Arcadia

We finally found a home we liked in Arcadia, California in the San Gabriel Valley which was Southeast of Pasadena. Arcadia was home of the famed Santa Anita Racetrack. It was a quiet, good community of nice homes (The motto for the city is City of Beautiful Homes.) and some not so nice. We felt the schools were good and it would be a good community to live in and at the time, we were right. The new (to us) home was on an acre and a half of ground and while it had two bedrooms, we liked the rest of the house. We had a wall built around the East side of the lot out to the front edge of the house and across the lawn to the corner of the house and beyond that to the street were several feet of shrubs and trees that the kids dubbed ’The Jungle’ and it was their favorite play spot.

The acre and a half of land was a long lot, but only about 92 feet wide. Just inside the back fence was a more than half acre of fenced pasture. Before long that area was filled with a horse for Al called Stormy, speckled gray American Saddle Bred horse. I can’t remember what happened to the horse the girls had in East L. A., but we had chickens, rabbits, turkens (a cross between turkey and chicken…strange looking) and a MILK COW! It was here that our mutt dog, Skipper died of old age and we got a new Cocker Spaniel puppy which Steve tormented. During the war there was almost no butter available and Al didn’t like margarine, so he bought the cow and we not only had tons of milk, but whipping cream and I made butter, cottage cheese…you name it.

About a year after moving there, we built on another bath and bedroom to the back of the house and this gave us much more room. I loved the place and immediately started gardening.