April 2024. I’d met her a few times, usually at Historical Society functions, part of a group of women who’d known each other longer than I’ve been alive. But the first time I can recall actually sitting with her, beside her, she was decked out for a 1920s-themed anniversary party for the Santa Paula Art Museum. Shiny headband, cream-pink dress, and a radiant smile. Even as she was struggling with partial blindness and the fragility of having lived nearly a century, her elegance — her presence — was palpable.
Widowed since 2013, she was by no means a shrinking violet. Other volunteer docents for the Santa Paula Art Museum recall signing up to tend bar with her at various events — only to hang back, admiring as Cathy slung drinks and held court with dozens of visitors and staff. No matter where she was, what we were doing, she drew people to her like hummingbirds to nectar. I was a bit in awe of her.
It wasn’t until I tagged along for a group outing one day that I fully clocked her sense of humor. As we stopped by her town home to pick her up, I did a double-take. There he was, mustache, grin, and all. Tom Selleck. Posting guard at her front door. Apparently, the life-size cutout had been a regular “boyfriend” for a while.
Writing about these small moments now, they’re like trying to catch a comet by its tail. Catherine “Cathy” Morris Barringer had blazed a trail across California and the Santa Clara River Valley for the better part of the last century, and I was able to catch only the fading traces of that bright light.
She was born in Burbank, California, in 1926, at the height of Prohibition — and a time of rapid expansion and economic development in San Fernando Valley. Burbank itself was not even forty years old, founded in 1887 by dentist and would-be sheep farmer, David Burbank. Having moved from San Francisco, he purchased Rancho La Providencia and a portion of Rancho San Rafael — parcels that had traded hands several times as part of the Spanish and Mexican land grant system of ownership.
The year Cathy was born marked just 15 years since the city of Burbank’s incorporation and saw the arrival of Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and their nascent film company, First National Pictures. They were soon followed by the Warner Brothers, whose studio would release the groundbreaking film, The Jazz Singer, the next year. The Warner Bros. backlot now occupies the land where David Burbank used to raise his sheep.
After graduating from Van Nuys High School in 1944, Cathy earned a degree in economics and journalism from Stanford University, where years earlier, graduate students William Hewlett and David Packard had invented an audio technology that allowed them to found one of Silicon Valley’s first successful tech companies.
While still at Stanford, Cathy met the love of her life, Carl Barringer, who was just returning from military service in World War II. They married and moved to Santa Paula in 1948, where they would spend the next 65 years building a life and a community together.
Cathy worked as a substitute teacher at Santa Paula High School, where she also served as the president of the PTA. Her husband, Carl, worked in both construction and real estate. He founded his construction firm, Barringer and Botke, with his brother, John, and Bill Botke, the son of locally renowned artists, Cornelis and Jessie Arms Botke. (As an aside, the Santa Paula Art Museum has just wrapped an exhibition of Cornelis Botke’s work.) Barringer and Botke would be instrumental in the building of Anacapa Junior High School and E.P. Foster Library in the city of Ventura, not to mention, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and St. Sebastian’s Catholic Church in Santa Paula, as well as the boys’ gymnasium in Santa Paula High School. Carl would also lead efforts to improve Highway 126, the major thoroughfare that now connects Ventura to Santa Paula, Fillmore, Piru, and the Los Angeles County line. In the 1980s, Carl served as Santa Paula city councilman and as city mayor for two non-consecutive terms.
Cathy and Carl viewed each other as partners in their commitment to public service. At the time of her nomination in 1985, Cathy was only the second woman to serve as foreperson of the Ventura County grand jury. In memory of her late mother, she established the Rose Garden at Santa Paula Hospital and would tend it for the next 35 years alongside several friends, including my husband’s father and mother, Doug and Judy. Cathy not only founded but oversaw the growth of Santa Clara Valley Hospice and Home Support Group from a corner of her husband’s office to the entire first floor of Faulkner Hall, in the United Methodist Church. The group would help provide respite care for Judy’s family when her father was terminally ill. Notably, their services were provided free of charge.
Cathy wasn’t content to stop there. What follows is an incomplete list of her accomplishments:
President of the Ventura County Garden Club.
President of the Las Patronas Auxiliary.
President of Interface Children & Family Services, a nonprofit social service provider that offers support and resources to at-risk, homeless, and abused children.
Recipient of the Soroptimist Woman of Distinction Award.
1994 Santa Paula Citizen of the Year. (Carl was named Citizen of the Year in 1980.)
Grand Marshal (along with Carl) of the Christmas Parade.
Honored by the City of Santa Paula by official proclamation in 2018.
Even with these considerable commitments, she managed to remain an active supporter of the Santa Paula Art Museum and Blanchard Library, even helping chair a benefit committee to rescue the library from crippling debt in 1992. I’m still puzzling over how she found time to raise four children, play tennis, and nurture friendships that would last decades.
She and Carl watched Santa Paula grow from a sleepy town of roughly 12,000 in 1948 to, well, a less-sleepy town of roughly 30,000 now. In that time, Santa Paula’s volunteer fire department went pro and was eventually subsumed by the Ventura County Fire Department. Many of the orchards that helped make Santa Paula the “Citrus Capital of the World” have been sold to real estate developers or converted to other crops. Santa Paula High School has considerably expanded its academic programs to help prepare students not just for college, but for the realities of our tech-centric era. Local hangs like Garman’s Irish Pub, the Familia Diaz Mexican restaurant, and Vince’s Coffee Shop are long gone, replaced by vibrant new businesses leading a kind of downtown renaissance in Santa Paula.
But some things have not changed all that much. Santa Paula High School remains a center of family life for many. A go-to film location in the early days of Hollywood cinema, Santa Paula continues to host film and television crews. It’s not uncommon to receive a notice from the city warning of closed streets and traffic disruptions. Despite devastating fires and economic downturns, the iconic Glen Tavern Inn still survives, 115 years after its establishment — and still occasionally scares the shit out of unwary guests and paranormal investigators alike.
Above all, Santa Paula retains a distinctly rural character. Where Los Angeles often feels too big and too self-aware, and Santa Barbara is just too bloody hard to get to on the 101 — which has been under construction for roughly a bazillion years — Santa Paula is content to hang back and chill. It’s not eager to become the Next Big Thing, nor to be overrun by hipsters and an ironic sense of cool. Parking is still free in most places around town — and residents prefer to keep it that way.
The last time Judy visited her, Cathy had moved from living more or less independently to assisted living. Frail and confined to her apartment, she was disappointed at not being able to have dinner in the main dining room — not because she missed the food, but because she missed the company. She just wanted to see her friends.
Catherine Barringer died a week later at the age of 99. Upon receiving the news, the City of Santa Paula and the Ventura Board of Supervisors adjourned their meeting in honor of her passing.
The Barringers’ life and work are so interwoven into the fabric of valley life that, even if you never met them, you’ve probably encountered or benefitted from some part of their legacy. We are grateful to have known Cathy and heartbroken by her loss.
A memorial service will be held Saturday, July 18 at 4:00 PM at St. Paul’s Episcopal and Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Santa Paula.
You can honor her memory by donating to your favorite charity or by leaving a tribute at catherinebarringer.com.
Sources:
Burbank Historical Society, “The New England Dentist Who Drilled for a City: The Legacy of Dr. David Burbank”
Burbank in Focus, Burbank History Timeline
Camarillo Star, “New grand jury named.” July 2, 1985.
Santa Paula Times, Catherine Barringer Obituary. June 10, 2026
Ventura County Star, “Outgoing president goes out a winner.” September 19, 1980.
Ventura County Star, “Barringer named S. Paula Mayor.” April 19, 1983.
Ventura County Star, “Vista Profile: Mayor.” May 7, 1983.
Ventura County Star, “Rallying around a library.” May 15, 1992.
Ventura County Star, “Rushing real estate.” April 25, 1999.
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