I sat down last evening while the celebration was in full pursuit and scratched off a few things I could recall of Palmdale after we arrived here. I hope I didn't put-in too much family history and the cold reception we received. If my letter doesn't fit your purpose, just discard the whole thing.

    Vickie is a friend and urged me to send it in long hand and promised she and her helper could type it up; which I intended to do, but I will mail it as she suggested for it would be an effort for me to type it.

Sincerely,
Monnie Bunch

    I have been asked to write about Palmdale as I first saw it in 1936. I feel I must tell a little of our family life and why we decided to come to Palmdale. As everyone knows about the depression, I will not go into details about that; but, we did lose a 105 acre farm in Arkansas with a six room house, a barn, a well, and fences, that I had managed 7 1/2 years while my husband ran a large road grader for the county. All these years were drouth years. In July 1933 the county judge told his road workers the county was broke and the road work had to stop. When Charlie cashed his Script, he received 20% on the dollar for it. We owed $1000 on our home and could not pay the interest so were going to be foreclosed. Charlie told the mortgage holder if he would give us $300 we would give possession in a week otherwise we would stay there until we were foreclosed. When he learned it would cost $300 to foreclose, he gladly paid off.

    My brother had a ranch near Vinita Oklahoma he had purchased for a city raised son to manage. My brother was a road master on the Frisco R.R. from Tulsa to Monette Missouri. The son had thrown up hands and left the farm, stock and all. We went there to crop on 1/2 of the gross income. We did well that first spring; wheat and oats were harvested. Frank came out for a day or so, and died of a heart attack. Next there was an auction sale of his personal property and we bid in the most needed animals and tools to continue the farm work. The next spring was a wonderful season; wheat and oats harvested, corn well cultivated (it was head high, in silk and tassel). We were ready to start mowing the hay, when we noticed early that morning, a dark cloud coming in. It wasn't rain, it was grasshoppers. By the second day, our lovely corn was just stubs of stalks and the hay had vanished. We had an auction sale and thank goodness the depression was in the past far enough that prices had raised enough for us to pay our debts and the next question was: Where do we go from here?

    Charlie was smart but light minded at times. So he played a game with the children to decide where to go. He wrote Calif., Oregon and Wash. on slips of paper folded them, shook them up and had the youngest girl draw them from the hat. California was first then he said "see where we go next" so that was Oregon, then Wash. Palmdale is where we landed, with $350 in our purse.

    Arriving on Cajon Pass with one son with a high temperature from malaria sitting by his father in the front seat of a model A Ford. He was told to ask at the filling station which was the best road to take to Palmdale, when he got back in the car his father took off and said now, which way do I go? The boy said, "Well one is desert and is the best way to go, but I don't remember which way it is." Naturally, we took the straightest looking road and soon found ouselves climbing the mountains with a heating Ford. Finally, topping the mountains, we could see all the lights of Mojave, Lancaster, Palmdale, Palmdale Air Port and all the turkey and chicken ranches in the Valley.

    Entering Palmdale Blvd. which was a short turn on 138 from Littlerock, we had our first flat, changed wheels and drove on looking for a motel as it was 9 p.m. and the first day of Sept. 1936. We crossed Sierra Hwy. and found ourselves at 6th St. and out of electric lights. We went~to R. and back to Sierra Hwy. We came to the White Spot and the Safeway store, a drug store, P.O., a little grocery store, pool hall,liquor store, and Jim's Cafe (now The Cook Nook) where Charlie went in to inquire for a motel. There was a boy in there we knew and he said that the Hambelens were looking for us, so we went back to their home where the Standard Chevron Station is on Palmdale Blvd. and 10th St. East.

    We rented a furnished house the next morning on the corner of the parking lot across from Ritters. Within the week Charlie got a job on the Morrison Dairy Ranch, West of Lancaster, turning desert land with a very large tractor. He finished the job on Dec. 23.

    I must stop here and say we were not welcomed by the Californians, for many like us were ahead of us and we all made a crummy looking mess for we were all hard hit. On every corner or turn we could hear "Arkies" and "Oakies" by the oldtimers and this didn't make us feel very happy. One thing I did notice was that they liked to hire us at low wages; but that wasn't too hard to settle for because we'd rather do that then to go on relief. One old timer was heard to say, "We had to fight to take this land from the Indians and the damned "Arkies" took it without firing a gun."

    We had to vacate the shack at the Morrison Dairy. The only empty house we could find was out near Roosevelt a two room with a double garage, so we made the garage into bedrooms. The house was a kitchen, dining room and living room. Charlie and a Texas man took a contract to build a house in Oil Dale for a man living in Lancaster who was being transfered to a market in Bakersfield. When that was finished, Charlie built a pump house East of Palmdale, then got a job irrigating some alfalfa land east of the old Casa Del Adobe, which was the leading hotel or tourist resort here. There was also the Palmdale Inn and Pearland Hotel. The only place we could find to rent was the shack at the back of Mason Whitehead's home. We were there less than a week when the funny little house across the street from Ritters where the Brake shop now stands was vacant and we got it. This is where we lived for 14 years. It was an old saloon that had been moved there from old Palmenthal (old Palmdale settlement around 30th St. East and Ave. R.). A Mrs. Moore was the owner and asked me if I would like to know the history of it. A man had been killed in the gambling room. They had bought and moved it over for some Railroad workers to batch in, later a son had married and they built a lean-to kitchen and bath at the back when they had their first baby, they built a lean-to on the north and later they built a screen porch on the old style store front of the building. Mrs. Moore said they were invited out to dinner with some German friends at Juniper Hills who had purchased some Kentucky thorough bred stock. After dinner the elderly gentlemen took them to the barn to show his stock. In explaining to them how he had enlarged his barn, he said, "I built a Hell over here and a Hell over there and a cupola on top." (Excuse the language, he didn't speak English well.) Mrs. Moore told her husband that was the way they had done that little house. The following winter after we returned to Palmdale, the Los Angeles Crest highway was opened with a big Ribbon Cutting with the greats from L.A. and all over, to praise the one man who had walked with a pack on his back and camped out two nights and figured out that it would be possible to make that road. He had also been instrumental in getting the Little Rock Dam and the water district, had worked W.P.A. hands through the depression, and got the air strip here where the large planes could land when fogged in at L.A. and buses would come up and haul them down.

    The whole group in Palmdale was like one big family. Rose Mary McAndrews (I think was born here) sat in our living room with my youngest daughter Myrtle and while she started at the first house above Death Curve, gave the families sur names and given names of each one in the family while Myrtle wrote them down ending at the last house in what they called Mexican town. They had 150 people living in Palmdale at this time. Two houses were on the corner of 10th St. E. & Q-ll. They were called the Edison houses where the Edison Co. was first located. There was an old dying Pear orchard from Q -11 to the Earl Carter property which was mostly in a peach orchard. There was Earls home and the Curtis' home and the one south of Earl. On the other side of 10th from R. to the Maryott school was all desert. The Little Leaguers played baseball by the school grounds.

    There came into view some few 'people who wanted to take over and the big family didn't want to be bothered but a lot of talk that the water district wasn't run properly. There was a disagreement between farm irrigators and domestic users and when a woman came along to further the mess, the head of the District was asked to resign, and he did. After a 20 day law suit (which I attended) was finished, they sent a man up for faulty book keeping. Then the new head of the District sold the Air Port for $33 thousand while the first manager had asked one million for it. About one month later, there was a big write-up in the L.A. Times that the Air Port had been bought for $33 thousand and was worth one and a half million dollars.

    Then on Dec. 7th, 1941, Pearl Harbor and the whole U.S. was in a turmoil. The government saw it fit to take over the Palmdale Air Port. They made a temporary base here. The soldiers'wives came, the poor women wanted to be close and with their husbands. The same old story: no houses for them, so every nook,store, rooms, and garage that could be fixed up was soon filled up with soldiers wives. Soon Dr. Snook's little hospital was filled and over flowing with soldiers wives and babies. That little Dr. and staff were worked almost unbearably. Some builders saw the need of homes so several small places were started, then Desert View Highlands and the town has been growing ever since.

    May 1, 1950 we moved into our home here on 10th st. E. at that time the Courson Park was being developed by sowing grass and setting trees. Then the little center building and later the pool was developed.

    The County Library was built by the Palmdale Woman's Club and was sold to the county. As also was the present recreation building for the Courson Park.

    With the burdens of a growing family and experiencing bank ruptcy and feeling the unwelcomness in our new location, I was very careful of the approaches I made and never joined any groups until invited in by some old timer. I did keep my children in the one little elementry Sunday School and Church. Myrtle attended school here and finished the 8th grade that year and then finished high school in Lancaster which was the only one in the Valley. The bus mileage for the high school was 1500 miles a day; the longest route was to Grapevine over the mountains, past Gorman. If I went into details to tell all the changes I've seen in Palmdale and this Valley since I came, it would make a book, so I will hush by saying, I have never tried to put my self forward to be a leader here in Palmdale but recently I visited the little old Palmdale Cemetery where I have interests. Sitting there and looking it over I decided with the help of the unseen master and a committee to help me, I would make every effort to make it look like a cemetery should. The doners have been wonderful. An interest has developed as I had hoped it would. Now the fence is up, a new circle drive is promised and I hope to put white crosses at all the unmarked graves and stop the car traffic out through the graves. It's amazing when you start a project like this, of all the different suggestions one gets, but I think my plan is going to work, for I have been contacted by a county man and if, and when it comes up for a vote, the people of Palmdale can either kill or cure my efforts by the way they vote. I hope that they will vote for it to be made County maintained as the small one in Lancaster is .


I remain with a determined mind
Monnie D. Bunch