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Fillmore Civic Pride Committee is pleased to award the Holiday “Yard of the Month” to Roy, Raquel, and Irma Hernandez at 969 5th Street.

The Hernandez family has lived in their home since 2009 and they enjoy being in an area where lots of people pass by, walking their dogs or going to the park. They take great pride in their yard and want people to enjoy it. They like hearing people commenting on their beautiful flowers. Irma said they especially love roses and had been saying they needed to get more for the yard.

Both Roy & Raquel are retired, so they do all the gardening, but Irma, having been trained in design at Brooks College, likes coming up with the design & even climbs on the ladder to get it put up.

The Hernandez family were very happy to receive the $50 award provided by Otto & Sons Nursery. They are certain to be amazed when they see the fantastic selection of roses &other plants available, as well as the new demonstration gardens to walk around. Otto & Sons Nursery has generously been supporting our “Yard of the Month” awards since they began in 2003.

This year there were so many neighborhoods lit up with beautiful displays. We try to spread the awards around the community. Please take your family out for sightseeing and be sure to check out former winners on Sespe St, Robin Court and Edgewood in the Bridges. Other noteworthy streets would be C St., Parkhaven, Mockingbird and Meadowlark, Mountain View, Lora Lane, Saratoga, Foothill and Shady Lane in the Traditions neighborhood.

Civic Pride Committee invites all who are interested in beautifying our community, to our next meeting, January 19, 2022, at 1:30pm in the City Hall conference room.

Fillmore Unified School District

Dear FUSD Community,

Please see the message below from Ventura County Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Cesar Morales regarding social media threats and bullying across Ventura County.

We ask all families to have conversations with their children regarding social media use and report any inappropriate activity to school personnel. The safety of our staff and students are our number one priority and we take all threats and bullying incidents seriously. Additionally, when we are made aware of any inappropriate social media sties, we immediately notify the social media platform administrators and law enforcement, as appropriate. We are also very fortunate to have counselors at all our school sites and a new Wellness Center with a licensed social worker at Fillmore High School. Let’s continue to work together, build relationships, and strengthen our school environments so students feel safe, cared for, and supported.

Thank you,
Christine Schieferle, Superintendent

Responding to Social Media Threats and Bullying

Across the country and here in Ventura County, schools are seeing a concerning increase in students making inappropriate and potentially dangerous posts to social media, particularly on Instagram. These posts have included threats of violence and embarrassing pictures of students and staff members who didn’t know they were being photographed. In some cases, students create accounts that fraudulently appear to represent their school.

Just yesterday, a social media threat created a significant disturbance at Oxnard High School and led to the suspension and arrest of the student suspected of posting it. With help from the Oxnard Police Department, the Oxnard Union High School District determined the threat was not credible. However, the disruption it created for students, staff and families is very real, as are the consequences students can face when they are caught engaging in inappropriate social media activity.

“Students need to understand that posting threatening and harassing material to social media is no joke,” said Dr. César Morales, Ventura County Superintendent of Schools. “I urge all parents to talk to their children about this issue and explain that inappropriate online behavior can have serious consequences in the real world. Working together, educators and families can help ensure that schools are safe and supportive places for students to learn and grow.”

Schools do report inappropriate and fraudulent accounts to the social media platforms, but there is often a delay before they are taken down, and sometimes they are not removed at all. Here are some steps that parents, guardians and caregivers can take to help address this problem:

Be aware of your child’s online activity; they may have multiple accounts on the same platform.

Remind students that while they may feel anonymous online, their identity can be revealed through technological means and if other students report them.

Let students know that they should inform a trusted adult if they’re aware of inappropriate social media activity.

You can find additional tips on talking to students about social media from Common Sense Media at www.commonsensemedia.org/social-media.

It’s also important for families to be aware of their school and district’s authorized social media sites. The Ventura County Office of Education has created a list of the official social media accounts for all of the county’s 20 school districts, which is available at www.vcoe.org/vc-districts.

Japanese bunkhouse/dormitory, circa 1914. The bunkhouse housed unmarried Japanese workers, and the dormitory was opened to the outside rather than to an interior hall. Photos courtesy Fillmore Historical Museum.
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Bunkhouse Rules
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Japanese bathhouse 1914.
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Rancho Sespe Headquarters with Bunkhouse #2 facing north and Bunkhouse #1 facing east, circa 1925.
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Courtesy Fillmore Historical Museum

The Rancho Sespe Bunkhouse #2 is one of thebuildings at the Fillmore Historical Museum and houses a major portion of our collection. It was moved to its current site in 1995 having been donated to the Museum by James P. Finch who had bought the Rancho Sespe headquarters parcel.

As the name implies, this was not the first bunkhouse on Rancho Sespe, in fact it was the third. All of the bunkhouses were built while the property was owned by Eudora Hull Spalding who had inherited half the property from her father and had subsequently bought out her brother’s share and became the sole owner of the 2,200 acre tract. By the time of her death in 1942 the ranch had been expanded to 4,300 acres and had become an internationally known showcase for its advances in citrus cultivation. Besides citrus, it grew walnuts, hay, beans and other crops as well as including pasture lands for its horses and cattle. It was a self-contained community which employed over 200 people.

From 1911 to 1919 three bunkhouses were built to house unmarried workers. The architecture firm of Greene and Greene of Pasadena was hired to design Rancho Sespe Bunkhouse #1 which still stands at the former headquarters site approximately 4 miles west of Fillmore. The actual design was probably done by a draftsman at the firm which was best known for designing Craftsman style bungalows such as the Gamble House in Pasadena and not utilitarian bunkhouses. The primary builder of the bunkhouse was Harry Peyton who had come to Fillmore with the Southern Pacific Railroad.

In the March, 1918 edition of California Citrograph, Sespe Ranch Manager Walter H. Fleet described the bunkhouse as a“two-story building, 80ft. by 45 ft., and consists of a large living room, dining room for the general class of employees, private dining room for officials, kitchen, washroom, three bathrooms, three toilets, linen room, storeroom and 20 separate sleeping rooms on the second floor…. Each room has a large window and is furnished with following: one iron bed and springs, one mattress, two sheets, two blankets in summer and three in winter, one pillow, one white pillow cover, one bedspread, one chair, one table and closet with a curtain as dust protector…. Clean sheets for the beds are furnished twice a week, and clean towels in the washroom are furnished every day…, Hot water for the baths is furnished twice a week. The method of heating is by stove distillate burners, which heat a 200 gallon tank very quickly. In the living roomthere are card tables, a large library billiard table and large wood heating stove.”

For its time, the Rancho Sespe Bunkhouse #1was an especially comfortable bunkhouse with modern conveniences.

We do not know as much about the second dormitory’s history but know it was built by 1914. This bunkhouse housed unmarried Japanese workers. The dormitory was similar to Bunkhouse #1, but the rooms opened to the outside rather than to an interior hall. Again according to Walter Fleet:

“The building contains a living room, dining room, large kitchen with Japanese cook stoves, 10 sleeping rooms upstairs and four downstairs….The ranch furnishes one bed and springs, one mattress, one table, one chair. The occupants furnish their own bedding and board themselves. In the dining room are two long tables and seating benches for 50 people. One feature of the Japanese quarters is their large bathhouse. This building is 40 ft. by 27 ft. with cement floor throughout. Here are located the toilets and washroom, and in the center is a large concrete tank for bathing 10 ft. by 3 ft. deep. Hot water is furnished by a wood or oil heater which heats a tank of 300 gallons. There are also two shower baths in the building.”

The third bunkhouse, Rancho Sespe Bunkhouse #2 which now is part of our Museum, was built in 1919. Again we believe that Harry Peyton was the primary carpenter but this has not been confirmed. The twenty-eight sleeping rooms were similar to the ones in Bunkhouse #1. Toilet facilities were provided in Bunkhouse #2, but the workers used the dining, recreation and shower facilities in Bunkhouse #1.

In 1937, Edward Wyman Spalding, a cousin of Keith Spalding, had just gotten out of the Navy and came to work as a ranch hand at Rancho Sespe. He lived in one of the bunkhouses and in the Ventura County Historical Quarterly, Volume 38, 1993, described the experience thusly:

“We all breathed the same air. And heard the same sounds. At least on Sundays. Each of the other men, it seemed, had his own radio, little things – we’d call them antiques now – and all through the week when we weren’t at work, each of those radios would have its own music, what we’d call “country” now. It was fairly chaotic. But not on Sunday. Sunday all of those little jobs would be tuned to Aimee Semple MacPherson’s “Foursquare Church,” and Aimee’s voice would be echoing off the rafters. Loud. Very Loud.”

Change the music being played and the Sunday sermon, and it sounds very much like a college dormitory.

Courtesy Fillmore Historical Museum

This week we are turning the tables on our readers. Instead of telling a story about our area’s history, we are asking you to tell us your stories. We want to hear about special holiday celebrations. It doesn’t necessarily need to be from years ago or even from Christmas holidays. Maybe it’s a story about a child’s first Christmas or the time the dog ate the Christmas turkey. Or maybe about that deployment when you weren’t home for Christmas. A favorite Christmas story of mine is my niece, who was two at the time, showed she understood that Christmas was a time for sharing. We were out for Christmas breakfast and she was trying to share her pancake with anyone walking by. Oddly enough she didn’t have many takers.

The story can be funny, sentimental, or just a special memory. They can be short or long, whatever is necessary to tell the story. You can post them as a response on Facebook or send them to us at Fillmore.museum@gmail.com They can be written or recorded. If you have a photo to illustrate the story that would be great.