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Community Corner

'A Meadow I Used to Know Every Inch of'

Bill Bartholomae, a young cowboy in the last years of the Diamond Bar Ranch, remembers the land well.

The young Bill Bartholomae knew Fred Lewis as a Great White Shark hunter. But Lewis was also the owner of the property about to become Bartholome's home: the Diamond Bar Ranch.

Bill, who now works as a Realtor in Orange County, remembers the days of the ranch well, though they have come and gone.

Years after the development of the ranch, during a trip to Diamond Bar, Bill realized how much the area has changed when he stopped at a gas station to ask directions to his old house.

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“It was on a meadow I used to know every inch of," Bill said.

A crowded California

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Back before the sale to the Bartholomae family, the monumentally wealthy Lewis worked a herd of Hereford cattle on the property, in addition to providing exotic animals to zoos around the world. Lewis eventually decided to sell the ranch after deciding that California became too crowded and that tax rates were burdensome on his passive income.

When escrow closed on Feb. 17, 1943, title passed to his friend, Bill’s father, William Bartholomae. The Bartholomae's first home on the ranch was a modest structure built just above where the congregation now worships.

Looking back, what Bill Bartholomae liked best growing up on the Diamond Bar Ranch in the 13 years his father owned it was the “freedom to pack a lunch and tell my mom I’ll be back before dark… and just go."

At a young age, Bill was keenly aware that there are dangers on the open ranchland. As a precaution, Bill trained his white Tennessee Walking Horse, "Snowball," to stay with him if he got hurt.

Bill was confident that the horse would help him get back on after a fall. And so, the youngster rode alone, far beyond the green pastures where the cattle congregated. He liked to splash in the cool running water running through and had favorite swimming holes.

He sometimes rode up to fish with Harold Arnold at his friend’s dad’s reservoir. With fish he caught, Bill stocked the new reservoirs.

With many common interests, the family kept in touch with Fred Lewis. When Bill was 15, he spent the summer at the former ranch owner’s new home, a private 360-acre island off Vancouver, Canada.

Captain Fred Lewis treated Bill like a grandson during that wonderful summer. The night before flying home, he caught some bullfrogs for the pond.

Needless to say, airport security was different in those years, and Bill flew home with the little frogs in a box on his lap.

The flight attendant asked what kind of souvenir he had brought aboard.

“I said, 'Bullfrogs! Would like to see them?'" Bill recounted. "'NO!' she said, 'and made me promise not to open the box until you get home.'"

When Bill returned to the Diamond Bar, the green amphibians hopped free.

Life on the ranch

The senior Bartholomae did not favor hunting on his land. However, he made an exception for John Schandoney. A worker at the Bartholomae Oil operations in Brea, John taught the company owner’s son to hunt. There were not too many geese or pheasant; but rabbit, quail and dove kept the pair busy, along with the occasional deer.

At home, Bill remembers his mother, Sara, as a wonderful gardener. She taught him that if he saw a snake to “just freeze and it will slither away.” Sara, being fluent in English and Spanish, claimed her role in the family enterprise was to serve as the interpreter with the irrigators and gardeners.

William Bartholomae was 50 when Bill was born. With another ranch in Nevada, the Bartholomae Oil Corporation, mining and real estate to look after, being father to three children (Raylene, Bill and Sara Jane), William adopted a parenting style with rigid rules: there was no tolerance for tardiness; English was the only language spoken in the home.

Bill rode the bus to first and second grade in Brea before transferring to the local school organized by area farmers in Walnut. Then, the school was a one-room, six-teacher operation: the only campus in the Walnut School District.

To instill military discipline and reinforce values, Bill was enrolled at Saint Catherine’s Academy in Anaheim, beginning with the third grade. In the sixth grade, Bill returned to the local school, where he met lifelong friend, Ray McMullen.

Ray admired his friend’s problem-solving gumption.

“He was independent,” McMullen said.

During a scrap metal drive at the school, that independence came in handy when the school needed a truck. Bill said that life on the ranch had already taught him that "no problem is unsolvable if you just put your mind to it." Shortly after, Bill rolled up to school driving a 1-ton cab to the school. He was 13.

In those years, the Diamond Bar Ranch was home to the champion bull "Baca Duke," a Hereford that Mr. Bartholomae purchased for a handsome sum around $50,000: significantly more than the cost of a typical suburban home.

Breeding stock shipped to and from Nevada ranches, allowing Baca Duke to remain under watchful eyes on the Diamond Bar. When not in school, Bill earned his keep as the youngest cowboy on the ranch.

When Bill reached high school age, the Walnut Valley School District had not yet been formed, and high school began with sophomore year at the Puente Union High School District’s second high school, Los Altos.

But school wasn't the only priority. Bill had several chores. Before he was tall enough to reach the pedals on a regular tractor, a garden tractor was retrofitted to tow a drag, so the pint-sized ranch hand could maintain a one-mile gravel road.

Bill had plenty of practice to adjust the drag just right to draw a proper crown on the road.

“Twenty minutes each way and four passes and I was done," Bill said.

Snowball was his partner in checking the fences for needs of repair.

The final years of the Diamond Bar Ranch

When his father , the family moved to a 200-acre plot just across the street from where LA Fitness now does business, called the 5th Avenue Place for the street frontage (once Colima Road and now Golden Springs Drive).

An old barn on the property was retrofitted for the teenager’s quarters, where Bill kept a pet Rhesus monkey that frequently escaped to pester a neighbor’s horses and confuse patrons exiting a nearby bar in the late of night.

After leaving the ranch, in Bill's first year of college, his father died. On his own at nineteen, a neighboring dentist, Dr, Jack Monroe, helped the young man with learning new skills by introducing him to a career in property management.

Bill Bartholomae is now a Realtor in Orange California. He lives there with his wife, Linda, a retired teacher. They are the proud parents of two children, Billie and Christy, collecting (so far) two grandchildren.

Bill is helping the planning committee for the Class of 1963 Los Altos High School. If you graduated with him or know where someone can be reached, please contact him at bill@billbartholomae.com or by calling (714) 270-7416.

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