We were the hippies and they were the alcoholics,” Shives says. “This was a drunk cowboy town. There was a brawl every Saturday night.”
The All Stars’ lineup also included local guitar legend John Orvis, along with the brothers Norman and Curtis Lowe and others.
“We had a great time,” Shives says. “But then I switched into the arts.”
He took up woodworking, sculpture, painting, and whatever else intrigued him. He was a craftsman too, creating gold and silver jewelry, custom-carved rifles, exoticlooking furniture, even a house in Alaska for his Ojai friend Jack Estil. He never worried about not being formally trained. He just plunged in, and figured it out for himself.
“What the process is all about is learning not to be afraid,” he says. “Fear is the biggest killer of creativity.”
His longtime friend Sergio Aragones, the famous Mad Magazine artist, admires Shives’s extraordinary versatility.
“He’s the true Renaissance man,” Aragones says. “He’s a man who can do everything – and well! He has spent his life perfecting every craft.”
And to what end? To amuse himself, and other people, by telling stories that make everyone smile. There is an implied narrative embedded in most Shives pieces, whether it’s a painting of snails in a garden eating a flower, or a carved-wood door featuring a charging rhinoceros, or a soapstone sculpture of an octopus going for a walk.
“It was the storytelling process that I was interested in,” he says. “You’re playing with the story. It’s a way of entertaining people.”
When Shives turned his hand to creating parade floats, he entertained the entire town. People in Ojai still talk about the one he and his friend Rick DeRamus came up with in 1984, the year the Los Angeles Summer Olympics held rowing events at Lake Casitas. Shives’s float for that year’s Fourth of July parade was inspired by the legend of Old Hoover, the monster-sized largemouth bass said to lurk in the Casitas depths, too wily for any angler to hook.
“All the local kids dressed up as minnows and frogs,” he says, “and we chased ‘em down the street with the fish.”
The first Old Hoover float in Ojai’s 1984 Independence Day Parade.
For the 1986 parade, Shives and DeRamus constructed an even more elaborate version of Old Hoover. This second mechanized fish float was 40 feet long, 10 feet wide and 14 feet high, with a tail that wagged, gills that emitted air bubbles, and a huge mouth that swung open and shut as the bass pursued a man in a frog costume riding a bicycle along Ojai Avenue.
This was classic Shives: He put in seven months, uncompensated, to create Old Hoover II, then spent his last $5 on gas so he could drive it in the parade. People loved the float, of course, but they didn’t pay anything to see it.
“I never did anything that made me money,” he says. “I just barely scraped by.”
That period in the early ‘80s when he had the building on West El Roblar Drive was an anomaly. Generally, Shives has made his art in borrowed spaces, or at home. These days his studio is the house on Willow Street he shares with his life partner, the acupuncture provider Laurie Edgcomb. Here, Shives is surrounded by his sculptures, paintings, carved masks, bubble-blowing devices and fanciful furniture pieces. Many have attracted the attention of collectors, but Shives seems reluctant to part with them.
“Making art is completely different from making money,” he says. “I’m not doing this to sell stuff. I’m doing this because it makes me want to get up in the morning.”
On the other hand, he concedes, “You need to make a living.”
Indeed, and making a living as a working artist poses enormous challenges. Those who succeed usually find that they must put as much time and energy into marketing their art as they do into creating it.
“I guess you have to go out and seek it and chase it down,” Shives says, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. He’d much rather drive his ancient Volkswagen van out to the East End, take off his shoes, and go for a walk in Horn Canyon.
Shives is not averse to making a buck or two, if he can do it his way. He sells hand-carved wooden walking sticks, baby spoons and magic wands (a Shives specialty). He also sells copies of his charming 2014 book, “True Stories To Be Read Aloud,” a collection of autobiographical stories. (A follow-up collection is due out this fall.) And, while he seems reluctant to sell his paintings, he happily sells prints of them at Danna Tartaglia’s gallery. She says they are popular choices with visitors looking for something Ojai-esque to take home with them – such as “Smudgepot Bears,” featuring merry ursine revelers cavorting in an orchard on a cold winter’s night, with Chief Peak providing the backdrop.
The Smudging Bears by Dennis Shives.
“I’m not sure what success is,” Shives says. “I do what I do, and feel pretty successful in my own little realm.”
Case in point: Shives is spectacularly successful at sand sculpture. He has a shelf full of first-place trophies won at contests held at Cayucos Beach and elsewhere. This probably is the art form for which he is best known outside of Ojai, but these are things he cannot sell – and that’s partly what attracted him to sand sculpting in the first place. He creates a large-scale piece in a few hours, takes a photograph, and walks away.
“If these things last the afternoon, they’re lucky,” he says. “Nothing lasts forever.
Dennis Shives and MAD Magazine cartoonist Sergio Aragones in a sand sculpture car by Shives.
SHIVES is a familiar sight in Ojai: tall and tanned with long white hair, a flowing beard and a gentle smile, he favors khaki work shirts and cargo shorts, and gives the impression that he has never owned a pair of socks. If you want to walk a mile in his moccasins, you’ll have to do it barefoot, for when Shives hits the trail in the Los Padres National Forest he does it sans shoes.
“For two years, I took every Wednesday off and walked with him,” Khaled Al-Awar says. “This man has an incredible knowledge about nature.”
Roger Conrad of the Ojai Valley Museum says that Shives’s art is powerfully informed by his strongly felt connection with the natural world.
“His vision is derived from nature with childlike enthusiasm to see, touch, and create vivid experiences for himself and those that interact with his art,” Conrad says. “Whimsy is his language to find the spiritual in all living things. His message is that the lives of all creatures matter.”
“Whimsical” is a word often applied to Shives, and it’s not one that connotes serious artistic purpose in today’s high-powered art world. Untutored artists like Shives who lack academic credentials often are pigeonholed as outsider artists or folk artists. But Gayel Childress says Shives falls into none of these categories.
“I love outsider art, but his is quite sophisticated,” she says. “He has that outsider spirit, but his art is certainly not naïve. I don’t think there’s a term for Dennis. He’s one of a kind – part inventor, part engineer, part dreamer, part carpenter, part painter. Little touches of everything.”
Conrad, who is helping to organize the museum’s upcoming Shives exhibit, is similarly unwilling to hang a label on this unique artist.
“His art defies categorization,” Conrad says. “Some of his work seems primitive but other works display the hand of a seasoned artist. He pleases himself and dismisses being labeled. Above all else his art is enchanting and fun.”
The museum exhibit is a big deal for Shives, and his friends and supporters are thrilled for him.
“It’s his time,” Childress says. “I really want everyone to see this show. I want everybody in Ojai to know about him. I just want to see him honored because he surely deserves it.”
“It’s about time,” Aragones says. “He deserves it because of the variety of his art.”
To be clear, Shives had not exactly spent the past few decades hiding his light under a bushel. He creates his strikingly original artworks and steampunkish devices, and puts them out there. He writes and publishes his stories and reads them aloud to audiences. He paints frogs and other fanciful figures on classroom walls at the Monica Ros School. He shapes his sand sculptures for all the beach-going world to enjoy, if only for an afternoon. And everyone who drives along Ojai Avenue through the center of town has seen his work – he crafted the replacement lion’s face for the Pergola water fountain, after the original deteriorated.
Shives also provided facelifts for the stone lions at the entrance to Foster Park, and he designed the life-size sleeping bear that reposes near the front door of the Ojai Valley Museum (one of his “Specialty Monuments” for Rodger Embury’s Rock & Water Creations).
Bear sculpture in the museum’s front courtyard.
“The most important part of the whole thing is to stay an artist,” he says. “Most of the people I know who went to art school don’t do art anymore.”
Remaining an artist allows Shives to wake up in the morning knowing that he will spend the day doing what he wants to do, and being who he is. “Then I feel as good as I can feel.”
Shives is pleased about the upcoming exhibit in part because he hopes to inspire other would-be artists to follow their own paths, as he did.
“What you’re doing is inventing your life,” he says. “Anyone can do this if they really wanted to. You sit down and figure out how to do it. But most people are too smart for that. They go for the money.”
Not Dennis Shives. He chose freedom instead. He’s happy with the way things have worked out for him, and he thinks more people should make the same choice, so that they “can have a great life too.”
“I had a wonderful time,” he says. “I really did.”
The following article was run in the March 12, 1959 “The Ojai Valley News”. It is reprinted here with their permission.
Clowns, Weight Lifters Shine at Aliso Street Kids Circus
by Arlou Mashburn
COMPLETE WITH A STRONG MAN, clowns, tight rope walker and puppeteers, a one-ring circus was presented by four for the younger set on Aliso street Saturday afternoon. Shown above, the kids guessing how many marbles are in the jar.
“Ladeez and gentlemen! We are proud to present the ‘East Aliso Street Circus’ “.
With that shouted salutation, a seven-year-old’s excited voice announced to an audience numbering approximately 30 persons a combination circus-puppet show planned and staged by seven neighborhood youngsters aged four to eight years old.
Prompted by the John A. Strong Circus which was recently presented in Ojai, the backyard performers utilized several acts they had seen the professional clowns and circus folk present.
Also benefiting from more experienced show people’s talents, the young puppeteers had borrowed a number of ideas from the puppet show recently held in the valley which the Ojai Festivals sponsored.
Spirits exalted by the carnival atmosphere, many youthful observers suddenly found themselves “carried away” and in front of what remained of the audience. It was rather difficult to determine at times who was “audience” and who was “show”.
Recorded music offered background atmosphere. Due to lack of calliope selections, such songs as, “Doggy in the Window” and “Davy Crockett” from the limited record collections of the children participating sufficed. As the energetic performers grew more and more enthusiastic…and of course, noisier…the music was dispensed with entirely since it was inaudible anyway.
PRIZES
Audience participation was rewarding materialistically as well as self-satisfactorily with balloons awarded as prizes. Young Blaise Castren, who journeyed three blocks with his younger brother, Chad, to attend the Saturday afternoon affair, was winner of the marble-guessing game.
Paying one penny to guess how many marbles were in a jar proved to be one of the most popular events of the day. Six-year old Donna Phillips was in charge of the money-making game.
STRONG MAN
“Strong Man” Clark “Corky” Davis, 4, amazed all with his astonishing strength when he hoisted a 500 pound barbell above his head not once, twice, but ten times! “Muscles” fashioned from inflated balloons inserted in his shirt sleeves, were eagerly touched by “Corky’s” many admirers… at no extra cost.
Mark Phillips’ over-sized tennis shoes, worn for his role as the hobo clown portrayed by Emmett Kelly, became entangled with the spurs worn by animal-trainer, Mark Kingsbury. Although the stunt was completely unrehearsed, it brought forth chuckles from the exuberant crowd of onlookers.
Pretty Kathy Nickerson, bedecked with earrings, lipstick, and flowers in her tresses, offered the glamorous touch necessary to all circuses. She won great applause as she daintily tiptoed across the “tight rope” (which instead of being suspended in the air was placed on more substantial territory, the ground in this case), balancing a parasol above her head.
Kathy’s brother, Danny, the oldest member of the troupe, was the unsung hero of the day as the behind-the-scenes worker, generally known in the circus world as a “roustabout”. Always there when he was needed, eight-year-old Danny arranged seats for the customers, carried refreshments to the pop-corn-punch-and-cookies table, and aided in the clean-up following the showing.
With poster paint on his face, Greg Davis was barely recognizable. But the make-up was all it took to throw the first-grader into the role of a clown, costume or no costume. His antics amused all.
INSTIGATOR
Instigator of the planned-for-a-week-in-advance adventure was Drew Mashburn, in whose backyard the one-ring circus was held. Drew, due to the unexpected absence of two members of the troupe, Sandy and Mike Payton, found himself a true showman, living up to the old adage, “The show must go on”, as he not only acted as puppeteer but as ringmaster and ticket-taker as well.
Drew’s younger brother, Mitch, a kindergartner, learned to his dismay upon donning a long-cherished pirate costume he had worn with great pride on previous Halloweens, that circuses do not have pirates. So, relinquishing his part in the show, Mitch appointed himself chief-cookie-passer-outer. His enthusiasm was again thwarted when he was told that the refreshments were not free, but were to be sold at the close to the show. He then resigned himself to the fact that he was not the circus type, and became a member of the audience.
Perhaps the amateurish efforts of the youthful troupe would win no blue ribbons, but in the hearts of the mothers who watched the eyes of their youngsters sparkle as they talked about the anticipated “Big Day”, and as they listened to the squealing voices of these same kids as they presented the hour-long show, there is no prize worthy enough for the memories they will all cherish from now on.
And what makes the parents even prouder is that the children, themselves, decided from the beginning that the money earned from the circus would be given to some deserving charity, rather than be kept for themselves. And they say youngsters of today will grown up to be unfit adults!
The following article first appeared in the December 20, 1967 edition of the Ojai Valley News on its front page. It is reprinted here with their permission.
Contributions needed Museum set for expansion
by
Mel Remsburg
The Ojai Valley Museum brings to a close, at the end of this month, its first year of service to the valley. The future looks even brighter, with expansion as the goal for the 1968 year.
This week, officers and directors launched the museum’s contribution membership drive, which is expected to finance the operation in the coming year. The proposed budget for the next 12 months is $2,638. Last year’s expenses were about $200 less.
Fund chairman A. C. Dahlgren announced that membership applications may be obtained by writing to the Ojai Valley Museum, 841 E. Ojai ave., Ojai. Many of the applications have already been sent to prospective members and to those who participated in its founding.
Also sent to charter members and now available to interested persons is the museum’s 1967 yearbook, telling of the expansion ahead and the services offered the public by the museum.
The expansion program provides for the removal of the existing wall at the museum, to open up the rear room for additional displays. The project, including construction of new partitions, painting, and tile floor, is expected to cost $375, with voluntary labor.
New display cases are also planned, including those of subdued lighting for the expanded area. Cost is estimated at $725.
In addition to these plans for improvement of display facilities, the museum is interested in two other phases of development. The first is the broadening of its function to include an historical association, with the museum acting as a display facility and storehouse for records, artifacts, and other material. The museum officers are also planning for the organization of a Junior Museum for the benefit of the youth in the Ojai and Cuyama valleys.
OJAI VALLEY MUSEUM — The museum has completed its first year of operation and is now seeking contribution-memberships to help finance its proposed growth and expansion. Connie Davis, the new assistant to Chamber secretary-manager Betty Fielder, examines an antique stove, one of the many historical items that have been donated to the museum.
This proposal was made at the time of formation but the directors have been without the guidance and assistance of individuals who could successfully plan and conclude such a function. Directors invite the assistance of individuals who would pursue either of these plans.
Robert O. Browne, museum president, said, “Generous contribution – memberships have made this a successful year. We solicit your membership or renewal in order to continue the operation of the museum in the years ahead.”
“Your museum is sustained only by the financial and physical help of civic minded individuals in the community. With your support the museum will grow and continue to provide the only existing local depository for items of historical significance in our community and for the documentation of history of this area. The Ojai Valley Museum, Inc. is organized as and educational, charitable institution. Contributions made are deductible by donors; bequests, legacies, transfers or gifts are deductible for federal estate and gift tax purposes,” the president revealed.
On Nov. 14, 1966 the Ojai Valley Museum was born. John Shea chaired the first meeting on that date. Committees were appointed to formulate by-laws and articles of incorporation.
Its purpose was fourfold;
1) To establish a museum in the valley.
2) To encourage study and research in the field of California’s history with special emphasis on the Ojai and Cuyama valley, to collect historical material including manuscripts, documents, books, pictures and artifacts and make them available for study.
3) To restore and preserve landmarks and sites of historical value in the valley.
4) To cooperate with the other organizations doing work of a related nature.
Two open meetings were then scheduled and the public was invited. The flame began to burn brighter and in March, 1967, the first annual meeting was held, Officers and directors were elected and plans for the displays were formulated.
On April 18, the official opening exercises were held. Assemblyman Ken MacDonald and Supervisor Ralph “Hoot” Bennett were among the 200 visitors.
The directors are indebted to the many individuals who provided the funds for this first year of operation and to the many craftsmen who supplied the labor and materials without cost.
The museum is in a sublease agreement with the Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce. The chamber not only provides for keeping the museum open during the week, but also shared in the expense of the operation. A review of the budget discloses that the financial help which the museum can seek for 1968 amounts to $2,638 or approximately $7.25 per day.
Officers of the museum are R. O. Browne, president; B. A. Lawrence, secretary; A. C. Dahlgren, treasurer. Directors include Effie Skelton, Tyrus Kahman, Lois Powers, William Magill and Elizabeth Thacher.
This article first appeared in the January 7, 1970 edition of the Ojai Valley News. It is reprinted here with their permission. The photo of the elderly Judge McKee was run with the article when it appeared in the 01/07/1970 edition of the Ojai Valley News.
Judge held court under an oak tree
by
Ed Wenig
It was in the eventful year of 1887 that James McKee, Civil War veteran, one-time school teacher, and Indiana judge, came to the Ojai Valley, expecting to regain his health in idyllic rural surroundings. The solid citizens of the community elected the frail, scholary man to be their Justice of the peace, a post which he continued to hold until his death in 1904.
It was no easy task to be a judge in pioneer days in the Ojai, when everyone knew everybody else.
One particularly knotty problem arose in the nineties when 13 exuberant men and a few boys got into trouble with the law by carrying out the old pioneer custom of surprising a newly-wed couple in the middle of the night with a “shivaree.” This consisted of surrounding the home and shooting blasts from a shotgun in the air, accompanied by unearthly yells and other noise-making. This traditional expression of good will was not appreciated by the newlyweds. In fact, they swore out complaints against all the thirteen, charging them with disturbing the peace and illegal entry.
It ended well
One by one each of the 13 went to Judge McKee and pled “Not Guilty.” It is said that one of the first to arrive was Bob Clark who later became a U. S. Marshal. John Thompson, at boy at the time, and one of the indicated, recalled being taken to Judge McKee by his father and waiting outside the Judge’s home in fear and trembling, while his father and Judge McKee had a long and friendly talk.
A Ventura lawyer, Judge Shepard, was engaged to defend all the accused. In the meantime, a large group of women in the valley planned a big dinner and social evening in anticipation of the celebration of the acquittal of all. But when the district attorney examined the evidence and circumstances, and refused to prosecute, the ladies cancelled their plans. It all ended happily for the defendants, each paying $1.75 apiece as his portion of the lawyer’s fees.
According to all who remember him, Judge McKee was a very devout and kindly man, always ready to help those who went to him for advice or for assistance in drawing up legal documents. The story is that he once risked his life to ride horseback through the swollen river to Matilija to draw up a will for a dying man.
Most of the time Judge McKee tried cases in his own home, but on warm summer days, he sometimes moved his court into his yard under a big oak tree.
Judge McKee’s daughter, Mrs. Emily Courtney, now lives in Ventura. His granddaughter, Mrs. Catherine Craig, formerly postmaster of Ojai, lives in the Ojai Valley.
This article first appeared in the Ojai Valley News, but the date of the edition of the paper in which it appeared is unknown. It was written by Ed Wenig. Wenig wrote for the newspaper in the late 1960’s into the 1970’s.
The “iron horse” came to the valley in ’98
by
Ed Wenig
Two “iron horses” pulled four carloads of exscursionists into Nordhoff, as the band blared a welcome on a balmy spring morning of March 12, 1898. Ojai Valley residents, who had driven from far and near, in wagon, buggy and surrey, looked on with pride as official guests from Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and neighboring Ventura County towns arrived on the first train ever to enter the Ojai Valley. Here indeed was concrete evidence of “progress” in its most up-to-date form.
On March 12, 1898, the train made its first trip to the Ojai Valley. The train was met with a “lively blare of trumpets” in Nordhoff. The Ojai Band and the Ventura Band each played for the welcoming crowd.
The most important visitors were driven to the homes of prominent residents of the valley for luncheon, after which they were taken for brief scenic drives through the valley. But most of the passengers were loaded into surreys and wagons and taken to a picnic under the oaks in what is now the Civic Park [Libbey Park]. Then, the speeches began. Among them, one by W. C. Patterson, president of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, expressed thanks to the people of the Ojai Valley for having given “the outside world a chance to see and admire the beauty of the magnificent amphitheater of mountains which enclose this ideal spot.”
Health resort
In the Midwinter Edition of the Los Angeles Times appeared this comment: “This railway will open tourists to one of the most charming valleys in the state . . . With the advent of the railway, Nordhoff will possess all the requirements of a pleasure and health resort.” Imagine the pride of the residents of the valley when they read in the Ventura County Directory, “The valley has been settled by a superior class of people, intelligent, refined, and very enterprising. Many of them have abundent means and have been men of standing and influence in other communities.”
There were four passenger pickup stations on the railroad between Ventura and Nordhoff. Starting from Ventura they were Weldon, Las Cross, Tico, Grant, and finally the Nordhoff Station. In the first few weeks after the opening there were two trains daily, after which a schedule of one train per day was established. In response to repeated requests from J. J. Burke, the Southern Pacific re-established a schedule of two daily trains for the winter months only. Trains left Nordhoff at 7:20 a.m. and 4 p.m. for Ventura. Returning trains arrived in Nordhoff at 1 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. Passengers bound for Matilija Hot Springs disembarked at Grant Station located approximately at the present lumber yard at the “Y” [Rotary Park now]. From there they went by stagecoach, and, in later years, by Stanley Steamer to Matilija.
Forest Masburn in September of 2017 at Rotary Park at the “Y” intersection in Ojai. Rotary Park used to be the location of “Grant Station” back in the early days of the railroad that once ran where the Ojai Valley Trail is now located next to the park.
It took 10 years
The arrival of the first train was the culmination of ten years of hopes and planning. In 1891, under the headline “Railroad Coming” a writer for THE OJAI observed, “Soon the invalid or tourist can recline in his upholstered seat within the observation car and be whirled over hill and vale to his destination, instead of a tedious ride in a stagecoach.” At first a Ventura company had been formed to build a narrow gauge railroad. But Captain John Cross proposed to build a standard gauge road, and with the enthusiastic cooperation of the businessmen of the Ojai Valley was successful in bringing the dream to reality.
When automobiles came into more general use the importance of the railway passenger service declined, and in later days the line was used entirely for shipments of freight.
Since the flood of 1969, which washed out portions of the road bed, the railroad has been abandoned. [Today it is the Ojai Valley Trail.]
The following article first appeared in the December 3, 1969 edition of the Ojai Valley News. It is reprinted here with their permission. The photo of John Meiners is used here by courtesy of the Ojai Valley News. The other photos were added by the Ojai Valley Museum.
He got Meiners O. for unpaid debt
by
Ed Wenig
Meiners Oaks, a community where nearly every home is under a Live Oak tree, takes its name from John Meiners, who owned the large area for many years.
John Meiners (1826 – 1898)
John Meiners, native of Germany, had come to the United States about 1848 and had established a successful brewery business in Milwaukee. He acquired this Ojai ranch in the seventies, sight unseen, as a result of an unpaid debt. When he heard that his friend, Edward D. Holton, a Milwaukee banker, was going to California for a brief trip, Meiners asked him to see the property he had acquired. Mr. Holton’s evaluation was perhaps it was the largest oak grove on level land in Southern California, much of it so dense that the ground was in continuous shade. Furthermore, to his surprise, Meiners discovered that the climate of the valley was good for his asthma.
Hogs grazed there
For a long time the oak grove was fenced, and provided pasture for a large herd of hogs. All traffic from Ojai to Matilija went on a private road through the Meiners property, using a gate which was supposed to be kept closed. So many people went through the gate without closing it that in 1893, the manager of the ranch, P. W. Soper, locked the gate. With the Meiners road closed the only way of getting the mail to Matilija by stagecoach was a roundabout one by Rice Rd. A news item in “The Ojai” related that, as Rice Road had been flooded, “the mail was sent up to Matilija last night on horseback, the rider going across the back hill country. . .” However, Mr. Soper later gave several keys to A. W. Blumberg, operator of Matilija Hot Springs, with the stipulation that they be used only by mail carriers and scheduled stagecoach drivers.
The barn and livestock area on the Meiners Ranch. A fence surrounds the main oak grove seen in the distance.
In 1896, the big barn, on the Meiners Ranch, located approximately where the Ranch House Restaurant is now, caught fire one evening about midnight. No fire fighting equipment was available. Twenty horses, many tons of hay, harness, and farm implements were completely destroyed. “The Ojai” of February 15, 1896 reported, “Through the flames the horses could be seen plunging and dashing about insanely in the midst of the burning firey furnace; twenty fell victims without a single rescue.” But, the article goes on to state further, “Mr. Meiners built a large temporary barn on Monday, and the work of the great ranch goes on energetically.”
House still stands
The Milwaukee brewer lived on his ranch intermittently from the 1880’s until his death in the valley in 1898. His original big house still stands on the hill above the Ranch House Restaurant and is now used by the Happy Valley School.
John Meiners and his wife can be seen sitting on the raised, covered porch on his hillside home on the Meiners Ranch.
John Meiners organized his ever-increasing acreage into a very productive ranch. Several hundred acres to the north of the oak grove were planted in oranges, lemons, prunes, apricots and apples. P. W. Soper, father of the late “Pop” Soper, was general manager of the Meiners Ranch, and lessee of 90 acres of Texas red oats, 90 acres of wheat, and 200 acres of barley. A visitor who toured the ranch with Mr. Meiners in 1897 wrote, “At the Meiners Ranch we saw stalks of oats that measured 7 feet 7 inches.”
To visualize the vast area, the ranch can be described as bounded on the south by the hills of the Happy Valley School [Oak Grove School now], on the west by Rice Road, and on the north by the foothills near Cozy Dell Canyon, and on the east by a line running through the junction of Highway 33 and El Roblar St., north and south.
The forebears of several of the present day residents of Ojai Valley came here as a result of John Meiners’ interest in his ranch. The grand-daughters of Edward D. Holton, who made the original favorable report concerning the ranch of Mr. Meiners, and the Ojai Valley, are Miss Alice and Helen Robertson of the East Valley, and his great grand-daughter, Mrs. Anson Thacher. Otto Busch came to the ranch as manager in 1907, and his son, Geo. Busch, now retired, was one of Ojai’s postmasters.
The following article was run in the January 28, 1970 edition of the Ojai Valley News. It is reprinted here with their permission. Photo of George W. Mallory courtesy of the Ojai Valley News. Photo of Mallory – Dennison Store added by the Ojai Valley Museum.
Controversy in 1893 over postmaster
by
Ed Wenig
As a rule, local politics in a village the size of Ojai are of interest to its residents only. But the year of 1893 proved to be the exception to the rule. In that year an election was held in the Ojai Valley which received national attention.
It came as the result of the election of Grover Cleveland, Democrat, to replace President Benjamin Harrison, Republican, in the White House. According to time-honored custom, this signified a nation-wide shifting of all local postmasterships from the incumbent Republicans to “deserving Democrats.” In Nordhoff it meant that B. F. Spencer, Republican postmaster, would normally expect to relinquish his position to a Democrat nominated by the local Democratic Committee.
But the attitude toward the “Spoils System” was undergoing a change throughout the nation, and, in tune with the times, some citizens of Nordhoff, including several Democrats, decided that this procedure was not in the best interest of the Ojai Valley. They resolved to take positive action to remedy the situation. Accordingly, the Ojai Club, which was made up of prominent citizens of the valley and which was very influential in the affairs of the community, received the following petition:
“TO THE OJAI CLUB: We, the undersigned residents of the Ojai Valley, believing in and desiring to initiate the principle of election of postmasters by the people, request of the Ojai Club—a non-partisan association—to take the proper steps for the holding of a PUBLIC ELECTION IN NORDHOFF; the returns of which would indicate the choice of its people for postmaster…”
(Signed)
James Braken, Democrat
Joseph Hobart, Republican
H. J. Dennison, Populist
W. L. Hall, Republican
John Murray, Jr., Democrat
J. R. Bennett, Independent
K. P. Grant, Republican
After due consideration the Ojai Club complied with the request and arranged for two election boards. One was instructed to handle the ballots for all the men over 18 years of age who were served by the local postoffice. Another was instructed to tally the women’s vote — this in spite of the fact that woman suffrage had not yet been granted. There were no public nominations, each voter merely writing the name of his choice on the ballot. Thus many received only one vote. However, the men generally voted for the incumbent, B. G. Spencer, and the women split their vote between Spencer and G. W. Mallory, the choice of the Democratic Committee.
George W. Mallory (1859 -1939)
This novel election aroused widespread interest in the communities throughout the nation. The MORNING BULLETIN of Norwich, Connecticut gave a detailed account of the election in an article entitled, “A NORDHOFFIAN METHOD.” Its concluding sentence was, “It has not been announced yet whether Headman Maxwell, within whose jurisdiction the Nordhoff post office is, favored the people or the machine.”
In this case, the “machine” turned out to be the winner, and Mallory, the choice of the Democratic Committee, was duly appointed postmaster. After the election, but before Mallory’s appointment, the local editor commented, “The irregular election last Saturday to ascertain the choice of the people of Ojai for postmaster of Nordhoff was deemed a success by those most interested. It is not, and was not expected that the result of the election will have any immediate influence in Washington. It is designed as a reform measure, to secure a postmaster desired by the people who support the business, and should have a voice in the management of their own affairs. As G. W. Mallory is the choice of the Democratic Committee, he will probably receive the appointment, and he will be generally acceptable to the people.”
Mr. Mallory served as postmaster throughout the four years of the Cleveland administration, and in accordance with custom, was replaced by a Republican postmaster upon the election of the Republican William McKinley to the Presidency. Mallory regained his position in 1914 when the Democrats returned to power with the election of Woodrow Wilson. Thus he served the citizens of Nordhoff well as postmaster for a total of twelve years.
Mallory had come to the valley in 1886, establishing himself in a men’s furnishings store. He immediately began to devote much of his time and talent to the benefit of the community. During his 53 years in the valley he served the Presbyterian Church as elder and superintendent of the Sunday School; the Masonic Lodge as treasurer for nine years; the City Council, both as member and mayor; the Jack Boyd Club as director; and the elementary school district as clerk. His business activities included acting as director of the local bank and of the Ojai Power Company. After his retirement he became deputy assessor for Ventura County.
George W. Mallory standing behind counter on the right. This photo was taken in 1905 of the Mallory – Dennison Store.
Mr. Mallory’s widow lives in Ojai, and his son, Bill Mallory, is a businessman in Ojai.
This article first appeared in the Ojai Valley News on February 19, 1999. It is used here with their permission.
Evelyn Nordhoff is Returned
By
David Mason
“The People of The Ojai can best show their appreciation of the generosity of the donors by keeping the fountain free from defacements, and by gradually developing around it village improvements of other kinds.” –The Ojai, Saturday, October 15, 1904
The journey to the town of Nordhoff, now Ojai, was long and tiring.
The dusty road was hardly passable in many places and the fact that the buggies had to ford rivers at least a dozen times didn’t help. The wild berries hanging down from the low tree limbs seemed to cover the trail.
There was a sign of relief when the buggies made it to the small camping area, now Camp Comfort, to take a rest. The stream was always running with cool water and the towering trees provided a shady nook.
When travelers finally reached the small western town of Nordhoff, the first stop was the conveniently placed watering trough and drinking fountain in the center of town.
The fountain was a beautiful addition to the small community which had earlier lacked any architectural charm – it’s design would eventually become known as “Mission Revival” and it was one of the earliest examples.
The Ventura Free Press called it “one of the finest fountains in the state,” and described it in detail.
“On the side facing the middle of main street, we see the drinking place for horses, consisting of a stone trough about twelve feet long, two feet deep and two feet wide, always full of running water supplied from a pipe running out of the lion’s mouth.
“A division, the centerpiece of the fountain, runs lengthwise directly back of the horse trough, and is made prettier by having the stone cut into mouldings at either end. This piece is about fourteen feet long and fully eight feet high in the middle, and is rounding at the top. At each end of this, only a few inches above the ground, the poor thirsty dogs find drinking places.
“The drinking place for humanity is found on the side next to the Ojai Inn, and consists of a large bowl hollowed out of a piece of stone, into which runs a tiny stream of water from a small lion’s mouth.
“The donor has not forgotten the tired traveler, but has built a broad resting place for him on a big slab of stone. The Ojai newspaper refers to as ‘an ornament we should be proud of.'”
Early image of the Nordhoff drinking fountain, before the pergola was built.Lion head fountain on the horse trough.Lion head fountain on the street side of the pergola, 2017.
The fountain, built in memory of Evelyn Hunter Nordhoff in 1904, was indeed an improvement to the downtown block. The community of Nordhoff, the principal settlement in the Ojai Valley, had been established in 1874 and was still in its early stages of development. Evelyn Nordhoff was the daughter of Charles Nordhoff, the well-known author for whom the town was named.
Evelyn Nordhoff’s early life was spent at the family home on the New Jersey palisades, in an area which would eventually become known as “Millionaire’s Row.”
As a young woman, Evelyn enrolled at Smith College, located in west-central Massachusetts and founded in 1871 for the education of women. Her schooling was cut short after one year, with the reason given that “she was needed at home.”
Evelyn learned to etch copper and gained notice by producing decorative, printed calendars. She also created artistically-worked leather pieces.
According to researcher Richard Hoye, “An opportunity opened for Evelyn to visit England when her brother Walter was posted there as a newspaper correspondent.”
In 1888, the first Arts and Crafts exhibition was staged in London, and a co-founder of the exhibition society, Thomas Cobden-Sanderson, presented four lectures on bookbinding. Evelyn’s attendance at these lectures piqued her interest in that line of work.
When she eventually returned to America, the Nordhoff family made a touring visit to California. The Ventura County newspaper reported that the Nordhoffs passed through the seaside town and went directly to the Ojai Valley.
Returning to New York City, Evelyn obtained work with a bindery to pursue her interest in the art of bookbinding. There she learned to sew pages and to mend old books. This was the first level of the craft. Evelyn would learn the business from many teachers before she became proficient in the skill of bookbinding.
Evelyn opened her own workroom in Greenwich Village across from the New York University. Her artistry in the work of bookbinding began to gain attention for the young Evelyn as a woman and an artist. She possessed the Nordhoff sense of independence, and the initiative in pursing against the odds.
Training in a craft from which women had previously been excluded reflects a high degree of personal determination and she was a good example of a confident and talented woman, the first woman in the United States to take up the vocation of artistic bookbinding.
Evelyn Nordhoff spent her summer months in California with her parents, who, by this time, made their home in Coronado. In late summer of 1889, when Evelyn would again have departed from Coronado after a summer’s visit, her parents did not realize that this would be their last parting with their daughter, for in November they received word she had died.
She had suffered an attack of appendicitis, was operated on, and failed to recover.
The Nordhoff fountain was given to the community of Nordhoff by sisters Olivia and Caroline Stokes in Evelyn’s memory. The Stokes sisters had inherited wealth from banking, real estate and other interests in the New York City area. They were lifetime companions, never married, especially devout and well-known philanthropists. Their gifts were numerous and worldwide.
The Stokes sisters visited the Ojai Valley in 1903, staying at the Hughes home on Thacher Road, and were probably influenced by Sherman Thacher, founder of a nearby boys’ school, to build the fountain as a lasting memorial to this talented young lady.
Richard Hoye suggests that, “There may also have been a temperance motive. The banning of liquor was strongly supported in the community and by the Stokes sisters. A drinking fountain closely located to a horse trough would remove an excuse that stage drivers and their passengers might have had to resort to alcohol to slacken their thirst after a dusty trip from Ventura to the mountain town.”
In 1917, when Edward D. Libbey, Ojai’s greatest benefactor, began his transformation of the small town, he had the fountain moved back four feet to widen the roadway.
Libbey removed the Ojai Inn and built a beautiful, wisteria-covered, arched and walled pergola. With the fountain as the center focal point, an attractive entrance was created into the Civic Center Park, now Libbey Park.
The pergola with fountain in snow, January 1949.Colorized post card of the pergola with fountain.
In the 1960s, the whole structure began to shown signs of age and suffered major damage from vandalism. In the turmoil of this period, the entrance arch was damaged by explosives and by 1971 the pergola and fountain were removed.
The pergola was bombed in 1969 and later removed.
The bronze plaque on the fountain that was inscribed, “In memory of Evelyn Hunter Nordhoff, this fountain is given to the people of Nordhoff, 1904” was returned to members of the Nordhoff family.
With the restoration of this landmark – the pergola and the Nordhoff fountain – the bronze plaque has been returned to the people of the Ojai Valley. The plaque will once again be placed on this beautiful fountain which will be rebuilt in memory of Evelyn’s aspirations and accomplishments – a spirit which has prevailed in the history of the Ojai Valley, in its schools and its artistic culture.
Celebration of the newly rebuilt pergola with fountain, July 4, 1999 .Florist and historian David Mason getting flowers ready for the pergola restoration celebration. He was the driving force behind the project to rebuild the pergola.
