The Lady of El Chorro: Visiting Esther Isaacson

In 1939, Baine Isaacson brought his young bride Esther to El Chorro Ranch, located in the San Julian Valley along Highway 1, a few miles outside of Lompoc. Originally part of the 1837 Mexican land grant given to Captain José de la Guerra, the property is one of a few resilient ranches from Gaviota to Jalama where the cattle business and a way of life endure. Nearly seventy years after she first set eyes on El Chorro, Esther Isaacson lives there still. On a recent morning we sat on the porch of her house and talked. She recalled her first day at the ranch:

“We had an awful lot of rain that year, tremendous rainfall. When we came here all we saw was a plowed field and the top of a brand new tractor that was buried down in the mud. All you could see was the smokestack. Baine had just gotten this tractor -- he hadn’t even seen it yet. He said, ‘Well, I have some great potatoes. You’re gonna have to cook us dinner.’ And he just left me. There was a kerosene stove but I didn’t know how to work it. I didn’t know how to do anything. I just sat up here and I didn’t know whether to weep or to laugh. Baine arrived a few hours later, and he was mud from top to bottom.”

Esther readily admits that this was not the sort of life she had dreamed about: “I never thought I’d marry a rancher. I was a teacher in Solvang and one thing I was NOT going to do was marry someone in the country. I taught for six or seven years, and I loved it.”

But life doesn't always follow the plan. “All the young people used to do square dancing in those days, and they played games -- volleyball, badminton, tennis. And Baine and I met just playing these games. I hated to give up teaching, but I did. I became a rancher. I learned to ride and do things here on the ranch.”

Her work was cut out for her. “Of course the house was in terrible condition. Nothing had been done for it. It was originally down at the other side of the barn and they had two enormous draft horses drag it up here. Somebody else started to buy the ranch before Baine and they had to back out at the last moment. They had already put in the bathroom but the bathtub was not hooked up so they took that back to the store.”

“It was a long way to Lompoc. We grew vegetables, corn, potatoes -- the things that were essential. We didn’t have a truck. We didn’t have a car. It was very, very different and rather alone, so we made good friends. It became a place where people came to stay for a week or two weeks. We had some very famous cowboys come out here, and they were wonderful. And during the war, there were a lot of soldiers who loved to come here. We raised an awful lot of children, too, not just our own three sons.”

Born on December 28, 1912, Esther is a true daughter of Solvang. Her parents were among the original Danish settlers of the town that her father helped to build.

“They were pioneers who came from Denmark. My father was a carpenter and he came there to build the college. When he first arrived, it was all men. If you were to be married you had to build a house for your wife before you married her. My father was so busy and took so long that he asked my mother not to come right away, but of course she didn’t get the letter in time. She came down on the railroad from Seattle to San Luis Obispo in a beige suit with a little white dog and a potted plant, and that’s all she really had. Of course he wasn’t there to meet her when she arrived. She finally got someone to lock her in the baggage room for the night.”

“When my father did show up, instead of talking with her, he had this long, long list of errands. People in the colony wanted things. They wanted medicine, they wanted aprons, they wanted hose and hats, and all the things they couldn’t get. He had to fill everybody’s longing. He had to get thirteen hats for the women! He’d try each one on and say, ‘This would be Mrs. Jensen…’ and ‘This would be Mrs. Larsen…’ By this time my mother was wondering, ‘What kind of person am I going to?’“

“Both of my parents left home before they knew a thing about raising children. The only relative my mother had in the area was an aunt who lived in a big house in Buellton. The house is gone now. I think there's a church there.”

“My father was a very good friend of the priest at the mission, which was almost a sort of heresy, but he loved the man dearly, and the mission was always falling apart, so my father did a lot work there helping to put it together.”

“We all learned Danish. It was the only way to communicate with the older people. But I spoke English and learned to read very early. It was absolutely necessary for reading the captions of the silent movies. My father used to rent a car sometimes and on the weekend he would take everybody who could get into the car to the movies in Los Olivos. The young children would be in the car and really loaded in, and the men would be on the running board, anywhere they could hang on. There was a little organ in the theater and someone played music during the movie and whenever it was very good, or dangerous and exciting, he would get lost in the movie and forget to play.”

Sometimes Esther's reminiscences sound like the fragments of lovely dreams:

“I remember there were singers... maybe they were Mexican...they were marvelous singers. On moonlight nights, particularly, I remember hearing their songs, so beautiful…there were young people out walking, and the air was filled with songs and moonlight…”

Her voice drifts off and I can only wonder and imagine.

But Esther seems happiest when talking about her life at El Chorro. She is proud of her family and the unique accomplishments of each of her sons, but she is particularly delighted that Bob and Sally and their daughter Katie have managed to continue operating El Chorro as a working cattle ranch, now permanently protected by an agricultural easement. She tells how Baine’s long ago vision and community involvement helped preserve the area for agriculture and keep it free of billboards and development despite what she describes as “phenomenal change".

Bob and Sally are friends of mine, and I have been a guest at El Chorro many times over the years. Our Gaviota Writers' Group met just a month ago at one of Bob's special places here, a hilltop meadow near a magnificent ancient oak. I ask Esther if she has a favorite spot on this ranch. She looks momentarily baffled by my silly question. “The whole place is special to me,” she responds, and I realize that should have been obvious.

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else," she adds softly. "It's a magic place. It has always been magic. “