Lompoc’s beloved historian Myra Manfrina turns 100

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Myra Huyck Manfrina was born in Lompoc on May 27, 1921. Members of the Lompoc Valley Historical Society plan to gather outside the home of the beloved historian and long-time resident at 11 a.m. on her 100th birthday, and she will sit on her porch as various proclamations are read to celebrate her.

“My roots here run very deep,” Myra told me proudly in a previous interview. She is a researcher, genealogist and historian who has also worked as a legal secretary and newspaper editor. “I started out as a bloodhound for the Santa Barbara News-Press in 1950, ”she explains. “I was asked to do a story on Lompoc, and of course I got carried away. The Sunday feature film turned into a three-part series. ”

This tendency to get carried away is why Myra does such a thorough and meticulous job. She researched comprehensive stories about family and the city, compiling single-spaced articles and volumes rich in date and detail, yet still made compelling by her distinctly well-written narrative. She is truly a good writer and a remarkable source of information on the people and events of Lompoc. A vital presence in the Historical Society, it draws on its knowledge to help fill in the gaps and preserve the archives. Over the years, she has become very adept at using the computer and appreciates the relative ease of communication and research via the Internet.


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“What’s wonderful is that I still have my mind and my memories,” she said. “But not everyone I know my age still does. I can’t remember with them. There are very few left, but I can’t remember which ones are still there because they don’t remember. And it is sad.

But the sharing continues. Myra is a treasure trove of stories, and she delves into the past for younger relatives, friends and strangers who contact her for genealogical information or background documents for books. Lompoc, of course, is her specialty, and she is its loving scribe.

“Like many other native Lompocans of my time and before,” she wrote, “I feel like Lompoc is mine. I roamed the fields following my father and grandfather as they plowed and harrowed the city’s empty acres of land in the 1920s. I rode their gravel wagons back and forth from Lompoc to the river bed at H Street. I couldn’t count the time I spent “ helping ” them load the wagons with each shovel full of sand or gravel, or “ helping ” them hitch horses from wagon to wagon. team on the other so that heavily loaded cars can be pulled. out of the river bed.

“[In later years] there were Sunday walks to the beach or the country – endless doors to open and close, flat tires to change, and we always had our picnic – there were no convenient restaurants or from fast food outlets to buy anything to eat. The only one I can think of was the Morinini store in Surf. We could have candy and soda, crackers and cheese. We went to the Elite Bakery on the corner of the West Alley 100 blocks from South H and got a knocking cone, double shovel for five cents. In my teenage years, I went to Lind’s Café after school for a marshmallow coke. I was skinny then.

In March 1942, Myra married Walter Manfrina, whose main pursuits, according to Myra, were farming, flower seeds, and her favorite, fishing. As Myra says, Walt’s love of fishing probably started when he was just a toddler sitting on a bank of a stream near El Jaro (on the San Julian Ranch) on the train. to watch his older sister pull the trout after the trout with a string and a hook attached to a willow tree. pole stick.

Walt served honorably in the European theater of operations, taking part in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge with the 1st Infantry Division. He was hospitalized twice and awarded a Purple Heart for his service, returning home to Lompoc in 1946. Walt was soon hired by Burpee as a greenhouse manager, and the Manfrinas happily relocated to Lompoc, where they raised their two. son. They had been married for seventy-two years when Walt died in 2014 at the age of 100. “We had 72 years of marriage. Isn’t that wild? Myra said.

“I’ve always had a positive attitude,” she adds. “I am able to rise above it one way or another. And I like to do things for others. There is satisfaction in that. Being 100 slows down a bit, but Myra’s days continue to be filled with worthy actions. She admits that she sometimes sees Lompoc as he was, not as he is, but her gift to the community is to make sure she doesn’t forget her past.


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