News & Notes
President’s Message
By Nicholas Perry
MVHA President
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This newsletter is published four times a year by the
MOUNTAIN VIEW HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
P.O. Box 252, Mountain View, CA 94042
www.mountainviewhistorical.org
MVHA Board of Directors
President: Nicholas Perry
Vice-President: Robert Cox
Secretary: Jamil Shaikh
Treasurer: Emily Ramos
Past President: Candace Bowers
Historical Data: Melissa Wright
Membership: Lisa Roquero Garcia
Newsletter: John Cortez
Ways & Means: Mark Perry
Director-at-Large: Mary Kay Marinovich
Director-at-Large: Gil Lane
Newsletter Copy Editor: Cynthia Hanson
Newsletter Graphic Designer: Nick Perry
MVHA Board of Directors
Email: [email protected]
Voicemail: (650) 903-6890
In Memoriam
Paul Arata
1927–2019
Wallace Erichsen
1919–2019
In 1962, the San Jose
Mercury News ran
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an article about the
Mountain View Pioneer
and Historical Society
t titled “Oldtimers Fight
t to Keep Quiet Charm
of M.V.” The article
opens by stating, “An
organization ϐighting to
keep alive memories of
this bustling city’s quiet
past appealed for help
this week.” It goes on to state, “Rapid growth of apartments, housing
tracts, shopping centers, and industry in Mountain View threatens to
wipe out any sign of the area’s colorful history” and mentions that the
MVHA had “launched a membership drive to gain new recruits for the
cause of research, marking, and, in some cases, preservation of sites
and structures.” The article notes that the MVHA meets four times a
year.
In the ensuing 58 years since the article was written, Mountain View
has experienced remarkable change. But the MVHA, for better or
worse, has remained pretty much the same. Although we’ve dropped
the word “Pioneer” from our name and are now a mix of both
“oldtimers” and “newcomers,” we’re still a small organization trying
to preserve local history in a city deϐined by rapid growth and change.
But as we enter the 2020s, it’s become increasingly clear to the
MVHA’s Board of Directors that the time is ripe to both reϐlect on our
organization’s past and chart a new course for its future. Mountain
View is thriving; thousands of new people have moved in, many
eager to learn about the history of their new hometown. But at the
same time, gentriϐication has rippled through every neighborhood,
displacing long-time residents and making it harder to retain
members. Social media has made it much easier to share local history,
but online platforms have lessened demand for in-person gatherings
or ofϐicially joining clubs. Case in point, we have 1,400 followers on
Facebook but our actual membership now hovers around just 250.
Attendance at our events used to have a sizeable group of reliable
stalwarts, members who’d attend every gathering regardless of the
topic or theme, but many of those folks are no longer with us. For
many years, the MVHA was driven by a mission to build a museum
like our counterparts in Sunnyvale and Los Altos have built. But our
early 2000s museum proposal lacked the support needed to become
a reality, and we’ve never been able to truly restore the wind to our
sails ever since.
With these factors in mind, our Board has decided to start the year
by turning our winter membership meeting into a workshop where
we’ll have the time and space to roll up our sleeves and discuss the
future of the MVHA and how our mission, our goals, our events, and
our projects can adapt to the ever-changing city of Mountain View. We
welcome interested members to join us. This will be an interactive,
facilitated session, so please come with an open mind and any ideas
you have for the future of the MVHA. I hope to see you there!
—Nick
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