by Mary Ann Mayo

“I want you to know that I’ve always used my head for more than holding up my hair,” Angelina declared, having told me how she escaped near decapitation on a run-away horse that was determined to barrel through a barn door never built for a mounted rider. Without the aid of a bridle or saddle she gripped the horse’s mane while tightening her legs around its flanks and with the ease of a practiced Indian warrior slipped to the raging horse’s side, a move that saved that head to be used for many another day.  At 90, there is not much Angelina doesn’t recall about her years in Dry Creek, her work at the Healdsburg Food Pantry, or what is going on politically not only nationally but in the chambers of Healdsburg City Hall. 

While we breeze through Dry Creek valley on two major arteries, Angelina remembers walking deer paths throughout to visit friends or get to school.  She also recalls missing two weeks of school every year so she could help with the grape harvest.  Her neighborhood “grammar” school included all comers from grades 1-8.  One teacher was responsible for as many as 35 students some years and in other years as few as eight. To communicate with her fellow students she needed to speak Spanish, Italian (and several Italian dialects) and English. Since Italian was spoken in her home she learned English when she started school and takes pride that on her visits to Italy people still insist she must be a native born Italian. 

  Angelina was in the last graduating class of the Dry Creek School.  But, before she left for good, she had mastered the trick of pumping the school swings to a point that a 360° circle became routine.  She wonders what happened to the boy who stood on his desk to crow and flap his arms like a chicken at the end of each school day.  The teacher wasn’t pleased but her complaints were met with a bouquet of flowers from an adoring parent who apparently didn’t worry such behavior would keep her son out of Harvard or possibly a job at the hardware store. 

 Anyone who has the pleasure of visiting with Angelina quickly realizes her curiosity and love of learning is undaunted by age; she will gladly speculate on the environmental changes she observes and the factors she believes are the cause.  She misses the thousands of robins that used to cover the sky as they entered the valley, for example.  An appreciation of wildlife did not render her vulnerable, however.  Trekking through the deer trails necessitated being able to take care of oneself. Angelina states she could hit a cherry-pit on a stump with a gun and wasn’t so bad with a rock either.  While snakes became trophies, pigeons and rabbits ended up on the dinner table.  Domestic animals such as goats, chickens and roosters provided sustenance and an income. 

 And speaking of making money, during prohibition she remembers bootleggers plying their trade in the hills of Dry Creek.  Property owners were told that they would be liable if bootleggers used their property and her father was warned about a suspicious tank partially on his land.  She remembers being questioned by ‘Revenuers” when she was eight or nine years old about “activity in the area and that tank down by the creek.”  She recalls following paths made by the sugar and barley sacks being drug to the still.  While this activity proved very lucrative she laments that her dad didn’t even get a bottle of grappa! 

Like many who have celebrated a 90^th birthday, Angelina grieves over the fact that she is the only one left of the group she grew up with; most stayed in Healdsburg. While she had wanted to continue at the JC, which was no cost except for books, her Father insisted that she help in the vineyard, driving the horses and disking the fields. A lifelong love of reading and a quick and curious mind made up for the lack of formal education, however.  Later she would work in the prune dryer and at the Tribune moving a block off the plaza into a house built of clearheart redwood in 1883.  She shared that home with her late husband, August, a winemaker at Foppiano Winery for 43 years and still lives there today.

While Angelina lives in Healdsburg her days in Dry Creek remain an important part of her life and remarkably, she remembers so much more than what has been shared here.  If you can catch her between her work at the Food Pantry and her church, walk her to the plaza and listen.  It will be time well spent.