Written by Michael Shannon

It was Elsie’s bus. Not the old pickup she and Evelyn Fernamburg drove to little Branch school. No, it was the second one, the yellow one the County Office of Education fobbed off on us after it was no longer needed by Atascadero. You don’t need a very big one when there are less than 60 kids in school and many walk or are delivered by their moms and dads.

Elsie parked the bus in her front yard which was just across the valley from the little school house. I guess she washed it now and then but mostly it looked like the farmers pickups, dusty in the spring and fall, muddy in the winter time. She drove the route which was just a circle around the upper valley, picking up the kids who walked down from Corralitos Canyon to the intersection with the road up to the Routzhans, Thompsons and the other old ranches in the foothills of the Santa Lucia. She’d head down to the Gulartes to pick up Judy and Dickie, back to Squeaky’s house then cross the old Harris bridge to grab the Gregory boys, Bruce and Jim, next; Billy Perry then the four corners, hang a right and head out to Newsom Springs to get Jimmy Genovini, the Hubbles and the Hunts. On the way back it was out Huasna road for Dennis Mineau, the Domingo’s, past Frank Branches old victorian house to the Coehlo’s, and Berguias. She turned her around in Al and Emma’s driveway, a pretty upscale word to describe a muddy dirty road filled with petrified ruts. The Coehlo boys, Al, David and Richard were the last to board on Huasna Road. A common thing for most of us, no asphalt anywhere. Maybe gravel if your dad had had a good year. On the way back a right turn up Alisos Canyon road, it had no name then, it was just the road to Jinks Machado’s ranch. We’d pick up the Silva kids then roll back to school.

Only the Gregorys and the Mineaus lived in houses you might consider modern. Nearly every other family lived in older wooden houses built around the turn of the twentieth century or earlier. The Branch houses, there were five existing at the time, were either Victorian or earlier adobes built before California was a state. Standards of wealth were different then, no family would have been considered rich and some were pretty poor. Descendants of the original Ranchero families owned vast tracts of land but had little money, the land poor as they were described. These were  some boys who wore the same clothes to school for days at a time and were lucky to have a single pair of shoes. Many came to school hungry and Mrs. Brown had to keep a close eye on the paste jars. I guess we were somewhere in the middle but those things are something we didn’t really notice as kids. Our shared experience was the school itself where we were all equal. No one was picked on because they didn’t have. It’s been a good life lesson for all of us.

Our bus driver, Elsie Cecchetti was a woman of many talents. She wheeled that little bus around twice a day and being a pragmatic farm wife did things like roll the bus to a stop in the middle of the road, hop out and pick up the odd head of Celery or Romain lettuce that had fallen off a farm truck on the way to market. She didn’t get paid much. The census listed her as a farm helper which meant in census speak, a wife. In 1950 her income was listed as zero. Supplemental vegetables were fine, just dust “em off and throw them in the pot.

Elsie in retirement mode.

The kids all liked her because she was so nice. No troubles on her bus because no student wanted to cause her any grief, besides she knew your parents well enough to call them by their first names.

In the second half of the twentieth century the state of California was just a hundred years old and different from eastern cities and towns where ethnic peoples tended to cluster. Out here immigrants came from everywhere. Our bus carried the children of families who had come from Ilocanos province, Phillipines, Argentina. Switzerland, The Azores Islands, Ireland, Wales, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan and even descendants of those soldados who had walked here with the padres who built the missions. We had one family who were of the first nations that predated everyone. Funny thing is, as kids we weren’t concerned with any of that. Our fathers were mostly farmers, our mother kept house and raised children and we accepted each other without complaint.

Elsie herself was the daughter of an immigrant, Jao Azevedo who was born in the Azores Islands in 1894 and came to America in 1910 as a sixteen year old who spoke no English and could neither read nor write. When she was born in 1922, he was living and farming on what has come to be called Cecchetti Road on the old Corral de Piedra Rancho.

Perhaps her most impressive and greatest moment came by way of Jeanette Coehlo. Kids passed around chicken pox, the mumps or the flu every winter. The bus could be a petri dish of bugs. One bright sunny morning we were passing the Perry’s house headed for Gregorys just opposite the old Harris place for which the bridge was named. The Harrises were grandparents to the three Hart kids who lived in town but were well known to us. Small town life there. Everyone knows everyone personally or by reputation. Anyway, since its less than a hundred yards from Perrys to Gregory we were moving slowly when Jeanette, sitting up front suddenly made a sound like “Urp,” did it again then heaved her entire, half digested breakfast all over the rubber floor and the opposite seat.

Jeanette (Shannon Family Collection)

Because it was a cool day all the windows were up, no draft you see and the other dozen or so kids seated around the bus were almost instantly confronted with a wave of nauseous, richly scented, miasmatic and, I swear, greenish cloud of a vapor guaranteed to trigger a sympathetic response from one and all. Like an wave it surged toward the back of the bus with a vengeance. The older boys, as is the custom, sitting in the “Cool” seats in the rear leaped for the windows, slammed them down and stuck their heads out as far as they could. We must have looked like an old circus wagon with all the animals sticking their heads out the side.

Ever the mother, Elsie just opened the door and drove on down to her friend Mary Gulartes house, turned onto the dirt road to the house and pulled to a stop.

“Every body Off, ” She ordered.

All the kids quickly walked down the aisle, shoes slipping in the slush,  some still dribbling vomit down their chins, some holding their noses as tight as they could, mouths tightly closed, they jumped down and quickly got away from the reeking little truck. Elsie calmly opened the back door and found the Gularte’s garden hose alongside the house and began sluicing sheets of water across the floor and spraying any seat that was dirty. Mary helped her with some old burlap sacks and they wiped her down. Mrs Gularte  then went to the back porch and into the kitchen where she loaded up a plate with homemade cookies. When she came back out the hose was being passed around as kids washed off their shoes and took a swallow or two of water to rinse away the bad taste.

Cookies were gobbled right down, Elsie shooed the kids back on the bus, said goodbye and thanks to Mary, whipped the little bus around, out the driveway and we continued back to pick up the Gregory’s and finished the route.

It was luck all around. The kids who missed the excitement considered themselves fortunate. The veterans felt superior. Just another day in a little rural school where things like this were taken pretty much in stride by all. Farm kids in the fifties had animals; horses, cattle, chickens, scads of dogs and cats so they tended to be not so finicky. We knew we were superior to the town kids. Always.

The writer, Michael Shannon is a veteran of that bus ride. Elsie was a fixture of his life growing up and like many folks misses her terribly. She was absolutely one of a kind.

Reprinted below is her Obituary.

Elsie M. Cecchetti
March 16, 1922 – March 11, 2021
Arroyo Grande, California – Elsie M. Cecchetti, 98 was a native of Arroyo Grande, CA and passed away on March 11, 2021; just 5 days shy of her 99th birthday. She was born on March 16, 1922, on the Carroll Ranch in Edna, to the late John (Jao) and Mary Azevedo. She was the oldest of four children and started out milking cows at the age of 5 until she was 15. She would deliver the milk in a wagon to the creamery in town.
Elsie worked at numerous dairies to buy her school clothes. When attending Arroyo Grande Schools, she only spoke Portuguese, but taught herself English. She graduated from Arroyo Grande High School when it was at the top of Crown Hill in 1943. In her early career she worked various jobs harvesting crops, was a plane spotter and switchboard operator during World War II.
Elsie worked on the Cecchetti Ranch picking beans, where she met the love of her life, George Cecchetti. George and Elsie were married in Arroyo Grande on September 15, 1945. They enjoyed dancing on Saturday nights at the Portuguese Hall, along with their love of Square Dancing together, and were members of the Hill Toppers, Dave’s Pairs ‘N’ Harmony and Mesa Twirlers clubs for many years. Their favorite vacation was camping at Bass Lake with their children, grandchildren, family and friends, especially during the 4th of July. They enjoyed fishing the creeks throughout the Sierra National Forest, Bass Lake loop with their kids and grandkids. They spent 47 wonderful years together.
In 1957, Elsie became a school bus driver although not driving a bus, but a 1957 yellow Ford pickup which included a canvas-covered camper shell and bench seats in the bed. She drove the pickup for 2 ½ years until the CHP said it couldn’t be used for a bus. So, Branch School bought a 22-seat bus, which she taught herself to drive.
In 1960 Branch School became part of Lucia Mar Unified School district and she began driving larger buses. She continued “driving a Crown” until retiring in 1993.
Elsie was honored to be the Grand Marshall for the Arroyo Grande Valley Harvest Festival in 2016. She was a longtime member of Luso-American Fraternal Federation (since 1946), I.D.E.S., Director of Arroyo Grande Hall Association, Cabrillo Civic Club, S.E.S., Historical Society, C.S.E.A., C.G.C., Farm Bureau Association, and a member of the St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. She was recognized as an Honorary member of both the Arroyo Grande FFA and Arroyo Grande Sportsman Club.
Elsie was a long-time coordinator for the Portuguese Celebrations. Not only did she organize, but you would also see her carrying the flags plus marching right alongside the queens and their courts.
You could say she WAS the Portuguese celebration!
Elsie loved tending to her garden, canning the fruits of her labor and raising her cows and chickens. She adored her dog Shiloh, who she called her companion. She loved her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, along with numerous close friends whom she treated like family.
Elsie is survived by her four children: George (Tukie) and Linda, Marleen (Cecchetti) Freire, Melvin and Gayle, Judy Cecchetti; grandchildren, JR Cecchetti, Erica (Freire) and Chad Correia, Alisa Cecchetti; great-grandchildren, Bryce Hatfield, CJ Correia, and Jackson Correia.
She is also survived by sister Lena Hugger, sister-in-law Gerrie Quaresma and numerous nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her husband George Cecchetti, her parents John and Mary Azevedo and son-in-law Eddie Freire.
The family would like to extend their gratitude for her many caregivers who loved and cared for her these past few years.