Page 2 - ra_shirleyrubel20081111

MD: That is so neat!

SRL: Yeah, it's marvelous. There's a pea hen right now who came with little chicks. It's at
least more than a month past their usually time to have chickies, and they are the cutest
dam little things.

MD: I've never seen peacock chick, just the ones in zoos, that would be adorable.

SRL: Well these are just beginning to grow a little top notch, its great. Anyway, you know my
husband and I, we met at Thunderbird in Arizona which is a graduate school for
international business and so forth. He went into international banking. And so we spent
the first six years of our life in Mexico City, and then the next four in Columbia, and then
he was in charge of the rest of South America. But he worked in an office here in Los
Angeles, so we came back here, and bought the home in Pales Verdes. So I'm closer,
there is only the two of us left, my sister, Boo, Nathalie, and I are the last of our siblings.
She has four sons, married, and I have four kids, two women and two guys, and my
number two son has two lovely children, so their all coming for Thanksgiving.

MD: Are you going to have it at your house?

SRL: We going to have it at my home, in Pales Verdes. But after my husband passed away in
1997, at first I didn't want the kids to feel they had to drag their children to
grandmother's house on Christmas, I said you should have your own kind.

MD: Do they live nearby?

SRL: Well the closest one is in the valley, San Fernando Valley, and there's one, well I guess
she's closer to me when I'm home, the closer to here is in Santa Clarita, and then my
number two son, he's up in San Ramon which is south east a little bit on San Francisco.
So, but, their all very interested in the ranch, and they have part ownership.

MD: Are they going to take up the mantle?

SRL: Yeah, they get down here. But you wanted to know about the early days?

MD: One thing Judy and I were discussing is what were the holidays like here, you had all
your brothers and sisters and all the ranch workers, were holidays a big deal out here at
all?

SRL: Well Christmas was always the biggest one, and the bunk house was full of single men,
who were all, who had served in the first World War, as did my father, and so they all felt
like a family. Christmas time was very fun because we would make up this, what we
called a pie, a big basket and put all these little gifts in it with strings on it, and at the
dinner table, at Christmas, on the big lunch table, they would you know pull it and they'd
have a prize. And we would decorate everything and make special cookies and all kinds
of things. There were some families living on the ranch in those days, there still are,

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