A Year in Bodie: A Park Ranger’S Diary

By Margaret R. Chavez and Carl S. Chavez

A Year in Bodie follows the lives of Carl and Margaret Chavez from October 1966 to October 1967 in the harsh, isolated conditions of Bodie State Historic Park where Carl began his career as a park ranger for the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

His wife Margaret, pregnant at the time, endured the challenging conditions and environment of Bodie, yet somehow managed to thrive and provide a loving home. Her account of those times from a womans perspective give us a glimpse of a time that is no longer with us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483641140

Margaret R. Chavez

Carl Chavez is a graduate of Humboldt State College. He retired in 1998 as Northern Division Chief with California State Parks. In 1985 he was named the Departments first Superintendent of the Year Margaret Chavez is also a graduate of Humboldt State College. As a part-time teacher and full-time homemaker, she followed Carl on assignments up and down the State performing other duties as required and expected of a park ranger’s spouse. They now reside in Graeagle, CA near Plumas-Eureka State Park, a park Carl once managed.

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Copyright © 2013 by CARL S. CHAVEZ and MARGARET R. CHAVEZ.

Cover photo: Bodie, California from Bodie Bluff, June 1967.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013908789

ISBN:      Hardcover   978-1-4836-4113-3

                Softcover     978-1-4836-4112-6

                Ebook         978-1-4836-4114-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date:07/10/2013

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

OCTOBER, 1966

NOVEMBER, 1966

DECEMBER, 1966

JANUARY, 1967

FEBRUARY, 1967

MARCH, 1967

APRIL, 1967

MAY, 1967

JUNE, 1967

JULY, 1967

AUGUST, 1967

SEPTEMBER, 1967

OCTOBER, 1967

EPILOGUE

DEDICATION

In memory of Robert and Dorothy (Dot) Frenzel, without whose help and friendship during our time at Bodie State Historic Park we would never have endured. We shared a year of experiences and a lifetime of memories with them.

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SMOKEY SAYS HEY, DON’T FORGET ME.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

B ODIE STATE HISTORIC Park remains one of the finest examples of a gold mining Ghost Town in the United State because of the foresight of the California Department of Parks and Recreation and those individuals who championed the cause of protecting and preserving Bodie in a state of arrested deterioration.

SAVE BODIE! is an organization spearheaded by State Park employees Donna Pozzi and Noah Tilghman who were instrumental in preventing irreparable damage to this unique resource when modern mining interests threatened it.

The State Park Rangers, their spouse, and families that have been assigned to Bodie before and after our short time in this desolate, yet wondrous locale, deserve all the recognition that is their due. To have survived the harsh and austere living conditions that come with such an assignment is an accomplishment in itself. A few names that come to mind are Norm Cleaver, Jack Evans, John Myers, Larry Cermack, Bob Adkisson, Michael O’Rourke, Steve Moore, Jim Pence, Mark Pupich, Jack Shipley, Mike O’Connell, Mark Langner, Bob Canby, and most especially Brad Sturdivant, the longest serving ranger at the park. Not to be forgotten there is Robert T. Bell. Bobby has passed on and as his tombstone in the Bodie Cemetery reads: He was always there for us. We appreciate and thank them all.

Finally, a special thank you to our friend Adrienne Stenson, without whose help this book would never had made it to publication.

Carl & Margaret Chavez, May 2013

PREFACE

I N 2004 I self-published my first book, A PATHWAY THROUGH PARKS t hat proved to be more successful then I had ever hoped. It contained stories from my 33-year career as a Park Ranger and Manager with the California Department of Parks and Recreation. When I completed PATHWAYS I vowed never to attempt to write another book. What started out as fun became work and that is something I definitely did not want to do in retirement.

Each chapter of PATHWAYS related events from my park assignments throughout California that included such well known parks as Morro Bay State Park, Pismo State Beach, and Humboldt Redwoods State Park to name a few. The stories were not only about my adventures in parks, as a working ranger, but also, about life with my family living in some of those parks.

Invariably, however, the feedback and comments I received from readers who enjoyed the book always focused on those stories my wife, Margaret and I experienced in the one year of our first assignment at Bodie State Historic Park from October 1966 to October 1967.

There are many fine books about Bodie, perhaps two of the best being THE STORY OF BODIE by Ella M. Cain and MINING CAMP DAYS by Emil W. Billeb should the reader wish to pursue the history of Bodie. In no way is this literary effort intended to be a history of Bodie. It is instead my personal account of what proved to be a defining period of time in our lives. Each of the twelve chapters of this book corresponds to a month of the year we lived and worked in Bodie. I have been fortunate to have retained the daily journal I kept while at Bodie so the dates and events I have extracted from it are more accurate then my memory today ever could be. On my trusty Smith-Corona typewriter that I kept on the dining room table of the J.S. Cain house I typed out a brief account of each days events. In each chapter of this book you will find excerpts of what I wrote. Errors in text, grammar, and syntax in these entries are just as I typed them and no effort has been made to correct them.

Margaret’s recollections, on the other hand, are just those, memories from almost 50 years ago. Her writing is highlighted in Italics. Of necessity, in order to tell the full story, some of my writings from PATHWAYS must be retold here and in some instances have been expanded upon. Having said that the reader must recognize that though Margaret, and I resided in Bodie for only one year, it was at a time when living in Bodie could be perceived as a bit more challenging then today.

We did not have some of the modern conveniences that those living in Bodie today have: no telephone, no television, no radio, no paved roads, no reliable transportation, and little backup support. Even at that we did not face the hardships of those who lived the rough and tumble lifestyle of Bodie in its’ early old mining history and heyday. Perhaps we more than most appreciate what they had to endure—we hope you will too.

On August 12, 2012 we returned to Bodie for the 50th anniversary celebration of Bodie becoming a California State Historic Park. The event, which began 25 years ago in October 1987, was sponsored by the Friends of Bodie with about 30 people in attendance. Last year’s event, organized by the Bodie Foundation, attracted hundreds of visitors. Amongst them was the oldest surviving park ranger assigned to this special place. That ranger would be me-Carl Chavez

The reception that I received speaking at Friends of Bodie Day and telling a few stories of our year in Bodie was enough to encourage me to drag out my old Bodie Journal and tell a few more tales of A Year in Bodie. That is what follows.

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Photo by Roger Vargo

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF BODIE

STATE HISTORIC PARK

(L-R) Former State Senator Paul Lunardi who sponsored the legislation that created Bodie SHP in 1962, Brad Sturdivant, President of Bodie Foundation, Ted Gaines State Senator presenting resolution, Carl Chavez, former park ranger, and Marilyn Linkem, current Superintendent of tbe State Park’s Sierra District. August 11, 2012.

OCTOBER, 1966

I T WAS OCTOBER 24, 1966, my first day of employment as a California State Park Ranger I. The path that led me to this desolate landscape actually began three months earlier while I was working for the U.S. Forest Service that summer on the Inyo National Forest in Red’s Meadow near Mammoth Lakes, California and Devil’s Postpile National Monument.

In August 1966 my bride of one year, Margaret Rose, and I were told by some friends that we might want to visit a nearby historic ghost town north of Mono Lake called Bodie State Historic Park. We had never heard of Bodie but decided on a day off to explore this old gold mining town that everyone was talking about.

Driving north 40 miles on Highway 395 to Lee Vining, then east on Highway 167 for seven miles, we came to a sign at the beginning of a dirt road that read, Bodie State Historic Park, 10 miles. There were two main washboard roads into Bodie. The bad one, a rough 13 mile dirt road off of Highway 395 (now paved) and this, the worse one, up Cottonwood Canyon that would later become very familiar to us.

The drive through the canyon with it’s stunted piñon pine and juniper trees soon gave way to sagebrush-covered hills as we gained elevation. Rounding the last bend in the road at the summit of Cottonwood Canyon we paused to view the scene before us. The first words out of our mouths while gazing at the scene before us was, Who would ever want to live here, especially in winter?

There, a mile away, was the derelict ghost town of Bodie with its 184 historic buildings nestled in the Bodie Bowl at an elevation of 8,400 feet. The town site was surrounded by stark sagebrush covered peaks and bluffs dotted with mining tailings. I remember little else of our visit other than parking in town, wandering about looking into old buildings and wishing I could have gone inside what I was later to learn was the Standard Mill.

With my summer work completed, Margaret and I returned to Arcata, California to pursue further education at Humboldt State College where we had graduated the previous June. A year prior I had taken a State civil service test for a State Park Ranger position and came out 47th on the hiring list. Subsequently, I received offers to work at Huntington and Ventura State Beaches, both offers that I declined. Turning down a third offer would place me on an inactive list.

About this time, it appeared that military service might be in my future with the Vietnam conflict much in the news and escalating. As it turned out I was deferred and when the next offer from the Department of Parks and Recreation came, you guessed it, it was for Bodie State Historic Park, the very same park we had visited three months earlier. I don’t know if I was more astonished at that coincidence or the fact that someone ranked 47th on the list would even be offered a position. Why hadn’t all those people ahead of me on the list taken the job?

It was arranged that I would have a telephone interview with Clyde Newlin, District III Superintendent in the Stockton office. To say the least, it was at best a cursory ten-minute interview with the only two significant questions posed to me. First, When can you get there? and second, Do you have any plans for children? (Something I’m sure you couldn’t ask today).

Stretching the truth a bit I said we could leave right away and no we had no immediate plans for children. With that I was offered the job. I would soon be a California State Park Ranger at the magnificent salary of $550 per month for a job that sounded more like fun than work.

Actually we suspected that Margaret might be pregnant. I knew that if I told Mr. Newlin of this development I would not get the job because at the time children were not allowed to live in Bodie in the winter due to the harsh living conditions

One of the uncertainties that remained unresolved was where would we live? I talked with Francis Keller, the District Secretary, and she told me that she thought there was an old house that would be available but didn’t know if it was furnished or not.

So we packed up a VW Beetle and a small U-Haul trailer with all of our earthly possessions, unsure what to expect, and headed for Bodie with a brief stop in Bridgeport to repair a flat tire. Now only time would tell which of the famous Bodie quotes would apply to us. Would it be Good Bye God, I’m going to Bodie or Good, by God, I’m going to Bodie?

We arrived at Bodie State Historic Park on October 24, 1966, three months after our first visit when we had asked ourselves, Who would want to live here? Unbeknownst to us a new Park Supervisor had just transferred from Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and had arrived with his moving van only hours before us. There was much confusion as the previous supervisor’s whereabouts were unknown and he hadn’t been seen or heard from for two weeks. The J.S. Cain house was supposed to be the residence of the new supervisor, Bob Frenzel and his wife Dot. Margaret and I were suppose to move into the D.V. Cain house across from the Methodist Church that had been occupied by Ranger John Myers whom I was replacing. (Five years later I was to be Ranger Myers’ supervisor at Morro Bay State Park). Because the previous supervisor’s relatives still occupied the J.S. Cain home, Bob & Dot moved into the D.V. Cain house leaving us homeless.

On our arrival it immediately became evident why Mr. Newlin had wanted me to get to Bodie ASAP. Bodie was an unexpected beehive of activity as a summer work crew scrambled to complete work shoring up buildings to a state of Arrested Deterioration and struggled to complete work on a new waterline before the storms of winter arrived.

In any event, I identified myself to one of the employees and was directed to Lincoln (Linc) Covington, who was the Acting Supervisor on assignment from Grover Hot Springs State Park. Our arrival was a surprise to Linc and he was apologetic for this inauspicious beginning of my park career. He was embarrassed over the situation though