Beans, Beets, and Babies,  A phrase closely identified with the Oxnard area for almost 100 years. Lima beans and sugar beets were two of the important crops on the Oxnard Plain. The "Babies" reference comes the fact that people throughout the country traveled to Oxnard's St. John's Hospital to take part on the world renown birth technique, "Twilight Sleep." 

This is the second in a series of three books that offer a biographical history of the First Farmers of the Oxnard Plain. From the four Borchard and four Maulhardt families that were covered in the first book, many families are added to the genealogical tree through marriage. Biographical histories in this next volume include: Daily, A. C. Martin, Lagomarsino, McLoughlin, McGonigle, Hartman, Friedrich, Gisler, Scholle, Pfeiler. From the Diedrich connection comes the histories of Sailer, Wucherpfennig, Reiman. I have also included a comprehensive biography of the Oxnard family. 

Through biographical histories, this book will cover the development of the Beet Sugar Factory. The idea of growing sugar beets as a cash crop came from J. E. Borchard who grew a German strain of the beet as feed for his livestock. The plant proved so hearty even in the driest years that Borchard sent a sample of the beets to the Oxnard's Chino factory. Borchard's beets did not contain enough sugar to satisfy the factories sugar content requirements but he was given enough seed to share with the other interested farmers. 

During this same period, Thomas Bard made contact with the Chino factory after he sold them some oil for their factory.  Bard was also given a quantity of seeds to grow beets. Bard hired a young, well educated, ambitious and visionary farming neighbor, Albert F. Maulhardt, to oversee the planting and harvesting of five acres of beets on Bard's estate in Hueneme. Albert's experience and J. E. Borchard additional seeds lead to further beet planting by Maulhardt and by 1896 he planted over 200 acres of beets on over 50 different locations throughout Ventura County to find the most suitable place to begin a sugar industry. By the next year the farmers in the area were negotiating with both the Oxnard family and Claus Spreckles to see who would be most interested in building a factory to process the beets. 

By the fall of 1897, the Oxnard won out and the farmers made a promise to support the factory by growing 10,000 acres in beets for the next ten years. Within months of the factories construction start, a town began to emerge from the dust of the Hill ranch. Almost 100 years later, the town has grown into a city of nearly 200,000 people.