Uncle Bill worked for one of the Movie Studios in Hollywood. He had taburculosis when a young man. He and aunt Fern lived in Anza Ca. They owned a ranch and had pigs, cattle and some horses. He stayed at our house in South Gate Ca during the week when he worked in Hollywood and went to his home in Anza California on the weekends.
Uncle Bill was one of my fathers best friends. Aunt Fern and Uncle bill lived in El Centro Ca when they met each other. Uncle Bill died of an accident at work in the studio.
Jim High. (James Foster High III)
Bio by James F. High III
Aunt Fern was a school teacher most of her adult life. She and her first husband lived in Anza California where she taught school in a one room school for all children in this remote area. She loved children and while growing up I spent many summers at her home/ranch in Anza with many of my siblings and cousins. We would play with the pigs, dogs, horses, etc all summer long.
Her first husband, Bill Riddle, worked in Hollywood at a movie studio and would commute from Hollywood to Anza on the weekends. He would take us in the back of his pickup truck from South Gate Calif to Anza at the start of summer which is about one hundred miles .
When Uncle Bill died, Aunt Fern lived alone in their ranch house in Anza until she married a neighbor; Link Barman. Uncle link had a large ranch where he raised cattle. After a while, they sold both their Anza ranches and bought a ranch in Grass Valley California. Aunt Fern taught school in Grass Valley too. They live their until she died.
After she died, my mom and dad got a letter from Alma(I don't remember who Alma is) which said that she found this poem Aunt Fern wrote after Aunt Fern's funeral services. She said it was "So much like Aunt Fern". Here is the poem:
THE LOOM OF LIFE
I sit to-day at the loom of life,
And weave and weave and weave,
The warp is laid by hands divine,
But the weft is where I grieve
For every moment in every day,The shuttle flips through and through
And the patterns I scheme
With the dreams I dream
Are made up fo the things I do.I have naught to do with the warp I tread,
The treads are allready set;
But my duty liesas the shuttle flies,
In the fabric I'm weaving yet
Smiles and tears, kind words and fears
Are wound on the bobbins I wind,And every thoughtless word is there,
And every word unkind;
And every act I would fain forget,
And the thoughts that were dark and vain,
I view in the fabric of life I weave,
And see them again and again.But out of repining and soul recoil
I look in the future and see
My life stretching out in its future plan,
And a new hope comes to me.
I know not the length of the warp I view,
I know not my given span,
But into the fabric I yet may weave,
I'll put the best I can.When the "throw" shall fall from my nerveless hand,
And the shuttle lies at rest,
May I hear the voice of the Master say;
"You've done what you thought was best."
Fern High Bahrman
Bio by James F. High III
Aunt Fern was a school teacher most of her adult life. She and her first husband lived in Anza California where she taught school in a one room school for all children in this remote area. She loved children and while growing up I spent many summers at her home/ranch in Anza with many of my siblings and cousins. We would play with the pigs, dogs, horses, etc all summer long.
Her first husband, Bill Riddle, worked in Hollywood at a movie studio and would commute from Hollywood to Anza on the weekends. He would take us in the back of his pickup truck from South Gate Calif to Anza at the start of summer which is about one hundred miles .
When Uncle Bill died, Aunt Fern lived alone in their ranch house in Anza until she married a neighbor; Link Barman. Uncle link had a large ranch where he raised cattle. After a while, they sold both their Anza ranches and bought a ranch in Grass Valley California. Aunt Fern taught school in Grass Valley too. They live their until she died.
After she died, my mom and dad got a letter from Alma(I don't remember who Alma is) which said that she found this poem Aunt Fern wrote after Aunt Fern's funeral services. She said it was "So much like Aunt Fern". Here is the poem:
THE LOOM OF LIFE
I sit to-day at the loom of life,
And weave and weave and weave,
The warp is laid by hands divine,
But the weft is where I grieve
For every moment in every day,The shuttle flips through and through
And the patterns I scheme
With the dreams I dream
Are made up fo the things I do.I have naught to do with the warp I tread,
The treads are allready set;
But my duty liesas the shuttle flies,
In the fabric I'm weaving yet
Smiles and tears, kind words and fears
Are wound on the bobbins I wind,And every thoughtless word is there,
And every word unkind;
And every act I would fain forget,
And the thoughts that were dark and vain,
I view in the fabric of life I weave,
And see them again and again.But out of repining and soul recoil
I look in the future and see
My life stretching out in its future plan,
And a new hope comes to me.
I know not the length of the warp I view,
I know not my given span,
But into the fabric I yet may weave,
I'll put the best I can.When the "throw" shall fall from my nerveless hand,
And the shuttle lies at rest,
May I hear the voice of the Master say;
"You've done what you thought was best."
Fern High Bahrman
Donald was adopted by Aunt Fern and Uncle Link. Jim High
The following is an autobiography by Don. He wrote this in January of 2006.Fern and Bill Riddle adopted me in 1939. I never got to know Bill, before he died.
I was in the 2nd grade and mom was working in Romoland California, and we would go the ranch in Anza California. The name of the street that the ranch was on in the 1950's was “Riddle road”. It was a dirt road. There was the main house then a cabin about 100yrd's north. That is where we would stay. I don't remember why.
One time we got home late and it was after dark when we went in the cabin and lit a lamp. There was a noise in the oven. So I open the door and sure enough there was a rattle snake staring at me. Mom grabbed a rack that was in the corner, and I hit the bed. The poor snake didn't know what was happening; he was out of the door in a flash.Another little event happened one winter, we were coming over the pass from the Hemet side of the mountain, we turned off the dirt road and there were no tracks, just one foot of snow, we made it around 3 or 4 corners and finally went off the side of the road and into a ditch. We grabbed our blankets and a flashlight and headed for a cabin that was down the road a piece, got there and fond a lamp with a little fuel in it. In the corner was a stack of news papers that we used to keep us warm. The next morning, it was beautiful and quite with about two foot of snow.
In the late 1940's Mom had a boarding house in Riverside, on the corner of 14th and Mulberry. She taught 3rd. grade in the West Riverside grammar school, which I attended in her English class,
.
The 4th, 5th, 6th, grades were blank, we move from school to school. That is when Lincoln came in the picture. He had arrived in Anza when he was 16, coming from L. A. wanting to be a rancher. He homesteaded over on the land where he is entombed. Mom taught at the school in Anza in 1947. In 1948 we moved to Indio, because the Anza school only went to the 7th grade.
By the age of 12 I had broken a horse, drove a team of horses, worked on a thrashing machine, sacked oats, cut and baled hay, all with a team of horses. plus cut wood, milk cows, I could lift a 100lb bale of alfalfa, and any other thing that Mr. link wanted done, like taking 5 pups the to a ravine, and shooting them with a single shot 22.
In 1949 we moved to Tennant, cal which is in northern California near the Oregon border. Link went to work as a choker setter, for Long Bell lumber company.At that time Long Bell was the largest lumber company in the world. Mom taught in a one room school, in Tennant, the whole town belonged to Long Bell, this is where I started driving D8 dozers, I was 15 or 16 years old. This is where Mr. Link knocked me under the kitchen table, for saying "a fooo" when he told me to do the dishes. We stayed in there until the 1950s then we bought the ranch in Grass Valley, I loved that place but a blood relative got it.
I joined the navy in 1955, mom taught kindergarten, and Link stayed on the ranch trying to keep the ranch going with moms money.
My present wife Bonnie and I bought a place down the road from Links. We would visit mom every day. She had Alzheimer’s. Bonnie would sit with her and read, and cook dinner for them.I had a septic system business then, but ended up in court with non payer, and had to sell my backhoe and truck to pay the bills for the supplies I bought for the jobs.
Because I was a heavy equipment operator, we moved all over the place, from California to Kansas.
He had Downs Syndrome
This Biography is by Aunt Edith's nephew, James Foster High III
Aunt Edith was a horder. She collected so many things in her house that when she died we couldn't get in her house. The front and back door could not be opened because the house was stuffed full of her memorabelia. The only way we could get into the house was by breaking a window above the kichen door and start throwing out everything she was saving.
Aunt Edith couldn't get back in her house so she slept outside under a tree and that is where she died.
Some of the wonderfull things we retrieved from her house were the original 3 letters to Sam High in Waco Texas written right after the civil war. One of these letters was to "Sam, son" from "B. D. High". This letter was from Pontotoc MS. This letter was the link that connected our lineage to Pontotoc MS and as a result I was able to establish our lineage to Bowling D. High. My father did not know that his ancestors came from Missisippi. To see these letters look at Sam High born 1847.
Some of the items Aunt Edith was saving were strange to say the least. While cleaning out the house I remember opening a kitchen drawer and in it she was saving the skeleton of one of her pet cats.
Henry William Sublett was the first lieutenant of Champ Ferguson's men in the confederate army from 1861 to the early part of 1863. He was captured by the Yankee's and later escaped from prison.
War of 1812 Veteran