What happens
Lemuel Carpenter, an American newcomer to Southern California, falls in love with Maria de los Angeles Dominguez, niece of Donya Josefa, the widow who holds Rancho Santa Gertrudes. Their courtship unfolds at the rancho, where Carpenter builds a successful soap and broom business while the family faces disputes over land and rising hardship. Donya Josefa's warning about the land proves prophetic as drought, competition and mounting debts press on the young couple. This episode of the Romance of the Ranchos series traces the rancho's history from its early years through the decades that followed, including the period when the land changed hands and later became part of the oil fields of Santa Fe Springs.
Rancho Santa Gertrudes, Southern California, from the early 1830s through the 1800s and into the early twentieth century
Characters: Lemuel Carpenter, Maria de los Angeles Dominguez, Donya Josefa, John G. Downey, Frank Graham
Listen for: The auction on the courthouse steps in 1859, Lemuel Carpenter's soap factory, and the later discovery of oil near Fulton Wells
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.