by Mildred N. Swords
In the beginning, everyone who came to the desert came for a reason—mine, poor health. After five or six bouts with pneumonia, I was taken by my mother, per doctor's orders, to the desert. Dry climate was thought healthiest. My family (Charles, Charlotte—a.k.a. Lottie—and Mildred Milde) had lived in Santa Monica for quite a few years, having originally hailed from the East. I was fourteen when my mother and I moved to Littlerock, in 1923. The people who live here, in the So. Antelope Valley, have absolutely no idea what it was like back then. In Santa Monica, our family had lived next door to the Mencken family, who owned quite a bit of property in Littlerock and environs (grapes, peaches, hemp, pears). Mama and I stayed in one of their places, called Company Place, on 82nd St. in Littlerock. At that time, there was no paved roads anywhere in the So. Antelope Valley. When we first scuttled up, the good road (two lanes) passed thru Newhall Tunnel, just west of the old Fremont Pass—which you can still see when you go "down below." Believe me, that Newhall Tunnel was something else again. Everyone was scared to death to pass thru, especially if a hay truck came along at the same time in the opposite direction. I wish I could remember how long the tunnel was. Anyway, it was very dark inside, and the hay trucks was so big there was just inches separating you from the Great Divide. Sometimes traffic would line up for miles at the Newhall Tunnel grade. Then, from Saugus, we would trudge thru Mint Canyon. A good joke, at the time, was to ask people coming up for the first time if they could smell the mint. Of course that's what got called the Old Sierra Hwy. From Saugus to the top of the Johnson grade (altitude 3,000 feet) was a pretty good road. It was sixteen miles from Acton to Littlerock. Talk about washboards. At that time, there was a precarious dirt road going from Littlerock to Llano del Rio, where Aldous Huxley's old Socialist Colony and their evenings of flashing lights was. No Pearblossom, no Juniper Hills. There used to be a two-story building with a grocer / post office downstairs and rooms upstairs, on 77th St. E. where Wade's Market is now. It wasn't a regular Post Office. The mailman, Don Bonn, would dump the mail out on the counter in late morning, and everyone would just help themselves throughout the day. It was about a mile and a half from where we was staying. Later, there was a nice store (Brinks), and the Post Office moved across 82nd. St. to a slightly larger space.
It was during that time Mama and I met nearly all the orchardists. Carrs, Bones, Sr., Scholes, Primmers, Martin (Mr. Martin used to be our tax assesor) and the Millers—these was the orchardists. That was also when everyone used to go to dances in Llano del Rio. Papa used to bring some of my classmates from Santa Monica High (Samohi) up Friday nights and stay till Sunday. All the young men around looked forward to seeing Mr. Milde on Friday nights. They knowed they would have partners for the dances. Sometimes we all went to Acton, Elizabeth Lake or Palmdale. Remember, all dirt roads. That reminds me... I went to Lancaster High School for two weeks. On Sunday nights, our parents took us over to the school and came after us Friday night. That was when we became acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Shorty Lindsey and their two daughters, Ruth and Laura Mae. Ruth married a Doctor Savage from Mojave, and Laura Mae married Fred McAdam from Palmdale. Anyway, at the high school we stayed in a dormitory, which was across the top of the old building. As I suffered from bronchial asthma, I couldn't stand the dust, sneezed all the time, and so had to quit. How I hated to quit! I forgot to tell you that most of the dances was held in the schoolhouses. After a year and a half in Littlerock, we went back to Santa Monica completely well. I went to a beauty college and became a beauty operator. In 1933, Mama and I returned to Pearblossom. Mrs. Guy Chuse named this community Pear Blossom. There was a Gas Station, a place called the Desert Hawk, owned by Ed Sanner, and nothing else in the west end of Pearblossom. Mr. Guy Chuse was also from Santa Monica. He and Mrs. Mencken had the Ford agency in S.M., so one settled in Littlerock, which used to be spelled Little Rock until two much mail went to Arkansas, so changed it to one word. Same with Pearblossom, and Mr. Chuse started this subdivision of which we is the proud owners of two acres right in the center of beautiful uptown, or is it downtown, Pearblossom.
In 1933, during the Depression, I earned sixteen dollars a week, and Papa was working two and a half days a week. He was a Photo Engraver in Los Angeles, and came up over weekends. Mama rented her place in Westwood, five miles E. of Santa Monica, and decided to start a rest home in Pearblossom, of all things. Remember there wasn't any Pearblossom then. The Desert Hawk had two stories and was nicely equipped for such a place. Dining room downstairs with a large kitchen, and bedrooms upstairs, and the gas station outside. Standard, by the way. And Mr. Roy Mumaw, Sr. was the one who delivered the gas—all hand pumps, of course.
Well, I couldn't have my Mama up here alone, so I quit my job and started working for her. The place was so fixed-up for a little restaurant, and there was such a need for people going by to Victorville and Big Pines for the snow... Of course, by that time there was a two-way blacktop wending thru Pearblossom to Victorville and San Bernardino, so we decided to change it from a rest home to a workshop. The main road to the winter wonderland was thru the old cut-off thru Littlerock, Pearblossom and Valyermo and over the hill. In the winter there was hundreds of cars going to the snows. To get back to our little restaurant...When we started out, Mama was to be the cook and me the waitress. Well, we put it in reverse. Mama was the waitress and I was the cook. After working in a beauty shop for so long, I couldn't stand the stares of the people, expecially from the male gender. The big question was always, 'Tell me, how come you and your mother is working in a place like this?'—or the other way around, 'How come you and your daughter have a place like this?' Anyway, we loved it and have friends today we met at the Desert Hawk.
Now for Palmdale...We bought our supplies in Palmdale from Mr. Bradford. His was the only store. Our ice had to be carried from the ice house. We served hamburger for 10¢, steak dinners for 60¢, ham for 75¢, chicken for 75¢—I'm talking complete dinners, too. Our hamburger at the store was 12¢ to 14¢ a lb., and the steaks 16¢ to 18¢ a piece. It seems ham was the highest. Buns was 6¢ to 8¢. We also served wine for 10¢ a glass and had two prices for beer, 10¢ and 15¢. I could write on and on about the experiences and happenings in our little eating place. One night, there was two forest service men at the counter (Mr. Myron Merrete and Harold Ames), and our phone rang (we had the last phone on the line to the East of the Valley, all hand cranked). A fire was destroying Noah Beery's beautiful place at Big Rock. Everyone (but Mama) left fast for Noah Beery's. Oh those roads, the fire was terrible, no equipment to work with. There was a swimming pool filled with water, and I ran the outboard motor to suck the water out while others handled the hose. All that beauty destroyed by carelessness. Back to Palmdale... There was Fehrensen Drug Store on Sierra Hwy., a notion store, a beer parlor, Mr. Bradford's, the Old Post Office, Ms. Frahm, and Mr. Bill McAdam's agency all in one block. That was Palmdale, 1933. The Bank of America was in the charge of Wally Kahnert, who used to come out to the Desert Hawk and play the piano—as did Rollie Galbraith. There was the lumberyard, where Charlie Bunch waited on us, and the Palmdale Inn, where Mrs. Agnes Bland helped me to get cigarettes, candy, gum, etc., because there wasn't any salesmen out our way (believe it or not). If you wanted to do any business in Palmdale during the day, you had to get there before twelve or after one o'clock, because everything was closed between twelve and one. Honest! It really was a job getting to L.A.—no freeway then. The main thing to belong to was the Grange.
Now for Juniper Hills. The only recollection I have of how the name Juniper Hills came into being was a Mrs. Plecid Bailey had it painted on her old station wagon. Most of that district used to be called Cima Mesa. But I still give credit to Mrs. Bailey.
My folks purchased acreage in Juniper Hills and built a beautiful home, where we lived for fourteen years. We never had electricity, water or paved roads—and still, our home was beautiful. It was called Milde's Shangri La. During WW2, Papa fell from one of our big pine trees and lived a week. Our neighbor Doctor Snooks—a most wonderful man, devout Plecidic Magister and certified osteopath—stayed so many hours with my dad, one man for another, the intravenous bottle tied to a broom handle. I had a job at Polaris Flight Academy during this time, driving a tug and gasoline truck. Thirty-three miles each way. Did I get the tires and gas coupons! We was the only family living on top of the Hill—year in, year out. Now there is many people living up there with beautiful homes. I bought the first light pole for the beautiful Juniper Hills Community Center—in memory of my father, 1943.
These days, Pearblossom has five or six gas stations, a hardware store, Reichards Dept. Store, three restaurants, I don't know how many realtors, an antique shop, bottle shop, three mobile home trailer parks, a beautiful park, a modern Post Office, two big general stores and lots of people I don't know anymore. That's life.
So many things to tell. Hope you get something out of this. Guess I should have wrote a book.
