West Marin lost an icon last month. Joseph “Joey” Mendoza Jr., a third generation rancher on the Point Reyes Peninsula well known for his kindness, community spirit, and work ethic, died on July 23 after a two-year-long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 71.
Easy to spot in a crowd with his black cowboy hat and cowboy boots, Joey was wide of both stature and smile. Celebrated for his joie de vivre, loyalty, and enthusiasm, Joey was committed to his work on the B ranch, farming advocacy, local sports, politics, and his love for West Marin in general. “He really, truly had an impact on his community, and I think that’s a huge legacy,” said his daughter Jolynn. “What more can you ask for, than that someone gave a damn when you died?”
This legacy was evident at Joey’s funeral, held at Saint Vincent’s church in Petaluma. The building was packed full, with more people standing outside; estimates of attendance range from 500 to 1000. Speakers included Point Reyes National Seashore Superintendent Cicely Muldoon as well as friends and family, including a niece who read a poem she wrote.
“I think what made him so special is that he always looked for people’s positives and he never looked at their negatives,” said Joey’s wife Linda. “Everybody else’s success was Joey’s success. That’s just kind of how he lived his life.”
The Mendoza family has been dairying on the Point Reyes Peninsula since Joey’s grandfather, Joseph Viera “J.V.” Mendoza, arrived from the São Jorge area of the Azores in 1899. J.V., just 16 years old, started work as a farmhand, and went on to lease the Pierce Ranch from 1913 to 1919, at which point he purchased the A and B ranches. He moved to B ranch with his wife Zena and their young son Joseph “Joe” Mendoza, Joey’s father. That is where Joey and his siblings also were raised.
Born in 1943, Joey attended elementary school in a one-room schoolhouse that his grandfather had established in a converted toolshed on the A ranch. Unlike many other children of their generation, he and his siblings never had to milk cows in the dark before school—but they did work hard.
“We fed cows, bucked hay, and fixed fences,” said Jim. “We milked cows too, just not before school. In those days, cows weren’t like cows today. We had some that were mean as snakes, they could knock you cuckoo.”
The kids did other work around the ranch as well, from varnishing their father’s boat to skinning deer to opening gates. “You had to be out of the truck to open a gate before the truck even stopped,” Jim said. “That was a kid’s job. Adults never had to open the gates.” And there were a lot of gates: at one time, there were 14 between their house on the point and the nearest town of Inverness.
Despite the work, Joey and his siblings have always spoken glowingly of their childhood and of their parents, Joe and Scotty. The couple was outgoing, sociable, and widely known as pillars of the community, and their children took after them.
At 13 years old, Joey was sent to board at a military academy in San Rafael, but he immediately wanted to return home. The next year he did—after being kicked out for buying alcohol and selling it to the other kids. Joey’s son and brother both told similar versions of the story; that kind of spirited troublemaking was just part of who Joey was. He was very happy to return home, and attend Tomales High, where he excelled and graduated in 1961.
“He was small, he was slow, and he wasn’t greatly coordinated—but he starred at baseball, basketball, and football [at Tomales] through sheer determination,” said Jim.
After high school, Joey earned a two-year degree in dairy science from the California Polytechnic State University, though it took him three years to graduate. “I think he had a little fun,” Jim said. After graduation, Joey came home to the point and began to work on the family dairy—where he spent the rest of his career. He worked alongside his father for most of that time; Joe Sr. didn’t retire until he was about 85 and Joey himself 64.
Joey was at nearly every social event in his community. Whether on the back of a pickup watching a parade, in the stands at a sports game, at a meeting, or in a bar—there was Joey.
“He didn’t miss a thing,” said Linda, his wife. “If there were two or three events in a day, he would make it to everything. There was always something going on.”
Fittingly, Joey first met Linda at the Aquarium Lounge in Petaluma in 1979. She was 11 years younger than Joey, and he liked to call her his “young bride,” she said. “We didn’t meet at a church social or during school,” said Linda. “It’s a little embarrassing. But that’s Joey; he liked going to bars.”
Throughout his life Joey had an uncanny knack for close shaves and for making friends. “My brother’s life was like that scene in the Blues Brothers where the hotel blows up, and they just get up, dust themselves off, get in their car and drive away,” Jim said. “People were always helping him out, and he was always helping them out.”
At home on the ranch, though, Joey focused on work. “He ran the B ranch for 40-some-odd years, that was pretty intense at times,” Linda said. “He’d leave the party over to the side because he had the cows to milk, the ranch to run, and men to organize. It wasn’t always jokes 24-7.”
“He wasn’t lazy; he did everything at full bore,” said Jim. “Everything was at 100 percent—and if you didn’t give 100 percent, he was growling.”
That intensity extended beyond the ranch. Joey was also committed to community, sports, and politics. He served as president and board member of numerous organizations, including the Marin County Farm Bureau, Western United Dairymen, and the Dairymen’s Feed Co-op. Joey thrived on getting people together and encouraging them to meet and work things out, said Joey’s son Jarrod Mendoza.
He had a tendency to fall asleep in meetings but he would wake up and be right on point, Jim said. “It’s called the Mendoza snooze; we all do it,” he added. “Once my sister and brother and I were in a meeting together and we were all asleep.”
Joey had the respect of people and organizations throughout the state, Jim said; one time, he added, in Washington, D.C., Sen. Barbara Boxer walked across the street to give him a hug.
Joey was also a lifelong supporter of young people. Even as a teenager, younger kids gravitated to him—he would give them funny names and make them laugh, Jim said. As an adult, Joey supported kids and young adults with a blend of mischievousness and authority.
“As long as you were a good person and a nice person, he’d be friends with anybody of any age and any walk of life,” said Jolynn, adding “ I had a couple people come up to me at the service and say, ‘Your dad always really believed in me.’”
Joey was particularly dedicated to youth sports. He attended virtually every game at Tomales High. He also went to high school and community games throughout the county if there was a kid that he knew playing in them.
Joey also passed along his love for a good party. “As kids grew up and went into the bar scene, he’d show them the ropes,” Jim said.
In 2009, Joey sold the last of his 650-head herd and retired from the dairy business; the recession had made it impossible to make ends meet. It briefly looked like the end of an era. But in 2010, with a loan from Joey, his son Jarrod started the dairy up again—and converted it to organic. Joey also helped finance Jolynn and her husband as they expanded their organic dairy to include the L Ranch.
“In his mind, organic was not an option for his own business,” Jarrod said. “But once he saw my sister and I doing it then he did a complete 180—he decided organic was the saving grace of the dairy business.”
Seeing both of his kids go into ranching may have been the thing in his life Joey was most proud of, Jarrod said. He wasn’t running things any more, but he was able to front the capital.
“Nowadays you can’t walk into a bank and say I want to start a dairy; they will look at you like you’re crazy. And he was able to do that for us,” Jarrod said. “He liked to see young people get involved in agriculture, and with us it is carrying on the tradition. He got to know that the buck didn’t stop with him.”
“He worked hard, played hard, danced hard, loved hard, and he died hard,” said Jim. “He would not give in, and he did it all with a smile on his face.”
Joey is survived by his wife Linda, daughter Jolynn McClelland, son Jarrod Mendoza, brother Jim Mendoza, and three grandchildren. Donations in his name may be made to Tomales High School Boosters Club or the Tomales Friends of Ag.
If you want to hear more about Joey’s life and family in his own words, you can listen to an interview with him and his sister Sharon Doughty in 2012 at thestoryshed.wordpress.com.