In conjunction with the Silicon Valley Reads series, the Willow Glen Library sponsored "Remembering the Past in Willow Glen: When Peaches and Apricots Were King." Current and former residents gathered to reminisce about the area's agricultural history in an effort to keep their memories alive.

Fourth-generation resident and retired Deputy Agricultural Commissioner Roger Bibb, who now lives in Stanislaus County, discussed the era when his family owned a farm at Bird Avenue and Willow Glen Way. Bibb's ancestors migrated to the area in 1876 and maintained their orchards until 1961.

Bibb recalled some of the archaic methods farmers used to preserve their crops. The Coe family, he said, developed a sulfur-dioxide process for apricots to prevent the fruit from darkening. Farmers also used to dip prunes into lye to break down the waxy cuticle and accelerate the drying process. Even during his lifetime, Bibb said he could remember seeing furrow plows turning the soil of local orchards.

In the days before environmental regulations, farmers had odiferous ways of nipping frostbite in the bud—the smudge pot, or a spherical container that was filled with petroleum or diesel fuel and lit to warm the crops. Agricultural workers also burned tires to produce the same result.

The son of farm owners, Bibb grew up helping his family with the harvest.

"Fourth of July was always apricot time," he said. "My friends were all at the beach with their girlfriends and I was cutting 'cots."

When he wasn't busy with the farm work, Bibb remembered strolling up and down Lincoln Avenue, which was a two-lane road lined with willow trees.

Although traffic noise was not the problem that it is today, Bibb said other sounds used to awaken residents from their nights' sleep.

"People used to wake up to roosters crowing in the morning," he said.

Willow Glen resident Jim Arbuckle, who is the son of deceased local historians Clyde and Helen Arbuckle, also recalled Willow Glen's quieter days.

"I used to play in the Guadalupe Creek and my mother would ring a goat bell to call us home," he said. "Now you couldn't hear it—there is more background noise."

Orchards may have graced the valley's landscape during his childhood, but Arbuckle said the seeds of the future tech industry were also being planted long before the industry's heyday in the late 1990s. The food machinery industry developed to support the agricultural industry ushering in a need for a skilled workforce. During World War II, the arms industry boomed, he said, and technical labor became a significant part of the valley's economy.

Willow Glen's agricultural history may be only a memory today, but the neighborly spirit and sense of community prevails, residents said.

"As much as Willow Glen changes the families and people who live here are still cohesive," resident Cindy Fahrner said. "There is still a family connection. I still run into people I know—people stay here. There have been many changes, but it is still a great place to live."