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Return to Oral Histories
When Alexander Valley pioneer farmer Silas Young died in 1935,
his only son Robert was 16 years old. Robert, barely out of high school,
took over running the family prune ranch full-time. In 1940, he married
Gertrude Rotlisberger, a popular young woman from a neighboring farm family.
The Youngs had four children: Joann (born 1942), Susan (b. 1947), James (b.
1952) and Fred (b. 1953). Like their parents, they grew up picking prunes.
After decades of raising prunes, Robert Young became one of the first grape
growers to usher in the new era of wine agriculture in the Alexander Valley.
He planted the first Cabernet Sauvignon grapes in 1963, followed by Chardonnay
in 1967. The Youngs continued to grow and sell grapes, increasing their
acreage and improving the quality of the harvests. In 1997, the four adult
Young children launched the Robert Young Estate Winery.
Gertrude Young, much loved, died of cancer in 1988. Robert was blessed
with a happy second marriage to Donna Rumfelt Watts in 1992. Donna, a good
friend of Robert's sister Marian Penry, had cared for Gertrude Young during
her illness and become close to the family.
In 1994, Robert had a stroke while fishing in Canada, which has impaired
his speech and mobility, but not his spirit or determination. He considers
himself a fortunate man, and openly cherishes his family, and the land and
life they share.
Robert Young:
I was born in 1919. My dad, Silas, got here [in 1886] with his parents
when he was two years old. He was born in Verona, New York. When his father,
Peter, come up here, my Grandma Rachel (Kazanstein) come out too.
Susan Sheehy:
Peter, Dad's grandfather, actually came to California a couple of times.
The very, very first time, he came out for exploratory. He followed his
older brother Michael out here. And then, my understanding was, the parents
were still in New York. Peter went by way of Oregon back to New York.
It was quite a while after his parents died out there that he came back
out here. They came out to this property. It was 260 acres purchased from
the McPhersons-Charles McPherson.
In the 1860s, there were two Young brothers in this part of Alexander Valley-Peter
and Michael. Michael and George Cagwin, a business partner, built a beautiful
home right on Red Winery Road. They called it Oak Grove Farm. That's where
we got the name for Oak Grove Vineyards [which the Young "children" established
on the former Wasson property in 1975.]
If you look back in that Sonoma County Atlas for 1877, in the very back
there, it shows a reference for Michael Young, who came to El Dorado County
in 1851. He was mining.
Actually, I went into your Museum and went back to the old newspapers,
and found all of the references I could about Michael. It seems like he
was always involved in mining. He had a lot of claims. He bought up Pine
Flat. At the time of that Atlas, it showed he had, like 700 acres.
Robert Young:
No [my grandpa wasn't mining quicksilver at Pine Flat]. We were farmers.
When I was growing up, we were growing prunes on this ranch. Wheat was
before my time. My grandpa, Peter, used to have cattle. He grew wheat
and hay. That big barn stored straw and had stalls for horses. Every night
the horses used to plow.
We had prunes: some Imperial, some Sugar, and more of the French. My sister
Marion [Penry] and I used to pick. I was a good picker! They paid by the
box. Maybe five or ten [cents]. We used to pick Imperials-the big ones.
Once I picked seven dollars. I used it to buy a bike, a Hawthorne bike.
We used to ride our bikes to the Guilford School. We used to come home
after school was out and we'd go out there by where Justin Miller's house
is, on the creek. We would catch trout. How we did it, we'd take a sack
and a willow stick and put it in around the mouth of the sack. Then we would
put some rocks in the sack to hold it down. Then we'd get a stick and .
. .
Susan Sheehy:
Scare the fish into the sack? [everyone laughs] Dad, I think that's illegal!
Robert Young:
Not then! I hunted deer too. I had a real good friend whose name was
Dick Foote; his dad was George Foote. He had a big ranch up there. We used
to hunt all over it.
Susan Sheehy:
There was a toll road up there to the Geysers. That's where he's saying,
up in the hills, the Foote ranch. The road now that goes up to the Jackson
home, and you keep going up. I understand from Dad there was a road up
there that went to the Geysers.
Robert Young:
Yes. I went to Guilford School here in Alexander Valley. We used to take
our lunch in a lunch pail. I went to the first grade in town where St John's
School is now. Chores? We had to milk the cows. We had horses, calves,
and later on, sheep, pigs and chickens to take care of.
Kelly Sheehy:
Weren't you telling me, Grandpa, you would go on Sunday and stay with Grandma
Rachel and she would bring you back on Friday?
Robert Young:
No. Mom took me in on Sunday night and she would pick me up and take me
home Friday afternoon. I don't know why I didn't go to school here. Better
education? I don't know. I was in the same class as Garry Rosenberg and
Addie Marie Meyer. I have a picture from first grade and we are all in
the picture.
Susan Sheehy:
Your grandpa had died by then, and your grandma was on her own taking care
of you, living in town on Tucker. It was a short walk to school, wasn't
it?
Robert Young:
Yes. And I used to go sometimes with my grandma to the church. . . where
the Christian Bible Church is.
After my dad died, we lost the farm. That was in 1936. My dad had a half-sister
who was named Flora. Her husband was Tom Meek [of Soda Rock Winery]. He
built that big house there too [now owned by Ken Wilson]. They owned a
big 2,000-acre ranch at Spanish Flat, where Lake Berryessa is now. He also
had two hotels in San Francisco.
Susan Sheehy:
[Tom Meek] was an entrepreneur and had no children. So when Dad's father
died and the ranch was mortgaged to the bank for $75,000, Uncle Tom was
able to ask Dad if he wanted to come and work his ranch where Berryessa
is now or stay on this ranch. And Dad said. . .
Robert Young:
I wanted to stay! [Tom] did not put up any money. He went into the bank
in town here and went to talk to Roy Haley who said he could buy the note
for $30, 000. He did buy it and he did not put have to put up any money.
He had a lot of collateral and he had a good name. He said he was going
to turn it over to my mother and me to take it over. And we did. We took
10 years to pay off the note. We are so lucky, and he was a good man. He
helped a lot of people.
This ranch has three sections. [My father's brother] Maynard was separated
from my Aunt Blanche and he had a ranch. That portion of the ranch got
bought by the Squibbs. That was one-third. And this other one-third Warner
inherited, and Uncle Warner didn't have any children either. Aunt Lorena,
Uncle Warner's wife died in '65 or so, and then my Uncle Warner leased his
property to us. We ran it until he died and he left it to Gertie and me.
Susan Sheehy:
The first grapes on the ranch were planted on fourteen acres right in back
here in 1963. And I graduated in 1965, so when I was in high school, this
was all still in prunes.
Those grapes that were planted were planted on the advice of Bob Sisson,
the farm advisor. It was a pasture in back, so Dad planted that to Cabernet
Sauvignon in 1963. Those were the first Cabernet Sauvignon, the first varietal.
And that is what encouraged him to plant more.
Robert Young:
They were put on a trellis. The first trellised vineyard. People said
I was nuts, because they only head-pruned the vines and these were on wire.
But when the first crop came in, I got two tons to the acre! I sold to
many different wineries: Pedroncelli, Simi, Rod Strong. I got four hundred
dollars a ton for the Cabernet, and then in two or three years it was up
to $800 per ton. I sold to Windsor Vineyards, Belvedere, Sebastiani. . .
I decided to plant more. I went up the hill and planted six more acres
[ to Cabernet]. In '67 I planted Chardonnay. At first it was the R &
G Young - for Robert and Gertrude-Vineyard. It was R & G Young up to
'72, when we became Robert Young Vineyards, Inc. We weren't incorporated
before that. The last of the prunes were pulled out in 1978.
I was chairman of the California Association of Winegrape Growers, CAWG
[a statewide association of over 600 members] in 1982 and 1984. I went to
Washington, D.C. many times. I have been on the Healdsburg High School Board
and the Alexander Valley School Board.
Susan Sheehy:
And Dad was with the Community Hall here in the [Alexander] Valley. He
and Russ Green were co-chairmen for the reconstruction of the Hall. It's a
beautiful building! Everyone from all over the Valley contributed. They
raised over $500,000.
Robert Young:
It was good to help a little. People have helped me, so I try. . . I
have been lucky. I know I have been lucky [to have my children and grandchildren
here with me].
We're just caretakers of the land. You can't take it with you.
The above article is excerpted from a two and a half hour interview at
the Robert Young home on Red Winery Road in February 2002. Robert Young
is the recipient of the Healdsburg Museum's 2002 History Lives! Pioneer
Award.
For more about the Robert Young family and grape growing history, see Carole
Hicke's 1998 oral history interview with Robert Young, Jim Young, Susan
Sheehy, Marian Penry and Donna Young, published by the Alexander Valley
Winegrowers. Over 100 pages long, it is in the collection of the Sonoma
County Wine Library, located at the Healdsburg Branch of the Sonoma County
Regional Library System.
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