The Sunnyvale Sun

News

Longtimers' event connects old friends

By Stephen Baxter

Standing next to black-and-white pictures of the orchards of early 20th-century Sunnyvale, fifth-generation resident Lester Dale remembered working on the Losse Ranch. At age 11, he learned to drive a Model T Ford, and at 13 he picked apricots, pears and cherries.

"People glorify an agricultural community, but it's pure hard work," said Dale, 74.

Dale and his wife, Elizabeth, joined about 120 honorees and 120 guests at the city's first Celebrate 60 event on June 7 at the Historic Del Monte Building. It honored residents who have lived in Sunnyvale continuously since 1947.

A committee that included Councilman John Howe and former Sunnyvale mayor Pat Vorreiter spent several months organizing the event. Vorreiter said she was pleased that tickets sold out and people reconnected with friends.

"They're seeing people they haven't seen in a while, and that's what this is all about--friendships," Vorreiter said.

The longtime residents sipped cocktails and mingled on the third floor of the Del Monte building, and Sunnyvale Historical Society members set up two tables of old photos and fruit cannery tools. They also put up easels with city maps from 1948 and 1955.

A student and two teachers from Fremont High School also screened part of a documentary they are making on longtime residents. It featured Joaquin "Babe" Herrero, who came to Sunnyvale in 1925 and cut apricots and other fruit for about $1 a day.

The school's TV, film and video class plans to interview more residents in the fall and screen the full film in early 2008. Fremont High student Jay Kim also filmed the Celebrate 60 event.

Jay, 17, said he felt young among the older crowd. "But they come up and talked to me," he said.

Rudy Rodrigues, 86, watched some of the images of old Sunnyvale on a screen. In 1943, he started working full time at the Schuckles cannery unloading empty cans from rail cars. Frances Rodrigues, his wife, said she had mixed feelings about the area's growth and the end of its orchards and canneries.

"I don't like the traffic and congestion, but it's brought a lot of jobs. We're better off here," she said.

The couple's five sons attended Sunnyvale High School, and they retired in the early 1980s.

As many partygoers headed downstairs for chicken piccata and wild rice pilaf, Lester Dale stayed to reminisce. He also listened to his son-in-law, Sunnyvale Councilman Chris Moylan, harmonize with the tuxedo-clad a capella group, the "Uncalled Four."

"We had a lot more freedom. We had a chest of guns," Dale said. He recounted hunting rabbits with a .22-caliber rifle near what is now Cherry Chase Elementary School. "Now it's a whole different environment," he said.

Dale left for the Korean War in 1952 and returned two years later.

He said, "I left one place and found another. ... There were subdivisions."