Sarah Bixby Smith

author

Sarah Bixby Smith

1871–1935

A vivid memoirist of early Southern California, she turned ranch life, family history, and a changing Los Angeles into warm, memorable writing. Her best-known book, Adobe Days, remains a classic portrait of old California.

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, she grew up in a prominent ranching family whose roots ran through Southern California and the old ranchos around Los Angeles. That background gave her firsthand material for the books and essays that made her an important voice in preserving memories of nineteenth-century California life.

She is best known for Adobe Days (1925), a memoir that looks back on her childhood on a sheep ranch and in early Los Angeles with detail, humor, and affection. She also wrote other works including My Sage-brush Garden, Wind Upon My Face, and A Little Girl of Old California.

Beyond her writing, she was known as an advocate for women's education. Today she is remembered both as a storyteller and as a valuable witness to a California that was rapidly disappearing even in her own lifetime.