Life on the Los Alamitos plains could be difficult for the early pioneers in the area. One Cypress area woman recalled that in the 1890s, one could see for miles, as “There was nothing to break the view. Only two clumps of trees could be seen in the whole country. On rainy nights, when there was a lull in the storm, you could hear the combers breaking on the shore at Seal Beach so plain that I have run out in the backyard, I was so sure they must be on our land.”
One of the most distressing things was the sand or dust storms that swirled everywhere when the Santa Ana winds blew. The sand could literally find its way through the walls of the house and covered everything. Some early settlers even told of shoveling it out. A pioneer wife tells of rigging “a sheet around the head of our bed and the kitchen table to try to keep it out of the bed and food.”[ref]City of Cypress website, citing a News-Enterprise History of Cypress, written by Eileen Wheeler and Dr. Warren Beck. The writer of the original description is unknown.[/ref]Man and beast were made most uncomfortable in the sandstorms. Sand drifts often blocked the roads, and the wagons would become so mired that they had to be unloaded before they could be extricated. As bad as the dust was, the roads became a quagmire in the rainy season, bringing virtually all traffic to a standstill. Even under the best of circumstances, the roads were very poor, including the vital one from Cypress to Anaheim.
Another pioneer described it as “just a couple of ruts zig zagging this way and that way, not straight like it is now. At some seasons of the year, the sunflowers grew so tall and close to the road they would touch your hat when driving by. It was a half day’s drive to Anaheim, and a full day to Santa Ana and back.”
As tough as the land could be, human relations could make it unbearable as the following article from the Feb. 17, 1897 LA Times attests:
LOS ALAMITOS
_______
Attempt of a Farmer’s Wife to
Kill Herself
LOS ALAMITOS (Feb. 16) — [Regular Correspondence] The wife of Thomas Baker, a beet-raiser living near here, attempted to commit suicide today by taking laudanum, but was saved by a stomach pump. She’s 17 years old and has been married but a few months. Her explanation of the matter is that she cannot get along peaceably with her mother-in-law. She left home at an early hour this morning, walked to Westminster, bought the poison and drank it, and was found in the road a half-mile from town. When the mother-in-law was informed of the condition of the young woman, she showed no sign of regret, but objected to having the girl brought home.