We here in the Santa Clarita have no room to gossip.
I recall a certain local doctor who, a few years ago, was caught having an affair with his babysitter. When confronted, the doctor moved the girl into the house.
With the wife.
Love is grand — ain’t it?
Or is it?
Even back in the primitive climes of Santa Clarita, we held festivals to honor romance. When the first white man, Gaspar de Portola, entered the SCV in 1769, he witnessed a rather ribald wedding ceremony at the Tataviam capital of Chaquiyabit.
Or, Castaic as we call it today.
The Native Americans were in the midst of a ribald wedding party and most the guests were intoxicated on local herbal drinks and dancing nude around a maypole. One social scientist from the Southwest Museum even postulated that the Tataviam, who had little to trade, bartered their attractive women with other Indian nations.
That just takes all the starch out of our dignity: our early ancestors were pimps.
When love is good, it’s great. When it’s bad? Well. It hurts. Sometimes, it’s fatal.
Portola’s second in command on the Santa Clarita trek was Pedro Fages and Pete had the distinction of not only being one of our first governors, he was embroiled in California’s first major sex scandal.His wife, Eulalia Callis, accused Don Pedro of having an affair with an Indian maiden. Eulalia stayed locked in her room and sent letters to viceroy of Mexico, demanding her husband be disbarred from his post. She allied herself with the famed Father Junipero Serra, who reportedly despised Fages because the governor thought the padre was a barbarous psychopath and tried to get him disbarred as head of the California missions.This tale has a Happy Valentine’s Day ending: Eulalia took back her requests to have her husband removed and they reportedly made up.Antonio del Valle owned every square inch of the SCV in the early 1800s and was renowned as a womanizer, as was his son, Ignacio.The dashing Iggy was quite the ladies’ man and juggled at least three affairs simultaneously in Santa Barbara. In failing health, Antonio promised his son half of this valley if he would marry and bear him a male heir. The story goes that Ignacio put it into overdrive, trying to come up with a grandson. He did, too, impregnating Maria de Carrillo. As valley historian, I frequently asked my class if they’d, ahem, enfuse someone with offspring or become pregnant for tens of thousands of prime California real estate. It’s startling the speed at which the hands shoot up.Tom Mitchell would probably be jailed if he tried a stunt like the one he pulled coming out West. Traveling with a wagon train, he noticed a bright young — and the operative word here is young — girl. Essentially, he arranged a marriage with her father for when Martha was close to the end of her growth spurt. Tom thought the pre-teen would later make a good mother, one who could educate their children.
Sometimes love doesn’t go as planned.
Lewis Ledger was the foreman at the Earl Meat Packing House in Newhall in the 1890s. His señorita date stabbed him to death at a dance.
Our town hall burned to the ground back on May 20th, 1921. Mrs. William Mayhue, wife of the ag magnate, awoke before dawn with the flames flickering in her bedroom window. The alarm was soon sounded and the volunteer fire fighters from Newhall and Saugus rushed to the scene. But the old Conrad’s Hall, built in 1908 by Charles Conrad, quickly burned to the ground and firefighters turned their attentions to keeping the other neighboring buildings doused with water. Conrad had just sold the building to a Mr. A. Culver two months earlier. What made the fire suspicious was that it was the third hall to burn to the ground within the last 18 months. Another Conrad hall burned to the ground in 1919 and the dance hall in Honby was torched. Add to that, there were two pool hall fires around that time, bringing the total to five suspicious fires involving entertainment complexes. I’ve told the story before of a jealous young man who laid claim to a beautiful young gal. Story was, he hated her having a good time and kept burning Newhall’s hot spots.
William S. Hart allegedly loved his fiancée. The story goes that they traveled to New York City to be wed. While she was out with Hart’s sister, picking out a wedding dress, Hart reportedly was back at the hotel, “dating” a young actress, Winifred Westover, who might have been as young as 17. Right before the wedding, Winnie supposedly contacted Bill and said she was having his child. That sort of screwed up Hart’s wedding plans, at least the part about which woman he would wed.After Hart and Westover had their shotgun service, Winnie confessed she was sort of kidding about the pregnancy part. Odd relationship. After that, Mrs. Hart DID become heavy with child. Their marriage was rocky to say the least and ended in divorce a year later. About 20 years after that when Hart died in 1946, Winifred launched a series of suits to claim the actor’s multimillion-dollar estate.
She lost.
One of my favorite local romance stories took place the same year as Hart’s passing.
Mary Logan was a strikingly beautiful married mother of five who was doing the hokey pokey with a much younger man. Mary and her five kids moved in with the fellow and his older sister.
Remember. The SCV is ultraconservative farming community and one Just Did Not have a very public affair. One night, the five kids, Mary, the Stud and the Stud’s Sister were sitting down to dinner. Sis gets up, walks upstairs, comes back with a shotgun, blows Mary away at point blank range and then quietly sits down to finish her meal.
I always love Sis’s alibi when Sheriff’s deputies asked what made her do it.
Quoth Sis: “I just didn’t particularly care for her attitude anymore.”
On a less fatalistic note, Newhall actually made the law books as precedent in a snuggly state Supreme Court case that California’s newspapers called: “The Right to Snuggle Case.”
In 1953, Fred J. Friedmeyer had been driving the speed limit and doing everything on the up-&-up when he was pulled over by a local CHP officer. The CHiP ticketed him for unsafe driving because he observed Friedmeyer with his arm around his girlfriend’s shoulder. Friedmeyer plead not guilty and demanded a trial by jury. The 12 local men and women found him not guilty. Friedmeyer won over the hearts of the jurors when he explained that the woman in question wasn’t his girlfriend, but his wife of 11 years.
About 20 years later, we had another case involving a married couple and a car.
This time, a 24-year-old Castaic man was pulled over for suspicion of drunk driving and causing a big accident on I-5. The man’s wife pleaded to let him go because her better half was under the influence of booze, cocaine, codeine, Valium and another pain-killing drug. She explained that in the due course of exchanging their marital and mutual love for one another, her husband had sustained an — ahem — in the pig Latin, “ildo-day” up where the moon never shines and he was en route to Henry Mayo to remove said battery operated arousal device. Boy howdy, this gets better. The husband, who was now violent and hallucinating, was strapped to a gurney and rushed to Henry “Hold The” Mayo where doctors extracted a 3-inch section of plastic and showed it to his spouse. “That’s not all of it,” said the wife. The husband was then transferred to county medical where more advanced retrieval equipment was stored. Hate to say this, but this isn’t remotely the first time this kind of story has graced our police and E.R. files.
I could go on with dozens more stories, but my favorite tale of SCV romance made the police blotter.
In 1972, seems a man was driving around Canyon Country, tossing dozens and dozens of rather vivid pornographic photos of a woman onto people’s lawns. It was on the featured woman’s wedding day. Turns out she had jilted the driver to marry this new guy and the old beau blessed them with these unique and ribald wedding photos.
Here’s another.
I’m not going to mention the guy’s name because: 1) he still may live in Castaic; 2) he may have changed his evil ways; 3) he has relatives who are halfway decent people; and, 4) he’s a West Ranch Beacon fan. But, back in 1976, a 24-year-old Castaic man was pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving; causing a multiple traffic accident on I-5; drunk and disorderly conduct; possession of a controlled substance and resisting arrest. The wife of the chap pleaded with officers not to take him to jail and confessed that her better half was under the influence of booze, cocaine, codeine, Valium and another pain-killing drug. She explained that in the due course of exchanging their marital and mutual love for one another, her husband had sustained an — ahem — in the pig Latin, “ildo-day” up where the moon never shines and he was en route to Henry Mayo to remove said battery operated arousal device. Boy howdy, this gets better. The husband, who was now violent and hallucinated, further resisted arrest, up until being strapped to a gurney at our local fine emergency ward. Finally, doctors extracted a 3-inch section of plastic and showed it to his spouse. “That’s not all of it,” said the wife. The husband was then transferred to county medical where more advanced retrieval equipment was stored. Hate to say this, but this isn’t remotely the first time this kind of story has graced our police and E.R. files. On the bright side, no pun intended, there have been no reported fatalities for this type of malady.
I’ve got enough of these stories to write a book. But let’s end with this with a question:
Who said barter is dead?
Thirty five years ago, a Canyon Country woman and her 18-year-old stepson were arrested for allegedly contracting a hit man to kill her 54-year-old husband. The woman offered a man whom she thought was a stone cold killer $500 cash, a Honda motorcycle and — I just love this part — a second-hand Gremlin to off her better half. The “hit man” snitched to local police. Get this. Upon hearing that his wife was trying to murder him for his $5,000 life insurance policy, he went to the Valencia station to try and bail her out. His son was booked down in Lennox.
Ain’t SCV love grand?
John Boston has earned 119 major awards for writing stuff. Besides The Mighty West Ranch Beacon, his work appears in the prestigious thebostonreport.net just about every darn day. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon. Read Boston’s daily blog, his Daily English Muffins, the Adventures of Job Hunter and more of John Boston’s award-winning commentary on thebostonreport.net