By: Virginie Boone

Once upon a time there was a Prune Blossom Tour that covered 25 miles of the Alexander Valley. Beginning in 1961, and sponsored by the Healdsburg Chamber of Commerce, it went from downtown around Fitch Mountain and through Geyserville, the Alexander Valley, Asti and Dry Creek Valley.

For the event, the Russian River Farm Bureau served a full lunch. The menu in 1963, as reported by the Healdsburg Tribune, was ham, potato salad, green salad, Jell-O and desserts like prune cakes and prune cookies made by the local 4-H. By 1964, 1,500 people attended from 19 states and seven countries. The National Association of Travel Organizations named it one of the top 10 travel events in the United States by 1966. At its peak in 1971, some 4,000 visitors came.

Alyce Cadd, whose family was in the drying prunes business at the time, was among the volunteers, telling the paper, “We fed up to 2,000 people on some weekends. They came in busload after busload, and there was even a group of pilots that flew into the airport. It was a big affair.”

As prunes transitioned into winegrapes the tour was renamed the Spring Blossom Tour. It went on until 1995. And Alyce Cadd and her husband Al also made the switch.

In Alexander Valley since 1910, the Cadd family started with hops and prunes before getting into dairy, pears and apples. In the 1970s they planted their first vineyards, which at present consists of 36 acres of grapes, primarily Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.

In 1941, Alvin Raymond (who went by Ray) and Zelda Cadd, who married in 1925, bought a 72-acre ranch in Alexander Valley from Mrs. Cadd’s parents, Walter and Marian Leroux. It was planted mostly to prunes and included a home and was four-fifths of what is known as the Leroux ranch.

Ray and Zelda had three children: Alvin (Al), Aryles and Fleurette (who became Mrs. Leland Arnold). Al was born in 1926 and graduated from Healdsburg High School in 1944. His cousins include members of the Rotlisberger family of Rotlisberger Ranch.

He married Alyce Jean Swim in 1946 after serving two years with the U.S. Merchant Marines. Alyce was born in Ukiah and went to Napa Junior College. The two met while fishing on the cliff edge of a beach while camping with their families.

In embracing life at the ranch the year he married, Al became the fourth-generation farmer in his family, moving into a ranch house built by his grandfather in 1919. Alyce embraced farming too, and became known for her good cooking, work with exchange students and as a member of Alexander Valley Ladies Aid.

They traveled widely to camp and fish throughout their life together and had two children, Larry and Cindy, as well as five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Al and Cadd Ranch were given the Luther Burbank Conservation Award in 2012. Cadd was also honored by the Harvest Fair with the Lifetime Contribution to Sonoma County Agriculture award in 2014. At the time, Cadd told The Healdsburg Tribune that his favorite thing had been working with apples.

“We did well in the apple business, until the market went away,” he said. “I really loved my apple orchard; it was a beautiful orchard and it’s fun to grow apples.”

In 1963 Cadd started working for the Sonoma County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, a job he held through 1979, when he went back to full-time farming. In 1991 he leased the land to his son and retired.

“I decided I was going to be a farmer when I was president of the FFA in 1944,” he added. “I discovered agriculture was my spot in life and that’s where I should be.”

Cadd was also one of seven founding members of the Alexander Valley Association, created to protect agriculture from urban development (“a place of residence, relaxation and rural lifestyle) and served with the Russian River Property Owners Association. As a member of the Riparian Corridor Work Group he monitored streams for frost protection. He likes to fish, hunt, do woodwork and photography.

Al’s wife Alyce passed away in 2024 at the age of 96.

“I was born and raised here, surrounded by incredible natural beauty and such fertile farmland,” he told the paper. “It has sustained my family for six generations and I’m committed to seeing that it continues.”