The area around Laton probably looks a lot like it did a century ago. In the interim, nations have collapsed and empires have fallen, but the cycle of planting, harvesting and watering this fertile agricultural mecca goes on and on, like the narrow country roads that crisscross the landscape and disappear into the flat horizon. But on the Bennie Gonsalves Dairy north of town, there is memory of family and memory of history.

It's preserved in an informal family museum that captures the ebb and flow of five generations of Portuguese immigrants in America even as it includes historical objects that bring into focus a much larger picture.

The Gonsalves family story, from origins in the Azores to Artesia and finally to Laton, is all captured there in literally thousands of artifacts, some valuable in their own right, others known and valued mainly to the family.

It's the pride and joy of Bennie Gonsalves, the 80-year-family patriarch who never tires of taking visitors through the massive collection, which completely fills the house he and his wife, Delores, occupied when they first moved to Laton in 1963 (they have since moved to a two-story colonial style home down the road.)

There's an old Wurlitzer jukebox that's been in the family for ages.

On the wall, there's a panoramic photo of the main drag in Artesia in the World War II era. Army jeeps are parked on the curb.

Today, Artesia has been swallowed up in the nameless urban sprawl of Los Angeles. In 1935, when Bennie's parents, Elvira and Joaquin, lived there, it still had a small-town feel.

There was open space for dairy farmers like the Gonsalves clan.

But then housing growth started eating up more and more real estate.

Bennie -- who by that time had a dairy of his own -- went shopping for a new location.

He found a dairy for sale in the Laton area, and boom! Just like that, the family left Artesia for the San Joaquin Valley.

Since then, the Gonsalves family has grown and expanded into a huge group, thanks to Bennie's siblings -- Albert, Jack, Joe, Frank and Mabel.

And all their children.

Bennie and Delores alone raised seven -- Dee, Bennie Jr., Barbara, Theresa, Frank, Terry and Brandon.

On it goes, with 14 grandkids and five great-grandkids.

Bennie has watched the family history unfold, and he and Delores have used their museum to freeze-frame the different eras of history they've passed through.

Sometimes, that history goes back hundreds of years, as in a painting of the Madonna that is said to have been made in the 15th century in the Annunciation School of Moscow.

Bennie said that he took it to an appraiser once only to be told that it was far more valuable than he could put a price on.

The painting is in a room devoted to religious artifacts, one of several theme-based rooms in the house-turned-museum.

Bennie is proud to have something so old.

But there are many other things he's equally proud of.

Things like old street signs from Artesia reading "Joaquin" (the name of Bennie's father) and "Gonsalves."

And a whole host of celebrity photos collected from Bennie's time on the Fresno Fair board of directors.

Dean Martin, Butch from the "Little Rascals," Zsa Zsa Gabor, to name a few.

There's so much stuff, Bennie can't remember how it all got there.

Like the coins from Nazi Germany, swastikas prominently etched into their tarnished surfaces.

"I can't remember where I got them. It was so many years ago," Bennie said.

There are many items that bring to life famous events from the history books.

Things like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, and his brother, Robert, in 1968.

Bennie has the Dallas newspaper from the next day, with headlines screaming out news of Kennedy's death and the swearing in of Lyndon Johnson as the new president.

There's a poster advertising one of the famous Max Schmeling-Joe Louis heavyweight boxing matches, this one at Yankee Stadium in New York.

There's a huge photo of the "Big Three" at the Yalta Conference in 1945 -- Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin -- at that time the three most powerful men in the world.

There's a ton of other memorabilia that's interesting in its own right: An autograph from Hall-of-Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax, a bumper sticker proclaiming Clint Eastwood mayor of Carmel, an autographed photo of legendary jockey Willie Shoemaker.

The whole thing came out of Delores' habit of saving everything, Bennie said. The two were married in Artesia in 1951.

Bennie's daughter, Dee, suggested that it all be formally displayed, and the little "museum" snowballed from there.

"I enjoy sharing it with a lot of people," Bennie said.

He estimates that 1,500 have taken a personalized tour of the collection, everybody from local family friends to cardinals and politicians from outside the area.

It's a legacy that the family intends to preserve.

Terry Gonsalves, who lives just down the street from his dad, Bennie, is determined to make sure that the museum lives on.

He said he'll sometimes wander in, and by looking at the family mementos, "go way back to when I was a kid."

"I have to take my hat off to my parents, to show that a person doesn't forget where you came from," Terry said.

The reporter can be reached at 583-2432