Interview: Marla Daily
Date: August 19, 2009
Interviewer: Timothy Babalis
Santa Barbara, California
Timothy: Okay this is Timothy Babalis, the date is August 19, 2009. I’m in Santa Barbara talking to Marla Daily, who is the president (is that correct?) of the Santa Cruz Island Foundation.
Daily: This is Marla Daily. I was born December 15, 1950. I’ve been with the Santa Cruz Island Foundation since it was formed in 1985 by Dr. Carey Stanton. I became the president of the Foundation December 8, 1987, when Carey Stanton died.
Timothy: So I want to start with your first involvement with Santa Cruz Island and with Dr. Carey Stanton. Could you tell me about that?
Daily: I’d be happy to. My career actually, I am indebted to Dr. Glassow, Mike Glassow, an anthropology teacher at UCSB, where I was a student. I was graduated in 1973; Mike Glassow had an NSF grant to work with Albert Spaulding doing an archeological survey of Santa Cruz Island. I needed to have a summer job, Mike called me into his office and said, “I have one paid position. It’s the cook. Are you interested? There will be twelve of us. Your duties will include organizing the meals, doing the prep work, organizing the kitchen and doing the food ordering. And it pays a thousand dollars.” And I said, “I would be absolutely delighted.” So we first went to Santa Cruz Island in March of 1973 to look over the field station, the kitchen facilities, and we returned in the summer. I don’t have the dates handy off the top of my head, but we returned in the summer for six weeks. And because I was the cook, also doing archeology, I was in the unique position of not going into the field all day long with the two graduate students and all the undergrads because I had to prepare things in the kitchen. And that gave me the entree to the main ranch where I met Carey Stanton, Dr. Stanton to me at the time, who welcomed me and said this is where the walk-in cooler is, feel free to keep whatever you need to in there, there is plenty of space, and I thanked him. And as the summer progressed, the six weeks, I would go down to the ranch--I was the only one in the group that was able to drive a jeep down to the ranch--walk right into the ranch house to the cooler, the walk-in cooler, and Carey would often come out and say, “Marla, come in, sit, talk.” And I was shaking at the knees and I would go in and very timidly, with good posture, sit and just sort of stare at things in the office. And he was a very casual, kind man with a brain that was just always thinking. He wanted to know everything; he was the most interested person I ever met. He was interested in everything--all subjects of scientific endeavors, what people were doing, human relations. He was a marvelous raconteur and he was born in 1923, I was born in 1950, so he was quite my senior, and that’s how we became friends. And I started preparing extra dishes for him when I was making the meals for summer field and I would take down casseroles and things and leave them down in the walk-in and let him know that I brought down lasagna or whatever it was and he was very appreciative because at the ranch they only had five meals that were served. One, two, three, four, five; one, two, three, four, five. Not seven meals, five meals. And when I asked him about that he said that living on an island it was far too difficult to try and maintain any sort of a varied grocery list. During the time that I ended up working for Dr. Stanton, one of the things I did for him was, pre-computers in those days, was type an organized list so that he could call in the groceries. I still have the list here somewhere, but it was always the exact same list of groceries: so many cases of peanut butter, peas, whatever it was that he had on his list. It was the same list and he would call it in to his--I think they were Hungarian, grocery store in Port Hueneme. He’d call in the grocery list. Henry the ranch superintendent, would go in, do an inventory of what was left in the pantry, call the order in. The little mom and pop grocery store would deliver the cases of everything to put it on the Navy boat and then Dr. Stanton, Henry, and I, if I was there, would go down to the pier at Prisoners’ Harbor and pick up the groceries. And then, it was obviously a quite a laborious task, and then as soon as the groceries got there one of the things that Henry did, who was the superintendent on Santa Cruz Island at this time, he would sit down and go through and do an inventory, make sure everything was here. And if it wasn’t he’d call in and say we’re missing a case of onions or we’re missing a case of seasoning salt, whatever it was. So that’s how my relationship with Carey Stanton developed.
Timothy: So you were working with the field station for one season and then after that you came into the employ of Dr. Stanton?
Daily: No, what happened, I’ll be more specific. I worked the summer of 1973 for UCSB. At that time Lyndal Laughrin was the only employee working for the Santa Cruz Island Reserve and he had no relief. And in 1974 when the archeological group came out, he met a woman he was interested in; he was between marriages, and he wanted to go off to Mexico to meet her and he didn’t have anyone to stay behind and babysit the field station. So I actually became employed as Lyndal’s associate—assistant--to babysit the field station when he wanted time off the island. And so from 1974 until 1980 I was Lyndal’s assistant, and I would go out to the island so he would have time off. And during that time I learned how to change the oil in the generators at the main ranch, to fill scuba tanks with air for dive classes that came out. It was a very broad position; I painted, did maintenance, did whatever was necessary, picked groups up from the pier, acting as their driver, assessed who was qualified to drive and basically did the duties of the University caretaker of that facility. And I continued to do that until 1980 when the University eliminated my position, which was concurrent with Lyndal having become engaged to his second wife, and my position was eliminated. The reason being the University was able to redesign the position so that the person who would be Lyndal’s stand-in or assistant, if they were a student at the University, there was a way that different budgets could pay for them and so my position was eliminated on those grounds. And I went down to the ranch, I’ll never forget the day I went down to the ranch and I told Dr. Stanton that unfortunately my position had been eliminated, because from 1973 to 1980 when I was on the Island working at the field station for the University, I was a pro bono, if you will, employee for Carey Stanton and spent an incredible amount of time helping to organize his library, his collections, getting to know him, doing oral history interviews with him, with Henry. I became fascinated with cultural history of the Channel Islands. My degree was in cultural anthropology with an emphasis on history and so Carey would humor me and I would sit for hours and hours and tape record him and listen and ask questions, and he was always so kind and so interested, not only in the subject, but in the fact that someone was interested in what his interests were. And I don’t think he had really had that before, so we had a very special relationship in that sense. It was just wonderful. So 1980, fast forwarding, I told him that my position had been eliminated and he said, “Would you become my employee?” and I said, “I’d be honored.” And he said, “Now it’s not going to be a traditional type of employment. I don’t want you to leave. I want you to catalogue my library; I want you to continue the work you have been doing for me and I’m going to write you a check for thirty thousand dollars.” In 1980 that was a lot of money. And he said, “What’s your checking account? Where do you bank?” And he said, “Well it doesn’t matter, I want you to bank at Security Pacific where I bank. I’m going to do a direct transfer. And I want you to keep a notebook and I want you to keep track of your hours and you tell me when the money runs out.”
Timothy: Not exactly your traditional employment?
Daily: No. But it was a way, I think, for him. I certainly felt good about it. I knew then that he didn’t want me to leave the island, and that he valued the friendship that we had developed and our mutual interests. So I also worked on the mainland part-time working for a rare book dealer, from ’78 to ’85, about. Maurice Neville Rare Books, and through that job I was always finding, for example, the paintings that you see here in this room, or when the Alexander Harmer Trust was being dispersed, I found out about it. I called Carey; he flew in from the island, he went and looked at the paintings, he told me which ones he wanted to buy and I dealt with James Hansen who had the paintings. And Carey was able to acquire the paintings he wanted. And whenever rare books came up, since I’d catalogued Carey’s library I knew what he didn’t have and that was an ongoing relationship that we had. I think in today’s day and age, I would be called a personal assistant, but that wasn’t, I didn’t have any specific title, I was a jack-of-all-trades, do whatever was needed. Whenever he would have groups come out to the island, his friends--he had the same set of friends that he’d had since his years at Stanford, about a dozen people-- and those, that was his core of his social family, really, they were his family, and I became a part of that and I would coordinate with the maid in the kitchen to make sure that the ham was okay, that the French bread was okay, that the Boston baked beans were okay. He had his little menus. And I became a social hostess when he had gatherings of friends.
Timothy: What was the social life like then? Could you describe one of these gatherings?
Daily: Carey’s life was very, very rigid, very orchestrated. During the day there were appropriate times for different things. One gets up at six; you don’t shower in the morning, you work all day long until five. When you stop work, that’s when you shower, have some relaxing time from five to six, then you make your phone calls from six to seven or that’s your cocktail hour, then at seven and the maid rings the bell and that’s where dinners are served. One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five. Dinner was formal, coat and tie for him; I had to wear a dress and stockings and ring the silver bell. It was very, I’d call him a practicing Victorian who was very set in his ways. And for me I was a hippie chick from the 60s and for me to be exposed to this was just a wonderment to me, to be, to have this opportunity to be in this situation. When he would have friends come out, his friends always stayed in the same guest rooms, year after year, there was the Diebenkorn room, there was the room for his paramour, Marion Witbeck, whom he had dated since the 40s since they were colleagues at Stanford. She didn’t finish, she dropped out before graduating, and he went on to go to medical school, which was an abbreviated three-year program because of the war. He became a pathologist. He wasn’t comfortable dealing with people; he went into pathology because he didn’t have to deal with people’s emotions and personalities. He liked the dead aspect of it; it was less complicated. He was always very stiff, emotionally stiff; when someone would hug him he’d sort of go into this vertical state of rigor, and he’d raise his right arm and, too hard, pat someone on the back as if they were a dog. He wasn’t comfortable with sort of the relaxed type of behavior that most people exhibit. He was an alcoholic and he became an alcoholic early in life I believe, and alcohol became, alcohol was his way of being able to relax and be comfortable and not be formal. And it became a problem eventually in his life, and in 1973, he realized it and he stopped drinking, cold turkey. And that was the year his mother died, November 20th. His best friend, one of his best friends, probably his best friend at the time, a fellow physician, Steve Royce, committed suicide. And those two events, I believe, knocked him into sobriety. And he stayed sober, so when I started working for him in 1973, he had stopped drinking. I never got to meet his mother; she died later that same year. And he stayed sober until 1980, when he fell off the wagon. That was the first time I had experienced that; I saw a whole different man I had never seen before.
Timothy: Not pleasant.
Daily: He was perfectly jolly; he was the happiest drunk in the world. He was a very, people loved his personality when he was drunk because he could be very cutting and acerbic in his normal day-to-day operations, if something rubbed him the wrong way or something wasn’t right. He could make, what I would consider to be, inappropriate and actually cruel remarks once in awhile to people that weren’t following instructions. He was sort of intolerant of a lot of things; he was very intolerant if anyone, for example, contacted him who wanted to write an article about Santa Cruz Island. And he would get very annoyed and generally not give anyone permission because so much of what had been written was inaccurate. It was misinformation, and he was such a stickler for detail, he demanded accuracy. And the few who were allowed--Chuck Hillinger being one, who became a friend-- who were allowed to write about the island had to submit whatever it was to him for publication for approval to make sure it was accurate. And that was just one of the things that gave him great joy, was punctuality, accuracy, dressing appropriately--just a different lifestyle. His friends would generally fly to the island. At first it was, well there was a series of planes--Murray Aviation, Wally Bassett, before he was killed in an accident out at Christy; and in 1975 Channel Islands Aviation began flying out of Oxnard Airport and then they actually opened up a facility at Camarillo Airport and Carey used them from 1975 until his death in 1987.
Timothy: Was that when they were founded? CIA?
Daily: 1975. Mark Oberman and Tom Driscoll, yes.
Timothy: Okay.
Daily: They had a Beech, a giant twin Beech that they landed at the main ranch strip.
Timothy: Henry, is it Henry Duffield, the superintendent of the ranch?
Daily: Mmhmm.
Timothy: Could you tell me a little bit about him?
Daily: Henry Duffield was a rancher, he was born in Michigan. I have files on Henry; he was married to an opera singer named Carolyn. And, oh, I can’t recall now, in his thirties--maybe thirty-five or six--he had been a rancher, a cattle rancher in Cuba, he had been a cattle rancher in Central Mexico and he contracted polio and his wife divorced him. And he was in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on the beach with a Mexican kid that was obviously his employee, trying to help him to learn to walk, on the sand. And Carey Stanton and his friend Steve Royce had gone to Puerto Vallarta on a trip and they were sitting at a bar on the sand watching this scene of this obviously paralyzed man having a Mexican kid pick him up and fall down in the sand and pick him up and fall down in the sand, so Carey and Steve Royce went over and befriended Henry and said come on over and have a drink with us. So Henry sat down, they started talking and his physician, Steve and Carey were saying why don’t you go to Warm Springs, Georgia for rehab? It was the polio rehab made famous by Roosevelt and they recommended that Henry go to Warm Springs, Georgia for rehab. And Henry took them up on their suggestion, they parted and while Henry was in rehab, Carey-- I gather that Henry kept in contact--I don’t know how, I don’t have letters, but I know that Carey invited Henry to visit Santa Cruz Island when he got out of rehab. And Ed Stanton, there was a family scene that was rather unpleasant I gather, probably not in front of anyone, but Carey told me that when Henry was coming to the island, Mrs. Stanton--who by the way did not have a background of elitism or upper class; she certainly when she married Ed Stanton acquired it. And when Henry was coming to the island, I believe it was 1960, again I have the dates in my file, she thought he should eat with the staff and Ed Stanton said I’ll have nothing of it. He’s our son’s guest, he’ll eat with the family, and he did. So Henry had dinner with Carey and his parents, and Ed Stanton, after talking to Henry and learning about his qualifications as a cattle rancher, said, “Would you like to work for me?” And so Ed Stanton actually hired Henry Duffield to be the ranch manager on Santa Cruz Island. And at that point Henry moved to Santa Cruz Island where he stayed for the next 26 years of his life, until ultimately he committed suicide because of his deteriorating health. And Ed Stanton died in 1963, so then he continued to work for Carey.
Timothy: Quite a story. He must have been very grateful to the Stanton family for that opportunity?
Daily: I don’t know. He never expressed gratitude that I can think of, much. It didn’t really fit into it. He was so, so much a part of the island that I never thought of it in those terms and I don’t think he ever, to me anyway, indicated gratitude.
Timothy: Okay. I wanted to ask about, well there are plenty of stories about when the National Park became interested in Santa Cruz Island and Donald Robinson, I believe, was the superintendent of, what was then the monument. And…
Daily: You’ve probably heard the story.
Timothy: I’ve heard the story, so maybe I don’t need to introduce it, would you like to talk about that? I’d like to hear your version of that story.
Daily: Well I can preface this by saying that Carey Stanton used to say that his parents left him an albatross tied around his neck, with the ownership of Santa Cruz Island. He felt that it was such an enormous burden to have this responsibility, that was his and his alone to decide the future of Santa Cruz Island beyond his death. And Carey was a very practical man, being a pathologist he dealt with corpses, he realized he had to make some sort of arrangements for Santa Cruz Island. There’s a whole other chapter of this; you’re aware of this I’m sure, where his nephew owned one third-undivided interest in the island and after Carey’s mother died, the nephew sued Carey in a partition action. Carey expressed to me many, many, many times his great worry and concern and conviction that Santa Cruz Island would never, as long as he had any say, be owned by the federal or State government. He was a practicing conservative Republican. He believed that, as he expressed to me, at any given time, administrations can change in the blink of an election, constituencies change, constituents change, and the future of the land would never be guaranteed. He did not want pavement, he did not want the public, he did not want campgrounds, he did not want mass access to Santa Cruz Island. He considered leaving it to the University of California, but as he said to me, that falls under the governor of the State of California, that can be taken away in the blink of an eye. He didn’t want a State park, he didn’t want a national park, and he stewed for years. What was he going to do? What was he going to do? It was a burden for him. Enter Channel Islands National Monument and Don Robinson. And Carey, by the way, was very much a gentleman and always prided himself, took pride in doing the right thing, and he would meet his neighbors, be hospitable, and at some point--I was not there, this was before my time--this was before 1973, presumably, Don Robinson was invited out to the ranch…Don Robinson was invited to the main ranch and he is alleged to have taken a seat in Carey’s chair, which is Carey’s grandfather’s chair--which now is in my back office here, it’s on wheels-- and rolled back and kicked his feet up on the desk and leaned back (the chair leans back), and leaned back the chair with his feet on the desk and said, “Someday this will all be ours.” To which Carey said, “Over my dead body.” So there are many variations on the story, I don’t know which ones you’ve heard, but that’s at least, if not verbatim, the gist of the relationship.
Timothy: That’s fairly consistent with what I’ve heard. I did come across one, I guess, I don’t know if I should probably just call it a rumor, but some reference to Ed Stanton, Dr. Carey Stanton’s father, expressing an interest in selling the Island to the National Park, and that of course would have been during the Monument time, I wonder if you know anything about that?
[stopped recording]
Daily: We’re talking about Ed Stanton, Carey Stanton’s father. [Reading from some reference] “At the time of his purchase the winery begun during Caire’s time was all but stopped, Stanton removed the remaining grape stock in the central valley to make room for additional pasturage. In July of 1941, Ed Stanton offered the Island for sale to the United States Army through headquarters of the ninth Corps Area. Stanton received the following response, ‘The commanding general directs me to inform you that in the case, that in case future needs make such a site desirable, appropriate consideration will be given to your property.’ In 1958, five years before Ed Stanton’s death, he then passed the management to Santa Cruz Island to his only surviving son, Carey Stanton.”
Timothy: So it was an offer to the Army, just about at the beginning of the war?
Daily: Mmhmm. Ed Stanton died of a heart attack at 435 Windsor, Los Angeles on June 5th, 1963.
Timothy: So sometime after this incident with Don Robinson, Carey did sell the Island, or his portion of the island, I should say, to The Nature Conservancy. Could you tell me a little about that and how that transpired?
Daily: I can, and I was responsible for their meeting, and I’ll tell you how. In 1975, I knew a man named Jake Kittle who was a wealthy rancher who had at that time bequeathed his ranch, Rancho Las Cruces, to The Nature Conservancy. He was on the board of the California Nature Conservancy, and Jake approached me and he said, “We would like to meet Carey Stanton—we, The Nature Conservancy. We’ve done our homework.” And he handed me a document, secret, top secret, confidential, and it was a profile that The Nature Conservancy had done of Carey Stanton. And they had done a thorough job of looking at his wealth, his land holdings, his family situation. What they didn’t have was an entree to Carey, and I told Jake--Jake and I discussed it--and I said I certainly didn’t keep his calendar, what did they have in mind? And what ended up transpiring was The Nature Conservancy said they that would send down a representative, happened to be Ken Wiley, from the San Francisco office to give a public presentation at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. And they would like to do that if I could get Carey Stanton to come. So that it would be sort of an innocuous way of introducing him to The Nature Conservancy with the whole thing being targeted, targeting him. They asked me not to tell him and Jake said it would be better if he didn’t really know, so I didn’t see any need to tell him. I, they did arrange for the slide presentation, Carey did come off the island and he also, at my suggestion, invited Al Vail. So the three of us went to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and listened to the presentation and afterwards we talked, they talked, and this is what started the discussions after Carey’s having been introduced to The Nature Conservancy by this presentation. And Carey asked Al Vail what he thought and Al said he wasn’t interested. And Carey was interested and he wanted to learn more, and he did, and that’s what started the relationship with The Nature Conservancy. They now had been introduced to Carey, Carey met Ken Wiley. The specifics of who, when, contacts, follow-up visits, I don’t really remember, but by 1978, there was lots of talk about forming Channel Islands National Park; legislation was pending. I should also preface this by saying Rick Lagomarsino had a hunting operation with Bill Huffman on Santa Cruz Island, with Carey Stanton being their financial partner, logistical partner, providing the Island for the hunting operation. Rick Lagomarsino’s brother Bob Lagomarsino, was the Congressman who was going to introduce legislation to create Channel Islands National Park. This was all worked out behind closed doors in advance. Carey had his heels in the ground-- his part of the land would not be part of Channel Islands National Park. The Nature Conservancy was a private alternative to keep his land away from the federal government. Everybody was in on this before the legislation was passed, naming The Nature Conservancy was an appropriate eventual recipient of Carey Stanton’s holdings. The Nature Conservancy, Carey’s deal with The Nature Conservancy, which I assume you have copies of--we have copies here, the lawsuit, all of the deals--Carey signed in 1978. The deal, basically, was that if The Nature Conservancy could settle with Carey’s nephew, Ed Stanton, who had sued Carey for a partition action, if they could settle with him, then Carey would turn over his two-thirds. He wanted to do it free of charge. His lawyer Dick Bergen (by the way, I have an oral history interview transcribed of Dick Bergen, if you’re interested), Dick Bergen said you cannot give this away, Carey. At the very least you must match what they pay your nephew. Carey used to say his dad used to say to him, “Son, don’t ever bother to pay your lawyer if you’re not going to take his advice.” So, as Dick Bergen says, “You took my advice,” and he did get, I believe it was 1.8 million for his portion of the island, with which estate taxes were paid and other things were paid. So that’s how The Nature Conservancy, they were to get Carey’s portion of the island upon Carey’s death or in 2008, whichever came sooner. And this was in 1978, so for Carey that was thirty years down the line. He was a relatively young man in 1978 and he felt very, very good about the arrangement that he made with the Conservancy. That was all to change two years later. But at the time, he was feeling very celebratory, there was a very famous, in-house-famous, photograph of the Park Service and Nature Conservancy people. It was a group shot of a lot of people sort of celebrating the signing out around the pool. So Don Robinson wasn’t going to get his wish.
Timothy: Carey wasn’t interested in making money off this?
Daily: Absolutely not.
Timothy: He wanted to remove, I guess, the albatross so to speak.
Daily: Exactly. He had been offered, allegedly, in excess of a hundred million dollars for the island, he was not interested. One interesting story that I was involved in, I was sitting in the office one day and Jacques Cousteau called, and he says, “Hello, sir. This is Jacques Cousteau. I am making a new film and I am rediscovering the world.” And basically Jacques Cousteau was asking Carey for permission to come and film on Santa Cruz Island. And Carey Stanton, I listened to his response, and he told Jacques Cousteau that while he absolutely admired the work that he had spent his lifetime doing, bringing the world of the oceans into living room televisions around the world, that Santa Cruz Island would not and could not be a part of it, because to allow Santa Cruz Island to be exposed to the masses would only lead to harm and destruction to Santa Cruz Island because people would want to go there, they would want to see it. They would bring seeds in their shoes, they would put their dogs on the beaches, they’d get angry and drop off a sack of rattlesnakes, they’d light a match and start a fire. These were all things he used to bring up. And he said I would be delighted to have you come to lunch on a day of your convenience, we can discuss this further, but you may not film here. And Cousteau said thank-you, but no thank-you.
Timothy: Very interesting.
Daily: And the Park Service allowed him to film on Santa Rosa.
Timothy: So he was very protective of the Island.
Daily: Absolutely.
Timothy: Now you said that the relationship with The Nature Conservancy deteriorated or began to deteriorate two years later. Could you explain?
Daily: Carey Stanton derived a great portion of his income from the revenue from the Santa Cruz Island Hunt Club and at the end of his life he was bringing in, the Hunt Club was bringing him a revenue of about a quarter of a million dollars a year. Bob Hanson, who by then was with The Nature Conservancy, and whom Carey liked very much--they had a very good relationship--came to Carey one day and said very excitedly that there was a wonderful opportunity for The Nature Conservancy to be able to get funds because the Fleischmann Foundation was dissolving. It had a dissolution date 25 years after the widow of Max Fleischmann, I believe, and that date had approached, they stood to gain, if my memory serves me, three million dollars or four million dollars, a good chunk of change, but they needed a hook, as Carey explained, to say why they needed the money. And Bob Hanson talked to Carey and said--I dealt with this for years, till Carey’s death--“Let us say that we can manage the sheep, but you have my word as a gentleman, nothing will change, we just need to be able to say something to get that money.” Carey said, “Bob, I trust you, you are a man of your word, I am a man of my word.” They shook hands. Carey said, “I’m happy to help your organization however I can to get these funds.”
Timothy: And you were present during this time?
Daily: No, Carey told me this, I was not present. I do have a copy of the one -page amendment that Carey signed. I was present for conversations about this, I was present for, on one occasion, a tearful phone call from Carey to Frank Boren regarding the outcome of this. The bottom line was that The Nature Conservancy exercised its then legal right to control and manage the sheep, which they chose to eliminate. They began shooting the sheep in 1982 when Carey Stanton was overseas. And they brought in helicopters and hunters with repeating rifles and did an aerial assault and some people did an injunction to stop it for awhile, but that is really the straw that broke the camel’s back, that had their relationship never recovered, between Carey Stanton and The Nature Conservancy. The Nature Conservancy would say, “Look, you signed this piece of paper.” Bob Hanson left to go work for the Yosemite Fund; he was no longer there. Frank Boren, president of the board of The Nature Conservancy, had to take over. Carey asked to be on the board of The Nature Conservancy. They refused him with the excuse that, you’re a major donor and we can’t have major donors on the board, it’s a conflict of interest. Carey and Frank talked and I was present for the conversation on Carey’s end of it where Frank Boren agreed that with the removal of the sheep, that although the sheep were worth a hundred dollars each, Carey would settle for twenty dollars each. He was to be paid six hundred thousand dollars by The Nature Conservancy for their removal of the sheep because his income of a quarter of a million dollars had stopped. Frank Boren said, “We’ll pay you.” Frank Boren stopped returning phone calls, Carey wrote letters. Finally, Frank Boren said to Carey, it was relayed to me by Carey, “He’s not a man of his word, he’s not a gentleman, he simply says he wasn’t authorized to tell me what he did. He agrees that he told me, but he didn’t have the authorization to make that statement.” So in Carey’s mind they screwed him. He would repeatedly say, “They’re trying to force me into bankruptcy to get it earlier.” And that was his position when he died.
Timothy: So he never even received any monetary compensation for the sheep, is that correct?
Daily: That’s correct and that’s what he was asking for and that’s what Frank Boren agreed to. After the fact that calmed him down because at that point he thought he was going to get twenty dollars a sheep for thirty thousand sheep. He was going to get six hundred thousand dollars and that calmed him down, but then when the calls stopped being returned and there wasn’t a check in the mail and time passed and time passed and then finally Frank Boren said, “Sorry, I wasn’t authorized to make that agreement.” And they never paid him. And he died despising them.
Timothy: Now the sheep were running wild at that time or was Carey..?
Daily: No, they were feral; they had been left to certain portions of the island. They had been fenced out from cattle areas, they were always getting in but the hunting operation that gave an income Carey saw as a win-win situation because it kept the sheep numbers down, it kept him with an income, and it was a win-win situation. And he had assumed that helping The Nature Conservancy get three million dollars, or whatever it was, was a win-win situation too.
Timothy: The hunting operation, after The Nature Conservancy’s culling operation began, I assume the hunting operation had to cease?
Daily: The hunting operation went out of business. There was a lawsuit, a woman fell off a cliff, allegedly on drugs, out at the Christy Ranch out on the cliffs and they sued, the insurance wasn’t renewed. It was sort of a compilation of a lot of things that happened at the same time, but it was, the seed of all of this was The Nature Conservancy’s unwanted intervention into the management of the island sheep.
Timothy: Okay, so they would have gone out of business approximately 1982?
Daily: I’d have to look it up.
Timothy: Okay.
Daily: Early 80s.
Timothy: Okay. And Dr. Stanton died in..?
Daily: December 8, 1987. He was 64, so at that point his holdings passed to The Nature Conservancy. He had formed the Santa Cruz Island Foundation two years earlier with three board members: himself, myself, and his lawyer, David Watts. And upon his death we had to bring in a replacement for Carey, and we brought in an attorney here in town with Price, Postel & Parma. His name is Eric Hvoboll. And so it was myself and two lawyers. And then I was made president. I took Carey’s place as president of the Santa Cruz Island Foundation and it was funded at the point of Carey’s death with his estate. Before that time, he made an annual contribution to pay my salary, but upon his death the assets of the Foundation were received, which were his personal assets, which is all of this furniture you see, the contents of all the buildings at the main ranch. It was his wish that the Santa Cruz Island Foundation and The Nature Conservancy work together. The five buildings were to be maintained as he left them, as museums, with his five- and six-figure pieces of furniture in place for Nature Conservancy donors to enjoy. And that furniture, in part, is still there. We’ve removed some, some is still there.
Timothy: Okay, okay, the furniture here in this room is all from the main ranch?
Daily: No, the furniture in this room actually is from his house in, some of it, is from his house on the mainland. It was his, these chairs were Rococo Revival chairs from his grandparents, all the watered silk stuff, the Victorian stuff was from his grandparents. They had a very large house at 435 Windsor in Los Angeles. And so this Victorian Rococo stuff was all from his grandparents. Some of the things here, the American clock, the grandmother clock in the corner behind you, was Carey’s--that came out of his bedroom on the island, but because it’s a six-figure clock, it’s been removed. The Nature Conservancy gave us an eviction letter within a week of Carey’s death, evicting his possessions from Santa Cruz Island, and we had thirty days to get everything off the island owned by Carey Stanton. So the lawyers got involved, we sat down, we negotiated to get to, just about where we are now, where some of the things have stayed, some of the things have been removed.
Timothy: I see. Could you tell me a little about the Santa Cruz Island Foundation. It was founded shortly before he died. What was the purpose of the Foundation?
Daily: It was set up, in mind, so that it would be a companion organization to The Nature Conservancy, to have these museums on the island. The mission statement is to be a philanthropic organization with its endowment to continue to support research, researchers, publications that have to do with, not just Santa Cruz Island, but all eight California Channel Islands. So from the time of Carey’s death up until today, that’s what we do is primarily we maintain the furnishings on the island and we do research and we publish books about the cultural histories of all eight Channel Islands.
Timothy: So your purview is a little bit larger than just Santa Cruz Island?
Daily: Yes, it’s all eight, it’s all eight islands, and well, all the books on the top shelf, the geological maps, those are all our publications that we’ve done over the last twenty-two years.
Timothy: Okay. All right, well…
Daily: So now are you all filled in?
Timothy: Quite a good background, quite an interesting history. I wanted to ask, if I could, just some, a number of, how should I say, well-publicized incidences that have happened with respect to the Park Service and I’m thinking if we can focus on Santa Cruz Island. I know it’s not a part of Dr. Carey Stanton’s part, but there was the acquisition through condemnation of the Gherini East Santa Cruz Island. Now I’ve read quite a bit about that, now I wonder if I could get your impression or version of that?
Daily: You undoubtedly know the ownership history of the east end of Santa Cruz Island, that three of the four Gherini siblings sold out to Channel Islands National Park. Francis Gherini believed that their appraisal was too low, he was not interested in selling, and the Park Service became an unwilling undivided interest holder in the east end of Santa Cruz Island. There was great discord and contention among the Gherini family, primarily between Francis Gherini and his nephew John Gherini. Have you talked to John Gherini?
Timothy: I have. I haven’t interviewed him. I will be interviewing Tom Gherini, his brother.
Daily: Interesting.
Timothy: He lives not far from my office in Northern California.
Daily: I’m of the personal opinion, in studying the family dynamics and knowing the players, I can’t help but think, as is common I’m sure in many families, it got down to an issue of control and power. Francis Gherini, who I knew, I have oral histories of him, interviews, he, I believe, completely understandably, stepped into the role of his older brother, when his older brother Pier died, as the patriarch of the east end of Santa Cruz Island. Pier’s, of Pier’s children, the oldest son was not heir-apparent to the law firm or to this type of business, but the son John Gherini was. And I believe John Gherini felt that he should fill his father’s shoes. And so there was a power struggle, in my opinion, between Francis Gherini and his nephew. And there were frivolous silly fights over five hundred dollars and solar panels and if one liked something, the other one didn’t. I mean it just went on and on and on, this sort of bickering back and forth and ultimately in the end, Francis Gherini ended up getting significantly more for his share of Santa Cruz Island than the other three siblings got. I continue to this day to believe that the Park Service, and this was something I was involved in, erred egregiously and hideously with the descendants of Francis Gherini. I was in a meeting at the Superintendent’s office in San Francisco with Francis Gherini’s daughter Dea, in which, in front of all of us, she was guaranteed that this condemnation action would not preclude her having visitation rights to the east end of Santa Cruz Island, equal to those of her cousin John.
Timothy: So this must have been prior to the passage of the bill, which…
Daily: It was pending, it was pending and it wasn’t written into the bill and I can’t remember specifically why we were all in San Francisco, I just…
Timothy: The regional office would have been there at that time.
Daily: Well we were at the regional office, but I can’t remember if that was the purpose of our visit or if it was multipurpose. It was probably more multipurpose, because I know David Watts was there from my board, Joe Walsh, the guitar player, was there, there were a number of people there and Dea was there and we were witness to, and it was a woman, who came in and who was working on, I guess the wording, who absolutely guaranteed that Dea and her siblings would have visitation rights, and in the end she got screwed. And I have always thought that was an egregious error on the part of Channel Islands National Park.
Timothy: So I have yet to find somebody who can tell me why that, it’s called a reserved right, why that reserved right was not included, because most people, including Representative Andrea Seastrand, who, at least according to her statement, she believed it would be there in the final bill.
Daily: That’s correct; I can tell you what my opinion is.
Timothy: I’d like to hear that.
Daily: Tim Setnicka told me, “I’m going to make damn well sure she gets screwed.” And I said, “Tim, why would you say that?” And he said, “Hah! Francis didn’t sell to us, why should his kids get a reward? Have them talk to their dad.”
Timothy: So you believe that Superintendent Setnicka had something to do with the…
Daily: I am positive.
Timothy: …omission of that reserved right.
Daily: We are talking about the raid on the east end of Santa Cruz Island in 1997 and I don’t think there’s any secret about the fact that Tim Setnicka orchestrated the raid. He used it as an opportunity to have Jaret Owens, the man who was running the hunting operations and the recreational operations on the east end of Santa Cruz Island, to get him off of the island. He believed that by getting Jaret off of the island it would give him a firmer hold on the island when legislation was pending. That was a condemnation of the land that would give the Park Service Francis Gherini’s ownership. And that was Tim’s way of getting immediate control of the east end of the island. I think that the basis of the raid was entirely bogus, I think that it verges on criminal the fact that the raid happened. I think that it’s just ludicrous to allege that Native American artifacts were being smuggled and stolen and sold. I mean it makes for a very pretty story and a very dramatic story when you start getting the Native Americans involved, etcetera. But I don’t believe there is a whistle of truth. I know that there is not a whistle of truth in any of it, I know that. I do believe that a guide was chummed with cash to point out human remains. I do believe that Todd Swain, who’s been in this office, paid a guide to show him human remains. I do believe that Todd Swain stood over the guide and said, “Oh, that’s interesting. Hey, I can’t quite see it, hand it to me, would you?” And I do believe that the guide did pick up the human remains and hand them up to the undercover agent when he was asked to. I do not for a second--I know that no one was selling artifacts, no one was digging artifacts up as any part of a smuggling ring, it was all manufactured from within the park service under the leadership of Tim Setnicka.
Timothy: And just for the record, Todd Swain was one of the two undercover agents who performed the investigation?
Daily: Yes. Todd Swain came to my office asking me questions, with someone else. They’re in our guest book. I don’t have the other guy’s name, but Todd Swain is really the one who set the whole thing up. It was just a colossal waste of time and money and emotions and efforts and it was all based on untruths. And to this day I stand by my statement that Ruby Ridge tactics have no place on Santa Cruz Island in a National Park.
Timothy: Well, I don’t have any more questions about that particular incident, if you want to volunteer or say anything more, I invite you to.
Daily: Not particularly. Oh, the one thing you should know is that at some point Francis Gherini did donate to the Santa Cruz Island Foundation one percent of his ownership interest in the east end of Santa Cruz Island, whether that was to delay the condemnation or what, I don’t recall now what was behind it. But after the condemnation had happened and we were left owning one percent, we became willing sellers at the same rate that Francis accepted, ultimately, and we received a check for, it was something just under fifty thousand dollars.
Timothy: Okay. Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. I was curious about that. I guess I don’t want to keep you for too much longer, but I’d like to ask you about the other islands, Santa Rosa Island and the Vails. You mentioned Al Vail once already in the context of meeting The Nature Conservancy. When Dr. Carey Stanton and Al Vail went to meet The Nature Conservancy, at that time Al Vail said he wasn’t interested in selling. Ultimately the Vail family, Vail and Vickers, did sell to the Park Service. There has been a lot of different opinions as to why and how that sale occurred-- sale occurred in 1986. Can I hear your opinion?
Daily: Sure.
Timothy: And understanding?
Daily: Sure. I believe that at the very beginning, although Vail and Vickers, Al Vail in particular, that would not have been his choice, he would not have volunteered to sell. It was not something that he was anxious to do, wanting to do, or willing to do. On the other hand, again my opinion, he was a very, he was a very, very honorable, honest man who believed in his country, and he believed in the United States of America and I know that one of his greatest regrets, he told me on more than one occasion, in his life was that he was not able to fight for his country in the military in World War II because he had asthma. And it was a great source of personal pain to him to have been excluded because he was a flag waving, American-believing, Republican, just a man who loved his country. And when his federal government said, this is what we’re going to do, he said, “Well, okay.” He didn’t fight, he didn’t want to hire lawyers and waste a bunch of money. He did have the respect and the friendship of the local Park superintendent, Bill Ehorn. And he, Al was a man of his word, he did six-figure deals on a handshake and he believed in honesty and integrity. And Bill Ehorn is a man who is honest and has integrity. And I believe that the federal government let Bill Ehorn down. There was nothing Bill Ehorn could do and ultimately the Vails ended up with a situation very different than what they expected. And at the time of the sale there was a pot of three million extra dollars, do you know about this?
Timothy: No I don’t.
Daily: At the time of the sale, their, what was it that you called, their rights?
Timothy: Reserved rights.
Daily: Their reserved rights were set up for twenty-five years and they were to receive twenty-seven million dollars and get a twenty-five year reserved right. And there was some way that the law was written that if they were willing, and I don’t know that the laws and the nuances and the ins and outs of this, but Bill Ehorn advised Al, “Hey, if instead of taking a chunk of twenty-five years, you’re willing to go up for renewal every five years, you get an extra three million dollars, and hell if I were you I’d take it, cause nothing’s going to be any different and you get three more million dollars.” And Al said, “Well, okay. I’ll do that.” So they did the agreement based on five year terms, five of them, rather than one twenty-five year term, Vail and Vickers received an extra three million dollars for doing that and after the, I’m trying to remember if it was after the first five years, the trouble started.
Timothy: The second, I believe.
Daily: Okay, I was going to say, I think it was after the second five years, there was what I will call an agitator, very involved, named John Cloud who relentlessly pursued issues of water quality control.
Timothy: Now who was John Cloud?
Daily: I have a huge file on John Cloud. John Cloud promoted the ideas of Kate Faulkner. That’s not to say that they were doing it side by side, but he is what I would call someone with too much time on his hands, who took it upon himself to turn in water quality issues, to go to the, what’s the nonprofit arm-- the something conservation, National Parks…?
Timothy: The National Parks Conservation Association, the NPCA.
Daily: Oh, I think they filed a lawsuit, if I am remembering correctly.
Timothy: They threatened it at first and ultimately they did file it.
Daily: Mmmhmm. A lot of that was based on what John Cloud was doing. Simultaneous with that Kate Faulkner had become very active within the park, the park then increased its number of biologists to its more than fifty and it became their focus and ultimately Al Vail folded his cards. He wasn’t willing to put six figures into fights, he didn’t want to do that to his family. He was the managing owner, partner and he folded his cards. And it was a very sad day, and we memorialized it with our book.
Timothy: Cowboy Island.
Daily: Cowboy Island.
Timothy: A beautiful book, I have a copy of it.
Daily: Does that answer your question?
Timothy: Yes it does. Would you like to say anything more, or add anything more?
Daily: I am delighted that you are taking this history. I am delighted that there is an initiative to have this recorded, because a hundred years from now, somebody might care.
Timothy: I hope so, I certainly hope they do.
Daily: Well it has been a pleasure talking to you, and I’d be happy to help you in the future, guide you to anything you might need.
Timothy: Well thank-you, for the record.
