Under the Gables - Jack Mason Museum

Under the Gables
Volume XVI, Number 3
Fall 2009
West Marin Graveyards
AN HISTORIC AND AESTHETIC APPRECIATION OF OUR CEMETERIES
a returning exhibit featuring rubbings of old gravestones, photographs
and historical information about the cemeteries of West Marin
Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History
Inverness Way at Park Avenue, Inverness
Phone 415-669-1099
www.jackmasonmuseum.org
OUR NEW WEBSITE
The museum has a website, created by Honey St. Dennis, a student intern at Point Reyes National Seashore Archive. Visit us at www.
jackmasonmuseum.org and catch what’s going on!
JACK MASON
MUSEUM COMMITTEE
Robert Kroninger, Chair
Andrew Buckingham
Henry Buckingham
Carola DeRooy
Mary Kroninger
Meg Linden
Dewey Livingston
Vivian Mazur
Jenefer Merrill
Michael Mery
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
DO YOU HAVE OLD WEST MARIN MEMORABILIA,
PHOTOGRAPHS, PAINTINGS?
Here at the Jack Mason Museum, we have been accepting donations of historical items for more than 20 years. Our collection is based
on the vast repository that Jack Mason started to collect in the 1960s as
he prepared to write eight books on Marin history.
We preserve and catalog every piece (see page 10) and make sure
that West Marin’s past is not forgotten. You an come and do research
at the archive by appointment, where you will find a treasure trove of
information. Call 415-669-1099 or check our website for information.
The painting above, “An April Morning” by Jack Wisby, was donated some years ago to the museum by John and Margaret Fall.
Here in the archive
room at Baily’s
Cottage, behind the
Inverness Library,
we have a safe and
secure storage system
for valuable old
documents. Come visit
and see! Better yet,
come a help us catalog
and preserve West
Marin’s history!
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Sue Baty
Mary & Ken Cardwell
Dian Carpenter
David Donlon
David Elliott
Dorito Marringa
Linda Mendoza
Maidee Moore
Connie Morse
Kathy Munger
Ann Read
Kerry Rose
Marcia Strom
HONORARY MEMBER
Barbara Mason McClellan
THE JACK MASON MUSEUM
OF WEST MARIN HISTORY
IS AN AFFILIATE OF THE
INVERNESS FOUNDATION
Editor & Layout:
Dewey Livingston
Editorial Assistance:
Michael Mery
Meg Linden
Announcing a special repeat showing of one of our most popular exhibits:
This dramatic and artistic exhibit has not seen by the public for 15 years!
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4
Bolinas
Cemetery
Olema Cemetery
Some of the
gravestone rubbings
featured in
the exhibit
Point Reyes
Life-Saving
Cemetery
5
A Multi-Generational Inverness Saga:
Ralph Mitchell
By Michael Mery
Ralph Mitchell first came to Inverness in October
of 1945. He was a young, married man with wife
Eloise and a newborn daughter, Lynn. Eloise
and her widowed mother, Edith Sutherland, had
bought property in First Valley west of the tennis
courts. Edith then purchased the Helen Shafter
parcel on Inverness Way – part of the original
Shafter holdings dating to 1858 – as a family retreat
and rental.
Ralph was born in 1922, spending his early
years in the East Bay with his mother, father, and
sister. The family moved from Berkeley to Davis
in 1924, where his father taught high school briefly
in the small college town. They soon relocated
to Marysville where Ralph’s father became both
farmer and teacher. The family grew with one
more addition, a boy, while Ralph spent his boyhood becoming familiar with hard work on the
farm and school duties.
Following in the family tradition, Ralph
became an undergraduate at Cal Berkeley. Ralph
was only 19 when World War II intervened and
he joined the Navy, a common occurrence in those
days of wide and strong support for the war effort.
During the war he was based in Brazil where he
patrolled the South Atlantic. Ralph had a memorable experience arising from the successful sighting
and sinking of a German freighter carrying rubber
to Germany from Sumatra. The crew of the vessel
was rescued by the Navy and taken to the brig in
Sao Paulo. Ralph was curious about the crew. It
so happened that in the mid-1930s Ralph and his
family had lived for a year or two in Mexico City,
where one of his classmates had been a young German boy. That boy had become the captain of the
freighter Ralph was responsible for sinking and
he immediately recognized his school chum from
less than ten years earlier. He told me all he could
do was to walk away, shocked and dismayed that
a life briefly shared as youngsters had played out
in such a dramatic way.
Right after the war, Ralph, Eloise, and baby
Eloise and Ralph Mitchell with their first child, Lynn.
The old Shafter cottage in First Valley.
Lynn moved to Inverness. Ralph enrolled again
at UC Berkeley, living part of the time in the East
Bay and part of the time in Inverness. Among
his jobs in Inverness, where there wasn’t lots of
opportunity, was driving the delivery truck for
Mery’s Inverness Store, a green half-ton GMC
that I remember well from my childhood. People
would call the store, place an order (charged, of
course, on account), and the items would be delivered to the account holder.
Ralph worked at a variety of jobs including
construction on the house for the Johnson family
in Second Valley when Nels and his wife sold
the Inverness Lodge (later known as Manka’s) to
the Richardson family. Another job found him
working on the Bear Valley Ranch in the summer
months between semesters at UC Davis, where he
had transferred. At the time, new owners Bruce
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coming to Inverness in those days after
the family’s move to Ukiah and then
the Fresno where the Mitchells lived
for many years. Without hesitation he
said it was the wonderful cool weather,
as the summer months spent here after
the heat of the Central Valley was a relief.
And then too, there was the renewal of
old and new friendships with various
families, including my own, from the
previous years. The lazy swims in the
bay, hikes to the seashore, berry picking,
and never-to-be-forgotten beach parties,
were wonderful summer’s fare. And, of
course, in the longer view, bequeathing
to his children and grandchildren that
rare experience of being in a familiar
place that continued to maintain its
traditions and be easily recognized at a
time in California when change was so
rapid and powerful.
As the reader likely knows, Ralph’s
youngest son, Bruce Mitchell and his
wife Nancy Hemmingway are living
here as are their sons in nearby Petaluma
– Owen a landscaper and developer with wife
Amy and daughter Lily, and Drew who is a flight
instructor in Santa Rosa. Ralph’s older son John
has been a world traveler and landscape gardener
who is now a specialty farmer in the Sierras.
Ralph and daughter Lynn, who has lived
abroad for many years, now reside in Los Gatos
where Ralph and wife, Eloise, no longer with us,
lived for many years following his career working
for the Del Monte Foods national and international
divisions.
Thus began the Sutherland’s and Mitchell’s
multi-generation saga of coming to Inverness in
the summer months, with dad arriving on weekends as work permitted and mom and the kids in
residence for the warm months of the year.
Ralph continues to frequently visit Bruce and
Nancy, and it was at their home where Ralph and I
chatted. He continues to be a great conversationalist with a wry sense of humor regarding the follies
we all seem to share. He often repeats how much
joy he gets out of watching his great-granddaughter Lily grow and flourish, surrounded by all the
family members who cherish her.
Mery’s Inverness Store (top) provided work for young
Ralph Mitchell, as did the famed Bear Valley Ranch,
where coastal cowboys took a break during a roundup as
captured by photographer Seth Wood around 1948.
and Grace Kelham were transitioning the huge
ranch from a western-style showplace dairy where
rodeos were held in the ‘40s as fundraisers for the
Catholic Church in Point Reyes Station to a working beef cattle operation. Ralph told of the change
in ownership from San Francisco’s “Cafeteria
King” Gene Compton to the Kelham family (the
owner prior to Compton was the Langdon family – Jon and Joel still live in Point Reyes Station
and Inverness, respectively).
Ralph recalls visiting what he referred to as
the “Ale and Quail Clubhouse” that was at Divide
Meadow, a remnant from the Pacific Union Club
days. He commented that there seemed much
more ale consumed than any significant number
of quail shot, as far as he could remember. He also
remembers with fondness the Chesley Bush family
that owned the Draper house on Edgemont and
the Lambs just up the street.
I asked him what had been the best part of
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The wonders of our new scanner: the images on these pages were scanned from large-
format negatives, retaining the original details. The two photographs on the opposite page
are from 5x7-inch negatives, which produce brilliantly sharp pictures of the Hillside Dairy
(later Chez Madeleine and now Marin Sun Farms) in Point Reyes Station. The man separating cream inside is Joe Horick; the photos were taken by Seth Wood around 1949.
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These photos are from
copy negatives made
in the 1980s, depicting
the construction of the
Grandi Building in 1915.
The Grandi Block in
Point Reyes Station before
construction started. The
buildings, the original Hotel
Point Reyes and adjacent
saloon, were moved to make
way for the new building.
Workers pose while
constructing the massive
foundation. The old hotel
building is behind them, left.
Looking northwest from the
roof of the old hotel, the
Grandi Building takes shape
as the second story walls rise.
Workers pose with the newlyinstalled steel headers over the
windows. The roof of the Point
Reyes Emporium can be seen
in the distance.
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The Hillside Dairy (“Health in every bottle”) was owned and operated by the Morris family who had an adjacent dairy
ranch. Besides the milk processing room, below, it had a soda fountain featuring fresh ice cream made on the premises.
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News from the Archives
During the past year we have bought a new
Dell computer and purchased the latest version
of the PastPerfect Museum Software that we have
been using to keep track of the contents of the Archives. We also bought a new professional-grade
scanner and a new color laser printer. The Archives
room itself was given a thorough cleaning and
committee member Carola de Rooy, the Archivist
in charge of the Point Reyes National Seashore
Archives, has recommended a lot of improvements
we can make to the physical facility and the physical handling of the material. We also replaced the
old telephone and phone answering system.
Even more importantly,
we have started a concentrated
effort to create records in our
computer database for the
entire collection so that information can be retrieved more
quickly and completely. Many
of the items in the Archives
have a brief record but only a
few of the older acquisitions
have complete cataloging records. The first phase of this
project will involve making at
least a brief record for every
item we own. This will be a
multi-stage process. First volunteers will enter brief records
for all the items that do not yet
have any record. Then they will go back and create full cataloging records for each item. Dewey
Livingston will review the records to add his
personal knowledge to each item in the database.
All the photographs will be scanned so that the
record in the database will include a copy of the
actual photograph, minimizing wear and tear on
the photograph itself. The database provides a
place to enter biographical data about the people
mentioned or depicted in the archival material
and also to link items together in ways that will
be helpful to future researchers.
Some of the $3,400 donated in memory of
Scotty and Joe Mendoza has been used to send
Dewey Livingston and Meg Linden to a training
session in Sacramento to learn how to use the software more efficiently. Meg also attended a day of
training on the membership and donation portion
of the software. They are now training volunteers
on how to use the database to enter records. This
process will also identify a lot of material which
needs to be repaired or repackaged in more protective coverings, etc. Some volunteers will also
be needed for this process. If you are interested
in helping with this project, please contact Dewey
669-7706 or Meg 663-1488 to discuss volunteering.
Both types of volunteers are very important to the
completion of the project.
--Meg Linden
Meg Linden works at the new computer station in Baily’s
Cottage, the Museum’s archive room.
THE JACK MASON MUSEUM
NEEDS A VOLUNTEER OR TWO
FOR COMPUTER MANAGEMENT,
INCLUDING SOFTWARE UPDATES,
WEBSITE MAINTENANCE, AND
OTHER COMPUTER-RELATED TASKS.
PLEASE CALL DEWEY AT 669-7706,
OR THE MUSEUM AT 669-1099.
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IF YOU HAVEN’T YET,
IT’S TIME TO RENEW
YOUR MEMBERSHIP IN
THE JACK MASON MUSEUM
OF WEST MARIN HISTORY
Please send in your dues using the enclosed envelope.
We can’t do it without you!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
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RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED
Non-Profit Org.
US Postage
PAID
Permit No. 5
Inverness, CA
94937
Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History
P. O. Box 94
Inverness, CA 94937
www.jackmasonmuseum.org
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Opening at
the Museum:
West Marin Graveyards
Opening reception
Sunday, November 7 from 2 to 4