1908

WHAT’S NEW IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, 1908

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

A century before the Ridgway Historic District was recognized, there was a burst of construction between 1905-1908 that defined the neighborhood.

Mendocino Avenue was shaping up to be a boulevard of grand homes, even mansions, that could rival the best offerings on McDonald Ave. There were already two houses designed by Brainerd Jones: The Lumsden House (currently the Belvedere), and the spectacular, lost Paxton House. In 1905 another Jones design was added with the construction of Comstock House, and in 1908, the Saturday Afternoon Club, on the Josiah Davis street extension of Mendocino. The same year the James R. Edwards family, good friends of the Oates’, built the fine brown shingle Craftsman style house that still stands at 930 Mendocino. And although not new, across the street from the Edwards family was a stately three story Queen Anne that was a jewel in its own right.

(RIGHT: Frank Todd home at 1101 Mendocino Avenue, as seen in 1915. A few years later it was demolished to make way for the new high school. CLICK on images to enlarge. Photograph courtesy Sonoma County Library)

The real activity, however, was taking place in the streets west of Mendocino Ave. Bungalows and cottages were popping up on once-vacant lots, and older properties were being remodeled. Some of the new cottages were being built specifically for the tourist trade: “It is expected that there will be a good demand for first-class, modern-built homes…to accommodate the rush of California-bound Eastern tourists this Spring,” the Press Democrat reported.

Only a few houses built in this period survive, including the trio at 1217, 1219, and 1221 Glenn St. described in an article below. The builder was W. E. Nichols, a contractor whose name can still be found pressed into sidewalks throughout older parts of Santa Rosa. Nichols, who lived at 414 Carrillo Street, has appeared before in this journal, including a 1907 pitch to the City Council that they should strongarm homeowners into laying sidewalks (and presumably, hire him to do it). He also placed an unusual ad in the paper after the Great Earthquake, announcing that he was “open to any kind of legitimate business proposition.”

The oddball in this neighborhood is the circa-1880 Greek Revival two story house at 1290 Glenn St. The block between Benton and Berry Lane (now Ridgway) was once part of a small farm, and this was the farmhouse. Originally it faced the other direction, with an address on Healdsburg Ave. (which became Mendocino Ave. in 1906). At some point, probably around WWI, they moved it nearly a block west – typically with mules pulling a platform over rolling logs – while spinning it completely around. Quite a trick, that.

The James R. Edwards are now comfortably installed in their handsome new residence on Mendocino avenue. They have certainly good reason to be proud of their new home and the friends who have been privileged with an inspection of the interior furnishing and arrangement cannot say too much in compliment of the taste displayed.

– “Society Gossip”, Press Democrat, November 22, 1908

IMPROVEMENTS IN SECTION OF CITY
Many Changes Noted Which, When Completed, Will Add Much to the Looks of Things

Henry C. Colwell, of 1109 Morgan street, is dividing his property into lots for sale, and will move his residence forward, placing it on cement foundations and will make a number of other improvements.

Burton H. Gilkey, of 1009 Morgan street, is completely remodeling his home and making a modern cottage home with all the latest improvements for comfort and health.

H. O. Malott, of Morgan and Tenth streets, has gravel on the ground will have cement walks laid on both streets along his property at once. Considerable new cement walk is being laid in that vicinity.

The concrete foundation has been laid for an eight-room, two-story home for Mrs. M. L. Waters-Thorne at Morgan and Berry lane. The concrete blocks for the basement will be laid next week.

Several of the old cottages on Davis street, near Ninth, are being remodeled, and made into attractive homes, while one new one [sic] has been built adjoining them. The improvements add to the appearance of the street greatly.

Cement walks are being laid on Carrillo, College and Tenth streets, where not already laid, from Healdsburg avenue to the railroad. Property-owners on cross streets are preparing to do likewise as soon as the work is completed. This will make that portion of the town very attractive for residence.

– Press Democrat, August 9, 1908

NEW RESIDENCES ON GLENN STREET

Glenn Street, between Carrillo and Howard streets, which has recently been put in order and macadamized, is to be built up and improved. W. E. Nichols has already erected three large and commodious cottages of six rooms each and basement story containing all modern and up-to-date improvements and accessories for comfort and convenience. He will continue to erect more houses on the adjoining property. The present cottages are good and strongly built in the Mission Renaissance style of architecture and consist of three distinct and separate styles. The inside finish will be of natural woods polished. H. O. Tiffany and Co., Santa Rosa painters, have the contract for this work and it will be finished first-class.

It is expected that there will be a good demand for first-class, modern-built homes of this description and Mr. Nichols is ready to fulfill the demand by erecting cottages to accommodate the rush of California-bound Eastern tourists this Spring.

– Press Democrat, December 20, 1908

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WANTED: A HOSPITAL IN SANTA ROSA

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Santa Rosa was a nice place to visit before WWI, but you didn’t want to get sick here; until 1920, there was no real hospital in town.

It may seem odd that the largest town in the area – much less the county seat – would lack something as basic as a hospital, but at that time doctors usually treated the sick or injured in their homes or hotel rooms. (Because physicians spent so much time zipping from bedside to bedside, many were among the first to buy automobiles; in 1908, one doctor even argued that their cars should be exempt from city speed limits because they might be rushing to an emergency.) Doctors and nurses usually rented rooms in their homes for those needing continuing care, and in every town of any size there were convalescent and maternity homes available. For those with a little money, Burke’s Sanitarium on Mark West Springs Road offered quackish cures for what-ails-you; for those with no money at all, there was the County Hospital, which only took in indigents (an excellent history of the County Hospital by Jeremy Nichols is available here). For those with a serious medical condition, there was a train to the San Francisco ferry.

Until its 1908 closing, there was also the “Santa Rosa Hospital” at 741 Humboldt St. – an address that no longer exists, but was directly across the street from the present Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts. Little is known about it, except that it was founded by a pair of doctors around the turn of the century, as Gaye LeBaron wrote in her second volume of Santa Rosa history. Although the place must have been a whirlwind following the Great Earthquake, the papers only mentioned that so-and-so was at the hospital and “doing nicely” – and, of course, the discovery that a con man was posing as a doctor and swiping stuff from patients and staff. Even the hospital’s closing merited only a single paragraph in one of the newspapers; you had to read the San Francisco press to learn that the two women who owned it had filed for bankruptcy, owing the substantial sum (in 1908 terms) of $2,878.50 to employees and suppliers. Why would the local papers shy from any mention of the Santa Rosa Hospital? Likely because the facilities were small and out-of-date, drawbacks which were not in keeping with the booster image of Santa Rosa as a community that offered all amenities of other Bay Area cities.

The only thing worse than a dinky and old-fashioned hospital was none at all, but that’s what Santa Rosa now faced in June, 1908. There was talk that a Catholic order intended to build a Sister’s Hospital, but nothing came of it. Then late in the year came the happy announcement that the Mary Jesse Hospital was open.

Named after the mother of Dr. Jesse, the hospital was the doctor’s former home at 815 Fifth street, on the corner of King st. It probably wasn’t much larger than the Santa Rosa Hospital – it would eventually offer twenty beds – but it did have modern services, including an operating room and an elevator. Not that these features always worked in harmony; Martha Comstock Keegan, who had her tonsils removed at the hospital around 1943, recalls that lights in the operating room would blink out for a moment whenever someone pressed the button to call the elevator.

For about forty years, the Mary Jesse Hospital – later renamed the Eliza Tanner Hospital – served the community. General Hospital was built in 1920 and Memorial Hospital was established in 1950, after a fund-raising drive led by Hilliard Comstock.

With Santa Rosa General and Memorial, the town finally had the sort of antiseptic, built-from-scratch hospitals that everyone expects to die in today. But gone was the small town charm of recuperating in someone’s former bedroom, tended by a small, tightly-knit medical staff. A story from 1913 reveals what charm was lost:

One of the Mary Jesse nurses apparently couldn’t shut up about the fun she had stealing watermelons from a field. The next day, according to the San Francisco Call, Dr. Jesse “bundled four or five of the girls into his auto and whirled them all out into the country. They climbed cautiously over a fence, swooped down on a patch of fine, big melons and carried them away with terrified backward glances and suppressed giggles. This proved such great sport that the doctor repeated the performance about twice a week.”

The good Dr. James Jesse (!) of course, had previously arranged the “robbery” with the farmer, paying him in advance.

Photographs courtesy Sonoma County Library

(Edited 2020 to correct General Hospital construction in 1920, not 1917.)

SANTA ROSA’S NEW HOSPITAL IS OPEN
Splendid Equipment of the Mary Jesse Hospital on Fifth Street–Ready For Patients

Santa Rosa is now equipped with one of the neatest little hospitals in the state, thanks to the public spiritedness of Dr. J. W. Jesse. It is known as the “Mary Jesse Hospital,” in memory of Dr. Jesse’s honored mother.

The hospital was formerly the large residence of Dr. and Mrs. Jesse at 815 Fifth street which has been entirely remodeled on the second floor so as to provide half a dozen private wards, besides an operating room, drug and bandage closets and sterilizing room, as well as nurses quarters.

The east side of the lower floor has been converted into general wards, one for men and the other for women. The hospital will at present accommodate 16 patients and there is room to add six other beds in case of emergency or necessity at any time. In addition to the patients’ rooms there are three find porches for sleeping and resting which will be enjoyed by convalescents.

The hospital is in charge of Mrs. Jesse and is open to the public and physicians of the city generally on equal terms. There will be no discrimination and it is hoped that the medical fraternity will make good use of the opportunities thus offered them as for sometime past there has been no place where an injured person or one seriously ill could be taking for treatment.

An elevator has been placed in the building so that a patient brought into the hospital in the ambulance can be placed on it and taken direct to the operating room or individual ward on the second floor without any inconvenience or trouble. The operating room is enameled in white and fitted with all the latest appliances for the use of the operators. Miss Helena Liersch, a graduate of the California Women’s Hospital in San Francisco, is in charge as head nurse and will be assisted by a full corps of well-trained and experienced nurses.

Dr. Jesse is complemented on the complete manner in which he has equipped the new hospital. The hospital is not ready and patients will be received after today. A number of applications were received during the past week for admission but owing to the incomplete condition of the equipment they all had to be refused.

– Press Democrat, November 22, 1908

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PAINTERS OF SUNSHINE AND PATHOS

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Want a nice painting to hang above the sofa? Bruner’s was the place to go in Santa Rosa for the first half of the Twentieth Century.

While you could also pick up paint and wallpaper at Clement Bruner’s Fourth St. shop, in the store window was displayed fine art, such as paintings by Grace Hudson, the Ukiah artist who produced hundreds of portraits, most depicting local Pomo Indians in native dress. A specialty of hers were too-adorable views of infants such as the one shown at right, sometimes with puppies thrown in for extra sap. Hudson turned out scores of these popular tableaus, and one of these paintings was sold “for a large price” in 1908, becoming a news item in the Press Democrat.

That year Bruner’s also displayed oils and watercolors of fruits and flowers commissioned by the Cree Publishing Company of Minneapolis, which were to illustrate a 10-volume encyclopedia on Luther Burbank’s “secrets.” The newspaper article also claims that the books were in the window which is impossible, as the series was never produced (read update here), thanks to Burbank’s disorganization and objections by the Carnegie Institution.

One of the still-life artists mentioned was Carl Dahlgren, nicknamed “The Sunshine Painter” because his landscapes usually included a prominent beam of sunlight. Dahlgren specialized in bucolic, idyllic scenes that could bring no offense; a magazine commented that “In hundreds of homes his canvasses are hung, carrying with them, like silent missionaries, their message of sunshine and happiness to lift the gloom and grief that comes inevitably at times into the most ideal of homes.” Reference material on Dahlgren describes him as a San Francisco painter who received a commission from Burbank in 1917, but his associations with Sonoma County nine years earlier are never mentioned; so familiar was he in this area that the Republican Santa Rosa paper referred to him as “Carl Dahlgren of this city.” Also mentioned in the newspaper coverage was a Dahlgren landscape painted from the view at Hood Mansion.

A personal comment regarding Grace Hudson: She was a gifted artist and many of her Indian portraits portray the dignity of her subject, but the unctuous “papoose” paintings trouble me greatly. At that exact same time, Pomo and other Indian youth were being forcibly taken from their families by government officials and shipped off to Indian boarding schools that might be a great distance away. (Googling researchers: Here’s a hard-to-find list of California Indian Schools.) Once there, it was required that the children abandon their birth language and culture and everything else they held dear. It was one of the most shameful episodes in our history as a nation. In my view, Grace Hudson’s infant portraits exploited the children she painted. It might be too much to expect of Hudson to have acknowledged the abuses outright, but it’s another thing to make a living by cranking out mawkish images that betrayed a horrible truth.

{RIGHT: Indian children at boarding school – the portrait that Grace Hudson didn’t paint. One of the infants painted by Hudson could well be revered Pomo basket weaver Elsie Allen, who was born in 1899 near Cloverdale and was snatched from her grandmother around 1910 and sent to a government Indian school. )

A SMALL CANVAS SELLS FOR LARGE PRICE

C. M. Bruner, the local art dealer, has had a small canvas by Grace Hudson, the celebrated Indian painter, on exhibition in his window for the past few day, which, though only four or five inches square, sold during race week for a large price.

The subject is an Indian pappoose [sic]. and it is handled in Mrs. Hudson’s best style. Mr. Bruner made a special hand-carved frame of oak to go with the picture, the design used being an oak leaf. The purchaser was James B. Smith, a wealth horse man of San Francisco.

Another picture on exhibition at Bruner’s that has been attracting attention is a view on the Kearns ranch near Kenwood. This canvas is by Carl Dahlgren, the Danish painter now in Santa Rosa for the purpose of preparing a series of pictures showing Burbank creations. The orchard and meadow are shown in the foreground, in the middle distance is the old homestead, and Mr. Hood towers majestically in the background.

The work of reproducing fruits and flowers in all their various shadings and colorings is very tedious, and for relaxation Mr. Dahlgren has made a number of fine sketches in the vicinity of this city, as well as several in the Guerneville region, some of which are also on exhibition at Bruner’s store. Mr. Dahlgren is very enthusiastic over the beautiful scenery in Sonoma county, and says he will put as much of it as possible on canvas before he leaves.

– Press Democrat, August 6, 1908

TWO NEW PAINTINGS THAT ARE TALKED ABOUT

Two paintings now on exhibition at Bruner’s art store are attracting much attention from the people who make it a point to notice such things. One is a large scene near the headwaters of Los Alamos Creek, with Mount Hood in the background. The other is a little sketch on Santa Rosa Creek, not far from town. Both are splendidly done, although the treatment in each is entirely different.

Both canvasses are by Carl Dahlgren, a German painter, who sent here some two or three months ago by the Cree Publishing company to do some of the more important of Burbank’s creations from life in oils and watercolors, so that they may be reproduced in colors in the 10 volume history of Burbank and his achievements which the Crees are now getting out.

The general opinion among local art critics is that the two paintings mentioned are among the very best Mr. Bruner has ever had on its exhibition at his store. Mr. Dahlgren has done one or two others in this vicinity, and hopes to find time to do two or three more before leaving. He said yesterday that he had no idea there is so much beautiful scenery in this part of the state. “Oh, in your coundy it iss beautiful, b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l!” said Mr. Dahlgren yesterday, as he have closed his eyes and gazed dreamily out towards the Eastern Hills.

– Press Democrat, June 21, 1908
MAKES DISPLAY OF BURBANK WORKS

The Cree-Binner Company, which is engaged in the production of a splendid work on the creations of Luther Burbank, has a display of the books in the window of Bruner’s art store, which is certainly attractive. There is a large amount of the oil and water color painting of the various fruits and flowers which have been the subject of Mr. Burbank’s efforts, and then several pages of the books with the binding in handsome leather are to be seen. The paintings are by Carl Dahlgren of this city, and C. L. Starks and Mr. Hudson of the east.

Mr. Binner, who is spending the winter here and looking after the interest of the work in this city, states that a widespread interest is being taken in the books and already many applications have been made for its reproduction in foreign countries. The work is to be the most exhaustive ever issued upon the life and works of Mr. Burbank and will be the most modern and complete acquisition to the botanical libraries of the world. The display is well worth seeing and Mr. Binner deserves special credit for the attractive form in which he has made the same. The fine large window affords a particularly good place for the arrangement.

– Santa Rosa Republican, October 24, 1908

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