19 August 2011

Dear Friends of Spring Hill Cemetery,

The cemetery welcomed us on Friday with cool breezes and overcast skies. It was perfect weather for an energetic session of raking paths, hauling out downed logs, cutting back those tree suckers with nerve enough to threaten our headstones, pulling ivy/blackberry bushes/weeds, and cleaning bird droppings from our stones. Regional Parks supported us once again with their indispensable tool trailer and dump truck. With many of of our volunteers off on summer adventures or otherwise unavailable, we were a smaller group this time, but we still managed to fill the dump truck and leave the cemetery paths tended. Many thanks to those who were able to join in.

I have attached a few pictures of the cemetery taken Friday. The cemetery is looking very dignified and peaceful these days, with its repaired and reset headstones resting beneath the trees. The first attachment was taken from the road looking toward the NW. The second shows our tended and redwood-lined paths looking towards the Robertson / Parmeter / Herbert section of the cemetery. I have annotated the second image to show the position of Daisy Herbert and William R Robertson's graves, as they were both mentioned in a newspaper article recently brought to my attention.

Last week I was sent the scan of an article originally published in the Press Democrat in 1956 about Watson school. As I have mentioned in past recaps, Spring Hill families were much involved with the building and development of the historic one room school house. Watson School is still standing today and is an historic park, located just a few miles from the cemetery. Pictures of the school as well as details on restoration efforts for it can be found at: http://www.sonoma-county.org/parks/pk_watsn_restor.htm

Excerpts from the March 25, 1956 Press Democrat article on Watson School which was then marking its centennial:

There is no blackboard jungle atmosphere in the white school house that sits proud and lonely on Bodega Highway a few miles east of Bodega. Instead, the century-old one-room school is cheerful and friendly. .... The school was built by neighbors 100 years ago on a little plot of ground donated by an early settler, James Watson, who bought some 1,800 acres of land from the government. James Watson was known as a gentleman farmer and a breeder of thoroughbreds. He donated the land for the school with only one string attached... that the school be named in his honor. The school house was built with the help of everyone around, and today, it is the oldest school in Sonoma County whose original building is still in use. Many of the early records of the school are lost, and the deed to the property cannot be found. But it is known that 11 pupils attended the school in 1856, and the daily average attendance was 10.

.... loyalty to the school is strong among residents of the district who are former students. One of the oldest of these is Mrs. Daisy Herbert, Valley Ford. She will be 85 next month. She recalls that her grandfather, William Riley Robertson, Bodega, helped build the school. And her father, John Robertson, was a student there. So were her mother, her aunts and uncles. Before her family moved to Casadero, she herself attended the school for three years. She recalls her school days with fondness.

"I was the best runner of all them," she said. "I could outrun the boys and the girls and I was very proud of it."

While her own children didn't attend Watson, three of her grandchildren went there for three or four years.

The fifth attachment is of Spring Hill's very speedy Daisy Herbert at age 85, with the last picture showing Daisy and her husband, Tom, in their youth. She died in 1962, aged 91. The school closed in 1967.

Our penultimate 2011 workday is scheduled for October 7th, with the last workday of the year on November 18th. Please, come join us!

Best Regards,

Sue

Attachment #1

Attachment #2

Attachment #3

Attachment #4

Attachment #6
Thomas Herbert & Daisy (Robertson) Herbert