by Howard Pease - San Joaquin County Historical Museum

The San Joaquin Historian by Howard Pease A Publication of the San Joaquin County Historical Society and Museum Summer 2000
Vol. XIV- Number 2
The San Joaquin Historian
A Publication of the San Joaquin County
Historical Society and Museum
Vol. XIV- Number 2
Summer 2000
Editor
Daryl Morrison
Assistant Editor
Janene Ford
Design
Karen Hope
Published by
The San Joaquin County
Historical Society, Inc.
Micke Grove Regional Park
P.O. Box 30, Lodi, CA 95241-0030
(209) 331-2055
* (209) 953-3460
President
Christopher Engh
Vice Presidents
Helen Tretheway
Immediate Past President
Mel Wingett
Anance
Christopher Engh
Publications
Ed Craig
Development
Frank D. Fargo
Society Division
Secretary
Elise Austin Forbes
Treasurer
Robert F. McMaster
Director, San Joaquin
County Historical Society
Michael W. Bennett
About This Issue
As Head of Holt-Atherton Special Collections, I quickly
became aware of the Howard Pease Collection at the
University of the PaCific Library. Being an avid reader as
a child, from The Bobbsey Twins, to Nancy Drew, to the
Black Stallion series, it seemed surprising to me that I
did not grow up with Howard Pease's Tod Moran stories.
But then, I was not a boy or a Californian. When doing
talks about the collections, I would often exhibit Howard
Pease's World War I scrapbook and some of his personal
books. Always, a misty eyed man of "a certain age"
would immediately graVitate to that part of the exhibit.
I soon learned how important Howard Pease's works
were to boy readers (although women were avid admir­
ers, too).
It is important to note the work of Shirley Jennings who
wrote her University of the Pacific dissertation on the
"genesis" of Pease's novels and interviewed Mr. Pease
on tape in 1967. Dr. Jennings was interested in creativ­
ity and how a writer comes up with his ideas. Without
her work and the encouragement of her professor, Dr.
Dewey Chambers, the Howard Pease Collection would
not have come to Stockton. Jennings dissertation, how­
ever, did not systematically provide a biography of
Pease's life (although biographical occurrences often led
to the genesis of an idea). For this reason, I felt that
the Pease Collection and other sources were worth re­
viewing to piece together Pease's life, especially his first
twenty years in Stockton. Also, it seemed time to cele­
brate once again Howard Pease as "Stockton's author."
Daryl Morrison
Howard Pease-Stockton's Author of Adventure Stories for Boys By Daryl Morrison
I remember standing on the forecastle head with
the wind singing past and thinking,
This is life--this is living. By thunder,
a
sailorf-Howard Pease
1m
Howard Pease, internationally known author of
juvenile fiction, turned a fascination for the sea
into a profitable writing career. Pease's early in­
terest in the sea came from living in Stockton,
California, a river town, and from shipping out of
San Francisco as a merchant seaman on freight­
ers. In his professional career as a teacher, Pease
taught at a variety of public and private schools
gathering information about young teens and
their interests.
Pease had a prolific career, writing twenty-two
novels and numerous short stories. In an era
when youngsters daydreamed of going to sea
and visiting ports of call around the world, Pease
fueled the imagination of countless readers with
vivid stories whose sense of realism above and
below decks refer to his own experiences. He
wrote a series of more than a dozen "Tod Moran"
mystery books, including his best known books,
The Tattooed Man (1926) and The Jinx Ship
(1928). Pease wrote of heroes that acted inde­
pendently in order to right wrongs. His teenage
character, Tod Moran, a somewhat autobio­
graphical hero, is a brave and ingenious boy. He
is a third mate on trading vessels that crisscross
the Pacific. Moran is able to solve mysteries and
endure deadly typhoons without losing his cool. 1
"Howard Pease has undoubtedly had more of his
books read by flashlight after bedtime than any
other author... ,,2
The author's first two sea voyages were signifi­
cant experiences, providing him with a wealth of
impressions and backgrounds in romantic loca­
tions. Shirley Jennings in her dissertation on
Howard Pease states that "the author's boyhood
years in Stockton, California were second only to
his sea voyages in their influence on the creative
genesis of his novels, being particularly instru­
mental to the creation of such books as
Thunderbolt House, Captain Binnacle, Long
Wharf, Secret Cargo, and Bound for Singapore."
The San Joaquin Historian
3
A Stockton Boyhood
(Clarence) Howard Pease was born in Stockton,
California on September 6, 1894. Howard Pease's
development as a writer began in his childhood
days playing among the ships and listening to
sailing yarns on the Stockton channel.
Pease's pioneering maternal grandparents had
crossed the plains in a covered wagon. From
family stories, Pease developed a natural interest
in western history. Howard's parents were Isaac
Newton Pease (1857-1922) and Mary Estelle
"Stella" (Cooley) Pease (1868-1933). The family
lived above the old San Joaquin Creamery at 122
Miner Avenue, a site now occupied by the Stock­
ton Civic Auditorium. Isaac Pease delivered milk
with a horse and wagon.
The Peases' had three children-Laurence (1890­
1949), Howard (1894-1974), and Marjorie Pease
(1904-1951). Howard's interest in books devel­
oped from his parents' reading aloud every
evening before bedtime. 4 All of the children went
on to become educators. Laurence was a long
time member of the Stockton High School faculty
and later a Vice-Principal. Marjorie taught in sev­
eral Stockton schools including Stockton High
School. Howard also became a teacher, althol1gh
not in Stockton.
Howard remembered living above the old cream­
ery when he was five or six years old. Across
the street were the docks where the launches
came from farms with their loads of milk. To his
mother's horror, Howard rode the launches and
rowboats down the channel to the San Joaquin
River. (This was before it was a deep-water
channel.) Howard also loved taking steamboats
from the front of the Hotel Stockton, leaving at
night around 7:00 p.m. and arriving in San Fran­
cisco early in the morning. 5
In describing how he wrote Captain Binnacle
Pease stated, "As a boy I always lived near the
Stockton channel, which ran into the San Joa­
quin. I lived at 222 West Oak Street, which was
very near the channel, and I had lived over a
creamery before that, right on the point leading
into McCloud's Lake, so I was always on boats.
Page 1
CAPTAIN BINNACLE knew about the sea at the time was from watch­
ing ships in San Francisco at the Cliff House.
Another classmate, Doris Knight, whose work
also appeared in the Chatterbox, went on to be­
come an author.7
From Mrs. Gaines, Pease acquired a conviction to
write that never left him. The teacher continued
to set aside a class hour each week for creative
writing. Throughout 7th and 8th grade and high
school whenever a teacher assigned a writing
exercise, he asked the teacher if he could write a
short story. Pease graduated from EI Dorado
School in 1909 and Stockton High School in
1914. Writing is a craft he studied and practiced
and learned. "Stories of mine later appeared in
our high school magazine, The Guard and Tackle,
a publication many Stockton writers got their
start in, and later still, in my college literary
magazine. Once started, I couldn't stop .. ," 8
And we used to play down the channel on a half­
submerged hulk of a steamer that had once been
used on the river. I remember the wonderful
times we had on it. We had one person be a
captain, somebody a first mate, another would
be an engineer. We knew a lot about boats. So
1 thought about writing up stories about some
smaller children playing on a half-submerged
hulk along the river and with an old captain on it
whom they called Captain Binnacfe. It is actually
my past experience when 1 was a boy from ten
to fourteen." 6
Pease's first experience in story writing came
remarkably early. He began his literary career in
the old EI Dorado School, located at Vine and EI
Dorado Streets, when he was in the sixth grade
class of Mrs. Nettie S. Gaines. "One day," he
remembered, my teacher said, 'This is Friday
afternoon, our free period. How would you like
to write short stories? All those in favor?' Hands
swung aloft. One girl pupil remarked, 'That
might be fun, Mrs. Gaines; but how in the world
would you do it?' Our teacher had come pre­
pared; she had forty pictures clipped from
magazines, many of them advertisements. She
held up a picture of a camel caravan crossing the
desert. 'Who would like to write a story about
this?' she asked. A boy held up his hand and
received the picture. My hand did not go up until
I saw a picture of a steamer heading into a storm
at sea ... At the end of the term we printed a little
magazine called The Chatterboxfilled with our
work, and that is how 1 still happen to have a
copy of my first short story-'Turn Back, Never!'"
The story is about a captain on a ship. All Pease
The San Joaquin Historian
During the
four years he
went to high
school, Pease
worked on
Saturdays and
Christmas
break at a
clothing store
for men. His
boss there
was Fred
Yost. One
conversation
with Yost was
to make a
major impact
on the young
Pease. Yost
asked
A young Howard Pease
Howard,
"What are you going to do when you finish high
school?" Howard responded that he would like to
go to college and be a writer. "But, my folks
can't help me." Yost then told Howard that when
he was Howard's age he was working in a store.
"1 wanted to be an attorney, but after high
school, 1 slid into a pOSition in a store and here 1
am today. I thought I couldn't go to college be­
cause 1 had no money, but two of my friends
worked their way through college. The thing that
gets me is, 1 never even tried. 1 could have
failed and come back. You go to college, How­
ard, and try to be the best writer you can be and
if you can't do it, come back and try some-thing,
but make a big effort to become what you want."
This conversation replayed in Pease's mind for
Page 2
years. He often wondered, "What might have
happened if I never had that talk with Mr. Yost:,g
After high school, Pease worked to save money
for college. He worked for two years as a packer
and shipper at WP Florin Co. on llilarket St. The
first year he received $65 a month; his second
year, he was promoted to shipping clerk for $75
a month.
Doris Knight, a classmate of Howard's, was the
daughter of Dr. Robert Knight, a prominent
Stockton physician. She decided not to go to
college, but to pursue her interest in writing.
(She went on to a successful career writing love
stories and mysteries). For two years, she went
for instruction with an elderly novelist, William
Chambers Morrow in San Francisco. For $5 an
hour he would review her stories and give her
back comments and assignments. Pease noted
with great interest, that Doris seemed to be "get­
ting way ahead of me./I He decided to use some
of his hard-earned college money to study with
Mr. Morrow. He went six or seven times in a six­
month period. He also went to night school to
learn to type. 10
Student-Soldier-Writer
Howard entered Stanford University around
1915-1916 as a history major. He was still un­
certain about a writing career. "My parents
wanted me to do something solid and secure, but
they were always afraid that I'd wind up doing
something cockeyed, like writing or teaching.
They were right." 11
Howard Pease in France
At the end of his freshman year, Pease inter­
rupted his University career by joining a Stanford
Unit in the War Ambulance Corp being organized,
outfitted and trained by the Friends of France.
The San Joaquin Historian
This was
before
the
United
States
got into
the war.
Twenty­
one
Stanford
boys
joined
Unit
Number
Five,
including
his room­
mate,
Guard
Darrah of
Stockton.
Returning from France,
(Guard
World War I, ca. 1919
Darrah
was to
become a Stockton district attorney. )12
Pease trained at Stanford Hospital in San Fran­
ciSCO. The medical doctors as well as the nurses
were from the University of California, Berkeley.
Pease first worked with victims of venereal dis­
eases and thought it had been "good training to
see the effects of venereal diseases, before going
into wild France." 13
By the time Unit Number Five was ready Con­
gress had declared War and Pease was
automatically enlisted in the Army. It was at this
time that he had his first real, ocean going ex­
perience. His first sea voyage was from San
Francisco through the Panama Canal, then on to
New York and Europe in the winter of 1917-1918.
Pease was transported on the Northern Pacific
and the Leviathan. He lived in the seaman's
forecastle, not with his friends, but with the
crew. Because there was a shortage of crew­
members, he was asked to work as a mess boy
for the officers. He became acquainted with the
officers, the cook, and the engine "firemen." On
another trip, he would become a wiper and fire­
man in the engine room. 14
Pease served during World War I as a sergeant
of the American Expeditionary Force in the ambu­
lance unit in Royat, France in Auvergne with Base
Hospital 30, from 1918-1919. After the Armi­
stice, Pease took a walking trip alone from
Marseilles along the Mediterranean coast to Italy.
He visited "Bluebeard's Castle" and in a long let­
ter to his two small nephews (Laurence's sons)
Page 3
he told the story of "Little Francois and Barbe
Bleu." His sister-in-law, Marie, typed the story
out, and the children took it to school, where it
was read out loud in almost every grade and
enjoyed greatly. When Pease returned from the
war, his sister-in-law told him that a teacher had
suggested that he should write for children. 15
about your case. You don't know how to put a
story into form. You have a sense a drama, but
your stories begin long before they should and
end long after." Mr. Morrow suggested that
Pease collaborate with his other Stockton ian stu­
dent, Doris Knight. "You might together, get a
story that sells. ,,19
Upon his return from military service, Pease went
back to Stanford, even more determined to be­
come a writer. A little known fact and one not
found in biographical sketches is that Pease had
an early first
marriage. (In
all accounts
his second
wife, Pauline,
is listed as his
first wife.)
Around 1917,
Pease married
a fellow
student, Ruth
Baldwin.
Soon after he
returned from
the War, Ruth
became very
ill and died of
spinal
meningitis in
San Francisco
in 1920 at the
Ruth Baldwin Pease sees her
age of twenty­
husband off to war at Stanford
two years.16
University, ca. 1917
This sudden
loss must have been devastating for Pease and
disruptive to his college career. He had seen
men die in the hospital in France, seen the im­
pact of the 1918 flu epidemic hit, and lost his
young wife. He grew up quickly and no longer
had a romantic view of the harsh realities of life.
Pease suggested to Doris that they write a story
for boys. He would plot and write the first draft
of the story, while she would edit and do the final
touch-Up. They reviewed back issues of Ameri­
can Boy magazine to get an idea about what to
write and where to geographically set their story.
Doris put pins on a map to indicate where stories
in the magazine had been set in the past. They
at first noticed that many stories were about
Royal Canadian Mounties and many other stories
were about animals. Doris suggested that they
do such a story. "But what do we know about
that?" Howard objected. He suggested that they
do a story set where no pins were located on the
map, and they noticed that North Africa was just
such a location. He chose Algeria because he
could put a few French words in. "Readers will
think we are widely traveled," he said.
Pease's college career was once more interrupted
around 1921, when he went home to Stockton
for eight months because his father was sick
(and would die in 1922). His mother was work­
ing at a drugstore in Stockton to support herself
and her daughter. Howard found a job at a Stan­
dard Oil service station in Stockton. 17
Throughout the year, Pease again made an at­
tempt to write. His experience with his first
writing professor at Stanford had discouraged
him, but rather than lose heart he returned to
Mr. Morrow for instruction, traveling from his
hometown of Stockton to San Francisco on the
Delta Queen. IS In examining his latest "master­
piece," Mr. Morrow told him, "I've been thinking
The San Joaquin Historian
Howard began doing research in the Stockton
Public Library, going through books and National
Geographic magazines. His research covered the
people, oasis life, and a wild tribe that attacked
caravans. Howard reviewed his research notes,
but his family kept interrupting his writing time.
His sister kept coming to his room, asking him to
run errands for his mother. He felt that the family
did not really appreciate or support his efforts.
He took some of his hard-earned money and
secretly rented a cheap office off East Main
Street. He took his typewriter and research ma­
terials and wrote every evening after work.
(Throughout his career, Pease would usually
have a remote office from his living space.)
Howard had lots of background material for his
story, but no plot. Then he remembered the
story of Richard the Lion-Hearted and the trou­
badour, Blonde!. The troubadour searched for
Richard when he didn't return from the Crusades.
He sang Richard's favorite songs moving from
village to village through Europe trying to find
where Richard had been imprisoned. Pease took
that idea and brought it to North Africa. He chose
a 15 or 16-year-old boy as the hero, the son of a
wealthy exporter of goods. The boy was looking
for his father who had disappeared. The boy
sang American songs to locate him.
Doris edited down the story, getting rid of the
first five pages of descriptive material and the
Page 4
last three pages, indicating all ended "happily
ever after." Besides cutting it down, she added a
little mystery. "Don't let the reader know that the
boy is an American in disguise," she said. Horri­
fied at the deletions, Pease was sure that Doris
had ruined the story, but he accepted her
changes and they sent the story to American
Boy. Three weeks later a slim envelope came.
Pease noted with excitement that the envelope
was too small for the usual returned manuscript.
He opened the envelope to find their first accep­
tance letter and a check of $80 for "The Beggar
at the Gate." He and Doris immediately planned
another story. 20 [A fictional account of how this
story came to be written is told in the first chap­
ter of Pease's book, Bound for Singapore
(1948).]
Pleased with his first success, Pease gave himself
ten years to try writing. "I set aside a small box,
big enough to hold two hundred rejection slips
and determined to write either for ten years or
until I'd filled that box with slips. 21
adventure stories for the kind of boys who were
like hisstudents-"hard-fisted, tough-minded,
ball playing" boys, he called them. He noticed the
paucity of books for this age group, finding a
gaping hole in the library shelves where stories
for these boys should have been. He set about to
do what he could to fill that gap. Pease wanted
his stories to be alluring from the first paragraph,
and "send them back for more of the same."24
Pease once commented that he wrote stories
with many different kinds of youngsters in
mind-serious works for scholarly students and
escapist fiction for those with learning difficulties.
"I've written escape fiction ... Jungle Riverand
Hurricane Weather are just such stories. In state
industrial schools where most of the delinquent
boys are so ill adjusted they cannot face the
world, such books are eagerly read. So we need,
you see all kinds of books for all kinds of readers.
Still, if you are to become a reader of our better
novels instead of a reader only of popular maga­
zines with their romantic and murder tales, you
must learn while young howto read." 25
Gypsy Caravan
Pease returned to Stanford University where he
studied to become a history teacher. He wrote
articles for the Stanford literary magazine. He
finally found a teacher, Edith Mirrielees, who
encouraged him. In her advanced course in nar­
rative writing, he wrote The Gypsy Caravan in
1922-23. The book was a collection of medieval
stories and legends written for young people
(including the story of Richard the Lion-Hearted
and Blondel, his troubadour). He was able to
justify the work as a history major and received
nine units of credit for the book.22 Although not
published until 1930, it was the first book he ever
wrote.
A Teacher and Book Author at Last
Pease finally received an A.B. from Stanford in
1923. He was twenty-eight years old when he
graduated. Pease began teaching seventh and
eighth grades at Riverside School in Sacramento
County. The school was located on Sherman
Island, a Delta island across the river from An­
tioch, between the Sacramento and San Joaquin
Rivers. Howard taught and became a principal
there from April 1924 to June 1926. 23
From his experience at his first teaching job,
Howard decided to CCHcentrate on writing for
boys. He became interested in trying to help his
young students read. He wanted to write for slow
readers, and the boys who thought it was "sissi­
fied" to read a book. He hoped to write
The San Joaquin Historian
Boys pour over Pease's adventure novels
Howard was especially struck by the unrealistic
value system presented in many children's books.
Most stories had the hero become wealthy or the
school's winning athlete or fraternity preSident.
Pease felt that a far more realistic view of life
was necessary to prepare children for life's ex­
periences. "When you begin to get rid of your
illusions about life, you are beginning to grow
up-to mature into an adult." 26
The teaching position on Sherman Island was an
ideal one for a person who wanted to write, as
the island was isolated. Every evening at six
o'clock the ferry to the mainland stopped run­
ning. Pease lived with the Jordans. Mr. Jordan
was in charge of the irrigation ditches on the
island where asparagus was grown. Although
Howard had a bedroom in the house, he wrote in
Page 5
the tank house. Outside was a windmill and be­
low was a storage room. Pease worked on his
book, The Tattooed Man (1926) on weekends,
holidays, and summer vacations. 27
Reading the book much later, Pease realized that
he had made the brother in the story weak,
which was the very opposite of his own older
brother, Laurence. The brother in the story
needed to be rescued. Laurence had been an
accomplished school administrator, speaker, and
active in several prestigious clubs in Stockton.
Pease figured that he had always been jealous of
his brother and this way he got to be the self­
possessed hero. This theme played out through
several of Pease's books. Pease had always
hoped that one day, Laurence would be intro­
duced as Howard's brother in Stockton rather
than the other way around. 3l That day must
have come.
Pease had a setting and characters for The Tat­
tooed Man, but he needed a plot. He asked his
sister who was now a student at Stanford Univer­
sity to do some research in the Law Library
looking at maritime cases. She found a case
involving an insurance fraud. A ship was sunk to
cover up the fact that the olive oil cargo had
been replaced by water. Pease used this case for
his plot. 32
The Tattooed Man is a tale of a strange adven­
ture which befalls seventeen year old Tod Moran,
mess boy of the tramp steamer, Araby, upon his
first voyage from San Francisco to Genoa via the
Panama Canal. He wanted his character, Tod
Moran, to be "the average boy-not too good,
not too bad; not too cowardly, but not brave
either.,,28 He sent Tod to sea on a dirty tramp
steamer looking for his lost brother. It was a
world for which young Tod was unprepared, a
world where he had to take a place not as a boy,
but as a man. Tod's trip and the characters he
met were based on Pease's own first sea voyage.
The book also uses materials that Pease gathered
from his walking trip after the Armistice, from
Marseilles to the Italian border.29 Although the
subject is life on a sea freighter, the theme is
about growing up.
The names and personalities of his fictional char­
acters were often based on people he knew. He
chose the name "Moran" for his character from
the Moran family that had lived across the street
from his Stockton boyhood home. "Tod" came
from Tad Clowdesley, whose father, William, was
the librarian in Stockton for years. The tattooed
cook (Captain Jarvis), Toppy, and Swede were
conglomerates of real characters that he met on
his sea voyage. The seamen characters were to
become regular characters in his Tod Moran sto­
ries. 3o
The San Joaquin Historian
At the same time that he began to plan and write
his first adventure book, he tried to peddle his
first book, The Gypsy Caravan. According to
Pease, he received refusals from all the "best
publishers." Macmillan turned him down, as well
as Doubleday in New York. But, May Massee, the
children's editor from Doubleday wrote back that
" The Gypsy Caravan was not ready for publica­
tion, but was he working on anything else?" She
must have seen some talent and was smart
enough to query Pease further, thus connecting
him to Doubleday.33
Pease had finished eight chapters of The Tat­
tooed Man. Massee was making a trip to San
Francisco to meet with her West Coast authors
and arranged to meet with Pease and review his
manuscript. She encouraged him and said she
would "take the book if the finish was as good as
the first chapters." He was offered the position
of prinCipal at a new eighth grade grammar
school in Palo Alto where his mother and sister
now lived. To his mother's consternation, he
turned the position down.34
Pease stayed on Sherman Island and finished the
book in the fall of 1925. He sent it out to May
Massee at Doubleday, Page, and Co., and a few
weeks later received a contract. Massee ran into
George Pierrot, the editor of The American Boy,
at a party and told him about her new book for
boys. Ten days later Pease was offered a con­
tract for $1,000 from the magazine for the book
Page 6
The Jinx Ship was to be Pease's most popular
book. He began writing it at sea during this voy­
age. At the end of the book, he added a nautical
glossary, an addition that boys really loved. The
plot of the book involved sailors'superstitions
that a ship could be jinxed. Pease also wove
his interest in voodoo and island life into the
book.39
to first appear as a serial. The serial began in
the summer of 1926 with illustrations by Anton
~~~I~
~~ '~'->-1..~ ~(j.~4 "I.-~n~ ~~~~~
n.\u;:tl
~ ~.
~~~~#
~ ~ ai:tn;. M,
~ i50~ J ;~~ '1'­
~t~~~.~
~Egr~
~~~X;;.
~~~~
Journal Page June, 1926 on the Lukenbach
Otto Fischer. Many of the other books Pease sub­
sequently wrote were serialized first in The
American Boy.
35
The Tattooed Man was published as a book in
September of 1926, a wonderful birthday present
for Howard. The London edition came out in
1929 with other editions following. The book
was dedicated in these words to his school-day
friend and war buddy, "For Guard C. Darrah. This
memory of rain-swept decks of Panama and the
marching roads of France."36
Pease's success with a sea-faring story and his
hero Tod Moran was to lead to some twelve Tod
Moran stories. "Tod Moran, my young protago­
nist, is pretty much every youth who goes to
sea./l37
The Jinx Ship (1927)
In order to find background material for his fic­
tion, Pease shipped out on his second sea voyage
from San Francisco on the freighter KJ. Luken­
bach, bound for Panama and through the
Caribbean during the summer of 1926./1 My job
aboard ship has always been that of fireman or
wiper in the engine room, a rather warm spot,
especially in tropic waters:r38 The romance of
sailing never quite wore off for Pease, even
though he found the work aboard ship difficult
and routine. He gathered impressions of land­
scapes, seascapes and the crew.
The San Joaquin Historian
From 1926-1927, Pease took a friend's place
teaching English at Vassar College at Poughkeep­
sie, New York.4o Due to the success of The
Tattooed Man, Pease was under a lot of pressure
from his editor to write another Tod Moran
book.41 He continued writing The Jinx Ship While
at Vassar. He came home to Palo Alto and fin­
ished the book in his mother's apartment.
Doubleday, Page & Co published the book in the
fall of 1927. Translations quickly followed in
Danish and Czech (1928).42 Unfortunately, in
several books including this one, Pease uses cer­
tain negative words to denote ethnic groups
(often in the context of a villain using the slang).
Pease himself would recognize today that these
words are politically incorrect and too volatile to
have on schoolroom and library shelves.
Marriage
Pease married Pauline Nott on November 4,
1927. Before her marriage Pauline had a career
as a regis­
A
f
Jt&tJ.)<.h~{ ~
tered
nurse. She
was a
graduate of
St. Luke's
School of
Nursing in
San
Francisco.
She also did
social
service
work with
girls for the
Passport of the Peases
juvenile
for the trip to Tahiti in 1929
court in San Francisco. When she and Pease
married she made the decision most women in
her day made, to support her husband's career,
rather than have a career of her own. She cen­
tered her life on her husband's work and later on
her only son, Philip.
In an interview she stated, "An author's job is a
lonely one. There is no quick reaction to his
work. The real results sometimes come two
years after a book is finished. He needs compan­
ionship and a feeling that someone is around."
Page 7
She traveled with Howard and helped him gather
research notesi she always read her husband's
manuscripts and gave her ideas and suggestion.
When they first started out! she would type his
manuscripts to help save money.43
listening to the tales of trading among the Island
that the story of The Ship Without A Crew took
form. ,,46
From 1927 through 1931 Pease taught 7th and 8th
graders at the Presidio Hill School! in San Fran­
cisco, a very expensive! private day school.
Several instances that he observed at the school
involving the interaction of the children led to
44
plot ideas.
The South Seas
In 1928 and 1929 Pease worked on Shanghai
Passage (1929). His wife helped by correcting,
and typing the book. She wrote one chapter
herself to help meet a deadline. The book was
based entirely on a friend's diary of his trip to
China. Pease wasn't entirely comfortable with
writing from someone else's experiences and
wanted to get new research material.
In June of 1929, during the summer school vaca­
tion, Pease and his wife went by ship to Tahiti for
several months. On Tahiti they soaked up the
atmosphere and culture, staying in a cabin near a
lagoon where they had an outrigger canoe for
transportation.
Secret Cargo (1931)
When they returned to San Francisco, Pease's
wife also helped on Secret Cargo (1931), written
for a 6th grade audience. At the time she was
pregnant and not too well. A friend kindly al­
lowed them a place to stay at his big house on
Pacific Avenue facing the Presidio. When the
baby, their only son, Philip, was born they went
back to their apartment. 45
Pease became a teacher and principal at a Los
Altos public school from 1931 to 1934. But, the
draw to return to Tahiti must have been strong.
Pease noted that "my idea for The Ship Without
A Crew (1934) came from a more recent voyage
south of the Line." He recalled "My wife and I
spent a winter on Tahiti, that lovely island of
French Oceania, 3,600 miles southwest of San
Francisco. Our home, a cottage built high on
stilts in the midst of a coconut grove was just
outside the town of Papeete. From our porch we
looked across the clear blue lagoon to the Great
Barrier Reef encircling the island. We were fasci­
nated by the life about us the outdoor life of
the natives. We helped gather coconut meat and
vanilla beans, fished for beautifully colored fish in
the lagoon, cooked native food. It was while
The San Joaquin Historian
A Bold Change
By the time Ship Without a Crew came out
Pease's books were selling well. It was the first
book to be taken by the Junior Literary Guild. 47
Pease was always a hard-working writer. His
teaching combined with his heavy writing sched­
ule was becoming more frustrating. In 1934
Pease considered his options. Approaching the
age of forty, the time had come for him to
choose whether to be a teacher, a school admin­
istrator, or a writer.
He talked it over with Pauline and his new editor,
Peggy Lesser! and also wrote to The American
Boymagazine. "We decided that if we could be
assured $2!500.00 a year! then I could give up
teaching." With assurances! Pease resigned as
principal and moved to Palo Alto to devote full
time to writing. Breaking loose from the teaching
profession during such unstable times wasn't as
risky as it might have been! as he was already an
established writer. 48
Freed from teaching! the Peases were able to
travel looking for writing ideas. In 1946 Pease
and his family toured across the United States
and Mexico pulling a house trailer behind their
car. The fourth member of their family was a
daschund pup. The Peases toured as many port
Page 8
cities as they could. Exploring the Connecticut
shore they were charmed by Bell Island. They
moved into a house facing Long Island Sound.
Here Philip, now of high school age, sailed and
raced his Snipe. The native Californians, how­
ever, were soon drawn back to the Bay Area. 49
New Writing Directions
Pease started anotherTod Moran book, Wind in
the Rigging (1935). This story is based on a
r
moving to a mansion in San Francisco, only to lose everything in the earthquake. Stockton scenes are often mentioned in this book. Thun­
derbolt House won a Commonwealth Club of California silver medal in 1945.52 Heart ofDanger (1946) was based on Pease/s
concern about anti-Semitism. It was a spy story
about an American Jewish boy of German heri­
tage who is a talented violist and composer. The
hero, with Tod Moran as companion, enters
France under the Nazi regime. The
violinist is captured and loses his
arm in a concentration camp. Pease
received an award for Heart of
Dangerfrom the Child Study
Association of America for "a book
for young people, which presents
with honesty and courage a realistic
picture of todals world." He also
received a Boys Clubs of America
junior book award in 1949 for the
book. 53
-
Pease at a book signing l ca. 1948
timely discussion in the 1930s about whether
munitions makers were a cause of war. Pease
was getting tired of writing Tod Moran stories.
He wanted a change, but his editor, Peggy
Lesser, insisted that he had to keep writing Tod
Moran stories.
Pease decided to write other books and so he
offered, Captain Binnacle (1938) written for
younger readers and Long Wharf (1939) to
Dodd, Mead, and Co. Long Wharf was based on
the story of the Niantic; an abandoned ship in
San Francisco that was turned in to a hotel. It is
a particularly fine account of San Francisco's tur­
bulent Gold Rush days. Pease used stories about
his grandparents as the basis for the book, which
was one of his personal favorites. He dedicated
this book to his sister Marjorie. 5o
His new editor now realized her mistake. May
Massee, now at Viking, was sent as an emiSsary
and helped Peggy and Howard negotiate an
agreement that eve!}' other book would be a sea
story or a Tod Moran book, and the others could
be the kind of stories Howard wanted to writeY
Thunderbolt House (1944), another Pease favor­
ite, was set in San Francisco during the Great
Earthquake and Fire. The story starts with a
Stockton family receiving a large inheritance and
The San Joaquin Historian
Pease as a Writer
Librarians, teachers, and parents
often criticized Pease's books as too
realistic. May Massee once told him,
as a writer of boy stories you are entering a fe­
male world of editors, librarians, and teachers­
"don't let them tell you how to write for boys."
Although his editors' advertised that Pease was a
merchant marine (rather than a teacher-writer)
most of his sea trips and travels were very con­
sciously and specifically made to gather research
notes. His hard work, as a writer is the real
Howard Pease story. He kept strict office hours,
beginning work at 8:00 a.m. and writing for six
hours daily, revising each chapter at least five
times. He always believed that writing is a craft
to be studied and practiced and learned. He
knew his craft. He spent an average of about ten
months on each of his book. "When I'm writing a
story I know only the beginning and the end. I
let the middle develop as I write and revise.
Sometimes the end changes. 1I54
Successful Author Returns to Stockton
Pease never forgot his hometown and was al­
ways willing to share himself with schools, public
libraries, and his fans. In August 1936 his story
"Toll Bridge,u in the American Boyappeared un­
der the pseudonym "Paul Stockton/ indicating
that Stockton was very dear to his heart and tied
to his identity.
Page 9
replied with an autographed copy of
Thunderbolt House and wrote "To a
young Californian, this story about
another young Californian."S7
4.1.1.
"ICllt4;
He wrote the book Foghorns (1939) about un­
ionization of longshoremen and seamen in San
Francisco. It was dedicated to his sixth grade
teacher, Mrs. Gaines, who was now retired and
living in Berkeley. In 1939, a special invitation
brought Howard Pease back to EI Dorado School
in Stockton. Miss Nan Sykes, a first grade
teacher at the school originated the first "Howard
Pease Club." She invited Howard, past adminis­
trators of the school, and Mrs. Gaines, his sixth
grade teacher, to a special Howard Pease event
for the Club. Howard spent a day at EI Dorado
School as well as speaking at the Stockton Public
Library where four hundred children and parents
packed in to hear him talk on his experiences on
the collecting of book material. A special scrap­
book created by the club was given to Howard
and is still in his collection. 55
Pease noted in a letter to Mrs. Sykes, "Whenever
I think of your Howard Pease Club I feel deeply
embarrassed-and honored too. But the thought
that perhaps among the club members there may
be a boy or girl who might get fired with the de­
sire to write-well, that would be worthwhile.""s6
Fan Letters
Throughout his career Pease received hundreds
of letters from boys and girls telling him what
they liked or didn't like about the latest book. So
many letters came through the years that Pease
had to revert to a prepared leaflet response.
Three thousand leaflets were sent out in two
years as well as personal responses to the letters
that especially touched him. When he received a
letter from Arizona marked Barrack 6-6-C, which
said, "I liked so much your Long Wharfbecause I
used to live in San Francisco before we were
moved here. It is very hot in Arizona. Yoko
Hamasaki," Howard knew the letter was from a
Japanese American relocated during the war. He
The San Joaquin Historian
A librarian reported that both boys and
men couldn't get enough of the Pease
books and often read them twice. "It
was a strange sight to see soldiers
sneaking into the children's room to
grab Secret Cargo and making tracks
for the garden. They refused to take
the books from the library because
they were marked with a 'J' meaning
juvenile. We solved that problem by
buying all the Pease books in duplicate
to add to the adult collection.,,58
Letters from children, generated as class writing
assignments, were often amusing.
The Howard Pease Club at EI Dorado School welcomes Howard
Pease with a skit. Mrs. Gaines in the center 1939
Favorites of Mr. Peases'included:
"Today our teacher had us stand and make a list
of our favorite authors. You were second on my
list. My first choice was Charles Dickens because
last Friday night I saw his latest movie, Great
Expectations. I was writing a letter to Mr. Dick­
ens when my teacher came down the aisle. She
told me I'd have a better chance of getting a
reply if I wrote to you instead. Detroit Michigan
eight grade boy",59
"Of all the books I read last year I liked The Jinx
Ship best of all. I think that you are one of the
best authors in the world, I even think you are
better than Shakespeare." 60
Page 10
19505-19605
Howard's wife, Pauline Pease, died in 1955. She
was ill for several months before she passed
away. At the time of Pauline's death the family
lived in Menlo Park. 61 Pease developed a writing
block after her death. He worked with a psycho­
therapist to help him begin writing again, and
gained a number of insights about his own per­
sonality. He saw that he was often the hero of
his books. Shipwreck(1957) made use of some
of his new interest in psychotherapy and
dreams. 62
In 1956 Pease married Rossie Ferrier. They met
at a "post World War I social group in San Fran­
cisco." The following year they moved to
Livermore to be near her daughter and son-in­
law, Joan and Gerald Baxter, and their grandchil­
dren. Pease's son, Philip, had gone on to be a
graduate of Stanford University.63
A Teacher of Writers
His love of teaching frequently drew him back to
the classroom throughout the 1950s and 1960s
to teach prospective authors. Offering a very
individualized style of instruction, he taught Crea­
tive Writing to adults from 1953 to 1961. He
taught one night a week, at area high schools
including Menlo-Atherton High School, Livermore
High School, and Castro Valley High School.
Throughout the 1960s, Pease taught writing
classes and workshops at the University of San
Francisco; California State University, Hayward;
Fresno State College; Sacramento State Univer­
sity; Chico State University; and the University of
Utah. He gave many lectures at teachers' insti­
tutes and conferences around the San Jose and
San Joaquin Valley area from Fresno to Sacra­
mento. 64
"It takes a substantial ego," Pease noted in an
interview in 1965, "to go into a cubby hole and
write-sometimes for a year or more-and feel
assured that somebody is going to publish what
you've written. Especially when the average cost
of a first printing is $8,000." In speaking of his
work with creative writing students, he noted
that "You need to get behind students, build
them up... I'm very commercial," he added with
a grin. "I want my students to publish." The fact
that twenty-six of his students in a six-year pe­
riod have published first books may be an
indication that his theory of teaching had merit.
Pease believed that many burgeoning students
were smothered by pedantry or ridicule which
undermined their self-confidence and placed no
value on the imaginative. "Writing is a craft and
60 per cent of it is technique. I think I can teach
that 60 per cent. The other 40 per cent balance
consists of energy, interest, self-discipline and
imagination and must be supplied by the student.
Some of my most talented students don't publish
because they don't produce .... I never thought of
myself as a Hemingway or a Faulkner, I kept to
my own little books because I was interested in
kids." When Pease began writing for the teenage
reader, there were only two publishers with edi­
tors assigned to "juveniles." By 1965 there were
63 juvenile editors .. 65
During this time Pease began preparing a text­
book on creative writing, Writing In Depth. 66 He
worked on the book for a number of years. It is
a worthy guide to any burgeoning writer, but
unfortunately, his 425-page text was never pub­
lished.
His wife, Rossie, was a wheelchair invalid for the
last three years of her life. She died on Sept 21 st
(ca.1967). In October 1967 Pease received a
letter from Shirley Jennings. Her professor in the
School of Education, Dr. Dewey Chambers, re­
nown for his interest and writing in storytelling,
had suggested Howard Pease for the subject of
her dissertation.
Pease took pride in his daschund show dogs and
featured a daschund in several books
The San Joaquin Historian
Pease hadn't "done anything for the two or three
months prior to his wife's death." Jennings and
Dr. Chambers invited Howard Pease and his sec­
retary Blanche Ensign to meet with them in
Page 11
Stockton to discuss the project. Pease welcomed
the project seeing it as "a sort-of rescue to get
him involved again." Dr. Chambers invited Pease
to teach in his Creative Teaching class. Cham­
bers also suggested that the Howard Pease
Collection come to the University of the Pacific.
Although both Boston Public Library and Stanford
University had shown interest in the collection,
Pease was convinced that the collection belonged
in Stockton, California where he grew Up.67
19705
In his later years Pease lived in an apartment
house at 801 Sutter Street in San Francisco with
his personal secretary, companion, and confi­
dant, Blanche Ensign. Pease was able to live off
his royalty income. He still cared deeply about
students and spent
money helping
others develop their
writing talents. He
was working on his
book on creative
writing when he
died. His secretary
reported that "He
was not a known
celebrity in his later
years."6S
Surprisingly, neither
the Stockton Record
or the New York
Times made note of
his death when he passed away on April 14, 1974
in San Rafael, California. He was seventy-nine
years old.
Pease was buried on May 8, 1974 in the Pease
Family plot in the Stockton Rural Cemetery. He
is buried there with his first wife, his mother and
father, and brother and sister. His son Philip
took care of arrangements. 69 His marble grave­
stone reads:
Howard Pease 1874-1974 An Author and Teacher He Opened Up the Skies have been translated into seven European lan­
guages including Danish, French, German,
Belgian, Italian, Spanish, and Czechoslovakian.
In 1945, Thunderbolt House won a silver medal
from the Commonwealth Club of California-an
award given to the best juvenile author of the
year; Heart ofDangerreceived both the 1946
award of the Child Study Association and the
1946 medal from the Boys' Club of America.
An article in 1983 in the Stockton Record by
Howard Lachtman reviewed Pease's Significance
for Stockton. "Pease was not merely an adven­
ture writer, he was a writer who put adventure
on the American literary map for younger read­
ers. His contribution to American children's
literature can be summed up in one word­
enormous. He captured the imagination of boys
for generations
and is still very
popular in the
libraries which
hold his
books.. .with his
combination of
mystery and
melodrama and
with his knack of
mingling hard­
hitting realism
with the
romance of
exotic locales,
Pease soared to
popularity in the 1930s and 1940s. He was one
of the best-known and best-loved authors of his
time. He remains an American classic, a kind of
Jack London of adolescent adventure fiction, and
a writer whom even adults can read today for fun
and nostalgic pleasure."7o
Howard Pease's books may still be located in the
Cesar Chavez Central Library's Children's Room
and various county branch libraries where they
still entertain young readers and adults. The
Howard Pease Collection including personal cop­
ies of his novels, foreign editions,
correspondence, a few manuscripts, a journal,
scrapbooks, and other memorabilia are in the
Holt-Atherton Special Collections at the University
of the Pacific Library.
Significance/Impact
During a period of more than forty years Howard
Pease's books have appealed to youthful readers.
Since his first published book in 1926, over two
million copies of his books were sold. Pease's
books have enjoyed worldwide recognition. They
The San Joaquin Historian
Reading a Howard Pease book still provides excit­
ing trips to historic California or exotic ports-of­
call. Tod Moran, Captain Jarvis, Toppy, Swede
and all the rest of Pease's colorful, self-reliant
crew continue to sail on the seas of the readers'
imaginations.
Page 12
"Howard Pease" in Major Authors and Illustrators for Children
and Young Adults, " vol. 5, Edited by Lanier Collier and Joyce
Nakamura. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1993, p. 1843.
2 "Craftmanship, Ideas, Key to Success, In Today's Field of Crea­
tive Writing" The Independent, The Lively Arts Section, August
29, 1965, Newspaper Clipping in Mss 49 Box 5, Folder 10 in The
Howard Pease Collection, Holt-Atherton Special Collections,
University of the Pacific Library.
3 Jennings, Shirley May. A Study ofthe Genesis ofthe Twenty­
two Published Children's Novels by Howard Pease. (Stockton,
University of the Pacific unpublished doctoral dissertation, 1969,
pp. 357-358).
q "Pease, Howard." In Contemporary Authors, vols. 5-8, first
revision, (Michigan, Gale Research Co., c1963, 1969, p. 875.
5 Interview with Howard Pease by Dewey Chambers and Shirley
Jennings. Also present, Pease's secretary, Blanche EnSign,
Stockton, November 2, 1967 and on the same tape, Interview
with Howard Pease by Shirley Jennings. Livermore, November
10,1967 in Mss 49 Box 11 The Howard Pease Collection.
6 Jennings, p. 227.
7 "Pease, Howard." In Contemporary Authors. Edited by Frances
C. Locher, vol. 106. Detroit: Mi.: Gale Research Co., 1982, p. 391; Howard Pease Club Scrapbook, Stockton, California, 1939, EI Dorado School in Mss 49, The Howard Pease Collection. 8 Interview, Nov. 2 and 10, 1967; Lachtman, Howard, "The Howard Pease Story" in the Stockton Record, January 30, 1983, F-14:1-3. 9 Interview, Nov. 2 and 10, 1967. 10 Ibid.
11 "Craftmanship..." 12 Interview, Nov. 2 and 10, 1967. 13 Jennings, pp. 94-95. 14 Ibid., pp. 97-98. 15 Interview, Nov. 2 and 10, 1967; note on photograph of the nephews in Mss 49 The Howard Pease Collection. 16 Pease, Ruth Baldwin. Stockton Rural Cemetery record, Stock­
ton, California; World War I Scrapbook in Mss 49 The Howard Pease Collection; Phone call to Joseph Pease, (nephew, son of Laurence Pease) by Daryl Morrison, Sept.1, 2000. 17 Jennings. 18 "Craftmanship..." 19 Interview, Nov. 2 and 10, 1967. 20 Ibid.
21 "Craftmanship..."
22 Jennings, pp. 166-170.
23 Interview, Nov. 10, 1967.
24 "Howard Pease: Topnotch Storyteller" in Publishers" Weekly,
April 26, 1947, pp. 2204. Clipping in Scrapbook No.2, dated
inside cover, 1949 [clippings date from 1944-1951] in Mss 49,
Box 12. The Howard Pease Collection.
25 "Pease, Howard" in Contemporary Authors, 1969, p. 876.
26 Jennings, pp. 117,361).
27 "Howard Pease: Topnotch Storyteller"; Notations in Scrapbook
1, dated inside cover 1939, Mss 49, Box 12, The Howard Pease
Collection; Scrapbook 2.
28 Jennings, p. 115.
29 "Howard Pease: Topnotch Storyteller;" Jennings, p. 99).
30 Jennings, p. 99.
31 Ibid., p. 106.
32 Ibid., pp. 97-99.
33 Interview, Nov. 10, 1967.
34 Jennings, pp. 89-93.
35 Jennings, p. 94; "Howard Pease: Topnotch Storyteller."
36 Howard Pease Club Scrapbook.
37 "Howard Pease" in Major Authors and Illustrators for Children
and Young Adults, p. 1843.
38 Pease, Howard. "Wintering in Tahiti" Young Wings, July 1934
Clipping in Scrapbook No.1, p. 27.
39 "Pease, Howard" in Contemporary Authors, 1969, p. 876.
48 Pease, Howard. Vita (very brief) in Mss 49 Box 5, Folder 10,
The Howard Pease Collection.
41 Jennings, p. 144.
42 Notation in Scrapbook 1; Jennings, pp. 136-148.
43 "The Other Half, Mrs. Howard Pease-'just a housewife,'
Times, July 27, 1954, p. 7. Clipping in Mss 49 Box 5, folder, 10,
The Howard Pease Collection.
1
The San Joaquin Historian
Pease, Howard, Vita; Jennings, p. 146.
Jennings, pp. 176-178; Interviews of Howard Pease by Shirley
Jennings. Tape containing November 14,16,18, and 21, 1967 in
The Howard Pease Collection.
46 Pease, Howard. "Wintering in Tahiti"
47 Jennings, p. 191.
48 "The Other Half"
49 "Howard, Pease," in The Junior Book ofAuthors, edited by
Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft. 2nd ed., revised, New
York, The H,W. Wilson, Co., 1951, pp. 239-240.
so Jennings, pp. 240-243.
51 Ibid., pp. 244-245.
52 Martin, Irving, Jr., "As the Sunset," Stockton Record, April 25,
1944. Clipping in Scrapbook No.2, The Howard Pease Collection.
53 "Howard Pease: Topnotch Storyteller," p. 2205.
54 Pease, Howard" in Contemporary Authors, 1969, p. 876;"The
Monitor Interviews: Howard Pease, Read, Read, Write, Write­
And You May Be an Author," The Monitor, July 24, 1949, p. 2­
Newspaper clipping in Mss 49 Box 5 Folder 10, Howard Pease
Collection.
55 Howard Pease Club Scrapbook.
56 Pease, Howard. Letter to Nan Sykes dated October 25, 1939
in the Howard Pease Club Scrapbook.
57"Howard Pease: Topnotch Storyteller," p. 2205.
58 Ibid.
59 Rennert, Leo. "Boy has Dickens of a Time Not Writing to Dick­
ens," Newspaper Clipping in Mss 49 Box 5, The Howard Pease
Collection.
60 "Dear Author, Letters from the Young Readers" in NY Times,
Nov. 1950, Children's Book, Scrapbook No.2, p. 2
61 "Mrs. Pease, Author's wife, succumbs," in Palo Alto Times,
Feb. 26, 1955. Newspaper Clipping in Mss 49, Box 5, Folder 5,
The Howard Pease Collection.
62 Jennings, p. 335.
63 "Howard Pease, Teacher and Author, Now Residing Here,"
Livermore News, August 27, 1957, clipping in Box 8 Mss 49
Howard Pease Collection; Phone conversation with Gerald Baxter
by Daryl Morrison, September 1, 2000.
64 Pease, Howard. Vita.
65 Cuthbertson, Dorothy. "Between Scenes" The Daily Review,
Sunday May 30, 1965, Section 1, page 9 Newspaper clipping in
Mss 49, Box 5, Howard Pease Collection.
66 Mss 49, Howard Pease Collection.
67 Interview, November 2, 1967.
68 Ensign, Blanche. Typed note in Mss 49, Box 11, Howard
Pease Collection.
69 Daryl Morrison visited the Stockton Rural Cemetery and Office
on September 1, 2000 and verified family names, dates, and
grave locations.
70 Lachtman, Howard, "The Howard Pease Story" in the Stockton
Record, January 30,1983; F-14: 1-3.
44
45
Photographs from the Howard Pease Collection
Page 13
Howard Pease Books
The Tattooed Man (1926) The Jinx Ship (1927) Shanghai Passage (1929) Gypsy Caravan (1930) Secret Cargo (1931) The Ship Without a Crew (1934) Wind in the Rigging (1935) Hurricane Weather (1936) Foghorns (1937) Captain Binnacle (1938) Jungle River (1938) Long Wha~[(1939) Address correction requested
San Joaquin County
Historical Society and :\1useum
p.o. Box 30
Lodi, CA 9524 J -0030
High Road to Adventure (1939) The Black Tanker (1941) Night Boat, And Other Tod il,loran lvfysteries (1942) Thunderbolt House (1944) Heart qfDanger (1946) Boundfor Singapore (1948) The Dark Adventure (1950) Captain q[ the "Araby" (1953) Shiplvreck (1957) Mystefyon Telegraph Hill (1961) Non-Profit Organization POSTAGE PAID Permit No. 48 Lodi, CA 95241