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2002 RANCHO CAMULOS MUSEUM ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
FUNDED BY THE VCCF HERITAGE FUND

INTERVIEW: SHIRLEY RUBEL LORENZ
DATE: APRIL 2, 2002
INTERVIEWERS: CYNTHIA THOMPSON, PIERPONT INN and RANCHO CAMULOS
SUZANNE LAWRENCE, V C M H & A and RANCHO CAMULOS

SL: This is Suzanne Lawrence for the Rancho Camulos Oral History
Project.· The date is April 2, 2002, and I am sitting on the
porch of the schoolhouse at Rancho Camulos with Shirley
Rubel Lorenz, one of the owners of the iancho, and Cynthia
Thompson of the Rancho Board of Directors.
The sun is shining, the air is redolent with roses and
orange blossoms, and we're surrounded by iris, bougainvillea
and wild flowers. In the background we can hear palm fronds
rustling, bumble bees buzzing,. and birds twittering. No
wonder Helen Hunt Jackson's descriptions of thi$ place were
so lyrical and vivid!
I've· taken Shirley Lorenz away from her work in the
chapel garden to ask her about her parents, and their
purchase· of the rancho in 1924.
The Rubel family is quite illustrious. I told Cynthia
after I had talked to you originally, I felt like a "mutt"
because the Rubel's history goes back and back and back ....
bid you say that they have documentation all the way to
William the Conqueror?

SRL: Well, Ann came up with that. She may have read it in those
volumes, ,but they are all in German.

SL: And your daughter, Ann Reinders, married a German, did she
not?

SRL: I think he's Scandinavian, from Wisconsin. But I married a
Lorenz, which is very German; my sister Boo [Nathalie]
married a Trefzger, which is German; my older sister
[Barbara] married a Blatt ... (laughing) I don't know. But
we're a mixture, a true American mixture. Dad's mother was
American of course, but of English background.

SL: What was her family name?

SRL: Toel, William Toel. He was a factor, and his business was
in the China trade out of New York and Boston. Ships.

SL: Ships that came from China, and that was his business?

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