She surfed first: Sisterhood honors Ventura County legend Mondos Mary
Kim “Flow” Hansmeier, the first of the Marys to arrive, waxed her longboard in the back of a pickup at 5:55 a.m. The ocean was dark, the beach empty.
Other women drove up in minivans to the gentle bend in the Pacific Coast Highway, leaving their lights on as they unloaded their boards. An educator from Newbury Park carried breakfast.
“I called my mom and said ‘I’m turning into you,” Dana Bisenius laughed, referring to the garment pulled over her wetsuit. “I have my Christmas sweater and my doughnuts.”
They call themselves the Mondos Mary Surf Sisters. They come in groups to Mondos, a beach just north of Ventura, nearly every day.
At first light, they clamber down a steep bank of rocks and paddle into the ocean. They ride the waves, bond as women surfers and embrace a pioneer named Mary Monks – Mondos Mary.
She lived several houses to the north of the surf break that bears her name, in a dwelling in back of her mother’s beach home. She was 4-foot-9 but larger than life – one of Ventura County’s first women surfers.
She rarely met a wave she couldn’t ride and would occasionally claim a set that seemed certain to pound her into the ocean floor. The men who paddled out with her would shout in warning, “No, Mary, no!”
“All she would would hear is ’Go Mary, go!” Hansmeier said. “I think it just sums up her spirit. She was feisty.”
Mary was born in Fillmore in 1919 and died 89 years later in a Santa Paula nursing home. An obituary in the Ventura County Star said her memory was affected by dementia and she believed she was perpetually on her way to a surfing adventure.
The passion for waves started after she took surfing lessons on a trip to Hawaii in 1953. She saved enough money to buy three balsa boards for herself, her husband and her son. Wetsuits were not available so she wore tightly woven lambswool sweaters found at the Salvation Army.
To get past breaking waves, she and her husband, Bob, would sometimes jump with their boards off the end of the Ventura Pier. According to one of the many legends about her, she realized the waves were too big even for her after one pier plunge. So she paddled to an oil barge and caught the attention of the captain.
“He picked her and took her to Santa Barbara,” Bisenius said.
The surfing moms
After a morning of riding gentle waves a week after Thanskgiving, the Marys stood alongside the PCH, shivering from the cold, telling stories about Mondos Mary. They see her as a foremother who led them to the waves.
They started gathering here during the pandemic lockdown when surfing was one thing they could still do. Now their numbers have grown to more than 30 with the help of WhatsApp messages. Many are in their 30s and 40s. They come from all walks of life and include teachers, business owners and scientists. They talk about their kids, school and the 80-degree seas they paddled in during a seven-day vacation they took together in Costa Rica.
“We’re like the moms. Our hair is graying and we’re in our minivans,” said Bisenius, who has two children and works as an instructional coach for teachers at a virtual charter school.
Women’s surfing is growing but the sport is still dominated by men, most of whom are supportive and share waves. A few of the men still think they are entitled to the biggest and best sets, said Amber Inggs, a coastal engineer from Carpinteria and one of the newer Marys.
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“They assume my skills aren’t as good,” she said. “It’s more likely they’ll drop in on me. I have to be more assertive.”
The Marys surf together because it’s safer and supportive but mostly because it’s fun. They cheer each other and laugh together. Sometimes two or three hold hands as they ride in on their longboards on a gentle wave.
“When a group of women get in the water you can feel it,” Hansmeier said. “It feels different. It feels lighter and more supportive. There’s a lot of grace.”
'A little in awe'
After the women started gathering at Mondos, Hansmeier’s husband sent her a museum article explaining the beach is named for Mondos Mary, or as some call her, Mandos Mary. He sent a photo too of Mary surfing in her lambswool.
Hansmeier and Bisenius wanted to know more.
They started scouring newspaper and magazine stories. They interviewed Mary's great nephew and her niece. They're working on plans to visit both the family home in Fillmore and the property where Mary and Bob Monks lived on Faria Beach. They created an email address, mondo.marys@gmail.com, in hopes of connecting with people who know or even surfed with Mary.
They treat stories they've uncovered like jewels.
Mary and Bob fell in love at first sight. They decided to get married the night they met but Mary insisted her suitor meet her mother first.
“Bob met Mom. Then they got back in the car, drove to Vegas and were married by morning,” Bisenius said in an email. “Bob and Mary were in love for the rest of their lives and he was her biggest fan.”
They lived at the back of the family home on Faria Beach, said Kathleen Baker, Mary’s 76-year-old niece. In a phone interview from Prescott Valley, Ariz., Baker remembered watching Mary and Bob walk through their patio on their way to Mondos and the waves.
Mary surfed not because of ego or pride but because it was part of who she was.
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“Fearless is a good word for her,” Baker said. “This was the 1950s. Women didn’t do things like that. They stayed home and they cleaned the oven.”
Mary tried to teach her to surf but it never quite worked. When she grew up, Baker started scuba diving and sky diving in adventures she thinks were at least partly inspired by her aunt.
“She fascinated me. I was a little in awe of her,” she said.
Surfing in sweaters
The Marys want to honor the women who surfed before them. They met in Malibu with Kathy Kohner-Zuckerman. Her surfing adventures as a teen inspired her father, Frederick Kohner, to write “Gidget: The little girl with big ideas.” The book became a best seller and was adapted into a movie starring Sandra Dee.
Hansmeier, of Ventura, teaches history and English to fifth- and sixth-graders. She tells her students about Mondos Mary as a way to connect them to the ocean and the past. Mary's story is told too on the plaque that bears a painting of her, near the end of the Ventura Pier.
At an inaugural longboard competition for women in November, the Marys paddled out at Ventura’s C Street wearing sweaters while on their boards in honor of Mondos Mary. They formed a circle in the water, held hands and yelled “hip, hip hooray.” Then they surfed.
Their goal is to place a statue of Mary at Mondos Beach as part of a planned upgrade of the area. They said the monument would honor surfing but would also underscore the importance of listening to the inner voice that helps people discover joy in their lives.
Mondos Mary’s voice led her to the waves past any barriers and fears. If she can do it, other people can do it too, Bisensius said.
She stood near her minivan after a morning of surfing, wrapped in a towel, pouring warm water on her feet. The others had left but she was planning on returning to the waves, just like the original Mary would have.
“She feels like part of the crew,” Bisenius said. “We feel like a bunch of Marys out there.”
Tom Kisken covers health care and other news for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tom.kisken@vcstar.com or 805-437-0255.
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This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Women longboarders honor Ventura County legend Mondos Mary
