Fillmore : Arundell Memorial Service Is Today

A memorial service will be held today for Arthur D. Arundell, manager of the Fillmore Library for 28 years and a member of a pioneer family. He was 70.

The service at Skillin-Carrol mortuary on Central Avenue begins at 10 a.m.

Arundell was born in Fillmore on Oct. 16, 1920, and attended local schools. He earned a bachelor’s degree at Santa Barbara State College and a master’s at Princeton University. After enlisting in the U.S. Army, he was stationed in the Middle East during World War II.

Arundell began working at the Fillmore branch of the Ventura County Library in 1959 and retired in 1987.

“He was the library,” said Betty Cook, branch manager since 1988. “In many ways he still is.”

Arundell was instrumental in producing a book for Fillmore’s centennial in 1988, said Dorothy Haase, curator of the Fillmore Historical Museum. He was “a fantastic editor and source of information. Anything I wanted to know, I’d ask Art.”

Since his retirement, she said, he spent many Monday mornings helping her identify historic photographs in the museum’s collection. The Arundell family homesteaded above Pole Creek north of Fillmore in the 1880s, and a number of family heirlooms are displayed in the museum.

Arundell is survived by his sisters, Nadine Graham of Fillmore and Ina (Tiny) Whaley of Ventura; brothers Donald of Clayton and Glenn E. of Fillmore; and a niece, Judy, and nephew, Jim, also of Fillmore.