Parma, Idaho -- 1929

Before settling in Rancho Sespe, my grandparents lived a migrant farm workers’ life style. In the summer of 1929, they left California to travel to Idaho where peas waited to be harvested. At age twenty-eight, Pablo Ramirez, my grandfather, and his twenty-one year old wife, my grandma Lupe, had 3 children and a fourth one on the way.

In the photo above you’ll see Pablo in the window of a Ford Model T Centerdoor Sedan. It was the first “family” car that Ford made. It required a good half of a crank to get it started. Standing outside of the car is Senor Dolores Rodriquez. The Rodriquez Family were traveling companions on this arduous journey.


On that day, July 13, 1929, in Parma Idaho, the photographer also gathered what may have been all the children.
(L > R) Carmen Dolores Ramirez (my mother, age 6), Esther Ramirez (my aunt, age 2),Henry Rodriquez, John Torres, Richard Rodriquez, Raul Ramirez (my uncle, age 4), Virginia Rodriquez, & Vera Rodriquez. In the car, Aurora Rodriquez. That’s 5 Rodriquez kids, 3 Ramirez kids and a Torres. I’m guessing that the Torres family was also part of the caravan.

I can only imagine what it must have been like to travel over 800 miles from Southern California to Idaho in the heat of summer in cars that lacked the modern conveniences we now take for granted like shock absorbers, engines that don’t routinely over heat & air conditioning over roads that may have been rutted and rough more often than smooth and wide.

This was the last migrant farm worker trip that the young Ramirez family was to make. Soon after this, the families learned about Rancho Sespe. My extended family had a continuous presence in the Ranch until 1979 when it was sold to Newport Development Company whose plan to mechanize motivated a sweeping lay-off of workers.

Just for fun I’ve also included a link to a video from Ford Motor Company about their production of the Model T: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4KrIMZpwCY