Weekly Comments Archive
Archived Issue
Sunday, January 12, 2025
ISSUE #1240
Los Angeles Fires Burn Will Rogers Historic Home

Will Rogers was a comforter.

This week, in his own way, Will Rogers is still providing comfort. Hundreds of neighbors of the Will Rogers State Park in Pacific Palisades, California, have lost their homes to the wind-driven fires.

The house that Will and Betty built and lived in for the last ten years of his life was burned to the ground. The Will Rogers house (on the National Register of Historic Places) was the centerpiece of the 186-acre state park.

On losing the house, Will would probably say, “It’s just a house. It can be replaced. The lives lost, the memories that burned; those are priceless.”

The Will Rogers legacy as a comforter is in good hands. For the last 15 years, his great granddaughter, Jennifer Rogers-Etcheverry, has gladly accepted the role. Since Wednesday, she has received hundreds of text messages. Many are yearning for comfort from Will Rogers, and Jennifer is responding. She is giving comfort to those who have lost homes and families who lost loved ones.

Jennifer has been interviewed on California stations, Fox News, Newsmax, and even international news outlets. The love for Will Rogers is still there, almost 90 years after his death. “Will would be the first one on a plane to travel and raise funds for natural disasters. If he was alive today, he would be right there in the middle of it, seeing what he could do to help.”

Yes, Will offered support for so many suffering from disasters, including the Dust Bowl and a major fire in an Ireland movie theater while he was visiting the country. (See 3 more examples in the Historic quotes below.)

Among those who need help today are the people who work or volunteer at the park. Several lost their own homes!  Jennifer announced, “Our Will Rogers Ranch Foundation is accepting donations to help those people that were part of our community with Will Rogers State Historic Park. We’re going to help with transportation costs, help with housing, help with just the basic necessities.”

To join me in donating, go to: WillRogersRanchFoundtion.org, and click on “Join us in Rebuilding Lives.” Mail a check or donate by credit card. Thanks.

And while Los Angeles is in the spotlight, don’t forget about victims of Hurricane Helene, which killed over 100. There were no $25,000,000 houses lost in Chimney Rock, North Carolina, but that does not reduce the needs of those folks for compassion and comfort.

I’ll write more next week. The fires are still burning. High winds are predicted through Wednesday.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

       “I don’t believe our people that have never been around a flood area realize the tremendous need of these sufferers down on the Mississippi. It’s by far the worst thing that has happened in this country in years… Now we have a chance to help the poorest people we have in America, and that is the renter farmer. Mr. Ziegfeld has generously given me his wonderful new theatre in New York City, and I am going to put on my little one-man [show] for this great cause next Sunday night. So even if you don’t like cowboy gum chewers on the stage, come anyway and help out a real cause. They will get every cent that comes in, even if there is nobody there but my wife—who will have to pay to get in.” DT #236, Apr. 25, 1927

      “These people in the drought-stricken country ain’t waiting for the government to relieve ’em. Their well-to-do are helping their less fortunate themselves. At a matinee today in Wichita Falls, we [raised] $9,100. At Fort Worth tonight, the cowman’s paradise, we played to $18,000. At my breakfast matinee yesterday morning at Abilene at 10 o’clock, got $6,500, and every cent of that is net. People in America have got the money and will give if they know the need is there, and these people know it is.” DT #1411, Jan. 30, 1931

       “Well, here we are at Managua, Nicaragua… Eight days after [the earthquake] there is from one to three hundred bodies still under those ruins. Naturally what they need is money. The government or the people haven’t got a cent. The Red Cross combined with the relief organization here has done great work as usual and still is. They are feeding about 8,000… If through the Red Cross and public donations from up home they could get $250,000, it would relieve the situation as to food and get some roofs to cover these people… Goodness knows, you generous folks have been asked till you are ragged, but honest, if you saw it, you would dig again… It just falls where everything else does, on the generosity and goodness of the American people. If you saw, as I did this morning, 2,500 mothers with babies in their arms go by and get their ration of milk you would say there was some poor devil that needed it worse than you do.” WA #1469, Apr.8, 1931 (Will Rogers donated $5000 himself)

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