People

“Nostalgician”

In his retirement, Ralph Rambo combined his artistic talent with his love of the Santa Clara Valley and its history in a new, informal career as “nostalgician”.

He said, “Facing retirement I needed something to do so I wrote a book, Looking Backward, 1900, for my granddaughters, Katherine and Ann, to show the valley at the turn of the century and the unforgettable characters who lived in it.”   Mimeographed copies of Looking Backward were distributed to a small group of friends and family, who insisted that Rambo write more about the Valley and the days gone by.

His first published book, Almost Forgotten, debuted in 1964 from the Rosicrucian Press. The book recalled his boyhood days attending a one-room schoolhouse and afternoons playing in the orchards and on the dusty road called Stevens Creek.  The entire work was hand lettered and illustrated with hundreds of cartoons and caricatures.  Rambo called these illustrations his “pen and inklings”. Rambo also sketched historical maps of San José and the Santa Clara Valley.  In all, he created and published a dozen books about local history.

Though much of the information in Rambo’s books is historically correct, the books are not traditional histories of the Valley.  Rather, they are collections of stories, anecdotes, and memories meant to entertain and delight. Rambo’s hand-lettering is an important component of this effect.   The artist asked his readers to “please let slippery nostalgia hold full sway” and called himself a “nostalgician” rather than a historian.

Learn more about the people who worked at the Muirson Label Co.