Historical Archives – Shirley DicKard

Ancestors/California History/Charles Rossiter Hoppin/Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin/Escape Rooms/Family Geneology/Historical Archives/Historical Research/Yolo, California

From Yard Sale to Escape Room: the Journey Home of an Historic Farmhouse Photo

April 20, 2025 Shirley DicKard4 Comments

I received an intriguing email from a “Brian” in Michigan last August:

I have a 13 x 10 inch framed picture of the Charles Hoppin house that I purchased from a yard sale in Michigan. I did a Google search based on the photo and found your website. On the back of the photo it tells who is on the porch and in the yard.

The homestead photo just had a certain vibration about it that sparked curiosity and imagination; and that is one of the reasons that drew me to it and why I searched the Internet to identify it. I just thought I would let you know that I appreciated knowing where the house was located and stories behind it.

*This unknown homestead photo just had a certain vibration about it that sparked curiosity and imagination*

I wrote him back:
Hello Brian, What a surprise to hear that you found the family’s old California farmhouse at a Michigan yard sale! The Hoppin family was originally from Niles Michigan, and one great-granddaughter still lives in Muskegon, Michigan. You may have read on my website that this farmhouse plays a big part in my novel, “Heart Wood- Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future.” That was a fictional account inspired by family stories. Now I’m going back and writing the actual biography of my great-grandmother Emily Hoppin who was a successful farmer and women’s activist in Yolo in the Northern California Sacramento Valley in the late1800s. She is standing to the right in the photograph.

Nearly everyone in my family has a treasured copy of this historic photograph, thanks to my sister Emily and her then-husband Chris who made copies of the originals back in the late 1970s. But how in the world did this one end up in a yard sale across the country in Michigan? I wrote to my cousin Nancy who lives in Muskegon, figuring she would probably have an answer.

Nancy replied:

We have two framed photos of Emily and Charles Hoppin that my parents had hanging next to the framed photo of the Hoppin Farmhouse for years and years in California. When Mom moved to Michigan, she had them reframed and hung them together. Sometime during her many moves and downsizing, the photo of the farmhouse came up missing. We figure it must have mistakenly gotten in with the give-away stuff (many grandkids and friends trying to be helpful). I’m sure it’s the same framed photo because the label of the picture framing shop is on the back of all three framed photos .

Feeling just a tad possessive about our family’s farmhouse picture, and curious about what Brian planned to do with the photograph, I wrote him back.

His answer surprised me:

The reason that the photo came into my possession is that I bought it to use in my business. I own an Escape Room in Muskegon (Lakeshore Quest) and I purchase unique items that add a richness to my room’s design and story. This particular photo is the foundation to one of the themes I am working on.

Well, well, the old farmhouse photo is in an Escape Room – I hope it’s having fun!

Escape Rooms, for those who don’t know, are group experiences where you’re immersed in a themed room to search for and uncover hidden clues, codes, puzzles that will help you escape, usually within an hour. I could just envision Brian’s customers scouring the farmhouse picture for clues.

I asked Brian to tell me more.

The objects must fit the theme of the room and if it can be used as a puzzle, that’s even better. The best objects come from antique stores, auctions and estate sales. We especially love objects that have a history, tell a story, or just work well as “eye candy”. We want our guests to be as fully immersed in the background story of the room as possible.

The theme of this Escape Room called “Mortimer’s Mansion” was an old Victorian style house that was due to be torn down; it was rumored that the previous owner had a treasure hidden inside the house that no one had ever found. Therefore, the goal of the room is to find the treasure before the home is torn down.

“Mortimer’s Mansion” (Lakeshore Quest Escape Room)

The photo had a great deal of mystery behind it that made us both wonder who these folks were and what their lives were like; there was a little information on the back side of the photo but most of it was left to our imaginations. Over time that made me more curious, and I didn’t want to just toss it into a storage box; this mystery deserved a little more investigation.

Knowing that technology is so powerful, I took the chance that doing a Google photo search may turn up something. And Bingo, it did!! I found your website with the identical photo and a great deal more information. I contacted you and let you know that we found the Hoppin Farmhouse photo.

Hello again from California, I replied.

That farmhouse picture has been around! Nearly every family descendant has a copy; it’s posted on my website (shirleydickard.com), and included in the University of California Davis Archives and Special Collections. In fact, I’m just getting ready to post a blog about “Setting Foot on my Ancestor’s Soil” – about finding the original farmhouse property and walking it with the current almond farmer there.

I then suggested to Brian that if he’s ever finished using the photograph and would consider donating it the Yolo County Historical Archives, they would be very interested in having it.

Long story short, Brian recently contacted me that they were finished using the photo; my cousin Nancy picked it up at the Lakeshore Quest Escape Room in Muskegon Michigan, and mailed it back to its original home in Yolo County, California.

Heather Lanctot, Coordinator of the Yolo County Archives and Historical Collection now has it documented and safely stored in its vast collection of historical documents for family genealogists and future researchers to enjoy finding.

If you have family artifacts that the next generation isn’t interested in, consider donating them to an appropriate Historical Archives collection.

Heather Lanctot, Coordinator of the Yolo County Archives and Historical Collection with a photo of the historic Hoppin farmhouse, Yolo California 1885.

I am currently working on the Biography of Emily Hoppin, the Life and Times of a Yolo Pioneer and Women’s Activist (and also the inspiration for the fictional Eliza in Heart Wood). You’re welcome to sign up for my Blog and Newsletter to follow my progress on this and other topics I care about.

Heart Wood – Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future can be purchased at your local bookstore and Online.

California History/Charles Rossiter Hoppin/Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin/Father Junipero Serra/Historical Archives/Historical Research/Land Acknowledgements/Mexican Land Grants/Patwins/Yolo, California

Acknowledging Who Owns the Land?

September 6, 2023April 17, 2025 Shirley DicKard6 Comments

I had an eye-opening moment recently while researching the history of my ancestor’s ranch for the book I’m currently writing. My original search was to find out the price my Great-grandfather Charles Hoppin paid in the 1850s for a quarter of the Rancho Rio de Jesus Maria land grant in Yolo, Northern California.

Curious, I decided to trace the land even further back – and – it’s not what I learned in school! What follows is the short version of what I found. The rest of the story will be included in “The Life and Times of Emily Hoppin,” the biography of my pioneer, activist, Great-grandmother.

If you start with the land, you’ll find that it existed without human inhabitants for unknown eons. It wasn’t until the Ice Age that humans crossed a bridge of land between Siberia and Alaska and continued down the continent. In their book Yolo History, A Land of Changing Patterns, Shipley Waters and Joann Larkey suggest that human activity was present in Yolo County at least by 2,000 B.C. The Wintun (includes Patwins) people arrived in the upper Sacramento Valley about 1,500 years ago. They were the first peoples in the Yolo area. They have never, ever, ceded this land to anyone!

History books have traditionally overlooked this little detail. As a fourth grader studying California history back in the 1950s, I was so enamored by the flashy images of Spanish Conquistadores in the early 1800s and the virtuous Franciscan Father Junipero Serra who built a series of Missions from San Diego to San Francisco, each a day’s ride apart. Their plan was to protect Spain’s holdings in Alta California and to convert the savage heathens.

Here is what students in 1957 were taught in the California Textbook, “California Rancho Days:”

“Indian women helped with the work in the house. The Dona taught them to cook the Spanish food. They spun wool into thread and wove it into cloth. Some were taught to sew. None of the Indians were given money for their work. What would they do with money? Did not the ranchero give them food, clothing, and a place to live?”

It wasn’t until the 1970s that we started hearing the Indian’s version of this Missionization. Their reality was that missions were plantation-like estates with a workforce of enslaved Indians who had been ripped from their land, homelife, language, culture, and health, often beaten and tortured into submission. They are still struggling to recover to this day.

The Spanish government gave away massive tracts of their surrounding land to Spanish soldiers as favors for being stationed in such a remote outpost. By 1846, Spanish mission lands were owned by 800 private rancheros.

When Spain lost the war to Mexico in 1821, the Mexican governor Jose Figueroa determined that mission lands should rightfully return to the Indians rather than colonists. He died a year later (note: research this!) and conveniently, the land was distributed to private Mexican citizens. The era of Land Grant Ranchos began. We see the vestiges in today’s names such as Rancho Cordova and Rancho Murieta, although most names today have dropped the “Rancho” and are now La Brea, Santa Anita, etc. Interestingly, many cities were conveniently founded on top of indigenous sites and still bear the footprint of the rancho land use.

**Rancho Rio de Jesus Maria Land Grant**
(From the Yolo County Archives and Historical Collection)

When my Great-grandfather bought a quarter (8,000 acres) of the Mexican Land Grant called The Rancho Rio de Jesus Maria near Cache Creek in Yolo in the early 1850s, it had been previously owned by a naturalized Mexican citizen, then a European settler.

And yet….

The Wintun nation never conceded this land to anyone. After struggling from near extinction by the Spanish, Mexican, and European settlers, the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation is now reclaiming its heritage, culture, language and independence, and has created a Land Acknowledgement reminder that we are on their traditional land today.

Public Land Acknowledgements: I had never heard of these until 2021 when I gave a webinar on Emily Hoppin for the Yolo County Library. Before my presentation, a statement was read acknowledging that we (in Yolo) are on the traditional lands of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation.

In 2019, the Yocha Dehe Tribal Council created this formal statement:

We should take a moment to acknowledge the land on which we are gathered. For thousands of years, this land has been the home of Patwin people. Today, there are three federally recognized Patwin tribes: Cachil DeHe Band of Wintun Indians of the Colusa Indian Community, Kletsel Dehe Band of Wintun Indians, and Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation. The Patwin people have remained committed to the stewardship of this land over many centuries. It has been cherished and protected, as elders have instructed the young through generations. We are honored and grateful to be here today on their traditional lands.

Land Acknowledgements are being replicated throughout the state. Closer to where I live in the northern Sierra Nevada, the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe created their Land Acknowledgement.

Today, I may have legal ownership of my parcel of land, but these Land Acknowledgements remind me of the real history behind that ownership. In truth, it’s better to consider myself a caretaker rather than owner of the land.

California Federation of Women's Clubs/Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin/Heart Wood - Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future/Historical Archives/Historical Fiction/Historical Research/Yolo, California

Why I Love Archivists (2)

October 1, 2022 Shirley DicKard8 Comments

(Re-formatted – Sorry, something went screwy in the layout. I’m such a perfectionist – hopefully this looks better!)

Like a kid in a candy store, I was surrounded by boxes of old documents from the 1850s to 1915, selected for me by the Archivists at the Yolo County Archives at my recent visit to Woodland, California in September. After years of researching my Yolo Pioneer and activist Great-Grandmother using online searches and old family documents, I was eager to locate primary sources, especially personal correspondence. But COVID hit in 2020, and I had to put my research visits on hold for two years.

I’m excited to finally be writing a comprehensive biography of Emily Hoppin, my great-grandmother. Not just as an ancestor, but because she lived in an era where women were coming into new power in their communities. She was part of the struggle for women’s suffrage, and she fought to eliminate the devastating effects of alcohol from the lives of women and children. She was a farmer who ran an 800-acre farm and won the 1915 statewide election for President of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs (CFWC) based on her rural perspective, and she was a WWI peace activist.

Emily Hoppin 1915

But her gift, as Heather Lanctot, Yolo County Archives and Records Center Coordinator noted, is that she left a paper trail. Hundreds of women had joined in her efforts, but Emily left writings and speeches for posterity. Much of what she wrote has wisdom for today and will be part of her biography. Additionally, many Hoppin descendants had the foresight to donate family papers to the archives. Not many people think to do that, according to Mollie Watson, Assistant Director of the Niles History Center in Michigan.

I think about today’s electronic communications and wonder how much of our lives will be lost if not also documented in paper and archived. We may be saving trees and time, but those who follow us will have less access to our history.

As I fill in the details of Emily’s life, the deeper I research, the more content appears – like the multiplying brooms in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice! Yikes! My cousins are now helping with Emily’s early days in Niles, Michigan. Nancy Peters, who lives in Michigan, and Cathy Altuvilla from LA, took my research questions to the archive staff at the Niles History Center to find answers, and while visiting, took photos of Emily’s family house, church, and the nearby St. Joseph River.

**Niles History Center** **Assistant Director Mollie Watson,**
**and** **Cousins Nancy and Cathy**

**St Joseph River in Niles – also a setting in “Heart Wood”**

Closer to home in California, I had the new experience of watching professional archivists at work. Before my appointment at the Yolo County Archives, I had sent two pages of areas I wanted to research, as well as some perplexing questions I had. Archives and Records Center Coordinator, Heather Lanctot, and Rachel Poutasse, Library Assistant, were on it! I arrived to tables and carts filled with ledgers, maps, voter registrations, deeds, wills, probate records, and fragile bound newspapers from the 1850s to 1915. They not only gave me what I asked for, but as professional archivists, they knew what else would be relevant from their vast archive storage – materials I didn’t even know existed. You may enjoy this link to a behind-the-scenes look at the Yolo Archives: https://youtu.be/SEw0cZNhEdA .

**Shirley with Yolo Archive Staff: Heather and Rachel**

After giving me an overview, I was set loose…like a kid in a candy shop!

There’s nothing comparable to the feel, the smell, even the sound of fragile pages rustling in my hands. But holding my great-grandmother’s actual 1911 voter registration (first woman to register in the Cacheville precinct after California women gained suffrage in 1911!), and examining her hand-written will? Those took my breath away.

And then there’s witnessing a gathering storm as I turned the bound pages of the 1915 Mail of Woodland newspaper and viewed the events leading up to World War I and the parallel events leading to Emily Hoppin’s election as president of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs.

I wonder what people in the future will say about the progression of today’s aggressive headlines and where we are heading.

My dream was still to find Emily Hoppin’s personal letters or journals as a way to glimpse her inner world. The next afternoon, across Woodland at the Yolo County Historical Collection at The Gibson House, Iulia Bodeanu, Yolo County Museum Curator, presented me with more Hoppin file boxes.

**Iulia Bodeneau with the Hoppin Files**

I held my breath, for behind the folder of Gold Rush letters from my great-uncle, John Hoppin, was a thick folder of fragile, hand-written pages. Yes, Emily’s handwriting! Not personal letters, but about a dozen of her speeches, written in pencil, words crossed out, edits made, notes on the margins. Some I had never seen before. It was like discovering gold! Of course, Iulia wouldn’t let me have them, so we arranged to have them scanned and sent to me.

**Selection of Emily Hoppin’s Handwritten and typed Speeches**

I asked these ladies what it takes to be a professional archivist and was impressed with their educational background:

Heather Lanctot: BA in Music History with an emphasis in History and Literature, MA in Musicology (both from University of Oregon), MLIS with a specialization in Archives and Records Management (San Jose State)

Rachel Poutasse: MLIS with a specialization in Archival Studies from UCLA

Iulia Bodeanu: Masters in Museum Studies from San Francisco State University. Bachelor of Arts in Art History and English from UC Berkeley

I returned to my mountain home, not only with a digital trunk load of documents, but with great respect for all the professional and volunteer archivists who work as guardians and guides to our past. Thank you!

Heart Wood is fictional history inspired in part by the life of Emily Hoppin. Many of her life events and writings are incorporated into the novel in the character of Eliza. My initial research on Emily and Charles Hoppin is posted on my website: shirleydickard.com under “Historical Research.”

Heart Wood can be found at your local library, bookstore, and online .

California Federation of Women's Clubs/Emily Anna Bacon Hoppin/Heart Wood - Four Women, for the Earth, for the Future/Historical Archives/Historical Fiction/Historical Research/Yolo, California

Why I Love Archivists

October 1, 2022 Shirley DicKard3 Comments

Like a kid in a candy store, I was surrounded by boxes of old documents from the 1850s to 1915, selected for me by the Archivists at the Yolo County Archives at my recent visit to Woodland, California in September. After years of researching my Yolo Pioneer and activist Great-Grandmother using online searches and old family documents, I was eager to locate primary sources, especially personal correspondence. But COVID hit in 2020, and I had to put my research visits on hold for two years.

I’m excited to finally be writing a comprehensive biography of Emily Hoppin, my great-grandmother. Not just as an ancestor, but because she lived in an era where women were coming into new power in their communities. She was part of the struggle for women’s suffrage, and she fought to eliminate the devastating effects of alcohol from the lives of women and children. She was a farmer who ran an 800-acre farm and won the 1915 statewide election for President of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs (CFWC) based on her rural perspective, and she was a WWI peace activist.

Emily Hoppin 1915

But her gift, as Heather Lanctot, Yolo County Archives and Records Center Coordinator noted, is that she left a paper trail. Hundreds of women had joined in her efforts, but Emily left writings and speeches for posterity. Much of what she wrote has wisdom for today and will be part of her biography. Additionally, many Hoppin descendants had the foresight to donate family papers to the archives. Not many people think to do that, according to Mollie Watson, Assistant Director of the Niles History Center in Michigan.

I think about today’s electronic communications and wonder how much of our lives will be lost if not also documented in paper and archived. We may be saving trees and time, but those who follow us will have less access to our history.

As I fill in the details of Emily’s life, the deeper I research, the more content appears – like the multiplying brooms in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice! Yikes! My cousins are now helping with Emily’s early days in Niles, Michigan. Nancy Peters, who lives in Michigan, and Cathy Altuvilla from LA, took my research questions to the archive staff at the Niles History Center to find answers, and while visiting, took photos of Emily’s family house, church, and the nearby St. Joseph River.

Assistant Director Mollie Watson, Cousins Nancy and Cathy

Closer to home in California, I had the new experience of watching professional archivists at work. Before my appointment at the Yolo County Archives, I had sent two pages of areas I wanted to research, as well as some perplexing questions I had. Archives and Records Center Coordinator, Heather Lanctot, and Rachel Poutasse, Library Assistant, were on it! I arrived to tables and carts filled with ledgers, maps, voter registrations, deeds, wills, probate records, and fragile bound newspapers from the 1850s to 1915. They not only gave me what I asked for, but as professional archivists, they knew what else would be relevant from their vast archive storage – materials I didn’t even know existed. You may enjoy this link to a behind-the-scenes look at the Yolo Archives: https://youtu.be/SEw0cZNhEdA .

After giving me an overview, I was set loose…like a kid in a candy shop!

There’s nothing comparable to the feel, the smell, even the sound of fragile pages rustling in my hands. But holding my great-grandmother’s actual 1911 voter registration (first woman to register in the Cacheville precinct after California women gained suffrage in 1911!), and examining her hand-written will? Those took my breath away.

And then there’s witnessing a gathering storm as I turned the bound pages of the 1915 Mail of Woodland newspaper and viewed the events leading up to World War I and the parallel events leading to Emily Hoppin’s election as president of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs.

I wonder what people in the future will say about the progression of today’s aggressive headlines and where we are heading.

My dream was still to find Emily Hoppin’s personal letters or journals as a way to glimpse her inner world. The next afternoon, across Woodland at the Yolo County Historical Collection at The Gibson House, Iulia Bodeanu, Yolo County Museum Curator, presented me with more Hoppin file boxes.

I held my breath, for behind the folder of Gold Rush letters from my great-uncle, John Hoppin, was a thick folder of fragile, hand-written pages. Yes, Emily’s handwriting! Not personal letters, but about a dozen of her speeches, written in pencil, words crossed out, edits made, notes on the margins. Some I had never seen before. It was like discovering gold! Of course, Iulia wouldn’t let me have them, so we arranged to have them scanned and sent to me.

I asked these ladies what it takes to be a professional archivist and was impressed with their educational background:

Heather Lanctot: BA in Music History with an emphasis in History and Literature, MA in Musicology (both from University of Oregon), MLIS with a specialization in Archives and Records Management (San Jose State)

Rachel Poutasse: MLIS with a specialization in Archival Studies from UCLA

Iulia Bodeanu: Masters in Museum Studies from San Francisco State University. Bachelor of Arts in Art History and English from UC Berkeley

I returned to my mountain home, not only with a digital trunk load of documents, but with great respect for all the professional and volunteer archivists who work as guardians and guides to our past. Thank you!

Heart Wood is fictional history inspired in part by the life of Emily Hoppin. Many of her life events and writings are incorporated into the novel in the character of Eliza. My initial research on Emily and Charles Hoppin is posted on my website: shirleydickard.com under “Historical Research.”

Heart Wood can be found at your local library, bookstore, and online .

Category: Historical Archives