editor@yourmonthlypaper.com
October 2015 Meals on Wheels and Senior Outreach Services
Serving Danville Step Back in Time on the Alamo Cemetery Tour
Senior citizens aged 80 and older are the fastest growing population segment in Contra Costa County. Many are homebound and unable to cook or otherwise obtain daily meals to maintain their health and remain independent in the comfort and security of their own homes. Since 1990, Meals on Wheels and Senior Outreach Services (MOWSOS) of Contra Costa and its coalition of volunteers has been ensuring that these homebound seniors receive daily nutritious meals. “Our services are free and there are no financial restrictions,” says Leigh Shughrou, Public Affairs Specialist for MOWSOS. “We coordinate care for older adults (60+ years) in Contra Costa County who have a wide range of needs. Our six programs (Meals on Wheels, Friendly Visitors, Fall Prevention, Care Management, Home Care Referral, and C.C. Cafés) all work together to form an umbrella of services that allow seniors to stay healthy and at home for as long as possible. We bridge the widening gap between the increasing number of frail homebound elders and insufficient government funding for these critical services.” The average MOWSOS participant is 80 years old, lives alone or with a codependent spouse, and has one or more chronic health conditions that prevents him/her from preparing or shopping for daily meals. Most live below the Bay
Stone Valley was named not for a rocky landscape feature, but a family whose combined holdings totaled more than 1,000 acres. Who were the Stones and their neighbors whose courage and convictions shaped the communities of the San Ramon Valley? Next occurring on Saturday, October 24th, the biannual Alamo Cemetery Tour honors the pioneers who settled the area in the mid-nineteenth century and their descendants. Costumed docents, having thoroughly researched the individuals they portray, invite participants to engage in an hour-long adventure in time-travel dedicated to understanding the history of the area. Sponsored by the Museum of the San Ramon Valley, the tour begins at 10am. Senior members of the settlers’ community from the start, Silas and Susanna Stone built a home that stood on what is now Stone Valley Road for over a century. Their adult son Albert drove a herd of cattle across the plains when he returned to Alamo in 1853. Silas was a trustee for the area’s first high school, the Union Academy. Built in 1859, the school was demolished by fire in 1868. Patty Dobbin coordinates the program and greets visitors with a short presentation on Valley history. Queried about what she most enjoys about leading the tour, she comments, “I love the reaction from people who have lived in the area for a long time, but Joan Kurtz as Charlotte Wood and Don Kurtz as her have had no access to local father Charles Wood vary their presentations in response history. Some visitors are to their audience. then inspired to bring family members on a tour.” Family names on headstones in the cemetery include Baldwin, Bollinger, Boone, Close, Cox, Hall, Humburg, Jones, Love, Stone, Wiedemann, Wood and Young. The earliest documented burial (that of six-year-old Callie Chrisman) occurred in 1856. The serene park-like setting is underscored by cemetery streets named for trees and paths named for flowers. On February 2, 1848, less than two weeks after the discovery of gold in California, the formerly Mexican territory was ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe at the close of the Mexican-American War. The Gold Rush brought many of the settlers of the San Ramon Valley over the treacherous Rocky Mountains or across the equally defiantly dangerous seas. Once California entered the union as the 31st state in 1850, land sales by former Mexican owners (such as Jose Marie Amador) adjudicated in United States courts gave the latest San Ramon Valley settlers legal title to their properties. Although Mary Ann Jones first visited the Alamo area in 1847 with her husband John, the couple resided Volume VI - Number 12 in San Jose for a few years before settling in the San 3000F Danville Blvd. #117, Ramon Valley in 1851. Carmen Curtis, who plays the Alamo, CA 94507 role of Mary Ann Jones, is often asked about the con(925) 405-6397 Fax (925) 406-0547 nection between Mary Ann and Virgie Jones who wrote Around Alamo, a book containing Mary Ann’s diary. Alisa Corstorphine ~ Publisher “Virgie Jones’s husband was adopted by the Jones editor@ family,” Curtis explains, “so he was not a blood yourmonthlypaper.com relative. Her original diary is archived at UC The opinions expressed herein belong Berkeley, so I invite visitors to come to the Mu- to the writers, and do not necessarily seum’s library to read the copy as well as to go to reflect that of Danville Today News. Danville Today News is not UCB and see the original. She dictated this infor- responsible for the content of any of the advertising herein, nor does mation to her granddaughter in her later years.” publication imply endorsement.
By Fran Miller
See MOWSOS continued on page 26
Bishop Ranch Business Park Helps Transform the San Ramon Valley By Beverly Lane
When the bucolic Bishop Ranch began to develop in the 1970s, a key part of its County-adopted Master Plan was 585 acres zoned for controlled industry. The County Board of Supervisors, planners, local business and homeowner groups were keen to see the Master Plan’s “New City” proceed as approved. In 1978, Masud and Alexander Mehran, a father-son team, purchased the 585 acres. Masud Mehran’s Sunset Development Company had successfully built 4,000 homes and other buildings in Livermore beginning in 1951. When Alex returned to California in 1977, after school and time as a commercial banker, Sunset was re-vitalized. Initially, they built 21 homes in Alamo’s Round Hill Country Club as well as a few homes and ofRibbon cutting for Bollinger Canyon Interchange – state, fice buildings in Livermore. county and family representatives with Alexander Mehran. As Alex tells it, they Jr. in short pants. began to look for a large property to purchase and settled on Bishop Ranch. It was close to a freeway, located not that far from San Francisco, and had zoning approvals and certified environmental documents. At a cost of around $20,000,000 they bought the 585
See Park continued on page 22
Local Postal Customer
PRSRT STD U.S. Postage PAID Permit 263 Alamo CA
ECRWSS
By Jody Morgan
See Tour continued on page 24