1987: Ovid and Emma Look Back

Posted by Helen Ofield,

We conducted this interview in July, 1987 at the home of Ovid and Emma Samples on Massachusetts Avenue back when local oral history had gotten underway in The Big Lemon thanks to people like Dolly Nottingham, the first president of the Lemon Grove Historical Society.

Ovid and Emma Samples produced the accompanying photograph of the Tombstone, Ariz., Fire Department circa 1890. Ovid's father, Calvin, is in the front row, second from the right. Then all of 21, Calvin was a firefighter, unmarried and Ovid a figment in nobody's imagination.

"He married my mother in '96 and I came along in '98," said Ovid from the depths of a rocking chair on the porch of their small home on Massachusetts Avenue.

"Emmy and I got married in 1925 when I was working for the Arizona Railway. One day we took a trip to California and didn't go back. Emmy, she was frightened, but when she saw the ocean she calmed right down."

Since then the Samples household has weathered the Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

"Quite a mess when you look back" observed Ovid. "Only two presidents I ever thought were telling the truth -- Truman and Carter -- and Truman was luckier. No Iranians to sell things to, at least, none we knew of."

The historic photo of Tombstone's finest shows a dozen stalwarts posed in a photographer's studio, the symbolic fire hose coiled in serpentine fashion on the incongruous flowered carpet.

Asked why all the men were seated in what appears to be a self-conscious macho pose, Ovid explained, "The photographer got them to do that so they wouldn't jiggle around. Took a long time to get the picture took in those days and people had to hold tight, so I guess that's what they were doing,"

Through the years, Ovid has been a firefighter, short order cook, railway laborer, farmer used car salesman and, finally, a carpenter. Emma became a registered nurse, working in between raising Mason, 61; Caroline, 58; and Calvin Jr., 57.

"We have five grandchildren and two great grandchildren, all back East where we've never been," said Emma. "We figured we'd go maybe as far as St. Louis for a family reunion and then come on home to Lemon Grove.

One of the ironies about living in a town billed as having "the best climate on earth" is that it's true. Those who commute to La Jolla and environs have found the North Coast grey, windy and damp for close to three months, while The Big Lemon basks in eternal sunshine.

Certainly, it's a town with a gem of a population. Artists, writers, inventors and musicians abound along with business entrepreneurs, laborers and jacks-of-all-trades like Andy Mitchell, 28.

If, like Andy, you adhere to the theory that California has only two kinds of pedestrians -- the quick and the dead -- then you'll be fascinated by Andy's latest invention. It seems his mother wearied of having to continually press those little buttons on the poles that flank crosswalks. Press though she would, nothing happened. Her light stayed determinedly red while cross traffic whizzed past.

Enter Ped-Aid, a metal "motorist motivator," as Andy titled his invention. Ped-Aid is a hollow aluminum tube containing a flag and a retractable rubber button pusher, much like a pencil eraser. Rather than suffer chronic digital exhaustion, the pedestrian simply pressed the crosswalk button with the rubber tip of Ped-Aid and waited for a green light.

Immediately upon releasing the button, the rubber tip retracts, activating the spring that shoots out a flag bearing the message, "STOP, MANIACS, IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!"

Then, holding Ped-Aid straight out in front the pedestrian strides across the street while stunned motorists slam on their brakes. Andy has taken out a patent and a $10 copyright certificate on the name to protect the gizmo from thieves and is now working on Mutt-Aid, a collar for car-chasing dogs.

Just as the pooch hits 30 miles an hour alongside a passing Chevy, the collar whines in unearthly tones, causing Fido to screech to a halt in order to stop the rackets.

"This is the one that'll put the old bank account over the top," said Andy.

And so it went in the summer of 1987 when senior Lemon Grovians looked back at a century of striving and youthful Grovians looked forward to a lifetime of tinkering in the back yard.

About this column: Helen Ofield is the president of the Lemon Grove Historical Society. She received the first-place award in the non-daily column category in 2013, and earned second place in the non-daily reporting and writing category for his column in 2012 from the San Diego chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Each week, she takes a peek at the past with some news and advertising highlights from a randomly chosen edition of the Lemon Grove Review archived at the H. Lee House Cultural Center.