Judy Lowder Newton
Judy Newton describes her parents’ and her time in Death Valley Junction in her book Tasting Home: Coming of Age in the Kitchen. She was too young to have many first hand memories of the place, but she recounts some stories that she heard from her parents.
Malfrid “Molly” Berg followed her sister Marit “Agnes” Paulson to Death Valley Junction who had been living there for several years. As one of the only single women living there, Molly was housed in a tiny 12’x13’ adobe house behind the superintendent’s house that had been originally built as a laundry room. She got along well with the superintendent, Harry Gower and his wife Pauline. When Molly married Ivan Lowder in 1938, the young couple moved into a one bedroom house next door to the Gowers. Their rent was $17 per month. When Judy was born, they asked Harry Gower to be her godfather.
Both Molly and Ivan were employees of the Death Valley Hotel Company which was a subsidiary of the Pacific Coast Borax Company. By 1940, most people in the town were working for the hotel and a few were working for the railroad. The mill had shut down in the late 1930s when clay production had wound down, so the hotel and tourist business was the only thing in town. Molly started as a maid in the hotel and soon became head of housekeeping. She was responsible for the 44 rooms in the hotel. The rooms in the dormitory that had previously housed the mill workers had been converted to hotel rooms with a common bathroom down the hall. An advertisement from 1940 lists the rates for these rooms. Rooms in another dormitory building were used for housing the employees who were single men.
Ivan was an accountant working for Harry Gower in the hotel office that was located in the south wing of the civic center. He would typically work until the electricity was shut off in the evening. Death Valley Junction, like many rural communities at the time, had not been connected to the power grid. Electricity for the town was produced by diesel generators that were located in the mill. These were routinely shut down at 10:00 in the evening and turned back on early in the morning. One night Ivan didn’t come home at the usual time so Molly went looking for him and discovered that for some reason the power hadn’t been shut off at the scheduled time. Ivan was still in his office working.
Judy’s aunt and uncle, Agnes and Carl Paulson, lived in one of the houses near the mill. Carl worked in the mill. They had two children, Goldis and David. David was a good friend of Harry Rosenberg and Duffy Chisholm.
In 1942 the Amargosa Hotel closed because of WWII and most people in Death Valley Junction moved away for good. Judy’s family moved to Compton where Ivan continued to work for the Borax company until he retired. Margaret Fulghum, the teacher who was a good friend of Molly, also moved to the Los Angeles area near the Lowders.