The orchard was an especial joy: Two acres of orange, lemon, and other fruit trees. I can still smell the fragrance of the blossoms and taste the sweetness of the home grown fruits. And the flowers: RGB was in her glory. She subscribed to every seed catalogue and ordered everything pictured! Her glads and tulips and roses were prize winners, and she filled everyone's homes with bouquets of flowers. She loved and pampered and treasured every inch of soil, every flower, shrub and tree. Certainly Jeff and Rich, you have inherited her genes!
Both of you should stretch back your memories and tell your children, and Robyn's, of the wonderful, wonderful fun you had there, especially with your cousins Karen and Greg. Karen, the eldest, beautifully strong willed, full of personality and mischief, was the ring-leader in whatever naughty behavior she could think of. She did the engineering, Jeff, you followed, and of course Rich and Greg were usually the targets. While Perry and Estelle and your father and Papapa, too, would anguish, RGB would soothe feelings, arbitrate disagreements, and protect the mischief makers.
Rich, will you ever forget the time Karen and Jeff locked you and Greg in the basement? Or your tears when they hid your beloved blanket somewhere in the orchard?
But surely the good times outweighed the bad, and for the cousins, the freedom to run and roam, and more important, the relationship you all had with your Grandparents, it was truly the best of times.
It was a wonderful period for Papapa, too, even though he hardly made it as a farmer. I well remember his running with a new but unmanageable tractor, and his attempts at building and fixing things, not too successfully, though the tools were the finest! And the pony he bought for the grandchildren and the swimming pool they built to tempt us to visit them more often. Beautiful parties, wonderful picnics, always the celebration of every holiday. The grandchildren loved it, we loved it, but most of all, RGB and Papapa loved their Rancho Contento. I think they would have lived there happily and contentedly forever, but it was not meant to be.
In the late 1950's RGB began to suffer terribly from arthritis. She was told that the hot natural mineral waters of Desert Hot Springs might give her some relief. Never to leave a "stone unturned" my parents went to see if these miracle stories could be true. RGB thought so. She really thought they helped. So without any hesitation, without looking back, they sold the Ranch, and the desert became their lives for the next twenty years.
The rest of the story you all know: how the first little Mahayah was built with five rentals and an owner's apartment, but no pools, and from that, the present twelve-unit Mahayah that we knew and loved and enjoyed so much. Then the Lani, twelve units more, and a beautiful, beautiful life for RGB, for Papapa, and for all of us!
Do you remember how the name was chosen? First there were the ridiculous "Rosie's Roost," "Nat's Nest," and others, rejected as soon as suggested. And then the happy time when RGB and Papapa were bathing in the public hot pools, and a little old lady turned to my mother and, as she splashed the wonderful hot water on her body, said, "Oy, Mrs. Bertram, isn't this a mahayah?" RGB knew at once that that was "it" and so the hotel was named with that wonderful, wonderful Hebrew word for a blessing: "everything good, everything beautiful, desirable, miraculous." And truly, wasn't that what it was from its very first day? For RGB and Papapa the Mahayah became not only their home, but their palace, and for twenty marvelous years it became a second home to every person who experienced it and stayed there. Certainly it was the forerunner to every "bed and breakfast" as we know them today! No one could ever equal the Bertram hospitality, and from all over the world visitors came to enjoy the Mahayah and leave renewed, refreshed, healthier, and with new friends!
Was it the natural hot mineral water, or the clear air, or the fun? Whatever, RGB's health returned, and each day was a mahayah - magnificent and total pleasure for her and for Papapa. Truly a blessing, a glorious home for my parents, and a marvelous vacation for each guest and for us. Its success was unmatched in the desert, and one of my many regrets is that RGB never wrote the book "No Vacancy."
There was the fun lobby and the "Tea House of the August Moon" where guests were introduced to each other over bagels and jam and coffee each morning. There were the hot Jacuzzi pools, each with their natural hot water, two aptly named "The Pools of Fun and Laughter," and the third, "The Pool of Everlasting Youth." What delight they provided for tired nerves as well as aching bones. The swimming pool, more for conversation and joke telling than for laps, and the sauna and shuffleboard court, all providing relaxation and fun.
Twenty golden years for all of us, for RGB and Papapa and for the children and grandchildren - our vacations and reunions and celebrations of every holiday and occasion.
For RGB and Papapa there were also trips to Europe and parties galore. We had a financial investment in the Lanai, and your father used to tease that RGB was playing "house" on our money. For indeed, "play house" they did, those remarkable parents of mine. Who else, at any age, let alone in their sixties, would have the courage to start a new business and a totally new one at that? Who, at that age, would move away from family and friends? Who would make, at their age, a $100,000 loan from the government? Well, you all know, as well as I, the answer. Once again they had started anew. Once again they had dreamed the impossible dream into reality. The answer to their success lies somewhere - brains, bravery - never afraid to try the unknown, never afraid to work, never (or maybe almost never) worrying about mistakes. No agonizing about which direction to go and no moaning over what might have been.
Certainly these were not twenty years without problems. There were the hot water wells that would sometimes stop pumping, the air conditioning that was as temperamental as the weather, the winds that sent guests away (although RGB would call these therapeutic breezes like she called the rains liquid sunshine.) There were the housekeepers, some prima donnas, some who came to work drunk, some who just didn't show. And the "horror" stories, like the naked lady in the sauna...the frantic calls to Papoo in Los Angeles to find the "missing" bagels, or a needed tool, or, as too often, to cover an overdrawn check.
RGB would always say that "it was the 'problemas' that kept Papapa and her going," and "wouldn't life be dull without them?" What a woman she was! Business woman, wife, hostess, mother to me always when I needed her support with my own "problemas." Yet she still found time to give of her expertise to the "causes" she found in the desert.
There was the Angel View Hospital, a small four-bed edifice to which crippled children were sent for the therapy of the natural hot water of Desert Hot Springs. RGB convinced the board there that this tiny hospital could expand to serve many more children. With her help, her knowledge, and devotion, ten more beds were soon added, then twenty more, and today this small hospital has national recognition!
In the neighboring Palm Springs, with its great wealth, my mother organized drives to raise money not only for her Angel View Hospital, but for the beautiful museum and cultural center there. She helped bring the San Francisco Opera Company, the Symphony, and the Ballet to Palm Springs, and of course she was a devotee of every performance.
As if all this was not enough, she enrolled in The College of the Desert, taking classes in business management, horticulture and literature. It was as though, even in her seventies and eighties, she could not get enough knowledge, and we can all remember the books that she literally consumed from the small library in Desert Hot Springs. She ordered every new book published, and the parent library in Riverside was truly kept busy meeting her needs. And who can forget the stacks and stacks of magazines that she subscribed to, and the seed catalogues from mail order houses all over the world?
RGB was a completely involved woman. Equally important, she always knew how to involve others. As she had organized the homemaker into active Auxiliary members for The City of Hope, she managed to tap the garment industry, the manufacturers, then the sports world, Hollywood and the film makers, the actors and actresses. She went to George Bilson, a producer, and persuaded him to write, direct, and produce a sixteen millimeter film about The City of Hope, probably the first documentary ever, and a real "tear jerker," And she showed this all over the country to successfully win her audiences over to her cause.
She got Don Loper, the top fashion designer of the time, to design exquisite, but practical, gowns for the volunteers to wear at the hospital, a drawing card indeed, when volunteers were urgently needed.
She was the first to induce movie stars to appear and perform at the fundraising benefits. Most notably was when she invited Clark Gable and his beautiful wife, Kay Spreckels, to fly into Desert Hot Springs for the ground breaking ceremony for the Angel View's new hospital wing!
Jeff and Rich, do you recall how she encouraged you and your friends to form CATCH, Children's Auxiliary to The City of Hope, and you sold mistletoe to raise money for that hospital?
Whether it was for a social, a moral, or political cause, my mother never gave up. And then, to culminate everything, she decided to write a book about the early beginnings of the hospital at Duarte, how it began with just two tents and a few dedicated workers. She wanted to record the heart-breaking endeavors of the first years, the struggle for survival before the days of big tax benefit contributions and government grants. She wanted to tell the stories of the early workers and their devotion, and the generosity of the little person who was himself struggling during the Depression. She hoped to publish this, with the proceeds to go to the hospital. Unfortunately, she was not able to finish the manuscript, but it is there if any of you, the family, choose to read it.
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