Eleanor M. Cavitt, matriarch of a historic Northern California ranching family, died March 22 in Sacramento. She was 103.
Mrs. Cavitt was the widow of James Henry Cavitt, whose family traveled by wagon from Iowa to Truckee during the 1840s and later homesteaded 10,000 acres in Placer and Sacramento counties that became Cavitt Ranch. She married at age 16 and had three children by age 20.
She kept house on a working ranch and pitched in with the family's dairy and beef operations, including the J.W.S. Butler Ranch near Folsom and a summer range at Sattley in Sierra County. She cooked for cowboys, milked cows, cleaned barns, rounded up cattle and raised 4,000 turkeys for market every year.
"She was very devoted to her family," said her daughter Dorothee Cavitt Mull of Sacramento. "She never stopped working. She washed and ironed and always kept a clean house."
Mrs. Cavitt was born in 1908 in Sacramento, one of 11 children born to German immigrants Carline and George Spahn, a railroad worker.
She was a founding member and former grand marshal of the Folsom Rodeo. She belonged to the Folsom Chamber of Commerce, the Folsom Historical Society, the Sierra Valley Grange and the Native Daughters of the Golden West. She was predeceased by two daughters, Betty Cavitt and Jessica Cavitt Bradley.
Besides Mull, she is survived by six grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and six great-great-grandchildren.
A funeral Mass was held Wednesday. Donations in memory of Mrs. Cavitt may be made to the California Rangeland Trust.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
• Read more articles by Robert D. Dávila
What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com
Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)
Here are some rules of the road:
• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "Report Abuse" link to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand.
• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.
• Don't flag other users' comments just because you don't agree with their point of view. Please only flag comments that violate these guidelines.
You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "Report Abuse" link to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.
If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them.
Order Reprint
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "Report Abuse" link below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.