Interviewee: Doug Wight

Interviewers: Hartleigh Demchuk and Rosemary Vasquez

May 8, 2024

Hartleigh Demchuk: This is Hartleigh Demchuk and Rosemary Vasquez: Rosemary Vasquez

HD: I am pleased to welcome Doug Wight who I am interviewing on behalf of the Saint Helena Historical Society’s Oral History Program.

We are conducting this interview at 3:56 o’clock on May 8th, 2024 at Saint Helena High School. Welcome Doug Wight, can you begin by telling us where you were born and when you first came to the Saint Helena area?

Doug Wight: I was born in Berkeley, California 1950 and came to Saint Helena in 1952.

HD: And what are some of your earliest memories?

DW: Earliest memories. Probably being out and about at the ranch with family members, and then of course getting ready to go to kindergarten in 1955.

HD: Can you tell us more about your childhood home?

DW: I grew up on Lewelling Lane in Saint Helena, just south of town. My parents built the home in ‘52.

Prior to that, we rented on Hillview Place after moving up here from Berkeley. Both my parents are from Saint Helena. They had the choice after the war, Dad served in World War II, got out of the Navy, he was a pilot and they lived in Berkeley for a bit and he was a gunsmith in San Francisco at the time. And my mom had gone to Cal, so the decision was whether to have my dad go to Cal and study engineering or come back up to Saint Helena to the family ranch and they chose that. Coming back to Saint Helena, it was a better place for us kids to grow up.

HD: And, do you have any siblings?

DW: Two brothers, David and Alan. David was born in 1948 and Alan was born in 1964. David lives here in Saint Helena, Alan lives in Petaluma.

RV: What was the dynamic between you and your siblings?

DW: What was that?

RV: What was the dynamic between you and your siblings?

DW: Big age discrepancy between myself and fourteen years later, my younger brother Alan was born. So it was almost like different generations, which was a plus in many ways, very nice having a little brother at the time.

HD: And would you consider yourself close with your family still?

DW: Am I?

HD: Your family.

DW: Oh yeah, we’re very close and we’re together all the time.

I have a vineyard management business and my son and my son-in-law both work for me and we also have a couple of wine businesses, which I work with my daughter Haley is a wine-maker for Lewelling and Hayfork Wine, and my brother is in town with his wife Susan and we’re communicating all the time.

HD: And the next question would be, do you have any children and what are their names?

DW: Three children, oldest is Haley, she was born in ‘79, then Neal came along ‘81, and Lynn came along in ‘86. All went through Saint Helena schools and graduated.

RV: You mentioned that you went to the Saint Helena schools as well, right?

DW: I did, yeah, I graduated in ‘68, as did my parents and my grandparents. On my mom's side, the Lewelling side, we’re seventh generation with my grandkids Tilly and Oly Dodd. So, we all went through [the] Saint Helena High School school system.

RV: What was the high school like when you came here?

DW: It was just the main building, stone building, and the old auditorium, Quonset Hut for the Ag folks and mechanics. There was, I think, World War II surplus buildings were band and some of the other classes. This was built, this new part of the campus was built in ‘67. We were the class of 1968, which I graduated, I was the first class to graduate out of the new building and the new gym, so it was a small little rural high school at the time. They anticipated big growth, which apparently didn’t happen. I think my class of ‘68 was maybe 120 kids and now maybe you’re about the same, I’m not sure. But the catalyst was the state of California deemed the old building was not suitable for students to be in because of earthquake issues.

HD: And while you were in high school, what were some of the subjects you took, and what were your favorite subjects?

DW: You took all the general curriculum, English, history, math, all that, and then you had electives. I took four years of Agriculture, I had a really strong FFA program here back in the day, and a really good teacher. That’s what I really enjoyed. But they had Spanish, they had French, all of the same stuff you guys have, there was no computers or any of that. Different era.

HD: And was FFA a class at your school or was it an organization or club that you were a part of?

DW: Well there was four years of Agriculture, Ag Science one, two, three, and four. And then there was FFA, just as you guys have FFA now and the kids had projects– vineyards, cattle, pigs, all sorts of things were going on, there were a lot of farm kids back then. And there wasn’t, I noticed now you have horticulture, flowers and they didn’t have that. But a strong emphasis on fertilizers, soils, doing income tax returns for farms, the ag science was a really good education. We had a marching band back then too, that was pretty cool. They actually went to the 1960 Olympics up at Squaw Valley, which is now called, what’s Squaw called now?

HD: Tahoe maybe?

DW: Paradise, or whatever it is, Palisades I think it is. They went up there to the ‘60 Olympics and performed, it was kind of a big deal for Saint Helena back then. They did a fundraiser to buy the kids new uniforms and all that so they could look good, it was fun, fun for those kids

RV: Did you play any sports while you were here?

DW: Pardon?

RV: Did you play any sports while you were here?

DW: Parents? No, I’m sorry.

HD: Did you play any sports?

DW: Oh sports, I’m sorry. Yeah, yeah, sports was, I think I noted in the brochure you handed out, it was big in the 60s. Very few of us had TVs, no cell phones, so that was what you did, you go to Carpy Field, and that’s where we played baseball, football, all the games happened there, this facility wasn’t here, track was here, but that was our world. We all went through Carpy Gang with Mr. Carpy, and then we got to high school and played all the sports. I played baseball, football, basketball, wrestling, not all years, but it was good, it was good. They didn’t have women’s sports then, as you should probably know, except in summer they had, what they called the Rockets, and it wasn’t school-related, but they were the women’s softball team. The high

school girls were really good, it was a really good program. So, the 60s was, I call, the golden decade of sports in Saint Helena. Championships were just what you did, you won all the time, and it was an incredible amount of really good athletes who wanted to play college ball. Football and baseball especially at Cal or Oregon, all over, you know Cal Poly, UC Santa Barbara, Weber State, so there was an incredible group of athletes that came through at that time, and it was fun. It was a lot of fun.

RV: Did you have a sport that was your favorite?

DW: I would say, probably baseball, I enjoyed that a lot. Football was, I was a little guy, so I didn't, you know, get to play that much, but it was a lot of fun, really a lot of fun.

HD: And do you have any memories from those sports? Specific like a specific memory that is a highlight for you?

DW: Let me think, I gotta think it would be, would come high on the list is as a junior high kid watching those athletes I just spoke about play and do so well. And then you know the usual high school, you score a touchdown or all that stuff and it’s wonderful when you get older my peers, we talk about it all the time. “Remember that touchdown you scored against Clearlake?” or whatever it was. And it's fun, great memories.

RV: Which school was the biggest rival when you were here?

DW: Cloverdale, by far. You know Saint Helena, you probably knew, had a win streak, a football win streak. It was, I heard it was a national record for that period of time. Forty-six games in a row I believe it was. And Cloverdale beat us one rainy night in Cloverdale to end that streak so, yeah there would be, there were fights on the field and all sorts of stuff all the time. I remember going back from Cloverdale after playing baseball and there was an overpass and they were throwing rocks at the bus, all this good stuff. But then you get to know these guys and they’re just like we were, just kids having fun, doing a few things we shouldn’t be doing but, yeah.

HD: And are you still in contact with any of your friends or peers from high school?

DW: Quite a few of them, yeah. A number of them live in town now we’re starting to get together every month or so to have lunch and compare stories and see how everybody's doing and how families are and that sort of thing, yeah, yeah.

RV: Okay we’re going to back up a bit to like before high school. What was the neighborhood you grew up in like?

DW: Well we lived out on a ranch and back then we had up to the north of the house was a twenty-acre walnut orchard and to the east was about a four-acre walnut orchard and a vineyard and then to the south and west that was a pasture so that was our upbringing. We thought we were so far away from town when we were growing up but it, actually it was, and we had a hillside with a creek and actually it was a wonderful place to grow up. A playground of sorts. For kids, you know it was, as the seasons went around it. Farming was always going on, there was always something exciting. Hunting and fishing were part of our culture for everybody in the valley. The first day of dove season, you’d hear guys hunting doves. First day of deer season you’d hear guys shooting deer, that kind of thing and it was, there was steelhead in the Napa River were still there, trout fishing at Conn, it was a big part of our lives.

HD: And were you-

DW: Somewhat politically incorrect by today's standards but it was a different time, you know?

HD: And were you friends with any of your neighborhood kids?

DW: Yeah, yeah we were you know kids would drop by. But mostly we’d ride our bikes to town, to Carpy field ‘cause that’s where, that was the center of our universe and then you’d go to town and go to the sweetshop or whatever and get something to eat. Kind of the same thing you guys do now. Always looking for food and, treats or whatever. Baseball cards or whatever.

HD: And another question, what like stores or businesses do you remember from your childhood that are, either have left the town or still there?

DW: Well Tripoly Market where, where Press is now, that was where we also shop and that was the center of the kids south of town.

Tripoly Market and they had a great meat counter, lot of personalities down there. And then in town, it was Steve Hardware of course it was still, still here and the sports shop, where the bicycle shop is now they sold fishing gear, hunting gear, mitts, shoes for baseball, football, whatever that was a big part of, a big part of our world. Yeah, Guinis Grocery store was there, the theater, of course, first time I went I think was in 1956, friend had a birthday party and rented the place out. That was a very popular place for kids to go. Parents would send their kids on a Friday or Saturday night and entertain them.

RV: Do you remember what movies you saw there?

DW: Do I remember the movies? Two movies that I shouldn’t have seen because I was too young for them uh horror movies. “I Was a Teenage Frankenstein” and “Blood of Dracula” and it scared me, [chuckles] it scared me for years. So I shouldn't have gone to that movie.

HD: And do you remember any like music or musicians or artists from your childhood or teen years?

DW: Um I remember going to see Ray Charles in Oakland Auditorium. Late 50s early 60s that was a big deal. There were some local bands when I was in High school the Sticks and of course Brownness when I was high school were fantastic, they did a lot of Van Morison songs. Mike Beltron was the lead there Alf Johns and a few other guys. They were great dance band, you know four or five-piece band um then, of course, the Beatles came in ‘64 I was a freshman in High school and that, that changed the music scene and then we got into the Jefferson Airplane, the San Francisco music scene with Jefferson Airplane and Jop, Janice Joplin and all that, that was going on in San Francisco and that was, that was crazy, crazy good in a lot of ways really, really fun stuff. The Rolling Stones, lot of good music came out of there.

RV: Um what are some traditions that you remember having? Like either family or in Saint Helena?

DW: Traditions? Well, the holidays were always big and uh first day, first day at deer season and dove season were big. We looked forward to that, as a kid you know you’ve got your first shotgun and you go out and see if you can do any, get a limb, or whatever. What other traditions? Again I get back to stuff, events surrounding high school activities, sports.

HD: And you mentioned to get to town with your friends you rode bikes?

DW: Bicycles yeah.

HD: And after riding bikes did your family own a car or did you drive your car or when did you get your license?

DW: Oh yeah we looked very forward to getting our licenses at 16 for sure, permit at 15 and a half, and then you take driver training it was part of school then I mean I remember meeting the trainer in front the office in front of the high school here on a Saturday morning and you drive around town and. Yeah, sixteen, boy, down at the DMV, actually DMV used to come to Saint Helena on the first and third Tuesdays at the firehouse and you could do all your tests and everything there, it was a service to the community so you wouldn’t have to go down to Napa. And of course, there was no computers or any of that it was all hand-written and everything. But that was really pretty nice, yeah and then that was you get your driver's license that was freedom and now I know that with the phones mom and dad can kind of keep track of where you are, well they did know where were back in the day, for the most part, but yeah.

HD: And did you own a car or did you have a family car?

DW: Family car, Volkswagen, 1961 Volkswagen Beetle yeah, yeah my parents bought and my dad worked at Merrill Naval Shipyard and so we needed two cars, and we had, they bought that.

RV: Would you mind sharing any of the shenanigans that you guys got into?

DW: What’s that?

RV: Would you mind sharing any of the shenanigans that you guys got into when you were younger?

DW: Probably, we broke into the main building here ‘cause girls back in the day, the women, high school kids, played basketball on the third floor there. My grandmother was on the team. So there was girl's sports back in the day 19- I don’t know when grandma graduated- 1910 or ‘11 or whatever but there was a team. There’s pictures at the vintage hall that my grandmother and her. And it was kind of a mystery to us.

About fifteen of us when we were seniors in the spring broke in, snuck in. I’m not going to say, we didn’t break any windows or anything, somehow we got in and went up there, we were going to spend the night. Well, you know the police patrol and they saw flashlights or something so we got busted on that and got kicked out of school for a week. I still have the letter at home from the principal, so the worst part of that is that I missed a couple of baseball games that I was supposed to be playing on but, you know you do things right when, and yeah that’s probably the one that stands out the most.

RV: What position did you play on the Baseball team?

DW: Junior year second base, senior year third base.

HD: And moving back a little bit, on the topic of girls, can you describe your first date? Your first date?

DW: First date? [chuckles] I remember it well, yeah, it was, it worked out, yeah it worked out. You know nervous and all that stuff.

HD: Was there a popular like date spot or hang-out spot, or something like that?

DW: Not sure exactly where you’re going with that, like…

HD: Like was there a specific place where notoriously boys would take girls on dates, or people would go on dates in town?

DW: Well they would go, they would have dances in the old gym, which is right where the quad is, that was the old gym. Dates? There wasn’t much to do really, go to Napa maybe, to a movie, so you kind of get out of town, not just at the local theater.

HD: And besides dates, what was a popular place you and your friends hung out?

DW: Well we would meet, to find out what was going on that particular night at the parking lot where Sunshine is, you know everyone is cruising by and then you pull in, what's going on? You know, where’s the party? And that would be, I would have to say that’s the answer to that question. Like I said, again, no cell phones, no way to communicate, so that was a huge difference between now and then.

RV: What was your first job?

DW: First real job, I worked for my great uncle Ray Lewelling at the ranch, after my freshman year 8 hours a day, Monday through Friday.

Just doing ranch work, weeding, maintenance. He had a walnut dehydrator so we were getting that ready for when the walnut season came, which was September, October. Just helping out around the ranch, get paid a dollar and a quarter an hour, whatever it was, but it was some money. Then after that, after I graduated from high school, I worked a summer or two for Hans Kornell Champagne, which is now Frank Family Winery. That was an interesting experience, I admire him a lot, he's a hard-working fellow. When I went to college and worked for Charles Krug Winery, Peter Mondavi, in the shipping department, loading box cars, train cars, full of cases of wine in the summertime, which doesn't happen anymore, but back then it did.

HD: And with the money that you made from your first few jobs, what did you like to spend, like what did you like to spend your money on?

DW: Well basically you save it for college back in the day, that’s kind of why you worked was to save money for college, so you didn’t have to borrow money and maybe you could afford a car, that kind of thing. You should have focused on studying during the school year and then, I’d come home and work Christmas vacation, spring vacation, that sort of thing. I didn’t want to borrow money and college was probably more affordable than it is maybe now, I’m not sure if you compare them.

RV: And what college did you go to?

DW: I went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, I majored in Fruit Science, crops department.

They had two viticulture classes back then, and all the other classes were for soils and fertilizers,pesticides, labor relations, all those sorts of things. Now they have a winery, they have all sorts of viticulture classes and Enology classes. The big difference, it wasn’t the focus down there on wine and grapes, as it is now.

RV: What did they focus on back then?

DW: A lot of row crop, agriculture, cattle, dairy, poultry, this was in the school of agriculture, they also had a very strong architecture department and engineering as well, but it was real fun. I got to meet all sorts of kids from all over the west coast that were in agriculture, I still connected with a bunch of those guys, growing dry farm wheat in Washington, Wala Wala, onions up there, walnuts, almonds, all sorts of things around the valley and state, and it was really fun. A fun experience.

HD: And you've mentioned that your family has a ranch, could you tell us more about that ranch?

DW: Yeah, Lewellings came, I’ll just talk about my great-great-grandfather, John Lewelling came to California about 19- excuse me, 1850. He was born in North Carolina, went to Indiana, they were in Salem, Iowa in the 1840s, left there around 1847. They were in horticulture and nursery, grafted fruit trees and vines and berries, that sort of thing and they also had orchards in Iowa. They came west and two of the brothers went up by Portland, Oregon City, to a little town called Milwaukee and brought plant material up there, plant material meaning grafted trees and so forth.

And my great-great-grandfather came to California, he had a nursery at San Lorenzo, largest cherry orchard in California back in the day. Had a viable market taking his fruit and produce to San Francisco right up to the gold rush where the population was exploding, did very well and he was able to buy in 1864 property just south of town, where Sutter Home is, off Chaix Lane across from Martini Winery. And then in 1870 he bought additional land where you know Harvest Inn is, and then our ranch just west of Harvest Inn up about 100 acres aline, some couple hundred acres of hill.

Over the years and generations, they sold property off, so now we just have a hundred acres aline, a couple hundred acres of hillside on the original home side. They built a home in 1870 which is still there and we’re seventh generation now of hands-on farming since then with Tilly and Oly coming on board. We actually do the farming ourselves and we actually make the wine ourselves. We've gone to college, we’ve learned, my brother was a winemaker for Lewelling for a long time. He went to UC Davis and got his degree in Enology and viticulture, I went to Cal Poly learned the vine, and I like the vineyard part, the farming part. Now my son-in-law Eric Dodd is taking over the ranch slowly and the vineyard management company, along with my son Neal and Haley is the winemaker. She went to UC Santa Cruz and worked at some small wineries around here, she got some good experience and now she's doing the whole thing. We’re in-house, we don’t hire anyone out, which is pretty unique in Napa Valley these days, but we enjoy it. We have a strong agricultural heritage and I want to keep that going, so we want to do the work ourselves.

HD: And what are some of the things that you are currently growing on the ranch?

DW: Pretty much all grape wines now, we have olives, but we don’t really harvest them, they are just old trees that were planted in the 1800s that are just there, so that’s about, that’s about it. We run a few steers up in the hill once in a while for fire protection, but other than that it focused on grape wines.

HD: And what is your current role on the Ranch?

DW: Um well I have the vineyard management business and run the farm, basically the farming end of it.

HD: And is there a name for that vineyard management business?

HD: Wight Vineyard Management

RV: Have you always wanted to work on the ranch?

DW: Mhm, yeah

RV: What, what’s been your favorite thing to grow?

DW: Favorite thing to grow? I like the first couple years of growing a vineyard, where you design the vineyard, the infrastructure the stakes the side of the stakes, the spacing, and the irrigation and get the vines in the ground and getting a good start, a uniform start so it’s just gorgeous when it’s first starts. And then once they get older they just kind of look like just another grapevine you see but the young ones I really enjoy. I get the most satisfaction and gratification out of those.

HD: And how have these farming practices changed over time or have they pretty much just stayed the same?

DW: Well ironically you know the organic and the sustainable is, is very quite popular and right on, spot on these days and we were organic back in the day and up until the mid-18 or 1980s and we didn’t really know it ‘cause it wasn’t a big issue but when we were looking back at materials we used, we didn’t use any herbicide, we didn’t, all we used sulfur dust which is considered an organic material.

Now since then, we’ve been more of a modern era of farming, we’re very sustainable for sure.

We do use some chemicals to help us out, but within reason, because we don’t like being around those chemicals either, we have family, little kids, that sort of thing, on the ranch. Quality is a huge issue now, when I was first starting out especially in the ‘50, ‘60s it was more quantity or other words tons per acre. Didn’t matter too much about the quality ‘cause the prices were all the same. Well now if you can grow a really good Cabernet -for example- you get top dollar for it. So that’s our focus and we’ve got a really good site the soil there is called Cortina Series and well drained and it’s a really good sign of. We do really well with Cabernet on the ground.

HD: And do you plan on retiring from working on the ranch?

DW: I plan on slowly fading away from the Wight Vineyard Management side of it but I’ll always be involved at the ranch, yeah for sure. And you know what it’s part of your community too. If you just walk away, from my perspective what are you going to do.. There’s always chores to do, fun things to do.

RV: What do you think makes your ranch stand out from other businesses near here?

DW: I’m sorry, say again?

RV: What do you think makes your winery stand out from others around here?

DW: I don’t know if it does as far as the wines are concerned, their awful good, they’re affordable. I think I guess if there’s one thing it's just, the continuity of farming and winemaking, that we haven’t hired anybody to do it. We do it ourselves. I think that makes us unique. But there's probably other people in the valley that I don’t know about that have been the same way. Well I know the Hardin family in Pope Valley, they’ve been there since 1847 and they're in cattle, and now they're in grapes, and they have done walnuts for a while. So they’ve been around longer than we have so there are folks that have been around I just don’t know them but there's not, not many.

HD: And what changes have you seen in Saint Helena or the Valley in general?

DW: Saint Helena used to be a little rural farm town, where we knew everybody. Of course, that’s a cliche but pretty much true. All friendly, not the tourists we have now. The economy wasn’t thriving like it is now. There wasn’t any fancy restaurants. But now it’s more a tourist destination. Which congests our roads but fills our, you know our coffers with tourist money coming into town to support the things that we have here. Like this high school is a great example of, you know, people donate, wine people donate money for your fields, and football fields, your softball field (The Saint Helena Highschool Softball Field) is gorgeous. That used to be, your field used to be the FFA vineyard out there back when I was in high school. So, that shows you the, our home baseball field and softball field was Carpy Field, which was pretty rugged.

HD: And would you say that the town has become more mainstream compared to when you were younger or has the town always been up with the trends at the time?

DW: Well we’re kind of , we were a backwater bay area. And I’ve noticed this over time, the years if you watch the San Francisco news back in the 50s they never mentioned Saint Helena or the Napa Valley much or at all, and now the weather we’re on all the time so we’ve, that's affected our culture a little bit. We’re in a sphere of the Bay Area and what goes on there, I’d have to say. The styles, the whatever, the cars, the fancy cars, and the fancy restaurants. Because we’re close to the Bay Area I think.

HD: And San Fransico was very affected by the hippy movement, would you say that that trend filtered over to the Valley as well?

DW: The hippy movement? [chuckles] That was an interesting time. I would say the watershed year was 1966. Vietnam was going on by then but some of the kids had come back and they had, experienced things that were pretty rugged and the hippy thing started taking off in San Fransisco. The summer of love, all that sort of stuff of thing so it went from, say you’re talking about highschool kids, drinking beer and wine, to going onto the, you know still beer and wine but also smoking things and clothes styles changed around ‘66 or so. Although Saint Helena, if you look in the old yearbooks kids in ‘65, ‘66 were clean cut and after that things changed.

And I’m not saying it's wrong but there was definitely an influence on the hippy movement thing and kids would go to San Fransico all the time to Winterland and well all the different venues and, quite interesting times actually.

And you kind of separated, you have your friends and your values in high school right and you don’t do the drug thing but you’re good friends is and you still hang out with them you know so the separation there, that occurred. I don’t think that was the best but interesting times. And there was a few deaths from the result of the hippy thing.

RV: How has your personality changed from when you were younger?

DW: Probably less carefree. Well when you get into business, things happen that do kind of change. Everything’s not fun and games anymore. A little more serious probably.

RV: Do you remember the moon landing?

DW: I do. I was, it was Pope Valley. We watched the moon landing out at the Hardin Ranch. It was 1969 if I remember [laughs]. Long time ago, yeah.

RV: What are some things that you miss about older Saint Helena?

DW: You know I grew up, I was fortunate, I grew up on a ranch with my grandparents and great uncles and great aunts. I was connected with a lot of the older folks in town that fought in World War I and World War II, and farmed, and I miss that farm community and those people that would take you fishing or bring you gifts when they went on vacation. The closeness of the community was really, well I don’t know if it was unique but, it was really special in my mind.

There were a lot of organizations in town, Federation Women, there was Soroptimists, Masonic Lodge, Eastern Star, Sons of Italy. All the different groups, church groups, these were what people did because, first of all, in the ‘50s we didn’t have a television, people would go, for socializing, join a club and most of them were service clubs. As I remember it, they kept a pretty good tab on schools, for one thing, if kids were messing around or getting in trouble they’d talk to the superintendent or the principal and it was a pretty effective way to govern. We also had a municipal court here, a local court, so the judge, if you got a parking ticket or a speeding ticket, you’d go to the judge. I’ve heard stories where, in the '60s, where kids graduated high school were getting in trouble and the judge would say “You either go in the service or you’re going to jail”. Say they stole something or whatever, he had the power to do that, can’t do that anymore.

But it was probably in the best interest of the kid and most of them went into the service and matured, came back, and were solid citizens. I miss that local jurisdiction, instead of the state of California telling us what we have to do, or the country of Napa telling us what we have to do. Big difference.

HD: Were you a part of any of those clubs that you mentioned in your community?

DW: I was in Boy Scouts when I was a young boy. Through eleven, I think it was, to sixteen or so, and than FFA, those were the two clubs I was in. Speaking of FFA, we had in my office on Spring Street a picture from the yearbook of 1967 of all the FFA guys, and back then we were just kids. But, you know, you start looking at the pictures, who’s in there? Chuck Wagner Caymus, Dave Abrew, you recognize some of these names? Probably no, Congressman Thompson, David Heitz from Heitz Cellar, Martini was in there, Peter Martini, Nelson Harding, who was a cropduster, who probably had, maybe more hours than anybody else in the United States cropdusting, cause he’s still doing it at seventy-three years old. Eakle brothers from Pope Valley, Harden, a lot of kids that were really successful, and work. Most of them didn’t come from money back then, but they did quite well.

RV: Do you think being in the Boy Scouts helped set them up for success?

DW: Me?

RV: Or just in general?

DW: I think it did, yeah. The whole be prepared and going to Boy Scout camp in the summer up at Silver Lake was always something I looked forward to. That was the one vacation we took. Yeah, it was pretty good. Walked the John Muir Trail or part of the John Muir Trail. So, a lot of outdoor activities growing up for sure.

HD: And could you tell us a little more about that Boy Scout camp?

DW: It was a week long, cost $25 if I remember right, that including food and everything. It was in the High Sierras, up east of Jackson. They had all the activities that you would probably think Boy Scouts would have at a camp, archery and hiking and swimming and canoeing and lifesaving and knot tying and all that sort of thing. There would be competitions between the different troops. Saint Helena had troop one and Napa had three or four troops, and Vallejo and Calistoga, campfires and all that. It was good, it was good.

HD: And did you attend these camps your entire time while being a Boy Scout?

DW: Yeah, like I said a week every summer for I think five years I went up, going to those and my dad went up once. His scoutmaster Paul Galleron went up Bob Darter went up, Andy Angel went up, so the different leaders, the adult leaders would go up with us. It was something we looked forward to.

HD: Do you want to tell us more about your role in FFA?

DW: My role as FFA.

HD: Like were you an officer? Did you do any projects that were really big?

DW: Yeah Okay. Yeah, I was uh, freshman year, you’re a freshman so, you know, you weren’t an officer, right? And my first project, everybody had to have a project, agriculture-related project, I leased a vineyard, a one-acre vineyard from my grandmother. Farmed that with help, from my family members as well, and then later on I became an officer. I think I was treasurer maybe and then last year I was president of the FFA and part of that, I remember when we went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where all the FFA kids would come for a week and we could discuss issues and that sort of thing. I was part of that but um…

HD: Now in FFA I know that there’s research projects, is that similar to what FFA was like for you? Or was it just big projects without the paper?

DW: I don’t remember research projects per se. It was more actual physical projects mostly. FFA had a pasture up by Eller’s Lane where, as a kid, you could buy a steer at the auction and put it out there, and it would be your project. Some kids raised pigs, some kids raised turkeys, but you had to. Oat Hay was another project. There was a lot of land back then that wasn’t in vineyard and so there was opportunities for kids to lease that land from the owner to plant oat hay and then sell the hay, so those sorts of things. But not so much the research project thing, no.

RV: Do you have any other stories that you want to share with us before we conclude this interview?

DW: Lots of stories but nothing that really jumps out right now. Yeah, it’s just this is a great place to grow up, Saint Helena was. Between Mr. Carpy, Carpy Gang, and then all the sports and the adults being there to watch you grow up, it was pretty nice. Not a lot of bad things happening back in the day. Pretty lucky to live here and grow up here, the small town of Saint Helena. Oh they did film, this was kind of fun, and I’ll have to let you know about this story. They filmed Pollyanna, a Disney movie in Saint Helena. Are you aware of that? Hayley Mills? I know this was like seventy years ago but they did it at the train station. So, Walt Disney filmed this movie up there with all the stars of the day. You know Ronald Reagan's wife, Jane Wyman was an actress, she was there. Like I said Hayley Mills, Kevin Corcoran, aka Moochie was there. Who else? Richard Egan was there. So all these actors, I don’t know if you’ve seen that movie but it’s a pretty famous Disney movie from that era. So that was fun. We would just ride our bikes up there and watch them film this. And some of the kids and parents were in it.

They had dressed up in costumes and got to be in the movie. And then in 1960 they filmed a movie called Wild In the Country and Elvis Presley was in that with Tuesday Weld, Hope Lange, Millie Perkins, and they filmed part of that at our ranch up in Saint Helena. I got to meet Elvis back in the day and get my picture taken, as did some of the other family members. But he was big time in 1960, you know he was Elvis and here he was in a small town. So that was pretty exciting for us.

HD: And did you get to talk to him or was it just like a short interaction?

DW: Well he was just kind of standing there and doing the makeup, got people putting the make-up on him and getting ready for his next- so I didn’t really get to talk to him other than a hello or whatever but yeah.

HD: And before we conclude our interview I see you brought so pictures possibly?

DW: Oh this is a family tree sort of thing that I thought that maybe you’d be asking me questions about dates and I’d sort of thing. This is, John Lewelling I think is here and he had I think five, seven kids maybe and this is our family over here, our leg.

HD: And did you want to talk about this family tree? Like, describe your part of the family on this.

DW: Yeah well John Lewelling was born in North Carolina like I said went to Indiana, Iowa, then came to California one of his sons was Harvey John Lewelling and he’s my great-grandfather. And when John Lewelling died in 1883 on Christmas day the ranch went over to his son, Harvey John Lewelling. And Harvey John had four children. Ethel, Mabel, Lester, and Ray. Lester being my grandfather. And they each got a parcel of land on a ranch and then Lester married my grandmother Lillian and they had my mom Janice Lewelling and then she had us kids. So John Lewelling died in 1883 and his son Harvey John he was an engineer in, he was on the cutting edge of a lot of things. He had the first gas lights at the house in California, had the first telephone in Saint Helena, he built an automobile back then, although it wasn’t you know, it went but not very far sort of thing. He was on the cutting edge of a lot of things but the Lewellings major thing they contributed to society was, on the horticultural part the grafted trees, they discovered, the brother of John Lewellings discovered the Bing Cherry.

There was the Black Republican Cherry they discovered, there's a Lewelling almond that I’ve recently propagated, found, and propagated and so they were on the cutting edge of a lot of pretty significant fruit that we know. I mean the Bing cherry that's the number one and it was named after a Chinese worker named Ah Bing. So anyways that's the, they were considered the fathers of the Pacific Northwest fruit industry by bringing the first grafted trees up to the Pacific coast. And then as people followed and came out and started their farms they would want a tree so they would buy a tree, a Lewelling apple tree or whatever. They were held in high esteem up in Oregon for what they did back in the day for sure.

RV: Okay I think we’re going to conclude our interview now so; Thus concludes are interview at 3:56 p.m [4:56 p.m.].