PLACERITA’s GOLD

Shirlemae Beverly 

Imagine after having driven through the Mojave Desert on your way to Placerita Canyon.  Instead driving right through, stopping at only one stop light, and on over the Newhall Pass, ending up in San Fernando, where nobody knew where Newhall was.

This is how local resident Shirlemae Beverly and her husband Chuck recall arriving in the small community of Newhall in 1956.  Originally from North Dakota, 15 miles from the Canadian border, Shirlemae came from a large family of 12 children, nine brothers and three sisters.  A middle child, she started out on a rural scholarship as a teacher at the State University in North Dakota, and with supervision, became a teacher at the age of 17 which led her on a career which lasted over 40 years.  After three years of teaching in Boise, Idaho, she married Chuck, an aerospace inspector. 

Following his service in the Korean War, they journeyed to California in 1956 when Shirlemae secured employment as a teacher with Newhall Unified School District, first living in Sylmar for six years and then moving to Placerita Canyon in 1962.  At first she had was reluctant to live in the same town as her students, hence living in Sylmar those early years.  However, after a sweet deal, ($28,000 for an acre), to buy their current house in the Canyon from the previous owner, due to her teaching his two daughters, coupled with her just receiving a M.A. degree from CSUN in Counseling and Guidance Education, she and her husband decided to make the move to Placerita Canyon, where they have remained ever since.

Camp Beverly

For 34 years, Shirlemae served as a devoted teacher at Newhall Elementary School, finally retiring in 1991.  She recalls fondly the early years when there was one school in Newhall, one school in Sulphur Springs, one in Saugus and one in Castaic.  In Newhall, there were a total of 16 teachers serving approximately 200 students.  She commanded such a following that the principal routinely assigned all the Placerita Canyon children to her 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms, such as Candy Bloom (now Candy Veluzat), Candy’s two sons Paul and Daniel, PCPOA Board member Val Thomas’ kids, and the list goes on.  Many of her students hung out at her home in the summer, which became known as “Camp Beverly”.  Her two sons, Bruce and Craig, were also enrolled at Newhall School, which raised the bar even higher for them.  While it was a simpler time in the early years, towards the latter part of her teaching career, teachers became frustrated with how to deal with multiple languages and requirements for interpreters.  But she somehow made it work and fun for her young students.

What’s to Eat?

In the early years, other than the legendary Saugus Café, only one other restaurant was in Newhall, the Bamboo Inn, where the tattoo parlor currently is off Lyons.  She also remembers the journey to the High Chick, a “hamburger joint” in the outlying area, as well as the TIPS restaurant out there.  For shopping, they would venture to North Hollywood where Sears is located, small stores in San Fernando or Sylmar such as Country Cousins, next over to Fallbrook Square, driving through orange groves to get there, and later to Panorama City with its vast collection of shops.  (Author’s note: this brought back childhood memories of begging my mother to take me to the North Hollywood Sears where I could sit in their display saddles!)

When Lyons Avenue developed, Country Cousins opened shop which pleased Shirlemae very much.  Most significantly, if she and her family wanted to celebrate a special event, they would venture all the way over to Ventura Boulevard!

The original guest house, worth saving from 1962 fire

The Great Manure Fire of 1962

Not too many houses existed in Placerita Canyon when Shirlemae and Chuck set down roots here.  It was pretty much open space, Burbank Creamery Dairy, and Melody Ranch.   The acre and single family home that they purchased was carved out of  a 40 acre parcel and an original guest house with the old barn located in the parking lot of what is now Master’s College Fine Arts Building off of Quigley and Placeritos.

It was good that few houses existed at that time because a giant manure pile erupted in flames on Onardarka Ranch, now Circle J, on that dark day in 1962, right after they moved to their new home.  This fire, fueled by overgrowth, and streaming sparks from the manure pile, quickly consumed much of the Canyon, including Melody Ranch.  With Chuck not home, Shirlemae jumped on the roof of the old guest house, and using a borrowed water hose due to lack of water at the back of the property, saved the guest house from destruction.  When a two foot pile of not yet cleaned up cottonwood leaves erupted in flames, she was forced to jump from the roof, an act to which she now attributes occasional back pain.  All the cattle from the dairy galloped off, and were found wandering throughout the canyon, along with many loose horses.  Hay stacks smoldered for days.

What Happened to?

And that old barn somehow survived the fire, giving way to a chapel and then the first Grace Baptist Church.  Ultimately, Grace was bought out by Master’s College, and relocated to Copperhill.  What is now the newly turfed Master’s College athletic field used to consist of over 40 oak trees and lush grass, a child’s paradise.  Upon owner John Pettinger’s passing, his wife let the parcels go to Master’s.  A community protest erupted with the demise of the trees.  In the same vicinity too, a big oak tree grew in the middle of the Placeritos and Quigley Intersection.  And much of that vacant land in the Canyon became more houses, including the Town and Country Estates.

 
Shirlemae Beverly standing at intersection where the giant oak tree once stood.

 Life After Retirement

Upon retiring from Newhall School District, Shirlemae decided to explore new educational horizons, going back to school, receiving a Psy.D. in transcendental psychology and a Ph.D. in Applied Biosciences which includes hypnotherapy and biofeedback.  She is immersed in teaching classes, and her dissertation has become two volumes, the first on finding the mind, and the second on minding the body.  In addition, she and Chuck, who have now been married over 51 golden years, spend time on an inherited 200 acre former plantation in North Carolina, which after a local road crew went through for a planned road extension, tapped water, and now has a 20 acre lake in the middle.

Reflections

Shirlemae and Chuck moved to Placerita Canyon, seeking out a quite country life for themselves and their two young boys, who used to play and ride their horses in Fox’s Pasture, then vacant Melody Ranch, etc..  Placerita Canyon was a community within a larger community, the tenor of which still remains.  However, then everybody knew each other and truly cared, whereas now, residents are more isolated even if spaced closer together  What bothers Shirlemae is her former students, many who grew up in the Canyon, cannot afford to live here unless they inherit from their parents or become wealthy in their own right.  Many of her friends have since sold out for the highest dollar and moved on, but she and her husband are committed to staying.

She also feels that if the City would have incorporated sooner, then perhaps development would have been more organized, with more roads and infrastructure built in.  She adds that many artsy, talented people live in the canyon whom local residents should get to know.

Guess the bottom line is, though everybody has different interests, everybody moved to our Placerita Canyon for the same reasons, to have a quiet country life.  What we still have and enjoy today are worth the effort to preserve and maintain.  And perhaps we should all take the time to get to know Placerita’s Gold.

Written by LINDA TARNOFF