Some of you may remember back in the 1980s a social column the TC ran called “Mountain views.” It was about the big and little things going on in Idyllwild people’s lives.
The column’s author was a little lady who always wore her soft, white hair just so, sat perfectly erect in her chair and hand-typed her column with careful precision. I remember her well. I remember her voice even but couldn’t remember her name and was too busy to check back in TCs.
I’ve thought about the little lady and her column many times over the years. She was a very sweet lady and people knew to call her when something interesting in their lives had or was about to occur that they wanted to share.
So, I hired a young woman last week to work the front desk on the weekends, and told her one of her duties will be to bring back the column and be the community’s contact for those little bits of interesting facts in their lives. Stuff like the lady wrote about, such as “Adele Jones visits Peru” and “More bad luck for family,” about a James Brantley suffering an injury to his back.
Mr. Brantley, it turns out, was married to the author’s granddaughter, Lisa. And without any foreknowledge, two days into her training, Chari Brantley informed me that her great-grandmother, Anne Sugar, wrote a column for the TC years ago. (The Brantleys are her parents.) I was floored.
I am happy to know that Anne is now 92 and living in Hemet. It couldn’t be more perfect that Anne’s great-granddaughter will continue her tradition. I hope you will email Chari ([email protected]), come by or call with your social tidbits. Tell us who is in town visiting you, how your kids or grandkids placed in a sports game, honors you or a family member received, and other milestones in your lives.
I’m looking now at a photo that ran Nov. 23, 1989, 24 years ago, of five generations of women in “Mountain views,” a photo that includes Anne, her mother, her daughter, her granddaughter, and little four-day-old Charmaya Brantley.
