Living Memories: A Memoir

About this book

FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA'S MOULTON MUSEUM“This enthralling historical timepiece by Moulton...preserves the legacy of a “true pioneer…” —BookLife“Moulton is an engaging narrator...(with) a beguiling blend of wry humor and exacting detail.” —IndieReaderIn 1879, John and Prudence Gail and their baby daughter Nellie set off across Kansas in a covered wagon seeking a new life. They lived through drought and storms, cruel twists of fate, illness and failure. They never gave up.True to the family spirit, as a young woman Nellie hopped on a train alone in 1902 and headed to the Pacific Northwest to become a schoolteacher. She didn’t know what lay ahead, didn’t know she would meet Lewis Fenno Moulton, an “ambitious, adventurous” Southern California rancher who would fall in love with her and change her life forever.Together they changed Southern California forever, too. Lewis established a ranch in what is now Laguna Hills that eventually reached 22,000 acres. Nellie, herself an artist, helped establish the Laguna College of Art and Design, as well as the Laguna Playhouse, in the early 20th century.With a foreword by her great-grandson Scott T. Barnes, and more than 100 photographs, with Living Memories Nellie Gail Moulton tells her own riveting story of adversity, old-fashioned grit, adventure, and finding love on the American frontier. Read more