Melendy enjoys playing her role in giving the center’s clients
guidance through an often confusing legal system.
Hollister – Clara Melendy’s children were raised on a South County ranch, a simple life with support of surrounding families in Bear Valley and away from city problems.
Melendy, whose children are grown and no longer living on the ranch, volunteers once a week for the San Benito County Victim Witness Assistance Center.
The center helps victims and witnesses of crimes navigate the legal system, and Melendy often sees young people in difficult situations.
“We have a lot of abuse in this county,” Melendy said. “It’s kind of sad.”
She helps the center with filing and has done so since 1997. Melendy enjoys playing her role in giving the center’s clients guidance through an often confusing legal system, she said.
“I don’t know that the citizens in this county realize what we have,” Melendy said of the center.
Throughout her career, the lifelong San Benito County resident worked in various local offices. She took over operation of the family ranch when her husband, Walter Melendy, was killed in a bulldozer accident on the property in 1987.
Melendy even has the ranch’s original branding iron – from 1865 – when Walter’s grandfather, Henry Melendy, settled the property.
“It was registered countywide and then it went statewide,” Melendy said. “We never had to change the brand.”
She retired in 1993 from Allegheny Teledyne, Inc. – the aerospace company now known as McCormick Selph, Inc. – and then got involved with various local clubs.
Katie Fancher, the program coordinator, has known Melendy for decades. That relationship drew Melendy to the center because she wanted to work with people again.
“She’s a wonderful volunteer,” Fancher said. “We do not have clerical support, so it really helps us.”
When Melendy began working with the center, the District Attorney’s Office was moving back into its location after displacement from a firebombing.
The center’s files were disorganized, Melendy said.
“We have a good filing system now,” she said.
Then in 2004, the center was moved out to San Felipe Road. With the arrival of District Attorney Candice Hooper, the center was allowed back in the District Attorney’s Office on Fourth Street.
“It’s like moving home,” Melendy said.
