RANCHO SAN JOSE, Baja California - On a hillside, dozens of luminaria
raise an orange glow into the black desert sky. The flickering light illuminates concrete markers, marble crosses and
rock-studded ravines. It's a rugged, eerie, forbidding scene - unless you know this land like you know your own family.
Duane Barre is the fourth generation of her family
to live at the Meling Ranch.
Duane Barre walks easily to the door-sized slab over Aida Meling, 1915-1998. She arranges two bouquets of marigold over her mother's
remains, then perches on the tomb.
The ranch's hillside cementery is home to the other three
generations, including her mother, Aida Meling. Under Aida's
leadership, the ranch was expanded to accommodate mor visitors
From movie stars (George Peppard, Elizabeth Ashley) to ploliticians
(many of Mexico's presidents), all received the Meling treatment.
"This is where I come when I want to know something" she says. "I sit here and ask her".
Duane is surrounded by kin, some of them alive. Beneranda "Benny" Perea de Meling, her cousing
and best friend, totes flowers into the cementery. Benny's 15-year-old son, Enrique Meling Perea, scrambles across
the hillside, lighting
luminaria. Pedro Venegas, Duane's fiance, corrals vases for the bouquets.
This is Day of Dead, and Duane summons her ghosts. Amoung the 30 relatives and friends in this
ground are a few uneasy spirits, their lives cut short by disease or suicide. But they are only part of this clan's
story.
Vaqueros and vaqueras, gold miners and gunsligers, explorers and hermits spend more than 90 years creating this
rustic outpost 200 miles below San Diego. They possessed this land until the land returned the favor and possessed them.
Now, though, Rancho San Jose - know to generations of travelers as the Meling Ranch - is for sale.
"If I don't sell," Duane said, "I'm going to go bankrupt. It would take me a fortune to get the ranch
back to the way it was."
Duane Barre cannot glimpse her future. But even in the dim candlelight, she can read her past,
chiseled into the headstones.
"Some place between Ensenada and San Diego, he hid four bars of gold... They were never found."
The dining hall is the ranch's social center
where visitors and family relax at the long table
(Duane Barre is shown sitting at the end) or around
the walk-in fireplace. Jerry Rife/Union-Tibune photos
Harry Johnson
1844-1911
On April 1, 1889, the day Harry Johnson met his family at San Diego's train station, a monkey
tried to warn them against the madness sweeping through the region
The stuffed simian stood in a shop windows at fith and J, a sign dangling fom its neck: "The kind
of people who go to the mines."
San Diego was swarming with Eighty-Niners, but most remained in town only long enough to buy
provisions and arrange transportation south. Burros that in calmer days sold for $15 were snapped up at $35; Ensenada-bound
steamers sold out, $10 per one-way ticket.
Reports from Baja, one Mexican skeptic noted "leave the tales of the Arabian Nights eclipsed."
"Captain" James Edward Friend, a special correspondent for the San Diego Union and Bee, filed glittering dispaches from
a mining camp outside Ensenada. Within a month, his neighbors - wellstocked with picks and ropes, if not the wealth Friend
had primised - were eager to, er, discuss their frustrations.
"It seems that it was conseived that the Captain had written some exaggerated reports about mines,"
the Union and Beeexplained, "and on pain of punishment he was, at the invitation of a duly appointed committee, requested
to depart from the camp."
Johnson was no scalawag, but he was not immune to the lure of Mexican riches. From his boyhood
near Copenhagen to his days as a Texas rancher, he had chased fortune. But health, more than wealth, inspired this move.
Plagued by respiratory ailments, Johnson decided to move his wife, Ella, and the kids to a drier climate. In 1888, he
bought 2,000 acres along the Baja coast, at a place called San Antonio del Mar.
Reunited in San Diego, the Johnson family wasted no time establishing new lives in Mexico.
Harry Johnson had cattle to raise and a dream to pursue - the "Mina de Socorro," the gold field ha was scoring at the
4,000-foot level of the Sierra San Pedro Martir.
Duane Barre fixes some of the hearty fare that is the ranch's
specialty. A guest book entry reads:"We arrived hungry and
left with 'Meling bellies'." In its heyday, the ranch served
as many as 60 diners a day
By June 1895, Johnson had carved out a 10-mile aqueduct, so the mountains melted snow could be
played over the khaki-colored dirt, seeking seams of gold. His hopes were realized. Socorro transformed Johnson from
an ambitious immigrant into a man of means, able to bestow upon his children the blessings of wealth.
Not all blessings are welcomed. Visiting San Diego, Johnson and his daughter Alberta paused outside a
mansion.
"Bertie," he said," you girls mustn't remain Amazons. I think I'll buy that place for you."
"Oh, you wouldn't make us live in a city," she replied. "Town life must be so crowded. Can't
we always live in the sierras? There we can breathe."
In 1910, Johnson capitulated to his dauhter. He bought Rancho San Jose, 10,000 acres on the Rio
San Jose, 10 miles and 2,000 feet velow Socorro. Now, he could mine Socorro and run cattle, all the while enjoying the
comforts of home and hearth.
His enjoyment would be short-lived.
After several years of sporadic, uncoordinated uprisings, the Mexican Revolution erupted in
earnest. While Baja California escaped most of the violence,
insurreccionistas captured Mexicali and Tijuana.
Ranches were raided, cattle rustled. Johnson, fearing that his mine could be next, loaded a buckboard wagon with
gold and set out for the banks of the United States. The 200-mile trip to the border, over mountains and desert, took
its toll. Johnson reached San Diego without his treasure.
"Some place between Ensenada and San Diego, he hid four bars of gold, so they wouldn't be
stolen," said Duane Varre, Johnson's great-grant daughter. "They were never found."
The trip robbed Johnson of something even more precious that bullion: his health. Stricken with
pneumonia, he died in San Diego on Aug. 25, 1911. He was 66.
The year brought further trials to Rancho San Jose.
Insurreccionistas led by Jose Castro,
a Pancho Villa partisan, pillaged several neghboring ranches. A posse of Johnson's grown sons, Alfie and Andy, Francisco
Arce, Ambrosio Murillo and dozens of other ranchers chased the band to the village of San Vicente.
There, the ranchers surrounded an adobe house where Castro's men had taken refuge. One rancher
galloped for Ensenada, where he summoned
federalistas to the siege.
AS recounted in Paul Sanford's 1968 book, "Where the Old West Never Died," the Battle of San
Vicente resembled the climax of "The Wild Bunch." Men fell on both sides. At least one desperado died thirsty, his lifeless,
bullet-riddled body tumbling into a well. At last, a handful of bandits shot their way out of the trap and fled south.
At Rancho San Jose, they stopped long enough to burn it to the ground.
Studying in San Diego, Bertie did not witness the destruction or the reconstruction of her family's home. But neither
shoot-outs nor the American consulate's warnings could keep her from returning home. On Valentine's Day 1913, Bertie
Johnson married a Norwegian immigrant, Salve Meling, in Ensenada.
The couple moved to the ranch, eventually buying it from Ella Johnson. Rancho San Jose became
known as the Meling Ranch, a welcoming frontier outpost. While Salve Meling was good-humored and strong, a skilled horseman
and an intelligent cattleman, the ranch that carries his name is well-known for something else:
Its long line of indomitable women.
"Nobody said no to my grandmother," said Duane, Bertie Johnson Meling's granddaughter.
Dozens of miles from the nearest grocery store, the ranch
supplies many of its own provisions. Here, quail await
preparation in the kitchen
Alberta "Bertie"
Johnson Meling
1886-1979
Even before fixin her stamp on Rancho San Jose, Bertie Johnson had become a local legend.
Arthur W. North, whose 1905-06 tramps across Baja are recounted in the charming "Camp and Camino in Lower California,"
was told by one Canadian expat that Bertie was "the most interesting personality in all this countryside."
Interesting? She was Lady Bountiful crossed with Annie Oakley. When North caught up with her outside
the Socorro diggings, he was impressed by her "quiet dignity." He also recalled tales of her rescuing the family's herd
from "marauding Indians and Mexicans."
"Whitout pausing for rest or giving thought to the risk, she rode for 13 hours," one
gossip told North, "Indeed, using up two saddle hourses, the range riding was so routgh. She saved all the cattle."
On the frontier, the callouses on your hands were often matched by those on your heart, Bertie
gave birth to five children, and buried one. Lloyd was 10 when he spurred a horse up an embankment. The animal lost its
footing and fell, crushing the boy.
"He knew he was going to die at the age of 10," Duane said, citing an old family story. "Strange."
Bertie, Salve and their children lived in a wooden house with a peaked roof and a wide porch
overlooking the cotonwoods springing from the San Jose's watercourse. Guests were common, including scientist from UC
Berkeley and the Field Museum of Chicago. (This tradition continues. One weekend this November, the ranch was visited by
a pack of motorcyclists, several Chirstina missionaries from Orange County and two Mexican naturalists, down from
a Sierra base camp where they monitor the California condor's reintroduction into the wild.)
Unearthly visitors drifted by, too, or so in seemed. Many days, Bertie
would rise before dawn to stoke; the fire and make cofee for horsemen, their saddlebags craking and
spurs jangling as they filed into her corral. But they never arrived in her kitchen. When she looked
out the door, she discovered that they never had arrived at all.
Years later, she would learn that these sounds originated at a ranch
three miles distant, carrying down the valley to her hyper-vigilant ears. At the time, though,
Bertie wished these "apparitions" would move on to their eternal reward.
"To hell with them! If they want coffee, they can get their own!"
Bertie could take an equally firm line with the living. She battled Duane,
a tomboy, insisting on lady like comportment. If the girl needed discipline - a common occurrence - her
grandmother sent her outside to cut a swich from a pine tree.
"If I didn't cut a good one," Duane said," she'd come out and cut two."
But Bertie enjoyed a good party, a good story and the sound of her husband's
concertina. Stories about her hospitality are legion, but two stand out.
"I hated to turn on the TV and see the news. Everything was so negative, negative, negative."
DUANE BARRE on her 15 years living in Vista
In 1944, Aida Meling gingerly approached her parents. She informed
Bertie and Salve that she and the other three surviving children, now adults, had decided the
ranch visitorswould henceforth pay their own way.
"Change our friends for visiting us?" the couple responded. "Never."
But charge they did. Hunting buddies and card-playing cronies continued
to come. So did strangers.
UNION-TRIBUNE
In 1963, many of these friends raised money to send the couple to Salve's
hom town, Stavanger, Norway, as a golden anniversary present. There was a bon voyage party at the
rancho. A year later, the Melings hosted a weeklong blowout to thank these friends - and anyone
else who might drop by.
"Party, party, party," Duane said. "People, came from everywhere."
Bertie Johnson Meling's energy rarely flagged, even after Salve's
death in 1975. The next year, she drove the lengh of the Baja peninsula, standing at the tip
of Cabo San Lucas on her 90th birthday.
She died at her ranch on Aug. 4 1979. She was 93. In many tributes,
her death was described as "the passing of an era."
Aida Meling
1915-1998
At 2, Aida learned to ride.
At 6, to herd cattle.
Soon after, she was shipped north to San Diego for schooling.
In 1934, she married Earl Smith. They ran another ranch, Buena Vista,
and had two children, Sonia and Philip.
In 1944, they divorced.
In 1947, she married William Percy "Billy" Barre, a Mexican of English
and French descent. They had one child, Duane.
In 1955, they divorced.
Aida smoked, drank, rode, roped, flew and spoke her mind. For 54 years,
she ran the guest ranch and oversaw the cattle. AS unpretentious as an old saddle, she loved to
entertain. She added 12 snog cabins to the ranch, to accommodate all the visitors; on busy
weekends, she fed 60 diners. They might be movie stars (George Peppard, Elizabeth Ashley) or
politicians (many of Mexico's presidents), but all received the Meling treatment.
Once, she grabbed a visitor from Mexicali and put him to work in the
kitchen.
"So," Aida said as the man gamely washed out a pan, "what do you do in
Mexicali?"
"Nothing," Raul Sanchez Diaz replied. "I'm just the governor."
On Aug. 20, 1998, Aida drove the rutted dirt road to Highway 1 to buy
diesel. The next day, she was busy in the kitchen when a heart attack dropped her to the
floor.
With the thermometer rising to 108, the burial couldn't be delayed.
Aida's children stocked the casket with Kleenex, cigarettes and booze. Then they carried
the box and its bourden to the truck.
"The minute the casket kit the back of the pickup," Duane recalled,
"there was lihtning and we were hit by pouring and we were hit by pouring rain.
And it was
only around us."
Chased by the storm, the mourners drove to the family cementery and laid
Aida Melign to rest. A freshly dug grave, a dark sky, peals of thunder - you could have mistaken
this for a Shakespearean tragedy's las scene. Until Duane started chortling.
"Why are you laughing?" asked Sonia Hughes.
"Mother buried your father and my father," her half-sister replied.
"Which way do you think they're going to run?"
The San Diego Union-Tribune declined to speculate on whether
either of Aida's husbands welcomed this reunion. The paper did report, though, that her death
"marks the end of an era..."
Duane Barre
1948 -
For decades, visitors to the Meling Ranch have congregatedin the dining
hall, a long structure with wooden beams and a walk-in fireplace capped by a copper hood. The
room is bisected by long picnic tables, where Duane lays out three filling meals a day, feeding
overnight thests and the occasional drop-in.
Between meals, you can fish, hunt, ride horses, hike or thumb through
the guest books.
Harry Johnson used the ranch as his home base while scouring
the Sierra San Pedro Martir's foothills for gold. The Mina
de Socorro transformed him from an ambitious immigrant
into a man of means. Jerry Rife/Union-Tribune photos
Jan, 8, 1995: "Wonderful, coming back soon!" - Katalina Vargas, Avalon,
Calif.
March 16, 1995: "Told you I'd be back! Just as good, if not better, the
second time around!" - Katalina Vargas.
There are no entries between November 1998, when the ranch was closed, and
July 2000, when Duane took over. Since then, the entries have shone with the old enthusiasm.
April 8, 2002: "We came in skinny and tired, and left rested and with
"Meling Bellies!" - Martin Green, San Diego.
But the entries are not accumulating at the old speed. The rooms need
remodeling, the plumbing is iffy, and the whole place could use a carpenter and a painter. In
the corral, only 13 head of cattle remain. With dwindling numbers of paying customers, Duane's
bank account is as low as the drought-stricken San Jose River.
A buyer has been found, but the deal is not final. Duane, though, insists that the sale will
allow her to live nearby, in a house surrounded by 25 acres that are part of the Meling family's
holdings.
"This," Duane said, "has always been home for me."
But she hasn't always lived at home. Like her mother and grandmother
before her, Duane was sent north for school. Briefly. In Pasadena, an unsuspecting kindergarden
teacher said something unwise. The new student's mood went from miserable to intolerable.
"I don't know what she said to me, but she shouldn't have said it. I
turned my desk over, ripped the curtains off the windows and ripped her dress, then took off
out the door.
"My mother was waiting for me at the street."
Back at the ranch, Uncle Phil took over the teaching chores. Duane
would have two other stints north of the border - she graduated with Castle Park's Class of
'64, and later lived in North County while her own daughter, Sonia Barre, attended Vista
schools. Neither experience diminished her devotion to the ranch.
"I was up there 15 years," she said, referring to her time in Vista.
"I hated to turn the TV and see the news. Everything so negative, negative, negative."
Her comments may surprise ranch visitors who have spotted the TV
satelite dish sprouting from the roof of Duane's house. A 1991 gift to her mother, this
high-tech wonder is the ranch's most prominent reminder of the 21st century.
Perhaps it's appropriate, then, that this modern do-hickey's
duties are entirely decorative.
"We never got it going," Duane said.
There are no TVs at the Meling Ranch. There are several radios, but
Duane can't remember the last time she turned in. She learned the horrors of Sept. 11 from
visitors; she's grateful that she never saw those televised images of wholesale slaughter.
But the Meling Ranch is not an Old West theme park; it's changed since
Harry Johnson's day. His home with its tall roof and broad porch, some times called "the 1910
hose," is boarded up. There's electricity here, but only in the afternoon and evening, when
Duane fires up the propane generator.
If Duanes rarely ventures into the world beyond Ensenada and San Diego,
the world comes to her. A map in the dining hall bristles with pins, marking the homtowns of her
guests: Moscow,; Melbourne; Nagasaki; Rome; N'Djamena, Chad; Dhaka, Bangladesh. There are still
a few empty spaces on the map, but that's only because Duane ran out of pins.
No matter where you start, this is not an easy trip. The pavement ends
23 miles short of the ranch, giving way to a road, a pothole road, a rock road. Accelerating
past 15 mph turns motorists into bobble-head drivers.
But once at the ranch, visitors find a valley where the air is clear,
the stars are bright, the days are open. If you're Duane Barre, you find all this plus much more.
On the Day of the Dead, she walked across the cementery, the size of a
tennis court, stopping now and then to introduce a visitor to her family.
Cousin Teddy. "He killed himself. My mother found him - that was the
worst part."
Theodore D. Hughes, 1964-1991.
Aunt Mary. "She's the latest one we've buried."
Mary Elizabeth Carr,
1917-2001.
Cousin Felipe. "Cancer. He and I used to chase geese."
Felipe
Salvador Meling Pompa, 1949-1985.
Pherhaps the Meling Ranch's time is past. When - if - Duane sells,
someone will pronounce the end of an era. Perhaps, though, this would be a mistake. Even if the
last castle are sold or the cabins fall into terminal disrepair, it's dificult to see how
anything could break the link between this family and this earth.
no matter who buys the Meling Ranch, no matter what new purspose
they devise for thes acres, the contract will contain an ironclad clause:
"Only Melings," said Duane, resting among the headstones and markers
of her daparted, "can be buried here."
No TV, no video games, no computers-and no lack of
entertainment. Guests eat, fish, hunt, ride horses,
hike or read. (A TV satelite dish sprouts from the
roof of Duane's house, but the family never got it
to work.) Manuel Venegas Murillo, 11, entertains
himself by chasing an escaped rabbit
Home on the Baja range
For 92 years, one family has ruled
the Meling Ranch. The trail bosses, through the ages:
1910-1911: Harry Johnson (1844-1911), a Texas cattleman who
was born in Denmark, founds the ranch. He and Ella Prather Johnson live here with their six
children.
1911-1924: After Harry Johnson's death and the ranch's
destruction at the hands of bandits, "Mother Johnson" rebuilds Rancho San Jose. She runs
it for 13 years.
1924-1979: Alberta "Bertie" Johnson Meling (1886-1979), the
fourth child of Harry and Ella Johnson, takes over the ranch with her husband, Salve Meling.
They have five children - Lloyd, Aida, Mary, Felipe and Andrew.
1979-1998: Aida Meling, second child and oldest daughter of
Bertie and Salve Meling, assumes control. Married twice, she has three children - Phil Smith,
Sonia Gale Hughes and Duane Barre.
November 1998-July 2000: Soon after Aida Meling's death in
August 1998, the ranch closes.
July 2000: Duane Barre, Aida Meling's youngest child,
reopens the Meling ranch but is seeking a buyer.
