Sarah Bixby Smith

author

Sarah Bixby Smith

1871–1935

A vivid voice from early California, she turned ranch life, family history, and a fast-changing Los Angeles into warm, memorable books. Her best-known memoir, Adobe Days, helped preserve a lived picture of the region’s past.

1 Audiobook

Adobe days : being the truthful narrative of the events in the life of a California girl on a sheep ranch and in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles while it was yet a small and humble town; together with an account of how three young men from Maine in eighteen hundred and fifty-three drove sheep and cattle across the plains, mountains and deserts from Illinois to the Pacific coast; and the strange prophecy of Admiral Thatcher about San Pedro harbor

Adobe days : being the truthful narrative of the events in the life of a California girl on a sheep ranch and in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles while it was yet a small and humble town; together with an account of how three young men from Maine in eighteen hundred and fifty-three drove sheep and cattle across the plains, mountains and deserts from Illinois to the Pacific coast; and the strange prophecy of Admiral Thatcher about San Pedro harbor

by Sarah Bixby Smith

About the author

Born in 1871 at Rancho San Justo near San Juan Bautista, she grew up in a prominent California family and later became known as a writer with a strong sense of place. Sources describe her as a California author and an advocate of women’s education, with work rooted in both family memory and the history of the state.

Her books included A Little Girl of Old California, My Sage-brush Garden, Adobe Days, Pasear, Wind Upon My Face, Milestones in Los Angeles, and The Bending Tree. Among them, Adobe Days is especially remembered as a classic memoir of growing up in Southern California during a time of major change.

She died in 1935, but her writing still stands out for its firsthand view of ranch life, early Los Angeles, and the California landscape. For listeners who enjoy memoir, regional history, and strong personal storytelling, her work offers an intimate window into another era.