My mother holds my sister in this c. 1943 picture taken at the "swimming hole" in Eureka Canyon located at "the ranch" a few miles above Corralitos, California.   This apparently was a meeting place for the folks in the surrounding area for many years.  I recall there being several picnic tables very close to the area where this photo was taken.

My grandmother, aunts, and uncles all lived on this homestead of which I have fond memories of the few summers and other times that we visited.   The family name is Ollason and they were related to the Ollason's in the Carmel Valley area just SE of Monterey who ran a dairy and owned portions of what has become Toro Regional Park.  There is an Ollason Trail, I'm told, located in that park.

My Uncle Sy had some large Clydesdale horses which were used to haul apples on a wooden sled around the hills on the property.   There were orchards on the east side of Corallitos Creek just south of the ranch house.  In addition, there were trees on a low hill just north of the house and along the creek on the other side that hill.  Furthermore, there was an orchard on the top of the hill to the east of the house as well as a water tower and vineyard.  

Much of the east side of this larger hill has been turned into houses including one on the south end of the hill that has a view of Moss Landing in the far distance.

In addition to apples, the Ollasons raised blackberries and raspberries which they sold on the roadside along Eureka Canyon road.  They also maintained a sizeable garden in which they raised their own vegetables.

The last remaining resident on the property was my Uncle Bob who finally decided to call it quits after having a stroke in his late 90's.  He figured that when he could no longer walk the half mile or so to the mailbox across the "flume" every day,  it was time to check into a nursing home.  

Within a week of Bob leaving the ranch, antique raiders had stripped the house of almost 70 years of collected family heirlooms before family members were able to get back to the house to retrieve them.  These neighborly folks even carried an ancient wooden stove up across the flume to get it to the road and they even stripped off the wallpaper looking for "treasure".  Must have read or viewed too many episodes of the Hardy Boys mysteries, I suppose.

I now know  who some of the perpetrators were, but they weren't able to steal my memories.  All they managed to steal from me and a half dozen other heirs was "stuff".

My Uncle Bob, by the way, told me one time about waking up on the floor of his bedroom after being tossed out of bed during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.  Watsonville (and the ranch) are about 90 miles south of San Francisco but he ended up on the floor all the same!