By Maggie Caldwell
Strong, bright, funny, smart, fearless, holy – these are just a few of the adjectives Mary Sims 
Chikis’ friends and family use to describe her. In her 63 years living in Seacliff – 60 of them living in the same house her husband built on Cedar Street – she’s witnessed tremendous changes in the area, and even directly affected some of them. It’s easy to see how she inspires other people; she’s a doer, and her life has been well-lived.
Mary was born in 1915 in North Dakota, one of 9 children. She grew up helping out on her family’s large working farm milking the cows by age 10, helping to plow fields at 12. There was endless work to be done. Her family raised their own meat, chickens, eggs, and grew wheat, barley, flax, oats, and corn.
“We collected cream to sell,” remembers Mary. “Every Saturday we’d bring a 10 gallon container of cream to town to sell. That was our grocery money.” Mary’s family didn’t need very many groceries, though. “We bought sugar and coffee,” she said. “And there were no fruit trees, so we bought canned fruit. We were so self-sufficient we didn’t feel the Depression.”
Her parents were devout Catholics. Church was so important that they ventured out to attend weekly services even in the harsh Dakota winters. They family didn’t have a car, so they piled onto a large sleigh pulled by 2 horses. Her father drove it wearing a big raccoon coat and hat while oven-warmed bricks helped keep the family’s hands and feet warm.
When she turned 19, Mary left home for Minneapolis where she worked for several years until World War II broke out. When she heard the Navy shipyard in Portland was hiring, Mary packed her bags and moved again. In Portland, she met the man who would become her first husband. They courted for just 6 months before he was shipped overseas to fight.
Not one to be deterred, Mary enlisted in the Navy herself and became a WAVE (Women Accepted into Volunteer Emergency Service). After a 6-week training in New York, she was stationed in Washington, D. C. “Women weren’t allowed to go overseas,” Mary pointed out ruefully. She lived in a barracks with 1,000 other women and worked as the commissary hostess and supervisor to 90 other women working there.
Mary went back to her family’s farm after the war, but not for long. That Portland boyfriend, back from the war, wrote and talked her into moving to his hometown of Oakdale, CA even arranging a place for her to stay. The rest, they say, is history. After courting for just 1 more month, they married and had two children. They heard about and moved to Seacliff when Carolyn, the oldest, was 2. He built the house on Cedar Street where they raised their family and where Mary lived for the next 60 years.
Life in Mid-Century Seacliff
When Mary moved here with her family, the Seacliff neighborhood looked quite a bit different than it does now. “There were lots of empty lots, lots of weeds,” remembers Mary. “Only 5 or 6 houses were in the neighborhood. Seacliff Drive was a big broccoli field.” The only schools were in Santa Cruz or Watsonville, so the children went to Watsonville for school. Mary bought her groceries at the Purity market in Watsonville, sometimes picking up a few items at a small market located where Manuel’s is today.
“There’ve been so many changes,” she says. “I wish I could remember them all.” Some things are the same, though – like the railroad tracks. “The train came from San Francisco every Sunday to take people to the Boardwalk. The Sunshine Special. I’d let the kids put pennies on the track and the train flattened them. They liked that.” Her family also loved the beach. “We took the children there often,” she said. “My husband did lots of fishing – smelt, cod, tuna. He set crab traps, too. We had company all the time, his family from Modesto, and had lots of fish fries. Luckily I still like fish!”
Mary has remained a devout Catholic. When she moved to the area, the local church was St. Joseph’s that was then located at a corner of Bay and Capitola. After it burned in a fire and had to be torn down, she was active in getting the Resurrection Church hall built in Seacliff. She helped with fund-raising for many years until the parish had the funds to build the Resurrection Church building. Mary’s husband helped build the Poor Clares facility – now Coastlands Church.
“They raised most of their own food – had big gardens with cows and sheep,” she remembers. “The Mother Superior heard about me. The nuns were cloistered, but on Saturdays I drove her around to pick up things the Catholic merchants around town gave them for free.” The last stop was always a slaughterhouse on the West Side of Santa Cruz, where they picked up a weekly supply of offal.
Mary went back to work when Carolyn turned 7, and had a 20-year career as a supervisor at John Inglis Frozen Foods in Santa Cruz. Much like she did in her Navy days, she supervised a staff of about 90 women. She worked hard but made time to play. Daughter Carolyn remembers her mother getting all dressed up to go out dancing on weekends. “I love to dance!” Mary agreed. “We used to go out almost every Saturday night, dancing and drinking. We’d go to the Portuguese Hall or the Coconut Grove. Also the Sail Inn – there’s a library there now. Sometimes we went to the Aptos Club; my husband knew the owner there.” After she retired from Inglis, Mary enjoyed occasional trips to Reno with other seniors. “I was lucky on the slots,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.
Mary, who has been widowed twice, lives with her daughter Carolyn now. “I’ve enjoyed good health,” she says, and is as happy and active as she’s ever been. “She’s an amazing woman, and still very active on our community,” says her friend Deb Murray. Mary loves to walk on the Seacliff Promenade, get her nails done at the new Ocean Paradise Nail and Spa, and eat dinner at Manuel’s. “I’m in a Bunco group that meets once a month,” she said. “If there’s one word I had to pick to describe my mother, it would be ‘fearless,’” says her daughter Carolyn.
Fearless, admired, and much beloved by her family and friends, Happy Birthday Mary!