Posted on 05/09/2002 9:04:36 AM PDT by floriduh voter
A young couple takes an outing along the palm-lined drives of Kearney Park (Fresno) in the early 1900s. The couple's names are unknown, but they could have been my grandparents, because that is where John Richard's son, Bert, proposed marriage to my grandmother -- on a drive through Kearney Park. It was very romantic. Those palm trees were more than 50 feet tall by the time I was born. Photo from The Fresno Bee.
By the 1950s oleander bushes had been planted between the palm trees on Kearny Drive (see pic with car) that had reached the height of 60 feet by then. Oleander is a drought resistant, but poisoness, shrub that grows easily in Fresno's hot, dry climate. It is used to landscape the freeways in the Central Valley. Family legend says that John Richard Longacre lost a herd of cattle in the early 1900s to the oleander bushes when they broke out of their pasture to nibble the shrubs. Every child in the family has been warned to never chew on oleander leaves from that time forward.
my great great uncle was also tulsa jack blake.please write me i will give you more info. marty harris
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