Sunday Drive: Borrego Springs, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park - 1936

The Curreys went camping in the desert--the date is a guess on my part because there were no captions on these photos.

[Mother and Dad Currey--that's probably Junior's shoe in the foreground.

Too bad about the damage to the image of the waterfall.]

[Someone was tired after the hike! All photo from my personal collection]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Book Shelf: History of Agua Caliente Springs and Ague Caliente Regional Park

Growing up in San Diego with parents who had learned to love the desert long before I arrived in their lives, for me the place named Agua Caliente never was the one in Tijuana. Until I was about 12 we spent almost Christmas and Easter vacations in that county park located in the middle of the vast Anza Borrego State Park.*

Over the years I've written several posts about Agua Caliente Regional Park including one about Mary's Store and earlier this year I got an email from Fred Wills who wanted to know if he could use the pictures from our blog in the history he was writing about the park. I'm sure it was a pleasant surprise when I not only agreed but informed him that I had more pictures to share. My only requirement was that I get photo credit and a copy of his finished book.

[Courtesy of Frederick H. Wills]

Well, I met up with Fred and Stephanie at the Mission Valley Library yesterday for the return of my color slides together with my copy of the final product and I'm happy to report that it's a very attractive and informative history of the area that I'm looking forward to reading.**

If you would like your own copy, you can reach the author at:

Frederick H. Wills
Desierto Relampago Books
2918 Naugatuck Avenue
San Diego, CA 92117




*In fact Mother told me that I took my first steps there.
**And there I am on the cover, waving at the camera.



© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: 1957 Dodge 1-Ton Long-Bed Truck

As far as Dad* was concerned a truck was always a fire-engine red, 1-ton** Dodge long-bed. He bought big powerful vehicles and then drove them into the ground. (I recall him bragging to a friend --about a later truck--that he had never changed its oil in 60,000 miles. Jimmy was properly horrified and took it upon himself to remedy the situation.)

[From my personal collection]

This photo was probably taken around Easter time in the Anza Borrego Desert.  A few months later this same truck hauled our trailer to Arkansas and back.


Knowing Dad, an ad such as this one for Dodge "Power Giants" would have been like catnip!

[Source: Alden Jewell|Flickr Dodge Trucks]

*Harold D. Currey (1902-1981) was the father who raised me.
**This was true until the 1970s when the last truck he bought was a 3/4 ton Dodge (red, of course).

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Mary's Store

Until the Curreys acquired their first Ocotillo lot in 1960 we always spent Christmas in our trailer at Agua Caliente, a county park completely surrounded by Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.* In fact, Mother and Dad always said that I took my first steps there. 

[Sign at the Park entrance, undated slide from my personal collection]

So last week when I finally began the monumental task of scanning the 35mm color slides, I wasn't surprised to find pictures taken at Agua Caliente, including the ones below of Mary's Store, both the old one and the new.**

[Mary's old store 1952, from my personal collection]

[Mary's new store 1953, from my personal collection]

Of course the Curreys would stop by to chat with Mary when were stayed at the park but they were too frugal to be customers at her store and I didn't realize that she was running county library branch there too until I was doing research for this post.

According to the San Diego Union, Mary Smith's concession at Agua Caliente dated from 1950.

[Date: Sunday, June 25, 1950   Paper: San Diego Union (San Diego, California)   Page: 21  

This entire product and/or portions thereof are copyrighted by NewsBank and/or the American Antiquarian Society. 2004

Source: GenealogyBank.com]

And Desert Magazine's March 1951 issue had a feature story about Mary and her store.

[Internet Archive, Desert Magazine, March 1951]

I found a report of Mary's death in a letter printed in Desert Magazine's March 1960 issue:

A Desert Lady Passes . . . 

Desert:
I am a friend of Mary Smith, and I want to tell you of her recent passing. I'm sure many of your readers are acquainted with Mary Smith and her "smallest store" at Agua Caliente Hot Springs, Calif. She passed away Dec. 29 at Mallacoats Rest Home at Alpine. 

After Mary sold her store at the springs, she bought five acres in Mason Valley, later selling that, too, and coming to live with my husband and me at Campo. She was bedridden in my home for nearly two years. 

In December. 1958, my husband passed away, and so I had to put Mary in a rest home.
Mary was born in Utah on June 1, 1891. Her maiden name was Mary Elizabeth Lape. 

MRS. PAUL JOHNSON
Campo, Calif

[Desert Magazine online files]

You can read a current story about Agua Caliente here.

*Agua Caliente is about 110 miles south east of San Diego on County S2.
**I think her old store may have burned.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.