Her paternal grandfather, the late attorney Lewis Dan (L.D.) Bohnett, stood up to the Southern Pacific Company and its proposal to lay track through Willow Glen. He fought the juggernaut railroad, appealing his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court—City of Willow Glen versus Southern Pacific Company—until the former city of Willow Glen triumphed in 1931.

On the other side of her family was her maternal grandfather, George Evans Jr., a loyal railroad company worker. Bohnett says she finds it ironic that L.D., who fought so tenaciously against the railroad company, would one day have a daughter-in-law whose father, George Evans Jr., was an Southern Pacific Company employee. But that might not have happened if his father George Evans Sr.— a former California state attorney general—hadn't died when his son was in sixth grade. Family friend Leland Stanford, longtime president of the Southern Pacific Company and founder of Stanford University, made George Jr. an office boy so he could earn a living, and George Jr. remained with the railroad company until he retired, Bohnett says.

"It must have made for interesting holidays because my grandfathers came from two sides of a political issue," she says.

Politics and roots in San Jose are part of Bohnett's family identity and the basis for her family's strong desire to preserve Palm Haven.

L.D., who came from Campbell pioneering stock, and his father-in-law, Edgar Bevens, built some of the original homes in the neighborhood, including several on Plaza Drive and Coe and Palm Haven avenues. Bohnett even has Bevens' tool kit from the 1920s.

Living in her grandparents' home—which she purchased in 1975—on Plaza Drive is also a living tie to the past for the 62-year-old granddaughter. And Bohnett is not alone in her memories. There are a few residents like 89-year-old Helen Gambiano who also remember L.D. and his wife, Ivadelle.

"He was the attorney that got us our house," Gambiano says.

And through families like Bohnett's and Gambiano's who recall the early years, other residents can connect to past events like the historic legal battle to preserve Willow Glen, says Palm Haven Restoration Committee President Michael Borbely.

The dispute between Willow Glen and Palm Haven residents and the Southern Pacific Company began in the 1920s. The railroad proposed to remove the tracks on Fourth Street and construct a new line that passed through Willow Glen right next to Palm Haven.

The state's railroad commission granted Southern Pacific Company permission in 1927 to lay down tracks in Willow Glen. The tracks would be constructed at grade level—not elevated—and would cross 21 streets throughout San Jose, according to an interview with L.D. in a Sept. 1, 1965, Sun-Times (now defunct) article.

However, there were also other community concerns.

A 1927 article in the San Jose Mercury Herald said that the residents "objected to the proposed route on the ground that it would reduce property values and create an additional traffic hazard." L.D. and local attorneys obtained the necessary 500 signatures to vote for incorporation—protection against the railroad's maneuverings—which passed on Sept. 8, 1927, also known in the community as Founder's Day.

Providentially for Willow Glen, Bohnett says her grandfather's time as a state legislative clerk in 1907 also helped to enlighten him on "the workings of the Southern Pacific machine."

With his understanding of how the railroads worked and their long-term objectives, the California state assemblyman introduced a landmark bill to better regulate railroad corporations.

During his service in the assembly from 1909 to 1915, L.D. became well-versed in the railroad's known underhanded tactics in obtaining land, Borbely says. L.D. watched Southern Pacific try to skirt the laws in his own hometown by buying property illegally and using intimidation tactics to influence residents.

"The railroad was pulling dirty maneuvers," Borbely says. "There was a [Willow Glen] woman who didn't want to sell her house, so they laid track on both sides of her house to intimidate her."

Fortunately, L.D.'s legislative experience and law practice gave him the knowledge of how to fight the industry titan and win.

"He wasn't just influential, he drove the whole fight against the railroad," says Borbely, who's done research on early Palm Haven residents.

When Southern Pacific lost the chance to build because Willow Glen had incorporated, the company sought to repeal the law that L.D. had introduced in 1911 that required railroads and large corporations to apply for a city franchise in an incorporated area.

When that appeal failed locally, the railroad company decided to sue the city of Willow Glen. A four-year court battle ensued, with the state ruling in favor of the Southern Pacific Company.

"Railroads were more pervasive than we can imagine," Borbely says. "They controlled the legislature and the courts. It's no surprise that the state sided with the railroad."

But this prompted L.D. to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld Willow Glen's case in 1931.

After Southern Pacific was defeated, the railroad offered to elevate the tracks over Prevost Street and Delmas and Bird avenues, and Willow Glen granted the company a franchise to do so.

"It's not a small piece of history," Borbely says. "It was the beginning of the end of the railroad machine."

Although L.D. was most recognized as an attorney and state assemblyman, he also made an unsuccessful bid for U.S. Congress in 1915, losing to Everis Hayes, who co-owned the San Jose Mercury Herald with his brother, Bohnett says.

"[L.D.] really wasn't planning to be a politician," she says. "He took it in stride."

Bohnett says her grandfather's interest in politics and society played an influential role in her decision to become an eighth-grade history teacher.

As a child, she listened to political conventions and speeches on the radio regularly.

"I thought everybody's family did that," Bohnett says.

And last fall while the recall campaign was in full swing, Bohnett says she had to laugh that her grandfather, as the California Assembly floor leader in 1911, had a hand in making the recall possible.

"People like Bohnett's family have influenced local, state and national history," Borbely says.

But it's not just her grandfather's public life that Bohnett remembers. L.D. and Ivadelle were there daily in her life. When Bohnett was born in 1942, her father, John, was away in the U.S. Navy, and L.D. stepped in as a father figure during her early years, she says. During her childhood, L.D. and Ivadelle would often take Bohnett and her younger sister, Barbara, and their two cousins to the circus and to Alum Rock Park to swim and would host picnics in the backyard. Staying with her grandparents on Plaza Drive was like staying in a second home. And now after purchasing that home, memories of her youth and the people and places she loves best are entwined in her life, along with her family's cherished heirlooms.

"I was 2 years old, and I remember sitting on my grandfather's footstool," she says as she points to it, "and picking the centers off of flowers and feeding them to him as he read the paper."

Over time, the place she frequented as a child has changed, but the character has not. When the Bohnetts first moved to Plaza Drive, the family owned six lots, allowing space for a formal rose garden, a fountain, pathways and an orchard, but a number of those parcels have been sold off.

Longtime friend Lloyd Gillespie says the Bohnetts' garden was a focal point for neighborhood friends because of the social activities.

"They were a very close-knit family," says Gillespie, who attended high school and college with Bohnett and knew her parents and grandparents. "They were one of the first people I knew at the time to talk about protecting the environment and were very interested in politics and looking after society."

Pat Price, a neighbor across the street on Plaza Drive, recently reminded Bohnett of L.D.'s daily ritual of cutting a single rose from the garden for Ivadelle.

"He gave my grandmother a rose every day of their lives, right out of the garden they grew together," Bohnett says. "It was a family story."

Recorded in Time: Willow Glen resident and retired schoolteacher Joan Bohnett has many old photographs and newspaper articles about her family. Her grandfather, L.D. Bohnett, fought a legal battle with the Southern Pacific Company to prevent the railroad from running next to Palm Haven.

The residents of Palm Haven are inviting the public back for the third annual Palm Haven Neighborhood and Homes Tour on Sept. 12.

Mike Borbely says that the six homes selected for this year's tour center around the theme of "when designers and contractors build for themselves" and include architecture styles such as Prairie, Craftsman, California bungalow, Italian Renaissance and "Spanish Californian."

Borbely says that the homes built by original owners were often designed to showcase their talents or to be dream homes. Since many were constructed in the 1920s and 1930s during the golden years of Hollywood, Borbely says many people today say that Palm Haven reminds them of Los Angeles.

Borbely adds that one home on the tour is jokingly referred to by its owners as the "Rudolph Valentino house" because of the giant bronze urns in front of the house.

While Borbely says he hasn't found any historical evidence of the developers' intention to model the residential neighborhoods after Hollywood streetscapes, Palm Haven did have a tie to the movie capital in 1926.

The actors from the popular children's comedy The Little Rascals came to San Jose to perform onstage and spent a day with neighborhood children, including Palm Haven resident Joan Bohnett's father and uncle, making skits, she says.

At the Sept. 12 extravaganza, which has now become the main celebration for Founder's Day, Bohnett will have a history booth with historic photos, newspaper clippings and memorabilia.

The Port City Jazz Band also returns again this year to play between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Antique automobiles and a period 1920s picnic are also part of the traditional celebration. For the first time, residents are dressing up their dogs for a demonstration, Borbely says.

Palm Haven has the old-fashioned charm of a small-town setting like Maybury RFD, he adds.

"Palm Haven has the feeling we all dream about," he says.

Tickets for the event can be purchased at Casa Casa at 1355 Lincoln Ave., at Details at 1322 Lincoln Ave. and at Flour Flower at 896 Willow St., or via PayPal on the website at www.palmhaven.info. Tickets for the Homes Tour that are purchased before Sept. 12 are $20 and are $25 the day of the event. The festivities begin at 10 a.m. and end at 5 p.m.