THE REALS

                                        The Family


          Mary Smith was a prolific gardener. She had a unique talent for finding just the right flowers and vegetables for every season. Her garden always had something blooming in it year round.

    She also felt that if flowers didn’t have a delicious fragrance they weren’t living up to their full potential. She felt the same about women. Mary believed they should have beauty as well as a beautiful essence. She made no bones about the fact that she loved anything that smelled good and hated anything that didn’t. Mary often came home from church muttering about how bad the Holiness women smelled.

         “No wonder their husbands leave them. They smell worse than the compost out back.” And then she would end with,

         “God never sent anyone to hell for using a little bit of talcum powder.”

      With that statement she would unbutton her heavy wool church dress sleeves and roll them up.  She would loosen the tight black collar around her neck. Then she would reach under her dress and pull off her cumbersome petticoats and toss them on a chair.

Mary would then unlace her high top shoes and kick them in the closet. Next she would pull off her thick black nylons and toss them over the closest chair. She would wiggle every toe one at a time to make sure they were still breathing.

In one fluid motion Mary would bend over, grab the back of her dress hem, pull it up through her legs and tuck the hem into her belt, instantly creating herself a pair of pants.

         “There,” she would huff. 

         “I’ll be outside in my garden if anyone wants me!”

    Mary would then slip on her husband’s boots and off she would trot to the garden. This was a ritual that Mary repeated every Sunday.  It was a wonder that she went to church at all. She had an amazing love for God and she often said,

         "Nobody has more trouble than people."

    Yes, Mary Smith would put up with almost anything just to spend time in God’s presence. She was indeed a round, beautiful, independent piece of womanhood.  If God was in charge of heavenly fashion, Mary Smith was a fine example of what the Good Lord had intended women to be.

      Mary and Bayless Smith had tried for several years to have children but over the years Mary had suffered three heartbreaking miscarriages.

    In their backyard was a beautiful garden, a garden where Mary and Bayless had laid to rest the children that they had lost-one at birth, and two others that Mary had not been able to carry to full term. 

    Bayless had hand-carved three small headstones and had planted them securely in the ground.  In each headstone, Bayless had engraved the child’s name and the day and year of their deaths.  Mary and Bayless’ hopes of ever having a family were buried alongside each child. 

    With painstaking skill, Bayless had erected a hand carved white picket fence around the garden and had crafted a bench for Mary to sit on whenever she visited her babies.     Together, Mary and Bayless had turned their children’s graveyard into a beautiful, serene place to pray and meditate.    
   
    Mary could not bear to bury their children in the city graveyard.  People from Boonville called the cemetery The Dusties.*

         “The title might have been a proper one for the older people”

she would say,

         "But these are my young babies."

    Knowing that her babies were close by gave Mary peace in the midst of her loss.  When their friends asked the grieving parents how they dealt with their loss and grief, they would say,

         "If we had all the information that the Good Lord has we would have made the same decision. We just put our trust in Him." 

    They believed what the Good Book said about life beginning at conception. They believed everything that the Good Book said. 

    Psalms 139:13-14 You [God] alone created my inner being. You knitted me together inside my mother. I will give thanks to you because I have been so amazingly and miraculously made. Your works are miraculous, and my soul is fully aware of this.

    Mary would sit alone in the garden on the days when she couldn’t find peace concerning her losses. She knew that even though she had never held her babies to her breast to feed them, or had never laughed at their funny ways, she was with her children. She would softly sing to them the hymn, In the Garden.  The words spoke to her broken heart:

         “I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses. And the voice I hear, falling on my ear, The Son of God discloses. And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own, and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.

           He speaks, and the sound of His voice is so sweet the birds hush their singing, and the melody that He gave to me within my heart is ringing, And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own, and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known."

    There she would sit alone and commune with God and her children until peace would return once again to her soul. 

    It was the early 1800s and Mary and Bayless lived on the Wendling farm in the Anderson Valley of California.

    Today, Anderson Valley is located between mile marker 9 and mile marker 50 on highway 128 in Northern California.   That is about two and a half hours north of San Francisco and about forty five minutes from the Pacific Coast.

    But in Mary and Bayless’ day, there were no mile markers.  There were no interstates.  Anderson Valley was a newly discovered, rough land that presented many challenges and adventures.  It was a land that was hard to travel due to the protective hills that surrounded it. 

    Anderson Valley was difficult to get into and it was equally difficult to get out of, so most who discovered it found the valley so wonderful that they stayed.

    Life in the Anderson Valley of the 1800s had its lighter moments but more often than not, life was rough, foreboding, and was frequently downright life threatening.  

    Such was Mary and Bayless Smith’s reality on the Wendling farm in Anderson Valley, California, when their daughter, Alice was born later in their life.

    Alice’s birth brought unbelievable joy and life to her parents and to Wendling Farm.  It was true joy, not just happiness. Happiness most of the time depends on happenings. There had been a lot of things that had happened but they didn't bring happiness.

    But this joy, this deep abiding joy that overwhelmed Mary and Bayless and caused them to smile until their faces hurt, was something that no one could take away. The doctor was sure that Mary would never carry a child to full term, but there came the promise, blessing and surprise all in one pink bundle.  

    Alice was a beauty but she never used her beauty for gain. She was built fragile but was scrappier than any of the boys in the area. Although sweet and soft spoken, Alice had a very dark mischievous side.

    The one thing about Alice that troubled Mary to no end was that no matter how much Bible learning Alice had, Alice was plagued with superstitions. 

    Mary and Alice spent many an afternoon in the beautiful garden that Bayless had created. And even though Alice had never met her siblings, she always possessed a strong sense of family.   She also learned at her parents’ knees how much she was wanted and how joyful her parents were to have her in their life. 

    But, as the years progressed, Alice’s superstitions progressed with them.  She would never let a black cat cross her path. She avoided walking under any ladder which, as many of us can attest, might not be such a bad thing. 

    Some of Alice’s superstitions bordered on the comical.  She believed that one should carry an acorn for good luck and to ensure a long life.  She also believed that an acorn in the window would keep the lightning away.

    Lightning never struck Alice’s house but it did strike the oak tree in her yard.  Not only did lightning strike the oak tree, it exploded the acorns and burned the tree to the ground.  This circumstance might lead one to believe that acorns are no luckier for trees than rabbit’s feet are for rabbits. 

    But Alice was not one to be confused with facts.  Facts did not matter to Alice.  No matter how many times her children reached into her apron pocket for candy, they always found acorns. 

    Alice spent hours in the fields with her children, looking for four-leaf clovers.  One day, one of the children asked,

         “Mommy, why do you think that we need so much good luck?” 
Alice replied,

         “Oh, you can never have too much luck. Luck runs out so you must always add to your store.” 

    Although Alice was going to need as much luck as she could gather, Mary believed that her daughter would outgrow her superstitious ways. 

    One of the high points in Alice’s life was her monthly trip to Boonville.  Now Boonville is in the Anderson Valley just southwest of Mendocino County. The border of Anderson Valley starts at Yorkville and continues just beyond the town of Navarro. The Smith's home was near Indian Creek, a creek that started in the hills above Boonville and ran through the valley to the town of Philo. 

    All of nature contributed to the special beauty of this area. Plants and trees that were washed in a spectrum of light and dark greens grew tall and lush on the high ridges that flanked the valley.

    The crystal clear rivers that flowed from crested highs to bubbling ponds in the meadows added to the valley’s magic.  They also created challenges to the valley’s early population. 

    Difficulties abounded in Anderson Valley for those coming or going.  Having once arrived, many chose to stay rather than face the hardships of a raw and rugged landscape that was equally unkind to those who traveled by foot, horseback, or wagon. 

    Boonville in those days was pretty small.  If you blinked, you missed it, but Boonville was nevertheless Alice’s favorite place to visit.

    The first settlers arrived in the valley in 1852. Henry and Isaac Beeson and their stepbrother William Anderson were the first to lay eyes on the area. Well, almost the first.

    The Indians were already there.  Some of the tribes included the Late Pomo or Macumaks, and the Tabahtea Pomo.  The Tabahtea Pomo lived in the Boonville area. But Indians or not, progress could not be stopped. By 1855 several named settlements populated the valley.  These included Hop Flat, Philo Christine, Peachland, Bell Valley, Hermitage, Whitefall and later came Wendling, home place to Alice’s grandparents.
 
    To Alice-- Boonville was the big city filled with all sorts of sights, sounds and smells. There was another town called Hop Flat.  It was a logging town and Alice’s second choice place to visit because of the dances.  There were so many dances there that the words hop or bob* were used the same as the word dance.  In the Boontling language if you were going out dancing, you were going to a hob.

    In the mercantile Alice would walk up and down the aisles between the new shipments of yardage in a semi state of hypnosis. 

    The pungent smells of feed and hay in the distance did not matter to her, she only smelled the intoxicating scent of the new fabric as she imagined how beautiful a dress it would make.

    Every time Alice discovered a new a piece of yardage she would stare at it for several minutes. She would take in all its colors and the designs of the threads. Then she would run her fingers over the yardage to feel the texture. She would touch the material to her face to smell and feel the newness of it.

    Being an accomplished dress maker, Alice demanded that the yardage meet her discerning standards and at the same time, actively engage all of her senses,  

    The library was another of Alice’s favorite places.  A new book served as her ticket to exciting worlds that she would probably never see, but could, for a moment, be transported to by the written word. 

    The library provided a bountiful feast for Alice’s reading addiction.  The librarian knew how much Alice loved reading and would let her take several books at a time. Alice cherished the books and never failed to return them in the same carefully preserved condition in which she had received them. 

    Another delight that Alice found on her trips to Boonville was catching up with friends and doing a lot of giggling and squealing as only young girls can do. 

    Alice, at age sixteen, could squeal with the best of them.  Her upcoming trip to Boonville was to be an especially exciting one.  She had barely slept the night before.  She knew that there was going to be a hob tonight and she looked forward to seeing Thomas Briggs.  She had hoped that he would ask her to the dance. 

    Thomas Briggs was an upstanding young man that worked on her parents’ farm. He was also mighty cute and garnered his share of admiring looks from all the girls in town. 

    Thomas came from a poor background but he was a hard working young man. Bayless and Mary admired Thomas for his strong work ethics. He had asked Alice if she would be attending the dance. 

    While Alice had hoped that he had a good reason for asking, she felt pretty sure deep in her heart that he did.  

    Thomas and Alice had been friends ever since the day at school that Thomas had rescued Alice from the bully, Mason Lawson.

    Now every town has its rich kids and bullies.  Mason Lawson was both rolled into one.   He had taken a fancy to Alice and would give grief to anyone who challenged him for Alice’s attention.

    Now Alice had a special place in her heart for Thomas because of his bravery in standing up to Mason. But the same noble act had spawned in Mason a grudge against Thomas Briggs that would never go away.                     

                                    Boonville Hotel

     Alonzo Kendall was the first person to build a business in the Boonville area, which at that time, was called The Corners. 

    Mr. Kendall built the Kendall Hotel and it stands yet today as the Boonville Hotel. The original structure was made from hewed and split lumber, shaved, tongue and grooved.  The construction of the hotel was masterfully accomplished by hand. 

    About the same time Levi and Strauss, the now legendary jeans makers, moved their store to the same area. There was great promise and hope for Boonville.