Local Residents — Past and Present — Relate the History of Wynola
PART I By Jim Evans

Katie Manning doesn’t live in Wynola anymore, but she and her husband George still get back there “every once in a while” for a visit. The Mannings lived in Wynola just from 1982 to 1987 but contributed to the history of the area during that time — and walked away with a lifetime of personal memories.

They rented a house and a store from Hal Broda on the corner of Highway 78/79 and Wynola Road. “Hal bought the property from Chuck Villinek — probably in the early ’70s,” recalled Katie, “and Norman Kanoff eventually bought the property from Hal around 1984.”

“Chuck and Betty Villinek planted the lilacs beside the house,” she said, “and sold them in the fruit stand the same as we did years later. We would walk out to the garden with customers and dig up parts of the plants for them to take home.”

“That darn house,” as Katie described it, formerly was part of the Wynola Cabins and was “as cold inside as it was outside.”

“I always said it was probably insulated with 1910 newspaper wadded up in the walls,” she said. “You could see daylight between the top of the walls and the ceiling.”

The Mannings’ rental agreement with Broda included a most unusual proviso: It required them to take care of his Great Dane, Brooke, who lived in the icehouse behind their cabin.

“We were to feed her on Mondays and Tuesdays or whenever the Chicken Shack (across Wynola Road) was closed,” Katie said. “(Brooke) would wander over to (the Chicken Shack) for handouts the rest of the week. It was not the most conventional of rental agreements, but it worked.”

The old wooden water tower behind the house had to be kept full or the wood would dry out and not hold water anymore.

“The water tower was filled from a pump in the field behind the store, and the only way to tell if it was full was when it overflowed and gushed down on the rocks,” Katie said. “Then we would go out to the field and turn off the switch at the power pole.”

NEXT MONTH: Katie Manning reminisces about Stoney Oak Farm.

Readers are encouraged to send their memories of Wynola to the Julian Journal, P.O. Box 1318, Julian, CA 92036, or e-mail to julianjournal@pacbell.net.