When I think of Altadena, California, I think of the amazing trees and the beautiful people. Christmas Tree Lane, right in the heart of last week’s Eaton Fire, was a December drive-through destination, where a volunteer community group each year decked out towering evergreens up both sides of the street for several blocks, to the delight of young and old.
Both the Eaton (Altadena) Fire and the Pacific Palisades Fire have been the most destructive and traumatic events that have ever crushed the spirit of folk in Southern California. The loss of life is of course the most tragic part of this disaster, and the loss of homes follows that closely. I have read that Pacific Palisades is also another beautiful town with a unique sense of community, but I will talk here of Altadena because it’s a town that I know personally.
commented that in the area of the municipality that he represents, at least two thirds of the houses are gone, including his own. When asked if there had ever been a similar event, Nic responded that “no,” the Eaton Fire was “the most traumatic and disastrous event in Altadena’s history.” As of Sunday, with about 27% of the Eaton Fire contained, at least 7,000 structures burned to the ground, and over 22 square miles of destruction, Altadena was changed forever.
Our relationship with Altadena began in 1976, when the Altadena Baptist Church offered to support our ministry in South America. That help continued through to our retirement in 2012 from 42 years of overseas service in South Asia and South America. Even before retiring in Altadena, we counted many Altadena residents as personal friends.
In the early 2000s, we sold a house we owned in Portland, Oregon, where my wife had grown up, and bought a house in Altadena. People told us we were doing things backwards; one was supposed to sell his house in California and move to Oregon and buy another house…along with a horse farm, of course.
At the tim,e Altadena was about the only place in Southern California where we could afford property, but we chose Altadena not because of the real estate. Rather, our three kids, who were born in India and Nepal, raised in Argentina, and university-educated in Oregon, had decided that the Pacific NW was too cold. (They grew up in the semi-tropics; I told them that Minnesota was cold, not Oregon.) But they also thought Oregon was too white — quite funny, since all three look more like their mostly Swedish mother. All three moved to Altadena, where we had friends and a church that received them with open arms. Our Altadena house, thankfully still standing, was where our daughter and family lived, and we built a granny apartment in the backyard when we retired. That daughter and our son were both married at Altadena Baptist.
The Altadena Baptist Church, which went up in smoke last Tuesday night, along with the homes of at least 18 families connected with the church, has been a microcosm of the larger Altadena community. The church is about one third black; one third white; and one third Filipino, Hispanic, and everything else. It’s a church that has worked hard over the years to mirror the community around it in its membership.
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