Becky Claytor Interview

--(Interview begins)--

REMAK: This is an interview with Becky Rodriguez Claytor for the special Mountain Drive Project. We are in her home in Oxnard, California. It is September 21, 1986, and this is Roberta Remak. Becky, before we start to talk about Mountain Drive, I wonder if you could give us some background information, like where you were born and when.

CLAYTOR: All right. I was born August 1, 1949, at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, California.

REMAK: And can you tell us about your family?

CLAYTOR: In regards to what?

REMAK: How many brothers and sisters you had and where you lived.

CLAYTOR: All right. There are six of us Rodriguezes, and seven that were Hydes. There were a total of thirteen of us altogether. The six of us were adopted by Bobby and Floppy Hyde.

REMAK: That's fine. Tell us just a little something about what you're doing now.

CLAYTOR: I'm a supervisor with Southern California Edison Company, and I am a supervisor of customer service, which I enjoy. I currently have fourteen employees that I supervise, and they are telephone representatives that answer all the questions for customers that call in about their bills.

REMAK: What about your family here?

CLAYTOR: Well, I'm married. Willie Claytor is my husband, who has two children. So I have two step-children and two real children; Michelle, LeVon, Robby, and Leslie. Robby, my step-son, and Michelle live with us. LeVon just graduated from Santa Barbara High, and he lives in Santa Barbara, going to the City College there. My step-daughter Leslie lives in Kentucky.

REMAK: Thank you. What we're really fascinated to find out is what your first 00:02:00impressions were of Mountain Drive, when you first arrived. And maybe you can even start with your first impression of the Hydes when you first met them.

CLAYTOR: All right. Having been abandoned, all six of us--we are true brothers and sisters--we were abandoned and put into a juvenile hall. At that time, I was three, and I'm second to the youngest. Naomi, my little sister, was probably about a year old at that time, with Martha, the oldest, being twelve. Mom and Daddy adopted us. It was actually a trial basis at first. We went to Mountain Drive. Our first thought was that we were in awe, really, of the country which we were not used to. They had a swimming pool, and I think that was the thing that got to us the most. It was a swimming pool that Daddy had hand-made. He had 00:03:00designed it with wine bottles all on one side. And the purpose of that was when the sun hit the wine bottles; the pool would become the colors of the wine bottles. It didn't work. (laughter) The concept was great, but it didn't work. But it made it a nice looking pool. When we were through swimming, we would drain it onto the avocado orchard that was right below us. So it served two purposes, fun and watering the trees. But I think all of us, it was like taking children into a candy store. First of all, you had two people that you thought would be your mother and father, which we were very hungry for, and then just the whole house. It was huge, there were trees--it was just wonderful.

REMAK: Describe the house.

CLAYTOR: The house, which was another one of Daddy's inventions--he felt that adobe houses would be cool in the summer, which was true--that did work--and warm during the winter. Plus it's cheaper to make your own adobe bricks, which he did. It was in the shape of a small "u." And his design was to make this fabulous house for Mom out of adobe. Unfortunately, he didn't finish it as it should have been. The living room was also their bedroom off to one corner. It had a fireplace, and next to that was the kitchen. Then you came out of a door and down a long hallway. There was a bathroom in that long hallway. And you came into another room which was the sewing room, where Mom did her sewing and ironing. You then went past that into Naomi and my room, and then past that into 00:05:00Ruthie's room. The other part of the "u" was the boys' room, which also had the piano. We loved music, all of us. Daddy quickly sensed that, and he also realized that Cecilio was extremely talented. Cecilio joined the Boy Scouts, and they wanted a bugler. He heard the song "Taps" (she sings a bit of it: "Da da da"), and said to Daddy, "Oh, I can play that." He got him a bugle, and within an hour he was playing that. He became the bugler for the Boy Scouts. That immediately made Daddy realize, "Oh, we've got a genius here." So they bought him a guitar, which he self-taught himself on, as well as the piano. And all of us play instruments. So once he saw that we all sang and danced and so forth. 00:06:00The room that was the boys' we also used as the fun room where we performed, which we did quite a bit for Daddy and Mom. We performed a lot; it was fun.

REMAK: That's lovely. Did you perform for other people too?

CLAYTOR: Sometimes. Daddy decided here he had six Mexican-Indian children who speak, "I ain't gots none of this, and I ain't gots none of that," horrible English. So he made it his goal to not only teach us proper English, but to expose us to the Santa Barbara Art Museum, the Santa Barbara Natural Museum, the Mission, plays such as Romeo and Juliet and Amahl and the Night Visitors--every chance he could get with anything happening in Santa Barbara--the Lobero Theater, the ballets--he took us. I remember Romeo and Juliet in particular, which I happened to love, which is unusual for children at that age. We came 00:07:00home and we worked out about a two-day rehearsal, and we put on Romeo and Juliet for Mom and Daddy. We did this a lot when they'd have the Mountain Drive friends. And we would sing. Now, all of us are singers. I could never get on stage and perform for you, but with my brothers and sisters, I can carry a tune. Cecilio would put us together in this choir, and as Daddy used to describe it, we sounded like the Tabernacle Choir. But the harmony, it was beautiful. So Christmas time, we would carol, all six of us. The boys would do the baritone, and we would do the sopranos and altos. And altogether with Christmas carols, it really was very, very pretty to hear. It sounded like a professional choir the way Cecilio would get us together and we would rehearse. But no real performance 00:08:00on stage; it was all for fun. For the Mountain Drivers we would have little things.

REMAK: Did you go to school in Santa Barbara?

CLAYTOR: We went to Cold Springs School in Montecito, which was the school for all the Montecito children. Being an all-white school and we were the first minorities to go there, we didn't have prejudice. The kids were probably too naive then, not ever having grown up around minorities. We interested them more than anything. But we definitely were looked at, and I would say within a month we all belonged and there were never any problems. There were many good friends, which in fact to this day, I still have a lot from Cold Springs School that I run into, and we're so happy to see each other. The problems, I think, began 00:09:00when we then had to go to Santa Barbara Junior High. We were bussed down there. All the Montecito children were. We didn't have the prejudice amongst the whites; we had it amongst the Mexicans. The reason being was that here came six Mexican-Indian children to school who spoke very good English, who had white parents. What happened was that they would look at us as a "you think you're better than we are" type of thing. Cecilio became the ASB student body president, I think in the ninth or eighth grade. We all joined the choir, which in those days, as a minority, you didn't do any of that, you see. It's all your roughy, toughy, type of... Well, like the Fonz-Happy Days type of character. It was kind of a nightmare for a while, though, because suddenly you found yourself 00:10:00seeing your own people, in a sense, and not belonging, and then wanting to. So we kind of went through a little period there where we were trying to belong and we tried to revert back to saying, "I ain't gots this." My brother, Paul, in fact, got a leather jacket with the zippers, and greased his hair so that they wouldn't make fun of us anymore. Because it got to where they were bullying us and near fights. So it was a matter, I think, of survival--you either joined them or got beaten up. Luckily, that didn't last too long, and none of us really stayed with trying to be rough. We just said, "Okay, we've found friends," and we realized we didn't have to do that. But that was an experience. During that time, I remember when we went to dances. They would have dances which were 00:11:00mainly minorities. We would make Mom park around the corner so that they wouldn't see she was white. And poor Mom, Mom being Mom--both of them were just wonderful-understood completely; she knew exactly what we were going through. So she would. There were points, though, if we didn't come right away, she would come in and get us. And oh, we were just so embarrassed. The funny thing about it was that we didn't realize it the first time she came in. Ruthie and I looked at each other, "Oh, there's Mom. Get her out of here, they're going to see." And then we saw the kids. Floppy is her nickname, Daddy nicknamed her Floppy. And the kids were saying, "Hi, Floppy," or "Hi, Mrs. Hyde." And she would speak to different of our friends, "Oh, hello, so-and-so." I asked the kids, "Do you know her?" They said, "Oh, yes, she works for the NAACP, she always runs our little things for the youth," and they used to work for her. So this is long before our adoption that she got to know the children, or even during. And they loved her, 00:12:00all the children loved her, I think just about everybody loved her. When we saw she was accepted, that was the end of that. We never tried to hide her anymore. But I think it's almost like the stories you see on television now where it shows the guy on the other side of the track and the girl being raised properly, and they fall in love--that type of situation. That's kind of what you think about when I think back on all that. I think the biggest thing, like I say, is when you're really trying to belong. Here we were, finally in a mixed-minority school, and like I say, looking back, I just think, "Oh, how silly that I actually did that." But as a kid, of course, you don't.

REMAK: What did you do when you graduated from school?

CLAYTOR: Well, I got married, and that marriage lasted seven years. I worked at various jobs: Jostens, Incorporated, this is all in Santa Barbara because I lived there, Applied Magnetics, General Telephone.

REMAK: Did you still live up in Mountain Drive?

CLAYTOR: No. In fact, in 1964, I believe, was when the fire was that burned down our home up there.[1] When that happened, Mom and Daddy owned a lot of property, which you probably could gather from reading the book, if you've read it.[2] Daddy's home where he was born--he was born in 1900--and that home which he was born in is on Salsipuedes Street, between Anapamu and Victoria. His mother was alive at that time. Mummy Hyde is 00:14:00what we called her. So what we did was move in with her when the house burned down. Unfortunately, the adobe bricks that the house was built of--when the fire hit, it just became like a hot oven. The walls stayed, but the insides just heated up so badly. Now, the adobe bricks were fine; they held up just fine. So the structure all stayed. The rebuilt home is the same because of the structure being the same shape and everything. But we all moved down to Salsipuedes Street, which to us children was cloud nine. We were down in the city. Some of us were going through that, where you don't want to be in the country anymore. You want to be near your friends. So we all moved into the house, and by then we 00:15:00were in high school or near there. Santa Barbara High was two feet away. It was great. But from there, when I left Santa Barbara High, I got married, then divorced, and remarried again in 1977.

REMAK: How old were you during the fire?

CLAYTOR: Well, in 1964, I would have been in the eighth or ninth grade. So I would have been fourteen or fifteen years old.

REMAK: You were talking about your special education from your father. I would be interested to know more about that, the music and the cultural events he took you to, and this sort of thing.

CLAYTOR: You mean name the things that he took us to?

REMAK: Well, what did you enjoy most? Were you attracted most by the theater?

CLAYTOR: The ballets. Mom's sister, Lou, who I mentioned earlier, her daughters were studying ballet. In fact, so was Lou. They were studying with--what is that woman's name in Santa Barbara? She was one of the famous ballet teachers there. I think she's now deceased. But they were in many, many ballets. I remember going to watch my cousins as children. They were children; we were all the same age, just about. That's what I wanted to do.

REMAK: Did you ever study dancing?

CLAYTOR: Mom put us in and the interest left us probably after two months. But 00:17:00we got the ballet slippers with the toes, and then of course, we would whirl around and pretend as though we were in a ballet. Another thing that Daddy would do was out at UCSB, the geologists or rock hunters would take camping trips to go find rocks. I don't know how he got hooked up with them, whether he'd sign up or what, because Daddy was a rock hunter. Those were fun. I enjoyed those. Most of the time they were out in the desert. We'd go to various places, though. From that, Daddy taught us different stones--obsidian, jade. We would go jade hunting up to Jade Beach. After we had collected quite a bit of stones, Daddy bought a saw, a drill, a sander, a polisher, and set up a little shop in the back we made 00:18:00jewelry from. He taught us all. We would make earrings from jade, from the different stones, and polish them. The boys would make figures, frogs, and things. Daddy would as well. Mushroom hunting was another thing that he would do. We'd go mushroom hunting, and he would teach us the various poisonous mushrooms.

REMAK: Nobody ever ran into any trouble with poisonous mushrooms?

CLAYTOR: No. He knew, and one thing he taught us was don't eat them until you really know. After a while, we did know what was poisonous and what was not. If in doubt, if we ever should find a mushroom that we hadn't seen before, we'd take it to him, and he'd know how to tell us. I don't remember anymore. There was a time that I did. The arrowheads and some of the things in the Natural 00:19:00History Museum were found by Daddy, and they say so. I think it's in that Indian room. That was my favorite. That was when I was in there.

REMAK: Where was that?

CLAYTOR: Where he found them? Various places.

REMAK: Around Santa Barbara or even further away?

CLAYTOR: Oh, I think further away. We'd go to Death Valley. We went to Colorado, all over.

REMAK: How did you travel? In a camper?

CLAYTOR: We had a Volkswagen bus.

REMAK: And you camped out?

CLAYTOR: We camped out. Daddy was another 'Euell Gibbons.' He believed in living off the land. So there were never motels or hamburgers. In fact, we weren't allowed hamburgers, ice cream, candy-everything was home-grown in our garden, and non-sprayed. Wheat was ground. Mom would grind the wheat and bake the bread 00:20:00every morning. We had nothing that was processed. In fact, that's why I'm a hamburger addict now; I always blame him for that, because we didn't get them when I was young. (laughter)

REMAK: How did she find the time to do all that?

CLAYTOR: She was a house-maker. Mom's just incredible. Don't ask me. She did everything. She was with the League of Women Voters. She stood every Wednesday for the Vietnam War protesting that. She was on the NAACP. She had all six of us, and seven of hers. Of course, all of them had grown up and married. Well, in the book, I think they name almost everything she'd been involved in. She was just one of those incredible women that you just didn't know where she got that from. But she did it all. She definitely believed that you cater to men, and she treated Daddy as though he were king. So if he said, "live off the land," and 00:21:00"we're going to do this," that's what she did. Somehow, Mom was the type of person that would get up at four in the morning and breakfast would be ready by the time we were up, lunches made, and getting everyone off and so forth. That was just her.

REMAK: She must have been a really marvelous person.

CLAYTOR: Oh, she was. She was incredible.

REMAK: I was going to ask you what the Mountain Drive community life was like for children.

CLAYTOR: Well, it was wonderful, because you could roam around there, and there were no worries. You could leave your doors unlocked, which everyone did. Some people didn't even have doors or locks in some areas of the house. It was its own community, and you didn't worry about anything or anybody. You definitely 00:22:00would know if there was an outsider because usually we were the only ones up there. So if someone new came on or was driving up looking lost, you knew they were someone either sightseeing or they were lost. As far as parties, as a child, there were a lot of birthday parties that we attended. The adults would have their wine-stomping parties, and we would have the pottery sales. In fact, it was on our turnaround where they had all the pottery sales. What reminds me of it now is down on the beach where, on Sundays when you walk up and down and all those people have their things up there. That's what we had on our turnaround. And it was the same setup. Bill Neely would sell his wine, so-and-so their pottery, things they had home-made, jewelry.

REMAK: Did you sell your jewelry there?

CLAYTOR: Yes, we did. We also learned how to make pottery on the wheel. All of us did.

REMAK: Who taught you that? Was it Bill Neely?

CLAYTOR: It was Bill Neely, yes. Bill Neely had the wheel. We went down for lessons, and he taught us the whole thing--how to use it, how to build it. And we really started making some nice things, especially the boys, especially Cecilio. Beautiful things. Merv Lane was the musician.[3] June Lane, at that time--they're not married anymore--had a dance studio. So we took dancing lessons from her and recorder lessons from Merv. That's how we learned how to play the recorders. And then pottery from Bill Neely. So it 00:24:00really was its own community. The only thing we didn't have that most small communities have is the store and the gas station. All that we would have to go downtown for. But as far as any other type of parties, no. It was mainly us children's birthday parties. When they would do the pottery sales and things, that normally would turn into a party, because they would be drinking Bill Neely's wine, and they would party.

REMAK: I read about the Christmas pageant. Was that before your time?

CLAYTOR: Did you read it in the Grapevine?[4]

REMAK: Yes.

CLAYTOR: We had Christmas pageants. We did it quite a bit, where everybody would dress up as the kings with the robes, and you had the little manger scene, and 00:25:00we would sing. The adults would have their own, and I think the one the Grapevine was referring to was probably the adult one where Merv Lane and all of them put it on. I'd have to read that article to try to figure out whether it's...

REMAK: I brought you one copy of this just in case you haven't seen it for a while. I was going to ask you about that. How did the newspaper get started?

CLAYTOR: Cecilio. Cecilio, being Cecilio. He loved doing everything. I think it was his way of showing off his writing skills as well as artist skills, because a lot of the Mountain Drive news had his artwork on it. In fact, all of this is his artwork. Now, this was probably when he was eight or nine years old.

REMAK: Was it that early?

CLAYTOR: Yes, we started it pretty early. This makes me laugh--five cents a copy. But we had so much fun. We would get mad at Cecilio because we were his reporters. Well, he has me here as his reporter. But I remember the first couple of editions, my name didn't hit the news, and I was quite upset. I was going to quit. (laughter) That was the most fun because we'd actually run around and interview people or look for stories, and then come back to Cecilio and give him all our news, and he'd put it together.

REMAK: How did you find out all those things?

CLAYTOR: We'd go and ask people. Or we'd happen to overhear something. Most of the time we'd go to the people and ask them. Cecilio did more of the articles such as this on the Gillette family, where I guess he'd actually go out and talk 00:27:00to them. This is great.

REMAK: Would you like to keep that?

CLAYTOR: Oh, I'd love to.

REMAK: I can get another copy of it. Someone gave us the whole collection of them, and we took copies from some of them.

CLAYTOR: Oh, I'd love this. This reminds me of the drums. There was John Lazell[5] who made the conga drums. And he taught Cecilio and Paul how to make them. So at night, we would sit up on Mountain Drive, Cecilio and Paul would make the drums and stretch the skin. And that was the whole process. Heat it and get the right tones by how you heated it. And they would sit up above and play the drums. Ruthie was very good at the drums. Oh, she really could play them. And John Lazell would answer, and he was way down by Coyote Road. So especially on summer nights when it was warm, we'd sit out there and they'd beat and John would answer. Pretty soon someone else on another part 00:28:00of Mountain Drive would get a drum. So it became a drum session all through the whole neighborhood. And those were neat; those were so much fun. I see where Clare and Nicole Tipple, who were friends of ours, spent the night Saturday after the ballet with Naomi and Becky, which we did a lot. We went to those a lot.

REMAK: I remember them, too. They were our children's babysitters.

CLAYTOR: The Tipples? Oh, were they?

REMAK: Yes, when they were eighteen or nineteen.

CLAYTOR: I'll be darned. Yes, they were great friends of ours. Oh, Madame Kadrina--that was her name. She was the woman that taught Cathy Stack. Cathy Stack was one of my best friends. Isn't that something? Lou, Mom's sister, 00:29:00Sheila and Roxy, the daughters, were the ballet dancers. But we did, like I say, just collect the news for this. We just ran around and asked people.

REMAK: Who typed it?

CLAYTOR: Probably Cecilio. We had a typewriter.

REMAK: And what did you do? Put it in people's mailboxes?

CLAYTOR: Well, see, Mom being on the NAACP and the ACLU, had a mimeograph machine. So I think because we had the typewriter, we had that, from seeing Mom always doing all these reports and things for the NAACP, I'm sure that's how Cecilio got the idea, "Hey, well, we've got all the equipment, let's do a newspaper." So we did.

REMAK: How long did you keep it up?

CLAYTOR: I don't remember. A couple of years. It went on for quite a while. It probably stopped when Cecilio was hitting high school, where the interest was more in women and cars than the newspaper. But I don't remember exactly how many years.

REMAK: I was wondering if you'd like to describe special people. You said, for instance, that you learned how to play the recorder with Merv Lane. Maybe you could talk about him for a minute and what he was like.

CLAYTOR: Merv was a serious person. I think we were kind of afraid of him 00:31:00because he was so serious. A wonderful person, after you got to know him. But being children, it was serious business. We were there to learn how to play the recorder, and that's what we were to do...

REMAK: You were in the middle of talking about Merv Lane and how he used to yell at you when you didn't get it right.

CLAYTOR: Again, there was a purpose behind that. He was there to teach us. He was a music teacher, and it was serious business. We were there to learn and not to fool around. We did learn; he was a wonderful teacher. He taught us different little tricks on how to learn the different notes, and how to remember them. We played the recorders quite beautifully. Ruthie and I took the recording lessons. She played the bass and I played soprano. We would do little recitals for Mountain Drive. We could play tunes in harmony, and it was pretty. You could see 00:32:00Merv was quite proud of that, "Here are my students." June, his wife at that time, she was wonderful. I just loved June Lane. She was a teacher at Santa Barbara High. She taught modern dancing, and she taught modern dancing as well to all of us on Mountain Drive, whatever kids wanted to. She had a beautiful, big studio. She was so much fun. She was a bubbly, tiny little thing. It was all modern dancing she taught. We'd have scarves with different colors. She'd put the music on. I think what was fun about the big floor. It was a huge studio.

REMAK: Up there on Mountain Drive?

CLAYTOR: At Merv Lane's house. If you wore socks, you could skid across the floor and just slide. That's what we would do a lot. If Merv came in, there was usually that stern look and, "Hey!" and we would stop. June was pretty free and 00:33:00let the kids run around. The Robinsons, Frank and Peggy Robinson were special people to us, because their kids were our age and we were together quite a bit. The Robinsons and the Neelys. Frank and Peggy Robinson both were wonderful. Peggy not only played an instrument--the flute, I believe, is what she played--she sang. She was one that was in those recitals that were held at the Art Museum. In fact, so was Merv Lane. Merv and Peggy--quite a few Mountain Drivers. I can't remember who else. But they would have little recitals and we'd go to see them. Then Bill Neely taught us the pottery. He was wonderful. I liked Bill a lot.

REMAK: Who was the man who was the forest ranger?

CLAYTOR: Bill Neely.

REMAK: That was Bill Neely, wasn't it?

CLAYTOR: Yes. We would go to Yosemite. He was up at Yosemite. Not every summer, but quite a few summers, we would go up to Yosemite, which we loved as children. Daddy took us camping everywhere. Bill would have the groups of people. Now, we wouldn't camp with Bill and the groups of people, but we would go join them for the campfire singing, and he'd teach us different songs and then we'd go back to our campfire. But that was Bill. He would go up there every year. In fact, he went every summer. Isn't that terrible? I'm forgetting everyone up there.

REMAK: No. Do you remember Ed Schertz? He and Bill Neely were the people who theoretically, anyway, were having a pottery war?

CLAYTOR: You mean as far as who could make the best pots?

REMAK: Right.

CLAYTOR: Well, in fact, that's what they would call the pottery sales on our turnaround--the pottery wars. And it was. It was who could make the best, the prettiest, and then sell it. Again, you picked your little spot, and you got to our turnaround early so you'd have the best choice. They'd advertise it in the newspaper all over because people from downtown would come up to those. The driveways would be filled all the way up along Mountain Drive with cars, and people walking down. I don't remember it being a war, (laughter) but I do remember that they competed as to who could make the best.[6]

REMAK: What about Mary Lynn Schertz? She used to bake bread. I read this in your 00:36:00newspaper, actually.[7]

CLAYTOR: I don't remember too much about her, and it's probably because they didn't have kids. You tend to remember the ones who had the children your age. Because there was a lot of spending the night with each other and going over to each others' house. I remember her being a nice woman, quiet, and yes, she did bake wonderful bread and would give us bread.

REMAK: Are there any special events that you remember, like for instance, were you there during the fire or were you down below?

CLAYTOR: During the fire, we weren't allowed to go up. The only thing I remember is just what I was told. Mom was there, and apparently Mom, who was always so sensible and knew what to do--the firemen let her go in there, and told her, as they had told everyone else, "Quickly take what you can and then get out of 00:37:00there because we're evacuating." We did send Mom because Mom was so sensible. The only thing she came out of there with was the back seat of the Jeep Waggoneer. And when we asked her, "Mom, what happened?" I think she for a moment there just clicked. It really affected her, I think, more than anyone. And probably because all our pictures, all the pottery we had made, all of her things--things that couldn't be replaced, mostly memory types of things. She said later that she doesn't remember what happened. She doesn't even remember getting the back seat of the Jeep Waggoneer. So I'm sure she must have felt just overwhelmed by the whole community, seeing it burn, because apparently it was 00:38:00really bad and a lot of homes were lost up there. I don't know why Daddy didn't go with her. I don't know what was happening there. But again, we were kids, and the biggest thing with us was, "Oh, boy, we get to move downtown," which is terrible to say. Now, when I think back, there were so many--especially the pictures. She was able to save some and I don't know if it's because they were already in the car or we had already moved them downtown or what. But those pictures should still be up at Mountain Drive. My nephew, Christopher Andrews, lives in the house now. In fact, Mom left the house to Christopher. I had thought a couple of times before you came down of contacting Christopher for pictures, because I do remember not too long before Mom passed away, she had 00:39:00shown me some pictures of when we were little.

REMAK: I think I'll ask him about that. Were there any special happy events? Did you participate in the Wine Stomp?[8]

CLAYTOR: We weren't of age. You had to be of age, and that was something as kids that you would not look forward to. I wasn't looking forward to it, but a lot of the Mountain Drive kids would say, "Oh, I can hardly wait till I'm twenty-one," or what the age limit was. That was the biggest thing when they had the Wine Stomp and the kids wanted to go. "Can we go?" "No, you're too young, you can't." I guess because of the alcohol. So no, we weren't able to participate in that. I 00:40:00really wasn't interested even at that time in participating. I was having more fun spending the night with friends. Those were the things the adults attended, so you were trying to find a friend to spend the night with where you would have fun.

REMAK: Did a lot of people just sort of drop in and out? I talked to one girl who lived up there who said that they had a swimming pool, so that neighbors would come and use the swimming pool and it was really casual.

CLAYTOR: Who was that? Was that up at the top of the hill? We called it The Castle. The Castle and our house were the only ones that had a pool. Oh, the Dethlefsens.

REMAK: I think that's where it was.

CLAYTOR: They had a pool. They had a modern pool; they had the real thing. All 00:41:00of our pools, the one at The Castle and ours, were home-made and they looked it. The Dethlefsens, I think that was their name, had a real pool. In fact, their pool was gorgeous. It was cut round and it had ferns. It was beautiful, almost like a pond, but it was a pool. They also had a, real fat fancy--what's that called nowadays?--pools put in. Did you interview one of the Dethlefsen girls?

REMAK: No, this was someone who lived there afterwards. You mentioned The Castle. I'm not sure I know what that is. Well, you tell me?[9]

CLAYTOR: I'm trying to remember who even lived there. One of my girlfriends, Marla--I can't think of her last name--lived there, but they were not the 00:42:00original people. The original people that built it--goodness, I can't even think of their names.

REMAK: Did it look like a castle?

CLAYTOR: Well, it was so monstrous. If you looked from our house up, here was this big, huge house that was built on a cliff. You've been to Mountain Drive. When you're on Mountain Drive coming around and here are all the mailboxes, you would take the road that goes straight up past the mailboxes, and up and around. And when you went into the house, the ceiling was huge. It was a high-beam ceiling, but high, higher than--well, maybe because I was littler. But it was high. It had the dark wood. The first room you went into reminds you of Hearst Castle, so that's probably why we called it The Castle, because of the tiled floor. It was huge. Then it went off into the kitchen and the bedrooms and up 00:43:00the stairs.

REMAK: And that was all built by someone who...

CLAYTOR: Yes, it was built by one of the Mountain Drivers. I wish I could remember who it was.

REMAK: Were people still building their own houses when you were there?

CLAYTOR: Most of them had been all built by then, but there were a couple that had to...

REMAK: And did you ever go and help make adobe bricks?

CLAYTOR: Yes, we did. Even after the fire, there was a lot of helping. And the adobe brick making was fun, just because it was mushy and messy; you put the grass in it, and you did this whole mixture, and then you put it into the little wooden blocks, and lift the wood frame off of it, and there you had your brick. As kids it was fun, because "that's my brick," and we would autograph it 00:44:00(laughter) so you could remember it was your brick. I can't remember whose houses we were helping. I think the Robinsons' was one because they added on.

REMAK: The Robinsons' house survived the fire, then, did it?

CLAYTOR: I think theirs did.

REMAK: Oh, what you're talking about is not necessarily after the fire.

CLAYTOR: No, this is before the fire when we made the adobe bricks. Was Jack Boegle the man that lived up there? He lived up there somewhere. I can't remember who built The Castle. I just can't.

REMAK: We'll find out, and when we do, we'll let you know.

CLAYTOR: Well, Gavin... I don't know if you've gotten a hold of my brother, Gavin.

REMAK: He was the first person who was interviewed.

CLAYTOR: Oh, was he? Good, because he of course would know.

REMAK: Well, actually I'm sure he has more material than we were able to get out of him because we were just beginning. And so we're slowly learning what kinds of questions to ask.

CLAYTOR: And of course, everyone up there were all just unique people, all the 'Euell Gibbons' type of people.

REMAK: They weren't necessarily all artists, were they?

CLAYTOR: No, but you know the majority of them were. Some of them were not, no. The Gillette's, for instance, were the first black family to ever live up there. There were two black families, and they were the first. She was a professor at UCLA, I believe, medical. Mr. Gillette was a postman for a long time, and then I don't remember what else he did. They were more of a modern type of family. They had moved down below. But anyone that moved up there fit in right away, and they 00:46:00were wonderful friends of ours. Their daughter, Debbie, and my sister Ruthie became very close friends.

REMAK: I understand that your father, when he was selling the land, the acres off, originally, was very particular about the kinds of people...

CLAYTOR: You bet he was.

REMAK: Was he still selling land when you were young?

CLAYTOR: Yes. Most of it had been sold, but if someone were selling to someone else, Daddy had a lot of say. He was like the king of Mountain Drive, and that's what they always called him.

REMAK: What was he looking for?

CLAYTOR: Down-to-earth people. How do you describe them? Do you know the movie where the man left civilization and went to go live in the mountains? I can't 00:47:00think of his name. He's a bearded man, and they made a movie out of him, and a series was going. It was that sort of people, people who didn't mind living off the land. He didn't like the modern microwave ovens. In fact, if he saw this house, he probably would say, "Oh, Becky, you're in a tract home". (laughter) Mom has seen this house. Mom loved it. Daddy and Mom were the same, but different. Mom was from an extremely rich family who had the first electric car in Carpinteria. Her mother was an artist; she painted a lot of pictures. Daddy was from an extremely poor family, and when they met and fell in love, her 00:48:00parents said, "No way," and they sent her off abroad to get her away from Daddy. Daddy, though, waited. He married two women in between and Mom married a man, but then years after his wife had died and Mom's husband had passed away, they found each other and married. Gavin is their only son together. Mom had two sons, and Daddy had three, and then they had the one together. Daddy had four. You could always tell when Mom's upbringing was coming out in her, because here you had this adobe-made house. But if somebody important, for instance, Elyse, who everyone felt was an important person because she was a professor, and she was very proper--if she came over, out would come the silver tea set. We'd have 00:49:00to polish it. We would be in the kitchen making little watercress sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, cutting off the crust and making them into little shapes, and cream cheese with different colors pimento and green. And there we were in the kitchen putting out crumpets and the whole works. She had her fur coats. She took us to All Saints by the Sea Church in Montecito, which is all the limousine, Cadillac, fur-coat people. So you could still see that was in Mom. However, she also liked the way Daddy lived in living off the land. That's what Daddy was looking for, more people that were not worried about the fur coats and the fancy cars.

REMAK: Some of the living conditions were rather primitive, too.

CLAYTOR: They were very primitive, yes. (laughter) Yes, they were very primitive up there.

REMAK: Did everybody have electricity?

CLAYTOR: Oh, yeah, we all had electricity.

REMAK: But a lot of people didn't have indoor plumbing.

CLAYTOR: At first, no. Everyone finally did, but there were a couple of people that had outhouses. Not for long. I think by the time we had gotten there, almost everyone had the indoor plumbing and so forth.

REMAK: It's a certain type of person to be able to enjoy living like that.

CLAYTOR: Yes, most definitely.

REMAK: What about the lake that was up above Painted Cave?

CLAYTOR: That Daddy built?

REMAK: Yes.

CLAYTOR: Yes, Daddy built that. Daddy was a contractor, and this is where he got his building skills from. He bought Painted Cave because one day we went up 00:51:00there probably for a Sunday drive. We always took Sunday drives, that was his thing. We went into the cave, and he was horrified. People were putting hearts with the arrows through into the Indian paintings. So he found whoever owned it and bought the cave. He bought the cave itself and part of the land up there. And the first thing he did was put an iron gate on it so that no one could go in and do that. Then being Daddy the way he was, he decided he wanted to build a lake up there and put a houseboat on it. So we would go up with him, and he with a tractor dug the hole. It was huge. It became a big lake.

REMAK: How big was it, can you make a guess?

CLAYTOR: No, I'm not good with that.

REMAK: But it was big enough so that you could put a houseboat on it.

CLAYTOR: Oh, yes, we did put a houseboat on it. We built a houseboat. In fact, Gavin had a lot to do with the building of that. We'd sail around there. He even 00:52:00put fish in there; we went fishing. You could swim. It was nowhere like Cachuma, but it was big enough to boat around in.

REMAK: Did you have a house up there other than the houseboat?

CLAYTOR: No.

REMAK: There wasn't room in the houseboat for everybody, was there?

CLAYTOR: Oh, it would hold about twelve people. He also owned the land down below, which we called Maria Ignacia, and that's down--if you were at Painted Cave and looked down below. That was a creek that came through there. It had little manzanita trees. Daddy dressed us up in saris and thought, "Oh, you girls look very Oriental," you know, very Indian-type Oriental look. So he dressed us 00:53:00all in different colored saris. And we went up there and he took pictures of us in the manzanita trees. See, these are things that were lost in the fire, that I wish we had. Daddy was a writer, photographer. I don't know if he saw a movie or where he got this idea, but one time I remember he decided if the Indians could live off of acorns, so could we. So for years--in fact I think that lasted about two years--we would go acorn hunting. Mom found how to take the bitter out of them. We made acorn bread, acorn mush. The acorn bread was out of this world, it was so good. We made acorn everything. Lugs of acorn. We would pick them and process them. We made our own olives. We had our own olive trees. That recipe is 00:54:00in the book, in fact, when we made the olives. We had peaches--you name it, I think we had almost every tree you could think of.

REMAK: Avocados?

CLAYTOR: Avocado orchards, yes, we had a huge avocado orchard. Pineapples, we had a pineapple tree. Pomegranates. Lemon orchard, orange orchard, apricots. Oh, we learned so much. That's the thing. You know, I think back on what he exposed us to, what we know about, which I try to pass onto my children.

REMAK: That was really my last question: how did it change your life? Can you imagine?

CLAYTOR: Well, yes, when I imagine and I think if we were with our real parents, we would probably be still saying, "I ain't gots none." I probably would know 00:55:00the Mexican culture better than I do. But the Mexican culture I'm now learning from my friends at work who are Mexican. I've learned to make tamales and different traditions that they go through that I didn't know about. But as far as job-related dealing and interfacing with people, that's really I think where it's helped us all, because we can interface with just about any type of person that we come across, whether it is someone poor, someone rich, whatever. It's because of what they exposed us to. The ballets--you name it--the rocks, the trees. Daddy would teach us all the different things, their proper names, what they do and what they can't do.

REMAK: Do you like to go camping?

CLAYTOR: Oh, I love it, love it. In fact, I talked my family into going camping. 00:56:00Now camping to me, the way Daddy raised us, is you put your things in the car, you buy chuck roast, which is what we used to do, and your oranges and all your fruits and things, and your loaf of bread. You take your sleeping bags and you go somewhere. You lay your sleeping bags out, you start your campfire, you cook that chuck roast with your bread and corn on the cob, whatever. No lighter fluid. I mean, there was just nothing chemical that Daddy would let us eat. And there you were under the stars laying there. And I did talk my family into going. It was the worst experience. The kids were scared. They didn't like being out in the open. We're used to campers, you know, RV homes. I loved it, and I was trying to convince the children and I was telling them that when I was 00:57:00little, this was what we did. Stickers were getting to them, they were cold. So we never did that again. (laughter)

REMAK: You have to be brought up with this. (laughter)

CLAYTOR: I think so. That's what I finally realized. So we never tried that one again. But I'm lucky, because my husband, Willie, and the kids, we all love camping, and we go almost every opportunity we can get. We love fishing, all of it.

REMAK: Do you do anything artistic? Do you still play the piano?

CLAYTOR: No. I have a piano that I bought from a man at work. I play by ear, but I'm very limited playing by ear. If you sat down and played a tune and I watched you, I could sit and do it. I can fiddle around. And I can play with one hand whatever song, and sometimes work this one in. I did go to college to try to 00:58:00learn how to read music, and it was hard for me. Once the teacher would sit and play it and I watched her, I could do it. So she would force me. "Silent Night" was one. She said, "Don't look at your hands; look at the music." So I could not sit down there and play a concert for you. Ruthie is pretty talented. Naomi plays guitar, she took lessons. Paul plays the guitar, and Martha has a beautiful voice. She plays guitar and piano. Now, Ruthie and Martha can play the piano by ear, and they could sit there and play you something that was beautiful. Then of course, Cecilio can just about do it all. I don't think there's an instrument he can't play. I haven't seen it yet. As far as drawing 00:59:00goes, Ruthie is an artist, Martha, Paul is very good. In fact, so is Naomi. I fiddle around with it; I do cartoons. There are things at work that I have drawn, posters and things, which have turned out all right. But I think Cecilio and Martha and Ruth are the most with the artistic talent out of the family. Funny enough, all thirteen of us, Daddy and Mom's seven and then all of us, there is the talent, in all thirteen of us. Joel Andrews, Mom's son, is a harpist, and Joe Hyde is a French chef. In fact, he has a restaurant in Martha's Vineyard, I believe. Wonderful food. When he'd come to visit, he would make all 01:00:00these dishes and the snails--he did the whole works. Gavin is a professor. I don't think he's still teaching, but he speaks fluent Spanish. Oliver, who passed away, was a skin diver and sculptor. In fact, his sculptures are all over. He was a professor at UCLA. He taught skin diving and sculpturing. Beautiful things. I think some of his things are somewhere in Los Angeles. But he's got things all over. He made things out of metal, fountains. Angie spun her own wool from sheep. She had her own sheep and made sweaters. She has her own spinning thing. In fact, I think she's still doing that. Susie married a minister. And that's how we used to describe Susie. (laughter) Susie never 01:01:00really had too much--she reminded me a lot of Mom. She wasn't Mom's natural daughter, but boy, did she grow up to be a lot like Mom. Francois is with the United Nations. He was an ambassador or a foreign... He's these people you read about that go to all the different countries. I remember since he had to go out--it was a reporter type of thing. Because I remember, if he were in countries where we were having problems, Mom would worry a lot. Mom and Daddy would say, "Oh, gosh, Francois is over there." When we were children, Francie would come Christmas, and then we wouldn't see him for two more years. He was our brother that we only saw once in a blue moon. But I think about that with 01:02:00Mom and Daddy how funny that their children were very talented, and then they got all six of us. We all had some form of talent.

REMAK: Maybe that says something for the educational system.

CLAYTOR: It may be.

REMAK: Maybe we all have a little talent.

CLAYTOR: And don't know it. Maybe so. The art things that I'm doing now, I surprise myself as well.