Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, December 10, 2016

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Mountain View News Saturday, December 10, 2016


From the City of Sierra Madre

BEWARE OF UTILITY SCAMS

Walking Sierra Madre…The Social Side 

by Deanne Davis

Utility fraud calls are very 
common. While there have 
been no recent reports of 
any scams in Sierra Madre, 
neighboring communities 
are reporting an increase in 
fraudulent calls.

What Do Scammers Do?

 Scammers impersonate City 
staff and utility workers. They 
may use fear and intimidation 
to force you to make a payment 
using a credit card or a prepaid 
money card immediately 
threatening that otherwise your 
service will be disconnected. 
They may use “spoofing 
software” that displays the 
name and phone number of 
City of Sierra Madre on your 
Caller ID.

What Should You Do Next?

 Hang up! Do not give 
the callers any personal 
information and do not pay!

 Call City of Sierra Madre 
at (626) 355-7135 to check 
your account balance and to 
inform us about the scammer. 
Make payments 24/7 online at https://www.
municipalonlinepayments.com/sierramadreca 

 Do not call any other number that the caller 
gives you. Do not give any information to the caller, 
not even an account number which can be used to 
threaten you in future phone calls.

What You Need to Know:

 City of Sierra Madre NEVER makes outbound 
calls asking for payment or a customer’s credit card 
information. City of Sierra Madre NEVER visits 
residential customers to solicit program enrollment 
or ask for payments.

 If we do need to make a water quality check, we will 
inform you first or respond if you request this service. 
City of Sierra Madre employees never enter a home to 
check for water quality. Always ask utility employees 
for proper identification and look for City of Sierra 
Madre vehicles.

Spread the Word!

 Share this information with your friends, family, 
neighbors, and co-workers to protect them from 
scammers. Business owners - educate all your 
employees about phone calls that may threaten service 
interruptions. Many times managers or employees 
who do not have account information are worried 
that if they don’t act quickly and pay, services will be 
shut off. 

 “People come into your life for a reason, a season 
or a lifetime...”

 A delightful person came into my life about a 
year and a half ago, Elaine Holmgren, the mother 
of my son-in-law, Chuck, married to our oldest 
daughter, Leah. Elaine had been living in Lewiston, 
Idaho but it was getting to be too much for her, after 
all, she was 92! Chuck arranged for his mom to move 
into the beautiful new Kensington Retirement and 
Assisted Living facility here in Sierra Madre, where 
she had a lovely room overlooking an outdoor patio 
with gardens in every direction. I had met her several 
years ago, but now she was in Sierra Madre to stay.

 We met again right around Elaine’s 93rd birthday, 
which was one day after my birthday. We realized 
immediately we were going to be best friends. And we 
were. I would drop in to the Kensington for Happy 
Hour at 4:00 for a glass of wine while an excellent 
pianist played songs we actually recognized, or a 
violinist might be playing show tunes, or we’d just sit 
and chat in her quiet, peaceful room. Elaine loved to 
read and, frequently, that’s what she would be doing 
when I arrived.

 Our best times, though, were our special outings. 
We would go, every now and then to the Cheesecake 
Factory for cheesecake and champagne. If you 
have not tried cheesecake and champagne, you are 
missing out. Elaine was partial to the Salted Caramel 
cheesecake and as soon as pumpkin season started, we 
were all pumpkin all the time. Pumpkin cheesecake is 
so good it’s slightly immoral.

 We would tour the town, look at everybody’s 
gardens and trees, bemoan the lack of water and sad 
appearance of many of our trees. We would talk about 
our families, our parents, our children, incidents from 
our past where we might have done better. Elaine 
loved to talk about her mother, who, I do believe, was 
a mix of Wonder Woman and the best Presbyterian 
church member ever. Elaine had great stories of her 
youth and her mother’s exploits. She always thought 
of herself as a Californian as her dad, John Good, 
grew up in Northern California. He survived the 
1906 earthquake and earned his pharmacy degree 
from UC Berkley. Elaine’s parents met when her 
adventuresome mother visited San Francisco for the 
1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. Some time after 
their 1916 marriage, Elaine’s mother longed for home 
and the couple moved to Indiana. Elaine was born at 
the Galbreath family farm in Collamer, Indiana, in 
the same room where her mother was born 32 years 
earlier, and where her daughter, Diane, would be born 
22 years later.

 Around the beginning of the Great Depression, 
her mother would fearlessly take her four children, 
Elaine being the 3rd child, only girl and about 8 at 
the time, on long road trips to see the country while 
her dad stayed home and worked. These were true 
adventure trips as they “car camped” and dined on the 
healthy stews her mom created in the pressure cooker 
pot she had had welded to the engine block of their 
car, visiting campsites and Presbyterian or Methodist 
churches.

 Elaine married young and there were three 
children from that union, our son-in-law, Chuck, 
sister, Diane, and brother, Philip. Not the happiest 
marriage but some years later after it ended, she met 
Myron Holmgren and they spent 30 wonderful years 
together, “mostly playing,” as she put it. They loved 
to ski, bought property in Mesa, Colorado, near a 
ski resort and built a beautiful home there, moving 
on to Prescott, Arizona when the altitude became 
uncomfortable for Myron, then on to Santa Rosa, 
California, eventually ending in Lewiston, Idaho.

 Elaine thoroughly enjoyed the Halloween 
scarecrow contest here in town. We would tour the 
scarecrows and the amazing pumpkin creations by 
our neighbors and be astonished by the creativity on 
display. We looked and laughed and had a great time. 
While she was in residence at the Kensington, she had 
a steady stream of visitors: her children, their families, 
Myron’s children, Mark and Rennie, who absolutely 
adored her, and many other friends. Every time I 
appeared where she was, Elaine would greet me with 
an enthusiastic, “Sweetie!!” and was always glad to see 
me.

 Elaine was in my life for a reason, to make us 
both laugh a lot and enjoy a little champagne from 
time to time. Her season with me was not nearly long 
enough as she left us very early November 13th. She 
was a joy to me for such a short time. I would have 
liked more cheesecake dates.

 If someone is in your life for a reason, a season, or 
a lifetime, take time to go have a little champagne and 
cheesecake with them, or a cup of tea and a muffin. 
But enjoy them, my friends, enjoy them. 

 “Millions of people gave their lives fighting 
fascism and imperialism, but Pearl Harbor was the 
event that forever changed the course of human 
history.” Sam Graves

 The 75th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor was last 
Wednesday, “A date which will live in infamy.”

 My book page: Amazon.com: Deanne Davis

Blog: www.authordeanne.com

 “A Tablespoon of Love, A Tablespoon of 
Laughter” is available from me!

Kindle readers, give yourself the gift of Star of Wonder 
– A Christmas Story

 It’s on Amazon.com on my book page!

 Follow me on Twitter, too! https://twitter.com/@
playwrightdd


ANNUAL CANDLELIGHT WALK DECEMBER 18TH

God commanded, “Let there be light,” and what a sweet light we shall see.

 As the season dies in darkness Christmas reminds us of that glorious child who entered the world. 
The Sierra Madre “Candlelight Walk” is wrapped with the wondrous warm that encircles this great 
Season of Celebration. 

 The Candlelight Walk is held each Christmas season to celebrate the journey Joseph and Mary 
made to Bethlehem where Jesus was born over 2,000 years ago. With “Mary and Joseph” leading 
the way, the procession will begin at St. Rita’s Catholic Church in Sierra Madre, accompanied by 
participants holding candles and singing traditional Christmas carols. The procession will end at 
Kersting Court in the center of town where the Christmas story will be read from the Scriptures.

 The event begins at St. Rita traveling down Baldwin to Kersting Court. It is recommended to 
arrive at 6:45p.m., as the walk will begin promptly at 7:00 p.m.

SIERRA MADRE CHAMBER IS LOOKING FOR THE 
2016 CITIZEN OF THE YEAR!

The Sierra Madre Chamber of Commerce is seeking nominations for the 2016 Citizen of the Year. To be eligible, a 
person must be a resident of Sierra Madre. The accomplishment(s) or project(s) for which they are being nominated 
must have been of benefit to the community of Sierra Madre and its citizens during 2016. They must have served 
without remuneration on the project for which they are being nominated, and members of the Chamber of Commerce 
Board of Directors are not eligible.

 If you would like to nominate someone, nomination forms are available at www.sierramadrechamber.com.

 You can also pick up nomination forms at City Hall, the Library, and the Recreation Center. Completed forms 
should be mailed to Sierra Madre Chamber of Commerce, 80 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., No. 405, Sierra Madre, Ca. 
91024.

 The winner will be selected by members of the Chamber Board of Directors, and will be honored at the annual 
Citizen of the Year/Board of Directors Dinner to be held in January 28, 2017.

RISE OF THE ROCKET GIRLS IS SIERRA MADRE’S 
ONE BOOK ONE CITY CHOICE

Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who 
Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars by 
Nathalia Holt is the February 2017 choice for the 
One Book One City (OBOC) Program sponsored 
by the Sierra Madre Public Library.

 Rise of the Rocket Girls is the true story of 
the women who helped launch America into 
space. In the 1940s and 1950s, when the new Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory needed mathematicians, 
they recruited a group of young women who 
transformed rocket design, helped bring about 
the first American satellites, and made the 
exploration of the solar system possible.

 Meet Holt on Saturday, February 25th at 7:00 
pm in the Sierra Madre Elementary School 
auditorium when she talks about her book. Her 
talk is the grand finale of the annual OBOC 
Program.

 Other sensational events include:

 Wednesday, February 1st, 7:00 pm – Dr. Steve 
Cornford, Senior Engineer in the Strategic 
Systems Office at NASA/JPL/Caltech. Cornford 
has been part of the conception, design, building 
and testing of a number of spacecraft and their 
components.

 Thursday, February 2nd, all afternoon – 
Children’s Walk-In Craft. Build a rocket and 
launch at the Library.

 Saturday, February 4th at 3:00 pm - Saturday 
afternoon movie: Iron Giant at the Library.

 Thursday, February 16th, 11:00 am - Third 
Thursday Book Club - Rise of the Rocket Girls. 
Drop in for a lively discussion at the Third Thursday 
Book Club for adults.

 Thursday, February 16th, 4:00 pm - STEAM 
Club. Discovery Dome Planetarium for children. 
Spend an hour exploring space at the Community 
Recreation Center. Space is limited; registrations 
begin February 1.

 Thursday, February 16th, 5:00 - Discovery Dome 
Planetarium for adults. Journey to Mars during this 
interactive program at the Community Recreation 
Center. Space is limited; registration begins 
February 1.

 Saturday, February 18th at 3:00 pm - Saturday 
afternoon movie: October Sky at the Library.

Saturday, Feb. 25, at 7:00 pm - Nathalia Holt, in the 
Sierra Madre Elementary School Auditorium.

 Bestselling author Nathalia Holt, Ph.D. is a 
science writer and author of Cured: The People who 
Defeated HIV. Her work has appeared in The New 
York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, 
Slate, Popular Science, and Time Magazine.

 One Book One City is a community reading 
program that invites everyone to read and discuss 
the same book during a month of exciting free 
programs.

 

 Read, Discover, Connect @ Sierra Madre Public 
Library, 440 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre, 
CA 91024, 626-355-7186, Text 626-662-1254, www.
cityofsierramadre.com/services/library


Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com