A Home with a Lot of Heart

Just across the road from Mission Creek, at 434 West Padre Street, sits a modest-sized cottage decorated with numerous small hearts. In October 1908, William Barber and his wife, Pearl, bought this circa 1900 home from a widow for $850. Members of the Barber family still live here more than a century later. Read on for more about the widow.

William was an English immigrant who worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad. His job description was “car inspector.” So, presumably, he checked the passenger and freight-train cars to make sure they were functional and safe. His job probably involved climbing around on the cars. It sounds like he was a strong, athletic guy. Apparently, he was such a model of health that he was mentioned in numerous ads for back pain medication in the Santa Barbara Morning Press from 1905 to 1907.

Part of the ads read: “I had attacks for three years, some of them so severe that I was unable to stoop or straighten after stooping. I will be only too pleased to advise anyone to use Doan’s Kidney Pills whenever opportunity presents itself.” Doan’s pills have been sold since the mid-1800s and are still available today. 

A Very Big Family

William and Pearl raised 10 children in their home that is located at the western end of Padre Street where it meets Oak Park Lane. Many things have changed in this area since 1908. Padre Street was formerly called First Street because it was the first street north of Mission Street. Oak Park Lane used to be called Rancheria Street because it was part of that street until the freeway arrived. Across the street, the Oak Park Dairy stretched along Mission Creek for decades as it curved past Alamar.

Pearl Barber, when she wasn’t busy taking care of 10 children, was a charter member of the Garfield School PTA, and she served as its president one year. The Santa Barbara City College School of Extended Learning’s Schott Center is there today.

Grandson Ken Barber, who grew up in this home, remembers that there used to be a pasture with cows on the other side of Mission Creek. In 1914, when there was a record-breaking rainstorm, the creek flooded the home’s basement.

A Scandal in the Past

The present Barber family was unaware of this part of their home’s history until I shared it with them. They knew that William and Pearl Barber bought the home in 1908, and that a widow had been the previous owner. But back in 1904, this widow had been in headlines that read like the subtitles of a trashy romance novel: “Lured Astray by Blind Love,” “Aged Judge Victim of a Queer Infatuation,” “Known to Have Considerable Money in His Possession,” “Aged Man’s Family Still Ignorant of His Whereabouts.”

“Lured by a strange fascination for a woman whose face he has never seen, fighting against her influence, only to yield at the last, Judge J.H. Tyree, a blind man, almost 70 years of age, had deserted his family, his friends, his home and everything which makes an old man’s life worth living, to go away with a woman named Dora L. Taylor” (Santa Barbara Morning Press, July 21, 1904).

Tyree, a judge living in Missouri, was married, but still managed to fall in love with Dora. His family was horrified and took him on a train headed for California to get him away from her. Dora managed to get on the same train, and when the train reached California, the two of them eloped, although it’s unclear if they really did get married. Somehow, they ended up in Santa Barbara and bought this home in 1905. Perhaps the fact that it was then on the outskirts of the city appealed to them. 

The judge died in 1908. Dora sold the home to the Barber family and disappeared. The people of Santa Barbara probably gave a big sigh of relief. 

The heart decorations on the home date from the current residents and not the judge and Dora.

Please do not disturb the residents of this home.

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Betsy J. Green is a Santa Barbara historian, and author of Discovering the History of Your House and Your Neighborhood, Santa Monica Press, 2002. Her website is betsyjgreen.com.