Molly Jordan walked a familiar trail from her childhood last evening with Mary Wiesbrock and me, before attending the Oak Park History Night at the Oak Park Library.
We were walking up the trailhead to Palo Comado Canyon in our National Park, which is on Sunnycrest Road. That trail was a part of Molly’s grandparents’ working cattle ranch, Jordan Ranch, and she remembers visiting her grandparents there when she was 5 or 6 years old.
Jordan Ranch is locally famous in Oak Park and Conejo Valley history, and her grandparents, Jim and Marian Jordan, were famous across the country from the 1930′s on, as popular radio characters, Fibber McGee and Molly.
Molly would visit them occasionally, from her home in the San Fernando Valley. She said that she did not have linear memories from that time, but sense memories. One of these sense memories Molly shared was of driving in the ranch jeep and bouncing over cattle guards.
Molly Jordan also shared later at the History Night event, that the ranch house always smelled of cloves, as did her grandmother, Marion Jordan.
On the walk, she and Mary also spoke of the successful campaign they waged to have the ranch land spared from development and turned into a national park.
And, Molly spoke of her love of the land, of the oak trees, of the animals that abide here and of the glorious vistas. It felt very special to me to be on this walk with these two wilderness warriors, and I thank them for the gift of this land, that they have given to us all.
Photo: Taken 7-12, at the gate to the old ranch, looking east to Palo Comado Canyon.
Edited, with the help of my found notes, on 7-14.
Molly Jordan // Jul 16, 2011 at 1:49 PM
Thanks, Janna! I appreciate how you captured in word and photo the delightful experience of taking that walk back in time. I’m glad you, Mary and I were able to do it together!
Siegfried Othmer // Jul 22, 2011 at 2:29 PM
The saving of Bob Hope’s Jordan Ranch from the bulldozers led then to the successful campaign to protect the Ahmanson Ranch as well.
We will always be grateful for the wide expanse of contiguous open space that was thus brought into the public domain.
Bob Hope was a tough adversary in the campaign to protect Jordan Ranch.
While Jim Jordan did not allow his wife’s cancer treatment to fall a burden to the public purse, Bob Hope instead moved to extract the maximum amount from the public for his ranch. He received far more than it its appraised value.
To the current owners, of course, it is priceless….