Lompoc’s Beloved Historian Myra Manfrina Turns 100

Myra Huyck Manfrina was born in Lompoc on May 27, 1921. Members of the Lompoc Valley Historical Society plan to gather outside the house of the beloved historian and lifelong resident at 11 a.m. on her hundredth birthday, and she will sit on her porch as various proclamations are read in celebration of her. 

“My roots here go way down deep,” Myra told me with pride in a previous interview. She is a researcher, genealogist, and historian who also worked as a legal secretary and newspaper writer. “I began as a stringer for the Santa Barbara News-Press in 1950,” she explains. “I was asked to do a story about Lompoc, and of course I got carried away. The Sunday feature turned into a three-part series.” 

That tendency to get carried away is why Myra does such thorough and meticulous work. She has researched exhaustive histories about family and town, compiling single-spaced articles and volumes dense with dates and details, but always rendered compelling by her distinctively well-written narrative. She is a genuinely good writer and a remarkable source of information about the people and events of Lompoc. A vital presence at the Historical Society, she draws upon her knowledge to help fill in gaps and maintain records. Over the years, she has become very adept at using the computer and appreciates the relative ease of communication and research via the internet.