Kathryn Dole Interview

--(Interview begins)--

REMAK: This is an oral history interview with Kate Dole in connection with the special Mountain Drive Project. It's taking place at her home in Montecito, and it is February 18, 1987. This is Roberta Remak. Why don't we start out with when you first met Bobby Hyde.

DOLE: I can remember that quite clearly because it was at a party at Rhoda Prud'homme's which, I can't remember, but I seem to feel it was somewhere on Fernald Point or somewhere in this general area, and it was the first time I had seen an all-white garden. And it was a big, dressy party. What it was about I can't remember, but Bobby had come up to me, and as a total stranger, and I was 00:01:00wearing a low-cut dress and he peered down my bosom and made a rather, what I thought uncalled for remark. (Laughter) I hadn't paid any attention to him, but later I heard Lucy Cushing saying to somebody else that Bobby Hyde had suddenly got really, really old; he was so young a year ago. So I asked her who Bobby Hyde was because I wanted to see someone who had aged in one year. She pointed out this man, and the name stuck in my mind. And the other thing that stuck in my mind was from that day on was -- I'm not sure whether this was in the forties or early fifties -- Bobby never aged a day. (Laughter)

REMAK: When did you move to Santa Barbara?

DOLE: 1949.

REMAK: So you met him shortly after that?

DOLE: Yes, it must have been fairly shortly afterwards -- I'm so poor on dates. Bill[1] was excellent on dates and names, so I just skipped all of those details. So a lot of this I would have to look up if I wanted to be really accurate. But I remember quite well that particular garden and meeting Bobby because later I told him, you know, I thought that his remark was uncalled for -- and that just precipitated a lot more remarks like that 00:03:00whenever he met me, you know. (Laughter) I was trying to figure out how we got to be such good friends, because my husband really didn't like him. I mean he liked Bobby, but he was extremely jealous of any time I spent anywhere else. Or time and attention I gave to anybody else. And Bobby and I had a great deal of the same interests in life. Sometimes I suspect we could have been brother and sister because there were so many things that we just loved together. And I came 00:04:00along at a time of his life when he -- well he always said he discovered children through mine. We discussed things at great length. He said that young men when they were married and had children don't really see babies. He said, "I personally was never interested in children until they developed sexual characteristics," and when I asked him at what age this was he kept lowering that. Finally, he said that had to be about three before they're interesting. I had babies at the time, and I would just hand him whoever the baby was. Also, I loved being outdoors, and he knew Santa Barbara very well. He had just started coming over to my house, and soon learned to come when Bill wasn't at home and suggest we go somewhere. Then he would show me part of some canyon -- places that I didn't know very well, and of course I just loved spur-of-the-moment 00:05:00things. We would pile all of the children in whatever car we had -- I preferred driving when I was with Bobby, which was why he was always holding the baby -- this was before the days of seatbelts. My children were a lot of fun to be with, and he really loved them.

REMAK: How many children did you have?

DOLE: Well, I only had six then -- or no, I probably only had five when I first met him. John was born in 1954, and by that time Bobby and I were old, old friends. When we gave a party for Adelle Davis[2] -- it was Bobby's idea for me to call her up and invite her and have a party for her. We had had a healthy eating and drinking party, and the Kayser's had brought her up here to speak. Out of that we became friends with Adelle Davis.

REMAK: I'd heard that the Hyde's ate according to Adelle Davis.

DOLE: Yes and no. Bobby had ulcers that he said he got from working in a war factory during the war. He had to be rather careful (laughter), but one of his favorite lunches was hot chilies and cottage cheese. And I don't think Bobby drank as much as people thought because of his ulcer. He talked about good wines and talked a lot about drinking -- the same way he talked a lot about sex and free love and all. He had a great amusement out of life, and I found him, once I 00:07:00got used to him, very comfortable to be around. He was a gentle, caring person with no rancor or deviousness. He was a great practical joker, too. He loved jokes. And I got into a lot of trouble with different jokes that he played or jokes that I played. At that time he was selling land. You know he had bought a whole section of Mountain Drive after a disastrous fire, which I believe is 160 acres. After the fire it was very, very cheap. He offered to sell me land at 00:08:00nothing down and anything I wanted to pay a month, or nothing if I would take the children and go on some of these little trips with him. He was always trying to get me to go on a camping trip with him. And I kept saying, "My husband insists on a chaperone, so I can't go." And, boy, some of the chaperones he got (laughter), the bottom of the barrel. Anyway, we explored a lot of places up there on Mountain Drive, and I was absolutely in love with the place. I didn't want to build an adobe house, but at that time there was so much scrap lumber around that you could have built a house very easily. But my husband took one look at the situation and said, "Absolutely not!" We were living in a tract house in town where I felt very stifled. And Mountain Drive looked to me like paradise.

REMAK: How many houses were there?

DOLE: There were several. I can't remember what order these houses were built in, but Bobby had a cement mixer and he would loan it to people and tell them how to make adobe. I was with him when he decided to buy the brush chopper, because he was terribly worried about fire. By this time -- see in the late forties or early fifties it had probably been twenty years since the last fire and the brush was building up. He tried to get people to build away -- I mean, keep the brush back from their houses. He put the road in with the bulldozer. I remember I wanted to learn to drive the bulldozer, and he took me up to... Some 00:10:00of this is mixed up in time. He had this olive grove where he was selling olives up in Maria Ygnacia Creek[3], and it was on a very steep hill. When he would get an order for an olive tree he would go up there and dig one out with the bulldozer and lift it up onto the back of a vehicle and deliver it to whoever had wanted it -- probably months after they had originally ordered it. (laughter) I tried to learn to drive the bulldozer on this steep hillside. I can't remember which baby it was, but I was nursing the baby and driving that bulldozer. It was quite an experience, and we both agreed that perhaps I'd 00:11:00better wait until later. What I wanted to do was to try to drive it on flat land. I practically turned it over a couple of times, and I slid it way down the hill once and he had to get other equipment up there to get it out. The children, of course, just absolutely loved him. We would just throw food in a basket. I would take food for Bobby and sometimes he would eat it. But he had that cottage cheese and chili thing that seemed to be one of his favorites.

REMAK: Who else was living up there at the time?

DOLE: Well, I don't remember what order of people lived up there, but Ray Hawthorne[4] was the man who was the mechanic, and he could fix anything. He would work very, very reasonably. He worked right in his 00:12:00yard. Well maybe he had a place downtown to start with, but you also could leave a car up there and he would fix it quite economically. In that we were driving just an old rattletrap if it hadn't been for Ray. Anyway he was a good mechanic and he wired things together for us that kept that old car running for years. Most of the people who started building up there, it was very slow. Like Ray's place was always in a state of being built. I don't think it was ever finished. And this was one of the things my husband pointed out to me, that most people who moved up there never finished their house. That was pretty true in the early 00:13:00days, but I don't think it was true later on. And when... (narrator interrupted by interviewer's cough and stopped talking)

REMAK: They lived in them though while they were still building?

DOLE: Yes. They would go up there and live, and I figured that we could too. When Bill came here to the university his salary was about three hundred dollars a month, and I was paying almost half of it for payments on a house. So in a sense, if we moved up there where we didn't have to pay house payments I would have, you know, doubled our salary from one hundred fifty dollars a month to spend to three hundred dollars. Bill pointed out that I would probably then spend four hundred dollars on lumber every month, but I think it was... It was 00:14:00because of Bobby that they put the county building code in, of course. Up to that time they had no county building code, and there were a lot of people in Montecito who were very irate at what they considered the free use of the hillsides. I'm not sure, but I think this was before the word "hippy" was used. They weren't exactly vagrants, but they were frowned on by a lot of people. The county was always coming up and... of course Bobby's roads, which actually weren't all that bad... some of them were a little steep, but not being paved they were hard in the winter time. And sometimes people who were building wanted those roads a certain way. Bobby himself was an expert bulldozer and had a fantastic sense of the contour of land. And the work that he did was, I thought, 00:15:00excellent. In retrospect, he had so many talents. Later when he took up sculpture I could see that he has that rare three-dimensional thinking -- which is why he was so good with the bulldozer. He was soft-spoken and didn't put his way on anybody else, so that if you went up there you didn't have to abide by what he said. And when he bought the brush chipper the first time -- he loved mechanical things, it was funny -- he spent all this money for this great brush chipper and it was, I guess, the first one in Santa Barbara, because when he got 00:16:00bored with it he sold it to the city. He bought because he was going to offer to clear the brush around everybody's house up there, chip it all up and make compost. He was ahead of himself in so many ways. Of course nobody wanted their particular blooming shrub right by their bedroom whacked down. (laughter)

REMAK: You said that the people in Montecito didn't care for the Mountain Drive community. What reasons did they have?

DOLE: Well, I think they felt it was downgrading. You know, people drove old cars, very old cars, and they could build anyway they wanted. But it wasn't shantytown, but, personally, I don't think it was any worse than some places in 00:17:00Goleta, and some places right in -- the city had a building code at that time, but the county didn't. And that's why they put that in is that the people felt that -- I guess property owners are always threatened by people moving in with less money than they have.

REMAK: Did you go to many Mountain Drive festivals and parties?

DOLE: Well, I went to I guess the very first wine crushing, and Bill went to 00:18:00that, too. That was very interesting and a lot of fun. Both Bobby and I had this love of ceremony, and it took very different forms with us. But the same kind of celebration of all of the really human, the deep human things from our past, we would both want to celebrate, he in one way and I in another. And with this whole thing of Bacchus, the god of wine, and making wine -- Bobby was interested in all kinds of growing things, nature, you know, avocados, rare fruit. So wine 00:19:00making was a natural for him. And of course everybody dressed for the party. For most of the parties people dressed in costume or whatever you felt was a good idea. At this one there were a lot of -- at the first one there were people in, you know, short tunics with vine leaves in their hair. And I can't remember what Bobby was wearing. So I wore a Roman crusaders top that I had made for something else. I don't know exactly why I figured that fit the occasion, (laughter) but it was very colorful and I was very proud of it. Of course my husband never changed what he was wearing and was probably in his grey flannel suit. 00:20:00(laughter) Bill was very impressed with the wine that Bobby made. He was less impressed once when -- it's so long, but it's so funny. Lucy Cushing and I had a business that was very successful. We had a big shipment waiting for United Parcel, and we worked out of Lucy's. She had a kind of a cute little guest house in the back of their place on El Bosque Road, and we used that as our headquarters, and --

REMAK: What kind of a business was it?

DOLE: It was called Flossy Finery, and it was children's clothes, and we sold to FAO Schwarz and I. Magnin and places, you know, really good stores. And we had this one big shipment going out, and I woke up about four in the morning and 00:21:00realized it had started to rain. And this was on -- we had left it on the side porch. So I realized the stuff would get ruined, and I ran out and jumped -- I didn't wake my husband up or any of the children -- I ran out and jumped in the car in my bathrobe and pajamas and drove out to El Bosque Road and moved the stuff inside, put a note out for United Parcel. And then it was getting light, so I thought, well I'll take the drive back across Mountain Drive, it's so beautiful in the rain and everything. And when I got to Bobby Hyde's I thought, "Heck, I'll just drop in for breakfast." So by this time it was about five-thirty, and they usually got up -- Bobby was up early, and Floppy too. Anyway, I showed up in my bathrobe, which gave Bobby an opportunity for a lot of 00:22:00jokes, "Where've you been, Doll. Now don't tell me if you don't want to." (laughter) "Your secret's safe with me." Anyway, I had something, but he said, "I've got some brand new wine here, and you'll really like it." So I tried this wine, and it tasted like grape juice. It was delicious, absolutely delicious. Well, a couple of glasses of that and I said, "Well, I've got to go." And he said, "Well, you'd better not go across Mountain Drive. It's been raining steadily." I said, "No, I can drive this car anywhere." You know, the wine. So I started out. This time is was probably about six o'clock, and the minute I hit that unpaved section right past Coyote Drive I knew I was in trouble, and I knew I couldn't stop. So I kept driving as fast as I could, and a couple of times -- and then also I realized I had to get the children up for school. My husband 00:23:00would wake up and I'd be gone, and he'd be mad. A couple of times I got stuck and I got out and I kept going, and I got within about two hundred yards of the pavement when I really slipped. You know, I was going too fast. But it was getting wetter and wetter. I slipped completely off the road. So I got out and hitched up my bathrobe and my nightgown and started running, and I saw this little house up there. And I went up and knocked on the door, and this man came and he opened the door and then he shut it, you know, and put his shoulder against it. (laughter) I was just absolutely covered with mud from head to foot. I looked like (laughter) something -- my hair was muddy, my face was muddy. I begged him to use the phone, and he said, "I'll phone for you." So I, I know, he 00:24:00phoned with me standing outside. He phoned, and my line was busy, and I thought, "Oh my God. Bill's awake, and the fat's in the fire." So then I phoned -- I said to call this neighbor, the only neighbor I had that I knew the phone number. He phoned Myra Clements who lived down the block, and I said, "Tell her I'm up at the west end of Mountain Drive with no clothes, and the car is not able to move...," I didn't want to say I'd run it off the road, "...and try and get somebody to come up here and get me, and I'm all right." So here's this strange man telling a neighbor. So the neighbor runs down there, and I was thinking, I 00:25:00wonder how many people has Bill has already called trying to find out where I am. He got down there, and Mary Steele[5], of the Museum, stopped by that morning. She was there, and she told me about it later that this neighbor came running in and said, "Your wife's stark naked at the end of Mountain Drive, and something's happened to the car and she needs help right away." (laughter) Well, by that afternoon everybody I met in town wanted to know what was happening. And then, of course, they couldn't get the car out, which was punishment enough. I couldn't get the car out until the road dried up, and it was about five days. But Bobby loaned me something. You know, he always had an old vehicle of some kind around. But so much for his new wine. I never tasted 00:26:00it after. (laughter) Very deceptive. But you know, in retrospect, those make such great memories, and I must say, Mountain Drive was beautiful that morning in spite of everything, just gorgeous. (laughter)

REMAK: Did you go to any other of the festivals like Bastille Day?

DOLE: Yeah. I liked to. In the beginning I went to a lot of them. One of the ones I remember, which wasn't actually Mountain Drive, but it was when Oliver Andrews got older, ah -- Oh, I was there when Bobby was building the swimming pool and putting the bottles in the end of the wall, which was a great idea. He got everybody to save wine bottles -- the pretty bottles -- and then he dammed 00:27:00up this one end of the pool with a curving wall, pouring cement and putting the bottles in. It looked really beautiful from the inside, but on the outside they just stuck out because it wasn't all that thick a cement. It wasn't that attractive from the other side. Floppy had a rule... Floppy and I had some run-ins, and one of the first was over this thing that I brought my children up there. She came out and said they had to take their suits off. They had a rule that they had that nobody could swim in the pool with a suit. I said to Bobby, "I never make my children either wear a suit or not wear a suit. I feel children 00:28:00should be free to express themselves." And Floppy said, "No!" "This is just as rigid as East Beach. There they make you wear a suit. Here you say you can't wear a suit. That's quite bizarre." So Bobby got into the middle of it, and the said that if the children wanted to wear suits they could wear suits, and perverse little devils that all children are, they would swim without suits at East Beach but with suits on at Bobby's. (laughter) When Oliver built his house, the old bridge out in Goleta was for sale, I believe for one hundred dollars -- the most fabulous timbers you've ever seen. It was the most beautiful wood you 00:29:00ever saw, and the nicest thing that happened was that when it was finally sold it went to Oliver Andrews[6] who built his house up on Mountain Drive out of it. So I feel like it didn't just -- you know, a lot of times they would just burn stuff like that. They would dismantle it and just burn it. So I felt a lot better. Bobby let the boys live -- they had their own little houses -- and he let them build anything they wanted to live in, which I think was wonderful. To just go out and make their own shelter. I've always 00:30:00thought that probably Oliver became a sculptor[7] because of his experience growing up with Bobby. And Bobby, you know, let his children build things and do things and pour cement and -- he was a great teacher.

REMAK: How old were they -- was Oliver for example when Bobby Hyde married his mother?

DOLE: I don't know that, because I once asked Bobby, "Is it true that you were living in a cave and left a trail of bread crumbs to Floppy's house and she followed you up there?" (laughter) And he just loved these -- this was a story I had heard. And he said, "Well, Babe, more or less, more or less." And I never 00:31:00did get Bobby's whole history straight. He would introduce me to different children at different times, and sometimes he would introduce me to people and say, "This is one of my children." So I had a very mixed up idea of who Bobby's family was and what relation they were to each other. It was a great joke, and one that I really shouldn't have... When he had talked to me about this poor old hermit that lived over in Santa Ynez that was so lonely and never, you know, got a decent meal. When you think back on what Bobby said it's hard to put it right in those words, but this is how I pictured it after he finished telling me about this poor old hermit over in Santa Ynez that was so lonely, and how wonderful it would be if we would take the children over and we would cheer him up. So 00:32:00finally we set out, and I thought, well, this poor old hermit over there, the least I could do is take some really good -- you know, I had visions of this man in a cave -- take a really decent home-cooked meal. And I sometimes just for fun did really elaborate picnics, you know. I would take crystal glasses and tablecloths. This time I thought the poor old fellow, I'd better tone it down a little. You know, it would be too big of a shock to have that, but I did a very wonderful picnic lunch with hot dishes. You know, I wrapped them in newspapers to keep hot. And we set off with the children. It was a Saturday, because by that time Bill had said none of this running off on school days. And the wonderful trips. You know, we drove about ten miles an hour. It's a wonder we weren't ever rear-ended. But we got over there and went back up through this 00:33:00place, and I was a little worried as we got into the flatter part of the valley because of this image of a cave that I had. I thought, "I hope he's taking us to, you know -- I hope this isn't a joke." And we drive in this ranch, and it looks pretty prosperous, and I kept saying, "Where, Bobby? Where are we going?" "Don't you worry. We'll be there soon." We passed this long row of garages, and I said, "What's that?" And he said, "Oh, that's just something that's a hobby." And suspicion began to mount. We went up this long driveway and here was this house, and out on this immaculately-kept lawn was about five hundred golf balls. Well, the kids took just one jump out of the car, you know, the jeep, and raced 00:34:00over there. And they all started picking up golf balls. They had their arms full of golf balls. And Bobby was laughing and laughing and laughing. And this man came out of the house and said, "Well, Bobby, what are you doing?" And Bobby said, "Oh, this is my friend, Kate, and she has brought you over a lunch." And he looked a little surprised and said, "Well, I think my wife has lunch." So here's first, of all this lawn and this opulence. Well, who it was was David Gray[8], this "poor old hermit." (laughter) David and Bobby were very good friends, and afterwards the three of us had some adventures. So that's how I met -- oh, David looked around and said, "Who are 00:35:00all these children. I've never seen so many children in my life. It's like a nightmare." (laughter) So at first I crossed him off my list, but then Nancy came out, and she was just really lovely, and she was so gracious, you know, that we became friends. It took a little longer with David, but I got to like David and made several trips with Bobby over to David's other ranch, which was up high where Bobby had put in a kind of a so-called swimming pool for David. Bobby had so many talents that it was incredible. Like we were talking -- I was always trying to find a way to make some more money, supplement the income, and Bobby said that don't -- I had some scheme that I was... "No," he said, "the 00:36:00thing to do is write." That was so typical of Bobby. "All right," he said, "writing is not hard. I will show you how easy it is." And he said, "Let's get the children and we'll meet tomorrow." He was an early-morning person, too. That was another thing that suited me so much. And I held out for the beach. I wanted to take the children to the beach. He shouldn't really be into that much sun, and he wasn't crazy about the beach, so we settled on East Beach when we went to the beach because there's that little strip of grass and the trees. So I showed up with the children and he met me there. And he had brought this very good-looking girl in a bathing suit, and he introduced her. He said, "This is my 00:37:00secretary, Doll, (laughter) and I want to show you how easy it is to write." And he got himself all arranged down there with an old seat out of a car and this girl lying on a blanket there, and I sat -- I had to watch the children playing, although I had to keep running down to the water's edge, I had some who couldn't swim. And he was dictating back and forth, and we stayed until noon and had lunch, and then said, "Well that was enough for a day. And then the girl typed up the story. I think he must have some more work on it, but he sold that story to Family Circle for $500. Well, I was thinking, my daughter, Hilary, writes, and I think, (laughter) and I think she might -- who knows. That might have been a very -- it certainly made an impression on me that he could do that. He wrote 00:38:00beautifully; he was an English major. I don't think you knew that.

REMAK: Well, did you write then?

DOLE: No. (laughter) But it seemed so easy. You know, I wanted to do things I didn't know how to do. Then again what he did, you know, he made beautiful jewelry. But the minute it became -- everybody wanted it, and he stopped doing that. When his son began to make a real name for himself as a sculptor in Southern California, that's Oliver, and became head of -- I'm not sure. He'd had a piece I think in one of the L.A. County museums, Oliver had -- Bobby took up making little pieces of sculpture with his lathe. That's when he started going 00:39:00up to Jade Beach and finding jade. And he had fallen in love with that area up at the lower end of Big Sur where Jade Beach is. And He made these absolutely beautiful little figures that I immediately said, "You know what we could do. I could sell these for, you know, for native Alaskan artifacts." "Well," he said, "I don't want to make my reputation, you know, a sham. I want to be a legitimate artist. So I said, alright, you let me handle them, and we can do it. And I took them down to the Egg and the Eye, to Betty Wiley, who at that time ran it, and she loved the things. And so she put them in the Egg and the Eye, and they sold. 00:40:00And of course that was the kiss of death, because once Bobby proved that he could do it and that it was easy, then he lost interest in doing it. He wanted to do something new. I got to thinking the other day that certain people die and you always miss them. You don't grieve for them, but you always miss them because they were such a factor in your development that they're important in your life. And they add to your life as you go along. One of the great things that Bobby once to me was, "You know, it's funny. Sometimes you outgrow your friends and sometimes they outgrow you." But Bobby was one of those people that 00:41:00enhanced my life and made me feel more like myself all the time. It's a funny way to put it, but that's what it was. His deep appreciation of nature. He taught me lots of things like the wild tobacco, which is what the hummingbirds drink, and he said, "And do you suppose they get a nicotine high from it, and that's why their wings go so fast?" (laughter) And little things like there's an apricot tree on the bank as you go up San Marcos from somebody throwing out seeds. So he always threw his seeds out everywhere he went. And his avocado 00:42:00grove at Mountain Drive -- he was the first one that I ever saw that took rolls of tar paper and put wire around them and made a planting container out of it. Those were sitting on the patio with mulch in them, and if he had a particularly good fruit of any kind, he would plant the seed in one of them, and that's where he got all of these avocados. Later, I don't know who it was had to graft them, but there were some -- I used to be checking the avocado grove all the same -- there were two or three trees that bore, before he had them grafted, that did have delicious avocados. Bill Neely. I think he had Bill Neely do all the grafting for him. But that and the way and his fireplace log of course. He 00:43:00wouldn't bother to cut a log up. He would just bring in a fifteen-foot log and put one end in the fire, and said this was how the Indians did it. I can remember Floppy had invited somebody up, and she was serving tea with this absolutely beautiful silver tea set that had belonged to her family, and Floppy came in with the formal tea tray, stepping over the log and every time she went back and forth. (laughter) She was a perfect foil for Bobby and enabled him, I think, to keep up this wry amusement at the extremes that they lived in.

REMAK: Oh, that's wonderful. I was going to ask you about creative people who 00:44:00lived there. Did a lot of the people that Bobby sold land to, were they interested in the arts?

DOLE: Well I think Bill Neely[9] was of course probably the most. And Frank Robinson[10] lived there. And I think Oliver of all the people I knew was probably the most creative and also the most like, in a way, like Bobby in that sense of -- well Bobby liked celebrations and the fanfare that went with celebrations. But basically he was a person of, well 00:45:00very much in touch with reality in a sense of not complicating things. I mean I don't know how you balance that out with the wine stomping and things like that. But Bobby saw the essence of living was daily enjoyment. And he also realized that certain things had to be done to do that. And he had Floppy doing most of it, so that left him free to pursue the simple pleasures of life. But Oliver out of all of that -- I think Oliver would have been a major world-wide figure in the art world if he hadn't met that untimely death.[11] Certainly Oliver was the leading light in sculpture in Southern California, and 00:46:00one reason why Southern California had made a kind of a forefront for sculpture in the United States -- sooner than the paintings. I think sculpture was recognized. Now, of course, every LA school[?] But Oliver had an untold influence on young people through the UCLA department. He taught, and he later became head of the department, and he could spot talent and ability and help nurture it and pick people who also had that other quality, which is the work quality. You know, the ability to stick and work and use the talent that they have. Oliver wrote what my husband said was the definitive book on sculpture of 00:47:00our time, which the University of California Press published. They were in the process of publishing it, and Bill had the privilege of having a chance to read it before it went to press and review it, I think it was, and recommend whether they -- I saw his letter, and it was one of the most glowing letters Bill has ever written for anybody on any subject. And the children that were around Bobby certainly became all creative in their own way.

REMAK: Did he and Floppy make a special effort to expose their children to the arts?

DOLE: I don't know if they did that. I think what Bobby did was to allow the 00:48:00children unlimited use of tools and materials and allow them to build and do whatever they wanted to do. I don't know about their exposure.

REMAK: You mentioned Frank Robinson. Did you know him well?

DOLE: Not very well. I knew his first wife[12] quite well. It seemed to me a lot of people changed wives up there, not changed wives, but a lot of those marriages broke up.

REMAK: Why, do you suppose?

DOLE: If you want to turn that off and I'll tell you. (machine off)

REMAK: I was going to ask you what it was like for women to live on Mountain Drive?

DOLE: Well, I could be wrong about this, but some of the ones I knew, the men didn't work. You know, they were being artists, or trying to be artists, and so that meant the women had to do a great deal of hard work. Also a lot them were living in unfinished houses -- houses that were being built -- and for some reason or other washing machines stick in my mind, because I think my first -- the hole in the dyke of my trying to live lightly in the world like a gypsy came when I realized that -- I guess I had four children when I finally realized that I wanted a washing machine. (laughter) Once you get a washing machine you have 00:50:00to have a porch to put it on and then you have to have a house to have a porch attached to, and you have to have plumbing and electricity, and you know, you're down the drain on that. So I was very conscious of the fact that some of the women up there didn't have washing machines. On the other hand, when your children are small it's wonderful to live a really simple life like that. This is what appealed to me, to be together with your children, involved in the meaningful things in life like cooking and clearing the land and planting things and building. I think that's wonderful for children, and you're right there with them. That was the kind of lifestyle I was looking for, and that was what Bobby offered me. You know, suburbia, you've got one child at Cub Scouts and one child 00:51:00at Brownies and one child spending a night with a neighbor, and you're kind of splattered. I don't know. I think when you get through with this history you'll probably have a better idea than I do about how it all turned out.

REMAK: Did you know any of the children who grew up there?

DOLE: I knew Bobby's adopted children best of all because when my husband laid down the law that the children and I were not to go -- I could go off with Bobby, but I couldn't take the children off -- Bobby was very hurt. And then one day he came in. He said, "Well, you know, I'm going to get even with you. I've decided I'm going to have some of my own. (laughter) He had a sly smile when 00:52:00he'd make a statement like that. He had heard about these six Mexican-Indian children that were being cared for by the county. He wanted to take them into his care. Well, I said, "How does Floppy feel about this, Bobby? You know, it's one thing for you to be entertained by them, but who's going to do the washing?" And he said, "Oh, Doll, we don't have to worry about things like that." Then the county turned them down. And Floppy got mad. She got letters from her senator... I don't know who all she got the letters from, but she felt -- I don't know how she actually felt, but I think I at sixty would be reluctant to adopt six children. And Bobby said, "Oh I'll write a book and be able to pay for it all." 00:53:00Well, they forced the county into letting them have the children, although there were a lot of pros and cons about it. Because by that time there was quite feeling that the people in Mountain Drive were horrible -- more than just Bohemians -- and that maybe it wasn't such a solid community. Anyway, Bobby got the children, and then he would bring them over all the time. So that was great, because then I got to see them. And I was particularly interested in the oldest girl, whom I could empathize with a lot. It was very, very hard, and I think Floppy did a wonderful, wonderful job of trying very hard. I can't remember her name, the oldest girl. She had held the family together through thick and thin, and all of a sudden she was replaced with this other woman, Floppy. She was about twelve or thirteen, so that was very hard on her. But I thought Floppy did 00:54:00a wonderful job. Bobby was in seventh heaven. I guess Becky was the little one, wasn't she? She would just sit on his lap all the time. And Bobby had moved to that place in his life when he really adored children. You know if you really love children, you love just looking at them, and he would see things that children did that a lot of people don't ever notice. They're living in a little world of their own all of the time when they're around, and when you get to watching that world you're sharing them in it in a way that is pretty special. And Bobby got into that very, very much. I think he was an excellent parent for those children, and Floppy was too, as a mother. She just, you know, once she 00:55:00made up her mind I can't get over the amount of work she did. And I think those children, I'm not sure but I have a hunch that some of them are very creative. What do you think? You probably know more about them than I do.

REMAK: Well, the oldest boy is a musician.

DOLE: A musician, right. I don't know about the rest of them but I felt they got the best of Bobby's years in a lot of ways.

REMAK: Did you know Gavin Hyde?

DOLE: A little bit, not really well. I knew Oliver best of anybody. I knew Gavin some, and Joel some. Joel wasn't around as much, I guess, when I was around Bobby. I'd heard a lot about Joel, and I know Angy now quite well, and then 00:56:00Susie Macy, of course, was absolutely known. She was so wonderful to Bobby. After he had that stroke at Jade Beach and was in the hospital before he died, she moved him to a private room and paid for it. Because Bobby was in with somebody that smoked and watched TV, and he couldn't believe it. Poor fellow.

REMAK: This is the second interview with Kate Dole. It is taking place at her home in Montecito on February 25, 1987. There were a few things we didn't get to cover last time.

DOLE: Right. Why don't you give me kind of an idea of what they are so --

REMAK: Okay. The first one that I have a note here about, we were talking about 00:57:00interesting visitors. And you mentioned a sea urchin dinner that Oliver gave.

DOLE: Well could you give me a few other -- maybe not on the tape -- but just other things you want to cover?

REMAK: Yes. I wanted to know what you know about the Grapevine and the radio station, KRCW, and then I wanted to know if you have any memories of any particular people visiting, including people from Santa Barbara, like Elizabeth Fortner, Pierre Lafond, Noel Young. And then you were talking about the children of the original residents and what had happened to them and whether they had 00:58:00followed the lifestyle that they'd been brought up in. So those are the things that we're going to be thinking about. And anything else you think you'd like to say.

DOLE: Right. I kind of realized that my whole relationship to Mountain Drive was only through Bobby Hyde, and Floppy, and then later on through Oliver Andrews, who, once he started teaching at UCLA, he and my husband had a great deal in common. Bill was able to give him a lot of good advice and help him out. At that time we went back and forth to Los Angeles a lot, so we were pretty involved in the Los Angeles art scene. I've done a little thinking, and I realized that I haven't kept track of -- what happened was that in 1960 or a little before, I 00:59:00guess probably about 1958 or 1959, we moved up to the Hollister Ranch.[13] And so from then on all through the sixties I lived up on the Hollister Ranch. Bobby and Floppy did come up and visit us. And at that time Bobby and I discussed things, and he came up with this wonderful statement, because what we were doing was in a way I had found my place in the country when I moved up there as a squatter on the Hollister Ranch.

REMAK: Tell me about that. What do you mean, (laughter) "a squatter?"

DOLE: Well, when we first went up there it was with the understanding that we clean up the big house which had been left empty for a couple of years after the 01:00:00old, old man was still alive, J. K. Hollister, Sr. But his wife had had a stroke and had been moved into town, and they were living in their little complex on Garden Street. And every day the old man, as they called him, drove out to the outlying ranches, including ours, with his chauffeur, who was I think in his late eighties, and J. K. was in his eighties. But they drove out every day and inspected the ranches. And we lived there the first summer with the idea that we would clean it up. I had rented our house here in town to Marshall McLuhan[14] who had come and needed a place to stay with his family. I did this through Mary Steele. She was looking for a house for rent 01:01:00that would take children. Then I was going to camp on one of the beaches up there. We had come back from Europe, and I was having a hard time adjusting back to Santa Barbara after living in Florence for two years. And the idea of camping all summer appealed to me, but Becky Hollister, who knew how much my husband disliked camping, made the offer of the big house in exchange for cleaning it up. So we moved in, and of course I just fell madly in love with the place. My children had been up there before and had described it, but I hadn't seen it. And just the very first day I looked at it, it was to me the realization of all the dreams I'd ever had about a place to live. The sea, the canyons and the 01:02:00mountains, everything was there. Nineteen miles of private beach, twenty thousand acres on the coast that ran up to the hills and the top of the mountains -- you know, coastal hills, but still you could get a tremendous variety of scenery. And so from that point on I really didn't see much of Mountain Drive. I did go up, like I was in town the day of the Coyote Fire[15] -- that's the one that burned Bobby's place. Eventually I came to town one day a week. I made that a rule.

REMAK: How long did it take you to get to town?

DOLE: Well, when we started it was just a highway up there. It wasn't freeway, and a lot of it was two-way. And the road in when we first went was a dirt road 01:03:00with gates. I'm not sure how many gates we had to open, and at different times there were a different number of gates depending on where the cattle were. But you had to open the gates, and when it rained we had to walk in and walk out and take a cab. And Johnny was about three and a half, and I remember one day we walked out from Bulito Canyon, ten miles in by road, all the way to Gaviota Store[16], and Johnny at three and a half walked that distance, and we didn't think anything of it. I've since decided there are a lot of three and a half-year-olds who can't walk ten miles on the railroad tracks with ease. We had a wonderful, wonderful time up there, but what it meant was 01:04:00that I didn't spend any great deal of time at the end, until we moved back into town. And by that time Bobby had gotten interested -- at the end of this Jade Beach -- I think the houseboat on the lake up above Painted Cave all came before that. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure that was all before we moved to the ranch. He had bought Painted Cave and land up in Maria Ygnacia, and we would, you know, have picnics up there and climb up the creek, and I'm pretty sure this 01:05:00was all before we moved to Hollister. And then he bought the property over in Santa Ynez that he later, I think, gave to the Zens or some Buddhist -- he bought a little island of property that was in the middle of U.S. Forest property. I think that all happened before then. Bobby came out to the ranch several times, but, as I said before, he didn't love the beach the way I did, and he liked to have the grass at his feet when sitting out in the sun. He was 01:06:00sensitive to the sun, although I got to thinking up there at that little artificial lake that he put in on the top of San Marcos on that property, that he built the houseboat for, that was really hot in the sun. But then I don't think he spent that much time -- once Bobby got a project far enough along to be successful, then he veered off. The minute everybody wanted his jewelry and he was able to sell it, he stopped that. The minute he did the sculpture and was really successful at that, he stopped that.

REMAK: He didn't move back to Mountain Drive after the fire, did he?

DOLE: Well I remember going down to the house on Salsipuedes one time because -- I kind of think that was in the late sixties. I really can't remember. Isn't 01:07:00that funny? Isn't that funny? Because I just think I didn't go back to Mountain Drive really after I moved to the ranch. So that what happened to the children up there I only know by running into them or hearing about it, which is never satisfactory. I did know quite a bit about his own children, the ones he adopted, but that isn't the same as knowing about what happened up on Mountain Drive.

REMAK: Well, when did this sea urchin dinner take place?

DOLE: Well, that took place probably in the fifties, and I'm trying to think of the name of the man -- I think he owned a lumber mill or had something to do with lumbering. You know one time there was actually a lumber mill here, a 01:08:00lumber company. And it was up in Mission Canyon, and it was a big Spanish-style house that we all were seated. There must have been fifty people, sixty people, just Bobby's nearest and dearest friends. (laughter) And they made low tables to sit at by putting planks across on something so that we didn't all have tables to sit on. And everybody brought something, too. There were a lot -- there were songs and short poems -- evidently people were prepared. Now Noel Young[17] was definitely part of that era, and his wife.

REMAK: Do you remember what he did?

DOLE: No, no I don't. I was so impressed with the sea urchins and, you know, the very intelligent way of making these tables wander through the living room to seat that many people comfortably, because you really needed to be seated to eat sea urchins.

REMAK: Where do sea urchins come from?

DOLE: The bottom of the ocean.

REMAK: Locally?

DOLE: Well locally -- we were the sea urchin capital of the world, and even today it's one of the major money-making sea crops. It's shipped out of here to Japan. The Japanese are crazy about them. And they're processed here and shipped there, and then, of course, they're shipped back here to the Japanese 01:10:00restaurants that are here. (laughter) But Oliver was very into diving, and so he could go out and gather all these things.

REMAK: What do they look like?

DOLE: Well, they're round things with little spikey bumps on. In the water they're a dark, dark purplish black with tinges towards violet, and then when you bring them up they turn lighter and lighter violet as they dry, and eventually they're gray and lavender. But in the water they look dark. And in the water they have these long, long spines on the outside which break off. They're very fragile. And you open up the top and clean out part of the insides. And then all the roe are along the inside of this round shell, which has almost 01:11:00a star shape to it with little bay windows going around. And in these bay windows of the shell are these little egg-like things that I think are infinitely better than caviar. And when you have it fresh, a little lime juice or lemon juice. I know I -- Katy went to French Camp up in the islands off of Seattle, and when I went up to visit I embarrassed her and her friends, she said, because I saw these sea urchins right off shore, so I took off my shoes and waded out with a jack knife (laughter) opening sea urchins. I also found one oyster, the only oyster I've ever found in my life.

REMAK: You must have gone fishing enormously to collect enough.

DOLE: Right. You see if you find them, they used to be in huge beds. But no, Oliver was really remarkable, and he caught all kinds of different kinds of fish. And Bill Richardson was doing quite a bit of hunting then, and hunting wild boar which down here in Southern California are pigs that have gone wild. I think the only authentic Russian boars in the State of California are up on the Rancho San Carlos above Monterey and Carmel Valley, the south side of Carmel Valley. They were imported up there. But these are pigs that get to be a couple of hundred pounds sometimes. The ones down here are gigantic, and it's wonderful 01:13:00meat. And Bill Richardson would hunt those.

REMAK: When you said there were fifty (laughter) of Bobby's "nearest and dearest friends." Where did these people come from?

DOLE: I think Bobby had very many interests in life, and he liked people so much, and he was very comfortable with people. And if he didn't know them Floppy did. You know, Bobby was essentially a Santa Barbara person, and then Floppy's family, the Tuckermans, were spending time out here. You know, when he was a 01:14:00senator in Washington, I think by that time they had a summer home here in Carpinteria. So Floppy was -- knew -- and Santa Barbara was so small in those days that people really knew each other. Like Irma Kellogg[18] and Bobby were very good friends, and there was a long history there which I never knew anything about. But Bobby would go and call on people, which I loved. You never knew when you opened the door whether it would be Bobby standing there with, "Well, Doll, what will we do today?" Or, maybe with a really good plan. On day he came over. I loved it. And it was raining, and he said -- this was when I would take the children and go 01:15:00with him, -- he said, "Now whose house can we go to with all of your children and sit and listen to records this rainy day before they come over to your house and bring all their children and sit and listen to records." (laughter) I think we went over to Ann Ames', who at that time her children were young, too. When you ask whom Bobby knew, I don't think anybody didn't know Bobby Hyde. They went to the concerts, they went to the theater, they would go to the museums. They went up to the university when it was up on the hill and then out to UCSB. Bobby 01:16:00also knew how to drill horizontal wells. He learned from Joe Hollister. And it was very important. It's why he was able to buy property. You know, he was very clever -- clever's not the word, because that implies greed, but he was very wise about buying property. He kept up with what was available, what was -- you know, he would find things that were going to be sold because he knew everybody. He would know about things before they came on the market, and he was able to get them. One story I just love. At the time the Santa Barbara Bank and Trust, which had one of its various names from the time it moved from State Street over to Carrillo, where it is now. And it was small. That was just one bank, and it 01:17:00was a local bank. And I needed desperately to borrow some money. So I got all dressed up in my one suit -- business suit -- and shined my shoes and got my hair cut and combed it, and went down. I had an appointment to present my request for funds, and I figured -- you know, I had learned, I thought, if you didn't need it, the bank would loan it to you readily. So I was trying to look like I didn't need it. The bank was running a little late, and so I sat down and I waited. And out came Bobby Hyde dressed in his camouflage clothes.[19] (laughter) He had been in there getting a loan. And he had come in in his old shoes and camouflage clothes and one of 01:18:00those crazy little hats he always wore, which he was just putting on his head. And he said, "Well, Doll, what are you doing here?" And I said, "Oh, I'm here to borrow some money." And he said, "Well, that's just what I was doing. But why are you all dressed up?" "Don't blow this, Bobby." So he said, "I'll meet you when you're through. I'll wait for you. So I went in. And then we compared notes. And he said, I wouldn't dream of looking like that. Then they know you're poor. If you go in in your really, really old clothes, they think, 'Well, he must be rich to be able to afford to dress like that.'" (laughter) Isn't that funny?

REMAK: Tell me, did you read the Grapevine?

DOLE: Yes, that was that paper that they put out for a while? Yeah. That was 01:19:00probably in the sixties, wasn't it?

REMAK: Well, the Rodriguez children started it when they were quite young.

DOLE: Right, right. You see, I had started what I called the "Gaviota Gazette," which was very small, because mostly I just sent it to our own children. That was what I showed you that page out of. And Bobby had come up to the ranch, and I at that time planned to -- you know, I said, "Really, Gaviota is the place that there is no newspaper. I mean we don't get the Santa Ynez, we don't get the -- you know. Bobby was so enthusiastic about ideas, and he actually turned a lot of them into action. And he said, "Very simple. It's very simple. All you have to do -- you've got the name -- just go ahead." And I said, "The problem is 01:20:00there wouldn't be very many people up here that, you know, could write for it." And he said, "Oh, that doesn't matter. You can write under aliases. You could write the whole thing." (laughter) We talked about this, and he said, "You know, you could get Noel Young to print it, or you could -- " Actually at that time he was telling me about another process which was like mimeographing that you could get. So time went by, and I didn't get... He asked me about it when I ran into him in town one day, and I said, "No, I haven't done anything." "Well," he said, "I'm going to show you how." And the next day I get this copy of the "Grapevine," which I just thought was so wonderful. And it really was an example of how Bobby could just take an idea and turn it into reality. He had that. You know, a lot of dreamers don't have it. Like his plan of developing Mountain 01:21:00Drive into a community where artists and people who didn't have a lot of money, but had a lot of talent could live cheaper. And things like -- I was thinking, too, about getting Ray Hawthorne up there, for if there was anything they needed it was a mechanic, because everybody was so poor they nothing but old cars which broke down constantly. And without a mechanic up there to keep everything going, they would never have been able to get down into town even. Well, that was the "Grapevine." The radio station, though I didn't know anything about.

REMAK: Someone said it was sort of a center in town for people from Mountain Drive to gather, and it was in the El Paseo. But I haven't collected enough 01:22:00information about it yet.

DOLE: Well, I used to see Bill Richardson, whom I never knew really, really well. He ate every morning in the Copper Coffee Pot, breakfast, with a whole lot of other people. There used to be a regular group of people, and then a regular group of business people that met in there, and if I came in from the ranch it was a good place to eat breakfast. It would actually be my second breakfast by then. Bobby, you know, hated smoke. I think he had smoked at one time, and he absolutely despised smoke. And then after I moved to the Hollister Ranch, when he would come up there, which he didn't like to do. That was a little far, and the road was hard. In the beginning it was probably an hour and a half to get 01:23:00there. But later it was about -- by the time they put the freeway through and divided it up, and then later the oil companies paved the roads -- blacktopped the roads, and they put in cattle guards so that you didn't have to stop at all the gates. He came up, but not too often, though, because I don't think he cared for it. Uh, now I've forgotten what I was going to tell you. You'd better stop that.

REMAK: Okay. (recorder turned off)

DOLE: Or when Bobby did come up, or if I ran into him in town, or at a party somewhere and we would go off and just sit and talk, one of the things we talked about was communities. You know, because what we had up at the ranch was an isolated community. There were ranch workers at that time that lived up there. 01:24:00And Bobby Hyde had by that time discovered a lot about community living, and the one thing he said to me that I have never forgotten was, "Well. Babe, I'll tell you one thing. Dogs cause a hundred times more trouble than children ever do between families." And I thought, "Well, that's a little exaggeration, but I later learned it was true. If there's anything that causes trouble it's dogs. And I guess Bobby had had a lot of trouble with dogs in his life, because the story that he had written earlier that showed me how easy it was to write and sold to Family Circle -- incidentally, Family Circle pays better than almost any other magazine at that time. That's why he sent it to them. You see he knew all 01:25:00these little -- he knew how to do so many things.

REMAK: But was the story about a dog?

DOLE: The story was about a dog. It wasn't a really favorable dog story (laughter) although it was nice.

REMAK: Well there were so many dogs in Mountain Drive.

DOLE: Yeah, and they caused so much trouble. And that was true at the ranch. When I look back on it, the single biggest cause of discord was always dogs. That is interesting, isn't it? I think one thing is that a lot of people don't think they have to train dogs, and almost everybody feels they need to teach their children things. (laughter)

REMAK: Are there any other things that you think it would be good for us to have on record? You mentioned something about Jade Beach.

DOLE: Oh, yes. Yes. I finally went to Jade Beach with Bobby. This was when he'd been making jewelry. And I guess he was still living at that time on Salsipuedes Street. Floppy I don't think ever wanted to move back, and I think she liked -- it was certainly a lot easier for her living in town. And also she did have a wide, wide range of interests herself, and friends, and she did a lot of very good things for people. And it made it easier to be right in town. Anyway, Bobby had a grinder in the back yard at Salsipuedes, and when he was making his jewelry he used that grinder. And then he would go up and get this jade, and he 01:27:00kept telling me how easy it was. And planning these trips up there and he liked to spend the night. And I kept saying we had to have a chaperone, absolutely. My husband wouldn't let me go without a chaperone. So finally this one day he said, "Oh, I've got the perfect chaperone." And by that time I was really busy, and I didn't have the time to run off much. My children were older, and I couldn't take them with me. And I wanted to see Jade Beach. I couldn't figure out where it was from his description. And he talked about buying property up there at the lower end of Big Sur. He said, "We've got to get together. We've got to get some property." So we together set the date after he said he had this chaperone. And I said, "Bobby, who is the chaperone?" And he said, "Well, I don't want to tell you." And I said, "Look, if you don't show up with a chaperone, I'll never be 01:28:00able to go again. All trips are off. We've got to have a chaperone..." (Tape ends, but DOLE continues talking while the tape is turned over) "...it was very, very slow.

REMAK: It was an army surplus...?

DOLE: I think it was -- but I'm not sure that was what we were using then, or whether it was something else. It was a wonderful drive up. You know, it was almost dark before we got there. And the nice thing about Bobby he always told you these interesting things, like that was when he -- I think -- or maybe it was another trip. He had pointed out where somebody had thrown a fruit pit off, and this apricot tree was growing on San Marcos Pass. You know, I never go by it but that I think of Bobby. It's still there. It's somehow miraculously survived all those widenings and everything else. And he had interesting things to tell 01:29:00you about the country. Very observant, and knew a great deal about nature -- knew names and how it fitted in in the bigger scheme of things. So any trip with him was fascinating. But very dangerous because he drove so damn slow. I was constantly expecting to be rear-ended. So I always sat way over on the outer end of the seat, like this. It was a little hard because he talked softly to hear over the roar of the motor, but I figured if we got hit, I'd be thrown free. (laughter) He'd be driving along I swear at thirty miles an hour on the freeway.

REMAK: Did he ever get a ticket?

DOLE: Not that I know of. And you know the other thing is, as far as I know, he may have got a vehicle stuck, but I don't think he ever had an accident, that I know of. Anyway, we got up to Jade Beach. It was just about getting dark, and he 01:30:00said, "Now I want you to sleep over here." And I said, "No, no, Bobby, first of all where's the chaperone?" "Well, she's coming, she's coming." And so we were debating about at, and I said, "I'm not going to sleep anywhere near you. I'm going to sleep at this end of the parking lot, and you're going to sleep over there." We had so much fun joking about this. It was really a lot of fun. There aren't very many men that you could really joke with about sex, and really be funny, and he was one that you could talk about. So anyway I figured out this place, and I was way over here at the end of the parking lot, and of course by the time we got ready to go to sleep -- we had our dinner, a cold dinner, I built a big fire on the beach. You could do it then. Anyway I went to bed, and I 01:31:00woke up at night when I heard this car coming just in time to roll out of the way. In comes this vehicle that, you know, for some reason or other it should be coming down the parking beside Bobby had swung over to the place where I was sleeping on the blacktop. I rolled out of the way, and in drove our chaperone at three AM. Some chaperone. (laughter) It's just terrible. I can't think of her name. She teaches out at UCSB. You'd know who I'm talking about. Wonderful woman, and also a woman who has a lot of dogs. And she owns a place somewhere, maybe in Mountain Drive. I don't know. It's somewhere up there in the mountains. Anyway, and then she had to leave very early in the morning to get back to -- (laughter) I think she left at five AM. (laughter) This was our chaperone, and 01:32:00she had driven all the way up there, you know, just for that couple of hours. But she loved it. She was a person -- and this Jade Beach, which is as beautiful as Bobby said, it's just full of jade. But I never found anything but serpentine. I would load my packets up and take it all over, very eagerly say, "Look, Bobby. I've got it. I've got it. Look at these." And none of it would be jade. And he could walk along and see jade, you know, eight or ten feet away lying in the sand. And I never could see the difference between them. I had a wonderful time up there. The water is the most beautiful water. There's no sand in it. It's completely clean and clear, and the most wonderful greens I've ever 01:33:00seen. And I just fell in love with the beach, so I went up with him after that several times. And I didn't go that time he had his stroke, thank God. And Floppy had gone, so she was right there with him and drove him all the way back to Cottage Hospital. So -- [silence].

REMAK: He never got out of the hospital, did he?

DOLE: No. He never got out of the hospital. He came to, and he -- well I think he came to -- and I know he talked. And I remember that -- oh, God, I should call Deirdre and ask -- why don't you turn that off. When I first knew Bobby, and the children were all very little, and Deirdre, our daughter, who at that 01:34:00time was called Deedee, was particularly fond of Bobby Hyde. And he paid a lot of attention to her. She was probably -- well, she turned five. And she found out when Bobby's birthday was, and then he came over once, and I think it was a few days after his birthday, and she said, "Oh, I have this wonderful present for you. Why didn't you come on your birthday?" And he said, well, he didn't realize that anybody had a present, you know, and stuff. So Deirdre said, "Just a minute." She went out to the garage, and she came back in and she had nailed together this cross, and on it was written, "Bobby Hyde, born -- and I think it 01:35:00was 1901 or 1906 or 1903, I can't remember what the date was, and then said died." And she said, "I left this blank because I don't know what day you're going to die." (laughter) To say we were surprised was something, but Bobby laughed so hard. He said, "You know, Doll, I'll treasure this all my life." And she says, "Well, just let me know when you die, and I'll put the date on it for you. You can use it on your grave." (laughter) So, you know, I really should 01:36:00know what date it is because I can just see that cross in my mind. And she -- you know how little children are -- she'd used roofing nails, and had had to use quite a lot to try and get this in. And she had just learned printing, mostly I think her older brothers and sisters. So that was really quite an accomplishment for a five-year old. (laughter) So anyway that was -- and -- but as I say, however old he was, he never aged a bit from the time I first saw him until he died. He stayed exactly the same.

REMAK: Just to sort of finish this up, would you tell us what sort of impact did Bobby Hyde and the Mountain Drive lifestyle have on your life?

DOLE: I think when we talk about the important influences of people on your 01:37:00life, I think Bobby Hyde was certainly a major influence on the part of my life that I lived when I came to Santa Barbara. And I came here determined to make a lot of changes from the way my life had been before. Which I don't need to go into. But I was trying to find a kind of life that would keep my husband happy 01:38:00and at the same time keep me happy. Bill at the time I married him was a person who didn't need to go out and have other people around him. He was brought up to think that just the immediate family was all he needed, and nobody else. And all of your emotional life is wrapped up only with the person right next to you. And coming from a big family I had a lot different attitude towards people, and I had discovered I really needed a lot of people, and that I would find them in a different way than I would have normally because Bill didn't want to be included 01:39:00in this. So when I came to Santa Barbara I wanted to find a compromise between the kind of friends I made and Bill. Bobby was a great compromise. (laughter)

REMAK: Did your husband not like him?

DOLE: Well, actually, he really did like him, but he pretended not to like him a lot, and he really didn't like the children adoring Bobby and being wildly enthusiastic about going off with Bobby, and me going off with Bobby all the time. But in a way that was a very good thing, because I discovered even if I only went when Bill was out of the house, so that in one sense I wouldn't have to tell him what I had been doing, even that bothered him. And it was the idea 01:40:00that I would be giving my time to something other than his work or himself. But Bobby taught me how to handle a lot of that. And, you know, he led a very independent life from Floppy in a lot of ways. She backed him up. Maybe I learned more from Floppy than I did from Bobby. Floppy was one of those women that she could criticize Bobby but nobody else could, absolutely nobody else. She would never forgive you if you ever did anything bad to Bobby, which I can't imagine anybody doing. But I think one of the influences Bobby had on me was helping me find myself as a person that could make compromises with my husband, 01:41:00with the culture I was living in and not give up my own inner self. That I could do what I really wanted to do and manage to live in different worlds. So I learned that from Bobby, and it was a big step forward for me. I think a lot of women feel they have to leave their husbands or their families in order to be what they want to be. But Bobby taught me you are who you are and you can be what you want to be and still get by in other worlds -- the camouflage suit. (laughter) I think that's all I have to say.

REMAK: I really appreciated that.