I’d like to take a moment tonight to adjourn in memory of Bobbie Trueblood Davis, a woman who for more than 50 years helped shape Santa Clarita as a leader in our community. Bobbie passed away on December 16th at her home in Morro Bay at the age of 93.
Bobbie was born on October 30, 1924 in England and was a war bride, meeting and falling in love with a U.S. soldier named Fred Trueblood, Jr. and moving to the United States in 1946. She and Fred were married a month later.
Shortly after she married Fred, the couple bought a house in the Santa Clarita housing tract in Dry Canyon, now called Seco Canyon. That is where they raised their four children – Fred III, John, Michael and Kyltie.
Fred was the son of the owner of the Newhall Signal and Saugus Enterprise and Bobbie wrote the society column for The Signal on a temporary basis until the family sold the paper to Scott and Ruth Newhall and she was hired to write it full time.
In addition to writing about societal issues and the nonprofit sector in the Santa Clarita Valley, Bobbie continued to become involved in various organizations that serve our residents today. She was the first female president of the Newhall-Saugus Boys Club, which later became one of the first Boys and Girls Clubs in the country once they added girls in the 1970s.
In 1971 she became the first employee of Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital as the Director of Community Relations. In 1972 she was named Woman of the Year by the Chamber of Commerce and three years later she presided over the first meeting of the SCV Historical Society. You’ll also likely know Bobbie for her work on the Fourth of July Parade in Newhall – she participated in the parade 50 consecutive years.
Bobbie also rose in the political scene, becoming a leader in local Republican clubs and initiatives in the 70s. She was a field representative for Assemblyman Newt Russell and State Senator Ed Reinecke prior to her husband’s death in 1979 after 33 years of marriage.
In 1981 Bobbie met Ed Davis when he hired her to serve on his legislative team. Davis was the former LAPD chief who won a State Senate seat the year before. They married three years later.
We will all greatly miss Bobbie, and our thoughts are with her four children, five grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, extended family and friends during this time.