Live and preserve your heritage - by Judge Jim Gray

At this point in my life, I have lost my grandparents and parents and all of their siblings. So as far as who the "elder statesmen" are on my side of the family, my sister and I are now the ones.

Fortunately, before they died, I was able to tape record my mother and her siblings singing the songs that I heard her and them sing when I was a child, and also my father telling some of the stories and poems he had recited during my childhood. So their voices and some of our heritage have been preserved.

In addition, my father also took the initiative during the later years of his life to prepare what he called his "letter to his grandchildren." This consisted of about 12 volumes of photo albums and scrapbooks with his written explanations tracing the history of many of the ancestors on both sides of our family, providing some of their letters and mementos, telling some of their stories, and identifying their pictures that had been kept in shoeboxes for years.

I strongly suggest that you take similar actions to preserve your heritage. While there is still time, interview your grandparents, if you are still fortunate enough to have them with you, as well as your parents, their siblings, and other important people in your lives. And record the interviews in audio, or even visual form, while they tell about your family's history, noteworthy stories, songs, or whatever they and you feel would be interesting. I guarantee that you and your family will always be grateful to have those recorded memories and conversations!What a gift, because once my parents and their siblings were gone, the bare pictures and effects would have meant almost nothing to us. But with my father providing their names, dates and backgrounds, an important part of our heritage was preserved. This was so important that we caused the letter to be transferred onto CDs, with each of our children receiving a copy. (The original "letter" was donated to the Bancroft Library at the University of California, as they are interested in preserving California history of all kinds.)

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Upcoming Heritage Festival

And speaking of living your heritage, remember my Feb. 6 column in which we discussed the upcoming Heritage Music Festival? Well, that event will be held from noon to 7 p.m. May 22 at the Heritage Museum of Orange County. Please be sure to join us and be a part of a truly wonderful and bonding family occasion that will increase your family's heritage.

Three excellent bluegrass bands, as well as one big band, will perform.

Stephanie and Luke, who are unbelievable on the fiddle, guitar, banjo and mandolin, will stage a children's concert at 1:15 p.m. The big band A Wing and a Prayer will then perform at 2:20 p.m., followed by Stephanie and Luke again at 3:25 p.m. with their bluegrass music, the Dennis Roger Reed Band at 4:30 p.m. with great cowboy blues music, and then Folding Mr. Lincoln will perform at 5:35 with their fiddle-driven folk music.

Before the concert, Chief David from the native tribes of Orange County has kindly agreed to give his ritual blessings upon the festival. In addition, there will also be a delicious barbecue of tri-tip steak sandwiches and more, plus a great craft brew beer and wine garden, as well as community tables for other nonprofit organizations to show you some of the good things that are continuing to happen here in Orange County.

And now comes the extra special family part, because all through the afternoon we will have fun and educational events and demonstrations for children. Among them is a demonstration at the Heritage Museum's working blacksmith shop, storytellers, hands-on adobe brickmaking, mounted officers from the Santa Ana Police Department, a vintage 1921 fire engine, native tribal exhibits, a caricature artist, children's art classes and more.

The Heritage Museum is next to the Godinez High School in Southern Santa Ana, which is on Harvard Street just off Fairview Road between Edinger Street and Warner Avenue and between the San Diego (405) and Garden Grove (22) freeways. You can get more information by calling (714) 540-0404, or visiting http://www.HeritageMuseumOC.org.

As a disclosure, I have joined the museum's board of directors, because this is a gem of a place that has not yet come close to reaching its full potential to serve our community. But with this annual family event we are getting closer. And we are also grateful that this heritage event is scheduled to be recorded in documentary form by some film school students at Chapman University.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "Wearing the Robe: the Art and Responsibility of Judging in Today's Courts" (Square One Publishers, 2010), Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It, A Voter's Handbook, Effective Solutions To America's Problems and can be reached at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or http://www.judgejimgray.com. Judge Jim Gray is also currently offering his 25 years of experience on the bench to ADR Services in Orange County for Arbitration and Mediation services.

Promote our heritage - By Judge Jim Gray

My column on July 5, 2009, cited the Heritage Museum of Orange County as being a gem, but one that needed more attention and polishing. Since then, I have accepted a position on its board of directors and have been rolling up my sleeves with polishing rags in hand. It is the purpose of this column to encourage you to join us in that effort.

According to its mission statement, the Heritage Museum is a cultural and natural history center dedicated to preserving, promoting, and restoring the heritage of Orange County and the surrounding region through quality hands-on educational programs for students and visitors of all ages.

And that is what we do.

Our primary function is to educate elementary school children about what life was like in Orange County in the 1890s and early 1900s, and every year about 20,000 children are bused to the museum to spend about four hours with us. During that time, they go on a tour of our Kellogg House, which was built in Santa Ana in 1898, and are shown how to make butter and quilts, and wash clothes with a washboard, observe the setting of a formal dinner table, learn proper table etiquette while eating, play with some of the children's toys of that era and dress up in period clothing.

In the Gold Rush program, students are also taken on a "trip" from Independence, Mo., to the gold fields of California. But before they leave they have to plan for the trip and buy the essentials they will need. Their journey ends at our stream where they explore our gold mine, pan for gold and are taught to yell, "Eureka!" when they find their own gold nugget.

Since this is a "hands-on" museum, the children are also able to touch and use our pump organ and native "artifacts," participate in a traditional "round" dance and make a ceremonial rattle to take home. They also see our working blacksmith shop and are sometimes given some of its creations, like a nail or a block of wood with a "brand" on it.

But we have so much more potential, because the museum sits on an 11-acre site and only about a third of the property is really being used. So at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, we will have a meeting at the museum for people who might be interested to help us develop the museum's potential. At that time we will walk the grounds, discuss some of the possibilities and form subcommittees for about 12 varied, interesting and challenging projects.

For example, only the inside of one of our two Victorian houses, the Kellogg House, has been restored. The Maag House, which was built in 1899, has not yet been restored, and one of our subcommittees will be dedicated to that project. We already have interest from Taller San Jose in helping in this project. This fine Orange County organization teaches at-risk young adults the trade of carpentry, and they can use our Maag House restoration project as an opportunity to teach students their new craft.

Another subcommittee will look into the possibility of digging a water well on our site. For the last two months it cost us $1,700 just to irrigate the orange trees and other plants on the premises, and we can help our financial situation significantly by reducing that bill. But even more importantly, we have the only two remaining "wetlands" in Santa Ana, and we plan to clean out all non-native plants, and use our new well to pump water into them, after which they will be re-stocked with frogs and native fish. These ponds were also once used by large numbers of migrating birds, and we believe they will be again.

The museum also has plans to install a formal garden of native water-wise plants. Normally whenever people think of water-wise plants they think of cactus and succulents, but many other more formal plants also use reduced amounts of water. So one of our subcommittees will take on the planting of such a garden, and educating the local community about how this can be done.

As stated above, our blacksmith shop is operational and it produces lots of useful tools and other implements. But the doorway to it only provides limited visibility for the school children to observe the smithies in operation. The subcommittee to expand the blacksmith shop will enlarge the viewing area to fix that problem.

As far as we know, at present, there are no farmers markets in Santa Ana. So one of our subcommittees will explore the possibility of setting one up every week on our property. (Parking is not a problem!) As you know, farmers markets spread lots of good things around the community in addition to natural and healthier foods at a lower cost, and this is what we want to bring to the people in and near the Santa Ana area.

And talk about history? One of our projects is to develop a quarterly speakers series for people who have roots in Orange County who will reminisce about what has happened here over the last century. Where better can this happen than at the Heritage Museum?

The possibilities are almost endless. We have a natural setting for an amphitheater that could seat 500 or more people and could be used for scouting or other community events. We also have hives of honey bees, but need a subcommittee to help us to develop and increase the potential of Heritage Museum honey and community education about bees. We even have room for three additional Victorian houses!

The Heritage Museum is in the process of developing a master plan, but we need your energy and guidance to help us create a broader and more lasting legend! So join us at the museum and bring a friend with you who might also be interested. It's not required, but I would appreciate your sending me an e-mail in advance so we can prepare a nametag for everyone. The address is 3101 W. Harvard St., Santa Ana, and our website is http://www.heritagemuseumoc.org.

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And by the way, put on your calendar that we will be having a Family Festival of Bluegrass and Americana Music at the Heritage Museum from 1 to 7:30 p.m. May 22, 2011. Like everything else connected with the Heritage Museum, it will be sensational!

And if you get the chance, tune in at noon or 7:45 p.m. Sunday to C-SPAN's Book TV show to see the book signing discussion about my new book "A Voter's Handbook: Effective Solutions to America's Problems" (The Forum Press, 2010), or you could record the show when it is rebroadcast at 3:45 a.m. Monday.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the composer of the high school musical revue "Americans All" (Heuer Publishing), and can be contacted at JimPGray@sbcglobal.net or through his website at http://www.JudgeJimGray.com.

Celebrating and preserving our heritage - By Judge Jim Gray

What was life like in Orange County the early 1900s? It was almost completely agricultural, but how did those people live? Well, the answers to these questions can still be found at the Heritage Museum at 3101 West Harvard St. in Santa Ana – which is just off Fairview between Warner and Edinger. Unfortunately, few people seem to be aware of the existence of this museum, but you should take your children and grandchildren and experience it. It really is a gem.

On this 12-acre site is the Kellogg House, which was built like a ship in 1898, the Maag House from the same time period, a blacksmith shop, a water tower, a gold mine, a gazebo, an herb and flower garden, and lots of citrus trees. It also has the highest point in Santa Ana (which is about 65 feet), and the only remaining freshwater marsh in the city. The Kellogg family founded an agricultural supplies business in Orange County that is still in existence, and the Maag family was instrumental in founding the Sunkist Growers Cooperative.

As its mission statement says, the Heritage Museum of Orange County is a cultural and natural history center dedicated to preserving, promoting, and restoring the heritage of Orange County and the surrounding region through quality hands-on educational programs for students and visitors of all ages. And the more you become familiar with what they do, the more you will agree that they are accomplishing that mission.

When you take a tour of the Kellogg House, you and your children will see life as it was 100 years ago by making butter, looking through a stereoscope viewer, doing laundry on a washboard, tasting home-grown citrus fruit, playing the pump organ just like your great grandfather did, dressing (and having your picture taken) in period clothes, and playing with old-fashioned toys.

The museum has many innovative hands-on programs for children and also hosts many other instructional activities. For example, third- to fifth-graders can build their own covered wagon, and “travel” from Independence, Mo. to the California Gold Fields, encountering many hardships along the way. They can also pan for gold in the museum’s rustic stream, remembering to yell “Eureka” when they find their first nugget.

The Heritage Museum also hosts a “First Californians” class for third- to fifth-graders that allows the children to touch and use native “artifacts,” participate in a traditional round dance, and make a ceremonial rattle to take home. Another class teaches children the importance of proper manners, including the formalities of setting a table, making introductions, and speaking on the telephone. Then they can practice their best manners at an old-fashioned tea party in the beautiful oval-shaped dining room of the Kellogg House, and finish the occasion with the preparation of a lovely thank-you note.

For older children, the Orange County Blacksmith Guild now holds beginning “smithy” classes on Saturday mornings, and makes hand-wrought iron goods for display and sale at the gift shop. In addition, the Orange County Astronomers conduct beginning astronomy courses on the site as well.

But this is not only a wonderful place for children and adults to have fun by learning, it is also a great and unique place for weddings and for private and corporate meetings, parties and picnics. When you see it, I know you will agree.

As you can imagine, there are numbers of exceptional opportunities for adults, scouts, and students to contribute as volunteers to the museum. These include docent tours of the facility, and people to help with the gardens and nature center. It also includes helping to expand the mine and water tower exhibits, continuing the decorating and electrical wiring of the Maag House, and much more.

In fact, at this moment the museum is attempting to complete two projects that will add immeasurably to its facility. The first is to move two late 19th Century houses from downtown Santa Ana, where they are scheduled to be demolished, to their site. Then they will be used, among other things, for job skills training for some of our youth. The second is to dig out the pond in the freshwater marsh area, and then also dig a well both to supply water to keep the pond full year-round, and also to provide water for their citrus trees. This would both allow native fish, turtles, frogs and migrating water birds again to be found in Santa Ana, and also materially reduce the museum’s irrigation expenses. If you or any of your friends have any thoughts or expertise about how to bring either or both of these projects to fruition, please let me know.

So often we all hear people say that they wish we could have preserved more of our past. Well here in Orange County, the Heritage Museum is doing just that. We should each embrace that effort, and help the museum to build upon it. So I wanted to pass along this information to you with the hope and expectation that you would take this challenge personally and help. For more information, please visit www.heritagemuseumoc.org, or contact Colleen Mensel at (714) 540-0404.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of Wearing the Robe – the Art and Responsibilities of Judging in Today’s Courts (Square One Press, 2008), and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at www.judgejimgray.com .