Fallbrook can still celebrate Roy Rogers centennial

Although Fallbrook’s connection with Roy Rogers was not a positive one, the Rogers family does not object to the Friendly Village commemorating the Roy Rogers centennial.

In August 1964 Rogers’ 12-year-old daughter was killed in a traffic accident on U.S. Highway 101 through San Onofre which also took the lives of six Fallbrook family members. The husband of one of Rogers’ granddaughters indicated that the tragedy should not prevent Fallbrook from celebrating the Roy Rogers centennial. “There’s no harm,” he said.

The Roy Rogers centennial began late last year, as Roy Rogers was born in Cincinnati on November 5, 1911, with the birth name of Leonard Franklin Slye. His early childhood residences in Ohio included a houseboat near Portsmouth and a farm at Duck Run as well as Cincinnati. He was a square dance caller at the age of ten and was also a skilled yodeler before becoming a teenager. In addition to riding his family horse Babe, the future Roy Rogers raised a prize-winning 4-H pig and excelled in target shooting. He left high school to join his father in shoe factory employment before moving to California, where his Depression-era jobs included gravel truck driver and fruit picker. During his agricultural work he sang around migrant campfires. His initial formal appearances were at social events with his cousin, and a talent show led to his first activity in a musical group. He eventually joined composers Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer in a group called the Pioneer Trio, which evolved into the Sons of the Pioneers and provided radio, record, and movie opportunities.

Len Slye became Dick Weston in fall 1937 after signing a $75 per week contract with Republic Studios to be a singing cowboy. In 1938 he first used the name Roy Rogers and starred in the film Under Western Stars, which was his first movie with Trigger. He subsequently obtained Trigger, who was foaled on July 4, 1934, on a ranch owned in part by Bing Crosby and was later billed as “the smartest horse in the movies”, for $2,500 on a payment plan. In 1941 Rogers was reunited with Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers in the movie Red River Valley.

In 1944 band and radio singer Dale Evans appeared in the Roy Rogers movie Cowboy and the Senorita. Rogers’ wife Arline died in November 1946 shortly after giving birth to their third child. Rogers and Evans, who had a grown son from a previous marriage, began a personal relationship and were married on December 31, 1947. Rogers and Evans made 28 films together, and Evans composed the couple’s theme song “Happy Trails”.

Roy Rogers and Trigger first appeared in color in the 1947 film Apache Rose. The 1948 movie Night Time in Nevada was the last of 41 pictures with the Sons of the Pioneers, and Riders of the Purple Sage sang during 13 subsequent films while the Sons of the Pioneers continued to join Rogers and Evans during public appearances. Rogers’ final Republic Pictures movie, Pals of the Golden West, was released in 1951, although in 1952 he starred in Son of Paleface with Bob Hope and Jane Russell. The Roy Rogers Show ran on television from 1951 through 1957 and starred Rogers, Evans, Trigger, Pat Brady, Bullet the dog, and Nellybelle the Jeep; more than 100 episodes of the show were aired.

Rogers and Evans had one child together; Robin Rogers was born with Down’s Syndrome and died in infancy in 1952. Rogers and Evans subsequently adopted three children, including a Korean orphan who became Deborah Lee Rogers. Debbie Rogers, who was also of Puerto Rican descent, was born on August 14, 1952, and was three years old when she started living with the Rogers family. Rogers and Evans adopted her in January 1959, and in August 1961 Debbie Rogers was naturalized as a United States citizen. She was also involved with her Canoga Park church, Chapel of the Canyon.

In the mid-1940s William and Marie Huss moved to Fallbrook with their first two children, Susan and Margaret. They subsequently had three more children: Catherine, William, and Joseph. William Huss was a realtor in Fallbrook while Marie Huss was active in the St. Peter’s altar society and taught catechism classes. The Huss family lived in the 1100 block of East Mission Road and operated a small avocado grove on their property. In 1961 Margaret Huss and Joseph Armijo were married at St. Peter’s; Joseph Armijo worked as an engineering aide for an Albuquerque weapons research firm and the couple moved to Albuquerque and had a son and a daughter. In 1963 Susan Huss took a position as a teacher in Milwaukie, Oregon. Susan, Margaret, and Catherine Huss all attended The Little Flower Academy in San Luis Rey.

During the summer of 1964 23-year-old Susan Huss returned to Fallbrook for a visit as did 20-year-old Margaret Armijo and her two children, 18-month-old Jo Ellen and seven-month-old Joseph Paul. Catherine Huss was 15 at the time.

On August 17 Marie Huss, her three daughters, and her two grandchildren went to Long Beach in the family station wagon to visit relatives. William Huss and the two sons, 13-year-old William and 12-year-old Joseph, stayed home.

In December 1963 Chapel of the Canyon purchased a bus from the Los Angeles Unified School District. An inspection at the time found the bus, which was manufactured in 1943, to be in safe condition, and the tires were replaced with new ones. Chapel of the Canyon used the bus periodically to bring food, clothing, and toys to the Casa de la Esperanza orphanage in Tijuana. The bus had regular servicing, including on August 15, 1964. At 6:00 a.m. on August 17 the bus left Canoga Park for Tijuana. The bus with 66 adults and children arrived at Casa de la Esperanza about 9:15 a.m. During the two-hour visit the children played with the approximately 100 Mexican orphans while the American and Mexican adults practiced Spanish and English. The bus driven by church pastor Lawrence White left at approximately 11:30 a.m. and stopped for lunch in San Diego. The itinerary called for a visit to Knott’s Berry Farm before returning to Canoga Park.

U.S. Highway 101 between Oceanside and San Clemente has been replaced by Interstate 5, which bypassed other parts of Highway 101 in San Diego County. Between January 1, 1954, and August 16, 1964, 568 people had been killed on U.S. 101 in San Diego County including 180 in the 19-mile stretch between Oceanside and the county line. The deadliest crash in that northern stretch of Highway 101 occurred on February 21, 1959, during a rainstorm; that crash 13 miles south of San Onofre Creek involved five vehicles and killed nine people, including six members of a Garden Grove family who had planned an outing at Palomar Mountain.

The church bus was northbound on U.S. 101 and in the left inside lane on the San Onofre Creek bridge, which was 200 feet long and 50 feet wide, at 4:10 p.m. August 17. Susan Huss was driving the station wagon southbound and reached the bridge at the same time. Rev. White often let children stand in the front of the bus to allow the children to have a better view and to listen to the pastor. Three children were at the front of the bus as it reached the San Onofre Creek bridge including Debbie Rogers, who had celebrated her twelfth birthday three days before, and her best friend, 11-year-old Joan Russell of Granada Hills. The passengers were singing “The Old Rugged Cross”.

The bus was traveling between 60 and 70 mph according to witnesses and between 50 and 60 mph according to Rev. White. The left front tire of the bus blew out, causing White to lose control of the bus.

The northbound and southbound lanes of U.S. 101 were separated by a set of double yellow lines but not by any physical barrier. The bus went into the southbound lanes. Debris struck a car driven by Gary Denison, a serviceman stationed in San Diego who was not injured. The bus then hit a Volkswagen driven by Roberta Phillips of Berkeley, sending the Volkswagen into the bridge rail and eventually sending Phillips to Oceanside Community General Hospital in serious condition.

The bus then hit the station wagon with the Huss family and pushed it into the concrete guard railings of the bridge. Lt. Walter Pudinski, the acting commander for the California Highway Patrol’s Oceanside area, believed that if the bus had not struck the station wagon it would have gone through the bridge railing and into the creek canyon 40 feet below.

After the bus hit the station wagon, it then collided with a panel truck driven by William Schroeder of San Diego, a commissary salesman-driver who was in satisfactory condition after being taken to Oceanside Hospital. The bus took out 75 feet of guard rail at the north end of the bridge before stopping against a palm tree at the end of the canyon. At least four other vehicles were damaged by the debris from the collision. The seats in the back of the bus detached and went through the bus.

CHP officer Bill Russell had passed the bus to chase a traffic violator a minute before the crash and was the first person on the scene. Six ambulance units from Laguna Beach and Oceanside arrived shortly afterward and the Navy provided three ambulances. Camp Pendleton sent a rescue and fire unit. Orange County and San Clemente police dispatched six units, and more than half a dozen California Highway Patrol units also went to the scene.

Traffic in both directions was stopped for 40 minutes while rescue crews and CHP units removed the dead and injured from the debris. All six Huss family members in the station wagon were killed, as were Debbie Rogers and Joan Russell. Rogers’ body blocked the front door of the bus. A total of 60 bus and car occupants were injured and taken to Oceanside Hospital, Tri-City Hospital, and South Coast Hospital in Laguna Beach. At 7:00 p.m. northbound U.S. Highway 101 still had a ten-mile backup.

The memorial and burial services for Debbie Rogers and Joan Russell were held at Forest Lawn Memorial Park on August 20. White’s injuries included a broken leg and facial cuts (he also had black smudges on his hands from how hard he held the steering wheel in his attempt to keep the bus under control), and his two brothers came from Ohio and New Mexico to accompany the pastor at Oceanside Hospital. Dale Evans asked Virgil White, who was given emergency leave from Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, to give the sermon at Chapel of the Canyon the following Sunday.

Services for Marie Huss, Susan Huss, Catherine Huss, Margaret Armijo, Jo Ellen Armijo, and Joseph Paul Armijo were also held August 20. Fallbrook’s businesses were closed from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., and St. Peter’s pastor Earl Ullman led the Requiem High Mass with assistance from Diocese of San Diego apostolic administrator Francis Furey, who would become the second Bishop of San Diego in 1966. Nearly 400 mourners filled St. Peter’s to capacity. The services also included an August 19 evening Rosary at St. Peter’s. Four grey caskets, including one with the bodies of Margaret Armijo and her two small children, were then taken to Eternal Hills Cemetery in Oceanside where the members of the Huss family were buried.

Trigger was 25 when he was retired to the Rogers’ ranch in Chatsworth and died of a heart attack on July 3, 1965, a day before his 31st birthday. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans had Trigger stuffed and mounted in his famous rearing position. Bullet was also stuffed and mounted. Evans addressed her tragedies in several books, religious crusades, and the Christian television show A Date with Dale. Rogers and Evans opened a museum in Victorville, where Rogers greeted fans personally. Rogers died of congestive heart failure on July 6, 1998, at the age of 86. Evans continued to make public appearances before her death on February 7, 2001.

The Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum was subsequently relocated to Branson, Missouri. After it was closed more than 1,000 items were auctioned by Christie’s of New York in July 2010. RFD-TV, which is a national television channel dedicated to serving the needs of rural America and agriculture (RFD stands for Rural Free Delivery, a U.S. Postal Service innovation in the 1890s which provided for mail delivery to boxes on rural roads rather than forcing rural residents to travel to a post office several miles away), purchased both Trigger and Bullet. RFD-TV then proceeded to take Trigger and Bullet on a 48-state “Happy Trails Tour” where fans at public gatherings could have their picture taken with the palomino horse and the German shepherd. The programming of RFD-TV (although no cable television companies serving Fallbrook carry RFD-TV, it is available as a satellite channel) includes The Roy Rogers Show and the Roy Rogers Happy Trails Theater 88-movie collection.

Roy Rogers Jr. is also known as Dusty. His son, Dustin Rogers, now manages the Roy Rogers Theater Show in Branson. Dustin and Dusty also perform in a band, The High Riders, which performs twice daily five times a week in Branson.

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