Oral History Center University of California The Bancroft ...€¦ · Penny Heiser, “Penny Heiser: East Bay Park District Parkland Oral History Project” conducted by Shanna Farrell

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley

Oral History Center University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

East Bay Regional Park District Oral History Project

Penny Heiser: East Bay Park District Parkland Oral History Project

Interviews conducted by Shanna Farrell

in 2018

Copyright © 2019 by The Regents of the University of California

Interview sponsored by the East Bay Regional Park District

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley ii

Since 1954 the Oral History Center of the Bancroft Library, formerly the Regional Oral History Office, has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable.

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All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Penny Heiser dated November 2, 2018. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Excerpts up to 1000 words from this interview may be quoted for publication without seeking permission as long as the use is non-commercial and properly cited.

Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to The Bancroft Library, Head of Public Services, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should follow instructions available online at http://ucblib.link/OHC-rights.

It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:

Penny Heiser, “Penny Heiser: East Bay Park District Parkland Oral History Project” conducted by Shanna Farrell in 2018, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2019.

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley iii

Penny Heiser, 2018

Photo by Shanna Farrell

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The Oral History Center would like to thank the East Bay Regional Park District for their generous support of this oral history project. The Parkland Oral History Project is funded by the Interpretive and Recreation Services Department of the East Bay Regional Park District, coordinated by Beverly R. Ortiz, Ph.D., EBRPD Cultural Services Coordinator, and supported by staff at all levels of the Park District.

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley v

Penny Heiser is an East Bay Native who grew up on the Murphy Ranch, which was later sold to the East Bay Regional Park District. In this interview, she discusses her early life, her family, her memories of her grandmother’s husband who owned the property, memories of the ranch, family fights over the property, why she decided to sell to the district, significant parts of the house, and her hopes for her family to live on through the preservation of the land.

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley vi

Table of Contents— Penny Heiser

Project History

Interview 1: November 2, 2018

Hour 1 1

Born in Oakland and family background — Her mother working and her father having PSTD — Her grandmother, Lydia Roehm Murphy — Her grandmothers baking — How Lydia met Bill Murphy — Her early memories going to the Murphy Ranch — Fighting over the property — Slaughtering the cattle — Learning how to milk a cow — Caring for chickens — Growing up on a ranch — Almond orchards and Blue Diamond — Coyotes, bobcats, and wildlife in the area — The property in the seventies — What prompted her to sale the property

Hour 2 22

The Stone House — What has happened since the park district took over — The possibility of creating a museum — How she hopes the memory of her family lives on through the place and the park district

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley vii

The East Bay Regional Park District Oral History Project

The East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) is a special regional district that stretches across both Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. First established in 1934 by Alameda County voters, the EBRPD slowly expanded to Contra Costa in 1964 and has continued to grow and preserve the East Bay’s most scenic and historically significant parklands. The EBRPD’s core mission is to acquire, develop, and maintain diverse and interconnected parklands in order to provide the public with usable natural spaces and to preserve the region’s natural and cultural resources.

This oral history project—The East Bay Regional Park District Oral History Project—records and preserves the voices and experiences of formative, retired EBRPD field staff, individuals associated with land use of EBRPD parklands prior to district acquisition, and individuals who continue to use parklands for agriculture and ranching.

The Oral History Center (OHC) of The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley first engaged in conversations with the EBRPD in the fall of 2016 about the possibility of restarting an oral history project on the parklands. The OHC, previously the Regional Oral History Office, had conducted interviews with EBPRD board members, supervisors and individuals historically associated with the parklands throughout the 1970s and early 2000s. After the completion of a successful pilot project in late 2016, the EBRPD and OHC began a more robust partnership in early 2017 that will result in an expansive collection of interviews.

The interviews in this collection reflect the diverse yet interconnected ecology of individuals and places that have helped shape and define the East Bay Regional Park District and East Bay local history.

Cristina Kim, June 2017

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley 1

Interview 1: November 2, 2018 01-00:00:07 Farrell: All right, this is Shanna Farrell with Penny Heiser on Friday, November 2,

2018, and we are at the Murphy Ranch in Contra Costa County, California. Penny, can you start by telling me where and when you were born, and a little bit about your early life?

01-00:00:28 Heiser: Okay. I was born in Oakland at Providence Hospital, and my mom lived in

Richmond, and my grandmother also lived in Richmond. They came from North Dakota, originally to come out during the war to help make the ships and help their building all the houses, because my grandfather was a carpenter, and not my step-grandfather but my real grandfather, okay? My mom came out too, when she was thirteen, and then met my dad and got married, but then, they had some problems and so my grandmother let my mom live with her for a while.

So I was there, and my grandmother lost her husband, the carpenter, and then she met Bill Murphy, and he courted her, and so, that, we thought, was our grandfather, and he stayed our grandfather forever. It was very sweet. He married my grandmother, and built her this house on his ranch. The ranch has been in the family since 1856, I believe, and he built her this house over on the other side, and then my grandmother built this house for my mom. My mom moved out here and we spent a lot of time with her, and I spent a lot of time with my grandparents because my mom was working. There were four of us. Let’s see—my older sister Diane, my brother Terry, and my sister Carole. Carole was just a little tiny one. I was about three or four, and my sister was like five, I think.

01-00:02:18 Farrell: Where are you in the birth order?

01-00:02:20 Heiser: I’m the second.

01-00:02:21 Farrell: Second, okay. Can you tell me, before we start talking about your

grandparents, can you tell me what your mom’s name is, and some of your early memories of her?

01-00:02:30 Heiser: Yes. My mom’s name was Annette Roehm, and she was a delightful person

and had lots of energy, and she was always very caring and loving. In fact, she worked in a nursing home, when the nursing homes first came about, and it was very hard work but she worked at night so she could be with us during the day. She really sacrificed her life. My dad had like, they call it PSTD now, but at that time, he had come back from the war, and he had been in Berlin when they actually bombed a theater, and he got like shellshock from it. He helped


people get out of the theater and stuff. He never was really right, and they got married and stuff, and they didn’t really get along very well, so it was a constant back and forth to my grandparents, living at my grandparents, living where we were living, and we constantly were moving all the time, because my dad said that he was working and he wasn’t, unfortunately, and my mom was the only person that—she was probably one of the first women who actually went out and supported the whole family.

01-00:03:43 Farrell: What did she do for work?

01-00:03:45 Heiser: She worked at the convalescent home in the beginning. When she got married,

she worked at Kaiser, the steel mill, I believe, and Kaiser, not exactly sure which other Kaiser. I think it was in Richmond. And so she started working as a secretary, and then she became a bookkeeper, and mainly she ended up bookkeeper, but she was very independent and she had her own business. She sold jewelry later on when she moved out here. From this house, she sold jewelry, and she went out and did shows, and she made beads. I should have worn her necklace. She made beads. She was very talented. She did a lot of things, and she painted pictures and stuff, and she was very artistic, and very into kids. She loved kids. She’d always spend as much time as she could with us.

01-00:04:44 Farrell: Can you tell me what your grandmother’s name was, and some of your early

memories of her?

01-00:04:49 Heiser: My grandmother’s name is Lydia, and it’s Lydia Murphy. It was Lydia

Roehm. So it’s Lydia Roehm Murphy, and that’s the name of the road out here. My husband and I—he was a wood maker— we made the signs out here. When you came in, you saw Lydia?

01-00:05:06 Farrell: Yeah, they’re very pretty.

01-00:05:07 Heiser: We actually named the road. There wasn’t a name for the road, but a lot of

people couldn’t find it out here, so I said, “Mama, I’ll make you a wood sign.” One of them was up at the front but somebody stole it, and then, I know, and then we put one at the gate. Anyway, it ended up being actually Lydia Lane because I thought that Lydia Lane was cute. I made that up, and they liked it. I gave it to them for Christmas, the signs. My grandmother was just the most interesting person you’ve ever met in your life, and the most go-for-it person.

She was—I can’t remember what it’s called. She belonged to the lodge, but I don’t remember what lodge it was, but she went all the way up to the top part. I don’t know what they call that, but she was a lodge member and she was


very well known out here. She knew all the people in this area, and they went to lodge and everything, and then she also made cakes, and she also did like some flower arranging, and she had chickens, and she had peacocks. They had cattle and bulls, and dogs, and goats, and it was very interesting and a very fun life, I have to say. I’m sad that my kids aren’t going to be able to enjoy it, but they will as a park. That’s why I want the park to have it.

01-00:06:35 Farrell: You mentioned that she was a baker. Can you tell me about some of the

memories of the pastries she would bake, or maybe some of the food that she cooked?

01-00:06:44 Heiser: Mostly she made cakes for people. She was one of the first. She didn’t have

her bakery or anything but she started making wedding cakes. She made my wedding cake. Any time there was a party, she always made the cakes. She actually went to the point where she got the Wilson books about how to decorate and everything. She learned how to make little flowers and stuff, and she made me, on my sixteenth birthday, a doll in the middle of it with all these ruffles going down on my cake. I never ate it and I put it in the freezer, and then when my parents moved, they ended up taking it out of the freezer. I guess it went into the garbage, but I couldn’t eat it because it was so pretty. [laughs] So, anyway, she was a very good baker. Everyone always went to her and said, “Can you make me a cake?” Her cakes were really good.

01-00:07:43 Farrell: Were there other meals that she would make that you would remember, aside

from baking, or was it mostly just cakes?

01-00:07:51 Heiser: Oh, she cooked everything, and she cooked a lot of stuff from Germany

because she was German, and she made her own noodles. She made everything. She canned. All of her stuff was down in the basement, in fact, for years and years and years. I had to actually throw a lot of it away because it had caused a lot of rats to come in there, which I never knew that would happen, but they actually threw the bottles, pushed them off the shelves, and would eat the stuff out of the jars, because it had sugar in it, and a lot of it was jams and jellies. Once we got rid of that, we didn’t have any more problem with that.

01-00:08:34 Farrell: Oh, that’s good. [laughter]

01-00:08:36 Heiser: That was kind of like, “What’s happening here? Who’s coming down here and

eating the jellies and stuff?” Anyway, someone suggested that we get rid of it because we couldn’t eat it, because it’s been so long. Anyway, but she was very good at that too, and I helped her can and everything, and then she, of


course, came out and shucked the almonds and stuff too. So we did that together too.

01-00:09:00 Farrell: Do you have any memory or knowledge of how she met your grandfather

Murphy?

01-00:09:06 Heiser: Yes, that was very sweet. She had her house in Richmond with her husband.

He, I think he’d gotten pneumonia and he died, and then Bill was a friend of somebody from her lodge, and so they kind of put them together, and they just meshed the first time they met. They met in her house, and she was babysitting my sister and I. We had cribs across from each other, and Grandpa—well, he wasn’t my grandpa yet, but he was—what do you call it—dating her, I guess. He was dating my grandmother, and she was in the front room, and she decided that we all had to take naps, right? So Diane and I had to go and take naps and everything. We weren’t ready for naps, so we’re throwing teddy bears back and forth and everything, and then she comes in and she goes, “What are you girls doing?” We’re like, “Oh no, Grandma!” So I threw the teddy bear to my sister really quick and she said, “You guys need to lay down and take a nap right now.” We saw this man in the back and we’re like, “Who’s that?” We didn’t know who it was.

I got scared, because I was only two and a half maybe, maybe not that. I got scared and I said, “I’m getting out of here.” My sister Diane says, “What do you mean?” I said, “I’m crawling out the window.” She goes, “Why?” and I said, “Because I’m scared!” So I jumped out, went out of the window and everything, and as I went around the corner, here is the first time I saw my grandpa—which ended up being my grandpa because he married my grandmother—and he grabs me. I was like, “Ha, oh!” He goes, “Don’t worry. Don’t worry. I’m your grandpa. I’m your grandpa.” And I was like, “Oh, okay.” So he took me in to the house and everything and Grandma goes, “What are you doing?” I was like, “I was scared.” Anyway, so he said that. I called him “Grandpa,” and that was before they got married. They got married, and I was—I’m trying to think—I was just like a year old but maybe I was younger than that.

01-00:11:16 Anyway, I don’t recall exactly, but it was really cute. When we met him, I fell

in love with him and we had this bond because he saved me from being scared. Once you jump out of a window, you don’t—it was only like a single story, but I didn’t know what to do or where to go. [laughs] I was like, “Oh no!” and he came around and saved me, so he was my knight in shining armor.

01-00:11:40 Farrell: Was he nice to you when he discovered you?


01-00:11:42 Heiser: He was so nice to me. He picked me up and he says, “Everything’s going to

be okay. I’m going to take you in the house.” He was so loving and so sweet, makes me sad. I miss him.

01-00:11:54 Farrell: How old was your grandmother then? Do you remember how old she was

when she remarried, or when they got married?

01-00:12:02 Heiser: I don’t remember.

01-00:12:06 Farrell: Okay, that’s not a [big deal].

01-00:12:06 Heiser: I’m sorry.

01-00:12:07 Farrell: It’s no big deal.

01-00:12:08 Heiser: I think it was like 1950 that they got married, yeah, because her husband, my

grandpa, died when my mom was pregnant with me. They got married, then a year later, my grandma met Bill Murphy, and so they got married then.

01-00:12:35 Farrell: Okay. Can you tell me about some of your early memories of coming to the

Murphy Ranch?

01-00:12:43 Heiser: Well, it was a long drive. We came from Concord and it was like winding, a

skinny road, and you never knew what was going to pop out in front of you. It was like, “Oh, where are we going?” W e came out, and my mom says, “You’re going to be staying with Grandma for a while.” We’re like, “Really?” But we were young, so we didn’t have to go to school or anything, but she needed to work. Anyway, so on the way out here as we’re coming in to the ranch, we’re saying, “Oh, Grandpa, see all those hills over there? Grandpa owns all of those, all the hills that the park has now.” There’s some that belong to his brother Jim, and he’s passed away also, but his grandson sold to the park district also, and my mother ended up selling to the park district also when my grandmother passed away. So I’m glad. It was going to be a garbage dump.

01-00:13:36 Farrell: Wow.

01-00:13:37 Heiser: Yeah, they had a really good deal for a garbage dump, but nobody wanted that

out here, so, we’re just happy it’s a park.


01-00:13:45 Farrell: When you were a kid and you took that long, skinny, winding road, when you

finally made it to the property, what do you remember seeing?

01-00:13:55 Heiser: Mainly the trees. There were a lot of trees and they were all in rows, and it

was very neat. My grandfather had everything pruned really well and everything. We came up and saw Grandma’s house, and that they had just finished building it. They were living in the garage at first, until the house got built, but all my uncles and aunts and everything, they were all carpenters, so they all built it together. See, in the house and my grandmother had, down in the basement, she made them so they had this big, long room about twice as long as this, so that the whole family could come and eat together. She made this huge turkey and everything, and we had quite a few parties down there. My grandma really loved to have parties, and loved to have the family over.

01-00:14:47 Farrell: Did any of the other Murphy family members live on the property as well?

01-00:14:53 Heiser: No.

01-00:14:54 Farrell: Okay. So there was just one house?

01-00:14:56 Heiser: There was one house which was his parents’ house, and they lived out over

across the way where there was a creek that went by the house, okay. They put a culvert up there so that they had water that came down, but that house is long gone. It’s not there anymore.

01-00:15:19 Farrell: And when was this house built?

01-00:15:22 Heiser: This house was built in 1972, and it’s been here ever since. After my

grandfather passed away, my grandma needed someone to help her, so, she came out here, and I always spent a lot of time with my mom. I was out here all the time too, when I wasn’t working, and I brought my kids out here and they grew up out here, and now the grandkids are growing up out here.

01-00:15:49 Farrell: Yeah, many generations.

01-00:15:51 Heiser: Yes, there’ve been a lot of generation. Unfortunately, there’s been sadness in

the generations too, because when my grandfather got the property, he had two sisters and two brothers and one was Jim Murphy. He and Jim, it’s been a constant fight over the property, and it’s really sad. When my grandma died, her sisters, they all went in and everybody fought everybody, and it cost so


much money and it was so sad, but my mom ended up with at least her ten acres here.

01-00:16:27 Farrell: Do you have a sense of why they were fighting over the property?

01-00:16:31 Heiser: Everybody wanted money. It wasn’t the property, and everybody wanted the

property, because it’s so beautiful out here. I don’t blame them, and the same with me. My mom left the house and the property to me because she knew that I would be able to take care of it, because my other two sisters are handicapped. I don’t know if it’s called “handicap.” I don’t know what the word is. Anyway, so, I was the only one that was—and my brother’s in Virginia, so I was the only one that could really help out and take care of my mom and dad. My husband and I, we spent about eleven years out here working on it. It had gotten like in ill repair, and the trees grew down into the weeds and the weeds grew up into the trees, but now it’s pretty much like an orchard again. It’s just that we don’t have any water right now—we have to buy our water—so that’s kind of hurt the orchard. It hasn’t been raining.

01-00:17:35 Farrell: Where do you buy your water from?

01-00:17:37 Heiser: Martell’s, in Pittsburg. They just come out and deliver it. We have a 5,000-

gallon tank, it’s a little section where we have that, and we have to have it pumped up to the houses.

01-00:17:54 Farrell: So if you were to make the orchard active again, would you have to buy that

water to irrigate?

01-00:18:02 Heiser: Yes. Well, not really. The park district put a well up above our well, and they

dug it deeper. They have good water, so they will be able to water the trees. That’s one of the reasons why I made sure that the park was going to buy it, because I wanted to make sure the trees are going to be watered and things are going to be taken care of. Buying water is expensive. It’s like $300, sometimes $600 a month. A lot of times my father would come out, and he, his name was Vibert Purviance—and so this is really kind of the Murphy-Purviance family, because my mom and dad, and my stepdad, lived out here for that length of time, and then they passed away. But, my dad would go over to my sister or my house, and get water from us, and put it in milk bottles and put it out here. He would go around with the tractor and he would water the trees individually by himself on the tractor. He had all these gallons of jugs on the back of it, and he watered all of them. At least once a month, they need to be watered really well, and since we hadn’t been getting much rain, he was out there watering them.


01-00:19:22 Farrell: Was the well dry because of the drought?

01-00:19:24 Heiser: Yes.

01-00:19:24 Farrell: Ah, I see, okay. And then, when we had talked on the phone, you had

mentioned that your grandfather came from a ranching family, and they had bulls and cattle. There were some events around the times when they would have to slaughter the cattle. Can you tell me a little bit about what your memories of those times were?

01-00:19:49 Heiser: Well, we had cattle, and every year, the family would get together. In fact, I

have pictures of it too. The family would get together, and everyone was really good as far as taking care of the cattle. Mostly the family was all horse and farm-type animals, cows and stuff, but when they shot the cow— they would find a cow and then they would shoot it—it would just be like right in the back—so that it would be something for all of them to eat. We all got the meat from that, and usually it was once a year, and it usually lasted a year. They would like, have to pull it up. We had a huge barn over here that blew down a few years ago, and so they would take it and hoist it up. All these guys were pulling the rope up, and the cow was had upside down, and they would have to bleed it.

01-00:20:54 So they would bleed it, and my grandmother, she, soon as she saw it bleeding,

she ran over there with this cup. I forgot to bring the cup. They ran over there with this metal cup, and she went and got some blood out of it. I was like, “Oh, oh!” I said, “Grandma, what are you doing?” She goes, “I’m going to drink this.” I’m like, “You’re going to drink that?” She goes, Yes,” and she goes, “Here, have some.” I was like, “Ah.” I don’t know if you’ve ever seen blood in the cup, but it’s very scary. I was like, “No!” She says, “It gives you good iron. You should drink some blood or eat meat that’s rare.” And to this day, I eat meat that’s rare. She was right, because you can feel it going into your body, how well the rare makes you feel. So anyway, but it was a very scary incident, and I didn’t drink the blood. [laughter]

01-00:21:52 Farrell: There was also a chopping block down in the basement, before the house was

built, is that right?

01-00:21:56 Heiser: That’s correct. They built that house, so they knew that they were going to

have to be chopping up the cattle and everything down there, and so they put it in there before the house was done. They made the basement first, so they knew where the basement was and everything. They made it so it was like the first door you go in when you come from the barn and everything, and my


grandfather has a big map of how to cut up the meat and everything. He has all the equipment down there too, so, and that butcher block was made. Somebody made it and I don’t know who made it, but one of the carpenters made it, probably my uncle Al. He lived in the trailer, which is down the ways. He lived in the trailer, and he was the main person who built the house. He knew how to do it all.

01-00:22:45 Farrell: He was the carpenter?

01-00:22:46 Heiser: Yes. Yeah, they were all, on my mom’s side, the men were carpenters. It was

really kind of neat to see it. I remember seeing it and I was scared to death that it was so deep. Now I look at it, and I was like, “Oh.” I used to think that the stairs—there were like four stairs over here and then my grandma had a thing over here—and I used to jump from here to there, and before they put up a railing. I was so scared, and my grandma goes, “You can do it. You can do it.” That goes in my mind a lot: “You can do it, Penny, you can do it.” So, that’s kind of been my solace in my whole life about, if you get scared about something, you’re just going to have to do it and face it, and you’ll get it done, and it usually happens.

01-00:23:32 Farrell: It’s a good life lesson.

01-00:23:34 Heiser: Yes, it is. It really is.

01-00:23:36 Farrell: One of the other things that you did when you were on the farm was to learn

how to milk the cows and take care of the chickens, and your grandfather taught you how to do that. Can you tell me about how you learned how to do that with him?

01-00:23:49 Heiser: Well, he always got up every morning—you’d hear him, every morning, put

his boots on and everything, and I finally said to him one day, I said, “Grandpa, can I go out and milk the cows?” He goes, “You have to get up early, early,” and I’m like, “Okay, okay, just wake me up and I’ll get up.” So, I got up and when he came down, I heard him coming down the hall. He didn’t put his boots on till he got—they had like a little place where you can get dressed and everything, and so I didn’t have any boots. I just put on my shoes and got dressed and everything, and went out with him, and he helped me, and he says, “Are you sure you’re ready to do this? You’re pretty little.” He gave me the pail—and I found the pail too, recently, when I was down in the basement. I was like, “Oh, no, here’s the pail”—and it was almost as big as me, and I was holding this pail up like this. So I was like, “Okay, Grandpa,” and I’m trying to keep up, but then he’s like walking really fast.


Anyway, so he took me in, and the cow was there. He says, “Now don’t stand behind the cow,” and I was like, “Okay, okay,” but unfortunately, the cow got like flies on it and it kept hitting me with its tail. Anyway, so Grandpa’s down there and he’s milking the cow, and he says, “Okay, it’s your turn.” Well one thing he did, was kind of funny, is that he took one of the udders and squirted me in the face. I forgot about that. He says, “Okay, it’s your turn,” and I was like, “Okay,” but I tried and I tried and I couldn’t. He says, “You can do it. You can do it,” and he said just to “squeeze and pull down,” and everything, and I couldn’t do it. I never got to do it. It just didn’t work for me. He said, “Sometimes a cow gets nervous when there’s different hands on them and stuff too,” which I thought was interesting. So, I guess it’s good to have the same thing. Now they have the milking machines, so they have the same thing on there, anyway, but the cow was really good. Didn’t kick me or anything. [laughs]

01-00:25:44 Farrell: And he had gotten you up at about 5:00 a.m., is that right?

01-00:25:47 Heiser: Five a.m.

01-00:25:48 Farrell: So it was still dark out?

01-00:25:48 Heiser: Yes, it was still dark out, so that was even scary too. I was trying to walk

behind him and keep up with him. Oh, they had a really mean dog. If you get even too close to him, he was like, [makes attacking dog sounds] like that. I was like, “Ah.” Scared me, but Grandpa was right there to save me. “Okay, okay, come over here. Don’t walk so close to the dog.” So, he was very protective, and we were his only little kids that he ever had around, so it was very special. I had a special bond.

01-00:26:22 Farrell: Did you go back and try to milk the cow other times?

01-00:26:26 Heiser: I went back, but I never actually tried to do it anymore. Mainly, I went and did

the eggs and the chickens, where the chickens were. Yeah, you went from the milking right into the chicken barn, and the chickens scared me to death, but after a while, he just said, “Just push them out of the way and they’ll leave you alone.” But when I first went in, they were not too sure of what I was. They’d never seen a little kid like this. Anyway, so the chickens went all over the place and my grandma says, “Just stick your arm in there and get them,” and you stick your arm in and all the chickens come after you, but I learned how to just get around them, shoo them away. He said, “Just shoo them away, and they’ll go away and you can grab the eggs.” So we got a whole thing of eggs that day, and fresh eggs are really the best. You can’t ever really think about, if you’ve never had fresh eggs, they’re the best.


01-00:27:23 Farrell: How many chickens did you have?

01-00:27:25 Heiser: Oh my goodness gracious. They had an incubator here, and I found that in the

basement when I was down there. In the incubator, my grandma would start the eggs off that were fertilized and then she would give some to us. We would raise them at home in a cardboard box with a light, and then we’d bring them out here, and we’d give them to my grandma. She just would love all these little chickens running around too, although they were about this big then, by the time we brought them out. They, unfortunately, had to be eaten because she had enough with the hen chickens. So they probably had maybe thirty-five, forty, so, they didn’t really need any more, but they just took the chickens in, because they had no place to keep them in town. Nowadays you can keep chickens in town, but we didn’t have—so we had to bring them out.

01-00:28:20 So they were all our pets, but then Grandma came out and put sacks over

them, gunnysacks, and caught them, and took them and broke their necks, and handed me a dead chicken, and she says, “Go pluck it.” We’re like, “Okay.” So all of us kids got our own little chicken to pluck, and my mom took one to pluck and stuff, because that was going to be our dinner that night, and we’re like, “Really, we’re going to eat these?” We went down by the creek, and we plucked, and then the creek just swept—the creek was much more, it was higher than it is now. It’s just like barely a creek. I don’t know where the water has gone, but then, it was pretty flowing, and the feathers would go down the river, but it was hard to pluck a chicken. Have you ever plucked a chicken? That was like, no fun. But anyway, so we did that, and then we went in, and had to take the chicken in to my grandmother. She was right there at the chopping block with one of those cleaver—cleaver, yeah, so she, right on her board and when we’re all sitting at the table with our eyes wide open. She’s like, cut, cut, cut, cut, and then she took the chicken and she cut the legs away from the thigh.

01-00:29:41 Well she cut her nose, okay, and we’re all like, “Oh no, Grandma, oh no.”

She’s like, “Eh, don’t worry about it.” So she leaves the room, and we’re like sitting there with all these chickens laying around. She comes back with the tape on her nose, not a Band-Aid, just tape, and she goes, “It’ll be fine.” I think she put it down this way, because it was just split like that. You know that it healed up perfect, and she never put any antibiotic ointment or anything on it. She just put tape on it, and it healed up. You would never tell that it happened, but she cut all the way down to the bone, because she missed everything she was like pulling. The chicken skin is really hard to cut, and so as she cut, it cut, but it went all the way through and got her nose. Anyway, that was my first experience ever eating chicken, especially one that you had to pluck yourself, but it was really good. She fried it and it was really good,


and it’s hard to eat, I have to say, at first, but then after you taste it, it’s like, “Oh, pretty good.”

01-00:30:42 Farrell: Yeah.

01-00:30:44 Heiser: She was a darling. She never cried. If she’d fall, she’d just get up—nothing. I

never saw her cry, and you know what? I don’t cry unless something really, really—like somebody dies or something, like my mom and my grandma. They taught us to be tough. It was good lessons though, I have to say. I have to say that my grandparents spent more time with me, like one on one, than my mom actually did, because there were four of us. But, Mom was really careful about making sure that we all got the same treatment, and my mom was strict too, but my grandma was much more strict, but we—

01-00:31:33 Farrell: Do you remember some of your grandmother’s rules that she had?

01-00:31:37 Heiser: Yeah, we had to go to bed like at seven o’clock. We had to go to bed, we had

to be quiet in the bedroom, and mainly, we had to do a lot of work around the ranch. She put us to work doing things: sweeping the kitchen or whatever, pulling some weeds. So I learned about weeds, and learned about ladders, and that’s like going up into the trees, and we did climb the trees a lot. A lot of times, kids don’t ever learn to climb a tree, but we climbed the trees and if we could get the almonds, we would get them. It was a really good learning experience and I think every child should be able to have that. My grandsons have been out here, and I taught them to hammer, to get rocks out of the way. Like in the road, sometimes, the big rocks will come up, and I showed them how to take a—what do you call it—a hammer and a like a screwdriver, mainly, and get the rocks up. They learned a lot out here too, and they learned to ride their bicycles out here, so, it’s been a really good experience for all the grandkids. I’m just sad that we don’t get to see all the grandkids come out here. We did have almost all of them out here one year and it was so great. The kids were so happy. It was just great.

01-00:33:03 Farrell: Did your grandfather have any rules, or have you do any chores?

01-00:33:07 Heiser: My grandfather, he let us do chores and he taught my sister how to ride a

horse. He was a very good horseman. He got medals in all kinds of stuff from that too. He had a palomino, a beautiful horse, and so Diane’s really into horses, my older sister. She actually taught horse riding and everything in this area, yeah.

01-00:33:31 Farrell: Did you keep, or did they keep horses on the property?


01-00:33:34 Heiser: They did. Yeah, in order to round up the cattle, they used the horses.

01-00:33:40 Farrell: Do you remember how many horses they had?

01-00:33:42 Heiser: Seems like they had four or five, and they had the bunkhouse where people

came when it was roundup time. They came and they would bring their horses too, and they’d put them in the corral too. So, yeah, and they stayed in the bunkhouse, but then it turned into like a junk thing. Everyone put all the stuff they had in there. My husband and I took it and we just made it into another bunkhouse, because we were working out here, my mom was living by here, with my sister, and my older sister was living at the other house. My husband and I kind of took over and we did all the ranching and keeping everything, but we had no cattle. We had really no animals we had to deal with, except for the peacocks. My mother had loved these peacocks. She fed them all the time, but then after she died, it’s like, he just went away. It was sad.

01-00:34:38 Farrell: It sounds like you restored the property, or the houses really well and tried to

keep them what they were as you remembered them.

01-00:34:46 Heiser: Yes, I have.

01-00:34:46 Farrell: That’s really special.

01-00:34:48 Heiser: Yeah, and the bunkhouse too, and everyone said, “That’s a piece of junk, just

let it fall down and everything.” I told my husband, I said, “This is really important to me because I remember in there with my grandpa and getting the horse saddles and stuff.” They kept the saddles there and they kept other stuff, and there is another place where they kept saddles and horse gear too, and where they made ropes and stuff, and that was in the tack house, which is on the other side of the tractor shed. But the tractor shed used to be, I think, the chicken house, because they never made anything extra for the tractor shed, but then the chickens were gone and we had the tractor there. They sold the tractor.

01-00:35:30 Farrell: It sounds like there were a lot of people that would come to the property at

different times of the year.

01-00:35:35 Heiser: Yes.

01-00:35:36 Farrell: Okay, so there was a big community that would gather?


01-00:35:38 Heiser: It was a big community, and people were constantly coming to see my

grandma. She was very well known and she was part of the Masonic lo—no, Rebekahs? I’m not sure.

01-00:35:51 Farrell: We can always add that in later.

01-00:35:52 Heiser: I’ll have to look, yeah.

01-00:35:53 Farrell: That’s fine, that’s no problem. You spent a lot of time at your grandparents’

house. What it was like to be in that house?

01-00:36:09 Heiser: Well, I have to say that us kids just kind of had to share beds and everything

before we came out here, but it was like being in a palace. I’d never seen a house that big, nor had I ever seen a basement. So, it was just, we had our own room, which, we had never had our own room. We had, all three of us had to share, but this one, we had these beds that were brown, and they were high. They had homemade blankets on it. We had a window that we could look out, and it was a lot of fun to have your own room. So, my sister and I enjoyed that a lot, and I have to say that the house was beautiful. My grandma just kept it in beautiful shape. She designed the whole house in which she wanted a porch that she could go and sit out on, and she’d never had a house like that. It was like a mansion to all of us, and us kids were just like, “Oh, two bathrooms, oh my goodness.” She had all this storage and all these things, and every room had a bed in it and stuff. We were like we’d gone to heaven, so it was so much fun and we were always happy to come out and see her.

01-00:37:36 Farrell: Another part of the ranch were the orchards, which you had kind of talked

about, and learning to climb a tree and getting the almonds, so you had a big almond orchard. Can you tell me what your memories of that, when you were little, are?

01-00:37:50 Heiser: Well, when we all went out and we would do like the trees around the houses,

and so we would do those personally. I think it was Diamond Ranch that we had like a contract with, and they would come out once a year.

01-00:38:10 Farrell: Blue Diamond?

01-00:38:11 Heiser: Blue Diamond, yes, I’m sorry. They came out and they would like hire people

to come out, but they always had to put down these big tarps, really, really, really big tarps. They’d put them all around the tree, and then you have this big thing like this that is like really, really hard. You hit and hit the trees, hit


the trees, so us kids tried to do it but we couldn’t even lift those things. But the adults, they could hit them really good, so all the almonds came down. It was like a festival. Everybody was out there and they were all picking up these almonds, because they didn’t have the shakers they have now, and so all the almonds were just all over the ground. We would all go in, and then you had to shuck them, had to take the outside shells off, and then you had to bring them down to the bottom part. It was just so hard on your hands.

So my grandma, I’d look at my grandma, and we all sat out here before, many years ago when this house was first new, and we all sat out here. We would shuck them, and my grandma’s hands would turn black. You couldn’t wear gloves with it because you had to use your fingernails to pull them apart like that, so all of our hands are black. It stayed black for a while too, yeah, but they were really good. You could eat fresh almonds, and it was really good. She baked with them and made all kinds of different things and stuff. It was a wonderful experience, and being able to go and climb the trees and get up in the trees like that over there. It’s like, “Oh, let’s get up in the middle of the tree and stand up there, and get up as high as we can and stuff.” Grandpa made a swing for us with one of the eucalyptus trees with, was a tire, and so we had that. It was like free, and you didn’t have any stress, and there wasn’t anything that you had to worry about. All you worried about was getting the almonds out. So it was really interesting, so I have to say that, for years and years and years, we did that. It’s almost like—I don’t know how to say it—it helped you get a sense of yourself and an accomplishment. You would do that and you’d go, “I have more than you do, you have more than I do,” or whatever.

01-00:40:42 Farrell: It’s really satisfying.

01-00:40:43 Heiser: It’s very satisfying, and the bigger the pile you got, the better it felt, so, I got

the most. [laughter]

01-00:40:53 Farrell: Do you have a sense of how many acres the almond orchards were?

01-00:40:57 Heiser: The almond orchard, it’s ten acres. I think it was twenty acres, because I think

there’s ten down there and there’s ten up here. So yeah, it’s just on the flat areas.

01-00:41:13 Farrell: Okay. So your grandfather would kind of manage the orchards, and then Blue

Diamond would come in, just during harvest time?

01-00:41:20 Heiser: Just during harvest time. They’d come like once a year, so usually in

September, and it’s always beautiful weather in September. Now it’s getting


really hot though, in September, but now this is November, this is more like September used to be.

01-00:41:37 Farrell: Were there any other employees that your grandfather had, or that your

grandmother had later, that would manage the orchard, or it was just all kind of in the—?

01-00:41:48 Heiser: My uncle kind of took over. They brought him out to the ranch so that when

my grandfather got older, that he could help out with just doing the ranching part. He would do that, and keep them up. I don’t know if you’ve ever gone out and pruned an almond tree, but they bite you. The flowers come out, and then the flowers go away, and they leave like these little bud things on there. When you go out and you’re trying to trim them and everything, they will hang onto you, they will grab onto you. It’s like a wicked forest sometimes, because I’ve had them scratch my face when I was on the tractor going through, and see a branch and I’m like, “Oh,” and it caught my hat one time because I was wearing a hat, it was so hot. Caught my hat, pulled my neck back. I thought, oh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have been wearing a hat because it caught my hat. This was one of the branches, and I didn’t think it would ever do that, but it caught me and I had ring around my neck for a while. You need to know how to work with them, that’s all I can say, and you have to know how to stay away from them. So anyway, even people with their cars, sometimes gets their cars scratched from them. They’re just mean. [laughs]

01-00:43:16 Farrell: Let’s see. Since we’re in more of a rural area, there is more wildlife, like

coyotes, who would eat the chickens, and there were bobcats and deers and ground squirrels who would eat the almonds. Can you tell me about some of your memories of the different wildlife that would come onto the property?

01-00:43:41 Heiser: When I was younger, first of all, my grandfather, he would hear the dog

barking. We’d hear all the chickens going crazy, and we’re like, “Oh, what’s going on?” We hear Grandpa going nah, nah, down this hall, and he gets his gun. You can hear him cocking the gun and everything, and he runs out there. He shot, but I don’t know if he ever got a coyote, but usually they would go away and not come back. The coyotes were the worst when I was a little kid. They were scary because you could hear—I don’t know whether it was the coyotes or whether it was wolves or what, but you can hear them doing their woo thing. That was scary, because it’s pitch black out there. When you’re a kid, that’s scary to hear that. But Grandpa, any time he’d hear that, he’d go out there and check on the chickens. He always kept them alive, but he’d just like shoot, and the dog usually kept them away too.

The other thing is, recently, since the park has taken over, we’ve had more squirrels than ever, we’ve had more snakes than ever, and we’ve had the


bobcats too, and the turkeys. I mean, it’s taken over everything, but, the bobcats were are the cutest. They look like little kitties. When we saw the babies, we’re like, “Ah, look it, it’s a kitty,” and then we look out and here’s the mother coming by. They’ve got these tails like rabbits, with like little fuzzy tails on the back of them, yeah, and I was like, “What is that?” I wasn’t sure what it was. We looked it up and it was bobcats. They stay away from people, but if you go towards them, they give you that [hisses]. Anyway, but they’ve been around. They come around every evening, so you’ve got to be careful.

01-00:45:42 I was out working on the backyard, because the squirrels dug up all the dirt

out there, and I was out there sweeping it off and everything, and a bobcat walks right across. I was like, “Hello,” and he just ignored me, thank God. But, they don’t hurt people at all. But it’s a really interesting—especially the kids, when they saw the squirrels and the rabbits, they were just in heaven, because they could chase the rabbits around and rabbits, they could never catch. They are so fast. They are the cutest things too, and especially when they had the babies. They’re just really cute, too.

01-00:46:22 Farrell: They’re tiny. Actually, when I was pulling in, I saw a rabbit sitting there. It’s

very rare that I see a wild rabbit. But yeah, they’re tiny.

01-00:46:30 Heiser: Yeah, and their little cottontails are so cute. and then, the squirrels, they’ve

taken over the whole place. They’ve taken over all the almonds. They eat all the almonds before—like that tree right there, they came when the park district came by, they just went up there and they ate all of the almonds. They were all like having a party down below, and I was like, “What is going on?” I guess that’s why Mom put the window here, so she could watch them, but they go up and they eat the whole thing, and then they come back down and their cheeks are way out like that. and then they go away, and then they go and do another tree. We haven’t been able to harvest anything for a while.

01-00:47:15 Farrell: You had mentioned that you think that they’re taking the almonds before

they’re ripe, and letting them ripen underground, so they’re green almonds when they’re taking them off the trees.

01-00:47:26 Heiser: We never get a chance to even get them to the point where they actually—

they’re supposed to like pop, and they have the shells on the outside. They take them before they’re still green, they haven’t even gotten the outer shell on them, yeah, and they eat them all, all during the year. So, this has been heaven to them.


01-00:47:47 Farrell: Do you have a sense of how that was managed before, like how your

grandfather and then how your uncle were able to keep them away?

01-00:47:56 Heiser: My grandfather was an excellent shot, and so was my uncle.

01-00:48:00 Farrell: So they would just shoot at the squirrels?

01-00:48:02 Heiser: They shot the squirrels, yeah. They shot the squirrels, and then, the coyotes

would come and eat the squirrels.

01-00:48:11 Farrell: Got it, okay, and that probably also kept the coyotes from eating the chickens,

too.

01-00:48:16 Heiser: Yes, yeah, probably. Later on, they invented these smoke bombs. I don’t

know what was in—oh, look it, we’ve got a hummingbird up there. My mom always fed them, but I don’t have any of the juice left. Ah. Anyway, so, as far as the squirrels, they’d started these smoke bombs. You put a smoke bomb in, and we even taught the younger kids how to do it, right? You have to light them and put them in the hole, and then you wait for the smoke to come up, and sometimes it’ll come up in like five or six different places. We’d send the kids over. “Okay, go put dirt in all of these holes,” and I’m sure there’s a network under there that is like the biggest city of San Francisco, okay. I’m sure that they’re all having fun under there. But anyway, so we quit doing that because I just thought of it as inhumane, because that’s getting them where they live. We just quit using them. My husband, when he came on, we tried to keep them under control, but there’s so many coming over from this plot over here, and over here in the hills, they’re all coming down. This is like where they come to feed, and the kids all love watching them because they’re just hilarious, the way they jump around and everything. Especially when they have babies, they all follow them. It’s really fun.

01-00:49:48 Farrell: Do you remember what year your grandfather passed away in?

01-00:50:02 Heiser: I was in Germany. I was pregnant with Paul. It had to be in ’72, May of ’72.

01-00:50:10 Farrell: Okay. What happened with the ranch then in the ‘70s?

01-00:50:15 Heiser: What happened is that my grandmother built this house, and so my mom and

dad moved out here to take care of her. My uncle, in the trailer, passed away, and then my grandmother passed away, so then the house was left to my mom


and dad, and the property. They took care of it, but then, when it came down to it, my grandmother got ill and moved in with my mom and dad at 302—that’s why she built them the house, so that they could move in here, and take care of her also. Finally, my mom moved my grandma over to her house at 302, and took care of her over here.

01-00:50:53 Farrell: When did she pass away?

01-00:50:55 Heiser: My grandmother passed away in ’83.

01-00:50:58 Farrell: Okay. After both your grandfather and your grandmother passed away, did

your parents continue to contract with Blue Diamond?

01-00:51:12 Heiser: I can’t answer that because I’m not quite sure. I was gone in Germany for a

while, and then when we came back, we lived in Fremont, so, I didn’t get out here because I had a small child and I was working, and so was my husband. So, I didn’t get out here as much as I would have liked to.

01-00:51:31 Farrell: Can you tell me a little bit about why you decided to sell the ranch to the

district, or what prompted the sale in the first place?

01-00:51:43 Heiser: These little kids right here. They’re grandkids. They are what our future is,

and they need to know about this, and I think that is so important for all kids to know what it’s like to live out someplace different than in the cities. I’m just hoping that the park would have something for the kids to see that they can enjoy, that they can laugh about, that they can have fun, without having any stresses of being like in the city, because I have to say, bringing my grandkids out here has been probably one of the most memorial—what’s the word—one of their favorite memories. They think about it all the time, and I just saw them a couple of days ago on FaceTime is wonderful, but seeing them in person is so much better, and working with them.

They helped me move rocks over that were in the way in the roads. They helped me dig them up. They helped me chop down the weeds. They helped me. They learned how to do everything. The little one had this big cutter like this, and he was helping me cut the weeds and my daughter says, “He can’t be cutting the weeds.” I go, “He’s four years old. He can cut the weeds that came up,” and he’d just get them at the bottom. They learned how to do all of these things, and none of them had ever even held a chopper, like that. Trying to think what they call them, but I can’t remember.


01-00:53:20 Anyway, they learned a lot of things. We cut this one tree over, at my sister

living in that house, which was my grandmas, and we’d get—what kind of tree was it? Oh, it’s an olive tree. They have two olive trees back there, and they were full of—just all these bottom ones had like all these bottom suckers, and they actually kill the tree if you have that many on there. So, I said, “We need to cut them away.” I had the kids all helping me cut them away. We cut them away, and pretty soon, one of the kids said to me, he goes, “There’s a ladder here.” I’m like, “Where?” The ladder had been there so long that it actually had grown into the tree. It’s still there. The kids decided that they were going to cut it away so that they could get up that ladder, and so that, they did. They actually got up on the ladder, and the one was six years old, and he was up there cutting it, and I’m like, “Don’t fall off the ladder.” They go, “Oh, no, I’m going to cut away,” because it actually had grown up around the rungs.

01-00:54:31 They cut away all the rungs and everything, and they got up to the very top of

the ladder. It was high, higher than this room, and I’m like, “What happened to Ethan? Where’s Ethan?” because I was watching the kids. I’m like, “Where’s Ethan?” They go, “I don’t know.” We’re all looking around and everything, and he was sitting up there watching us looking around for him. Finally, he goes, “I’m up here.” We’re like, “Where are you?” He’d gotten up to the top by cutting it away to get up to the top, and he goes, “I’m on top of the world.” [laughs] We’re like, “You are on top of the world.” All the rest of the kids—there’s three of them—they all ran up the ladder too.

I got so many pictures. It was really cute, but to find something like that and to see it—and then the oldest one, he’s the strong one. He was nine, and he’s like, “Oh, I’m going to cut this weed.” It was like a root really, and I said, “I don’t think you’re going to be able to cut that.” He goes, “Oh,” he says, “I can get it out of here.” He’s like chopping, chopping, chopping with the cutter, and he couldn’t get it and everything, and then he decides to pull it. “Oh, I’ll just pull it out,” and he’s pulling it, pulling it. He says, “You know what? I’m going to ask Dad to get the saw.” He went and got the saw and they got it out, but they did a great job. Learning all of that, they had so much fun they couldn’t quit talking about it. And then my husband took them around. We had a Bronco, and the Bronco, the back comes off, and so you let them ride in the back. They didn’t have to have seatbelts on or anything, and he just took them around through the trees and everything, and they had so much fun. We sold that, but they just had so much fun.

01-00:56:20 We had a lot of fun with them, and then we got them all on the tractor. I have

pictures of all of them on the tractor. Grandpa is—my husband—is holding them all on there, and one was in the front trying to drive and stuff. Things that you don’t see in the cities, and so I think it’s important that the kids get a chance to do that. That’s kind of what I think is going to happen, at least I


hope so. That’s why I wanted the park to have it. If somebody individually had this place, people wouldn’t get that chance to come out and enjoy it.

01-00:56:57 Farrell: Yeah.

01-00:56:57 Heiser: I hope they turn it into like a place where people maybe can camp, or

whatever, I don’t know, but so the kids can go down to the creek and step on rocks to go across from one side to the other. We, as kids, did that all the time. In fact, my children went out and it gets this moss on it, like later on in the year, and the kids went down there, and they decided they were going to throw this moss at each other. I have to tell you, it was the most hysterical thing ever. They were throwing it back and forth and we’re like, “Ah,” but now it’s like green, so it doesn’t look like it would be fun to have, but it’s fun to be by your creek. It really is. The creek is so pretty.

01-00:57:43 Farrell: When does the district officially take over the property?

01-00:57:47 Heiser: December 2.

01-00:57:48 Farrell: Okay. How long did the process of the sale take?

01-00:57:54 Heiser: It’s still going on.

01-00:57:55 Farrell: Okay. When did it start?

01-00:57:58 Heiser: Well they already started the escrow, okay, so that was done on October 8, I

think.

01-00:58:03 Farrell: Sorry, I guess maybe the better question is, what year did you decide to sell

the property?

01-00:58:10 Heiser: It’s kind of a hard story. We didn’t really want to sell it. My mom left it to my

husband and I because she knew we were going to be taking care of it. We’re supposed to let my sisters live in the other house, and we were going to take care of them, and they decided that—can I quit for just a second?

01-00:58:29 Farrell: Absolutely, yeah.

[break in audio]


01-00:58:31 Farrell: Okay, we’re back. Can you tell me a little bit about the stone house?

01-00:58:37 Heiser: The stone house, I have a lot of interesting stories about it. When we first

came out here, they didn’t have bathrooms and stuff, and so, we had to go in an outhouse, which is a scary experience. But when you walked out to the outhouse, you saw this stone house over across the river, okay, the creek, really. Us kids went over and we’re exploring and everything, and it was a little scary over there, but there was like some big bottles, like maybe people were drinking out of or whatever. We don’t know what was actually going on, but I went back, and we went back and asked my grandmother, “What was the stone house used for? For her purposes, it was a smokehouse. They actually used it to smoke the beef so they would have beef jerky. Now, I’ve heard also stories, from like people from the Marsh House, saying that they came out here and did bootlegging of alcohol, and that at one time, it blew up. Well, I still saw the roof on it, but it was like it had burned at one time.

01-01:00:00 So, we’re not really sure if it was bootlegging or what, but later on, people

went out there and started partying and things like that. But now what’s happened since the park took over is that, it’s like the picture: beautiful. Everybody goes out and takes pictures, but then some people go out and they take the stones off and start putting them in the creek, so that they can walk across the creek. Now it’s kind of like the photographers came in droves, but now they put a “do not enter” or whatever sign on it, which kind of makes me sad because that was so beautiful to see the photographers coming out and taking all these pictures, and they were really cute pictures. I took pictures myself of our family out there, and this is right close to it too. The stone house is just past over here, and so all the kids see it.

You can see where the cattle ran. We still have cattle out there. There was a lease on the land, and so that guy comes out and we have cattle. The cattle come up right here, and the kids all see the cattle, and they’ll come right up to them, so cute. They let them run wild, and you can actually walk up there on the park—they made like an asphalt trail that goes all the way through, and the cattle are right there with the people walking. Sometimes people let their dogs go and the cattle go crazy. But anyway, the stone house has been there since before the houses were built out here.

01-01:01:40 Farrell: Oh, wow.

01-01:01:41 Heiser: Yeah, so, we don’t really know the true story, but someone said that it was

bootlegging in the times when they had—

01-01:01:50 Farrell: Prohibition.


01-01:01:50 Heiser: —Prohibition, yeah, thanks.

01-01:01:52 Farrell: That’s interesting.

01-01:01:52 Heiser: Yeah, and that’s probably how it got burned, is because they were using it for

smoking the meat, making beef jerky, then that lasts forever.

01-01:02:07 Farrell: Yeah, it does. It’s a great way of preserving things, make a cow last for the

whole year.

01-01:02:12 Heiser: Yeah, but in the meantime, us kids played over there a lot. When we came

here, all the kids would go over there. Then when we had kids, all the kids went over there. I’d like to be able to preserve that so that the kids can go over there and people, the families, can take pictures and stuff of it. By having somebody out here all the time, probably, they would be able to do that, to keep an eye on it. When we were in the bunkhouse, we made that so that we could see out, and it was fun to watch all the photographers and stuff coming over there. So, I’d like to see that preserved for the kids. I’d hate to see any of like, the tractor shed torn down, or the tack shed, or the bunkhouse. It would be fun for the kids, but the thing is that nowadays, there’s all the safety concerns. That’s the biggest problem, I think.

01-01:03:08 Farrell: One thing that you’ve done is, you’ve kind of turned the basement into a little

bit of a museum. Can you tell me about how you did that?

01-01:03:17 Heiser: Took a month to do it, to get all the—well we wanted to make sure, because

all the stuff that had been put down there was all from all the things—my grandmother washed out every jar, saved every jar that they ever used, saved every piece of paper, saved all the stuff in the basement, and it was full. And so, going through it, Barbara came out and I said, “I don’t know what we should keep and what we should give away and everything.” She told me that anything fifty years or older, that she would like to save that, so that would be part of the history. All the little things that I found, like a little iron that they used to do the sleeves with—and I found my grandmother’s old ironing table, I guess you’d call it.

01-01:04:09 Farrell: Like ironing board?

01-01:04:10 Heiser: Ironing board, yeah, and oh my goodness gracious, it’s made out of wood, and

all this other stuff, so it’s the interesting things. The bunch of different baskets that they had, and a horse that’s made out of paper-mache, I don’t know, very


interesting things people are like, “Well what is this?” and “Oh, that was used for this and that.” I just decided to display the things that I saw down there that I really thought were really interesting, and even the beds. We just had some people come out and take a bunch of stuff away that was not useful and everything, and when they went down in the basement, they were just in awe. They were like, “I’ve never seen anything like the beds.” They’ve never seen anything like that, and they’ve never seen like the cutting machine that my grandfather uses and the big cutting board that’s down there, and all the sharp tools and stuff.

It’s really cute, and I think that Barbara will finish it up. I put stuff away, and there’s some old furniture. My grandfather’s mother, she used to live in Brentwood, and when she passed away, he brought all the furniture and everything, put it down in the basement. We’ve got a lot of interesting furniture and stuff down there, and things that kids nowadays, they don’t even know what this stuff is, like an old waffle thing, and toasters, and things that they’re like, “Oh, what’s this for?” So, it’s been fun.

01-01:05:49 Farrell: There’s some discussion of making that a museum now, is that right?

01-01:05:53 Heiser: I’m not sure. She did talk about maybe that house might be a museum. I’d like

to see that, and I have a lot of furniture that my mom gave me and my grandma gave me in my house, and I would like to put some of that, if that’s what they’re going to do, into that house so it would be more original.

01-01:06:17 Farrell: How do you hope that the memory of your family lives on with this place and

with the park district?

01-01:06:27 Heiser: It’s hard to say. I want it to live in the memory of other children. I want to be

able to share and let them have the feeling of nothing’s going to bother them, nothing’s going to scare them. But if they are, that they’re going to learn how to handle it, and learn something different about life rather than video games and things like that, and I don’t know, Minecraft and all this other stuff, that there are real things out in life. That’s what my grandchildren have learned too, and they’re just like, “We’ve never seen anything like this, and never done anything like that.” They didn’t know how to use a hammer. They didn’t know how to use the screwdriver—it’s very interesting—and how to walk up a ladder. You make sure you lean in, that you don’t lean backwards, you know, and use different implements. I think that’s important. Maybe even have like classes, or things that they could learn and to look at: the Indian things and stuff that are around here.

So hopefully, that’ll work. I have to say that they, my sisters and brothers, wanted to have a little bit more money than what we got, and I said, “You


know what?” I said, “What we’ve got is something that we’re going to have forever, and it’s the memories here, so, that’s part of it, and in the kids, it’ll go on, and the Murphy Ranch will live on.”

01-01:08:01 Farrell: Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

01-01:08:08 Heiser: That the memories here will always be in my heart, and I’m glad that the park

district has bought it so that it can live on. Even if they tear down the houses, even if they tear down everything else, the property will still be here, and it’s going to be a park, so that’s what I’m looking forward to. I couldn’t see it being a garbage dump.

Oh, the meadow, that’s what I wanted to say, is that, the park district has put trails; if you go around the other way where you go over the—what’d they call it? There’s a bridge over there, and you go around the back way, and you’ll go into a meadow. Go into it in the spring. It will take your breath away. You’ve never seen so many wildflowers in your life. It all blooms and has hills all the way around it. All the inside of it, it’s all blooming, and you walk along the creek as you go out there, and you see all these animals and stuff running around and stuff. I have to say that, when my grandfather took me back there on the buckboard—it’s a buckboard around here some place. I think it’s down against, over here—and he took us down in the buckboard, and we were just in awe. We’d never seen anything like that, where it was all hills around it, nothing there, nothing built there or anything, and all these flowers were coming up, and it’s so pretty.

That’s my favorite, during the spring. I haven’t been able to get back there recently because I’ve been working out here, but I’m going to plan to do that as soon as it’s springtime. That’s when my mom passed away, was in springtime, on March 17, Saint Patrick’s Day, and so I’m going to promise to be out there.

01-01:10:10 Farrell: Well that’s a great way to preserve her memory and think about the farm as

well, or the ranch and everything.

01-01:10:16 Heiser: Yes.

01-01:10:17 Farrell: Well, thank you so much for your time. This has been really wonderful. Thank

you.

01-01:10:21 Heiser: Thank you so much.

[End of Interview]

Documents

Oral History Center University of California The Bancroft ...€¦ · Penny Heiser, “Penny Heiser: East Bay Park District Parkland Oral History Project” conducted by Shanna Farrell