Ed Silva is 80 years
old now and is a lifelong resident of West Sacramento. He is soft-spoken and
easy to like and if you can drag him away from his still very busy life for a few
minutes, he has some wonderful stories to tell about West Sacramento’s
agricultural past. He was raised on a family dairy farm only a stone’s throw
away from where he now lives on Deerwood Street, land that was developed and
paved over many years ago to make way for the Port of Sacramento and the many
homes all around Park Boulevard. And although most of the current residents of
West Sacramento know very little about their city’s agricultural past, Ed
remembers it well.
“My dad, Manuel
Silva, came here way back in 1914, from a little village on San Miguel Island,
which is in the Portuguese Archipelago of the Azores,” recalled Ed, “and like
most immigrants back in those days, he was trying to escape poverty and make a
better life for himself. Once here, he moved around quite a bit and worked on
ranches in Auburn, Natomas and Dixon before finally ending up in West
Sacramento around 1932.”
Manuel Silva (right) and two of his brothers at work in the 1930s. The milking barn in the picture was located where the Parkstone Center medical building now stands. In the photo, Manuel is actually looking out at what is now Park Boulevard.
When Ed was only a
month old, the growing Silva family rented a dairy from what was then known as
Caledonia Farms, located near what is now the Nor-Cal Beverage Company and Parkstone
Center, the large medical building which anchors the southern end of Park
Boulevard.
“Back then,”
explained Ed, “there was no Jefferson Boulevard where it is today. In fact, the
Jefferson Boulevard of my youth was where Park Boulevard is nowadays. Anyway,
around 1937 my dad bought about 50 nearby acres of his own, which included a
dairy of about 90 cows, all of whom had to be milked twice a day by hand until
milking machines became available. Our milk was some of the best around and was
delivered fresh to Crystal Creamery every day in big ten gallon cans.”
Ed went on to
explain that when he was young, much of West Sacramento was nothing more than grass
for cows to graze upon.
“From what is now
Stone Boulevard to 19th Street to Virginia Street was all cow
pasture,” recalled Ed, “as was most of the land from across Park Boulevard all
the way west to West Acres School. And many was the time that we would get a
call from the school wanting us to get right over there because some of our
cows had busted down a fence and ended up in the school yard. And mending
fences was just one of my many chores. I learned how to drive a tractor at an
early age and like many of the teenagers back then, I was pretty good at
bailing hay. And believe me, there was always plenty of work to do on the farm,
for both the boys and the girls, and there were lots of times when my dad would
meet me at the school bus to get me started as soon as possible on a good afternoon
of work.”
Over the years, two
wives would give Manuel Silva six children, four sons and two daughters, of
which Ed was the youngest, and as they got older, all the boys were taken into
the family business as full partners. They also all served their country during
times of war and also inherited their father’s strong work ethic.
“In addition to the
dairy,” said Ed, “we also farmed several acres of alfalfa, barley, wheat, sugar
beets and tomatoes. Then around 1944 the Port of Sacramento used eminent domain
to buy most of our property and construction of the port started in all phases
around 1949. We moved our dairy cows out to Elverta where we bought a 160-acre
ranch with the help of Crystal Creamery, but we still farmed quite a few acres
in West Sacramento all the way up until the late 1970’s. Dad passed away in
1984 and what land we had left in West Sacramento was turned into a little
subdivision known as the Silva Estate Subdivision, which still remains in the
family to this day.”
“Looking back on
it,” said Ed nostalgically, “it was a really good life and a fun way to grow
up. I was out-of-doors all the time and hard work never hurt anyone. And I’ve
tried to pass that same work ethic down to Carla, Julia and Eddie, my three
children, just as my father passed it down to me. And although West Sacramento
is not at all like it was when I was a young man, it’s still a wonderful place
to call home.”
