A Letter to Us, and a Story We Hear Too Often

The following letter was sent to us from an audience member and supporter who wanted to share their personal story for why they think the work of The Farmers Land Trust protecting farmland and supporting farmers is so critically important. 

A Letter to Us, and a Story We Hear Too Often

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Narration by Aleeyah Frye

It’s time for me to relate the tale of my grandfather, the farmer. 

Harry Hill was raised in the hills above the coastal plains south of San Francisco Bay. He worked as a farmhand until he was able to rent a place of his own where he raised turkeys. He married, had two kids, and grew his ranch modestly, while he raced toward the day when he could buy land of his own to farm. 

That dirt road I remember from my childhood had been replaced with four lanes of concrete.

Then tragedy struck. Harry’s wife was killed in an auto accident. Now he had to care for two small children in addition to working sunrise to sunset on the ranch. Harry did what farmers do; he got by and made it work. 

During this time, Harry met Bernice, who had a bookkeeping job with the federal agency that coordinated buying food for the military. Bernice was a single mother who had been abandoned by her husband when her son was only two. That child was my father, Dean. 

The stigma of being an unmarried mother was heavy in those days, and Harry desperately needed help raising his own children, so they partnered up and married in 1947. Even though Harry was 13 years older, farmers were financially successful in those times when the government would buy any food you could provide to support foreign wars. 

Harry prospered enough to be able to buy some land of his own down in the valley just south of San Jose. The soil there was some of the finest in California, so Harry had many more options than he did in the Calaveras Hill country. He planted tomatoes, beans, and whatever vegetables were in demand. These were fantastic times for farmers in Santa Clara country! 

I remember as a young child, the long dirt road to my grandparents’ farm being lined with prune and apricot trees as far as you could see. Grandpa Harry’s sprawling ranch house was always cool in the summer, thanks to two inches of adobe that his Mexican workers had lined the house with. Behind the house was a big equipment shed where he stored his fleet of retired school buses used to transport the workers to the field, as well as various tractors and other fascinating stuff for us to climb on. 

To stay afloat, Harry began selling off his land, one little piece at a time.

And oh, the food! All manner of delicacies from artichokes to sweet corn, walnuts to Russian salami, dried apricots to baskets of big, juicy lemons. If Harry didn’t grow it, he would trade for it with other farmers down at the co-op. 

Time marched on. I became involved with adolescent stuff. My parents had moved to the Midwest, so we only got back to California to visit every three years or so. By the ‘70s, times had begun to change for growers in the Santa Clara Valley. The new war was largely unpopular, and the government no longer purchased crops directly from farmers. San Jose was growing at a tremendous pace, and developers were buying land and bulldozing the fruit trees to make way for subdivisions. 

My grandfather was a kind man, a great farmer, and a lousy businessman. He loaned money to workers who never paid him back. He trusted people who made promises they did not keep. Farming in general was no longer lucrative. Water became increasingly harder to get with the new demands of the sprawling cities of the Bay Area. 

To stay afloat, Harry began selling off his land, one little piece at a time. 

The next time I visited my grandparents in the early ‘80s, there were no more prune orchards. That dirt road I remember from my childhood had been replaced with four lanes of concrete. The old ranch house is still there, looking oddly out of place among a sea of smaller houses on tiny lots for miles in every direction. There is no trace on Cahalan Avenue that this area once produced the food that fed the GIs in World War II and Korea. Nobody remembers Harry Hill’s farm; now it’s just another piece of Silicon Valley. 

The value of my grandfather’s land in today’s market would be hundreds of millions of dollars, but he died leaving an estate of the house and a 20-year-old car. 

Three miles to the north, a family named Cottle had run cattle on a place about the same size as Harry’s. Generation after generation, the Cottles stubbornly refused to sell. The last of the line was Walter. He was known for a lifetime feud with the city of San Jose, that was determined to erode his hay fields with freeway ramps and public works projects. Walter also patrolled the farm with a shotgun loaded with rock salt, which he used to chase off teenagers who came to bother his cows. 

It is said that Walter turned down offers to buy his land for huge sums every week, but in the end, he gave his 287 acres to the state and county, with the condition that it be used solely for agricultural and educational purposes. 

The value of my grandfather’s land in today’s market would be hundreds of millions of dollars, but he died leaving an estate of the house and a 20-year-old car.

Today, the Martial Cottle Park is the only place in Silicon Valley where a kid can see an operating farm and climb on a tractor like I did when I was a kid. Harry would like that. 

Now you know the story. If you’re ever in San Jose, you can drive by Harry’s old ranch house on Cahalan Avenue on your way to Cottle Park. 

God bless the farmers! 

Gowan