Published April 1993

It was 1917 when Irene Fredricks met Joseph William Post II, known as Bill, at a rodeo and barbeque at the Cooper Ranch. He was the only child of Joe and Lizzy Post, and as a young man, worked as a cowboy and drove the mail route from Monterey to Big Sur, Bill kept a little cabin in town, and would sleep in Big Sur at his folks homestead every other night, driving the stage back to Monterey with the mail in the morning.

Irene and her sister Pauline were to work at Pfeiffer's REsort, and Bill gave the young women a ride in his stage. It was then that he and Irene remembered their earlier meeting at the rodeo, and became reacquainted. On his mail delivery days Bill visited Irene, and after three months of courtship they married on May 8, 1919.

At first the couple lived with Bill's parents in the old homestead, and then he and his father tore down the two-story house which Joe Post had built in the canyon, and constructed a new home from the same lumber. That house still stands across the driveway from the original Sierra Mar Restaurant, which has now become the Ventana Maintenance building.

Irene's mother was from Ireland, and Irene was raised in Oakland. She had been to the coast previously, to visit relatives, the Beavers, who had homesteaded in the south fork of Little Sur. Her brother Frank also lived on the coast, and worked as an engineer and truck driver on the highway crew.

Irene was a city girl who had to quickly learn Big Sur ways. She cooked on a wood stove, went without running water, learned to can fruit and meat, and made her own butter and cheese.

"Shortly after we were married," she said, "I was taken up to a camp in the hills and left there while the men went out to hunt mountain lions. I'd never seen a wood rat before and they were all over the place. I had a gun but didn't know how to use it. I learned Fast."

In later years she ran a trap line in the hills and sold the racoon and wildcat hides, suing the money to buy weaning calves to add to their herd. She who had never been on a horse before joined a family of superb riders, and she learned to ride, to work cattle, and to pack into the back country on horseback. Seventeen months after the wedding Billy was born, and then Mary, and Irene packed them into the wilderness, carrying a double pack bag on the horse, with one child on each side.

Irene and her mother-in-law Lizzie had gardens and chickens and turkeys, which Irene sold for Thanksgiving. They sold mild and eggs, and with their neighbors, sent their cattle to town to the market. The Posts built the Rancho Sierra Mar cafe in 1945. Mary and Irene opened the restaurant, which became well known for enchiladas and strawberry pie, and for the friendliness of its owners. When Billy came back from the war, he opened the campground, and later designed a home for his parents on top of a knoll overlooking the coast. To honor his parents, Billy named a room at the new Post Ranch Inn for his mother, and the Big Sur firehouse was named for his father.

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