HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF THE UPPER MOJAVE DESERT

Vol. 18 No. 4 A UNITED WAY AGENCY April 2003

APRIL MEETING ­ STU WITT, EXPERIENCES

Our speaker for our April meeting will be Stu Witt, manager of the East Kern County Airport District's Mojave Airport and a member of the Kern Community College District Board of Trustees. He will talk of his experiences.

Mr. Witt is a fifth generation East Kern County resident. Born in Bakersfield, he grew up in Onyx. He graduated from California State College, Northridge, in 1974 and from "Top Gun," the Naval Fighter Weapons School, in 1980. He was a Navy project pilot at the Naval Air Warfare Center, China Lake. He joined Westinghouse Electric Corp. in 1985 and served nearly nine years as an engineering test pilot on several aircraft projects.

Mr. Witt joined CTA, Ridgecrest, in 1993 as executive vice president directing their Western Operations until March 2002. In March 2002, Witt was selected to manage the East Kern Airport District's Mojave Airport. He also is a
director with the Kern County Board of Trade and the newest member of the Kern Community College Board of Trustees, representing Area Two, spanning Mammoth Lakes to Edwards Air Force Base, and from Trona to Kernville. He is married to the former Susan Etoch; they reside in Ridgecrest.

The meeting will be held 7:30 p.m., Tuesday evening, April 15, at the Maturango Museum. Everyone is welcome to attend. For more information, call Bruce Wertenberger at 375-2369, or leave a message at 375-8456.

ANNUAL DINNER MEETING

We have established the date of Tuesday, May 13, as the time of our annual meeting. Please mark your calendars. Many details have not yet been finalized; speaker will be Dr. Remi Nadeau, dinner at the Carriage, more details will be forthcoming.

NOMINATING COMMITTEE

The nominating committee, headed by Charlotte Godson, is still busy at work in preparation for the election at our annual meeting. As of press time, they still need one nominee. If you are interested in being nominated to serve on the board, please give Charlotte Goodson a call at 375-6449, or Joan Woodman at 446-7356 or Barbara Hall at 375-1966. Thank you.

NEW HISTORICAL EXHIBIT

An exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Korean War has been installed in the vestibule exhibit cabinets of the Maturango Museum. On one side the exhibit details aspects of the conflict and on the other side the contributions which China Lake made in terms of weaponry, etc. The exhibit was designed and created by Liz Babcock with assistance from Bruce Wertenberger.

HSUMD BOARD RETREAT

Your board of directors held a retreat the afternoon of March22. At that time the board listed and discussed a number of topics which we had not taken time to discuss in our board meetings, as well as new topics focussed on our future. It was a productive meeting. Several committees were established and chairpersons named. We hope that we can take action on many of these topics in the months ahead. Creating some tours was one of the topics on which we expect to take action soon. As usual, we will looking for volunteers to aid us in accomplishing our goals.

NEW MEMBER

With this issue we welcome new member, Mr. Steve Lawrence of Washington state.

ANNA K. MCDUFF

It is with regret that we note the passing of HSUMD member, Anna K. McDuff, who was a long-time resident of the Indian Wells Valley. Our condolences to her family and friends.

BUSINESS MEMBERS

With this issue we welcome a new business member, Ridgecrest Moving and Storage, Inc., who joins our other business members: Granite Construction ­ Sand and Gravel, Farris' at the Heritage, the Indian Wells Valley Insurance Co and the Swap Sheet.

Please patronize these business members whenever possible. We also encourage any of our members who are eligible to become business members, to do so. Just contact Fred Weals, our Treasurer, at our Post Office Box 2001, Ridgecrest, CA 93555, or give him a call at 375-5249.

HISTORICAL ARTICLE

(The following first person account is by a woman who recently became a member of the Historical Society and who was among the earliest employees at China Lake. Our thanks to Gwyn for sharing her memories with us. Ed.)

AN EASTER TO REMEMBER

I'm not sure of the date but either in 1947 or '48, my husband, small son, a couple of friends and I went to Red Rock Canyon for a Sunrise Service.

People from Cantil, Mojave and NOTS had gathered and were enjoying the crisp morning air and visiting with friends. As the first rays of sunshine touched the tip of the cliff everyone became quiet as we gazed at the beauty of light on the colorful cliff. Then music filled the air and services began.

The people of Cantil and Mojave had conducted services there for many years.

After the services, we drove up the canyon past Ricardo's Cafe, then took a trail on up the canyon and found a spot where we could pull off the road. My husband began gathering rocks to make a fire circle as we had taken things to cook our breakfast.

Soon three cars came along, stopped and a little lady came out and wanted to know what we were doing, then insisted that was no place to cook, that we'd have sand in everything. She invited us up to her place for breakfast. Assuring her that we wanted to cook out, she said, "Well at least come on out of the sand and use my barbecue and let the little fellow join the children in an egg hunt. She was so insistent that we agreed and followed them on up the canyon and then up onto the high, level plateau. Here was a long T-shaped building on a grassy lawn and a nice rock barbecue pit.

She insisted we come into the house and see her things. We were led into a long room, where a narrow table, nearly the length of the room, was filled with her collections. We could see through an open doorway where several women were loading a long table with big platters of food. While her guests had their breakfast we were left to explore her collection of desert artifacts, rocks, dried plants, seed pods, small bones, tiny skeleton of animals and birds, snake skins, rusted tin cans, anything she could find on her treks into the desert. Also on the table were newspapers, magazines and books, each marked at the point that told of some of her accomplishments. One was a "Who's Who in the Mineral World," or similar name. I believe this is the one that contained a picture of her at a mineral convention in London. She was dressed in a black dress and hat and was wearing an orchid.

This was quite a contrast to the picture on the wall, which was the cover of either Time or Life magazine. In the picture she was definitely the little desert woman, standing beside a large Joshua tree and dressed in a print dress, Mother Hubbard apron and serviceable work shoes. (I have seen this cover picture once since then at the Daily Independent, probably in 1999. Helen Hunt said someone loaned her the cover. She left the paper in 2000; she doesn't remember who had it.)

It was a most interesting encounter. Several years later, I read of her death in a car accident in Red Rock Canyon.

About 3 years ago, I visited the Red Rock Canyon Museum and mentioned this to an attendant. She called a ranger to talk to me. He said her place had burned and that part of the foundation and a grave stone were all that is left.

He also said there is no way to reach the place through Red Rock Canyon, that one must use the Jawbone Canyon Road. He said that some of here things had been displayed at the Jawbone Canyon Store but that they had most likely been destroyed in that fire. However, a monument to her had been placed on the Jawbone Canyon Road just outside the BLM station.

I visited this and found this information: "Josephine Bishop was born in Silver City, New Mexico, June 18, 1875. She became a teacher. She married Bishop in 1896. They moved to Long Beach, California where she had a short acting career and then mined for gold and silver. In 1937, she hit pay dirt discovering the richest radium deposit known at the time. She was called the "Radium Queen of the Desert" and was known world-wide. She only got $50 from the strike but toured the nation appearing on many radio shows and in many publications as a"Representative of Kern County and the Mineral Industry."
Gwyn Jensen