Who Was Edith Moore Jarrett?
Edith Moore Jarrett c 1939
Most 74 year-old people would be thinking about retirement. Edith Moore Jarrett had retired from teaching at Fillmore Unified High School in 1947 after more than 20 years, but in 1972 the Fillmore Chamber of Commerce came to her with a request. To start a museum showcasing the Fillmore, Bardsdale, Sespe area. Edith had no experience in setting up a museum and anyone besides her would have said no, but not Edith. Edith’s work at getting the Museum going has been related elsewhere. Of course she didn’t do it alone – Dorothy Haase, Ruth Walker, Harold Dorman, we don’t have space to list everyone and would undoubtedly leave some out. But from the space the Chamber of Commerce leased on the ground floor of the Masonic Building, the Museum has grown considerably.
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So who was this person who had no apparent fear of taking on this new undertaking?
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Edith was the eldest of four children born to Augusta “Gussie” Brown and Wade Moore. Gussie had met Wade in May of 1897 when she and her aunt came to David Cook’s ranch near Piru from Moorpark to work in the apricot harvest. Wade Moore was one of the supervisors for the apricot drying. Although Gussie was engaged to Levi Bunn, she married Wade Moore on September 29, 1897.
Edith Moore, 20 months
In July of 1898, Edith was born in Los Angeles but a few days the family moved to Torrey Canyon, south of the Santa Clara River. The family moved frequently for her father’s work, although she seemed to consider the Torrey Canyon area as “home”. Her school records show her enrolled at Sespe and Hueneme.
Gussie Brown Moore with George Moore, in the Sespe 1917
The Moore family grew adding Alice in 1902, Fred in 1911, and George in 1914. Edith attended grammar school at Sespe School that was on Grand Avenue. In 1912 she entered Fillmore High School which meant crossing the Sespe to get to school. The flood of 1913 which washed out the Sespe Bridge did not stop Edith attending classes. In her own words, “…onlookers who gathered at a safe distance to watch the railroad bridge go next were shocked and surprised to see a tall lanky girl of 15, school books under her raincoat, go across the bridge while leaping crests of muddy water splashing around her feet,
1915 FUHS Board of Commissioners, with Edith second from left.
Note the students "photobombing" through the windows
Edith thrived in high school. She won the contest to name the Fillmore High year book, and it has remained Copa de Oro to this day, In her junior year she was literary editor of the annual and was chosen editor-in-chief her senior year. Besides that she served on the student council as Commissioner for Student Welfare and was a member of the championship debating team. She graduated with honors in the spring of 1916.
Edith Moore graduation photo from FUHS 1916
In November of 1916 it must have seemed as if her world was crumbling. On November 25, 1916, after the family had finished their evening meal, Wade Moore went outside and shot himself in the head. The newspaper report says he had been in ill health and had been “taken steps to get his worldly affairs in order.” He left Gussie with four children, ages 4 to 18.
The Moore Family, 1910
Life went on. In 1917, Edith entered the University of Southern California. She graduated in 1921, cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. It was here she met Beryl McManus who would co-author the first volume of El Camino Real with Edith. It was probably here that she also met Charles Dan Jarrett whom she would marry in 1922.
Charles Dan Jarrett
While Edith was at USC, her mother married Levi Bunn, her former suitor. They were married and living in the Sespe until his death in 1942.
FUHS Faculty, 1941
Edith is seated at the table on the right
In 1925, after teaching at Buckhorn and Sespe Grammar schools, she became a member of the faculty at her alma mater, Fillmore Union High School, teaching Spanish. Over her tenure at FUHS she served as advisor to the scholarship society, class advisor, girl’s vice principal and head of the Spanish department.
426 Clay, 1928
By 1928, Charles and Edith had moved into their home at 426 Clay. Edith wasted no time in decorating and remodeling the home. This was a hint at what Edith would do in her coming home on Foothill Drive.
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The Jarrett’s had at least two things in common. They both enjoyed travel and were both writers. Charles was a columnist for the “Fillmore Herald” writing the “As If It Mattered” column. He also wrote a series of profiles of the area's settlers including C. C. Elkins, Hartley Sprague and Buck Atmore.
Charles and Edith Jarrett, 1928 S. S. Admiral Dewey - LA to Portland
August 23rd, 1927, Edith was on a train returning from Mexico City where she had been studying. Bandits attacked the train, killing one of Edith’s companions.
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That experience did not slow Edith down, though at least for a short while she went to more conventional destinations. 1928 found Mr. and Mrs. Jarrett on the S. S. Admiral Dewey going from Los Angeles to Portland. In 1932, Edith and Charles drove a Citroěn all over Spain. By 1961 she had visited every Spanish speaking country except the Philippines. A decade or more after that she told someone she was going to Timbuktu because she had never been there. Her passports sound like a world atlas.
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Although the couple seemed to have much in common, in 1940 they divorced. Edith moved into the “Alley Mansion” at 424 Clay Street.​​
George, Edith, Fred, Alice Moore Milton and Gussie Brown Moore Bunn, 1939
In 1942, Edith and her co-writer Beryl J. M. McManus saw the publication of their book, El Camino Real, Understanding our Spanish Speaking Neighbors, This was the first Spanish grammar text book printed in the US. 1943 would see the publication of El Camino Real 2 which was Edith’s solo work. These books would be used in US high Schools well into the 1970s. It spent more than 20 years on Houghton-Mifflin’s best seller list. The success of the books, gave Edith the wherewithal so that she was able to stop teaching in 1947.
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World War II curbed Edith’s travel, but she kept up a steady correspondence with many of her former students. In 1948 she returned to Europe and was disturbed by much that she saw – such as the Dachau concentration camp.
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It was at this time she began the G. A. novel (the great American novel). Edith was better writing textbooks than novels and found no publisher for it. Today she would just self-publish and prove all the publishers wrong – maybe.
In March of 1949, Edith started the major project of building a new home on Foothill Drive. She had to have an engineer draw up proper plans for permitting, but essentially, she was the architect on her dream home.
While the outside was mid-century modern, it was what was on the inside that “Sunset Magazine” featured. Edith truly believed in built-ins including the kitchen which was hidden behind a wall. One of the more remarkable features was a mural of a world map done by Lawrence Hinckley. It is a pity that later owners chose to paint over the mural which showed the places Edith had visited.
In her 1952 holiday letter (always sent in January), her friends learned of the new man in her life. She told of how they met in a store and they both immediately knew theirs’s would be a special relationship. He moved into the house on Foothill with Edith. He would often want to go out and have fun. If she couldn’t go with him, he would go on his own. Finally, there was a time when he left and didn’t come back. He had left for untamed, non-descented brethren. Yes, Spunky was a skunk. One wonders if Edith ever compared notes with her neighbor on Foothill, Harriet “Petey” Weaver, as to who made a better house mate – a skunk or a racoon.
Edith and Spunky
In 1952, Edith married Bertran “Bert” Roderick, a widower. Although not born in Fillmore, Bert had lived here many years, he was manager at People’s Lumber and was an active Mason.
Edith and Bert, 1954
1970 on the Statendam. Edith on the left and Hazel Hiberly on the right
The 1950s and 1960s Edith planned and decorated two duplexes and four homes, including the house on Foothill and she also was busy as a writer and lecturer. She traveled sometime with Bert but often with friends such as Hazel Hiberly, Fillmore teacher and school principal.
Edith loved to fly. She first flew with some barnstormers over Santa Paula in 1918 and flew cross country in 1932 in a trip which took 2 days. As flying became more common, Edith flew whenever she had the chance.
Arriving in Dublin from Amsterdam on Aer Lingus Vickers Viscount (turbo-prop jet.
September 3, 1956
So now it is 1972, Marie Wren told it this way “My husband, Gene Wren, was on the board for the Chamber of Commerce, and he came home from a meeting one night about 1972 and said, “We just put $500 into the pot to start a museum for Fillmore.” Soon Edith was involved and the community went through their basements, attics and barns looking for things to donate. Soon the office space the Chamber of Commerce rented in the Masonic Building was turned into a museum. Edith, Dorothy Haase and Ruth Walker oversaw the early growth.
1974, Edith standing. Ruth Walker seated at left. Dorothy Haase on right.
Her beloved Bert died in 1974 and her travel schedule again picked up. It was probably a stroke of luck in 1974 that Edith was home in Fillmore and not touring the world. Southern Pacific Railroad announced that they were going to tear down the Fillmore Depot which had sat empty, deteriorating for several years. According to Marie Wren, “Edith made a deal to buy it for $1 and move it across the street so museum items could be moved from the Chamber office into a building of their own and thus, we had a real museum.” The cost to move the depot, which had to be done immediately and to restore it were paid by Edith as a present to her home town.
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Edith was devoted to the Museum, but in 1979 she resigned as curator. The museum was now in the hands of the very capable Dorothy Haase.
In 1983 she published “Old Timers’ Tales of Fillmore” a compilation of articles written for “Vista Magazine.” It has now been reprinted and copies are available at the Museum.
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Time was catching up with Edith but it wasn’t diminishing her enthusiasm for life. In 1977 she met for the first time (so she said) another long time Fillmore resident – Charlie Brown, a well-known outdoorsman who had worked in the oil fields. They were married but unfortunately living together as man and wife did not work out, so Charlie moved out although they remained friends and did not divorce.
1979 Charlie Brown and Edith
Edith died on April 11, 1988, after a long illness. She was survived by her sister, Alice Moore Milton, and brother, Fred Moore. Brother, George, had passed away in 1986.
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What has also survived Edith Moore Jarrett Roderick Brown is the Fillmore Historical Museum. Even in death Edith was looking out for the Museum, giving an endowment which put the Museum on sound footing. If you haven’t been to the Museum, there is no time better than now.