“Inclusive, caring and peace-minded” for anyone who passes through the door are words that Pastor Susan Boyer and her La Verne Church of the Brethren congregation follow. Yet the effort to keep the Church as an open, inclusive community is at odds with a summer 2011 denominational Annual Conference directive.

by Kristen Campbell
photography by Cameron Barr

Pastor Susan Boyer is disappointed in the Church she calls home. Boyer’s lineage goes back to the near beginning of the Church of the Brethren, a historic peace church that founded the University of La Verne. But she knows that the Church does not offer women or members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community the respect they deserve. Even though the La Verne Church of the Brethren is not in alliance with the national opinion to exclude members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, the membership continues to feel committed to inclusion and the rights of the LGBT within the denominational structure. This is a conflict situation with the national denomination because it holds to a 2011 Annual Conference decision of intolerance.

Intolerance. It has been cast out of many major denominations, but still many others are not as willing to move forward with the ever-changing times. The Church of the Brethren denomination only accepts LGBT members in positions of leadership in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” style. Yet, the La Verne Church of the Brethren’s mission is to create a “Christian community” that is “open, inclusive, caring and peace-minded.” The Church welcomes all, no matter their race, ethnicity, gender or even sexual orientation, despite the national Church of the Brethren’s official stand on exclusivity.

The struggle for change

“I’ve had a lifetime love affair with the Church of the Brethren,” Charles L. Boyer wrote in a September 2010 issue of Messenger Magazine, published a few weeks after his death. “But as I grew in this Church that I love, I became aware of polarities developing.” Charles, more fondly known as Chuck, served as the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference moderator from July 1992 to June 1993 and was a former pastor at the La Verne congregation. During his time as moderator, an article published in the February 1993 issue of Messenger quoted him on his philosophy of engaging inclusive leadership in the denomination. In the article, Chuck indicated that he was ready to accept homosexual and bisexual people in positions of church leadership. “I knew my stance would be controversial, but I did not expect the furor it aroused,” Chuck wrote. After he was quoted, and it was published, Chuck received four form letters on which several hundred Brethren signed their names, calling for his resignation. Many personal cards were mailed to his home, detailing how he was the “tool of satan” and should stop believing what he preached. “Chuck was the last prophetic voice in leadership. He was completely honest regardless of the consequences,” Eric Bishop, 2011 La Verne Church of the Brethren moderator, says.

Valerie Beltran, Chuck’s daughter and associate professor of education at the University of La Verne, says her father realized early on that leaders of the denomination were not willing to stand up for what was right, in the name of holding the denomination’s beliefs strong. Looking off, picturing her father, Valerie says, “I apologize for crying, but my dad fought his hardest, but he did it in a way that was respectful. As Carol Wise [former associate pastor of the La Verne Church] says, ‘he was a peacemaker and a disturber of the peace.’ He would stand his ground, but he would do so peacefully and calmly.” Valerie says her mother would get phone calls asking how it felt to “be married to a fag” or telling her to “rot in hell.” “Yet, despite this hate mail and calls for his resignation, my father responded to every letter and every phone call with upmost respect,” Valerie says.

Conference brings hardship to fighters

The Church of the Brethren holds an Annual Conference, which determines denominational business. High level policy decisions are voted on, workshops are offered, and the exhibits are plentiful. Queries, or questions to be discussed, are brought to the delegates for voting. The spirit is intended to harmonious, consensual and team building as the delegates hammer out denominational issues.

But this past year was different. Members of the La Verne Church of the Brethren congregation left the 2011 Annual Conference, held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with a sour taste. “Annual Conference was a painful, heartbreaking experience this year,” Susan Boyer wrote in the La Verne Church of the Brethren Intercom in the September 2011 issue. These reactions were anchored in the Intercom by other La Verne delegates in attendance and then relayed to the congregation following the crucial and altering Annual Conference decision: a vote to affirm a 1983 statement, titled, “Human Sexuality from a Christian Perspective.” The vote adopted all amendments made within the past 28 years. “In essence, the delegates approved a recommendation to return both items of business to the sending bodies, reaffirm the 1983 paper and keep talking with each other about human sexuality outside of the formal process,” Stan Noffsinger, Church of the Brethren general secretary, says. The document itemizes how the Brethren feel about homosexuality and backs up these opinions with Biblical verses and guidelines. In essence, it says homosexual love and covenantal relationships are immoral and should not be made public nor permanent. This Annual Conference statement was adopted in its entirety, and the decision was made to continue conversations about the issue without the query process. The La Verne Church of the Brethren delegates, along with delegates who represent other welcome and loving Church of the Brethren communities of worship, were furious. Their attempts to sway and to convey their emotions were met with hostility and not accepted by the Church at large, culminating to the point of a death threat made to a lesbian leader. “Many of us are aware of the level of hostility toward LGBT people and the level of fear,” says Wise. “So while it was very disturbing, on some level, it was not surprising.” Wise is currently executive director of the Brethren Mennonite Council for LGBT Interest. Not coincidentally, she is a leading woman in a struggle against the grain. “Are we practicing love and hospitality, or are we practicing exclusion and fear? I think it is a struggle for the soul of the denomination in terms of the type of people we will be,” says Wise.

The theme of the 2011 Conference was “Gifted with Promise: Expanding Jesus’ Table,” which was met with differing opinions, especially with the issue of inclusion at hand. “It was ironic that as we are excluding groups of people, our theme is designed to expand and include others,” Randy Miller, Messenger editor and La Verne Church of the Brethren member, says. “I feel that everybody should have—and has a place at the table. We too easily point the finger and too quickly rush to judge. If I were to err, I’d rather err on the side of compassion than judgment.”

“In 2009, the process to discuss the inclusion of the 1983 document started,” says Tim Harvey, the current Church of the Brethren moderator. “It began with a query that was brought to the floor about covenant relationships between two persons of the same sex. This year, the decision was to leave the 1983 human sexuality paper unchanged, and it reaffirmed the business position of the Church of the Brethren in regards to homosexuality.” Harvey wishes that the Church of the Brethren members could do a better job at taking their conversations deeper. He says the conversations are only at ground-level and are not thinking about those involved. “These people are ones that we care about, no matter which side we are on. I hope the Church can find a better way to talk this over,” Harvey says. “I am willing to work with all who walk in my Church, but it is too easy for the Church to fracture over such topics.”

How the other side feels

The September 2011 Messenger issue was met with furious and passionate letters to the editor. The magazine reported what had occurred at the Annual Conference and included an article written by moderator-elect Robert Krause explaining why he said “yes” to a nomination from the floor, instead of allowing a Standing Committee approved all-woman ballot slate to go forward to the delegates. The October 2011 issue presented the strong and differing opinions of the Messenger readers, totaling five pages of copy, representing an equal balance of views. Publisher Wendy McFadden felt it necessary to write a forward saying that “the opinions expressed in letters to the editor are not necessarily the opinions of Messenger. And that the opinions in the letters published are roughly proportional to those received.”

Benjamin Haldeman from Greencastle, Pa., writes in his letter to the editor, “After reading the September Messenger letters to the editor, a reader could conclude that many in our denomination have chosen to follow the god [sic] of this world instead of the God of heaven. Woe to us if we reject the law of God and Yeshua, our Savior.” The opening of Haldeman’s letter details that Church of the Brethren members need to follow the God who saved them, not the one who says everyone is loved by one another. Writes P.V. Lee Smith from Mount Pleasant, Pa., “I am hurt and deeply troubled at seeing people place emotions or psychology as a greater authority than scripture. It grieves my heart to see the denomination treat holiness as if it is of little importance. I find myself dismayed that we spend more time debating what God has clearly said…instead of saving souls and being obedient.”

Gays as leaders in the community

The Church of the Brethren denomination’s identity statement, “Continuing the work of Jesus. Peacefully. Simply. Together,” serves as guidance to the denomination but is not a creed. The Church prides itself in not having one, and its website boasts that it does not have a set of rules. “We simply try to do what Jesus did,” says the site. “At the La Verne Church of the Brethren, we’ve been open and welcoming for a while—probably long before my time at this congregation,” Bishop says. “It’s just the right thing to do.” Bishop says that the Church as a whole sees being a member of the LGBT community incompatible with being Christian, but the La Verne Church thinks otherwise. He says they are stuck in the middle of the current “lightening rod issue” because they want to allow people a place of worship where they feel safe, comfortable and fit in.

Bishop adds that the La Verne Church has it as a goal to model the denominational identity statement. “I do not understand how someone can believe in the Brethren motto and not be accepting. Injustice is the center point of our differences. We have LGBT friends, and they are whom we seek to protect from any more harm.”

“Why do so many people hate gay people?” Wise said during an October sermon at the La Verne Church of the Brethren. “It’s not really hate though. It’s more fear because people read the bible a certain way.” Said Miller, in his editorial published in the October 2011 Messenger, “It is rather presumptuous of us to assume God is finished speaking to us…Alexander Mack and the other founders of the Church of the Brethren were onto something when they claimed no creed but the New Testament. They left the door open for the wind of the Holy Spirit to blow among us, breathing new insights and understandings of God’s will. Who are we to shut that door? Who knows, if the wind blows just right, there may even be room for Jesus—should he wish to become a Christian.”

Although the La Verne congregation withheld its denomination financial commitment in the months following Annual Conference, the total sum was released to Noffsinger at year’s end, along with a conditional letter explaining the delay. The letter, drafted following a November all-Church Council meeting, details the congregation’s concerns “over the direction of the Church.” The letter cites that 2012 La Verne Church giving will hinge on changes the membership wants to see happen by June 2012 within the denomination as a whole. The General Secretary answers he is doing all he can to serve all members of the Church in order to restore and rebuild relationships across the entire denomination. Says Bishop, “We will keep doing what we normally do. The actions we asked for were not a demand, but for now, we will give our quarterly commitment until June. If the higher denomination does not have any sign of willingness to move, we would reconsider giving contributions. If we see change, we will reassess what has occurred.”

La Verne’s requests include the following: (1) acceptance of the Brethren Mennonite Council for LGBT Interests as a Brethren Volunteer Service (BVS) project; (2) BMC’s welcomed presence at Annual Conference, symbolized with that organization’s right to host an official booth; and (3) listing of steps taken to ensure a safe and welcoming environment at all Church of the Brethren sponsored conferences. The denomination heard the message. November 2011, BMC received denominational go ahead to feature a booth at the 2012 Annual Conference, and a BVS project was offered thereafter in winter 2012. “I think we will go toward justice socially, and the Church will sadly follow rather than lead the way. There are congregations like La Verne that offer amazing leadership,” Wise says.

“If I, as a heterosexual man, received this kind of castigation during this time, think what our homosexual and bisexual brothers and sisters live with for their entire lifetimes,” wrote Chuck Boyer just before his death. “This is an example of how religion promotes hatred and exclusiveness—two things Jesus fought so hard against. As we examine options open to us, let us think about creating two denominations and encouraging both to love each other as we go our separate ways. The Church of the Brethren has split several times since 1708. These divisions were not entered into lightly, nor would this one be.”

Although most Churches of the Brethren are modest, the La Verne Church stands immense, like a German cathedral. Founded in the late 1800s, it is called a home of worship to nearly 300 members every Sunday.

Local couple affected

The La Verne Church of the Brethren is known for its inclusive nature and welcoming environment, no matter a person’s sexual orientation. Composer, songwriter and church accompanist Shawn Kirchner is no stranger to this welcome environment. He and his partner Ryan Harrison, who is not a member of the denomination, are well-known to the La Verne congregation and consider themselves loved with open arms by all.

Ryan says he and Shawn met while both were working for the University of La Verne. When Shawn invited him to sing in a small ensemble at the Church, he never left the scene. Ryan says he felt safe being openly gay in the La Verne congregation but would not be too sure about any other Church of the Brethren. He says he cannot remember a time when he, or his relationship, felt discriminated at the La Verne Church. Together, they regularly provide music at weddings, memorial services and other special events.

“[Conservative Brethren] cannot make me feel differently about myself or my beliefs, no matter how hard they try or pray about it,” Ryan says. “The issue for me isn’t whether or not I feel safe in the wider denomination, but whether I feel valued and accepted as equally as others. I do not feel this at the denominational level today, but it doesn’t cause me to feel fearful. Sad, yes. Angry, sometimes. But in the end, I guess I fall back on the fact that this is small stuff, certainly not the center of my world.” Ryan says that since he comes from a very diverse religious background, and is not a member of the Church, his views are not typical. But he feels like the Church is his home due to its loving, peaceful and open environment. The Annual Conference affected more than just the members wanting to see change in the inclusion of the LGBT community; it affected those who are, in fact, members of LGBT. “Shawn and I are church musicians and have led music at the denomination’s Annual Conference before. But that was several years ago, and with the recent shifting climate…I’m not sure that we would be welcome on a denominational stage anymore,” Ryan says. The two played a major musical role in the 2003 Boise, Idaho Annual Conference, and, again, in a 2004 nationally televised CBS Christmas Eve service that featured the Church of the Brethren.

According to Ryan, there have most likely been leaders in the Church who “were lesbian or gay” at the denominational level and were accepted because they were not “out” publicly. He does not believe that the denomination is ready for an LGBT community member to be in denominational leadership because it would “only add fuel to the fire. This whole thing will either burn itself out or consume and burn up everything. Nothing stays the same, but spiritually centered people, I believe, are better able to adapt to changes, whatever they look like.”

Names of inclusion hang on a two-sided easel in the La Verne Church of the Brethren foyer. The name tags beckon a warm welcome to fellow members and visitors, boosting the Church’s inclusive mission.

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Kristen Campbell, Editor in Chief

I quit Facebook. It was like quitting chocolate. When I smell chocolate and see its delectability begging me to consume its very being I cannot help but surrender. It used to be the same way with Facebook, but to a higher degree. So I quit. People looked at me like I was irrational, PMSing or definitely sleep-deprived. Frankly, I was told I was out of my mind.

My favorite quote about my decision was, and still is, “Saying you are going to quit Facebook is like saying you are going to commit suicide. It sounds like a good idea until you actually get around to doing it.” It definitely rings true to how my friends were feeling.

Well, I did it. I guess you could say I pulled the trigger. I logged on, clicked the deactivate button and breathed a sigh of relief. I was off, disconnected, free. I officially cast myself out of my generation. Talk about voting myself off the island.

Why did I do it? Many would say it was the center of my universe. I made a new friend, and I sent the person a friend request. I found a study buddy, and I sent the person a friend request. When I had that difficult research paper due at 8 a.m., my writer’s block was turned into Facebook surfing.

Facebook is the world’s venting outlet, coping mechanism and a main source for immediate information. We use Facebook as our main form of communication including baby shower invites, birthday reminders and birthday greetings. What happened to a calendar or a mailed invitation on pretty stationary?

I remember when I made friends as a child. It used to be about exchanging home phone numbers to get a hold of each other, or swapping addresses so we could write letters through snail mail. If a big event occurred, I did not know until the people involved told me personally. Information was on a need-to-know basis.

In the span of one month, I found out about the birth of a baby, two engagements, one pregnancy, the acceptance into a graduate program and a retirement, to name a few, all within an hour of the events occurring. We want to share our happiness with the world. We want the instant gratification from those who read our status and relationship updates. We want to feel important based on how many comments or “likes” our post receives. We as Facebook users thrive off of how important our updates are to our friends. If nobody notices a funny story, a venting status or a witty comment, something mentally tells us we failed. But in reality, it could have been nothing more than our story happened to get posted at a low traffic hour. Yet so many users’ self-esteem gets crushed over something that is simplistic and obsolete in our development as humans.

Oh, by the way, I am back on. But I did not cave. Honest! Life – my career – made me go back on as a part of my internship. It has been a little over six months, and I am still on.

Granted I still post my witty comments and venting blurbs. I still look to it as a source of immediate information about my family and friends. But I do not seek approval for my comments or life observations. I am wiser for knowing I have the power to pull the plug.

Facebook is definitely a curse to the faint of heart and a blessing in disguise. See you online.

Kristen Campbell, Editor-in-Chief

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Pulling up to the Peyton packing house on D and First streets, a horse-drawn wagon carries the day’s lemon harvest in 1918. In present day, the building is the University’s Arts and Communications Building. / photo illustration by Christopher Guzman

by Kristen Campbell
photography by Christopher Guzman

The historical senses can still see and hear horse-drawn wagons arriving at La Verne’s packinghouses to drop off freshly picked citrus. Steam trains come to a rumbling halt to pick up shipments to be sent on their world journeys. In the present time, these buildings are now known for the quality educational pursuits that take place inside their walls. Nearly lost, except to the mind’s eye, is their international fame for packing quality citrus that was sent to far-off lands, even to the Queen of England.

Hard-learned lessons brought La Verne to the citrus forefront. In 1894, the first shipment of La Verne oranges sent to New York arrived rotten and covered in blue-green mold. The leaders of the fledgling citrus industry had much to learn to swiftly get their quality product into the hands of an eager public. Although there were packinghouses in San Dimas and Pomona, La Verne rancher Marcus L. Sparks decided to save money and precious time by doing his own packing and shipping. He hired Chinese workers, and they worked on the platform of the La Verne railway station. Sparks persisted and, by trial and error, developed proper methods of packing and shipping so those on the receiving end would get a salable product. Soon, he built two packinghouses near his groves; one on the SW corner of D and First streets (see map 2), and the second at the SE corner of E and First streets (see map 4). His prime location land

began to gain value, and he started selling his orange groves to industrialization companies wanting to be near the railroad. By 1909, he had sold his citrus and packinghouses to the budding La Verne Orange Growers Association. Sparks may have been turning away from citrus, but the La Verne citrus empire was just blossoming. The D and First streets packinghouse (map 2) was expanded and named the La Verne Orange and Lemon Growers Association Packinghouse. This large wooden structure was in use until the 1960s when it was demolished, and citrus operations moved to Upland.

Citrus structures still standing

Marcus Sparks built a co-op headquarters in 1919 on the SW corner of First and D streets (map 1). It still stands today as a University of La Verne Organizational Leadership building (soon to be converted into the new home of the La Verne Chamber of Commerce). His E and First streets packinghouse was rebuilt with reinforced concrete and was named the La Verne Orange Association Plant Number 2 (map 4). The oranges were marketed under the Sunkist brand for 40 years. This packinghouse provided the association with ice-making capabilities as well as room in the basement for box-making, leaving the main floor clear for orange packing. Today it houses the University’s Enrollment Management, Mail Services and Facilities Management.

Valentine Peyton, another prominent orange grower, also had a privately-owned packinghouse (map 3) directly across the street from Sparks’ (now demolished) house (map 2). Once the Association acquired Sparks’ properties, it expanded its operation to handle lemons. When Peyton sold his packinghouse in 1914, the name of the group was changed to the La Verne Orange and Lemon Growers Association. By fall 1918, lemon and orange house packing had increased to more than the packinghouse’s capacities, so the Peyton building was expanded. Even in the midst of the Great Depression, the Association saw the shipment of more than 1,700 carloads of fruit. In 1960, the former Peyton lemon packinghouse was closed and the laborers were moved to Upland. The last Upland packinghouse was razed in 2002. “It seemed almost overnight the packing of oranges shifted from 10 or 15 area houses down to just one in Upland because it was cheaper,” Galen Beery, La Verne city historian, says.

After Peyton’s fruit trees were uprooted and replaced with homes, his packinghouse (map 3) stood empty or was used as a warehouse for three decades until the University of La Verne acquired it in 1988. With structural and minor remodeling, the University used the property for warehousing and storage. In the mid-1990s, additional remodeling converted the main floor into the University’s Art Department and the basement into U.L.V. Graphics, a printing company then owned by the school. Around the same time, murals reminiscent of La Verne being the heart of the citrus industry were painted on its south side. The building’s transformation came in 2000 when Claremont Environmental Design Group turned the aging building into an Art and Communications building. Today, its massive front wall of glass provides light for art studio classes on the main floor. The building is simultaneously utilized by the Communications Department, housing television, radio, multimedia and print journalism areas. The remodel shows off its ducts and metal features and reminds visitors that the building was born as a packinghouse. Those who walk into the building find it constantly alive with students engaging in studio and production activities. The still-rumbling trains are a reminder that its historic close railway location was meant to facilitate citrus loading ease.

How citrus made a name for La Verne

The year was 1873 when the United States Department of Agriculture sent, at the request of Riverside resident Eliza Tibbets, two budded Washington navel orange trees. Unfortunately, the land where she planted the trees was low, water would not drain, and the trees’ roots literally drowned. But from failure came success: her two orange trees would be the beginning of an industry that would define a city and a region. In 1886, Mr. and Mrs. L.H. Bixby and Dr. and Mrs. Lyman Allen, Mrs. Bixby’s brother-in-law and sister, settled on their northern La Verne land, planning to farm. Because of the hot, dry summers, they realized they could not undertake conventional crop cultivation until a better source of water could be made available. The two couples and other ranchers below the foothills began to dry-farm, planting different crops in the fall and harvesting in the early summer, soon learning citrus would thrive. In order to survive, cooperation between ranchers became a necessity to share and manage scarce water supplies.

Early on, the area south of Foothill Boulevard was held by two major owners, Valentine Peyton and William Mills. When Mills put his non-citrus property on the market, Peyton bought the northern acreage. His holdings extended to White Avenue. With the sale, new growers entered into the La Verne Co-op Orange Association. This barren land proved to the new owners that the soil and the climate allowed the Washington navel orange trees to flourish. The soil was mostly granite, which promoted drainage since navels could not thrive where water pooled.

The co-op’s first oranges came to harvest before Christmas 1910 and were sent on their way to the nation’s four corners. Stories tell of the cherished joy when East Coast children found a La Verne orange in their Christmas stockings. The oranges peeled easily, and those peels were then saved, dried and kept in a child’s dresser drawer.

As citrus became a new commodity, the eccentricities of the Washington navel orange were soon learned and solved with innovative strategies developed to harvest, pack and ship them for market. Ranchers discovered it took a large work force to grow and sell sizeable quantities of citrus. The local workforce was inadequate to sustain this demand. This was a skilled job because pickers had to be trusted not to carelessly drop the oranges into boxes. The skin of an orange is delicate, and, if damaged, rots quickly.

Between 1943 and 1944, grove owners began to notice their healthy trees showing signs of deterioration. In the end, it was a very small enemy that took over this booming industry, something the Agriculture Department called “quick decline.” Eventually, the citrus experimental station, now the University of California Riverside Graduate School of Management, identified that a virus brought with the Meyer lemon affected the buds of citrus trees and prevented an interchange of water and nutrients. Smog also prevented the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Prominence for years to come

Distinguished names and artifacts from the booming empire can be seen in several La Verne locations. The orange tree growing at La Verne City Hall was planted to honor 20 years of civic service by Frank Johnson. Heritage Park, a model working grove, captures the way and life of La Verne during the empire’s reign. Multiple buildings in downtown La Verne hold murals depicting citrus, packinghouses and grove life. Due to this living commemoration throughout the city, future visitors and residents will forever know the significance of the center of the citrus industry, La Verne.

Creating an image to last generations, the red rose depicts the La Verne Cooperative Citrus Association’s “pure gold” standard. Used as a symbol for its very best, high grade fruit, this label graced superior crates of oranges and lemons sent around the world.

Citrus as a Johnson family affair

Frank and Nadine Johnson owned five citrus groves and raised three sons, Scott, Steve and Kirk among their bountiful groves. “My dad would tell us as kids that it was his childhood dream to be a citrus farmer. Since he grew up with the packinghouses, he wanted to see and experience the other side of the citrus industry,” Kirk, the youngest son, a La Verne real estate broker and attorney, says. The family owned five California groves, one each in Upland, La Verne, Porterville, Springville and Corona, including a Corona packinghouse. Their La Verne grove was located near Fruit Street, site of a mobile home park today. Frank also served as city of La Verne mayor. “It was a magical time for our family because we got to teach our sons about business and responsibility early on, all while having fun doing it. Our boys would always get into mischief while playing in the groves, but that was to be expected since they were boys,” Nadine says. All three sons remember the fun of growing up on an orange grove and just “being boys,” as their mother so fondly recalls. “Our La Verne grove is basically in many, if not all, of my childhood memories,” says Steve, the middle son, a present day Farmers Insurance agent. Kirk says that he remembers getting into much waywardness. “My older brothers and I would go down to the pond at the Springville grove at night and go frog-gigging. We would try to catch bullfrogs to eat the frog legs, but I do not think we ever caught one. We would chase rabbits and scare rattlesnakes while we were working.”

Key to map1. Marcus Sparks co-op headquarters, then ULV’s Organizational Leadership Building2. Demolished Sparks packing house3. Valentine Peyton packing house, becoming the ULV’s Arts and Communications Building4. Marcus Sparks packing house, becoming the La Verne Orange Association Plant 2 and then ULV’s Enrollment Management

A fond memory is going door-to-door with a wagon of freshly picked fruit. “It was a nice introduction to running a business and making money for yourself,” says Scott, the oldest son, an orange grower in Corona. Kirk says that he even enjoyed most of the manual labor, especially because they would have to get dirty and stay that way for a few hours. “Even though I liked the manual labor, I absolutely hated dead-wooding. I and two other kids would put on these thick, long-sleeved shirts and giant gloves and climb into the trees to remove the deadwood. We had to do this so the fruit would not get scarred because if it did, the value would diminish.”

While the Johnsons’ groves brought them together, it was not easy to run a Southern California grove. The weather was great to grow citrus, but orange trees need much water. “We owned our own wells on our property, but this region is a desert so there were droughts that hurt us significantly,” Nadine says. “Some years, the drought would be so intense, we would have to dig deeper, but you can only go so far.” The years passed and land values increased considerably. It was then that Nadine and Frank decided it was time to sell. “My parents eventually said we had to sell the groves because it was difficult to farm locally due to urban encroachment,” Steve says. Looking back, the Johnsons agree they miss living and working on their once-prominent groves. “My backyard is filled with citrus because the fragrance of the blossoms in the springtime is heavenly, and they are gorgeous fruits to look at,” Nadine says. “La Verne was the heart of the citrus empire, and I try to maintain some of that.”

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