Remembering Brooke Wissler

For The Madera Tribune

George Washington Mordecai.

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Every year in November my mind is filled with memories of the Mordecai family. This is when the descendants of George Washington Mordecai gather at Refuge, the ranch he founded in 1868.

It is impossible to think about them without remembering that day almost 40 years ago when I led my sixth grade class down the winding dirt road leading from the highway to the Mordecai Ranch to visit the grave of Mr. Mordecai.

There were about 30 of us, and as we followed the path that led to the family cemetery, Brooke Wissler and her husband, Admiral John Wissler, were waiting for us by the graveyard gate. She was the granddaughter of G.W. Mordecai.