Clovis, California
Clovis is located northeast of Fresno, in the heart of California’s Central Valley. When Whitney left home for college, the area had only just started the residential development boom you see today around Clovis and North Fresno. During her childhood, fruit orchards dominated the landscape and farmland extended west as far as Armstrong and Shaw, where her grandmother’s grandparents, Fred and Harriet, farmed grapes. Whitney’s ancestors settled in Fresno County around 1880 and her family has been farming since. What was once called the East Ranch, as it was the part of the farm furthest east, is now the core of the family’s operation. This site is where Whitney’s childhood home is located, and nearby are the home of her uncle and aunt, who now occupy the relocated and renovated home of Whitney’s great-great-grandparents (the grape growers mentioned above), and Casa La Loma, another relocated and renovated farmhouse, now used as the farm office.
The Home Place
The farmhouse most significant to the family is at the Home Place, former home of Whitney’s grandfather, William, and great-grandparents, Frank and Dallas. The Home Place site is also home to several historical buildings, including a blacksmith shop, summer kitchen, and a very small one-room cabin once used by Frank as a residence until he had saved enough to move a neighboring house up to the top of the hill, marry, and start a family. That very house still stands atop the hill over 100 years later and now serves as the backdrop to Whitney and Nick’s nuptials. Coincidentally, Frank and Dallas, Whitney’s great-grandparents who lived at the Home Place, were married 100 years ago on 01/01/1920.
