Linda Menary, 61; Her Barnyard in Reseda Evoked Valley’s Ranch Past
The sliver of the San Fernando Valley that was Linda Menary’s animal kingdom is an anachronism, a hint of the area’s agrarian past.
For decades, the suburban barnyard in Reseda she called The Farm introduced city kids to pony rides and petting zoos with such animals as Margaret, a yak many mistook for a buffalo, and an ostrich named Monster, who flirted over the fence with the traffic on Tampa Avenue.
Menary, who reveled in instilling rural values in the young people who toiled beside her, died May 1 of a heart attack as she was driving to Bakersfield for a horse auction, friends said. She was 61.
“She figured she was the last hope to keep the ranch lifestyle alive in the Valley,” said Alexandra Gravani, 28, who began volunteering at the pony ride when she was 11. “What Linda has given the community is priceless.”
Maintaining the 80-animal menagerie that included lambs and emus was a financial and personal struggle.
Menary often battled city zoning and animal control officers over such issues as operating a business in a residential zone or the number of animals allowed on the property.
She considered herself one of the last rural holdouts in a booming metropolis and toyed with closing the animal emporium that she had started building after moving to the Valley in 1961. But she had a commitment to keep.
“We should leave it a farm,” Menary, who lived in Chatsworth, told The Times in 2000. “It’s something for the children.”
Though the future of the property at Tampa and Lanark Street is uncertain, Gravani, her sister Vanessa and other friends say they are going to try to keep a pony ride open in Menary’s memory.
Menary was born May 6, 1944, in Montreal and grew up on a farm near Toronto with a brother, who survives her. Her husband, Allen Feamster, who also ran a pony ride, died in 1981.
After moving to Southern California, Menary brought her pony, Butterscotch, to Venice High School for a project on her favorite thing.
She also worked with celebrity clients at a Culver City stable. One of her duties was to ride with Lana Turner’s daughter, Cheryl Crane, to help thwart kidnapping attempts, Menary told The Times in 1986. Comedian Red Skelton later gave her one of his two mustangs.
When her parents died in a plane crash when she was 17, Menary took her pony into the city and offered children rides for pennies. A passerby said he would pay her $5 -- more than she had made all day -- to bring the pony to his son’s birthday party.
The business that would become a Valley landmark was born.
