Contributed photograph The house at 156 Loma Alta (right), pictured circa 1930, was built in 1890 and was the original Ming Quong house.

My wife and I own a house at 156 Loma Alta. Week after week we read stories about historical houses in the area. We wanted to let you know that our house is rich in history as well.

Our house was built in 1890 and was the original Ming Quong house. We know this because a person from EMQ Children & Family Services at the top of Loma Alta came by one day and gave us a picture of our house from the 1930s and a passage in a book that referred to our house as the "Sunshine Cottage" for illegitimate children.

After the Ming Quong left, our house remained an orphanage for many years. In addition, people have stopped by to take pictures of our house and have knocked on our door stating that they were raised here.

We took great care in restoring our house to its 1930's condition.

—Karen and Paul Jensen, Los Gatos


Neighborhood story brings back memories

The Johnson neighborhood story (Nov. 20, "Spotlight on Los Gatos Neighborhoods" in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times) sure got the memories flowing. We moved to 156 Loma Alta Ave. on Jan. 4, 1939, when I was in the fourth grade.

The residents were just as wonderful then as they are now. I remember well Bill Goehner, who lived just down the street, while a relative (Gus Goehner) lived farther up the street. On the Fourth of July, Gus would fire a cannon into the hillside behind his home.

My parents bought the house with the big cobblestone wall for $1,500. It had been the Ming Quong home for Chinese girls.

One thing has always puzzled me. On at least three occasions, several years apart—from 1940 to 1965—strangers would suddenly appear. While we enjoyed a barbecue in the backyard, strangers would climb the steps from Loma Alta, walk past our barbecue table, smile and say hello and keep going across the alley and through the vacant lot behind us and on to Johnson Avenue. When a home was built on the lot and it was fenced off, still they came. What surprises me is that they had to climb stairs and walk though a sloping backyard to reach their destination, when Reidhead Lane between Loma Alta and Johnson Avenue was next door.

As kids we used to play touch football on Johnson Avenue (Benny Pierce was one of us) and baseball on a vacant lot on Loma Alta between the homes of Leonard McKay and Nello Falaschi's family.

—George Chrisman Jr., Phoenix, Ariz


Water company plan could impact town

The San Jose Water Company plan that has been approved by the planning department and will be considered at the Dec. 11 planning commission meeting needs to look at the impact on the neighborhood and town before it moves ahead. There are many issues with the proposal.

Filling the reservoir and creating four building lots requires 25,000 yards of dirt to be hauled through Los Gatos. This means 4,400 16-wheel truck trips of dirt going up and down roads only 16 feet wide.

Creating four lots will require the removal of 53 trees—44 percent of existing trees, some more than 100 years old.

The reservoir had served a significant purpose as a backup source of water for fire protection. The neighborhood currently suffers from a lack of water pressure and water volume. The proposal provides a Band-Aid solution that addresses water service for the four lots but leaves the rest of the area exposed.

The project is not proposed as an entity. It is offered as a two-part scheme: removal and filling of the reservoir and then the construction of the houses on the site. Too many of the risks (e.g., road repair, tree removal) are left to be addressed in the second phase. This could very well be a case of letting the camel's nose into the tent only to find he ends up with the tent. In short, promises made to get this project started could be excused later to get it completed so as to avoid the town being left with a hole in the ground.

The current proposal will wreak havoc on the neighborhood and town but add little or no value to the community.

—Suzanne Cochran, Los Gatos


Monte Sereno gives Aerts another victory

The Monte Sereno City Council gave Alan Aerts another victory on Nov. 19 by declining to pursue any new city ordinances to regulate holiday displays. This was the easy, popular choice, given the themes of holiday spirit, homeowners' rights and less bureaucracy that were expressed by many Aerts supporters at the meeting. What is sacrificed by this outcome, however, is the right of Aerts' immediate neighbors to have any say in the lifestyle changes being imposed upon them.

While Councilmember Barbara Nesbet warned the Aertses to work things out with their neighbors, there is no way to enforce this admonition.

Ignoring the impact on the neighbors is unfair. I doubt that anyone who drove by the display could possibly imagine the impact the display has on the immediate neighbors, who must endure this "minor inconvenience" day and night. This is truly a case of "walk a mile in my shoes" before calling these people Grinches. Even if many people really wouldn't mind living next door, is it that hard to understand why someone else would find it extremely annoying? Regardless of one's "holiday spirit," there are people for whom the visual assault and the constant light, noise and traffic is unbearable.

Is it fair that the only course of action for these people is to sell their homes and move? Obviously there would be no problem if all four homeowners on the cul-de-sac had the same taste in holiday decorations. Maybe that is what will happen by default—anyone selling on this street will have to disclose the nuisance factor of the display, so only people untroubled by it will buy a home there. Then the entire cul-de-sac can create a display worthy of the recent DeCinzo cartoon!

—Robert C. Hausen, Monte Sereno


New 'best of' category win for DeCinzo

Here's a new category for the annual "Best of Los Gatos" competition: Best Job Security Based on Readily Available and Seemingly Inexhaustible Supply of Material. Hands down winner: the position at the Los Gatos Weekly­Times held by Steven DeCinzo.

The article on Van Meter School and DeCinzo's accompanying cartoon was definitive affirmation that I am living the American dream. I live in a town where parents have the luxury of wringing their hands over one-in-a-million, six-degrees-of-separation scenarios. A mother in Los Gatos can lie awake at night worrying that her vote for a school bond issue may place her child in danger because the presence of meshed fences, site supervisors and a whole squadron of parent volunteers may still not be an adequate barrier between her kid and a construction worker.

Where I grew up, the local 7-Eleven went out of business after its umpteenth robbery but reopened under new management as the "Armar-Willow Mortuary." At school, the girls' bathroom was claimed as the turf of 12-year-old girls tough enough to scare the average adult male in Silicon Valley. Those with legitimate need of facilities went to the nurse's office. My personal strategy was to limit my fluid intake and hold it until I got home.

As a parent, I am pleased with the security at Van Meter and doubt the proposed Department of Homeland Defense could do a better job. Last week, I dropped off lunch for my son. Though I fit DeCinzo's profile of a white, affluent housewife bearing a Round Table Pizza box, I am swooped into the office by a parent volunteer wearing a fluorescent green vest within, literally, 30 seconds of stepping onto school property. Maybe the red flag is that I am obviously not on a perpetual diet.

At any rate, woe be to the construction worker that would dare venture onto the wrong side of the fence, and imagine the stampede to call 911 if said worker actually spoke to a kid!

One last thought. Mothers need not be offended by DeCinzo's "Culture of Fear" cartoon. The woman pushing the twins in the double stroller was probably an au pair!

—Terri L. Brummitt, Los Gatos