Moulton Museum Publishing’s First Book Release
Orange County pioneer Nellie Gail Moulton’s memoir Living Memories will be available for purchase on Sept. 4 at the Moulton Museum, after being hidden for over 50 years. Readers of her memoir can look forward to an unforgettable journey into the heart of American resilience.
To celebrate the release, a book launch party will be held at the Moulton Museum on Sept. 4 from 6 to 9 p.m. Nellie Gail’s long-awaited memoir is a vivid, firsthand account of pioneer life, western expansion and early Southern California history. Edited by her great-grandson, Scott T. Barnes, the memoir has been a labor of love and discovery, both familial and historical.
Barnes, who also serves as the Treasurer and Secretary of the Moulton Museum, shared that the project began when museum staff uncovered Nellie’s original manuscript buried among thousands of artifacts.
“It was a beautiful manuscript,” Barnes said. “Nellie was a very good writer. She was a schoolteacher and a school principal, so it seemed like it would be quite an easy thing to publish.”
However, what began as a straightforward editorial process quickly evolved into a years-long journey of contextualization, research, and historical restoration. The memoir offers an intimate and often humorous glimpse into Nellie’s life, beginning with her early years on the prairie in Nebraska and Kansas.
One of the memoir’s most charming qualities is Nellie’s storytelling voice — honest, matter of fact and self-effacing. Barnes explained that while he had met Nellie as a child, it was through her writing that he truly came to understand her personality.
“She’s telling a story to a friend, they’re sitting down for tea,” said Barnes. “She, without question, she loved the land, she loved the ranch, she loved her husband, but she doesn’t pull any punches… I found her description of [early] Orange County quite amusing because she found really nothing to like about it until she met the man of her dreams and came back in the role of matriarch of the ranch itself.”
The book not only documents Nellie’s personal experiences, including her career in education and her eventual role as matriarch of Moulton Ranch, but it also chronicles larger historical moments through her lens.
From surviving a tornado to traveling the globe at a time when international travel was neither safe nor common, Nellie’s narrative breathes new life into what was previously known about this time.
“You get a human perspective on all these things you may have read about or learned in a history book,” Barnes said. “But in that context, it’s generally pretty dry. And Nellie is anything but.”
The memoir is also richly illustrated, a challenging task that required Barnes to comb through thousands of archival photos. The final result features 80 to 90 photos — many never seen, even by the museum’s most thorough collections volunteers.
“Photos weren’t necessarily tagged the way I would have tagged them as an editor,” Barnes said. “So, at the end of the day, I had to do a lot of digging myself.”
Despite the book’s historical breadth, it notably omits much about Nellie’s artistic achievements and philanthropic work, which is almost always highly talked about within the Moulton Museum’s walls.
Barnes suggests that her attempt to remain humble may have led to the exclusion of her extensive artistry and influence on the Laguna Beach art scene — which will be highlighted in an accompanying art exhibit, “Into the Light,” for the book’s release, featuring the works of not only Nellie Gail, but fellow historical figure Anna Hills, and contemporary artist Wendy Wirth.
“There’s almost nothing about her philanthropy,” Barnes said. “I don’t know if it was modesty or what, but she just barely touches on that.”
Above all, the memoir celebrates what Barnes calls the “pioneer spirit”— a recurring theme in both Nellie’s life and legacy, and a slogan used abundantly at the museum.
Through her honest reflections and vivid storytelling, readers are compelled to experience the resilience, humor, and heart of a remarkable woman who helped shape South Orange County.
To celebrate the liberation of Nellie Gail’s stories untold for half a century, and Moulton Museum Publishing’s first release, everyone is invited to join the family descendants and museum staff for the book launch party and gallery opening reception on Thursday, Sept. 4th, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Moulton Museum.
Admission is free, but reservations are required and can be made through the Moulton Museum website, moultonmuseum.org.