The Valley's Legends & Legacies III

By Cathrine Morrison Rehart

Book Overview

A community without knowledge of its history is like a man without knowledge of his soul. Catherine Morison Rehart's captivating vignettes extend to all of us an invitation to learn something of California's Central Valley history. It is here in Rehart's near near-magical journey through time that we are privileged to view the sacrifices and successes, the toils and triumphs of those who preceded us, each contributing his or her measure to the legacy of this extraordinary place.
In Legends & Legacies, a five volume series, Rehart sojourns at the wellspring of local history, chronicling with warmth and affection the intriguing, exciting, humorous, and poignant stories of the vibrant, colorful Valley inhabitants who created the legends and bestowed the legacies on those of us who now roam the same cherished ground.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1884995187
• ISBN13: 9781884995187
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Linden Publishing
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

No Sleepy Hollows included within these legends and legacies

Catherine Rehart's spots on KMJ radio on legends and legacies from California's Central Valley were apparently originally conceived of as a short series. However, they apparently have generated enough interest (and the amount of available material is voluminous enough) to have kept Ms. Rehart busy for a number of years, and these radio spots have been collected on an ongoing basis as material for her "Legends and Legacies" series of books. This is the 3rd in the series, and, in this particular volume, as always, while the city of Fresno might be the most prominent city in the region, Ms. Rehart is also careful to include stories centered in surrounding areas such as Hanford, Coalinga, Selma, and Madera. These renewed in me a determination to visit some of the historical landmarks located in these areas. Fresno is still the source of most of Ms. Rehart's folklore, and the story of "Night Riders in the Valley" describing how as recently as the 1920's, gangs of vigilantes were roaming the area coercing independent raisin growers to affiliate with the Sun-Maid cooperative reminds the reader of how recently Fresno was an untamed frontier town. And, as always, her forays into the world of sports are appreciated. Of special interest was her story about the 1958 Fresno High School Warriors baseball team, which would produce four future major league ballplayers, including two twenty-game winners. Ms. Rehart also includes her usual share of unintentionally funny minutiae, which really doesn't add to the Valley's historical legacy. Does it really enlighten us to know that Parlier High School graduates have the longest running class reunion, meeting continuously on the first Wednesday of every month? And the story of the history of Fresno's Lincoln-Mercury dealership strikes me as more of a paid advertisement than as genuine tradition. Of course, this volume (all of Ms. Rehart's volumes, really) has its share of femi-sexism. Accomplishments of individual females are accredited to the female sex as a whole. The vastly more numerous and weighty accomplishments of individual MALES are accredited to...the individual males themselves, of course. Not to the male sex, as a whole. But this is par for the course in anything that you'll read or hear about today involving men and women. "A Woman Named Marjaree" - Ms. Rehart's story about a female victim of domestic violence for whom a domestic violence shelter and counseling center was named is based on an incident that took place in 1978. So it isn't genuine history at all; it's boob-bait for KMJ's femi-nazi listeners. But femi-sexism in Western culture is like the smog hovering in the Central Valley air. It may be harmful, but it's ubiquitous and obdurate. The vast majority of Ms. Rehart's tales of the Central Valley are enjoyable and informative, and it would be unjust to assign too much blame to her for carrying a universal germ.