Summary:
A native Californian, Sarah Hathaway Bixby Smith (1871-1935) was born at her family's sheep ranch near San Juan Bautista, where she lived until the family moved to Los Angeles some six years later. Her father, Llewellyn Bixby, had left Maine to settle in the West in 1851, and he and his brothers became one of southern California's most influential families. Adobe days (1925) is Mrs. Smith's account of her early childhood on the ranch and trips east to visit relatives in Maine, girlhood in Los Angeles, visits to Los Cerritos and Los Alamitos ranches, and her education in Los Angeles public schools and at Pomona and Wellesley Colleges. She supplements this with the life of her father, Llewellyn Bixby: his journey to California via Panama and months as a prospector at the Volcano Diggings, cattle and sheep drives across country, and real estate investments in Los Angeles and neighboring counties. More generally, she discusses the role of Mexican and Chinese servants and other aspects of housekeeping and childrearing, sheep husbandry and the wool business, Los Angeles's growth, the history of Southern California under the Spanish, and the evolution of Pasadena, Riverside, Anaheim, and San Bernardino.