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March 17th, 1999. We're in Los Gatos at the home of Pearly Payne. And putting on that microphone we'll be going through a biographical outline of his life. And I don't believe more is necessary to say in identifying what this tape is about. Can we start as

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far back as when we first discussed things? You mentioned that your Great grandfather Came to this area. And my grandfather too. Mhm. My great grandfather came from Missouri across the plains and uh my. And what year? I am not sure whether it was 49 or 50,

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but one of those years. And uh my grandfather came. By sailing vessel down to Isthmos of Panama and then a mule back over to the Pacific coast and got a sail sailing boat from out of Chile up to San Francisco. Why don't we stick first with

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your great grandfather, OK. He came across the plains with 49 or 50. Yeah. And the interesting thing that happened, uh, unfortunately, they lost one of their daughters en route and not knowing anything about Indians particularly, they stayed behind the wagon train, which was foolish to begin

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with, and he took part of the of the of the wagon, cut it up to make a coffin, and then they dug a hole and buried her. And then after they buried her, they walked the horses over the grave about 8 times or several times anyway.

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So this, they couldn't tell someone had been buried there because they thought the Indians would dig her up to scalp her. Well, Indians scalp people they killed in battle. They didn't. Pick on dead people already, you know, but they just didn't understand the English Indians. So

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then he came out here. How many people in the family? Oh, I don't know when they came, how many they had, but there was, by the time they were through, there were about 6 or 8 kids, I think, in the family. Um-hum. And, uh, Um Uh,

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some of them went down to San Joaquin Valley later to farm. And I, I met a one or two of them, but they were pretty old by the time I came along. And one of them we took up, To Stephen's Creek, which is. Captain Stevens was

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their neighbor. And uh Uh, uh, on Stephens Creek now there's a McClellan Park and McClellan Road. It's in San Jose. Well, it's in Saratoga. Uh-huh. No, it's in Cupertino. I'm sorry, it's Cupertino. Right. And, uh, Anyway, he settled there and, uh, I have a couple stories

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about him if you want them. OK. One of them, I mean, did you, you knew him? No, no, he was dead years before I came along. I see. Uh, my grandfather died in 1915. I don't know when my grandfather died, a great grandfather died. I have

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no idea. Uh, you know, when you're a kid, you, when you should be asking questions, you don't give a damn, you know? It's sad. It really is because later in life you'd like to know. I'd like to know what it was like coming across the plains

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and all that. And my grandmother doesn't remember because she was only a year old. But anyway, he uh ran some cattle up Stephens Creek and ran them loose. They didn't have any barbed wire in those days or anything. And uh he loved to go hiking on

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a warm summer night and he had a hiking stick. And so he was hiking up Stephens Creek and uh And he heard the cattle make the funniest darn sound he'd never heard before. And so he uh. Uh, went up the side canyon to where he, he,

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the sound was coming from, and there's kind of like a little, uh, saucer up there and the cattle were in the middle of it, and they, they had the calves in the middle and the cows were all facing outwards with their backs to the calves, and

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the two herd bulls were walking around the outside of the herd. And uh He was wondering what the heck was going on, so he sat down and then the uh the clouds moved away from in front of the of the moon and across the little valley

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from him was the biggest grizzly bear he'd ever seen, grizzly bear, and uh so he sat and watched and pretty soon the lead heard Bill uh decided to take on the grizzly bear. So he started up the up the little incline and when he got close

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enough, you know, bulls. Uh, cows are more vicious than bulls in a lot of ways because cows will keep their eyes open when they hook you or try to hook you, where a bull shuts his eyes and plows ahead right straight into whatever he's after. And

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so he closed his eyes and then plowing into the grizzly bear, and the grizzly bear stood up and just when he got close enough, he hit him alongside the head with one blow of his paw, knocked him ass over a tea kettle. And uh the bull

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got up and shook his head and walked back down the herd. And after a while, the bear got up and ambled off and all the way back down to where he lived, my great grandfather was a little apprehensive. I imagine the hair on the back of

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his neck was standing up because every time a twig would snap, he was sure the grizzly bear was following him, but nothing happened and then that. I don't know if it was that bear, but the last bear from what I understand got killed around here. Well,

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the last bear I heard of got killed in this area was down at the pinnacles in 1913. But this bear I'm sure was killed earlier. And another time the bears killed some of the pigs that he and the neighbor had. And so their rifles were such

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that if you pull the hammer back too far, it wouldn't fire. You had to be careful. And so they dragged the pig entrails around and hung them up on a barn above a barn door so that bears would have to reach up and stand up and

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they can have a clear shot at their chests and they were inside the barn waiting. Sure enough, the bears came and my grandfather heard great grandfather heard these guys' rifles click too far back. And so they didn't shoot one alone probably wouldn't stop the damn bear.

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So anyway, and, and he had a pair of dogs, hounds I guess they were called Watts and Spring. And uh one night he uh. Um The dogs are making a big racket and he went out to see and they had a, a bobcat up a tree

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and he uh You know, had his gun and he fired, but he didn't kill the bobcat and the bobcat came down and came after him and he backed up and unfortunately he backed up into a fork of a tree and he couldn't move either way and

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the dogs would come at the at the bobcat from one side and he'd turn towards them and then the other one would come at him and they kept going back and forth till he finally reloaded his gun and shot it. So he had some interesting experience.

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Why did he come over the plains? What kind of work did he do before he came over the plains, you know, and I guess he, he wanted to come to the gold rush like everybody else, I suppose. And then he, he, uh, got that place there,

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and he was a, a neighbor of Captain Stevens, and Captain Stevens, whom Stevens Creek Road and Stevens Creek is named after. Uh, finally moved to down the valley someplace because he said when he could hear the neighbors chopping wood, they were too close. And we had

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the only picture of them I think so we gave it to one of them we had reproduced, gave it to the city of Cupertino. Yeah, and he liked my grandmother very much and so he made a, it's an interesting picture. He has bows on either side

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like a picture frame and then he has bows in front of him about waist high and then he's standing in this kind of little frame. And Cupertino's glad to get it because they had didn't have anything on it. That's the main street of Cupertino, Stephens Creek

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Road, yeah, right. Uh, and then, uh, That that's about all I can think about him, um. What was their religious background of great grandfather. And then my grandfather Payne, as I say, came across the distance of Panama and reelback. Uh, he's the dentist. That's your, your

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mother's father. No, my dad's pain. Yeah, my mother's name was Hoag, H O. A G, uh, but. He came, he. Talk about religion. He came home, he, he was only 16 years old and he was making a living for the family as a teamster. And he

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loved horses and he was, he should have been a veterinary because people used to bring him horses from all over the valley when he lived on Payne Avenue. And anyway, he was, uh, got home from working in the With, you know, as a teamster. This is

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your Grandfather Grandfather Payne, yeah. And his first name? Was James. James Payne. Yeah. You know about when he was born? Uh I'm not sure, but if he was 16, he was 17 when he came here and he came in 1850, so with the 17, it'd be.

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33, wouldn't it? 1833. Somewhere along the line previous to me. Huh? 100 years previous to me. Yeah, right. A couple days before I was born. Anyway, He came home this evening and went to put his horses in the stables. They only had a very small stable

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that's probably 2 stalls or 3 stalls. People usually kept their own cow in those days, so they probably had. stall for two horses and, and the cow. And uh there were 2 fat looking horses in the stable. So they looked like they had finished the hay

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that had been put in front of them. And so he turned them out into the stable, into the uh corral and put his horses and he rubbed them down because even though it was cold back there and a foot of snow on the ground. The horses

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were still perspiring, they're sweating, you know. So, about that time, this fat preacher came out and rubbing his hands cause it was cold and he said, James, I can't have uh my horses outside, they're not used to it. My grandfather said, I'm sorry, but he said,

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our horse will get pneumonia if I put them out there. And he said, well, I can't help that, but I can't have my horses outside. My grandfather said, I'm not gonna move them. And so, pretty soon the preacher went back in. And the preachers used to

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ride a circuit and they would stay with different families and of course the, the wives want to be good to the preachers. They really feed them well, but so he was kind of on the heavy side and uh my grandmother, great grandmother came out and she

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said, Jim, you're gonna have to do what uh preacher said. He said, Mom, I can't do it. We make our living with the horses and uh they'll get pneumonia. Well, I don't know about that, but you have to do what the preacher says. And he said,

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Well, I'm not gonna do it. And she He said, well, you'll have to leave home then. Because he didn't leave that night, but he left home. A little while after his dad was had arthritis so bad he was bedridden how bad off he was. And uh

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So anyway, he went out to Wisconsin to, uh, did he have, uh, brothers and sisters? Yeah. I don't know about sisters, but I, I know he had two brothers. I'm. So, when, when he left the home, he wasn't leaving. Yeah. Them hard up? No, I don't

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know what happened. That, my dad never told me about that. I think I'm kind of hoarse today. Anyway, Uh, he went out to Wisconsin and he had a brother-in-law out there that was, uh, logging, and he worked in logging for, uh, woods for about 1 year

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and then came back and his two brothers, older brothers were, uh, getting ready to go to California, and he said, Well, I'm gonna go too, and they said, No, you're too young. And he said, I got my own money. I'm gonna go. And so he did,

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and he's the only one who didn't get seasick. And they went by sailing vessel down to Panama and then across Panama. Did he hire on as a seaman or no, no, no, they just got a ride, uh, and, uh, went across Panama. What do you mean

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he just got a ride? He was out plumbing. Yeah, they just bought a ticket on the, on the, on the sailing vessel down to Panama and then they caught a, uh, it was my grandfather, grandfather and who else his two brothers and then he, uh, got

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on a when they got to the west coast they got a, uh, ride from a, uh, they got to Panama. How did they get across the isthmus mule mule back. And then they, um, Caught a sailing vessel out of Chile, came up. Excuse me, he came

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up, he came up to San Francisco, and from San Francisco he went to the to the uh where they were mining gold, and he didn't like that. So he, uh, was in the bar. Did he stay together with his two brothers? Yeah, uh, and, and, and

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one of his brothers became a captain in the cavalry that paroled, uh, against the Indian attack and stuff up and down California. Anyway, he, uh, I was in the bar, even though you weren't a drinker, there was no places to go to to socialize, you know,

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so everybody went to the bar and the guy pounded the bar with his six gun and And everybody got quiet and he said, I got a contract to um pack in supplies from Brown River, round Grand Grand Round Valley, Oregon to Boise, Idaho, and I need

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some packers. My grandfather said, I'll go. And he said, Bub, you're kind of little, kind of small and young, but if you wanna go, I'll take you. I said, He did so he worked for this guy for a year and in the wintertime when they were

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packing, they crossed the Snake River 27 times in one day. And every time they crossed, of course it was covered with ice, they had to rough up the ice so the horses feet wouldn't slide off from underneath and he did that for about a year. And

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he developed an intense hatred of magpies because some of the packers were not careful about how they put the pack, I mean the saddle blankets on, and they'd have a fold in them. The fold would make a raw part, raw spot on the horse's shoulders, so

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they turned the horses loose in these little canyons that had water and food and pick them up on the way back. But the magpies would sit on the horse's shoulder and keep that sore not only open but bigger than than it was originally. So my dad

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said that when after when he's an old man, even he had a muzzle loading shotgun, and any time a magpie showed up on the ranch, he was in there loading it and going out and blowing away. But anyway, I wish I'd known him. He died in

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1915 and I was a year old. I was born in 1914 and uh. Where did, when he settled down, where did he settle? Well, as a matter of fact, the first place he bought was about a block from where I live now on Shannon Road. And

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uh there's a big white house there, uh, still there. It's built by some sea captain because it has what they call a widow's walk. Have you ever heard of the widow's Walk? Most, most people don't know what it is. It's a, a place to get up

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on the roof that has a kind of little rail fence around it, made out of iron. And uh they did it on the east coast because the widows, well, the women would get up on top of the house and look seaward about the time they expected

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their husbands to come home from the sea if they've been to the Pacific or wherever and so anyway that house has a widows walk on it which is kind of interesting. And he lived there for a couple of years because my, my uncle George was born

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there in 1973 and my dad was born there. I mean my what year? Uh, 1873, yeah, and uh my dad was born on Payne Avenue in 1975, 1875, 1875. And then he had this 100 acres on Payne Avenue. And he farmed, farmed for wheat originally. And

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uh and then when my uncle George got older, he got interested in orchards and he planted a place to uh walnuts and prunes and uh pears. And peaches, put peaches in between the prune prune trees when they're little and then peaches have a short life, they're

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only good for maybe. 25 years. And then they pulled all the peaches out and let the prune trees grow. But as a result, the prunes were 30 ft apart. Most prune orchards are 24 ft apart. So actually, they didn't have as many trees per acre as

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most prune orchards. And as a result, they didn't get the uh the total tonnage either. But the trees didn't make up, get bigger. They only have a limited size, and they didn't get bigger being farther apart. And I often ask them how come they didn't interplant,

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but I don't know why they didn't. Anyway, they did He was born in about 1833. I assume so, and he came here. At about 52, you said, well, 5049 or 50, I'm not sure which somewhere. Along there. And when he was done packing, about what year

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did he settle here in Santa Clara Valley? Well, as I say, Uncle George was born on Shannon Road in 75, 73, and he must have been there a couple of years ahead of that and had already married Phoebe McClellan. And then my dad was born on

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Payne Avenue, as was another brother that died, and The twins, Howard and Louise and my aunt Gertrude was born on Payne Avenue. When did your grandfather marry and who did he marry and how did that come about? Well, I don't know how he met Phoebe McClellan,

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but she's my great grandfather's daughter. And it was in Cupertino, of course, there wasn't that many people around, you know, and people did know other people that lived maybe not very close to them. They knew them. And uh They married and I don't know where and

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settled on Shannon. And then moved to Payne Avenue, which is named after my grandfather in Payne Avenue, San Jose, yeah, off of Winchester Road. And how it came about, he bought this property and it had a lane that was dedicated for a road from uh Saratoga

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Avenue to where his place was, the creek, and there wasn't any paint avenue over to Winchester Road in those days. And later in years, uh, the county wanted to put a road through and so he, uh, today people run a couple million dollars for that lane

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or something, but he gave it, donated to the county because he gave, you know, a gravel road and then it went over to Winchester Road too. And he is that how they came to name it Payne Avenue or yeah, because he gave the, the lane. The

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lane's about 1 mile long. Was he, was he involved in any of the civic activity around San Jose? Was he a well known person in town? Not that I know of. He, as I say, he died in 1950. Uh I'll tell you a cute story about

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he bought up a uh real. Nice horse from a well-trained gentle horse for my grandmother to drive in a two-wheel buggy and that was that they had in those days and uh To go shopping in San Jose. And what he didn't know is the horse was

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real fast. And there was a guy that owned the old Cirrosis ranch which is up by Cox Avenue and ranch Cirrosis. How do you spell that? I have no idea. I'm yeah, I'm the world's worst speller anyway. Some guy owned that that was a pretty wealthy

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man, and he had this horse he thought was a Casimilow that he bought off the racetrack in San Jose. And so my grandfather's in town one day and uh Some friend, he'll say, hey Jim, you're going out to the race? And my grandfather, what are you

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talking about? He said, well, uh, uh, the the uh. Blacksmith is going to race your horse against the guy from the cirrhosis ranch. And my grandfather said, well, he didn't say anything to me, but he said maybe I can make it out there. So he went

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out and the blacksmith pulled the work shoes off the horse and put on light racing shoes. Well, anyway, light horse shoes. So they ran from Graves Avenue, which is off of uh Saratoga Avenue, down to Payne Avenue. And going that way. Uh, my grandfather's horse beat

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the other horse about two lengths, and the guys, and they bet $10 gold, which in those days is like $100. Now the, the blacksmith had bet this, and, uh, the guys that owned the other horse said, Well, Payne's horse is running home towards home, and the

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blacksmith says, I'll bet you $10 more that he'll beat you going back the other way, go back the other way, beat him by about 4 lengths. That guy was very unhappy. But anyway, uh, Evidently he was quite well liked and uh people, as I say, would

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bring their horses to him when they had horse trouble. So anyway, then my father was raised on pay. How many kids do they have? They had My dad had two brothers and, Two sisters, but he had a brother that died when he was a year old.

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And your great grandmother, did she took care of the family? That would be my grandmother. The great grandmother lived over in Cupertino. Oh, excuse me, that's all right. Yeah, my grandmother, my grandmother just raised the family. Did she bring some property or anything into the marriage?

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No, she was related to General McClellan. That was her father. No, uh. I guess his name was James and my grandfather's name was James McClellan. What the heck was his first name? I can't think of his first name, but he has no relation. Some of his

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daughters said we were related to General McClellan of the Civil War in fame and uh. But there was never any proof of that. I, they just assumed that and my smart ass dad one time said, uh, that doesn't put any more beans in your pocket, and

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they got mad, wouldn't talk to him after that for about a couple of months, but, uh. Anyway, Dad grew up from Payne Avenue and uh. Uh, went to high school. Well, I think he went. I don't know if he completed high school and then went to

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business college or what, but he went to business college. And uh He, uh, Then went into where, where did he go to high school? Probably Santa Clara. That was the closest all the. I'm not sure he went to high school. I think he might have gone

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right to business college after his after grammar school, not right away, but, you know, a few years later, and then he's, he went and partnered with another guy and had a, a uh candy and Camel. And he lost it in 1917. Fruit fruit cannery, and uh

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they uh he lost it during the war, World War One because his main market was Hamburg, Germany, and of course they were boycotted, you know, had to, um, how would he ship things from Campbell, California to Hamburg, Germany? I imagine they went by ship. Out of

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San Francisco. I imagine unless they went by rail to New York and then by ship. Yeah, it wouldn't, that wouldn't make good sense, put it on a ship. Is one load. Yeah. Take it back. I, I don't know for sure. I mean, you know, he, he,

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he told me something about his life, but, you know, when you're young, you don't really care that much. Um-hum. You, you listen to him being polite, but, and I remember a lot of his stories, but, uh, uh, some of the details, like, for example, my dad

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became quite anti-Semitic because the guy that took over the cannery when he went bankrupt was Jewish, and he worked for him for a while. But I told my dad, I said the guy that let you down was a thirty-second degree mason. He was your attorney. He's

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the guy that screwed you, you know, and didn't stick up and try to salvage something out of the deal for you. I said, well, you should be mad at the Jews. And he kind of get a little grin on his face. Do you remember the name

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of the Jew who Jacobs. Jacobs. Yeah. Yes, indeedy, uh. What? How come you remember that so clearly? Well, I, I don't know. I, I have a funny memory. I sometimes I can't remember somebody's name I met a couple of months ago. They, I think they call

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it short term memory loss when you get 84.5 years old, and, but you remember things from way back, uh, you know, uh, fairly clearly. And And your, your mother, my mother came from Iowa, I believe, by, uh, wagon train, no, by, by train, and they, they

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first went down to, um. Uh, My grandfather Hoy and grandmother, I think they went down to San Bernito first. And then they went to um Eureka and then back down here. And I don't know why all the moves, but uh he was a pretty good carpenter

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and uh he worked when I got to know him, he was working in a mill over by uh uh Big Basin and he's a heck of a hiker and he'd hike over there from in one day from here over there to the mountains. Over the big

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basin? Yeah. Well, it's right next to big basin. Got to be about 20 miles at least through the mountains. It's gotta be tough. But anyway, he was, uh, I, I never got to know him too well. He stayed with us for a while, as a matter

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of fact, he put a floor on over the top of the what was a porch area was kind of a step down from the rest of the, uh, attic, and he put a porch, uh, I mean a floor up there, and I, after when I got

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a little older, about 12, I guess I started sleeping up there when because he left. He stayed up there for a couple of years, I guess, you know, lived with us. And then he moved down to Chino to where his brother was and he died down

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there. I think he had diabetes too. Um-hum. And, uh, I, I, I didn't really get to know him because when he died I was only 16 I think and he'd been down to Chino 2-3 years then or maybe more. I remember my mother and my aunt

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went down to the funeral. But, uh, OK, your, your mother and father were married at about what age? Well, my dad was, uh, 36, I think. And my mother is 19, I believe, and they were married about 19. 10 or 11 because my sister was born

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in 1912 and I was born in 1914. And then I had 3 more sisters and a brother. There's 6 of us altogether. What was your family attitude towards the, Sisters and you, did they favor, The, the boys over the girls. No, my mom had 6 kids

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and she was so busy she didn't have time to favor anybody. She had 6 kids, so but no, we were our folks treated us real well, uh, as, as best they could. I mean when things got tough, I remember. I remember when I was in starting

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high school, I, I took the easiest course instead of taking courses that would have allowed me to get into college, I took the easiest courses they call it I took what they call Farm English, for example, and uh I think yes and uh a lot of

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the kids uh farm farm kids were in my class, you know, the folks who own ranches around here. And uh I took it because it was the easiest one. All I wanted to do was get out of high school to get a job, help my dad

00:29:51.710 - 00:30:07.540

because there's 6 kids in the family. And he was making the uh. Well, I remember when I was about 14, we've got to work at the cannery 8 what they call 8-hour boys and uh we could only work in the daytime. And we had to get

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a permit from a high school to work. And um I, uh, was getting 25 cents an hour as an 8 hour boy, and we're just dying to wait till we're 18 and we could get 40 cents an hour like the men. We got 18. Men were

00:30:23.120 - 00:30:39.690

getting 25 cents an hour. I never forgot that. And what year was that when you were going to be 18? Oh, let's see, I was born in 1914, 18. I would have been, well, I graduated in high school 32, so in August I would have been

00:30:39.690 - 00:30:54.240

18. The first time I ever got kissed on the lips was from my favorite teacher. It was kind of funny. I graduated on Thursday night. Friday we went back to school and uh to get our You know, our stuff out of our desk and everything, and

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I was walking down the hall, and I'm a very emotional person. I tear up easy, and I saw her and I thought I was never gonna see her again, and I said, bye, Ms. Nielsen, and she's, well, goodbye, Pearly, and she leaned down. I thought she'd

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kissed me on the cheek or something. She kissed me on the lips, and I've liked it ever since. Oh, she taught you how to like that. The only thing I regret is that I didn't have courage or guts enough to kiss her when I graduated from

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high school, but I didn't dare. I didn't have the guts to do. But she was a very good teacher and I mean a very good teacher and an excellent disciplinarian and the kids that went that I see now when we have old settlers taking camel and

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stuff and they all remember Miss Nielsen because she kept a good good discipline.