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The Moulton Girls Grow Up

In this second installment about life on the Niguel Ranch, Charlotte battles illness, little sister Louise shows an early aptitude for ranching, and both talk about some great meals at the cookhouse with their dad.

It was to be expected that the daughters of Lewis and would enjoy a . But when the 1918 influenza pandemic swept through Orange County, few families escaped unscathed.

“I had it and was very ill,” eldest daughter Charlotte Moulton Mathis recalled many years later. “Daddy was the only one on the ranch who didn’t have it. Mother was quite ill, and we had a trained nurse.”

Tragedy Strikes 

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Not far from the Moulton home, the Daguerre family had its own ranch house. Jean Pierre Daguerre, a Basque immigrant, had been Lewis Moulton’s business partner, owning a one-third interest in the Niguel Ranch. All went well until May 1911, when Jean’s team of horses, frightened by an automobile, bolted and the wagon turned over and killed him.

Despite their shock and grief—or perhaps because of it—Jean's wife, three daughters, and son Domingo vowed to stay on, continuing to oversee their portion of the ranch. The beginning of 1919 even found Domingo, 32, helping to load a herd of market-ready cattle onto several train cars, then accompanying the livestock down to San Diego.

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“He returned with this terrible cold which, indeed, was the flu,” said Charlotte. And although she was in a partial delirium, "Mother knew that Domingo—we called him Dom—was ill. She was aware of a car coming in and turning...and when Daddy came in, she said, ‘Domingo died.’ ”

Sadly, she was correct.

A Stint With Home Schooling

Charlotte and her mother pulled through, but for Charlotte there were extra complications. Just about the time younger sister Louise was ready to start first grade, 9-year-old Charlotte—still recovering—was diagnosed with tuberculosis. So a governess, Miss Austin, was hired for both girls. Although Louise was permitted to attend , she also was tutored by Miss Austin.

“Well, when you had a governess, that’s school 12 months of the year, not nine,” Charlotte later recalled. “The end result of this was that I became completely well and very husky.” So much so that she entered Tustin High School at age 12.

As was the case with other local children whose parents encouraged them to continue past the eighth grade, eventually Louise too would attend Tustin High School. But before we bid farewell to the governess, here's a postscript from Louise regarding Miss Austin's Moulton family tenure: “She went with the family on a trip to Panama, where we went through the canal. They had real live mules to pull the ships through the locks in those days. It was fascinating!”

Happy Times With Dad

Both sisters loved growing up on the Niguel Ranch, and both had special memories of time with their father. Charlotte often traveled with him to nearby El Toro. “Daddy, of course, had cars in the garage when I was a child, but he loved to drive a buggy with his mare, Lady. Rather than take a car, he would drive the 2 miles over to the El Toro post office, and I used to like to go with him.”

Charlotte also spoke with great nostalgia about having lunch with her dad, who “took his noon meal at the cookhouse with his men...It was always a treat for me when Daddy would take me to the cookhouse with him for lunch because the food was fabulous.”

For Louise as well, sharing a meal with her father and the ranch hands was a treat. “[Dad] always had breakfast about 6:30 a.m. with the boys at the cookhouse, then most always luncheon out there also. Whenever I was invited to eat at the cookhouse, I felt that it was a privilege; besides that, the food was good...In the beginning we had a Chinese cook, [but] I hardly remember him. Then we had a cook named Eugene, and he was a French cook. He was pretty cranky, I remember, but he served good food.”

Horse-Crazy Louise

Despite her love of ranch life, Charlotte admitted Louise was the horsewoman of the family. “I rode once in awhile, but Louise was devoted to horses from the time she could get on one.”

Her younger sister seconded that opinion, and went a bit further. “My involvement on the ranch was total and all-consuming. I always felt so important when our foreman, Si—Salustiano Sansiena—let me help him part out fat steers for market or cull heifers for replacement. That was just really great; one felt awfully good to be able to do it. [And] I was into everything: teams, saddle horses, cattle, farming, everything.”

Louise continued to hone her ranching skills after Charlotte, 16, entered Pomona College, but she also took time out for fun. Predictably, many of Louise's extracurricular activities involved riding. “We used to ride horses to each other’s ranches or farms...We’d all get together and ride our horses to different ranches and stay overnight. Then there was radio at home, picture shows in Santa Ana, and some parties in the local area.”

Louise also learned something about El Toro agriculture. “I remember pitting apricots one summer at the John Gless ranch across the main highway to San Diego from our ranch. The boxes of apricots would be brought in from the orchards by horse teams and wagons, and we pitters would be lined up in rows beside long tables under some shed roofs. . . . I made a little money, of which I was most proud. I think my father was proud of me also.”

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