Other Information
Glenn
County
Sketchbook
by
Thelma
B.
White,
introduction
by
Lois
McDonald
Historic
Glenn
County,
California,
stories,
geography
and
events
taken
from
the
author's
Willows
Journal
and
Wagon
Wheels
columns.
About the author
The author, Thelma Buckley White, is a third-generation Californian. Both of her paternal grandparents, Robert Bruce and Barbara Kibbler Buckley, and her maternal grandparents Jonathan and Caroline Woodly Sikes, came west from Missouri in the 1850s. They settled on adjoining ranches five miles southeast of Davis, Yolo County, in the Tremont District of Solano County, California.
Very early in her life she heard their tales of being attacked by Indians on the long trek across the plains, and even of sighting a lone buffalo on the Tremont property.
Called Timmy by her friends, she grew up interested in history and writing. Her first publications were for the Davis High School paper, The Hub, which she launched in her senior year and named for the Davis agricultural college in the great Sacramento Valley.
She attended Armstrong School of Business Administration, and the University of California at Davis and Berkeley. While she was attending the University of California at Davis, she met and married Wilbur White who was completing degrees in agronomy, genetics and plant breeding.
The Whites settled in Ord Bend, Glenn County, where they raised their five children, Kim, Steve, Robin, Juli and Jed. It was there, too, that Wilbur started his seed company business, Sacramento Valley Milling Company. Later a branch opened in Williams, Colusa County. The company was devoted to the production of field seeds, research and development of new strains of agronomic crops, particularly beans.
Later, Thelma attended California State University at Chico and obtained her teaching credential. She studied history under Dr. Hector Lee, Dr. Clarence McIntosh and W. H. Hutchinson. Her historical research led her to writing 63 weekly articles called "Glenn County Sketchbook" for the Willows Journal in the late 1960s. Her articles were based on interviews with longtime residents of the area. They related information about the people and the area of their past seven decades.
While serving on the Glenn County Board of Education, she was invited to teach the primary grades at Butte City School. Later she substituted in the hill towns of the coast range, now ghost towns, about which she writes in the Glenn County Sketchbook. --from the preface by Dorothy J. Hill
