Los Desterrados Annual Reunion, 2015

The author was fortunate to have been able to attend, for the first time, the annual reunion and picnic of los Desterrados on Saturday, 18 July.  For a historian and genealogist, it was a treasure chest of memories and living history.  Although I am a relative outsider — I descend from the founders of Solano Canyon and no one in my family lived in Chávez Ravine — I felt welcomed, and I was able to talk with many of the residents and descendants of those who were displaced from la Loma, Palo Verde, and Bishop.

The image below shows a bit of a database I have put together that gives the names and addresses of everyone who ever lived in any of the three Chávez Ravine communities during the decennial census years of 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940.  The database also gives the names of everyone in each household (the names in the box with the yellow background), their relationships to the heads of household, and references to the actual census images.  Another part of the database provides information from the actual building permits for any address, to the extent that information is available in the Department of Public Works database.

Neither lightning nor rain (but no snow or sleet) ...

Right at nine o'clock, as if on cue, the skies opened up, and a magnificent thunderstorm passed directly over the picnic site, accompanied by profuse lightning and heavy rain.  Spirits were not dampened, however, and when it passed and the sun came out, it was a warm and pleasant day.

The need to preserve history from living memory ...

It is important to preserve and record the history that is within the memory of those who lived it.  For something as momentous as the Chávez Ravine evictions, and for those of us who wish to study that event, it is particularly important.  It is incredible how much the generation that went through the evictions — even as relatively young children — remember about the events of that time.

... by recording memories and asking questions

That's the author on the left, asking a question to clarify a point from some of the ones who were actually there.