Leaving Davenport

By Patty Morelli

I have so many wonderful experiences to share about my childhood in Davenport. Both my Mom, Evelyn Collins, and my Dad, Mac Morelli, grew up in Davenport as did their parents (Gilda Bertacca and Tony Collins; Roy 'Tootsie' Morelli and Violet Dingwall). As a result, there is a wealth of stories to share. There were happy times, sad times, and times of change. Still, for me, it was life at its best.

Davenport is a small agricultural and cement producing town situated about 70 miles south of San Francisco on the Pacific Coast. I lived in Davenport until I was 13 years old and then, one day, we moved to Santa Cruz. I remember very well the day we left. It was the day after Easter vacation started in 1953. We had stuffed the last of our boxed up belongings between my 2 sisters, Margo and Carole, in the back seat of our old Chevy. My brother Mackie and I climbed halfheartedly into the front seat. My Mom was driving and I could see she was eager to move, to shake the dust off her shoes and move on. She’d been a Davenport girl since she was 3 years old and now she was starting a new life ‘in the big city’ of Santa Cruz., 10 miles south.

As we pulled away from our house on First Street, she chatted happily, creating wonderful scenarios of times to come. I remember feeling quiet and depressed. I loved my little town and now that the car was moving, I suddenly felt the consequences of not living there. It dawned on me that I would no longer see Pacific School and my teachers, Mrs. Emery and Mrs. Thompson. Even more, I would miss becoming the long awaited upperclassman of the school of 38 students; I would miss graduating from 8th grade with my 4 other classmates.

We continued down the road past the Cement Plant and more thoughts came rushing. I would never again climb up into the tree house my brother and I built in the dusty eucalyptus trees near the railroad tracks. We loved sitting in the safety of “our fort” while the huge, black train engine would slowly puff past us as it pulled filled boxcars from the Cement Plant. I probably would never again see Lenny Domenicelli’s horses, Pal, Lucky, and Babe, who were corralled near our home. My brother, Mackie, my sister, Margo, and I would pet them, feed them rich green weeds pulled from the fields, and then finally chase them and one another all over the hillside.I would miss seeing Georgie Mungai, my very first crush. My Dad was the bartender at the Ocean View Hotel and we would often stop by with our Mom to visit him. Once in awhile, Georgie would drop in and my heart would skip a beat…… my brother, Macie, would tease me and call out “Georgie….Patty loves you!” And I would hit him. I thought about Catechism classes at St. Vincent de Paul’s Church and wondered where I would go for Catechism in Santa Cruz. Would it be the same nuns or different ones?

While my head raced with anxious worries, there whorled in the background the sound of sirens. By this time we had moved onto Highway 1 and were approaching Gregory’s Gas Station, the first of the few Davenport businesses that lined the highway. Suddenly, in the distance, I saw smoke on the left hand side of the road. My Mom slowed down and, just as we approached the Davenport Cash Store, it became evident that it was on fire. I remember having this great feeling of panic and I begged my Mom to stop, to pull over. But we couldn’t stop, she explained, because we had to meet the landlord at our new house in Santa Cruz. We were running late. “Don’t worry, honey” she said. “They’ll rebuild it. Davenport can’t be without a grocery store.” Somehow that didn’t appease me. I knew it didn’t matter, even if they did build a new store, I knew it would never be the same…..not the old Cash Store with its oiled floors; its glass display cases; its hanging sticks of salami and white balls of provolone cheese; and its gasoline pumps outside with the tiny windows that whirled gas as it was being pumped into the waiting cars.

As my Mom drove past, we kids turned around in our seats and sat on our knees to watch through the car's rear window. Smoke and flames billowed out of the roof of the building and men dashed about waving their arms and shouting orders. My heart sank. We continued down the Highway towards Santa Cruz in silence and soon could no longer see the smoke; the hills had gotten in the way. We turned in our seats then and focused on the road ahead. Still no one spoke.

It was a time of transition for us as a family, and a long period of ‘breaking away’ for me. I was becoming a teen-ager, yet I wanted so badly to hang onto my childhood. I felt so protected in Davenport. I knew everyone and everyone knew me. I had the whole countryside as my playground, and the bright blue sky and the sparkling gray-blue ocean for my times of wonder. Never mind the cement dust that caked our sidewalks and coated our cars. Never mind the wind that fluffed my curly hair into a halo of fuzz around my face. Never mind that we didn’t have a movie house or television reception, that there weren’t any Boy Scouts or Brownie Troops. My best friends and favorite playmates were my brother and sisters and we pretty much covered it all. We caught snakes and frogs in the shallow irrigation ditches; we visited with neighbors who rocked on their front porches and offered us cookies; we played pirates and fought bravely with our swords made of wild carrot stalks; we built scooters out of apple boxes and carved guns out of bar soap; we pilfered apricots and apples from neighbors’ sprawling tree branches;  we delighted in reading Superman and Dagwood comic books while sucking on penny candy. We were safe, we were loved, we were one big family in Davenport.

I survived the move, but it took a long time, or what felt to be a long time. I slowly learned ’to be a lady’ and gave up my Tom Boy ways. I adapted to my classroom with as many kids in it as were in the whole of Pacific School in Davenport. I found new friends while my brother went on to play Little League and my sisters joined the Brownies. But, for me, I will never forget my childhood in Davenport. I will never forget who I was when we lived there.

It took quite a while to settle into my new life in Santa Cruz; eventually I fell into the routine of living in a 'big city'. But I never let go of my childhood memories of Davenport and the freedom and safety that I felt living there....that small, windswept farming and cement-producing town of my parents and their parents.....that tight knit community of Italians, Greeks, and Phillipinos who worked, played and somehow stayed together despite time and adversity. This is their story, and ultimately, it has become mine.



Patty, Mackie, Margo and Carole Morelli
In Davenport (New Town) c1952

Davenport Cash Store burning - April 1953