Channeling Our Mothers

Who among us has not heard her mother’s words coming from her own mouth? It can be startling, especially when the daughter has promised herself she would never act or speak like her mother. My own children frequently say to me, “OK, Ramona,” which I can sometimes blow off with a chuckle and grin. Sometimes.

When I pass away – and even before then – I hope my daughters will be able to channel me with:

• “I love you.”


• “You are SO smart!”


• “You are beautiful.”


• “I don’t agree with your choice (career, shampoo, spouse/boyfriend, moving, parenting - whatever) but it is your choice and I approve of YOU no matter what.”


• “I’m sorry. What can I do to make it up to you?”


• “Thank you.”


• “Be kind to your sister.”


• “Have fun!”


• “I am so proud of you.”

In one way or another, I learned these from my own mother.

Rest in peace, Mom.

A Letter from Staff Sgt. Allen Dillow, Vietnam, February 9, 1966

Going through my mother's letters this weekend, I came across a letter written to her from Staff Sargeant Allen Dillow, her nephew and our cousin. I always joked about having a crush on him when we were kids, so handsome was he in his uniform.

He writes to her from Vietnam in February 1966,

Dear Aunt Ramona and Girls,

I would like to express my sincere thanks for your thoughtfulness at Christmas time, a card, note, or just about anything is appreciated over here. We service men are not robots taught to kill. We still have a heart, and like to be thought of at such times. We are over here half way around the world, in a hostile land, not only a foreign land, away from our loved ones. Where every day things seem as such to you, they would be like a gift from heaven to us. Hot water, cold glass of milk, cold can of beer, seeing friendly eyes, someone that you could reach out and touch, or maybe even kiss, that are only gleams in our eyes that we have to wait a year for. But being what it is, and being the kind of men we are "supposed" to be, we must never complain, even though at nights you still hear sniffles from these men, not excluding me.

I don't hear much from home but I do hope things have worked out for the best. Daddy is the greatest as far as I am concerned. He has his faults, but we all do, none of us are perfect. If we were we would not be on this earth.

Do tell grandmother I said hello and hope this finds her in good health.

Tell Ray (our brother who was in the Ohio National Guard) that if it is at all possible not to get messed up with this over here. May he stay home as long as possible, and for God's sake don't volunteer, don't get star struck by some John Wayne type movie, it isn't fought that way.

Do take care, and thank you again for your kind and warm thoughts.

Allen

Ramona Dillow Nute, 1914-2011, Remembrance

The mortal life of our mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother came to an end yesterday afternoon but not without a gathering of the clan for company. She was almost 97 years old and, at her insistence, remained in her own home until her last days. She was still playing bridge with her buddies every week, watching CNN, and disdaining the Meals on Wheels brought to the house. She would have been driving the car in her garage were it not for the watchfulness of the family. Indeed, in her 90's she managed to sneak over to the DMV and convince the lady to re-issue her driver's license.

She was descended from Scotch-Irish Virginian frontiersmen and women, French Huguenots, that rash of Germans who settled Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky, Revolutionary War fighters, a teenage associate of George Washington, a Crockett from the Davy Crockett family, and civil war soldiers who fought at Bull Run and marched with Sherman through Georgia.

In her father's footsteps, she taught for 39 years beginning in one room school houses in Appalachian Kentucky. She traveled the US, Europe, and Middle East, starting with hitchhiking with her girl buddies in the 1930's.

She had four children, six grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren.

In the last week of her life, she fell in her home and was not found for at least several hours. Although without serious injury, as often happens with the elderly, the trauma set off a chain of irreversible physical events. The family was called to gather as she was moved into Hospice of Charleston, and we kept vigil in her final hours which ran into three days. Two of her nurse grandgirls provided the care usually given by strangers. They turned her, bathed her, and painted her fingernails and toenails. A recording by her rock singer great granddaughter was played for her. We all talked to her even as she became less and less conscious. The doctor advised us to keep down the level of conversation as she could likely still hear us and didn't want to leave the party.

Finally, as it came time for me to return home, I told her I was leaving and it was time for her to leave. She died an hour and a half later.

Kicking Butt on El Cajon Mountain

It was a cool and foggy morning when Kathleen and I set off to bag the summit of El Cajon Mountain at El Capitan this weekend. East County being located in the Peninsular mountain foothills between Lakeside and Ramona, this is not usually a trek taken this late in the season when temperatures can be in the 90's. We had to cover 10 miles of rugged terrain before the heat set in. I was hoping to get a photo of El Cajon that would count toward my project of finding and hiking all the ranchos of San Diego.

We had a beautiful hike in, through corridors of California lilacs,





up and around and about the stone mountains,


past the remnants of the Cedar Fire that raged through here in 2003, burning 90% of the habitat.


"The Jeep" landmark, nice sculptural art for the area, looks to have been left there in the 1940's.


We chatted up the usual topics - the flora, what to do for a rattlesnake bite, where was the helicopter landing for all the injured hiker rescues you read about from this area - the last thing we wanted was again to be on News at 6 - until we reached the summit. We needed a little chatter. El Cajon Mountain with its steeps, boulders, chaparral, and distance is reviewed as the most kick-butt hike in the county.

Proof of arrival:


Unfortunately, I wasn't going to get a view of Rancho El Cajon through the fog.


On the way down, the fog cleared enough that I could get a shot of El Monte, but El Cajon city was so far off I wondered whether the El Cap had been part of the Rancho.


The afternoon brought the sun and blistering heat, but until the last couple miles I was still taking flower photos,







and finally, on the way out, a shot back at the behemoth that is El Capitan and the summit of El Cajon Mountain just up the ridge.



Rancho El Cajon was a huge ranch in the mid 1800's, including El Cajon city, Santee, Lakeside, Le Mesa and Flinn Springs. Did it include El Capitan? I think so. I could see Rancho del los Cochas just below in the valley, and I know a lot of Rancho El Cajon surrounded the little pig ranch. I think I feel a trip to the El Cajon Historical Society coming up.

Thank God for Rancho Santa Margarita - She Saved Us from Los Angeles

There's something about summer coming that lights my fire to check out the missions and ranchos of San Diego. When I got a last minute invitation to the Wounded Warrior Battalion's changing of command this week at Camp Pendleton, I grabbed my camera out the door because I knew I could get in the West Gate and do a bit of exploring by myself on the way out. Between the Battalion and the West Gate are the historic buildings of Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores.

The Rancho has a complicated history from the time the San Luis Rey Mission friars used the land for sheep and cattle early in the 1800's. After the Spanish mission days, the land became a huge rancho owned by Pio Pico, the first governor of California, and changed hands several times over the next 100 years. Read here for a nice history of the Rancho lands.

The land of what is now Camp Pendleton - 123,00 + acres between Oceanside and San Clemente, and eastward -was bought from the last rancho owner by the US Navy for an aircraft field and access to the ocean in 1942 and is now occupied by the Marines. This little strip of land has saved us from the sprawl of Los Angeles and Orange Counties. If there's going to be sprawl, we want to do it ourselves. The Marines, bless their hearts, have made a commitment to preserve the rancho buildings in the middle of the base.

The ranch house is closed except the second Wednesday of month and no way I'll make it up there on a Wednesday. I thought I could at least take a look around, but when I arrived the gate was closed. I parked the car anyway, and started to look around. The first thing I came across was a stone marker,


Beneath a nearby sycamore tree
Two of Andres Pico's officers
Leonardo Cota and Jose Alipas
Planned their successful strategy
Against the American forces
They battled at San Pasqual on
December 6, 1846

Remember I told the reader about General Kearny's retreat from San Pasqual to San Diego, passing through the Los Penasquitos rancho?

Here is an excellent account of the Mexican and American conflict in San Diego. We tend to not be aware of how much history there is in our little town.

As Patty knows I would, I looked around for that sycamore tree - gotta stand just where this happened and get the vibes. Uttered a little expletive known to be used by just every pilot whose plane is going down. Not that I don't know a sycamore tree when I see one, but they were all over the place.


I gave up on trying to find which one of the sycamores might be 200 years old, and walked around the little chapel, originally a winery built by the friars in 1810. Yep, a winery up here in the middle of the padres' cow fields.


I was embolden by my foray around the chapel, and thought what could it hurt just to foray up the hill a little more to the bunkhouse and ranch house. If they bring out the Marines, I could always remind them "I cook for you guys every month!"

The bunk house, also from 1810, has those signature Spanish columns and outside hallway.


The ranch house sits up on a little hill, with a view out to the ocean. It was built in the 1840's by the Picos and added to by later owners.




I was this far and still not a soul in sight, I had the place to myself, so I wandered further, enjoying the wonderful breeze from the ocean. The ranch house had the same outdoor hallway. I understand the 31 rooms have no interior halls, just exterior halls and a central courtyard.


I walked down the porch/hall and a long set of steps with an overhead ranch bell,


out onto the grounds where I found a cannon and another bell. Hm-m-m. Wondered whether these were maybe from the Battle of San Pasqual, although there were some skirmishes at Rancho Las Flores nearby.


I came across some beautiful doors and arches and architectural details.





It was time to high tail it out of there. I'll have to wait until retirement to have a Wednesday free to see the courtyard and interior of the ranch house. Being in this historic spot totally alone was a different kind of experience. Imagine if you had Machu Picchu, or the pyramids, or the fields of Culloden totally to yourself. Where would you want to be, totally alone with history?

Antidote for Horrific Newsstory Fatigue

Overwhelmed by the seemingly neverending stream of newsstories about mankind's seemingly neverending atrocities? Here's a fix I picked up from the Presurfer.



We should all be so loving to each other as these two are.

Jacob With the Blue, Blue Eyes

I had only those few years to know our grandfather, from the time our family moved back to Kentucky after the war in 1946 until we migrated on to northern Ohio in 1950 looking for steady work for our father. Jacob had clear blue eyes, a gentle manner, and a way of gathering the grandchildren at his feet to listen to the Appalachian stories. I can hear him as though it were yesterday. 

With six children who made it to adulthood, married, and all had children, it was a good sized clan that got together at the old homestead on Sundays. The clan had been settled in Lewis County, Kentucky, for fifty years before our mother joined and married our father in Connecticut where he was building planes during World War II. They were all teachers, farmers, and factory workers - the salt of the Midwestern earth. 

The Civil War had left Kentucky poor. Previously a highly agricultural state, the size of farms dwindled, and the Great Depression took out many of the manufacturing jobs. By 1940 the per capita income had dropped to 54% of the national level. 

The patriarch of our clan was Jacob Dillow. He was born in 1875 in Greenup County, just east of Lewis County, the sixth of ten children of Abraham Dillow and Sarah Hall. Abraham's Scottish-Irish family had settled in frontier western Virginia in the 1700's, gradually making their way up to northeastern Kentucky over the next hundred years. Sarah's family was Pennsylvania Germans who followed the migration route of many Germans down the Ohio River Valley. Both families settled in East Little Sandy in Kentucky. Abraham and his three brothers went off to the Civil War, all on the Union side against their Virginia cousins on the Confederate side. More on Abraham and Sarah later. 

Jacob spent his first six years in Greenup, Daniel Boone country once inhabited by the Shawnee and the first white settlement in Kentucky. It would have been part of the bustling traffic on the Ohio River in the 1800s. His father, Abraham, was a farmer in Greenup; with his family of seven children, all under the age of 15, he pulled up stakes and moved the lot of them to Champaign, Illinois, in about 1881. 

Jacob grew up on the farm in Illinois, no doubt working the farm with his father, raising cattle and poultry in Illinois until he was 15 years old. Abraham again uprooted the family, by now with three more children, and moved all 10 children to Lewis County in 1891. Along the way, Jacob had been able to get some education, for by the time he was grown he was able to attend "Normal School" in Lewis County to get a teaching credential in the 1890s. A five-year older brother, Willard, died about this time at age 25, and three years later his next younger sister, Dolly, died at age 20. This must have been a difficult time for this family and for Jacob. Jacob taught school as an itinerant teacher through those years, going to live in a community that needed a teacher, often in a one room school house. One of his teaching assignments was at Clarksburg and one of his students there was Grace Martin, 8 years his junior. A Portsmouth Times article on December 8, 1902, announced "The Eloping Couple". Jacob Dillon, age 26, and Miss Grace Martin, age, 19, of near Vanceburg, Ky., were married at the probate office this afternoon by Rev. Henry W. Hargett. The bride was a handsome little woman. They ran away because her parents objected to the match. She left home ostensibly to go to Cincinnati, but instead joined her lover and came to this city. There will be some surprised parents at Vanceburg, tomorrow. Why did they have to run away? Grace was 19 by now, not too young to marry in those days. She wasn't pregnant - they didn't have their first child until 4 years later. He would have been on a social par with her family, respectable as a teacher. About this our mother says, "Mary Jane (Grace's mother) didn't want any man to have her". In any event, the eloped couple remained in Portsmouth for the next two years. He gave up teaching to work for two years in a steel mill and she worked in a shoe factory, saving their money until they could return to Lewis County. In 1909, Jacob bought a thirty acre farm with a brick farmhouse on Dry Run. "We had the only brick house around," says our mother. In 1912, Jacob bought another 25 acres from John Kline on Dry Run. Jacob went back to teaching and farming, mostly tobacco. Over the sixteen years from 1906 to 1922 they had seven children, all born at home with a midwife. One of the children, George, died in the home in 1925 at age 17 from diabetes and pneumonia, both treatable these days. I know this was tragic for the family; our mother, now 96, still talks of him. Five of the seven children, in 1918: About life at the farm, the oldest brother, Elwood, wrote to our mother, Ramona: I can remember my dad dismanteling an old barn between our garden and Dry Run. I also recall grandfather Martin with a slip scraper and team removing a bank in our front yard. I am almost certain that the barn was built after Pa bought the farm. During the 1913 flood, waters were in this barn and Pa had placed planking to reach the barn. He removed some second floor boards from the barn loft, built a Jon boat in which we boated across the backwater to grandparents’ home. Do you remember the foot log Pa built across Dry Run Creek? It was from this crude foot log that I fell with my bicycle on top of me. It was at the confluence of Gander Branch and Dry Run Creek that Pa lost his “9” Ford Coupe. This car was washed about two hundred yards down stream. Later, I bought the damaged Ford, put another body on it and had a serviceable auto. Was this that "9" Ford Coupe lost in the creek? Jacob passed an agricultural examination in May 1919, and continued to teach in one-room school houses. He taught at Quincy 1926-1930 and lived during the week with Lucy Marie Wooten Skeins while Grace maintained the farm on Dry Run. In the 1940 census, Jacob and Grace were living on the farm in Kentucky with young Ramona, Eloise, and Wilbur, but from about 1941-1945 during the war, the family including Jacob and Grace, Martin and his family, Eloise, and Wilbur lived in company trailers in Cleveland making shelling for WWII as there was no income from farming; they returned to Vanceburg in the other months. Ramona went to Connecticut in 1941 where she married our father, Raymond, then working at Pratt and Whitney building war planes.

 

Jacob died in 1953 with a heart attack, and Grace followed 15 years later from heart disease and pneumonia, both buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. Together they raised seven children who had 14 grandchildren. Jacob educated many of the children of Lewis County, Kentucky. All of his children but Ramona remained in the Lewis County area, though many of the grandchildren have scattered. The old homestead was torn down to put a freeway through, but I can still remember the grandfather with the blue, blue eyes, and the nights catching fireflies down the front lawn of the homestead with all the cousins.

Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival 2011, San Diego

This weekend Jennifer and I headed down to Balboa Park's Cherry Blossom Festival to spend a day in Japanese culture and to be in solidarity with our Japanese brothers and sisters. We also have some friendly photo competition going on for spotting and capturing the best shot.

We share our day of Japanese adventure, starting with the Festival.

The Japanese Friendship Garden is a hidden jewel I hadn't visited until this day, 2 acres that will make you feel you are in Japan. Given the recent events, this was the perfect place to go. The festival celebrates the earth cycle that no matter how harsh the winter, spring will come and life is renewed.


Jennifer got the best cherry blossom shot.


the best sign of spring,


the best Zen garden,


the most creative bamboo dripper,


and most creative temple with reflections and her off center signature.


Read here about another Zen garden.

I'll claim the best temple composition,


Koi pond garden,


and people picture.


Jennifer's body language shows her determination to be a first rate photographer and film maker. And yes, Jennifer, Mr. Sidewalk Monitor was right. Your foot was off the rock.


We walked outside the Garden to catch a glimpse of the canyon where work is going on to add 14 acres to the current two acres. A pine tree will be planted as a memorial for those who lost their lives in the earthquake and tsunami, symbolically anchoring one side of a bridge across the canyon. We could already see many blooming cherry trees in the canyon. How beautiful this will be for the people of San Diego when finished!


We walked over to the Menghi to see the Maneki Neko exhibit. the Japanese beckoning cats. Jennifer and I couldn't figure out why all the cats had a raised paw, some left, some right pawed. Read here why.


We topped the adventure off with a late Japanese lunch at Katani's in Carmel Valley, Udon noodle soup, tempura, and some Japanese lessons from Jennifer. A great day, even if Jennifer did top me in the photography category.

The Shoulders We Stand On

I thought this interest in gathering the family history was a late life phenomenon. I go to my genealogy classes and they are populated with older people, taught by even older people. Our great-grandfather documented all the descendants from his surname immigrant in New England, an indentured servant to the colony of Dover, New Hampshire in the early 1600's. But I recall even in my thirties looking in phone books for others with the same family names, even writing to them at times. Once I received a long letter back from a woman on a wheat farm in Montana who didn't know anything about the family. I figured she was just lonely out there and wanted to make a connection. In her younger years Patty spent time on the family tree after the Internet opened up information until she became so consumed that she had to pack everything up and mail it to me.



My foray back into the family history was inspired by wanting to be a D.A.R., a Daughter of the American Revolution, since I knew we must have at least one Revolution patriot, half blood New Englanders that we are. Saying you have one isn't enough, you have to "prove" it with documentation of every generation going back to the 1700's.

I took classes and got my D.A.R. through the New Hampshire patriot researched by our great grandfather, and along the way found other Revolution patriots as well as frontiersmen and women, migrations where no roads or rivers were evident, cousins fighting cousins on the same battlefields, tragic losses of children.

I found not all those searching for ancestors are late lifers. We just have more time. And so, I am looking for those not yet found, source documenting those we know, and I'll be putting up some of their stories here. It's the stories I wonder about. How did they live? Did they have enough to eat? What was it like learning the next settlement had just been massacred by Indians? What made them pick up and move on even further into the frontier? How did they have ten babies with no medical care and no help?

Tune in. If you are family, look to meet people you didn't know. And if you're not family, perhaps you'll be inspired to find your own.

El MonteTrail, in La Canada de los Coches Country

My Gourmet Hiking Club buddies made a last minute change in plans to check out the newly opened El Monte Trail - just three weeks ago - and what a wonderful trail on a beautiful San Diego day. Two miles to the top of El Monte. Boulder free for a change, a bit of a luxury in hiking out here.

Not only that, but I checked off one of the Ranchos of San Diego County from my visit and hike all the San Diego ranchos and missions list. Back in the days of the missions, El Cajon in East County was pastures for the padres cattle and sheep, and pigs were raised in the the low hills to the east, now the town of Lakeside, in La Canada de los Coches, or “glen of the pigs”. In the years of the ranchos (about 1831-1848), La Canada de los Coches was granted so pigs could still be raised for the Mission. At only 28 acres, it was the smallest of the San Diego ranchos and entirely surrounded by the huge El Cajon rancho.

Our hike was in the Lakeside mountains but close enough I will count it as a rancho hike. Just a short distance up the trail we could see the valley laid out below, now mostly agricultural but the controversial Sunrise power line is going in through the valley.


Actually, we had two mountains to go up. The switchbacks on the far mountain will lead us up through the col between El Monte Valley and Blossom Valley.


See, no boulders or rocks on the trail. Yay!


We had a great view of El Capitan which Kathleen and I have said all winter that we were going to hike.


And finally, the goal of all this effort, a gourmet picnic in a gorgeous setting, accessible only on foot.


After all, we are the Gourmet Hiking Club.