North County Parcel Donated to Reserve : Woman Preserves Last Acres for Animals

Here in the heart of North County, where the development gold rush grows more furious each day and the bulldozer has replaced the bobcat as the dominant creature in the hills, 84-year-old Ida Dawson is ever so quietly taking a stand.

Through the years, Dawson, whose family once owned more than 13,000 acres between Vista and the sea, has watched hunters whittle down the population of bald eagles that once nested on her land and kill off the deer that once scampered through her garden.

She has seen trailer parks, subdivisions and industrial plants sprout on 90% of her family’s acreage, sold off gradually as property taxes and living expenses soared. And she has watched newcomers stream steadily into North County, inching ever closer to her century-old homestead, forever altering the rural ambiance of the region.

A confirmed pragmatist, Dawson admits one can’t stop growth. Still, she reasons, one can--and should--protect at least a whisper of land from the bulldozer’s blade, preserving it in a natural state for the benefit of future generations.

“Growth is inevitable--people have to live somewhere,” said Dawson, a small, silver-haired woman with chestnut-brown eyes and a smile that seems to warm an entire room. “But seeing all the change has made me something of an environmentalist over the years, and I feel it’s important to save a bit of countryside.”

To that end, Dawson has donated 157 acres, more than half of her remaining land and a parcel worth more than $1 million, to the University of California’s Natural Reserve System. The program, established by the UC Board of Regents 20 years ago, works to maintain and preserve a series of “outdoor laboratories” throughout the state that are representative of California’s natural habitats, director Roger Samuelson said.

There are 26 reserves in the state--five in San Diego County--ranging from 15-acre pockets to desert pieces spanning several thousand acres. Generally off-limits to the public, the properties are used as study sites for students from UC campuses and other colleges.

“These sites are really invaluable to our state and society because much of the research conducted there has long-term effects in terms of possible health remedies and in understanding the very foundation of human life,” Samuelson said. “Our concern has been that unless we acquire and preserve these lands in a natural state, the opportunities to learn more about the laws of nature will be lost for all time.”

Ida Dawson’s donation--a valley that unfolds below her home near the point where Carlsbad, Oceanside and Vista converge--is a “stunning site that is a model for our program,” Samuelson said. “Because of the rapid development in the northern San Diego area, the Dawson site for me is the most dramatic example of why we need the reserve system.”

The drive into Dawson’s hidden valley provides no clues to the treat that lies ahead. Acres of dusty land sit newly graded and ready to host tract homes, a business park and other developments.

The valley is a boulder-studded oasis of green and gold framed by oak and sycamore trees and divided by Agua Hedionda Creek, which flows westward into the lagoon of the same name year-round. Standing like sentries on either side of the pocket of wilderness are Mt. Marron and Mt. Hinton; to the north and northeast are two canyons that today are Dawson’s only windows to civilization.

Perched on a hillside overlooking the valley is a modest green house, Dawson’s childhood home. An old brown barn built in the same era still stands nearby, and Dawson’s grandson lives in a mobile home up the hill. The ranch foreman resides in an old bus down the road.

A few horses, nibbling at green grass under the willow trees that border the creek, complete the scene.

The setting may be idyllic, but Dawson’s life in the 1980s is not without its rude intrusions. Most disturbing, the widow said, are off-road vehicle enthusiasts whose machines tear up the tender earth and shatter the calm of the valley.

The roar of mighty speedster engines from nearby Carlsbad Raceway also drifts over hilltops and into Dawson’s home, and planes approaching Palomar Airport routinely pass overhead.

“The motorcycles, the planes and the race cars have made me nearly deaf,” Dawson said, “although I suppose old age might have something to do with that, too.”

Other signs of urbanization abound.

Piles of trash mingle with the native coastal sage scrub that lines the dirt roadway leading to the Dawson place, and joggers, picnickers and late-night party goers increasingly frequent her land. About a year ago, the first street lights appeared on the northern horizon, and construction of a new high school and a massive subdivision are now within view.

“I am discouraged by the smog--the oak trees show it--and by what goes on upstream,” said Dawson, who goes to bed early and closes her curtains to escape the distant glow of the street lights. “And then there’s all the trash and oil and petroleum products on the parking lots that wash down the creek.”

A woman who moves with hasty determination despite severe arthritis, Dawson has deep roots in North County. The story is tied to her land.

Like much of Southern California’s territory, Dawson’s property was part of a Mexican land grant. In 1842, she said, the new Mexican governor of California gave the 13,323 acres stretching roughly from Buena Vista Lagoon south to Palomar Airport Road and inland to Vista to a man known as Juan Maria Marron.

Marron, a sea captain from Chile, died soon after, and his widow, who needed money, put the land up as collateral when she borrowed $6,000. She defaulted on the loan and the vast acreage became the property of Frances Hinton.

Hinton built a successful cattle operation on the property. His assistant was Robert Kelly, Dawson’s great-uncle, who inherited the land when Hinton died. Eventually, the property was passed to Dawson’s grandfather, Matthew Kelly, who divided it among his nine children.

“My mother, Mary Emma Kelly, got the largest piece--1,600 acres--but it was far from the railroad and everything else and considered poor quality,” Dawson recalled. Dawson’s mother married Hamilton Monroe Squires, who added 1,000 acres to the family holding.

On June 3, 1901, Ida came into the world, nearly dying during a difficult birth that left her with little strength or dexterity in her arms. Dawson spent her early years on the farm, but the family moved to Escondido when she was 8 so the children could enroll in school. She went on to what was then called San Diego State College and, somewhat reluctantly, earned her teaching credential.

“I resisted, because there were other things I wanted to study,” Dawson said. “But back then, and in my family, women became teachers.”

She later went on to Stanford, earning a degree in psychology, and wound up teaching school in Seattle. Dawson and her husband, Clarence, who died last year, returned to the Vista farm in 1944 and began raising calves for veal on the property.

“I didn’t know much about the business, and Clarence knew even less,” Dawson said. “He once shocked the vet by revealing he didn’t know the difference between a heifer and a Hereford.”

But gradually, she learned--Clarence never did, she said--and built a modest herd. It never paid too handsomely, however, and in 1953, times got tough.

“We were very poor, and I fell too far in debt to the vet and the hay people,” Dawson recalled. “One daughter had to come home from UC Davis and get a job. My other daughter was a senior in high school, and I couldn’t afford to buy her a senior ring or any nice dresses. My linen and underclothes were in rags.”

The family had no choice. It was time to sell off a piece of their land. Dawson got $75 an acre for the first parcel she sold, a 1,000-acre chunk that was later developed into Leisure Village, an Oceanside retirement community.

After that, land sales came every several years, and the price per acre rose. Today only 118 acres remain, plus a 120-acre piece owned by her daughters. When she dies, Dawson plans to leave still more land to the university reserve program, making her total donation over 200 acres.

“I figure the 200 acres will be enough for the coyotes,” Dawson said. “The bobcats won’t make it, but the coyotes should.”

Although she grows wistful when discussing the extinction of eagles and deer at the hands of poachers, Dawson, whose reading list includes Science News and Common Cause magazines, is not one to mourn for the past and criticize the sins of the present.

“You have to accept change,” she said recently as the whir of an earthmover’s engine crept into her valley. “Fortunately, I have enough land that I’m in the open and not choking on too many people.

“But if I were suddenly living on one acre surrounded by apartments? That would be difficult indeed.”