Encinitas history is writ large in this memorial to Dorthea Patricia Smith and well worth reading.
"Dorothea Patricia Smith: A Creative Life. She encouraged us to live boldly, paint large, make music, and put our hands in dirt. To stretch the envelope into another space. To reject crawling into a hole with work. To paint big pictures of color and put them up on your walls. To get out and do things, have picnics, enjoy all the seasons, go exploring. Most importantly, to dream big."Her love of architectural was especially fascinating with her sharp perception of utility and flow. Dorthea and her husband Milton had four children. In looking through the archives here it seems we have posted a video clip that included her daughter Tricia speaking out against the proposed developer's agreement for the agricultural property owned by the Brown family of flower growers. The Smith Family, Dorthea's parents, grew flowers too.
"Her parents grew gladiolas commercially on rented land throughout Cardiff and Encinitas. Flowers remained popular during the Depression for weddings and funerals, and when the flower crop was good and the demand high at the Los Angeles flower market the family frequently sold out every last organic flower. However, the year Dorothea was planning to attend college at UCLA, 1935, a devastating freeze wiped out the flower crop. She stayed home to work and help the family, and consequently did not attend college."This adds a textural background to the video clip of her daughter's points five years ago at city hall. Given her mother's keen design interests, the construction business and the family legacy in the flower fields, she speaks with real authenticity about quality in development the landowners and how they should not be pitied for their changing circumstances. They have extracted a great deal and have enjoyed many breaks and benefits. The arguments are as current today as they were in 2007.
It was just last week we highlighted another Cardiffian, Chalmers Johnson, though this one was known by a tiny proportion within his community and by a larger group outside Encinitas.
