The Rickard/Pankey Family

In order to come to Pomona College in 1936, Elizabeth "Libby" Searles '38 spent the summer working as a waitress at Glenbrook Inn, a haven for the rich and famous on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. In a recently published family history, Love of the Land, Libby remembers life in Southern California during the 1920s and '30s. In it, she illustrates many of the changes that the region faced in the following decades.

Libby met Edgar Pankey '38 at Pomona in the fall of 1937. "He saw me singing with a musical group at a dance," says Libby. Ed called her the next day, and in a few short weeks, they were going steady. In her family's history, Libby tells a charming tale of their courtship, which was blessed with plenty of humor.

Ed came from a long line of Orange County citrus farmers, and after he and Libby were married, they lived in the Pankey family homestead in Tustin, California. Over the years they've watched acre after acre of citrus orchards turn to residential and commercial property, including their own farmland. Reminiscing about drives she and Ed have taken to see the desert blooms in the springtime, Libby notes, "This region is still so beautiful."

Two of their four children and a granddaughter followed Ed and Libby to Pomona. Ed's brother, Robert Pankey '40, married another Pomona graduate, whose mother was part of the Class of 1913.