Mountain View vs Los Altos
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There has been some discussion regarding the name Mountain vs Los Altos
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Info from Bill Jacobs - Mt View class of 1961

Note from Ray Voith: My classmate in at least Fr McConnell's freshman
                     bible class.

I think the official name is Los Altos.  Mt View may have come about
as a result of St Joseph's, the diocesan seminary down the hill, where
we went to class.  Possibly, the diocesans referred to themselves as
residing in Mt View and Maryknoll followed suit.  St Joseph's is gone
now.

Note:

There were six graduates in Bill's Senior year.  Two did not go on to
GE (Dave Parvin and Larry Gilsdorf).  The others were Joe Holtey, Joe
Varni, Dennis Casey and Bob Bliss.  Bill, Joe Holtey and Larry all
live in the same town in AZ.

To Bill and classmates, the seminary will always be Mt View.

Note: Bill mentioned Cyril Vincent Hurst, Mt View rector for 7 years -
fine priest and superb softball player - maybe overlapped with Bill
and Wayman?

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Bill Jacobs bjacobs@cableone.net wrote   December 31, 2005:
     to Wayman Deasy

By the way of introduction, Ray Voith and myself are graduates of Glen
Ellyn, the Venard, and Mt View.  In conjunction with "Interchange" Ray
is developing a mostly pictorial website of Maryknoll's seminaries.
One question that came up was the history behind the names Los Altos
and Mt. View.

Fr. Smith, Director of Los Altos, gave me some excellent information
but he suggested running it by you.

   | Los Altos or Mt. View?
   | 
   | The name origins evolved from postal-addresses.  When the seminary
   | opened, Mt. View Post Office provided services.  Years later, mail
   | delivery changed to the Los Altos Post Office, thus, the name change.
   | 
   | When the Diocese of San Francisco sold the surrounding lands (St
   | Joseph's Seminary) to a developer, a sale precondition required
   | incorporating the property into a nearby city.  Cupertino annexed the
   | lands.  The communities that built up around Maryknoll are served by
   | the Cupertino Post Office.  Maryknoll was NOT part of the annexation
   | process and continues to be served by the Los Altos PO.  Otherwise, it
   | might be called, Maryknoll Cupertino.  Ugh!
   | 
   | For those not already disinterested, there's more.  Maryknoll
   | geographically is not within the city limits of Los Altos, Mt. View,
   | or Cupertino.  If Maryknoll calls the police, the Santa Clara Sheriff
   | responds.
   | 
   | These continuing geographic machinations are just too vexing for many
   | of us old-timers to keep up with.  To us, it will always be good-ole
   | "Mt. View".  The most compelling argument offered by the pro-Mt View
   | crowd is Maryknoll traditionally sides with the poor and
   | down-trodden..  The City of Mt. View is home to lowly millionaires;
   | Los Altos is home to gazillionaires.

We would appreciate your comments should you find any inaccuracies.

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Wayman Deasy wrote  Saturday, December 31, 2005:

Thanks for your e-mail.  It's always heartening to find that anyone is
interested in Mountain View.  I am forwarding your message to my
classmate Dan Curtin.  After leaving Mountain View Dan became an
attorney who specializes in land usage.  He handled the negotiation
with Cupertino for the Diocese of San Jose about the St. Joseph's
property and can give you a clear picture of its status.  My
understanding, though, is that Maryknoll is in an unincorporated area
of Santa Clara County.  At the time of the earthquake, Maryknoll
needed to get water piped in, and Cupertino is the supplier.  Again,
my understanding is that this was due to the fact that the area is in
the Cupertino sphere of influence.  If any city ever incorporated the
area, it would be Cupertino.  I can be wrong about any or all of these
things.  Dan is out of his office for a few days, but I'm sure he will
be interested in your quest.

Here is a picture of the old entrance to Mountain View.

Note that it refers to "Loyola, California". This must be a very old reference, since none of us ever referred to it that way. However, Loyola Corners was a real place, with a couple of stores and a gas station. Our interest was in getting milk shakes and ice cream there, because it was closer than Los Altos, and Cupertino had nothing besides a bar and gas station. I think Loyola Corners is now part of Los Altos, and it would have the closest post office. ================================================================================ Bill Jacobs' response to Fr. Deasy Maryknoll, Mt. View From: Bill Jacobs To: Deasy, Wayman CC: Curtin, Dan ; Ray.Voith@Sun.COM Sent: Sat Dec 31 08:34:56 2005 Subject: Re: Maryknoll, Mt. View Hello Father, We would also troop down to Loyola Corners for a few hours of freedom and an ice cream cone. Also, frequently went up to Stevens Creek Dam and once or twice a year up to Black Mountain via Stevens Creek and returning by way of Permanente. Oddly enough, the fellow I would go out on these adventures with is joining a group of ours on a mountain climbing expedition in Utah. Have not seen him in 40 years. Another former Mt Viewer is coming along. The entrance "Torii" was gone when we were there, 1957 - 61. Do remember seeing it on a visit around 1955/56. Father, thanks for your quick response and Happy New Year to you. ================================================================================ Wayman Deasy wrote on 01/10/06 11:52: To those of us who are used to "Mountain View", the change to Los Altos comes as a shock. There is a reason for it, of course, because the postal address is now Los Altos. The actual branch post office is in the vicinity of what we used to call Loyola Corners. There might come the day when the reference is to Cupertino. Dan Curtin dealt with Cupertino when he handled the land deal for the diocese of San Jose. After the earthquake that necessitated getting rid of the water tank in the Maryknoll tower, the water was piped in from Cupertino. As Dan discovered for us recently the Maryknoll property is actually in an unincorporated part of the county, but within the sphere of influence of Cupertino. I think this means that Cupertino has the right to expand into this area and annex it, but Dan can speak to that. ================================================================================ Dan Curtin "Curtin, Dan" who really knows what the property story is recently wrote the following during one of our group discussions: Wayman is correct. Maryknoll property is in the unincorporated area of the County of Santa Clara but legally within the sphere of influence of the City of Cupertino, and therefore only that City can annex it pursuant to state annexation laws. PS to earlier email re boundaries and political jurisdiction: The old St Joe's site and all of its surrounding property is in the City of Cupertino. Much of that has homes on it. That sale and development was part of the lengthy litigation between Diocese and City of Cupertino some years back. Bishop DuMaine wanted more dense zoning and the City put it into very low density with lots of open space thus reducing value of property and preventing sale to developers. The Diocese was then in serious debt. We filed a lawsuit and eventually got what the Bishop wanted to help reduce debt. He had counted on this for some years since under canon law that property so to speak was part of dowry to assist new diocese when it split from SF after Mitty died. It got very complicated. But in end Diocese got money and the property was developed. Maybe fewer homes and more open space would have been better planning but the Diocese was in heavy debt at that time mainly due to rebuilding old St Joseph’s, then a Jesuit church in center of San Jose, into a restored Cathedral which has won many architectural awards. ===================================================================== Wayman wrote: Vince (Boyle), an ex-Mt. Viewer was a year ahead of me as a Maryknoll student. He left after first year college. After service in the navy he went to USF where he backed up Bill Russell during the USF glory days in basketball. He turned down going into coaching and was a high school counselor in Marin County until he retired. He came upon the postcard in the effects of a priest who was his wife's uncle, a Fr. Shea who taught at St. Joseph's, and/or St. Pat's for a number of years. At any rate, he (Vince, or Shea?) kept everything, books, copies of the Patrician and pictures. The group gets together every year for a reunion (that includes wives) and is organized by Dan Curtin. I missed the last gathering in March, but Roger Kuhn made it from Albuquerque. In the past Roger Kuhn suggested sending you pictures so that Mt. View could be added to your site along with Maryknoll and the Venard. I don't think anything came of it, but now might be the time to try again. Maybe Vince has pix ^^^^^ Personally I don't have any pictures. Any I got from others have been sent to the archives. P.S. Torii as an entrance is spelled with two i's, no doubt to distinguish it from Tori Amos or Tori Spelling. Dan and I were there from 1946 till 1952. ================================================================================ Vince Boyle Vboyle2000@aol.com wrote: ygp8e.jpg = LosAltos-gang-2001.jpg Heynen-Bell-Curtin-Erlach-Lum-Reilly-Matsudaira-Boyle-Lippert-Hoffman?-Foster This was at the 75th anniversary of the opening of Los Altos. Some of these folks appear in Roger's earlier pictures. If this works I will send on some others. Los Altos/Mt. View I sent some of them on to you already that you have posted from Jim Pruss. There was a mention of the Torii gate. I am sending that on to you. Sem is way in the background. I am including another picture of some of the bunch. Thanks for all the work you are doing. I just looked at the Novitiate site and came across the picture of Ed Richardson, my classmate out West. I used to correspond with him in Korea before he died. Had a wicked fastball in baseball. I still have a copy of his master's thesis that he sent to me many years ago. On my computer that crashed I have some pictures of our performance of the Mikado- I sent you the program from Pinafore that you have posted. When my son comes over and transfers the material from my old crashed computer to the new, I will send them on. Thanks again. Vince ================================================================================ Ron Byrnes (cambuse@aol.com) wrote: The Los Altos shots were interesting. I remember some of the students listed: Anzai ( who always reminded us that his non-Christian name was Hisao!) and Wayman Deasy. I spent 2 summers at Mountain View when Mk got "slave labor" from us during our 2nd and 3rd years of college. During a paint job I fell out of a window I was painting and ended up in the hospital at San Jose with a concussion. My companions visited me (Bonpane, Braza et alii) and stunk my room up with cigar smoke upsetting the nuns and making me sick. Ah...those were the days. later email: Los Altos and Mountain View are one and the same. The school was located in Mountain View, Calif. I understand a freeway runs through it now. At the bottom of the hill from the seminary was another facility. I can't recall its name but when I was through working for the day, I used to walk down that hill and enter into some type of classroom where a record collection and record player were contained. They had a large selection of Caedmon Records which recorded most of the Shakespeare plays. I would spend hours listening to them. ================================================================================