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Arlou Wells and Harold Mashburn Married at Santa Barbara Church

The following article was first run in THE OJAI newspaper on PAGE TWELVE in the November 19, 1948 edition. “THE OJAI” is now the “Ojai Valley News”. The article is reprinted here with their permission. The author is unknown. Photos added by the “Ojai Valley Museum”.

Arlou Wells and Harold Mashburn
Married at Santa Barbara Church
______

Mr. and Mrs. Warren E. Wells this week announced the marriage of their daughter, Arlou, to Harold C. Mashburn of Meiners Oaks. The couple exchanged their vows Sunday in the Little Chapel of Santa Barbara.

The altar was banked with white gladioli and yellow chrysanthemums. White tapers surrounded the altar. The double-ring ceremony was read by the Rev. Paul H. Gammons of El Montecito Presbyterian church. The bride was given away by her father. She was attired in a period style white slipper satin gown with a yoke of Valencia lace, tight fitted bodice, and a full skirt, shirred twice at the hemline, revealing a ruffled lace petticoat. The full satin skirt swept into a chapel train.

The deep yoke and sleeves were outlined with imported lace ruffling. Her finger-tip veil fell in tiers from a coronet of seed pearls and a single strand of pearls adorned the high neckline of her gown. She carried an arrangement of bouvardia blossoms over a white Bible, belonging to her mother, which carried out the “something old, something new” theme and carried a sixpence in her shoe.

Maid of honor was Barbara Campbell of Los Angeles, who wore a rose taffeta gown. Her head dress was a bandeau of rose ribbon and seed pearls. She carried a colonial nosegay of pink and white flowers.

Tom Bennett of Meiners Oaks served as best man and Jack Cruickshank of Ventura as usher. A program of nuptial organ music was played before the ceremony. Mrs. Wells, mother of the bride, chose a charcoal gray faille dress with turquoise accessories and a corsage of yellow rosebuds. Mrs. Mashburn, mother of the bridegroom, wore a hunter’s green crepe dress with cocoa brown accessories and a Talisman rose corsage.

Following the ceremony, Mr. and Mrs. Wells entertained with a reception at the Fremont room, adjoining the chapel. The bride’s table was laid with a linen cloth and centered with a three-tiered wedding cake, topped with miniature silver wedding bells, surrounded at the base with white gladioli and yellow chrysanthemums.

Assisting at the bride’s table was Joan Mulligan. Betty Jean Mashburn, sister of the bridegroom, was in charge of the guest book.

Following the reception, the couple left for a wedding trip through the Northwest. For travel, the bride wore a blue wool dressmaker’s suit and brown accessories. Upon their return they will be at home at 555 1/2 South Ventura street, Ojai. The bride is a graduate of Nordhoff Union high school, 1948 class. The bridegroom was graduated from Nordhoff in 1943 and served for three and a half years in the U. S. navy. He is employed by the Shell Oil company, Ventura.

L to R: Barbara Campbell (Maid of Honor), Arlou “Wells” Mashburn (Bride), Harold Mashburn (Groom), Jewel Mashburn (Groom’s mother), Clyde Mashburn (Groom’s father)
Mr. & Mrs. H.C. Mashburn’s honeymoon vehicle.
The new Mrs. Arlou “Wells” Mashburn on her honeymoon.
Newly married Harold C. Mashburn on his honeymoon.

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Old Gray

The following article appeared in VOLUME 38 NUMBER 1/SPRING 2020 issue of “Ojai Valley Guide” on page 159. This magazine was published by the “Ojai Valley News”. The article is reprinted here with their permission.

Old Gray

LOOK BACK IN OJAI
with Drew Mashburn
Contributed on behalf of the Ojai Valley Museum

ROUTE 66 WAS A COOL OLD HIGHWAY. MY PARENTS TOOK THREE OF US KIDS ON 66 IN 1965 TO VISIT DAD’S SIDE OF THE FAMILY IN MISSOURI AND MOM’S SIDE OF THE FAMILY IN INDIANA. WE WERE ON THIS VACATION FOR ABOUT A MONTH.

For a vacation like that, you have to have some reliable wheels. I accompanied my dad to the auto dealership in Ojai to bring home the 1961 Chevrolet Apache half-ton pickup with a 283-cubic-inch engine and three-on-the-three manual transmission he had ordered. I was only 9 years old, but remember the experience like it was only yesterday.

Read the rest of the article in the Ojai Magazine.


https://issuu.com/ojaivisitorsguide/docs/ovg_spring_2020/158


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Meet the Mansons

The following article was first printed in the Summer 2020 “Ojai Valley Guide” magazine. The magazine was published by the “Ojai Valley News.” The article is reprinted here with their permission. The photo of Mitch Mashburn eating a potato was added by the Ojai Valley Museum.

DREW’S ENCOUNTER WITH THE MANSON CLAN

Meet the Mansons

“X” marks the spot!
I’ll explain this in a bit.

LOOK BACK IN OJAI
with Drew Mashburn
Contributed on behalf of the
Ojai Valley Museum

I’m unable to recall the exact dates of this adventure because it was over 49 years ago, but it was definitely in March of 1971. That’s when the five of us, Mike Payton, Mitch Mashburn, Jimmy Mitchell, Genemarie McDaniel, Heidi Sommers, and myself took a trip back into the remote Sespe Hot Springs in Los Padres National Forest. I drove my 1964 Chevy pickup with my motorcycle in the bed. Genemarie and Heidi rode in the cab with me. Mitch and Jimmy rode in the bed. Mike rode his motorcycle.

Read the rest of the story in Ojai Magazine.

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Volunteer team is dedicated to helping Valley neighbors

The following article first appeared in the Ojai Valley News on Wednesday, October 21, 1992. It is reprinted here with their permission.

Volunteer team is dedicated to helping Valley neighbors
by
CANDACE LAWSON
OJAI VALLEY NEWS

Drew Mashburn, Carl Hofmeister, and Jim Wright are members of the Upper Ojai Search and Rescue team. The team’s 18 members are dedicated to helping their neighbors and the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Since the 1950’s, Upper Ojai rancher Carl Hofmeister and a group of Valley volunteers have worked as partners with the Sheriff’s Department in an important capacity — as a trained search and rescue team that regularly finds lost hikers, saves victims of hard to reach accidents, and plucks drowning or stranded people from raging rivers or flood waters.

Hofmeister, a man of few, but well chosen, words only smiles and shakes his head when you ask him how long he’s been doing this kind of thing. Hofmeister organized the group “many years ago,” even before the Sheriff’s Department became involved, to help his fellow Valley residents. The Valley was less populated and more isolated at that time.

“If someone gets hurt, you can’t run off and leave them, you have to help them. It gets in your blood,” Hofmeister, the Captain of the Upper Ojai Search and Rescue team said.

Today the team is officially organized through the Sheriff’s Department, who supplies them with rescue equipment, including two trucks kept at Hofmeister’s Upper Ojai ranch, and monthly training.

The 18-member team is called in by the Sheriff’s Department when special rescue skills are required. Some examples of their work include being called if a car is over the side of a mountain road, if an organized search is required to find a lost or injured hiker, if a victim or body must be recovered and transported out of a remote location, either by helicopter or overland, or if a plane wreck must be located.

The Upper Ojai team is one of four in the county. Other squads include the Fillmore, East Valley and Dive teams. The Upper Ojai team is traditionally the busiest, with the Los Padres mountains close by. Hofmeister says the team can get called up as often as two or three times each month. But in slower times, for instance during the summer, calls can be fewer and further between.

Members’ training includes CPR and first aid. Some of the members, who come from all walks of life including ranchers, optometrists, attorneys, and county parks employees, are trained as emergency medical technicians.

But they all receive special training — from how to tie a proper knot to rigging pulley systems to lift someone out of a tight situation.

Drew Mashburn has been on the team for just over a year, and has been impressed with how much there is to learn. He says he’s just now getting more comfortable with his training and skills.

Mashburn said the team’s most common rescue results from people just not being prepared when they go out into the wilderness.

“Many times people bring these things on themselves. They don’t let people know where they are going, and they don’t wear proper clothing and get caught in inclement weather,” Mashburn said. “Even in Ojai in August, you should bring a windbreaker when you go hiking — you never know when you could fall and break a leg and get stuck overnight in bad weather.”

Many people don’t even realize the team exists, or that it’s a strictly volunteer enterprise, Mashburn said. But the team is now seeking community support so they can make an important capital purchase — beepers to notify members when they need to assemble for an emergency response.

“We are trying to upgrade our unit, and one of our biggest problems is slow response time,” Jim Wright, a 23-year veteran of the team said.

“When we have an emergency, the Sheriff’s department calls Carl, and then he goes through the phone list and calls everyone else. Than can take 20 or 30 minutes, but if we had pagers that went off we could respond immediately,” Wright said.

The pagers have been priced at about $2,500. And to help raise the funds in these days of tight county budgets, the Search and Rescue Team is hosting a benefit barbeque at the Upper Ojai’s Summit School this Saturday.

The $12 donation gets you top-sirloin steak with a soda and all the trimmings. Children under 12 will be served hot dogs and hamburgers free of charge.

For tickets and information call 646-2496 or 525-7943.