HISTORIAN HAS DEEP ROOTS

Lynn Hay Rudy and husband, Jerry, harvest a tree on their farm.

When Lynn Hay Rudy looks out the window of her Sonoma County farm house, she sees ocean waves crashing down on the Northern California coast. Her home is hundreds of miles away from where she grew up. Her life experiences have taken her to other nations. But her focus has remained on her roots in Bakersfield.


Rudy, a descendent of Kern County pioneers and a published historian, will speak Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010, during a luncheon meeting of the Kern County Historical Society at the Stars Theater, 1931 Chester Ave.

Rudy is the author of three local history books: “A Brief History of the Hay Family of Bakersfield, California,” “Granddad: Hugh A. Blodget in Early Bakersfield,” and “Old Bakersfield: Sites and Landmarks, 1875 – 1915.”

Her Saturday presentation will focus on downtown Bakersfield from 1860 to 2010, and will include a rough architectural history.

Rudy was born and raised in Bakersfield, graduating from East Bakersfield High School in 1951. She earned a degree in art from Stanford University, pursuing a lifelong career as a biological illustrator. She and her husband, Jerry, a marine biology professor at the University of Oregon, lived for 20 years along the Oregon coast, traveling to various countries conducting research projects.

Upon their retirement, they returned to California, settling on a small coastal farm in Sonoma County, where she is a volunteer and history writer at Fort Ross State Park.

She credits her teenage years in Bakersfield, where she became her family’s genealogist, for her passion for history.

“I have always loved history,” she explained during a recent interview. She described the hours she spent pouring over tract maps and census data to piece together her family’s Kern County story.

Her relatives started moving to Kern County in the mid-1800s. Grandfather George Hay arrived on a train from Indiana in 1892 to work in the mines in the mountains east of Bakersfield. Tiring of eating beans, he moved to “the city,” where he worked first for the county treasurer and later went into real estate, she said.

The Hay Building, a prominent downtown landmarks that bore his name, was just one of Hay’s many holdings. The building was a department store, living quarters and offices complex. For several years, it was the home of artists’ studios. It is being converted into loft apartments.

Grandfather Hugh A. Blodget arrived on a train in 1874 as a 19-year-old boy with a certificate in bookkeeping. He pursued a career in banking, becoming the cashier at the Kern Valley Bank, one of many U.S. banks to fail in a 1912 crash.

Rudy said her grandfather Blodget “lost it all” and left Bakersfield in 1918, moving to San Francisco, where he was able to restore his career and a comfortable life.

During her Saturday presentation, Rudy will discuss several prominent and historically significant downtown Bakersfield buildings, including those tied to her family. She will discuss restoration efforts in Bakersfield and elsewhere, noting the challenges that confront most communities attempting a downtown renaissance.

The mother of three adult daughters, and grandmother to six, Rudy has maintained her close ties to Bakersfield, where her brothers, nieces and nephews live.

This article written by Dianne Hardisty appeared first in The Bakersfield Californian on Feb. 18, 2010.