The John S. Kiewit Memorial Foundation

Our Purpose and Mission

The John S. Kiewit Memorial Foundation was established in 2000 by Ralph and Oralee Kiewit, of Malibu, California, in memory of their son John S. Kiewit.

The Foundation’s primary purpose is to make grants “to protect the land and other natural resources of the California Central Coast and or neighboring regions of California from the effect of development, by means such as purchase, conservation easements, education or other methods, in order to preserve the open and agriculture character of the priceless assets.”

Ralph and Oralee Kiewit framed this statement of purpose as a memorial to their son John, who was born in 1948 and moved to Malibu on the coast northwest of Los Angeles as a boy in 1955 where he developed a love for surfing. That love led him later to discover the surfing and unspoiled beauty of coastal southern California at the Hollister Ranch in southwestern Santa Barbara County.

John developed skills in photography which he focused on surfing and natural and abandoned landscapes throughout the West, often in a VW bug with his wife Linda. His book of photography, Gone to Sanctuary, was published in large format in 1997. There he wrote “At road’s end, the decay of man’s dreams and the simple elegance of the natural scene have been (my) premiere attractions.”

Today, over 1000 of his photographs are preserved and curated at the U.C.S.B. Department of Special Collections and can be viewed online: [link here]

Gone to Sanctuary / Page 86

I was waiting around for the sun, drinking harsh coffee and listening to Mozart. It was one of those windy mornings that make your bones ache and your nose run. As the light brought in the color, I stopped bitching about almost everything. ––Journal Entry, January 1993

“For my debut novel, a historical mystery, I have uncovered a wealth of information about daily life of everyday citizens in 1920s Santa Barbara County, California.

I offer a glimpse of history from the perspective of a person like me, like my neighbors, like the people I have always known.”

Cathy Berry is a writer who has always carried a torch for Southern California, its variety and history, and especially the many characters so at home there. A lifelong resident of Santa Barbara County, Cathy’s imagination was fired from an early age by the stories told by family, friends, and often, strangers just met.

As an inveterate researcher, one who is very focused on a specific decade in a specific location, Cathy takes a fresh look at history through items found in everyday life in Santa Barbara County, California, in the 1920s.

Naturally, as with any life, there are connections with the larger world as well as hidden worlds. Historical connections reveal themselves in hindsight, from a distance, in looking back.

Until recently, history has been interpreted and presented through formal academic channels. But now, thanks to technology, historical resources are available to anyone with an internet connection, offering a different view, a lens to daily life in the past. History becomes more personal and meaningful. The past echoes and reverberates and teaches us in the present.

Resources

Freely available online historical resources and artifacts, such as newspaper articles, photos, cookbooks, trade journals and other items culled from daily life, mostly focused on the 1920s. Some of these are transcendent and beautiful, humorous, instructive, revealing. Others are vitriolic, violent, devastating.

By entering that not-so-long-ago time, one can find a dazzling, complex humanity reflective of the current day.

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Blog info

In 2008, Cathy began taking photographs and created her blog, Cartas…Letters from Home. She wrote posts that mostly focused on Santa Barbara County, past and present. Eventually, passions converged and Cathy began writing a historical mystery set in Santa Barbara County, California, in 1922.

These posts each features a bit of historical information, usually a photo, and always a link to the freely-available online source material.

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Contact Cathy and Newsletter

Visit the Contact page with your comments, questions, or to sign up for Cathy’s monthly newsletter featuring more in-depth information about Santa Barbara County, California.

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“To write truth I prepare. Measure my own self and life according to truth. See truth; admit truth. Accept it. Not truth that changes with the telling, or that can be influenced, or omits the hardest parts.
Only then…

On those darkest days of my life, I rely on the place I have found within, where Truth never changes. I know with my discoveries, my little talismans left behind from prior generations – the faded tablecloth, the rusted wheel, the fallen oak tree sinking into the earth once again – I can find my way out. The people whose stories I cherish most have built something inside, too, a place where darkness will be transformed into a tool so fine, so rare, that is able to hone with such exquisite precision that I am transformed into an altogether new creation.”

Cathy Berry

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The John S. Kiewit Memorial Foundation

Our Purpose and Mission

I was waiting around for the sun, drinking harsh coffee and listening to Mozart. It was one of those windy mornings that make your bones ache and your nose run. As the light brought in the color, I stopped bitching about almost everything. ––Journal Entry, January 1993

“For my debut novel, a historical mystery, I have uncovered a wealth of information about daily life of everyday citizens in 1920s Santa Barbara County, California.

As an inveterate researcher, one who is very focused on a specific decade in a specific location, Cathy takes a fresh look at history through items found in everyday life in Santa Barbara County, California, in the 1920s.

Resources

Blog info

Contact Cathy and Newsletter

“To write truth I prepare. Measure my own self and life according to truth. See truth; admit truth. Accept it. Not truth that changes with the telling, or that can be influenced, or omits the hardest parts. Only then…

Contact Us

“To write truth I prepare. Measure my own self and life according to truth. See truth; admit truth. Accept it. Not truth that changes with the telling, or that can be influenced, or omits the hardest parts.
Only then…