Pictured above is Gussie, Alice, Wade and Edith Moore, c 1910. Photo credit Fillmore Historical Museum.

Above is the Fillmore Unified High School (FUHS) Faculty, c. 1942. Edith is seated at the table on the right; she was a teacher for more than 20 years. Photo credit Fillmore Historical Museum.

Courtesy Fillmore Historical Museum

Most 74-year-old people would be thinking about retirement. Edith Moore Jarrett had retired from teaching at Fillmore Unified High School in 1947 after more than 20 years, but in 1972 the Fillmore Chamber of Commerce came to her with a request--to start a museum showcasing the Fillmore, Bardsdale, Sespe area. Edith had no experience in setting up a museum and anyone besides her would have said no, but not Edith. Edith’s work at getting the Museum going has been related elsewhere. Of course she didn’t do it alone – Dorothy Haase, Ruth Walker, Harold Dorman, we don’t have space to list everyone and would undoubtedly leave some out. But from the space the Chamber of Commerce leased on the ground floor of the Masonic Building, the Museum has grown considerably.

So, who was this person who had no apparent fear of taking on this new undertaking—Edith!
Edith was the eldest of four children born to Augusta “Gussie” Brown and Wade Moore. Gussie had met Wade in May of 1897 when she and her aunt came to David Cook’s ranch near Piru from Moorpark to work in the apricot harvest. Wade Moore was one of the supervisors for the apricot drying. Although Gussie was engaged to Levi Bunn, she married Wade Moore on September 29, 1897.

In July of 1898, Edith was born in Los Angeles but a few days later the family moved to Torrey Canyon, south of the Santa Clara River. The family moved frequently for her father’s work, although she seemed to consider the Torrey Canyon area as “home”. Her school records show her enrolled at Sespe and Hueneme.

The Moore family grew adding Alice in 1902, Fred in 1911, and George in 1914. Edith attended grammar school at Sespe School that was on Grand Avenue. In 1912 she entered Fillmore High School, which meant crossing the Sespe to get to school. The flood of 1913 which washed out the Sespe Bridge did not stop Edith attending classes. In her own words, “…onlookers who gathered at a safe distance to watch the railroad bridge go next were shocked and surprised to see a tall lanky girl of 15, schoolbooks under her raincoat, go across the bridge while leaping crests of muddy water splashing around her feet,
Edith thrived in high school. She won the contest to name the Fillmore High yearbook, and it has remained Copa de Oro to this day. In her junior year she was literary editor of the annual and was chosen editor-in-chief her senior year. She also served on the student council as Commissioner for Student Welfare and was a member of the championship debating team. She graduated with honors in the spring of 1916.

In November of 1916 it must have seemed as if her world was crumbling. On November 25, 1916, after the family had finished their evening meal, Wade Moore went outside and shot himself in the head. The newspaper report says he had been in ill health and had been “taken steps to get his worldly affairs in order.” He left Gussie with four children, ages 4 to 18.
Life went on. In 1917, Edith entered the University of Southern California. She graduated in 1921, cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. It was here she met Beryl McManus who would co-author the first volume of El Camino Real with Edith. It was probably here that she also met Charles Dan Jarrett whom she would marry in 1922.

While Edith was at USC, her mother remarried Levi Bunn, her former suitor. They were married and living in the Sespe until his death in 1942.

In 1925, after teaching at Buckhorn and Sespe Grammar schools, she became a member of the faculty at her alma mater, Fillmore Union High School, teaching Spanish. Over her tenure at FUHS she served as advisor to the scholarship society, class advisor, girl’s vice principal and head of the Spanish department.

By 1928, Charles and Edith had moved into their home at 426 Clay. Edith wasted no time in decorating and remodeling the home. This was a hint at what Edith would do in her later home on Foothill Drive.

The Jarrett’s had at least two things in common. They both enjoyed travel and were both writers. Charles was a columnist for the “Fillmore Herald” writing the “As If It Mattered” column. He also wrote a series of profiles of the area’s settlers including C. C. Elkins, Hartley Sprague and Buck Atmore.

On August 23rd, 1927, found Edith on a train returning from Mexico City where she had been studying. Bandits attacked the train, killing one of Edith’s companions.

That experience did not slow Edith down, though at least for a short while she went to more conventional destinations. 1928 found Mr. and Mrs. Jarrett on the S. S. Admiral Dewey going from Los Angeles to Portland. In 1932, Edith and Charles drove a Citroěn all over Spain. By 1961 she had visited every Spanish speaking country except the Philippines. A decade or more after that she told someone she was going to Timbuktu because she had never been there. Her passports sound like a world atlas.

To be continued…