Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

A First Look at Fresno State’s Quarterback Battle

2 days ago

Israeli Columnist Alleges Ethnic Cleansing Plan in Gaza

2 days ago

Tesla to Roll out Bay Area Robotaxis With Safety Drivers, Report Says

2 days ago

Thailand and Cambodia Exchange Heavy Artillery Fire as Border Battle Expands

2 days ago

California Cannot Require Background Checks to Buy Ammunition, US Appeals Court Rules

3 days ago

TikTok Will Go Dark in US Without Chinese Approval of Sale Deal, Lutnick Says

3 days ago

Fresno County Authorities Still Searching for Missing Mother and Infant

3 days ago
Life's Many Challenges Only Make These 'Modesto Girls' Stronger
Joe-Mathews
By Joe Mathews
Published 7 years ago on
August 30, 2018

Share

California changes so fast you can’t count on anything here anymore.
But you can count on the Modesto Girls.
These five sisters — my first cousins, once removed—never had glamorous jobs. They didn’t get fancy educations. Little came easy to them.
But they are always there when you need them.
They are the people who come over to an elderly relative’s house — and before you know it they’ve cleaned the place and cooked you a meal.

Portrait of Connecting California columnist Joe Mathews
Opinion
Joe Mathews
This is the era of California out-migration, when more people leave the state than enter it. Much of my big extended California family has melted away — to Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona. My Uncle Jerry even returned to Okemah, Oklahoma, from which his grandparents fled during the Dust Bowl era.
But the Modesto Girls stay in Modesto.
As a matter of age, the Modesto Girls aren’t girls anymore. Indeed, they are the pillars of an improbably strong California family. And they remind me that for all of California’s progressivism, the conservative clichés about faith and family remain at the heart of life here.

Meet the Modesto Girls

Because their names are so similar, I often get them confused, so let me see if I finally can keep them straight, at least for this column.

“Is there any other town that would take us?” — Cathy
Cathy, 69, built a family of four boys, 10 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren, while working at flower shops and the Frito-Lay plant.
Carol, 66, who works as a caregiver, has four children and six grandchildren.
Corina, 63, a caregiver and bus driver, has three children and 19 grandchildren.
Carla, 61, a school bus driver for 25 years, has two daughters and two granddaughters.
Colleen, the baby at 57, has three kids and seven grandchildren, and works in the health club business.
All told, that’s 16 children, 44 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
And that doesn’t count their five brothers (more on them later).

The Modesto Girls Prevail Despite Obstacles

The endurance of Modesto Girls might be a miracle. Their upbringing was rough. Their parents, my Great Uncle Shelby and my Great Aunt Doris, married when he was 17 and she was 15, and started a family of 10 children. But life with Shelby, an alcoholic, was never stable. The family first relocated from the Inland Empire to Modesto supposedly because Shelby liked fishing on the Tuolumne River. The real reason was to keep Shelby out of trouble.
Modesto couldn’t cure Shelby. He moved the family 17 times, mostly around Modesto’s west side. He had run-ins with the law. Shelby’s demons fell hardest on the five brothers. Two, the twins Larry and Gary, died before middle age.

The storytelling can feel competitive, as if this were an Olympics for who can tell the most “white trash” tale.
But the family persevered. In Modesto, Aunt Doris supported the family with jobs in the area’s canneries and as a City Hospital housekeeper. The three surviving brothers have built strong lives. Wes, a cabinetmaker, has seven children and 11 grandchildren. Mike and Keith have a tree service business together.

The Gravitational Pull of the Valley

A few of the siblings left Modesto for short stretches but always returned to the northern San Joaquin Valley.
“I guess we are pretty unusual,” Carla says. “We’re all in Modesto. We talk to each other every day. We tease each other, and we’re always fighting with each other.”
They also celebrate with each other, play dominoes together, and take care of each other, quite literally moving into each other’s houses to care for elderly or infirm relatives.

Worship Is Their Secret Sauce

They also worship together.
This is their secret sauce. The Modesto Girls will tell you that they wouldn’t have gotten through the difficulties of their family and life if they hadn’t become Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their church has connected them to the Bible and even more deeply to each other.

The Modesto Girls will tell you that they wouldn’t have gotten through the difficulties of their family and life if they hadn’t become Jehovah’s Witnesses.
They knock on doors weekly, and are struck by the poverty and isolation of families, and especially children. They also bring their carts, with Jehovah’s Witnesses literature, to public places, like the county courthouse downtown. They often travel together to church events in the Bay Area, Sacramento, or elsewhere.
The Modesto Girls, as Jehovah’s Witnesses, don’t celebrate national holidays or birthdays, so if we want to see them — and we always do — we hold family reunions. Then, they are the life of the party, offering reports on Modesto (the Gallo Center for the Arts just keeps getting better, they say) and lots of tales (most recently from an in-law who long ago cleaned the Modesto home of “Star Wars” creator George Lucas’s parents).
The only thing better than a family reunion with the Modesto Girls is going to Modesto to see them. All you have to do is show up at one of the girls’ homes and before long their siblings and other relatives appear, with stories to share.
When some recent reporting took me to Modesto, I ended up staying the night at Carla’s house, and by breakfast time, two brothers and three of the sisters had assembled at the table, along with big piles of pancakes and bacon. They talked humorously about recent events, listened to Keith’s idea that you can cure diabetes through sprinting, and recounted various stories about growing up in Modesto.
Photo of the Modesto Boys
The Modesto Girls’ brothers: Keith (front left), Wes (in cowboy hat), and Mike. (Joe Mathews Photo)
On this morning, they were talking about Uncle Shelby’s penchant for keeping large packs of animals. He once had a flock of turkeys, and later a collection of pigs, who were kept in line by a very mean boar named Big Red. My cousins have strong stomachs—they could eat the bacon even while talking about the time Shelby ordered the pigs slaughtered. The storytelling can feel competitive, as if this were an Olympics for who can tell the most “white trash” tale.
I asked my usual question: Why do you all stay here in California and Modesto? Economically, it’s a choice that doesn’t make sense: Modesto, despite its geographic proximity to the Bay Area, has been getting poorer; housing prices have yet to return to their pre-recession levels.
The answer, of course, is always the same: The Modesto Girls stay in Modesto because that is where their family is. And is anything more important than that?
Also, quipped Cathy, “Is there any other town that would take us?”
About the Author
Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

California School Board Resigns After Audit Reveals $180M in Improper Funding

DON'T MISS

NASA Says 20% of Workforce to Depart Space Agency

DON'T MISS

Frustration, Gaza Alarm Drove Macron to Go It Alone on Palestine Recognition

DON'T MISS

Trump Golfs in Scotland as Epstein Questions Persist

DON'T MISS

Visalia Police Arrest Armed Robbery Suspect at Long John Silver’s

DON'T MISS

Grand Rising Brings Sober Day Party Vibes to Fresno

DON'T MISS

Jack McAuliffe, Who Started a Craft Beer Revolution, Dies at 80

DON'T MISS

Fresno Crash Leaves One Dead After Car Submerges in Canal

DON'T MISS

Lemoore Farmers Fed Up With Lack of Representation on Groundwater Agency

DON'T MISS

‘Jenny from the Block’ Rescued After Camping Out by Calwa ATM

UP NEXT

NASA Says 20% of Workforce to Depart Space Agency

UP NEXT

Frustration, Gaza Alarm Drove Macron to Go It Alone on Palestine Recognition

UP NEXT

Trump Golfs in Scotland as Epstein Questions Persist

UP NEXT

Visalia Police Arrest Armed Robbery Suspect at Long John Silver’s

UP NEXT

Grand Rising Brings Sober Day Party Vibes to Fresno

UP NEXT

Fresno Crash Leaves One Dead After Car Submerges in Canal

UP NEXT

Lemoore Farmers Fed Up With Lack of Representation on Groundwater Agency

UP NEXT

‘Jenny from the Block’ Rescued After Camping Out by Calwa ATM

UP NEXT

Tulare Officer Injured in Crash While Trying to Save Unresponsive Infant. Child Dies at Hospital

UP NEXT

PBS Has a Future by Leaving the Past Behind: Opinion

Trump Golfs in Scotland as Epstein Questions Persist

18 hours ago

Visalia Police Arrest Armed Robbery Suspect at Long John Silver’s

19 hours ago

Grand Rising Brings Sober Day Party Vibes to Fresno

19 hours ago

Jack McAuliffe, Who Started a Craft Beer Revolution, Dies at 80

19 hours ago

Fresno Crash Leaves One Dead After Car Submerges in Canal

19 hours ago

Lemoore Farmers Fed Up With Lack of Representation on Groundwater Agency

20 hours ago

‘Jenny from the Block’ Rescued After Camping Out by Calwa ATM

20 hours ago

Tulare Officer Injured in Crash While Trying to Save Unresponsive Infant. Child Dies at Hospital

1 day ago

PBS Has a Future by Leaving the Past Behind: Opinion

1 day ago

Fresno Council Candidate Rassamni Says City Is Investigating Him Amid Allegations by Arias

1 day ago

California School Board Resigns After Audit Reveals $180M in Improper Funding

The entire board of directors overseeing Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools in Sacramento has either resigned or been removed...

15 hours ago

The entire board of Highlands Community Charter in Sacramento stepped down after a state audit found the school improperly received over $180 million and engaged in questionable spending. (Shutter
15 hours ago

California School Board Resigns After Audit Reveals $180M in Improper Funding

The NASA logo is seen at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., April 16, 2021. (Reuters File)
18 hours ago

NASA Says 20% of Workforce to Depart Space Agency

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and French President Emmanuel Macron visit a ward for Palestinian patients at El Arish Hospital, close to the border with the Gaza Strip, in Arish, Egypt April 8, 2025. Ludovic Marin/Pool via REUTERS
18 hours ago

Frustration, Gaza Alarm Drove Macron to Go It Alone on Palestine Recognition

U.S. President Donald Trump golfs at Trump Turnberry resort in Turnberry, Scotland, Britain, July 26, 2025. (Reuters/Phil Noble)
18 hours ago

Trump Golfs in Scotland as Epstein Questions Persist

Noah Robinson, 38, was arrested after allegedly robbing a Visalia Long John Silver’s at knifepoint and attempting to flee through nearby backyards with $110 in stolen cash on Friday, July 25, 2025. (Visalia PD)
19 hours ago

Visalia Police Arrest Armed Robbery Suspect at Long John Silver’s

19 hours ago

Grand Rising Brings Sober Day Party Vibes to Fresno

Craft Brewer Jack McAuliffe With Jim Koch of Samuel Adams
19 hours ago

Jack McAuliffe, Who Started a Craft Beer Revolution, Dies at 80

fresno
19 hours ago

Fresno Crash Leaves One Dead After Car Submerges in Canal

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend