Edward Selden Spaulding, Editor, 1958-1968

FRANCES COOPER KROLL “When I was a lad” (as Gilbert and Sulli van so aptly sang) the Cooper House, in the 1400 block of Chapala Street, stood just across the street from our own house. In it were Mr. and Mrs. Cooper and six children, three girls and three boys; and in ours were Mr. and Mrs. Spaulding and six children, two girls and four boys, of whom I was llic youngest. Necessarily, between these two sets of six there soon existed the closest bonds of friendship. For my part, though I was somewhat younger than Tom, the youngest of the Cooper boys, he soon became mv “best friend”; and so it happened that I was on the Cooper premises during the daylight hours almost as much as 1 was on my own. Mr. Cooper I considered to be a silent, withdrawn man (I am confident now that this was not the case) with a beard, whom I saw only occasionally as he walked here and there on one errand or another; and, wherever he went, there went with him an aura of distinction, for he was known to us as a “49er. He was, also, the owner of the very large Santa Rosa Ranch, on the lower reaches of the Santa Ynez River. I never saw this ranch because it lay a too long day’s ride from Santa Barbara for me to attempt it; but my brother, Sam, made the journey frequently and, so far as I could tell, with no thought at all that it was a long ride. Through Sam and Tom and Frances the Santa Rosa became well known to me.

It is against this background that Frances has written her really fine stories of the ranch and town life during the years about the turn of the century; stories that have been written beautifully and with more sensitivity of feeling and with more style than is found usually in the matter-of-fact articles that appear in an historical quarterly. More than this, it is obvious to every reader that they are composed by one who writes with the authority or the researcher of personal knowledge. There is nothing of the hearsayer about them. For me, in addition to this, they are all but unique in the present day writing because they often are concerned with sheep and shepherds.

Frances rode a horse well, of course, and even a mule at times; and, oftentimes, she rode the animal to a herder’s camp on one errand or another.

It was she, for example, who brought back to the ranch house motherless lambs; and there she bottle-fed them until they were strong enough to be returned to the flock. Shearing time was a big time in her life. And so she knows well that there used to be a time when sheep were a very important part in the economy of Santa Barbara County. She knows, also, that present Barbarenos have lost almost wholly the knowledge of or interest in sheep.

—3—