Helendale, California

Helendale
Area Map
Helendale Schools
Silver Lakes

Helendale History

Keepsake vol One
Keepsake vol Two

  1. Inner cover page,
  2. School District
  3. Helen Becomes Helendale - 1918
  4. Helendale Teacherage
  5. Songs written for Helendale
  6. About the Fifth Annual Helendale Rendezvous
  7. Schedule of events -
  8. Self Guided tour
  9. An Old Landmark
  10. Life As A Boy In Lenwood, California
  11. Jack Gaffney Crew Chief, Nose Artist
  12. Growing Up On The Desert
  13. Life On The Desert As I Remember It
  14. Orebaugh Biography,
  15. Buzz Banks
  16. Eva Von Dettum Helendales Poetess
  17. Old Number 8
  18. Airplanes That Sailed Over The Victor Valley Skies In The Past
  19. Brief History of George Air Force Base
  20. Unsung Heroes
    21.

 

Route 66 Communities
in California

 

Keepsake vol Two

EVA VON DETTUM

 

EVA VON DETTUM
HELENDALE'S POETESS

George and Eva Von Dettum came to the desert in the 1930's.  They
bought acreage adjoining Sage Brush Annie who had been their
friend and neighbor in Anaheim, Calif.  George made wooden molds
and they began pouring cement until they had enough blocks to
begin their buildings.

George passed away in the '40's' but by then Eva, or Minnie
as she was affectionately called by her friends, had grown to
love the desert and decided this is where she would spend the
rest of her life.

She saw beauty in everything and a tumble weed bouncing over
the sage would send her scurrying for a pad and pencil.  In her
ceaseless search for beauty and inspiration, old age finally quit
knocking at her door and she remained young at heart and mind her
entire life. She never wore glasses and could hear the proverbial
pin drop. Walking two miles to the Gables in Helendale for
groceries in the heat of the day was routine. Probably By the
time she returned ladened with her weekly supply of food, another
poem was given life. Her poems were published all over the west,
including the Denver Post.

Well into Her 90's she finally put away the stub of pencil,
closed her eyes and went off to join her beloved husband. She
probably knew exactly where to find him as her poetic mind had
taken her there many times before.

In the old days many people living ih Helendale would put their
mail boxes on the east side of old history 66. That would give
them a morning mail delivery from Oro Grande. If they used their
Helendale address. The mail wouldn't arrive until afternoon. This
is why Eva had an Oro Grande address.


Gifts From
             The Mojave

    I was given the sky and count less stars;
         In transcendent beauty the mountains rose;
     I saw the wasteland without it's scars,
       In protective beauty, ther re pose.
      Urges stirred in the sand-drift tiers
           Stirred, and drifted along;
       And the heart of Mojave attuned to the spheres,
          Pulsed with music and a song.

           Eva Von Dettum
             Oro Grande


          OLD TRAIL HERDER

      Sometimes for him in the purple haze
     A little trail-dust old memories raise:
     And the silences of all the hills are his until...
        High dust tapers beyond the hill,
           And cannot halt its coming
      While lost in the spell of hoof beats strumming;
         Yet, knowing it is only a brief dust-plume
         Blue distance has woven on Evening's loom.

           Eva Von Dettum
             Oro Grande


            Waning Beauty

      In the desert, now the waning beauty
        Turns suddenly...wan
          Like the ash of a dying ember
         In the fire of dawn
         Yet, the sanddrift there along
           The quiet ways, drifts on;
           The evening lark has a song
          And the home dove... a love.

           Eva Von Dettum
             Oro Grande



           Desert Pattern

         O, Mojave, gather the twilight
       And weave me a pattern,
          Traced with slow whispers and
      the yuccas' white petals,
         A handful of secrets, and a few
           desert candles,
        Then weave it to last as long...
           as I love you.

           Eva Von Dettum
             Oro Grande



            Mojave Night

       Wait and drink from the chalice of silence the
        Mystic Wine of Night
        The vastness is bathed in the gracious light
         Of eternal spheres.
      It is as though in the tide of Time the sky hears
    Neither the swift nor the slow flowing...
       But is held in the silent beauty of immensity.
           Wait, and drink the Wine of
           Night, with me.

           Eva Von Detton
             Oro Grande



             Mystic Lure

          I've seen the desert when the
          grass grew tall,
    Its silence reached out across the waste,
     And every sound exccpt Time's footfall
          The silence of grass effaced.

     I've seen the yucca in clusters bloom,
         Leaves sharp as dagger points;
         And the swirling temper of a lone dudtplume
         As it scuffed a scrub-oak's knotty joints.

     And with every far, glowing back drop,
        Sand and stone and signing hill,
        With every shining mountain top.
           The desert, lures me still.

           Eva Von Dettum
             Oro Grande



            Echo Mountain
            _

       In desert fastness I see you flare;
    and yet sometimes I tell myself at night,
        it is mere mist-shroud by the coyote's lair,
       Or Joshuas, or yuccas' candlelight.

         For when I lean to touch sagescented sand,
        or stoop to hush the whispers of wild holly,
    I have but wind-swept echoes in my hand,
     and for my efforts, only desert folly!

           Eva Von Dettum
             Oro Grande

 

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