Calistoga cattle rancher, a legend in her time, will be inducted into Sonoma County Farm Bureau Hall of Fame
By Tim Tesconi
When the 2019 Kincade fire storm blasted across Cheryl LaFranchi’s Oak Ridge Angus Ranch in the Knight’s Valley it destroyed nearly everything — houses, redwood barns and more than 100 years of ranching history.
But it didn’t diminish the indomitable spirit of the tough-as-nails cattle rancher who never – ever – considered giving up on the family land and way-of-life she loves.
How could she? Lifelong friends in the agricultural community and beyond were there the next day to haul her Angus cattle to safer pastures and to begin the monumental cleanup and restoration of water and power systems. They brought her food, delivered hay for her cattle and even donated an old ranch truck to replace the vehicles burned in the fire.
Friends and family quietly stood by her side amid the unbelievable devastation that wiped out a century of ranch life on land her grandfather Massimino LaFranchi, a Swiss immigrant, settled in 1912.
“I couldn’t quit because all my friends didn’t quit me. Friend after friend after friend arrived to help, knowing this ranch is my life and there was no question that we would move on to rebuild,” said LaFranchi, 62, who has done just that. She was supported through it all by her husband, Dr. Frank Mongini, a large animal veterinarian whose expertise in all matters bovine was put to good use in caring for the distressed cattle.
LaFranchi, blessed with a businesswoman’s sensibility and the heart of a cowgirl, has spent the last four years rebuilding, restoring and restocking the 1,200-acre ranch that has been in her family for 112 years. It’s been the biggest and most important challenge of her life but the end goal is to preserve the family ranch and its legacy for the generations to come.
But the thing she couldn’t do is replace the family heirlooms and treasured keepsakes that defined the generations on the land – memorabilia like her grandfather’s handwritten ledgers and the sterling silver trophies from the cattle shows when Cheryl’s father Henry and uncles Al and Nick – the LaFranchi Brothers – had one of the leading Ayrshire dairy cattle herds in the world. They had the trophy for the Supreme Champion Ayrshire cow at the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin to prove it.
The LaFranchi family transitioned from Ayrshire dairy cattle to Angus beef cattle in 1975, going on to win more trophies and ribbons in cattle shows across the country. Those are all gone too.
It’s been an incredible transformation – and a dizzying odyssey for LaFranchi – as the ranch was recreated from the ground up with five new homes for family and ranch hands and eight barns for cattle and the trucks, tools and equipment needed on a ranch. There was fencing, water systems and landscaping to restore. LaFranchi continues to plant dozens and dozens of oak trees to replace those lost.
After all, what would the Oak Ridge Angus Ranch be without the majestic oaks that inspired her grandfather to give it that name.
The ambitious endeavor is testament to LaFranchi’s perseverance, resilience and the abiding pioneer spirit that kept her going through it all, seldom looking back and steadfastly moving forward.
LaFranchi, a member of Sonoma County Farm Bureau, believes that the ranch is getting back to a new normal as the seasonal cycles heal the land and the cattle again flourish, fat and sassy in fields of plenty. Markets for her branded Oak Ridge Angus beef are growing and her Angus bulls are bringing top dollar at Red Bluff. She is ramping up the Range-to-Table program that she started in 2010 to provide ground beef to the Redwood Empire Food Bank to feed those in need.
LaFranchi’s true grit and unfettered dedication to land, family, community and agriculture have made her a legend in the farming community. Now, LaFranchi’s remarkable spirit which epitomizes the can-do attitude of farmers and ranchers is being honored by Sonoma County Farm Bureau.
Farm Bureau, the county’s leading and most influential agricultural organization, is inducting Cheryl LaFranchi into the Sonoma County Farm Bureau Hall of Fame in recognition of her remarkable accomplishments on so many levels. The prestigious award recognizes individuals who have made a real and lasting difference in preserving and protecting Sonoma County’s farming industry and rural way-of-life on the county’s more than 500,000 acres of farmland.
LaFranchi will join other extraordinary leaders like her friend, the late and legendary farming advocate Saralee McClelland Kunde, and agricultural leaders such as Marilyn and Kip Herzog, Gene Benedetti, Larry Bertolini, Tito Sasaki and more in the Farm Bureau Hall of Fame.
“Cheryl is a silent giant. Her presence and contribution to not only local agriculture but to our entire community is tremendous, yet humble and inspiring.,” said Dayna Ghirardelli, executive director of Sonoma County Farm Bureau. “I’ve always known Cheryl to be a hardworking, no-BS cowgirl whose dedication to her heritage, family values and legacy of the family ranch is unwavering. She is the epitome of success and exemplifies the very person the Sonoma County Farm Bureau Hall of Fame is intended to honor. Cheryl LaFranchi is the real deal!”
LaFranchi and the other “Stewards of the Land” award recipients will be honored at Farm Bureau’s Love of the Land celebration on July 11 at Richard’s Grove and Saralee’s Vineyard, the Windsor estate created by Richard and Saralee Kunde that is now part of Jackson Family Wines.
Many of the friends who have been there for LaFranchi will be at the Love of the Land event to celebrate her place in the agriculture community and recognize her strength and resilience in the aftermath of the fire.
LaFranchi said in the days and weeks following the fire she didn’t have time to think about all that had been lost. After all, she had hundreds of distressed and damaged cattle that needed her immediate and focused attention.
“Every day I would get up, put my head down and best foot forward to keep moving on to marshal all the strength and energy I had to care for the cattle,” LaFranchi said. It was depressing to not only lose cattle in the fire but to see the surviving animals, primarily the calves, so sick and stressed. Her herd dwindled from 400 to 200 head but she is building back the cow numbers each year.
’I’ve never lost so many cattle. Ever,” she said.
For 14 months, LaFranchi and her husband lived in a cramped camper along with the ranch’s dogs, Buster Brown and Tatter Tot, and some friendly barn cats. Family members and ranch hands who had homes on the property found shelter elsewhere as LaFranchi dealt with her insurance provider and the necessary governmental agencies to begin rebuilding.
LaFranchi does not have children of her own but is Mother Courage to her grown nieces, Rachel and Ashley, and nephew, Logan, who are the children of her brother Eric LaFranchi, who works in the computer world but lives on the ranch. Family members have returned to newly built homes on the ranch that now spans five generations. While they all hold good paying jobs off the ranch, all are dedicated to keeping the ranch in the family and one day taking over the cattle operation.
“God willing, they will have to put up with me for another 30 years,” said LaFranchi. “I told them to go out and make all the money they can now because they will never earn that kind of money raising cattle.”
Niece Rachel LaFranchi, who formerly worked for Sonoma County Farm Bureau, now is employed at Redwood Credit Union. Rachel lives in the old turn of the century farmhouse that somehow survived the fire.
Ashley works for a non-profit. Logan, who has two little boys, is an airplane mechanic but loves the cattle and ranch life.
For LaFranchi her greatest accomplishment is keeping the ranch going and having family living on it, prepared to one take the reins and run it.
“It’s not much of a family ranch if there’s no family,” she said.
Legacy, land and family are what drive her every day. When the ranch looked like a moonscape after the fire, she rolled up her sleeves and went to work. And has never stopped.
One of the first buildings LaFranchi put up was a modular unit that was made into a bathroom, laundry room and office. It became the ranch nerve center and a respite area amid the ruin.
“One of the hardest things for me was working all day in the mud and manure and not being able to take a hot shower and wash dirty clothes at the end of the day,” she said.
LaFranchi always appreciated and valued the ranch life and the natural beauty of the land. But since the fire she takes nothing for granted, reveling in the sunsets on the ridge, the bald eagles that have returned to nest in the trees and the tranquility of her cattle grazing on spring pastures.
“I truly have more of an appreciation for everything,” she said. “I am thankful for things just being normal when I get up every day.”
LaFranchi is up and at by 6 a.m. to get it all done. Her main business is raising and selling market cattle – 12 to 14 head a month – for her branded beef program, Oak Ridge Angus. The cattle graze on lush pastures and then are finished with a diet of spent brewers’ grains from Lagunitas Brewery in Petaluma and almond hulls from the Central Valley. Using the waste by-products, instead of grains brought in from the Midwest, is part of the story at Oak Ridge Angus Ranch where low-input, natural ranching methods are a way-of-life.
The beef is processed and sold though Sonoma County Meat Co., based in Santa Rosa. The branded beef finds its way onto the menus of Bay Area restaurants that want local, sustainably produced meat from family ranchers like LaFranchi.
LaFranchi’s other focus is rebuilding the Range to Table program, which uses her cattle and cattle donated by other ranchers to produce ground beef for the Redwood Empire Food Bank. Before the wild fires and Covid pandemic, the program was annually giving up to 24,000 pounds of a ground beef a year to the Food Bank. With all the disasters and diversions, it has dropped to around 7,000 pounds annually but LaFranchi is determined to bring it back to the levels it was five years ago.
Many days LaFranchi thinks of her late parents, grandfather and uncles who came before her on the ranch. She wonders what they would think of it all, especially the branded beef from Oak Ridge Angus on the menus of fancy, white-table cloth restaurants in San Francisco.
“They would certainly get a kick out of it,” said the rancher’s daughter. “They would be proud of what we have done to keep the ranch going and, in our family.”
Hopefully for the next century.
