Mar 3, 2012 Herb s last meeting with his Thunderbird friends before passing away on March 20, 2012 We will all miss you Herbie!!!

Transcription

1 Mar 3, 2012 Herb s last meeting with his Thunderbird friends before passing away on March 20, 2012 We will all miss you Herbie!!!

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3 Herb Burbank after a day of fishing, in the mid 1930s. Herb Burbank Jr., and his sister Jean on the family tractor in the early 1930s. Herbie Circa 1993 with his 1957 Dusk Rose Thunderbird Herb Burbank Jr. and Jean in a 1937.

4 Herb Burbank Jr.'s Bloomfield School photo in Herb Burbank Jr. collects 1957 Ford Thunderbirds. He has four so far.

5 Herb Burbank was the subject of Brian J Gill an International Photographer. Brian J Gill Biography: Gallery Picture of Herb: This photo captured the essence of hard work on a 400 acre farm. Herb was never one to avoid any necessary or unpleasant task.

6 Rancher Herb Burbank Jr. enjoys his Cats and Birds By HARLAN OSBORNE, ARGUS-COURIER COLUMNIST Published: Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 7:26 p.m. Last Modified: Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 7:26 p.m. On Herbert Burbank Jr. s ranch, the wind blows quite often and sometimes the fog doesn t lift until lunchtime. But on clear mornings and on brilliant sunlit afternoons when visibility extends for miles from his hilltop ranch house, it feels like you can almost touch the ocean, which as the crow flies is just four miles away over the coastal mountains. The high-perched home, located on 215 hilly acres rising above Two Rock Valley, has been in the Burbank family since 1922, the year Herb s parents, Herbert and Lillian (Watkins) Burbank, who worked as a nurse at St. Luke s Hospital in San Francisco, were married and decided to pull up roots in nearby Tomales and establish a dairy just off Carmody Road. The original house was very small, just a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, but a two-story addition that included a family room and three more bedrooms was built by the time Herb Jr. was born in 1925 and his sister, Jean came along in A much larger living room with a fireplace and picture window was added later. It s the only home Herb Burbank has ever known. As a kid he helped his father maintain the small dairy operation, milking the cows by hand and separating the cream which was brought to the Petaluma Cooperative Creamery once a week. As was often the case in those days, each cow had a name and on Burbank s place, Suzie, Spot, Red and Slowpoke roamed among the herd. Herb and his sister attended Bloomfield Grammar School and he was a 1943 graduate of Petaluma High. They had about 90 acres set aside to grow oat hay and another 10 acres for potatoes, and with eight natural springs on the property water was plentiful. The hilly land takes more work than some and the potatoes had to be dug by hand, but we didn t think anything of it, said Herb, although work became less tedious when they bought their first tractor. Upgrading to a Grade A dairy meant increasing the Jersey and Guernsey herd to about 120 cows. Most of the potatoes they grew were of the Lake Rose and Red Rose variety. It s unclear why the family didn t grow the Russet Burbank potato developed by Herb s great-great-grand-uncle Luther Burbank, the widely regarded father of modern plant breeding who developed more than 800 new strains of fruits, vegetables, flowers and grasses, including the Santa Rosa plum, Shasta Daisy and Freestone peach, and spent most of his working life in Santa Rosa, where his home is a National Historic Landmark. In 1952, Herb married Petaluma girl Edna Mae Bahnsen, who had worked at Hunt & Behrens and Ascherman s Market. Together, they operated the ranch where Edna Mae pitched in and did everything, including tackling the tough physical chores and running the farm equipment. She passed away in About 30 years ago, Herb retired from dairying and now leases his property to Don Moreda, who raises calves until they re old enough to milk. A large barn is rented to Petaluma Speedway race car driver Ironman Shawn McCoy, who uses it as his garage and workshop. With his farming days behind him, Herb now spends more time with his collection of cats and birds, not the furry and feathered type, but the kinds with tracks and fins and dual exhaust.his five cats are Caterpillar tractors, restored and repainted antique tracked earth-movers and dozers. He belongs to the Antique Farm Equipment Club and a local Caterpillar Club whose members haul their aged machinery to Caterpillar shows and demonstrate them. His bird collection consists of four 1957 Ford Thunderbirds, three of which are in showroom condition, including the raven black porthole hardtop he and his wife purchased new for $3,740. He s a lifetime member of Thunderbirds of Sonoma, a car club established in 1970 that s limited to owners of 55, 56, and 57 T-Birds. (Harlan Osborne s column, Toolin Around Town, appears every two weeks. Contact him at harlan@sonic.net)

7 A Few of Herb s Adventures Herb enjoying the sun and talking to members of Rose City T-Bird Club Herb with Edna Mae's Dusk Rose Bird Herb at the Gardens during the bus tour Herb at a scenic overlook at the Gardens Regional Dinner with Donna and Alan Herb with Mia at Mike and Maryanne's house

8 A Few More of Herb s Adventures The Canada group at Jerry Sharp's ranch in Oregon Aug '99 Herb's calculations of the trip to Canada, 2,122 miles and avg MPG Herb and Mike with Jerry Sharp's Hup Mobile at the ranch Aug '99 Herb and TOS members at the awards dinner Portland, OR. Regional Aug '03 Herb and TOS members with their show awards Portland, OR. Regional Aug '03 Herb at the Montgomery Village car show circa 1995.

9 Inventing the Abbotts (1997) Filmed in Petaluma, Ca 1955 Tourch Red Thunderbird Little Known Fact about Herb Burbank Ranch Liv Tyler & Joaquin Phoenix filmed this scene in Herb s barn.