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It’s mid-November, a full week earlier than Thanksgiving, and the progeny of Francisco Robles, a Mexican immigrant who peddled watermelons in East L.A., have converged in West Covina to commemorate the 76th 12 months of the household’s seasonal enterprise: promoting contemporary Christmas timber round L.A. from the forests of the Pacific Northwest.
Francisco and his spouse, Lucia, left Mexico for a greater life within the early 1900s, so it’s laborious to think about what they’d make of their totally Americanized descendants at present. Certainly one of them is in search of a spot to plug in her electrical automobile, one other is zipping across the giant lot on a motorized scooter, and a 3rd is carrying a big, elaborately framed photograph of their mom, “the Queen of our hearts,” who died on Mom’s Day, so she will be a part of the household photograph commemorating the 2025 tree season.
The Robles’ 76-year-old grandson Louis Jr. is maintaining monitor of at present’s Christmas tree supply from a folding chair, carrying horn-rim glasses, slacks and a white, open-neck costume shirt. However most of his household — his three grownup kids, their spouses and some of his grandchildren — are casually wearing crimson “Robles Christmas Bushes”-themed sweatshirts or vacation leggings, laughing and posing for cellphone images beneath an enormous red-and-white striped tent within the parking zone of the bustling Plaza West Covina mall.
Louis Robles Jr., 76, proper, listens as his kids go over a listing listing of Christmas timber delivered to his son Gabriel Robles’ lot at Plaza West Covina on Nov. 19. Gabriel stands at his father’s left, beside his spouse Kathy Robles. His sister, Lorraine Robles-Acosta, far left, seems over paperwork in regards to the timber that can subsequent be delivered to her lot in Montebello.
All of the pumpkin patch trimmings from October have been put away — the petting zoo, towering inflatable slides, Cyglos and different rides — and now the household is organising Christmas decor and stands for the timber that can quickly be delivered.
It’s a far cry from the dusty streets the place Francisco Robles bought his watermelons from a truck greater than a century in the past. By the tip of today, the large 53-foot-truck can have delivered its icy bundles of Nordmann, noble and silvertip firs — what Louis Jr. calls “the Cadillac of Christmas timber” — to all three of their tons in Eagle Rock, Plaza West Covina and the Montebello mall.
The Robles household is raring to get the Christmas tree tons going. Gross sales have been slower than common at their pumpkin patches this 12 months, a hunch they blame on ICE raid issues by their giant Latino buyer base.
Antonio Villatoro, left, closes a hatch after transferring timber, whereas Javier Vasquez, seems on at Robles Christmas Bushes run by Gabriel Robles at Plaza West Covina.
The Robles household provides festive decor and locations for images to their Christmas tree tons resembling this wall at Gabriel Robles’ enterprise at Plaza West Covina.
Members of the Robles household speak fastidiously about ICE and immigration. They’re enterprise folks and deeply spiritual — Louis Jr. is an assistant pastor on the Dwelling Phrase Apostalic Church in El Monte, the place they attended as a household for years — they usually need to preserve their politics non-public.
“However we’re not fearful,” mentioned Gabriel Robles. “We’ve lived right here all our lives, born and raised right here, and we’ve been by way of a lot. I imagine this ICE subject is one other second in time. It’s going to cross like COVID occurred and handed, and we will stand no matter they throw at us. Los Angeles is a melting pot of immigrants. We’re all unified collectively, regardless of who’s in workplace, and you may’t eliminate us. We’re the material of L.A.”
Getting the household collectively in mid-November is uncommon as a result of, from October by way of December, the Robleses are juggling the household enterprise with their different jobs: Gabriel Robles, operator of the Robles Pumpkin Competition and Christmas Bushes in West Covina, is an insurance coverage dealer; his spouse, Kathy, is a homemaker who manages their books. Gabriel’s older sister, Lisa Nassar, operator of Cougar Mountain Pumpkin and Christmas Bushes in Eagle Rock, does safety screenings at Disneyland (“I preserve Tinker Bell secure,” she says, laughing). Her husband, Sam Nassar, is a counselor at Mt. San Antonio Faculty. Lorraine Robles-Acosta is a therapeutic massage therapist who does plenty of work for her church; her husband, Joseph Acosta, is a drug and alcohol counselor. Collectively, they run the Robles Pumpkin Patch and Christmas Tree Farm in Montebello.
It’s a grueling schedule, however they cling to Louis Jr.’s motto — “We’ll sleep in January” — as a result of this enterprise is of their blood. Not the entire youthful era of Robleses is as gung-ho in regards to the household enterprise as their dad and mom are. However Gabriel and Kathy’s sons, Roman, 21, and Mason, 19, are already devising plans to enhance the household’s presence on social media, and the couple’s art-loving daughter Loren, 15, arrange the acrylic paints for pumpkin portray.
The Robles household’s late matriarch, Madalene Robles, smiles from a portrait held by her husband, Louis Jr., so she will be a part of the household images commemorating the beginning of the 2025 Christmas tree season on Nov. 19 at their son, Gabriel Robles’ lot in West Covina. Madalene Robles died on her birthday, Could 11, which additionally occurred to be Mom’s Day, her favourite vacation.
Louis Jr.’s kids, Lisa, Stephen, Gabriel and Lorraine, performed among the many timber of their father’s tree tons, first in Monrovia in 1973, Louis Jr. says, then in Rosemead and Pico Rivera. Louis Jr. bought a small trailer with a tiny house heater to sit down on the lot so the youngsters may eat and relaxation there whereas he and his spouse bought timber.
“That trailer was so chilly at evening,” mentioned Lisa, shivering with the reminiscence.
In these early years, when Louis Jr. labored all day at a produce warehouse along with his dad earlier than spending his evenings at his Christmas tree lot, he and Madalene used the tree cash to create magical Christmases for his or her kids.
“I bear in mind waking as much as mountains of presents beneath the Robles’ tree,” Lorraine mentioned dreamily, “and Mother wrapped each single present.”
After they have been older, Lorraine and her siblings helped arrange and promote the timber. They’d chase after the few scalawags who tried to steal them and in the end they lobbied Louis Jr. to allow them to have their very own tons, which over time expanded from promoting just a few pumpkins on straw earlier than Halloween to huge pumpkin patch extravaganzas with petting zoos, artwork actions, inflatables and rides. (Stephen, who lives in San Diego, stepped away from the seasonal enterprise.)
The Robles household considers silvertip firs, with their sturdy open branches and swish kind, to be the Cadillac of Christmas timber, mentioned Gabriel Robles. They was plentiful, however they’re tougher to search out today, he mentioned, as a result of they require altitude and chilly to thrive.
Inflatables like bouncy homes and big slides have been Gabriel’s innovation, and so widespread he insisted on including them to his Christmas tree lot too. His dad warned in opposition to the concept, however Gabriel mentioned he was decided. He set them up at his lot they usually did nicely for just a few days. However then it rained, and his father’s logic turned obvious. The inflatables by no means dried, Gabriel mentioned, and the chilly and dust made them even much less interesting to guests. “I nonetheless have prospects to today who say, ‘Please put the inflatables out once more,’ however they don’t perceive they take endlessly to dry.”
The Robles household is dismissive about big-box rivals (“They’ll by no means exchange the custom and surroundings you get at our tons,” mentioned Lisa) they usually collectively hiss on the point out of synthetic timber.
“My dad has been anxious that synthetic timber get nicer and nicer, nevertheless it hasn’t actually modified our gross sales,” Gabriel mentioned. “The No. 1 cause folks come to our tons is the perfume. They need that contemporary pine scent all through their house, and faux sprays don’t minimize it.”
Employee Jonathan Tovar, foreground, who helps with common operations, and Roman Robles, 21, background, whose father Gabriel Robles runs the lot, organize timber whereas stock is being unloaded.
The Robles household hand-select their timber yearly from the farms within the Pacific Northwest. (The names of the farms are secret to maintain rivals away, Gabriel mentioned.) After the timber are delivered, the household sprays the timber with water each evening and preserve them shaded from the solar so that they don’t dry out. “That’s the key of our success,” Gabriel mentioned.
Louis Jr. mentioned the most important a part of his household’s success has been including contemporary concepts to increase the enterprise that come from every passing era, beginning along with his dad, Louis.
Francisco and Lucia Robles and their 5 L.A.-born kids lived on Brooklyn Avenue in East L.A. All three of their sons went to warfare for the US, and two by no means got here house, one misplaced in World Warfare II and the opposite within the Korean Warfare. Their third son, Louis Robles, served in WWII, proper out of highschool. He entered the Military’s a hundred and first Airborne Division and earned a Purple Coronary heart as one of many paratroopers who, at age 20, dropped into German-occupied France on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
Paratrooper and produce wholesaler Louis Robles Sr. supplemented his revenue in 1949 by promoting Christmas timber in L.A. On this household photograph from 1955, Robles, then 31, pauses by his Robles Produce truck making ready to drive a load of fir timber from snowy Washington to his lot in Lincoln Heights. The boy at left is unindentified.
When he returned from the warfare, Louis joined his father promoting produce, however he had greater concepts, Louis Jr. mentioned of his dad. He didn’t need to promote from a truck; as a substitute, he went into the wholesale enterprise, promoting watermelons and oranges from a stall on the previous Central Wholesale Produce Market at eighth Road and Central Avenue in downtown L.A. He married Elena Ramirez, who helped on the warehouse, maintaining the books, they usually had 4 kids: three ladies — Gail, Priscilla, Denise — and a boy, Louis Jr.
Then, in 1949, the identical 12 months his son was born, Louis Robles had one other concept: Watermelon gross sales slowed within the winter. Oranges have been plentiful year-round, however he wanted one other crop that would fill the revenue hole. He observed how folks went to the railyard in December and acquired Christmas timber off boxcars, so contemporary they nonetheless had ice clinging to their branches. Packing them in snow was how timber have been stored contemporary throughout transport from the Pacific Northwest.
Impressed by this, Louis Sr. discovered a vacant lot in Lincoln Heights and began promoting Christmas timber. Being the innovator he was, he didn’t need to depend on different folks’s selections for his timber. So he researched tree farms within the Pacific Northwest and visited them himself, choosing his personal timber and, for some time, even driving his warehouse’s Robles Produce truck up north to move them himself.
Lisa Nassar helps unload small Christmas timber at her brother Gabriel Robles’ Christmas tree lot at Plaza West Covina on Nov. 19. The 53-foot-long truck full of timber from the Pacific Northwest stopped at Nassar’s lot first in Eagle Rock that morning, and would proceed on to their sister Lorraine Robles-Acosta’s lot in Montebello.
Finally, Louis Sr. purchased his personal produce warehouse, and Louis Jr., all the time a helper after faculty and on weekends, joined the enterprise proper after commencement. The youthful Robles married his highschool sweetheart, Madalene Maldonado on Jan. 4, 1969 — after the busy vacation season, after all — they usually instantly began a household. Though she helped on the warehouse, Madalene’s predominant curiosity “was being a homemaker; elevating her kids and being an excellent spouse,” Louis Jr. mentioned.
Louis Sr. was thought-about by his household to be a taskmaster. He was beneficiant about giving out jobs, however he didn’t tolerate folks standing round at work. Laughing, Lisa mentioned anytime you noticed him coming, you grabbed a brush and began sweeping. “I nonetheless carry that mentality — there’s all the time one thing to do, even when it’s simply pushing a brush,” she mentioned.
Louis Sr. instilled that work ethic in all of his household rising up. “Grandfather was the primary one out on the ground, all the time working and transferring, and he took folks up with him,” Gabriel mentioned. “He actually believed if he succeeded, you have been going to succeed. It wasn’t a few handout, it was a hand up.”
Staff unloaded timber at Robles Christmas Bushes run by Gabriel Robles.
Louis Sr. was well-respected by his collectors and so beloved by his workers that they insisted on filling his grave themselves after his sudden dying in 1984. However the senior Robles by no means attended any of his son’s video games in highschool, Louis Jr. mentioned, and he missed many household actions due to work.
“That was his blind spot. He all the time put enterprise first,” Louis Jr. mentioned. “I made a decision I needed a stability — I might maintain enterprise however I might additionally take time to go to my kids’s video games.”
Louis Sr. was such a power of nature, nobody was ready when he fell in December 1984. As a result of this was the household’s busy season, he insisted on working regardless of a foul chilly that became strolling pneumonia, Louis Jr. mentioned. He advised his household he would relaxation in January.
He virtually made it. Shortly earlier than Christmas Louis Robles had a stroke, then a coronary heart assault and, on Dec. 27, at age 60, he died.
Gabriel Robles, proper, consults along with his father, Louis Robles Jr., whereas Gabriel’s son Mason, left, checks his cellphone in the course of the first supply of this 12 months’s Christmas timber at his West Covina lot.
Louis Sr.’s dying, so surprising, required Louis Jr. to take over the enterprise himself, nevertheless it additionally cemented his vow to place God and household first. “I bear in mind enjoying within the all-stars recreation in baseball and in search of my dad, and he wasn’t there, and I believed, ‘I’m not going to try this to my children,’” he mentioned.
Gabriel laughed, saying: “My dad was a lot into my basketball video games, I received form of embarrassed.”
Finally, the watermelon and produce enterprise turned too aggressive, and Louis Jr. bought the warehouse round 2012. By then, Robles Produce was debt-free, he mentioned. His kids have been working, getting married and established in their very own houses, and he’d been ordained as a pastor in 1999 and was deeply concerned in his church. However the household pumpkin patch and Christmas tree enterprise remained a relentless.
“It does get in your blood,” mentioned Lorraine’s husband, Joseph, with fun. “I received my blood transfusion after I married my spouse.”
Right now, Louis Jr. acts as an advisor and marketing consultant to his kids’s three pumpkin patches and Christmas tree tons. They meet to debate pricing and stock, however the siblings run their very own tons with every little totally different from the opposite. There are disagreements, after all, Gabriel mentioned, “however ultimately, the factor that makes us so profitable is we’re united — if somebody goes in opposition to us, we’re a united entrance.”
Louis Robles, 76, heart, of El Monte, poses with three generations of his household: son Gabriel Robles, of Fontana, far left, along with his daughter Loren, 15, spouse Kathy, and two sons sitting up prime, Mason 19, left, and Roman, 21, Louis’ daughters Lisa Nassar, of Upland, proper, Lorraine Robles-Acosta, of Pomona, and Lorraine’s husband Joseph Acosta, far proper, at Robles Christmas Bushes in West Covina. Gabriel’s sons say they’re desirous to proceed the household enterprise. “I’ve been bitten by the bug,” mentioned Mason.
It’s not clear what number of of Louis Sr.’s seven great-grandchildren will proceed the household enterprise, however Gabriel’s sons, Roman and Mason, say they’re on board. Each have opted to skip school for a hands-on enterprise course, absorbing no matter they’ll from their father and grandfather.
“Our great-great-grandfather began with nothing, and now we’ve got this. And each era we’ve constructed it increased,” Mason mentioned.
“Not many children my age are blessed to have a household enterprise to study from,” mentioned Roman. “I need to do one thing extra with my life than simply exhibiting up.”
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