Around Montclair: April 2008 Archives

The vanished community of Narod, which usually makes me think of the insult-name Nimrod, was pronounced NAY-rod. Located in then-unincorporated territory that is now part of Montclair, Narod retains a certain cachet among oldtimers, as well as those of us who like funny names.

Here's a portion of an e-mail from Bill Gunn, a former Ontario boy (his dad owned a typewriter shop downtown), who tells us a bit more about Narod:

I knew Narod very well. My mom had friends that were down and out who lived there in the late 1940s and we used to visit and help them out.

Narod was for very poor people, illegals and folks drawing minimum social security, etc. But for a 5- to 10-year-old boy it was just another interesting place to explore."

The lore on Narod, incidentally, is that it was named by a railroad man named Doran, who simply reversed his name. Anyone want to add other facts, near-facts or good guesses about Narod?

This e-mail came in response to a column a few weeks (yikes) ago about the Ontario house with the topo maps. I meant to post the e-mail here but it slipped past me. Well, better late than never, here's what George Ehrnman had to say. I like the part about how he and his wife met:

Read with interest, as always, your column on the house on Rosewood Court with the wall of topographic maps. I would like to elaborate on a couple points.

When my wife, Sammy, and I were students at Chaffey High School (Class of '54) she and her family lived on Mills Avenue, which formed the boundary line between Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. West side of the street - Pomona. East side of the street - S.B. Co.

I used to drive her home after school, going along 4th Street which became San Bernardino Road; if memory serves me the change point was Central. This was, and still is, like Mission Boulevard becomes 5th St. in Pomona. (She may have been "bussed" on the way home too!)

During that time the greater now Montclair area was not known as Narod. Narod was a much smaller area along Central. I believe the larger area was known to the residents as Monte Vista, after the name of the Monte Vista Water District that serves the area. But there was no Monte Vista Post Office and my wife's family got their mail at a box in the Pomona Post Office.

At some point, late '50s or early '60s, the good folks of "Monte Vista" decided to incorporate as a city, but they were denied a post office by that name because it was already taken. A check of a current AAA map of California reveals no city called Monte Vista -- perhaps it has been swallowed up into a larger city. So they looked to their neighbor on the west and turned Claremont around to Montclair and got their post office. I think Montclair sounds better than Omapom, don't you?

A final irony. My wife and I now live in one of those tiny spots on the old maps, Alta Loma, on a street called Monte Vista.

Thanks, George. And nice of you to provide your future wife "buss" service.