A decade ago, my photographer friend Kam Jacoby and I embarked upon a photo essay exploring Guadalupe in Northern Santa Barbara County, just west of Santa Maria. Built mostly around agriculture, the tapestry of its population was woven of European, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, and Mexican threads. There was an excellent Mexican restaurant, a grocery store owned and operated by the Masatani family since 1922, a Catholic church, and a Buddhist temple. The white sand dunes where Cecil B. DeMille filmed The Ten Commandments in 1923 stretched out in the distance, and the town seemed refreshingly unpretentious and quirky, filled with stories and folks who were glad to talk to us.
One of the locals who welcomed us was Betty Silva-Smith (1926-2024). We sat with her at the kitchen table in her little stucco house, and she brought out an array of old photographs and albums, yellowed newspaper clippings, and various artifacts and memorabilia, even her own childhood report cards.
Betty was born in Paris –– Paris, Texas, that is –– in 1926. Her father left for California in 1943 in search of work and was employed by the Southern Pacific Railroad in Guadalupe. The family, which included Betty and five brothers, joined him in June 1944, traveling west by train, and Betty promptly found a job in the payroll office of a produce packing company called the California Vegetable Growers.