Native Petaluman’s roots run deep in city

Proud of her ancestry and proud to be connected to the city’s past, Petaluma native Linda Bakalar possesses a collection of memorabilia from her family, who cultivated deep roots in the city over the decades.

When Irish immigrant John W. McNally arrived in Petaluma in 1877, the city had a population of fewer than 3,700 residents. Not long after his arrival, McNally purchased property on B Street, where Rex Hardware is currently located, and established Petaluma’s first horseshoeing business.

By the time Frank Hartman’s family, including sons Frank and William, moved to Petaluma from San Francisco in 1915, the population had grown to about 6,000. We can’t be sure if the McNallys and the Hartmans, who had immigrated from Germany, ever had any business or social interactions together, but when William Hartman married John McNally’s granddaughter, Janice McNally, in the mid-1930s, the two early Petaluma families became well acquainted.

A plastering contractor by trade, William Hartman also wanted to be a rancher, so along with running Hartman Brothers Plastering with his brother, he pulled double-duty, also operating a small dairy and farming premium-grade oat hay on his 60-acre ranch on Casa Grande Road.

Janice (pronounced Jenice) McNally, a 1925 graduate of St. Vincent De Paul High School, was known for her top-rated tennis game and for being one of eight winners of Petaluma’s “Home-Owned Business Good Times Contest” in 1935. The popularity contest involved scores of young women who were advised to offer their services as “outside business stimulators” to encourage patronage at local businesses. The grand prize was a seven-day trip to Southern California, Old Mexico, Catalina Island, and the California Pacific International Exposition in San Diego. While in Los Angeles the “Petaluma ambassadors of goodwill” stayed at the Biltmore Hotel, lunched at the famous Brown Derby and visited a Hollywood movie set.

The Hartman’s two children, Linda and her late brother Leonard, were raised on the rural east Petaluma ranch, where Linda, as a 10-year-old, learned to drive the family tractor and rode her horse “Trigger” in the fields surrounding the property. Her grandfather, Frank McNally, a feed and grain salesman for G.P. McNear, would often allow his grandkids to slide down the feed chutes at the mill and weigh themselves on the huge feed scale. As a student at St. Vincent’s, she remembers when her father, after delivering his milk cans to the Co-operative Creamery, dropped her off at school, from where she’d also ride her bike home to the ranch. She was a member of the cheerleading squad and was chosen St. Vincent’s Homecoming Queen in 1958, before graduating from the high school in 1959.

Linda Hartman worked at the Bank of America and would frequently tool around town in her ’57 Chevy, a common teenage pastime in small-town Petaluma. While tooling around one evening, she met Michael Bakalar, an airman stationed at Hamilton Air Force Base, who’d mistakenly driven north instead of south while leaving the base. The mistake proved to be serendipitous for the couple, who will celebrate their 53rd wedding anniversary in May.

Bakalar has a collection of photographs, her mother’s 1925 diploma from St. Vincent’s and her grandfather’s 1894 grammar school diploma from Cinnabar School. The family’s ranch property, where they’d routinely graze untethered cows between the fence and Casa Grande Road, was sold by the Hartmans in the late 1960s, and is now the site of Casa Grande High School.

When her great-grandfather, J.W. McNally passed away in 1934, The Argus-Courier, as was common in those days, ran a colorfully-written obituary detailing the life of the widely known and much beloved pioneer citizen, who was described as genial, efficient, capable and always industrious. Acclaimed for his business success and highly esteemed by the people of this city, his life had been measured along the principles of honor.

A stay-at-home mother until her three children, Susan, Michael and Brian were grown, Linda starting playing tennis at McNear Park before joining the Petaluma Tennis Association. A highly competitive person, she brings her A-game to every match.

“I love the playing game of tennis and I always play to win,” said Bakalar, explaining that her schedule at Abbey Carpets, where she’s worked for 32 years, is flexible and revolves around her tennis commitments.

In many ways she represents a typical native Petaluman, a lifetime resident who couldn’t imagine living any place else.

“I was born on the east side and I’m still on the east side,” Bakalar said proudly.

(Harlan Osborne’s column Toolin’ Around Town appears every two weeks. Contact him at harlan@sonic.net.)