STNC Election Time Again - Voice of the Village

10 | Voice of the Village
The Rowley family
Cecile Page Vargo
Bright brochures and colorful posters promising
government land and a new life, combined with
cheap and easy travel to get to there, called to the
Rowley boys of Minnesota.
Loron Rowley purchased a Southern Pacific
ticket and joined two brothers on the way to
Southern California, settling in Mandeville Canyon
(Hollywood Hills), raising bees and selling honey. In
1882, he ventured further north to the foothills of the
towering San Gabriel Mountains. With the help of
the Verdugo family of California’s colorful Spanish
Rancho period, Rowley was able to build his own
ranch house on 160 homesteaded acres in what is
now known as Seven Hills. Rowley and his family
were amongst the first pioneers in Monte Vista
Valley, which would grow up to be the communities
of Sunland-Tujunga.
In addition to the beehives that were brought up
by buckboard through washes and logging roads,
Rowley raised cattle and marketed the wood on his
property. The ever-growing City of the Angeles some
15 miles away needed the wood for steam boilers,
heat and cooking. An abundant supply of greasewood
and pine trees provided a lucrative business.
In 1885, Rowley signed on to help build a twostory
structure on the southwest corner of Central
Avenue and First Street (now Fenwick and Oro Vista).
The building was used for mail distribution and a
general store that sold everything from crackers to
Dave Kluge
Among the notables from whom I learned about
purposes is Thomas Jefferson. He gave us the
purpose of all governments in the Declaration of
Independence, in which he states that all men are
created equal and that governments are created to
ensure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for
all citizens.
Nice, huh? The Preamble to our Constitution
gives us the purpose of our government. This is
to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility
(calmness in our country), provide for the common
defense, promote the general welfare (prosperity
and happiness), and secure the blessings of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity (our children and their
children).
Even nicer! Our Bill of Rights takes it a step
further. In 1789, the first Congress of the United
States sent the Bill of Rights along with a Preamble
to the state legislatures for their ratification. The
Preamble simply stated that the Bill of Rights was
being proposed to prevent the Constitution from
being misconstrued or its powers abused, to broaden
public confidence in our government, and to ensure
the beneficial purposes of our government. These
purposes tell us where we are supposed to be going as
a nation and as a people. In my mind, these purposes
give us a yardstick by which we can judge how well
we are doing as a country. Are we moving forward
toward the stated purposes? Are we moving quickly
or slowly toward our purposes? Are we backsliding
away from our purposes? These are questions we
should all consider and answer for ourselves. Our
Constitution gives us the framework within which
we can all achieve our purposes. It is the rules of the
game for being an American. (Dave Kluge, author of
The Peoples Guide to the Constitution, may be contacted
at: dkluge@adelphia.net)
kerosene. Rowley’s freight and mail service helped
connect the early Sunland-Tujunga pioneers to the
outside world and made available to them supplies
they could not raise or hunt themselves.
The great boom that brought Rowley and his
brothers to Monte Vista Valley began to collapse in
1888. Many original land and building prospectors
moved and went on to other ventures. Rowley’s
businesses and services suffered, too. By the 1890s,
the wood played out and the forests were in need
of replenishing. Rowley struggled with his cattle and
beehives until the land developers and promoters
arrived.
During this time Rowley met his future wife, who
came to tame a rowdy and struggling schoolhouse.
Following a two-year courtship, Rowley and Virginia
Florence Newcombe married.
The year was 1893, and the ranch against the
hills became the new Mrs. Rowley’s home. Virginia
Rowley continued to teach at the now orderly
schoolhouse, as well as tend to her home garden and
help with her husband’s various enterprises. The
family grew with the birth of their first son Eustace
in 1896.
The family took up residence in the faded Monte
Vista Hotel, bought by Loron Rowley’s brother Dr.
Quentin Rowley. Two more children were born
while they lived and watched over the hotel. In 1893
Purpose Local historian
Jackie Houchin
If you’ve ever visited Cecile Vargo in her warm,
homey Yellow Cottage in Sunland, been served
a mug of her fresh-brewed flavored coffee, and
munched on a few of her homemade oatmeal-raisin
cookies, you’re not likely to forget the experience.
From the moment I entered the quirky little
house I was charmed. Beginning in the nook-ofa-kitchen
with sky blue, cabin-style cupboards,
then meandering through dog-legged halls and
rooms chock full of quaint knickknacks, quilts of
all colors (on the beds, the walls, across chairs), and
plump sofas and chairs you could sink into and be
contentedly lost in for a day, I felt like I’d stepped
back into an earlier, simpler time.
Yellow Cottage is the perfect hideaway for a
historian. Even before Vargo could walk, her family
went on camping trips to the nearby mountains
and national parks. She got her first look at the
ghost town at Calico when she was nine. Fifteen
years later she, her husband and their young son
started going on family vacations around Bishop,
first staying in motels, then a friend’s cabin, and
finally graduating into a tent. The next step was
a four-wheel-drive Chevy Blazer, but after a hard
lesson on big mud puddles the couple took classes
at Glendale College titled “Harry Llewellyn and
Ecological 4-Wheeling Adventures.” The class
included an off-road trip that Vargo thought wasn’t
much different from her own family outings, “…
when we dug up history and found out where it
was.”
Soon the Vargos were hosting their own actionpacked
journeys into the unpaved backcountry
through Mojave, Bishop, Mammoth, Lone Pine
and into Nevada, seeing the ghost towns of Bodie
and Cerro Gordo. For nearly 20 years they ran the
tours until the economy slowed and the liability
insurance got too steep.
After each trip Vargo would return home
and write stories about their adventures. She
called them “trip-a-logues” and e-mailed them
Quentin Rowley sold the Monte Vista Hotel and the
family moved back to the ranch house against the
hills. The boys, Eustace and Robert, attended school
- with a two-mile hike over rugged land to get there.
By 1905 Loron Rowley built the first rock home in
Monte Vista on Hill Avenue near Flower Street (near
today’s Hillrose and Floralita).
Not only was it easier for the children to get to
school, they were also closer to community businesses
and Loron Rowley’s endeavors beyond ranching and
farming. Virginia Rowley moved her flock of chickens
and her vegetable garden to the backyard behind the
stone house. An adjacent pasture was perfect for the
family horses and milk cows. A running spring kept
the ground damp and the grass green year-round.
Two more children would be born here.
At an early age the Rowley children pitched
in where needed, at home or one of the family
businesses. Loron and Virginia Rowley made sure
they were well-schooled and received formal music
lessons. The children were seen in the evenings on
the big front porch, playing games and practicing
their musical instruments. Weekends were large
homegrown dinners, with Sundays reserved for
church activities. The Rowley family had a large
presence in the Foothill community and was well
known.
To be continued.
to friends. Later she started posting her stories
on desert-focused online message boards. Finally
she developed her own Web site.“This became my
passion, being out in nature, exploring ghost towns
and writing. I want to travel the backcountry and
research and write for the rest of my life,” Vargo
said.
Vargo is researching ghost towns and local
history and compiling it into a book which she
hopes to publish soon.
“I want to officially call myself a writer and a
historian, instead of pretending,” she said.
But certainly she is writer, historian and more
already.
(Read Vargo’s history of the Rowley House in this issue.
Visit her Web site at http:// www.explorehistoricalif.com
for more histories, personal accounts of living in ghost
towns, and photos.)