FELIX COVE IN THE 1940s. Bertha Felix Campigli spent most of her life on the west side of Tomales Bay on an inlet known as Lairds Landing, which I’m calling Felix Cove after my family. The cove was home to Euphrasia, a Coast Miwok woman who married Domingo Felix, an Indigenous Filipino. They made the cove their home through four generations. Bertha was born there and lived in a house, still standing, that was built by her father, Joe Felix, of Coast Miwok and Filipino heritage, and his brother Ben. Bertha’s mother, Paulina Valenzuela Felix, was also Coast Miwok and Filipina. Bertha’s sister Perfecta Felix lived and raised her family in another family-built home on the next cove at Marshall Beach. Bertha married Arnold Campigli, who was born to Swiss Italian immigrants and grew up working on his family’s U Ranch with his parents and siblings. The two met working on another Point Reyes dairy ranch, she as a ranch cook and he as a ranch hand. They had one daughter, Elizabeth, in 1925. Liz was the youngest of her seven half-siblings, born into a large extended family of ranch hands and fishermen. Arnold would salvage lumber lost from ships to build a barn, a cabin and sheds at the cove. Bertha kept a vegetable garden and chickens, and picked medicinal plants when needed. In the photograph above, Bertha and Arnold share a relaxed moment on the cove. Faintly visible in the background is a teenaged Liz sitting in a skiff with oars in hand. In the early 1950s, unknown to all, Bertha’s son Victor and his attorney William O. Weissich would fight ranchers in court to keep the Felix family home. That story and more stories about my family and other Coast Miwok families will be shared at an event exploring Coast Miwok connections to the bay, “Voices of Tamal-liwa: Coast Miwok Stories and Memories of Tomales Bay,” at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 2 at the Dance Palace. Photograph from the Elizabeth Campigli Harlan archive.
West Marin’s Past, September 22, 2022
