Shuttered for more than two years, the 200-year-old bunkhouse-turned-museum has reopened to the visiting public and will be the center of an Oct. 1 celebration.
How do you begin to explain Art Goddard?
His wife, Mary Ellen Goddard, considers her words carefully. He was loving, she says at first. He was smart and never tried to get attention. He liked to do things for the sake of doing them. He liked to work, even after his retirement in 2001 because he wouldn’t have been happy sitting on his behind, she jokes. He was honest, and she knew she could always trust him.
Her husband of 55 years and a fixture of the Costa Mesa Historical Society and the Friends of the Costa Mesa Libraries, Art died on Feb. 13 of complications with prostate cancer.