OXNARD : Family Mourns Drowning Victim

An Oxnard farm worker who drowned in rain-swollen Conejo Creek was mourned by his family Tuesday as a loving, hard-working man.

Jose Valdivia, 49, was a husband, a father of five and a grandfather of 15 who rose from field worker to the rank of foreman during his 2 1/2-year tenure with Oxnard-based Skyline Flower Growers and Shippers.

On Monday, as he attempted to drive a tractor across the creek between Camarillo and Thousand Oaks, the vehicle tipped over and threw him into the swirling waters about 12:40 p.m.

“He tried very hard” at work and at home, said Valdivia’s daughter-in-law, Berta Valdivia, 19. She and other family members were making plans Tuesday morning for the man’s burial.

Ramon Valdivia, 22, described his father as a committed family man who loved playing with his grandchildren and doing light carpentry in the back yard of their home.

In the La Colonia home where Valdivia lived, Ramon pointed around the back yard to a pigeon coop, a small patio shade and a fence meant to keep his grandchildren from getting out into the street.

Ramon recalled how his father’s work as a field laborer had taken him from his home in the Mexican state of Michoacan in the 1970s to the San Joaquin Valley, and then to the fields around the rented Oxnard home.

Berta said the accident could have been avoided. “People should not be working in the fields when it’s raining,” Berta said.

Rescue workers with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department were able to pull Valdivia’s partner, Angel Magdaleno Barrios, from the creek. Barrios was in stable condition at Pleasant Valley Hospital on Tuesday, a nursing supervisor said.

The date for Valdivia’s funeral had not been set Tuesday, but Ramon Valdivia said his family would send his father’s body to his hometown of La Piedad.