I am posting this 2012 image of a house that still stands in Coalinga especially for Roberta Lee Sohrweid to see. She is a group member of The Pilakowski Family and Their Kinsmen on Facebook, and she has completely restored an older home similar to this one in Genoa, Nebraska. Her house is painted yellow with white trim, too. The house shown below, known as the F. J. McCollum House, was built in 1910, and it remains on the list of historic buildings in Fresno County, California. I would like to give credit to who originally posted this image on the You Know You Are From Coalinga Facebook site, but I have lost that information, and I cant find the original post. I hope the photographer wont mind me sharing the image again. Around 1959, my fourth grade class took a field trip to this home to see part of a rock and fossil bone collection owned by Mr. Gordon Cain, a geologist employed by an oil company in Coalinga. Mr. Cain displayed interesting items on his porch for us to see, and he spoke about their ages, how natural geological conditions influenced them, and about how he found each one of those relics in the vicinity around Coalinga. I had never met anyone as interesting as Mr. Cain, except for Mr. Grubb, a college science teacher who also visited our class. Listening to Mr. Cains thoughts really inspired me. Mr. Cains knowledge and the unique architecture of this house left a lasting impression on me. I thought it would be grand if I could grow up into a well-educated person like him and also possess a keen interest in something. I admired his lifestyle. At the time, I couldnt see myself working as a scientist, but I felt that it might be possible for me to go to college someday and then devote part of my life to studying something that really interested me. I also wanted to live in a home like that someday! Oh how I dreamed about both of those things. Then in 1964, I read an article about Mr. and Mrs. Cains daughter, Marthalou Cain, attending the University of California at Santa Barbara, where she was studying anthropology. She wrote a term paper entitled A Day of the Tachi. Evidently, that paper revealed much about the various Indians who once lived in the San Joaquin Valley, and it focused on the Tachi tribe which was the only tribe to survive not far from Lemoore. I saved the article about Marthalou Cain just to keep me inspired about building my own life. I still have it in some memorabilia, and I will post it later. Mr. Gordon Cain went on to serve for more than 25 years as the president of the R. C. Baker Memorial Museum in Coalinga, researching and studying things that pertained to the area around the town. That unusual museum remains a little gem in the west, and it is worth pulling off Interstate 5 to see -- over and over again. Walking through the museum, visitors can view a multitude of things, including many items and explanations from Mr. Cains collections. That man definitely possessed an inquiring mind that needed to know more, and his life continues to inspire me. Maybe Ill never gain as much knowledge as Mr. Cain, but his example continues to influence me as I follow my natural curiosity and study all kinds of things that truly interest me. Thanks to Mr. Cain, I can honestly say that I am never bored. I dont know if the house shown here was built by F. J. McCollum, but he definitely lived there for some time -- probably before Mr. Cain and his family lived there. I remember Mr. McCollum mostly from his retirement years. Before that, Mr. McCollum was the editor and publisher of the Coalinga Daily Record. It was the only daily newspaper in Fresno County, and it was located outside the county seat in a small town. He also served as a leader in civic affairs in Coalinga, and he worked as a police judge in that community for a time. I distinctly remember Mr. McCollums warm and friendly manner. He readily smiled and spoke to people when he met them on the street. He particularly enjoyed telling funny stories that made people laugh. In his old age, Mr. McCollum and his wife lived in a retirement home in Coalinga.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 01:02:15 +0000
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