“Old Post Office in Old Twn Cordelia” by Daphne Wynne Nixon
2 thoughts on ““Old Post Office in Old Twn Cordelia” by Daphne Wynne Nixon”
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Thanks for painting the old family house. My Grandparents would have loved it. I can place the age of the painting by the red reflectors next to the driveway, as I put those in so Grandma could avoid driving into the ditch at night. There was also a small house and shed on the right. They were were torn out in 2011, but Grandpa bought and moved that little house from up the road from near the Erikson’s Ranch on Cordelia Road, back in the late 1930’s.
My Great-Grandparents came from Texas in the 1930’s and ended up living in Gordon Valley, then Suisun, and then they bought this house and moved to Cordelia and soon after added onto the original Post Office structure. My Grandparents moved into the house in 1969 after my Great-Grandfather died (my Great-Grandparents are buried on Union St. in Fairfield).
The large oak tree that you can see on the right side above the roof line is a Valley Oak and was always referred to by my Grandparents, by the old traditional name of “mush oak”. The significance of this tree that countless generations of kids have swung on tree swings that my ancestors always kept in the tree. Another historical item worth mentioning is something few people in old Cordelia are aware of. My Great-Grandparents said that the circus would come to the metropolis of Suisun in the 1930’s, passing through Cordelia on the way. (Back in the 1930’s, Suisun was the local metropolis, as Fairfield didn’t really exist until WW2 and the buildup of what would eventually became Travis Air Force Base).
The circus people had a problem though, as their elephants were smart and would tear out the stakes used to secure them at night. There weren’t any trees large enough in the Suisun area to prevent the elephants from tearing them out and they needed a solution. They had seen the large mush oak near the railway in Cordelia, and as a result, they asked my Great-Grandparents for permission to chain up their elephants at night to keep them from wandering off. They proceeded to load up the elephants at the end of the every day, bring the train back up the tracks to Cordelia, and tie them up to my Great-Grandparent’s tree where they could lay down on the back lawn. They’d get up early in the morning, load up the elephants, and haul them back to the circus in Suisun for the day. My Great-Grandparents thought it was awesome that they had their very own elephants in their yard and loved to share the story with their relatives back in Texas. My Grandfather died in 1982 and my Grandmother died at 96 years old in 2010 and is buried in Vallejo.
The Hotel Cordelia was directly across the street (Bridgeport) and I have a few old pictures of the inside of the hotel from the late 1800’s. In one picture is a table standing next to the bar with a couple of men sharing a few drinks. That 20″ x 41″ pine table is sitting right here next to me in 2017 and it’s nice to have a connection to old Cordelia.
The family sold the house in 2011 after grandma passed, but I grew up as a kid in the 1970’s wandering around old Cordelia, talking to the old timers and friends of my Grandparents, watching birds in the yard, and waving to the train engineers as they drove by. Those were some of the best memories of my childhood. The old town still stands and the old timers are all gone now, but you can still hear whispers of the old days if you look around and listen hard enough…
Wow! Thank you so much for the awesome history that you shared! I greatly appreciate it and love hearing your stories. I’m happy that my painting brought back nice memories for you.