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Some of her friends in San Dimas called her “Princess”, and she always took the implied respect with a smile. With her erect carriage, inherent courtesy and manners, her definite opinions and high standards, she was every inch a princess. Vera von Hueck Dunning, however, was not one of the Russian royalty, but was a daughter of the aristocracy, born Vera Gavrilova-Romanova. Her father, a General, was Commandant of the Tsar’s War College, her brother was a Captain, and her first husband, George von Hueck, was a Colonel. Vera was born on Easter night of April 5, 1896, in the townhouse of her mother’s family in Chernigov, Ukraina, Russia. Because her elder brother had to learn to read and write Russian, she too learned it, as they spoke French at home. Her father insisted that she receive a good education, even sending her through college. Because of this, she was able to teach high school much later, in California. Mrs. Dunning’s autobiography “From the Coronet to the Shovel” reads like a fairy-tale, but one with extremely dark chapters. She was reared to be an aristocratic wife, whose only duties were entertaining guests, and supervising the household servants. When the Bolsheviks (the “riff- raff”, she called them) came into power, she had to learn quickly the basic skills of laundering, cooking, sewing, etc. Vera and her husband escaped through Kiev, to Odessa, then to exile in Constantinople, taking only a few treasures with them. The large painting of her father was smuggled out by way of Finland by a friend, only by having all except his face painted over. She found some of her wedding china many years later, on sale in a small shop in Mexico. |
From Constantinople, they came to the United States in 1923. After a short stay in New York, where she pluckily took a position as milliner without knowing a thing about making hats - she took ship for Los Angeles, leaving her tubercular husband behind.
After passing the requisite examinations, Vera was certified to teach high school in Los Angeles. She built a lovely home on a hill and lived there for 13 years. In 1932, she married a Wyoming cattleman, William Alfred Dunning, and in 1948, they came to live on the acreage in San Dimas known as “Las Colinas, La Reina de la Valle”. This 140-acre ranch was located between what is now Arrow Highway and Gladstone; the 210 Freeway was cut through the middle. In 1939, her son George was born, and in 1950, after two disastrous freezes, her husband died of a heart attack. At this time, Mrs. Dunning assumed responsibility for the grove. With the help of University of Riverside people and her young son, she worked in the grove and increased the production from 6,000 to 40,000 boxes of lemons a year. She restored the hilltop home, and designed and did much of the work on an attractive terrace and plantings around the home. Vera von Hueck Dunning was a lovely and determined lady, a gracious hostess, and a loving mother, who lived two completely different lives, passing away in 1987. We are happy to claim her as our “Russian Princess”. |
