Corralitos

California

History

Families of Corralitos

This section is for families who have lived or once lived in Corralitos for generations. Please e-mail or voice mail if you would like to share your family's story of coming to Corralitos. Stories can be with or without photos or only photos.

Lemon Family
Manchester Family
Pybrum Family
Brodin Family
Elias Bradley family
Guinn Family
Karstedt Family
Alice Tindall Family
George and Carrie Tindall Family

Lemon Family

John and Emma Lemon lived with their six children on a ranch in Cheney, Washington. In the summer of 1897, John and John Jr. took a trip to California to explore the possibilities of that state. They found the area around Watsonville to be especially attractive. They returned to Washington, sold their ranch, and prepared to move. Arriving in July of 1898, on the 18th and 19th, they camped south of the river at Watsonville. John, Win(fred) and John Jr. rode out to Corralitos to look at a place in Brown's Valley they had seen advertised. It was just south of the Aldridge homestead that today is near Allan Lane. It proved to have the sandiest soil of any piece of land in the whole district, so it was no attraction to John. On July 21, they drove their wagon through Watsonville and then turned northward. They took the left-hand road (present-day Buena Vista Road) in Freedom where the monument is today. They stopped to rest by the roadside near a house belonging to the old Baucom couple. Emma went into the Baucom house to make inquiries and met a Mrs. Mackrell who was visiting there. She told them she had a place to sell in Corralitos and that they could go up there and camp as long as they wanted. The property was about a mile up Eureka Canyon from the Corralitos Store. They bought the place on August 10, 1898, paying $1700 for 28 ˝ acres. The property is still owned by the Lemon family today.

At that time, there were two old houses on the property. These were torn down and a new two-story house was constructed. Many of the apple trees growing on the farm were not in good condition. They took out the unproductive ones and pruned up the rest. They planted more fruit trees. They planted loganberries along the creek for a temporary source of income. Emma sold eggs to a San Francisco market, too. During the summer the kids helped with the crops. The girls dressed in overalls that they made themselves. Sometimes they cut apricots for a neighbor.

On the hot summer days the kids went swimming in the Corralitos Creek that ran through their farm. The girls did not have swimsuits, so they wore old dresses. They did not go swimming with the boys who wore no clothes at all.

Dora Sibyl Lemon played the reed organ at the Corralitos School. Mr. Price, who was the principal at the time, often had her play for him the tunes he wished to try out before using them in the school assembly. In 1908, at the end of her third year of Watsonville High School, the school put on a charge for tuition for all out of town students. Dora's sister, Gladys, was planning to enter high school the next year. The cost for two high school children was more than their mother was willing to pay, so she arranged for Dora and Gladys to attend the high school in Santa Cruz, sixteen miles from their home. This high school did not charge tuition for out of town students and was actually a better school than the one in Watsonville. Their mother found the girls a small place to live in while they were attending school. When the weather was good, the girls rode their bicycles home on weekends. On their return to Santa Cruz, they took with them as much food as their bicycles could carry.

View of Lemon house and property on Eureka Canyon Road circa 1920

The two-story Lemon house and Eureka Canyon Road

John and Emma's son Earl Hershel Lemon was born in Corralitos on January 24, 1900.

Earl’s eighth grade graduation from Corralitos School. He is second from right (Refer to page 129 in book)

About 1920, Earl and his older brother Win(fred) got a car for their father. They planned to teach him how to drive it. One day he went out on his own to try it. He backed it onto a stump. He was embarrassed, he got the horse team to pull it off so his sons would not know. The car went back into the barn and he never drove it again.

One day Earl was driving the car back from their orchard property near Highland Way in Eureka Canyon. He and a worker had been pruning. Earl's dog was in the front seat with him and the worker was in the back seat. Near the Eureka Canyon School there were twin bridges, Earl was driving down a grade as a horse and buggy were coming up. He could not stop, so to avoid hitting the buggy he went off the road and went about thirty feet down into the creek. The dog ended up in the back seat. Earl and the worker were all right. The car never recovered. They took all the salvageable parts off of it, and left the rest in the creek. The dog would never cross the bridge in a car again. He jumped out when they neared it, walked across, and then got back inside.

Earl H. Lemon sitting in wrecked car circa 1920.

Lemon family picnic at Ollason’s Grove (Refer to page 169 in the book)

Photos and information provided by Earl (Bud) Lemon.

Manchester Family

As flappers donned their frills,
And bootleggers hid their stills,

Clint and Bertha hopped into their Velie,
and headed for Brown's Valley.

This was the place they could call home,
And where their chickens would roam...

Bertha Rose Bayles was born in Pagosa Springs, Colorado January 1, 1900. She was the youngest daughter of Morton and Emma Macht Bayles.

Maud, Bertha, and Florence Bayles

Native American heritage has been suggested on the Bayles side of the family

Following graduation from high school, she attended Fort Lewis Girls School. She and her mother eventually moved to Chama, New Mexico to join her sister and brother-in-law, Florence and John Rippy. She worked as a clerk in the post office there.

George Clinton Manchester was born in Sierraville, California in 1886 to Myron D. and Eva Abbe Manchester. He attended Horace Mann School in San Francisco.

Before WWI, Clint enlisted in the Army and was stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco. He was a bugler. After his enlistment ended, he went to work for the Standard Oil Company on their wildcat wells in New Mexico. When the war began, he tried to reenlist but was told they needed him more in the oil fields.

In New Mexico, he and his fellow crew members liked to make wagers when they knew a new gal was coming to wait tables in the oil field. They would ride out and bet as to who would see her first. That person would be the one to pursue her as a girlfriend. One day, as Clint and some others were riding towards the oil field his grey horse, on its own accord, took off and went up to the top of a hill. This is where he first spotted Bertha who was out horseback riding. This is when he said she would be his girl.

Shortly after that encounter, Clint moved to the Fellows/Taft area of California to work in the oil fields. Bertha and her mother moved to Fellows to join her brother, Howard, who also worked in the fields and knew Clint. A dinner date was set up for Clint and Bertha. She did not want to go because she didn't know how to act on a dinner date. She was so shy. They made her go and she made the best of it. She did exactly what Clint did - picked up her fork when he did, used the finger bowl when he did, etc. In 1922, they made a decision to elope. One night, Clint drove his beautiful Velie automobile to the house when Bertha's mother was asleep. He accidentally hit the house with his car waking her mother. They went on their way and were married.

Bertha and mother, Emma, picnicking with the Manchester family with Velie in background

The next year, they were thinking of buying property in Santa Cruz County. Clint read an article in one of his chicken magazines about a man named George Burhman, who had Wyandotte chickens in Corralitos. They decided to drive up to his place to see the chickens. He told them he had property for sale with a house on Brown's Valley Road (133). When they saw the place they knew this was where Clint would raise his chickens. They named it Cal-Col Poultry Ranch (California and Colorado).

Manchester home on Brown's Valley Road (133)

Their daughter, Gwendolyn, was born in 1925. That year, Bertha's family, Florence and John and their three children, Eva, Leslie and Norma moved to Corralitos. Her oldest sister, Maud Diehl, died from pneumonia, so Clint and Bertha helped with the care of her two daughters, Dorothy and Margaret. Emma Bayles moved to Watsonville, and eventually to Corralitos to be cared for by her two daughters. When Bertha's niece, Eva, was learning to talk she called her aunt, Bobo. From then on, she was fondly called Bobo as well as Bertha.

1927 Manchesters with the Rippy family

John and Clint cut a road through to the lower part of the property (the road between 115 and 129) where they built a small house by the creek for the Rippy family. Both families lived on the property until the early 1940s, when Clint and Bobo bought the house at 12 Aldridge Lane. The Rippy family moved to 115 Brown's Valley then bought the house at 547 Corralitos Road where their middle daughter and her family live today.

Earl Lemon, who in 1937 had built the garage building at the corner of Corralitos Road and Schoolhouse Lane (Aldridge), offered Clint an area of the building for a grocery store. Clint's Grocery was started in 1939 with about $10 worth of groceries. Both Bobo and Clint ran the store and the gas pumps in front of the store. They opened early, sometimes 6:00 a.m., and closed late. Stocked shelves lined the walls with lower shelves in the center of the room. There was a floor level glass case at the end of the counter for candy and gum. A meat counter was in the rear corner. Gwen worked at the store, too, while she was going to school. After she married, they remodeled the back storage area (video store currently) for Gwen to have a gift shop. They closed the store in the mid-fifties.

Earl and Vila Lemon

Hazel Bradley Johnson and her family lived across Aldridge Lane from Clint's Grocery. She recalled: “One day when Leland, my youngest son, was very little, I sent him to Clint's for three doughnuts. He couldn't remember so I put his little finger down and put his thumb on it and told him there were three fingers left. He hurried across the road with his little hand held up. In a few minutes, I got a call from Clint to ask me if I wanted three or four doughnuts. He said Leland was saying he wanted three but he was holding up four fingers. When Clint explained it to him, Leland told him he stepped in a hole on his way to the store and his finger slipped and he couldn't get it back. Bobo and Clint also used to let my older son, Norman, sit over behind the magazines and read the funny books as long as he kept them nice and neat. Then when he got tired he would come home. It was a really nice, safe place for him to be. After the store closed the kids played in there. One day they came home with two dusty jars of honey that had been left behind. They thought they had found a real treasure. I sat the jars in warm water because the honey had solidified. When it melted down, we sat around and ate honey.”

Both Clint and Bobo were community-minded people. Clint worked for a time at the school as bus driver and custodian. They both helped organize the Grange in Corralitos in 1932 and had a big part in the fundraisers and construction of the Grange Hall. Clint was the first Master at the new building. Along with the offices he held, he also was in charge of the ladies drill team. It was surely his sense of humor that decided the men folk should have a “drill team” as well.

LtoR George Johnson, George Olmstead, Ray Brodin, Earl Reid, Archie Schmidt, John Rippy, Clint, Roy Stump, and John (Pete) Peterson

In 1940, a volunteer fire department was organized and Clint was elected chief. In 1942, he organized a rural militia for the community. The men met and had outside drills on Aldridge Lane by his store. During WWII, he also, worked as a guard at the shipyards in San Francisco. Bobo volunteered time to sit at the Civil Defense building on the hill off Hames Road to record aircraft. In the late 1940's the Manchesters purchased property up Eureka Canyon on Buzzard Lagoon Road. They enjoyed entertaining, so this larger house suited their needs much better. Eventually, they had a magnificent flower garden with fruit trees and a beautiful patio area for outside parties. A path led down from the back of the property through the ferns and redwoods to a natural spring. They built a house next to the existing garage across the road from their house for Gwen and her family. They had a group of nearby neighbors that they referred to as “Lagoonites”. Family and friends had many memorable occasions at “The Ranch” during the years the Manchesters lived there.

Buzzard Lagoon Road

The Manchester ranch house

1957 The Lagoonites includes Clint and Bertha, Joe and Ellen Cutler, Don and Gloria Nohrden, Anna and Earl Smith, Grace and Cal Bucher, Mrs. Olson and son, Otto

It was 1962 when they moved back to 12 Aldridge. Bobo had been employed at the Corralitos School (Bradley) in the cafeteria. There are many people around today that still remember Hazel Bradley and Bobo's “famous” spaghetti served for hot lunches and for spaghetti feeds.

During their retirement years, they traveled more often with friends. They both continued to participate in the community and entertain at their home. As well as being charter members of the Grange, Clint was a Corralitos Padre, a storyteller and a poet, while Bobo enjoyed playing Bridge and gardening. They lived out their lives as the Manchesters of Corralitos.

During her years in Corralitos, Bobo made scrapbooks of news articles, cards, events of family, friends and the community. It was these scrapbooks that inspired the book Corralitos.	1979 Bobo

Pybrum Family

March 4, 1912 Fernette Maxwell Webster of Baxter, Tennessee with six children and her brother, Jay, traveled by train to Madera, California. Her husband, William, had gone on before them and was waiting their arrival. She had married William in 1894 at the age of sixteen. The family settled in Madera where their two youngest sons were born. It was there in Madera at The Golden Rule store that their daughter, Bertha, met Archibald Pybrum, a fair-haired, handsome man from Texas. This was the beginning of the saga of the Pybrum family of Corralitos.

May 8, 1916 Bertha and Archie were married. The following year their first son, Edward, was born. By the end of 1926, they had become a family of six with the births of Ray, Elmer and Lucille.

In 1928, tragedy struck the family with the death of Archie. The young family was left fatherless on the brink of the Great Depression. With the support of her family, Bertha was able to care for her children. They continued to live in Madera where in 1932 she married a single father who had one daughter. Bertha became Mrs. Harman Evans.

She had always dreamed of living on the coast. While she and her new husband were looking for property in San Jose, they talked with a salesman who said if he were buying property it would be in Corralitos. He knew Jack Blake had some new homes for sale. In Corralitos, Mr. Blake had developed the lower portion of his hillside property and had new homes built. A few months passed before he was able to sell any of them. Route 5 Box 610 (46 Blake Avenue) was one of the first ones sold, and this was to Bertha and Harman. The family of seven lived there until Mr. Evans proved to be an abusive, unfit husband and father. Bertha divorced him in 1939 and she and her children continued to live at their home.

Bertha always had to work hard to care for her family. She raised chickens and sold eggs and planted gardens and sold produce. With the help of her children, she made a go of it. As the eldest son, Edward's childhood had ended in Madera when he was barely twelve years old and he had to become the “man of the house.” In Corralitos, he continued to have to work while he attended Watsonville High School. The other three children attended Corralitos School and Watsonville High. Ed and Elmer went to college, Ray went into the Navy, and Lucille married Kenneth Flynn.

Lucille, Ray, Bertha, Edward, Elmer

1944 Bertha and Ray at home (46 Blake)

John Henzie and his wife lived next door (54) to the Pybrum family. After his wife passed away, Bertha did housecleaning for him. Their friendship evolved and they were married in 1947. They continued to live in Corralitos for a short time then moved to Campbell, CA. Lucille was nearby in San Jose. Elmer settled in Watsonville, Ray in Freedom, and Edward took over the family home.

Bertha had been an avid gardener. She always had vegetable gardens, fruit trees, berries, and of course flowers. Until old age disabled her, family or friends could come to her home expected or not and she could prepare, and have them sit down to, a full course meal. Her pantry was always full of preserved fruits and vegetables or in season she would walk out into her yard to gather fresh fruit and vegetables to prepare. And, she always seemed to have a fresh baked pie or cake ready for dessert.

When Bertha lived at 46 Blake, she tossed sweet pea seeds across the road on to the hillside by her mailbox. To this day, every spring our family drives by to see if Mommy Grandma's sweet peas are blooming. This year there were very few, but they have off years, then come back in a few different colors. They are there in remembrance of a dear lady who struggled through her life, but was rewarded with four children who provided her with wonderful grandchildren and great grandchildren, some of whom still live in Corralitos.

1978 Great granddaughter Terry Malmin in the sweet pea patch on the hill

Elias and Emily (Aldridge) Bradley Family

1918 50^th anniversary of Elias and Emily at the Christian Church on Brown's Valley Road

Their sons were the members of the Bradley Brothers Quartet. Gene, Maude, Bruce, Oliver, Esther, Walter, Lucius, and Albert with Elias and Emily

Abraham and Emelin Guinn Family

c1904 Guinn Family Abraham is second man standing with Emelin next to him. (Names of others are available)

Karstedt Family

c1913 The Karstedt Family LtoR Vila, Ira, Mrs. Karstedt, Wallace, Ruth, Mr. Karstedt, Larry, Mabel, Edward
(Ruth K. Smith was a Corralitos School teacher for many years. Vila was the wife of Earl Lemon. The family once lived at 1396 Amesti Road.)

In Memory of Alice Johnson Tindall 1908-2004

1916 Alice in back, Ida, Norman, Joe Johnson (George was born in 1920)

Alice and Allen with daughters, Eloise (Wilson) and Janet (Mattos)

1956 Tindall property 350 Hames Road

George and Carrie Tindall Family

In January of 1898, Marsan Lapierre sold a tract of land about four miles up Eureka Canyon consisting of about 400 acres to George Tindall. The Eureka Canyon road and creek ran through the property. The old Eureka Canyon schoolhouse was on this property just below the fork of the Shingle Mill creek and the Eureka creek. (Below Lower Highlands Road). George used the redwood lumber from that structure to build a cabin. On July 7, 1901 he married Carrie Rowlee at her parents’ home up Buzzard Lagoon. (Photo of house in Manchester Family story) They settled in doing farming and lumbering. From resources on their property, George sold fence posts, pickets, firewood, tan bark, lumber, and other wood products.

Eureka Canyon School.
Carrie Rowlee on the porch railing top right.

Eureka Canyon school children. Middle row: Carrie Rowlee (on right) next to Homer Jensen.

Photo from Tindall family collection, location not determined

George’s parents, Wilson and Maria (pronounced Mariah) were early settlers up Brown’s Valley Road. Between Eureka Canyon and the Redwood district, they bought 100 acres of timber land. Maria, born in 1855, was seventeen when she married Wilson who was a farmer. Wilson cut logs and brought them to William De Hart’s Lumber Mill to be planed then used them to build a seven room house for the family. Water was piped to the house from a spring with a tank for irrigation. He split wood into pickets and posts and hauled them to O.D. Stoessers store in Watsonville as barter for necessities. George and his sisters went to the Redwood School. (Refer to Growing-Up section) It was a lonely spot for Maria. She kept busy with bread to make for her family and for the men who worked the timber with Wilson. She put up grape and tomato preserves in crocks from one gallon to five gallon capacity. She dried corn and cooked it with butter and cream. After their children were grown, they eventually moved into Watsonville to live out their lives.

The Wilson Tindall family

George and Carrie’s first son, Allen, was born in 1904 followed by Annie, Weldon and Willis. They grew-up helping on the ranch and attended Eureka Canyon School.

Eureka Canyon Road ran along side the Tindall cabin where the wagon is parked.

Carrie and George with their children L to R Allen, Annie, Willis and Weldon

1915 George is plowing

In 1926, the family moved down from the canyon to the corner of Eureka Canyon Road and today’s Prendergast Lane. George continued to travel to the ranch everyday. Carrie raised chickens and sold eggs. She had a flower garden and liked to sew. She went to Grange Home Economics and W.C.T.U. meetings.

Willis was in fourth grade when they moved. He attended Corralitos Union School on Aldridge Lane.

Willis’ fourth grade class with Mrs. Brodin. Willis is in the third row fourth from the left. His best friend, Leslie Rippy is in front row second from left

Willis is top row right next to Leslie Rippy with Elma G. Bradley at bottom right

Allen married Alice Johnson, Annie married Gus Bailey, and Weldon married Gertrude Storm. Willis married Margie De Mers in the parsonage of the Corralitos Free Methodist Church with Reverend F.W. Faro officiating. They built a house next door to George and Carrie.

By Eloise Wilson

George and Carrie

A portion of the original property is still owned by Tindall family members.
Generations of Tindalls have enjoyed the beauty of George and Carrie’s Eureka Canyon ranch on Tindall Ranch Road.