Pat Davis

Patricia Louise Davis 1935-2024

A giant in the history of education in the Indian Wells and Searles Valleys of California, Patricia (Pat) Louise (Alexander) Davis passed away on Sunday, September 22, 2024 at the Red Cliffs Post Acute Care Center in Grand Junction, Colorado. Pat, 89 years old, departed this world peacefully after a short illness, attended by her hospice nurse and family.

Pat was born on March 14, 1935 to Myron R. Alexander and Rosina Eleanor (Piquette) Alexander in Canon City, Colorado. She spent the first four years of her life in Westcliffe, Colorado where her father Myron ran the local newspaper.

In 1939, Pat and her parents moved to Winlock, Washington, where she assisted her father in his newspaper and printing business. Pat said that she learned her ABCs while typesetting. She spent the remainder of her childhood there.

Pat graduated high school in 1953 from St. Mary’s Academy in Toledo, Washington, and went on to obtain a pre-law degree in 1958 with a minor in Education from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. During her time at Gonzaga University she took a year to study at the University of Austria in Vienna, Austria. She took full advantage of that opportunity and toured Europe.

In 1958, at the age of 23, Pat arrived in the Indian Wells Valley from Gonzaga University. Her contributions to life in the High Desert of California began as a History and Honors English teacher at Burroughs High School (BHS). She was, at the time, BHS’ youngest teacher. While there she became the advisor for the El Burro yearbook and the school newspaper the Blockbuster and served as a guidance counselor. The 1960-61 El Burro was co-dedicated to Miss Patricia Alexander and Mr. Charles Vollmer.

While teaching at Burroughs she also worked as a freelance journalist for the local papers, the Rocketeer and the Valley Independent, as well as for the Sacramento Bee, the San Bernardino Sun, the Bakersfield Californian, and three radio stations.

In 1963 she took a year off to teach in Rotorua and Otorohanga, New Zealand. Upon returning from that adventure she met her future husband, noted China Lake Physicist Fred H. Davis, in 1965 on a blind date. Four days later Fred proposed, and Pat accepted saying, “What took you so long?” At the time Fred was the Head of the Devices and Techniques Branch of the Research Department at the Naval Ordinance Test Station (NOTS), China Lake.

On Saturday, July 10th, 1965, they were married at the NOTS All Faith Chapel, two months from the day they met. Shortly thereafter Pat and Fred settled down in what was to be their life-long home in the desert between Ridgecrest and Inyokern, the Amberglow Ranch.

In 1968 Pat, Susie Basden, and Cathy Hayes began teaching Continuation High School at the Grace Lutheran Church. Soon after, the forerunner of the Sierra Sands School District, the Kern Union High School District appointed her a coordinator and in the early 1970s made her the principal when it became the Sierra Sands District. With a teacher to student ratio of 1:15 the students flourished at what was to ultimately become Mesquite High School. Pat was instrumental in the effort to design and construct the current Mesquite facilities which were completed in 1978, the year after she left her position there as principal.

At Mesquite Pat was called the “Benevolent Dragon Lady” by the students, a nickname she claimed with pride. By the time she left Mesquite, it had grown from 18 to 170 students. The Medical Vocational class they started eventually became the nursing program at Cerro Coso Community College, and the Parenting and Child Care course pioneered there was one of the first of 13 such courses in the State of California.

After departing from Mesquite, Pat went to the Trona School District to be a Counselor and English Teacher. She eventually took over their Independent Study Program and the continuation school Desert Holly High School. Said Pat of her work as a counselor and head of the two continuation high schools “I just wanted to get the kids headed in the right direction.”

Upon her retirement in 1993, Pat was quoted as saying, “When I came to Burroughs High School in 1958 I was the youngest teacher. Now it’s time to leave it to the younger teachers. I prefer to go out while I can still stand.”

The Amberglow ranch, a 12-Acre pistachio farm with 1,700 trees, became the full-time employment of Pat and her husband Fred and when Fred passed away in 1993, she ran the Ranch single-handedly.

In May of 2023, after agreeing to the Indian Wells Valley Ground Water Authority (GA) requirement that she stop farming, and not wanting to see her Ranch wither and die, she sold Amberglow and went home to Colorado to enjoy her remaining time with her family.

Pat loved camping and traveled extensively with friends and family. Over the course of her life she traveled across the United States in her R.V., and visited China, Russia, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and Turkey.

Pat loved to entertain, and hosted dinners, parties, events, galas, and weddings at Amberglow Ranch. Her Fourth of July and Christmas Parties were legendary, and her decorations for Christmas were dazzling.

Pat was a member of more than 33 years of the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International: Delta Beta Chapter, and was involved in numerous community organizations including the Board of the Ridgecrest Regional (Community) Hospital, Altrusa, and the Woman’s Auxiliary to the Commissioned Officers Mess (WACOM). Pat received a Paul Harris Fellow Award from the Rotary Club of China Lake in recognition of her years of public service, both professionally and as a volunteer.

Pat was a devoted Christian and a member of the Saint Ann’s Parish in Ridgecrest, California. She was gregarious, generous, well-read, well-traveled, eccentric, adventurous, and being bigger than life. Pat loved her family, friends, students, and her dogs.

Following cremation, Pat will be buried next to her beloved Husband Fred in the Ula Cemetery in Westcliffe, Colorado. A Grave Side Service will be held at the Ula Cemetery in the spring of 2025.

Class of 1942

The Class of 1942

Margie (Allen) Nicholas Taylor -(1924-1998)
Blanche (Cameron) Wright (1925-2017)
Beverly (Chamberlin) Lutes (1924-1963)
Bernard Contreras (1924-1976)
Bill Griffith (1924-1979)
Kathryn (Inscore) Krubsack (1923-2024)
Eugene Lawrence (1924-1972)
Marie McNabola (1925-1996)
Myrtle (Pipkin) Murchison (1922-2015)
Jesus Quezada (1919-2006)
Eugene Wells (1924-1989)
Laurence Wells (1924-2008)

The first Trona High School graduating class was the class of 1942. That was 82 years ago. The class of 1942 didn’t publish a yearbook but their group graduation picture was published in the 1943 Telescope which was THS first yearbook. Unfortunately the listed names are not in the order of the graduates in the picture.

Most of the class of 1942 was born 100 or more years ago. Three of them may still be living. I don’t have current information on them. My classmates from the class of 1961 were born mostly in 1943. We are all in our 80s and only a year younger than our alma mater.

Nancy (Smith) Morris — Class of 1955

Nancy (Smith) Morris (1936-2024) was born in Pennsylvania but came to Trona as a child and attended school in Trona from kindergartens until graduation in 1955. See married Eugene Morris in 1958. They were married 61 years until his death in 2019. They had two children, Paula (Morris) Lee and  Pete Morris both of them attended Trona High School.

Bruce-Knowles-1961

Bruce “Butch” Knowles — Class of 1964

I recently learned that Bruce Knowles passed away. I don’t remember him well but I do remember his family. His parents were Howard and Ruth Knowles. He had a cousin named Larry in the class of 1953 and a half sister named Gwen (Knowles) Russell who was also in the class of 1953.  Gwen marred Ira Russell who was in the class of 1951. Bruce also had a younger brother, Kenny.

Our condolences to his family.

Margaret Irene (Wells) June — Class of 1965

Margaret Irene June passed away in Glendale on Jan. 6, 2023 at the age of 75. She struggled with complications of COPD, heart disease and eventually COVID.

Margaret was born in Trona, California, where she grew up and graduated from Trona High School, having kept many of her schoolmates as friends throughout her life.

She moved to Glendale and worked for several years as a server at the Toasted Bun on Glendale Avenue. This is also where she met the love of her life, Larry June, whom she married on Dec. 20, 1977.

Margaret eventually started working at the Glendale Unified School District. She was well loved and appreciated for the devotion to her work and for her kind and generous heart. She retired after 28 years having gained many lifelong friends.

She also became a woman warrior in caring and fighting for her beloved husband as they battled his Parkinson’s disease. Sadly, Larry died in 2016 after 38 years of a wonderful marriage.

Margaret is survived by her brother Michael (class of 1961); many cousins, nieces and nephews; and her cat Pumpkin. She was preceded in death by her husband Larry, older sister Maureen (class of 1960) and her mother Adeta Wells.

Margaret and Larry are buried together at a gravesite next to her mother in Trona, the city where she started her life’s journey.

We all miss Margaret profoundly. Her kindness and generosity touched everyone who was privileged to be a part of her life. She will forever live in the hearts of all who knew and loved her.

Margaret Irene June added by CV Weekly on August 10, 2023

The Tufa House Not! – Is it Tufa or Volcanic Rock?

I recently ran across an article in the Ridgecrest News Review,  Community of Trona, the home of several museums by Laura Quezada. One of the things Laura mentions in her article was the Tufa House that was donated to the Searles Valley Historical Society by Robert Schuette.  This caught my interest because I had never heard of the Tufa House before but I have heard the name, Schuette, (pronounced “Shooty”) so I sent Bill Schuette, class of 1958, an email to ask him what he knew about the Tufa House.

Bill wrote back and told me that the house was once owned by his grandmother from 1943 to 1960 and that originally it was on homesteaded land on the other side of the Argus Range that was taken over by the Navy when they took over the airfield from the Army Air Force and expanded it into a ordinance testing area.

Henry F. W. Schuette moved the Schuette family from the Los Angeles area to Inyokern, near China Lake, sometime between 1916 and 1930. He worked on the Los Angeles aqueduct project. Henry F. W. and his wife, Johanna, were granted a homestead (by the US government) near of the railroad head known as Brown, on China Lake.  In the 1920 US Census Henry is listed as a famer with a stock ranch in Kern county. By 1930 the family had moved to Inyo to an area was described as Township 4 in the 1930 US census. In researching BLM land records I found that Henry homesteaded 160 acres of land in 1916. I will have to do more research because it is common for additional homestead land to be acquired by other family members.

Henry and Johanna had five children: George, Mildred, Henry, Emily and Frederick. Henry F. W. and his children worked the homestead together during the great depression years. He was employed by the Westend Chemical plant on Searle’s Lake, 25 miles from China Lake. Henry died from appendicitis in 1941. The family continued to improve the homestead until the US government took the property by eminent domain to build the Naval Ordinance Test Station on China Lake. This became a weapons test site for Cal Tech during and after WWII. The Rock House, built by the Schuette’s, was moved from the homestead (by the US government) to its current Argus location in Searle’s Valley.

What is made of? I’m eager to find out. Perhaps the SVHS can ask someone for the Searles Lake Gem and Mineral Society to examine it. Its appearance in the photo makes me think it is Tufa.

I have much more research to do so check back to learn what I find.

Anita Aasgard — Class of 1980

It is with great sadness we announce the passing of Anita Aasgard on September 10, 2023, our dear sister, sister- in-law, and aunt.

Anita had several careers and loved hiking, camping and fishing. She enjoyed gardening and everything outdoors. She was an avid writer who wrote inspirational thoughts and kept many journals of her hopes and expectations for herself. She was a good poet and loved to draw. She loved God, her family and friends and her loyal animals. Anita will be missed by all who knew her.

Anita was predeceased by her grandfather and grandmother Al Aasgard Sr. and Rose Aasgard, father Al Aasgard Jr.(Class of 1943), mother Patricia and Harry Pounds all from Trona. She was also predeceased by her brother, Lew Aasgard (Class of 1973) and niece Kayla.

She is survived by her older sister Phyllis, brother-in-law Frank, sisters-in-law Gretchen and Sandy, nieces Hope and Aspen and many loving cousins.

The family will have a service in honor of Anita on April 20th on a beautiful spring day at the Searles Valley Cemetery in Trona.

https://www.hollandlyons.com/obituary/anita-aasgard