The Milburn Homestead

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Chapter One

CHAPTER I

The Homestead Years, Approximately 1880-1900

My brothers, Douglas and Loren, my sister, Lisa Kim, and I are the fourth generation of the Milburn Clan to have lived on the family homestead. To understand how we became who we are, I think it is important to get to know the story of our ancestors and their establishment of that homestead in California. The story of their lives, labors and experiences provide the foundation, and give context, to how we were raised. How we were reared provided the guidance to become the individuals that we are today. In turn, what we have become has a large influence on how our children will develop. My mother has pursued our family history and can take some of our genealogy line back into the 1100s. However, for purposes of this story, and since we are not in line to inherit a Scottish castle, I will maintain a narrow focus. This discussion will be limited to the families that made it to California in the 1800s and had a more direct bearing on our existence.

Mary Ballagh

The families of Robert Ballagh, of Scotland, and Ellen Elizabeth Shelly, of Ireland, both immigrated to the United States in the 1820s or 30s. Robert was born in March, 1820 and Ellen ca. 1820. They were wed on March 31, 1841 in Troy, New York. Their daughter, Mary, was born on December 18, 1848. As a young woman she had been engaged, although her fiancée died before they had a chance to get married. She decided, for reasons unknown, to strike out alone on a trip to the west coast. She took passage on a ship to Panama, crossed the isthmus on a narrow-gauge railroad to the Pacific and boarded another ship for the trip up the coast to San Francisco. It is unclear how long she stayed there or what places she visited in her travels. She must have become convinced that California offered a good opportunity for her family. She returned via railroad to New York and persuaded her family (father, mother, and eight of her nine living siblings; one sibling, a girl, died at the age of four or five) to come back with her to California. Her brother Tom stayed in New York and he later relocated to Canada.

The family took up a homestead near the head of Parola Canyon, in the old El Dorado District located in the San Jose Valley of San Luis Obispo County, in 1880. (Over the years, the use of locality identification, "San Jose Valley", has been discontinued.) Robert Ballagh received his homestead patent on February 10, 1891, located in Section 30, Township 29 South, Range 15 East. His unmarried son Robert (Rob) also received a patent for adjacent government lots on May 26, 1894. Rob’s patent was not a homestead patent. Instead it was a "cash entry" patent, meaning the land was purchased, not granted under the Homestead Act. The cash purchase option was authorized under an 1820 act of congress called "An Act making further provision for the sale of Public Land", which greatly pre-dates the Homestead Act. For simplification purposes and in keeping with the settlers’ original intent to establish homesteads, I will refer to the land obtained under these cash entry patents as homesteads. Read more in the book. . .

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Excerpts

CHAPTER II

The Next Generation, Approximately 1900 – 1924

Douglas William Sutherland Milburn Takes Over the Homestead

With only 160 acres (the size of most homesteads in the area) to work with, it proved very difficult for a homestead to become a financial success. They were not large enough to run many cattle, not productive enough for profitable farming, and there were too many mouths to feed. During this time period, many of the original ones were given up or sold off and incorporated into larger holdings. In the early 1890s, not long after receiving the patent for their land, Martin and Mary Fly gave up their place and it was incorporated into what became the "Butcher" property. They moved to the Robert Ballagh Homestead to help Robert in his declining years (his wife had passed on in 1890). Robert passed away in 1903 and within several years, Martin and Mary had relocated to Arroyo Grande. I don’t know when the Ballagh Homestead was actually sold, but the rest of family members became dispersed by the early 1900s. Robert’s daughters had all gotten married and were gone from the homestead. Rob died in 1907 and his three brothers had decided country life was not for them. Will moved to Arroyo Grande and then ended up with Charles in Santa Barbara. Washburn moved to Arroyo Grande and died there in 1909. John and Libby Ballagh Smith also gave up their homestead, which became part of the Butcher property. They had moved up to the Oakland area by the early 1900s. Read more in the book. . .

CHAPTER III

The Third Generation, Part 1, 1924-1945

Ralph D. Milburn Takes Charge

My father took over the homestead and ran it for 70 years. A lot can happen in that amount of time, so I am going to make his a two-part story. The first part will cover the time he took over the operations of the homestead until he married. I should start calling it the ranch now, as there is a reference on a photo that it was being called the Hillside Ranch in 1910. The second part will run from when he and my mom started putting the 4th generation together until his death.

At the age of 16, going on 17, my father assumed the role of breadwinner for his family. He had attended the El Dorado School for nine years but for the previous year or so, he had been working the ranch with his father. Even though Daddy never went beyond nine years of formal schooling, he was a very well-read person. I can‟t see that a lack of a higher education was ever an impediment to him in his chosen lifestyle.

After Grandpa Douglas died, Grandma decided that she would have to learn to drive and get a car. She bought the car and was issued a driver‟s license from the car dealer for the State of California. Soon after, she got in a minor wreck. This bothered her so much she never tried to drive again. She really did not even like to ride in cars and resisted traveling as much as she could. Her old driver‟s license is still filed away at the ranch.

This time period saw tremendous change, not only for the homestead, but for the world. The family had to endure the Great Depression and World War II. Read more in the book. . .

CHAPTER IV

The Third Generation, Part 2, 1946-1994

Ralph and Peggy Milburn's Life Together

The "New" House

It was late in 1945 when Daddy was discharged from the army and the newlyweds returned to California. Mama got sick with strep throat on the return trip, so she stopped in Santa Barbara while Daddy headed for the ranch. He needed to get to work on remaking the "tool shed" into a house. Mama‟s dad drove her up to the ranch after about 10 days or so of recovery time with Gran. It took Daddy a month or so, likely with the help of Grandpa, to get the shed livable with a couple of rooms. One room was for sleeping the other to serve as kitchen, dining and everything-else room. These two rooms were the beginning of their home together, which they maintained until Daddy died there 48 years later. It was at about this same time that Grandma and Grandpa moved over to the Bar D Ranch, as Grandpa had been offered a job there. This left the old log house vacant for a spell. Read more in the book. . .

CHAPTER V

The 4th Generation, 1994 to 2011

Mama Status Update

After Daddy’s death, Mama continued to live on the ranch for a number of years. It was her home and she could not imagine living anywhere else. Mama has always been a rather social person, so I have to imagine that she was a bit isolated being alone at home most of the time. She stayed active with the DAR, the Rinconada Church and continued to pursue her genealogy research. She drove herself to town on a regular basis and all over the Central Coast on DAR business or other excursions. Loren was the most common member of the fourth generation to visit Mama and the ranch on a regular basis. Most of the routine maintenance and care of the ranch fell to him. Douglas and Lisa were also regular visitors and helped with care of the ranch, and Lisa especially, assisted Mama when necessary. Since I was living far away in Montana, I was the least involved in those routine activities. Read more in the book. . .

Chapter VI

Growing up in Pozo, CA – Childhood Memories and Life After the Ranch

By Lisa Kim Milburn Cava

Childhood Memories

It's been really hard to get started composing anything about myself or my childhood memories. The other day someone suggested that I start with thinking about the smells I could recall from my childhood, and that remembering the smells would trigger other memories…..

Always, the first smell to come to mind when I think of my childhood is the sweet smell of lupine and all the other wildflowers in the spring. And the beautiful lilac blossoms in the front yard. Every year when they bloomed, I‟d go out and clip some of the blossoms to put them in a little white vase in my room. They looked so pretty and smelled so good. The blooming period never lasts long enough, it‟s over so quickly and the blossoms and that great lilac smell are gone before you know it.

The smell of a grape Popsicle, always melting and dripping away down my wrist much too fast. That memory reminds me of long, hot summers, sitting under the shade trees in the front yard with my nearest neighbors, Ricky and Ronny Lancaster, eating Popsicles to try to cool off. We would eat our Popsicles, and drink some fresh, cold well water right out of the hose, then go back to playing army, or building forts out in the brush and the hills, or playing kickball/baseball/football, or riding our bikes. Read more in the book. . .

Chapter VII

Dennis Milburn, My Life and Times

Early Childhood, 1948 to 1954

The Beginning

I was born on March 27, 1948 in the old Mountain View Hospital in San Luis Obispo. I likely came into this world kicking and screaming. My earliest memories appear in my mind as snapshots or short video clips, with no other context. I believe the first event that I can recall is when Daddy brought Mama and baby Loren home from the hospital. Douglas and I were sitting on the front step of the house, expectantly awaiting the arrival. I seem to see Daddy drive to the house and park in the normal spot, but that is it. I don‟t remember actually seeing the new baby or greeting Mama, only the expectation, and seeing them come up the driveway. I was two and a half at that time. Another very early snapshot is of me trying to help cook breakfast on the old wood stove. I wanted to try to flip a pancake over. It did not turn out well and batter ended up splattered all over the top of the stove. I couldn‟t have been too much older than three at that time. I can remember a family gathering along the Huer Huero Creek on the Bar D Ranch for my fourth birthday. The creek was running water at that time and we got to do a little wading. At about this same age, I remember riding around with Grandpa in his big old pickup, again on the Bar D. He had evidently burned some brush piles earlier and we went to check on them. The burning piles had spread to a hillside and I can remember the two of us going up the hill and throwing dirt on spot fires. That must have been an omen of things to come later in my life! Read more in the book. . .

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