1910

ON TUESDAY THE MONSTER CAME TO TOWN

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

He showered Fourth street in silver coins and 3,000 attended his debut, equivalent to every third person in town in 1909. He was a showman famous throughout the West: The Great Fer-Don, lecturer, traveler and philanthropist. He was also a monster, and if there’s such a thing as a criminal genius, he was probably that, too.

(This is Part II of an article about the “Great Fer-Don.” Have you read Part I?)

Santa Rosa had never seen a scam artist like James M. Ferdon, who introduced a new kind of confidence game wrapped inside something old and familiar. He combined features of the traditional medicine show – a ballyhoo and parade, leading to a free evening stage show with entertainers to draw an audience and a pitch to buy an elixir for what-ails-you – but all that was now just the warmup. Waiting at a nearby hotel, Ferdon told the crowds, were European doctors who were experts in the ultra-modern technique of “bloodless surgery.” They could cure the most serious medical problems: Complete blindness and deafness. Paralysis. Gallstones. Appendicitis. Tumors. Cancer. All without a scalpel or the loss of a single drop of blood.

(RIGHT: James Ferdon portrait in the Salem, Oregon Daily Capital Journal, June 15, 1910)

It was such a brazen collection of lies that it apparently had the effect of shock and awe, even fooling people who thought they were the sort who never could be fooled. According to Ferdon, his European Medical Experts were so esteemed that local physicians flocked to them to be healed themselves of serious diseases. “Each day hundreds of people are cured by my doctor’s method,” Ferdon was quoted in an article that appeared in the Press Democrat. “Many local physicians come to us in diffent cities we have visited. We removed a cancer from a prominent physician in Dallas, Texas.” Claiming to perform such miraculous cures “bloodlessly” was the cake icing. What exactly that meant was never made clear, but some of the procedures described in the ads sound remarkably like “psychic surgery,” where tumors and such are pretended to be removed without breaking the skin – the “surgeon” uses basic sleight-of-hand techniques to palm animal organs and other gory bits that could be flourished in front of the patient as diseased tissue. If so, this apparently would be the earliest example of psychic surgery fraud in the United States.

Ferdon was also fuzzy on how much treatment would cost. In one instance his “Medical Expert” asked for $175 to remove gallstones, and demanded a $300 advance from someone else for the same “surgery.” (In Santa Rosa at that time the annual household income was about $500.) Ferdon was not only duping people into believing life-threatening illnesses could be cured by mysterious and unbloody means, he was stealing every cent they had, which probably denied them the hope of seeking real expert medical attention after they wised up. This made him a monster twice over.

As much as Ferdon was a villain, it’s hard not to stand agape at his salesmanship skills; this was a man who could sucker you into buying an interest in his new breed of racing horses that had wheels for legs and were powered by gasoline engines. His audiences simply didn’t see there was something discordant about world-class physicians teaming up with a man running a cornball show crafted to appeal to yokels. At one Santa Rosa performance he had a “ladies’ woodsawing” contest; the next night a live pig was given away (“the person winning it will be obliged to carry it out in their arms”). Ferdon had a particular affection for showing off tapeworms preserved in jars; no matter where he went, to hear him tell it, there was always someone ready to shower him with gratitude for having rid them of a gargantuan 50, 70, 90-foot parasite (which they measured how?) after all other treatments failed.

Another factor in his success was the manner in which he shamelessly bought off local newspapers, including both the Press Democrat and Santa Rosa Republican. Yes, he placed big ads announcing his shows, and nothing wrong with that. Yes, he also made claims that his European Experts could perform impossible cures, and there was nothing wrong with that, either, at the time; as discussed here earlier, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 enforced truth in labeling but didn’t even mention truth in advertising – the newspapers here (particularly the PD) routinely published ads for miraculous potions, including drugs that were supposed to prevent tuberculosis or repair heart disease. But Ferdon and the newspaper editors crossed an ethical line because his ads didn’t look at all like ads: They looked like regular news stories. They appeared above the fold in line with other articles (ads were usually at the bottom of the page or grouped together in the back section) and except for the headline font and layout being slightly different from the rest of the paper (Ferdon apparently provided his own headline typeset block as part of the deal), it was impossible to tell at first glance that it was fake news.

The articles that appeared in the Santa Rosa papers were written in general newspaper style, clearly adapted by someone using copy provided by Ferdon – phrases, even whole paragraphs, can be found in similar articles published in other towns. While some of the prose is rather purple (“the great Fer-Don [has] caused the whole of Europe and America to talk about his wonderful medical discoveries and the citizens have been patiently waiting for his arrival in our city”) much of it could pass for a real article of the day. The trusted local papers had become willing accomplices to fraud.

It may have come as a surprise to editors Ernest Finley and Allen Lemmon, but not all newspapers were eager to sell out their readership to hucksters; some investigated his claims and exposed him as a fraud, warning subscribers to stay away.

In the first in a series of front page muckraking stories, the Seattle Star in January 1910 described what happened when a reporter sought treatment under the guise of being a workman. Ferdon’s medical expert diagnosed “a heart affection” and a “bad case of the ‘nerves'” which could be cured by a two month treatment. As for the price, the doctor said, “I will let you down light. You say that you are an electrician and have a good job with the Seattle Electric company. Well, I’ll make it $50 for the entire treatment. This includes your prescriptions for the first month. After that you will be charged extra.”

When Ferdon entered the room to collect the money, the reporter confronted  him on operating a “fake medical bureau.” Ferdon denied the charge and tried to change the subject. “In California, mothers and invalids worship me. Every week I visit the orphan asylums and scatter gifts among the waifs. The newsies I remember on Christmas with huge Christmas trees. I intend to do the same thing in Seattle.” As the reporter continued pressing, Ferdon threw out another red herring: “There is not a business or profession that is free from faking…the grocer will advertise milk as the best, but in reality it is half water. The ethical physician tell you a man is hopeless, but at the same time he will treble his visits until the victim passes away. The politician is a faker–we’re all fakers, if you put it that way.”

Ferdon told the reporter “My treatments consist of massage, vibrators, medicines and the violet rays.” The medicine, he claimed, was formulated by his doctors in a “laboratory”  elsewhere in the hotel building. The reporter checked and found the so-called lab just another hotel room.

Most of all, Ferdon seemed irate that the newspaper didn’t play along. “The Star is doing wrong in trying to drive me out. I bring lots of money to this city. Why in hell don’t you and your editor quit and leave me alone. The P. I. and the Times are not molesting me.” In its introduction, the editor commented, “If The Star had chosen to accept the advertising instead of exposing these fakers it would have been richer by probably $3,500.” The Seattle Star also found that in 1907 the Portland Daily News had similarly investigated him rather than accept the fraudulent ads. The Star summed up Ferdon’s advertising strategy: “Their scheme, highly successful in most cases, is to buy up venal newspapers with large advertising contracts at hush money rates, and then take advantage of the credence the public puts in these prostituted journals.”

The Seattle Star continued its front page exposé, even printing an interesting letter from a woman, Mrs. E. J. Eakin, who lived in Napa just before Ferdon came to Santa Rosa that revealed his other activities in this area (which were never mentioned in the PD or Republican):


I was residing in Napa, Cal. two years ago when Fer-Don and his band of ‘fakers’ came to town…For the first two weeks he did not make a cent. Then one Saturday night he managed to sell $4 worth of medicines to the ranchers. That gave him his opportunity. Ascending the stage steps, he said that he did not sell the medicine for money — but to cure the sick. Then he threw the $4 among the audience and a general scramble occurred. When it was noised about that Fer-Don was throwing money away the audiences increased rapidly…gradually every home in Napa had his medicines…

…The last week he was there, Fer-Don gave away coupons with every sale. The coupons entitled the holder to an examination by one of his “European Experts.” The simple people were made to believe that they had awful diseases, and the agony that they would suffer was pictured to them by the experts. Then a ‘treatment’ was advised, and it usually ended with the victim depositing from $10 to $500 with the fakers…[T]he victims began to awaken to the fact that Fer-Don and his experts were fakers and the medicines nothing but colored water. When Fer-Don found that the people were wise, he skipped out to Petaluma. He stayed there for several weeks, then returned to Napa. Then the town authorities took up the matter and raised his license so high that he had to leave town.

Normally Ferdon would milk a large metro area like Seattle for weeks or months, but the heat generated by the Star series drove him out after a few days. He made brief stops in Everett, Washington and Medford, Oregon, where his fake news stories boasted of his great cures (epic tapeworms mentioned, as always) but also included a new claim of being persecuted by busybodies: “[E]nmity always follows success, and there is always a certain class of humanity ready to cry ‘humbug,’ ‘fake,’ and ‘quack,’ but such howlers and defamers of honest characters are very seldom successful in any line of business because they do not attend to their own. They are too busy sticking their noses into the affairs of others.”

Two weeks later he was in Spokane, where the Spokane Press followed the Seattle Star in exposing his fraud in front page stories. “The ‘marvelous cures’ that he is alleged to have performed by his ‘psychic,’ ‘magnetic’ or ‘mesmeric’ process of ‘bloodless surgery’ have been heralded in large double column display ads in some of the papers, and the ‘wonderful’ Fer-Don has been preparing to rake in the shekels, as he has in the past, where exposure has not been present to lay bare his game. The Press was offered his advertising and refused it.”

The Spokane paper also offered an interesting tidbit about what happened after Ferdon left Santa Rosa: He tried to setup operations in Sacramento, but the City Council there moved quickly to get rid of him, passing a special ordinance requiring a $100/day license for any “medical minstrel shows.”

Even though Ferdon wasn’t in Spokane long, the muckraking newspaper kept the story alive. They found a woman from Pomona, California who had been diagnosed with “nervous trouble” by one of his “Experts” and her husband had raised the money for Ferdon’s treatment. Later the couple consulted a real physician who discovered she had an incurable tumor (which might have been breast cancer, judging from the newspaper’s description): “It was just too late then to effect a cure and leave her a whole woman, though had your Mr. Dunning been a physician he would have discovered the trouble in time to have given her a chance.”

That March, 1910 item in the Spokane Press was the paper’s last exclusive about Ferdon’s misdeeds; by April, the Great Fer-Don and his band of fraudsters were fugitives and drawing the attention of more newspapers.

Ferdon’s downfall began with a warrant from Everett, WA charging him with practicing medicine without a license; also wanted on a criminal charge was one of his staff, William Ramsey. By the end of April, the Sacramento grand jury indicted Ferdon and H. Thayer Thornberg, another associate, for obtaining money under false pretenses. And sometime around this period, Dr. Seth Wells, Ferdon’s main accomplice (see Part I) lost his Utah medical license after a conviction for assault.

Thornberg went to trial in June, where the prosecution presented evidence that Ferdon’s “medicine” for gallstone cure was 98 percent water with the rest being alcohol and coloring. He was found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison.

Meanwhile, “Where is Fer-Don?” articles began popping up in Utah, California and Washington papers. The Los Angeles Police Department was keeping a close eye on his home. Ferdon and crew, however, were hiding in plain sight; in June and July they were up to their usual business in Salem, Oregon. To accompany his fake news articles there, the Daily Capital Journal even ran two pictures of “Fer-Don,” the only time known his photograph appeared in a newspaper.

By the summer of 1910, there can be no doubt that the publishers of the Press Democrat and Santa Rosa Republican knew Ferdon was running a con game, and a potentially deadly one at that. Items about the police pursuit and the Thornberg trial had appeared in the San Francisco and Oakland papers, as well as in other well-read dailies from Sacramento and Los Angeles. The criminal charge against his associate, William Ramsey, even had been filed by someone in Santa Rosa. And, at the risk of projecting modern ethics onto the past, the editors had to realize that Ferdon had committed wrongs far worse than the objectives of usual medicine advertising, which was selling harmless, inexpensive snake oil to rubes – and he had done these bad things with their collaboration. At the very least, one might hope that editors Finley and Lemmon also recalled all the serious diseases that Ferdon’s “Experts” claimed to cure in the news-advertisements that appeared in their papers, and wanted to alert subscribers that any diagnosis and treatment was probably bogus. But not one word, as far as I can determine, ever appeared in either Santa Rosa newspaper to discredit him in any way. No mention of warrants or other legal woes, not even the complaint made against Ferdon’s accomplice came from someone right here in town. Once his show left Santa Rosa, he was never written of again. It was a second, and fundamentally worse, betrayal of their public trust.

Thornberg’s conviction marked the end of “The Great Fer-Don,” but there was a footnote of sorts: In December his wife, Mrs. Alpha Ferdon, made a plea deal in Sacramento to pay a $1,000 fine for “conspiracy to commit a felony through fake cures.” Her husband received the same offer but did not appear in court. Alpha paid another $1,000 for his bail, which was forfeited.

Fer-Don the “European Medical Expert” agent might be dead, but long live “The Great Lavita.” Through a 1912 Illinois medical newsletter and a Tacoma newspaper we find Ferdon and Seth Wells were still partners, this time Wells posing as Dr. A. E. Williams who treated the sick using the “marvelous Lavita method.” Except for the lack of the medicine show angle, it was identical to the Fer-Don scam; placement of fake news articles, bloodless surgery, wonderful cures, and as always, descriptions of a lady thrusting into the doctor’s hands a jar containing a monstrous tapeworm.

By at least 1914, Ferdon had changed persona yet again and emerged as “The Great Pizaro” (sometimes Pizarro). While the Fer-Don scam undoubtedly made him rich, being Pizaro kept him more-or-less out of trouble with the law, and it was something he enjoyed doing: Pitch man for an old-fashioned traveling medicine show, with musical and comic acts. There is available a wonderful first-hand account of the show from someone who worked for it as a child: “We basked in the lurid flames of the gasoline torches for the big evening performance. We helped to hand out free samples and pass along the bottles containing tapeworms purged from local citizens now able to live full and happy lives again for the first time in seven years….”

(RIGHT: Worker setting up the stage for the Pizaro Cactus Juice Show, c. 1920. Photo courtesy Durham County, North Carolina library collection)

This time he sold homemade nostrums such as “Cactus Juice Compound,” mineral salts, and his “Great Catarrh Remedy” (which the Cleveland Board of Health had analyzed and found to contain just soda, borax, and salt) but what he was really selling was nostalgia for the old-timey form of entertainment. Through that means he also gained a kind of respectability. He appeared in the 1920 census as a “manufacture of medicine” living in a very nice house in Hollywood, just off Sunset Boulevard. Billboard magazine reported on his comings and goings as they did all legit traveling performers: “Jim Ferdon (Great Pizarro) was wintering in Galveston, Texas” (1938) … “Mr. and Mrs. James Ferdon have opened their med show in Reading Pa., after spending a profitable and pleasant winter in the Sunny South. Mrs. Ferdon reveals that Sunshine Sal and Her Little Pal, of radio fame in the South, are none other than herself and daughter, Barbara Ann. They will be with the Piazaro med opera this summer” (1942).

Until his death in 1944, Ferdon toured the country with his Pizaro show, except for the three years he served in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth. The Great Paul/Fer-Don/Lavita/Pizaro had yet another alias: inmate #23328. In 1924 he and four others – including Seth Wells – were convicted of “oil promotion fraud.” No other details of the scam can be found, but if Ferdon was behind it, you just know that a jar filled with tapeworms was involved somehow.

BLOODLESS OPERATION PERFORMED
UPON  PROMINENT EUREKA PHYSICIAN BY FER-DON’S EUROPEAN MEDICAL EXPERT
Dr. Goyer Has Large Tumor Removed to Test Bloodless Surgery–No Knife Was Used

“As we grow older we grow wiser,” is a saying that has followed humanity down the corridors of the centuries. True in every department of life, it is especially true with reference to the science of medicine and surgery. Never since the world began has medicine and surgery been reduced to such an exact science as at present and never have there been so many improvements and discoveries as within the past few years. All of the great discoveries in medicine and surgery have been by European doctors. Prof. Koch of Berlin, Germany, discovered the germ of consumption and other death dealing germs. Dr. Lorenz of Vienna, Austria, discovered bloodless surgery, whereby cripples, paralytics, hip joint disease, tumors, gallstones and appendicitis and diseases of women could be cured without the use of the knife. American physicians who for years have resorted to the knife and still keep in the same old rut today with their foggy ideas, are slow to recognized the new methods of the European Experts. It was left to Dr. Lorenz and the Great Fer-Don to bring into America the new method. To see is to believe and there are thousands who have seen and do believe; thousands who have been drawn from the yawning mouth of the sepulchre and restored to perfect health and happiness.

Eureka Physician Tests Method.

Among the many who came to test the healing power of these European Medical Experts and Bloodless surgeons who are now demonstrating upon the sick, crippled, and afflicted every day, there came one of Eureka’s most prominent physicians, who for years has enjoyed a successful practice. His reputation as a physician and surgeon has spread throughout the Sate of California and extended into other States. Broad minded, good natured, liberal in thoughts and deeds, he has won for himself many friends in Eureka. Dr. Goyer is his name. “For years I could have removed it myself with a knife if I could have got at it. I have heard whereby that tumors could be removed without the knife by the European Expert’s methods. I went and saw for myself. I am always willing to yield to science, and made up my mind to have my tumor removed by the Bloodless method. I am over 70 years old and I had confidence in Fer-Don and his experts. Well, it took about six minutes for Fer-Don’s European doctors to remove my tumor. No knife was used and no blood. I am perfectly satisfied. I am a practicing physician here in Eureka and have lived here for years.”

Fer-Don in speaking of the case said: “Each day hundreds of people are cured by my doctor’s method and many local physicians come to us in different cities we have visited. We removed a cancer from a prominent physician in Dallas, Texas. “You see,” said Fer-Don, “my office is crowded with sick. We will be in Santa Rosa at the Rex hotel for some time yet, then we go back to our main headquarters at 933 Market street, San Francisco.”

– Press Democrat, January 8, 1909

THREW THE MONEY AWAY
THE GREAT FER-DON ASTOUNDED A LARGE CROWD OF SANTA ROSA CITIZENS LAST NIGHT BY THROWING AWAY HANDFULS OF SILVER DIMES, QUARTERS, HALVES AND DOLLARS–VERITABLE SHOWER OF SILVER–DEMONSTRATIONS AND AN EXCELLENT SINGING SHOW ON THE BILL THIS WEEK

The Great Fer-Don, lecturer, traveler and philanthropist, the man, who, with his brother, has caused more comment than any other man who has [illegible microfilm] Oakland and San Francisco, is a man of many parts. During his stay many things have brought his name and his deeds to public notice. Last night on Fourth street he added yet to the entertainment by throwing broadcast into the crowd, money in handfuls until the air seemed filled with a shower of silver. To an observer it looked as if more than a hundred dollars must have been scattered in this way. It has also been whispered about that Fer-Don has assisted, in his own way in relieving a great deal of distress among the poor and sick of Santa Rosa. Presents of food, money and medicines have gladdened the hearts of many of the poor and many over whom the darkness of poverty and despair had settled found Fer-Don always ready to shed the sunshine of real help across their path.

Some people insist that Fer-Don is a spendthrift in throwing away money and in disposing of it so indiscriminately among those who need it, while others, wiser perhaps, say that all this is but bread cast upon the waters, to return in two ways; first, in the consciousness that he is doing real good; second, in the golden stream which flows into his coffers from the sale of his remedies, and which has made him the millionaire he is reputed to be.

At any rate the sales of these remedies all over the country are so great that Fer-Don is enabled to have the European Medical Expert, who accompanies him, treat all who come to their offices at the Rex Hotel, 533½ Fourth street, just for the cost of the medicines alone during the week. And here probably in making the cost of treatment so low, as these experts do is the most good done, for many who are sufferers from chronic diseases who would probably not be able to pay the price asked by most specialists are taking advantage of these low rates.

The Great Fer-Don will hold another entertainment tonight. Fer-Don does not lecture of sell medicine on Sunday  [illegible microfilm] troupe that accompany give an entertainment on that evening.

– Press Democrat, January 10, 1909
A SILVER SHOWER PARADE
THROWS MONEY AWAY AND CREATES BIG EXCITEMENT IN SANTA ROSA
The Great Fer-Don Greeted by Crowds of People Saturday Night–A prominent Lady Relieved on Monster Tape Worm.

The newspapers have been making announcements daily of the arrival of the great Fer-Don, the man who had caused the whole of Europe and America  to talk about his wonderful medical discoveries and the citizens have been patiently waiting for his arrival in our city.

There were thousands of people out Saturday night to see and greet this great man, who is noted for his charitable deeds to the poor and afflicted, and they say that he has given away hundreds of dollars to the poor and destitute of Los Angeles and Oakland.

His name there is a household word. All men, women and children know him by his kindness and deeds, and they say he has won a warm spot in the hearts of many of the people of Los Angeles and vicinity.

Fer-Don will be long remembered here in our city, especially by the young people, for Saturday night, just about 7 o’clock, Ferdon was escorted to the Pavillion Rink by his band.

Fer-Don amused himself by throwing handful after handful of money to the vast crowd that followed the parade. The amount Fer-Don threw away nobody knows, but a banker who saw the silver shower estimated the sum at one to two hundred dollars.

When Fer-Don arrived at the show he was greeted by 3000 people, and when he appeared upon the stage he held his audience spell bound by his magnetic manner and eloquent flow of speech. The audience was interested and pleased, as we could tell by the expressions on their faces.

Fer-Don told of his great success in San Francisco and Los Angeles, gave one testimonial after another with the names and addresses of people cured of rheumatism, stomach trouble, tumors, gall stones, tape worms and cancers and then he asked for people to come upon the platform to test the methods of his wonderful treatment.

Crowds Eager to Buy

When Fer-Don offered his remedies for sale, everybody wanted to try the remedies and secure a card to consult the European Medical Expert about his method of healing the sick.

Office at 533½ Fourth street Crowded

Saturday was a busy day for the European doctor. Over sixty people called to see the doctor, some on canes, others on crutches. One old lady was carried on a cot. Some were cured then and there, others were much benefited. One prominent lady came and asked to see the European doctor and was told she must wait her turn. She replied, “I must see him at once, as I have something here in this glass jar for him.” When admitted to the doctor’s office she explained that she had been suffering stomach trouble for a long time; appetite was irregular, stomach would bloat and swell after eating, was very dizzy at times, also hot and cold flashes would come over her. She tried different medicines, but none seemed to do her any good. “My husband attended the show one night last week and brought home a bottle of Fer-Don’s Medical Compound. I have taken only four doses of the medicine and to my surprise I was delivered of a monster parasite which measured 30 feet in length.” The lady is well known here and left the worm with the doctor here for exhibition.

The great Fer-Don will deliver another lecture tonight and every night this week at the Pavillion Rink.

Ladies’ Woodsawing Contest Tonight

Fer-Don will give the best lady woodsawer a prize of five dollars in gold tonight at the show. A number of prominent ladies have entered the contest.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 11, 1909
FER-DON IS LIBERAL
MIRACULOUS SIGHTS
Crowds of People Saw Fer-Don Each Evening in Spite of the Rain
THOUSANDS MADE HAPPY BY FER-DON’S LIBERALITY — CHILDREN’S DAY AND THEATER PARTY BIG SUCCESS — MANY PROMINENT CITIZENS TELL PUBLIC OF MIRACULOUS CURES

Local people claimed Fer-Don was a passing fad, and would soon wear out. The facts are that Fer-Don and the European Medical Experts are growing more and more interesting each day; many cures are added to the list  and it is almost impossible to find a man or woman or child in Santa Rosa who is not a staunch and true friend of the Great Fer-Don. Fer-Don, by his charitable deeds and liberal way to the public, has gained for him a warm spot in the heart of the many citizens.

Takes Children to Theater

Today Fer-Don entertained over 500 children, taking them to the Richter theater and picture shows. Fer-Don’s love and fondness for children has been the talk of all the large cities he has visited.

A thousand people saw Fer-Don last night. The music and entertainment was highly appreciated.

Fer-Don Headquarters Crowded Daily

At the office in the Rex Hotel Fer-Don’s European Medical Expert is kept busy. It is estimated that three hundred persons called at his office Saturday to take treatment with the expert.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 16, 1909
BEWARE OF FRAUDS AND IMITATORS
THE GREAT FER-DON’S PHENOMENAL SUCCESS BRING TO LIGHT RANK IMITATORS WHO CLAIM TO BE BLOODLESS SURGEONS
ONLY GENUINE BLOODLESS SURGEONS ON THE COAST–NOW AT 533 1-2 FOURTH STREET, SANTA ROSA CAL.

The successful man is always the mark for imitators and impostors, who hope to build up a business through the great popularity and success of the one imitated. That is one of the penalties of greatness, and the public is warned against those who have recently established themselves in the vicinity of Oakland and San Francisco, claiming to be practitioners of bloodless surgery. The Great Fer-Don, at the cost of thousands of dollars, has alone bought these secrets and has engaged the only bloodless surgeons now practicing in America.

No one in need of the services of Fer-Don’s European Experts or Bloodless Surgeons can afford to trifle with imposters. Health is too valuable an asset to lose by dealing with imitators who have no knowledge of what they claim and hope to succeed only by false allegations in diverting the people away from the real and only specialists of this character, who are now located at 533½ Fourth street.

For two years or more the Great Fer-Don and his large staff of eminent experts have engaged in the practice of bloodless surgery through California. In Los Angeles, where they were most successful for one year, rank imitators sprang up in various parts of the city. Like the mushroom, they came and died in a day.

No real merit to their claims, no basis for their existence, they faded away like the mist before the noonday sun. Imitations may be the sincerest flattery, but not at all times, and the Great Fer-Don is doing a real service to mankind when he sends out warnings to beware of the “imitators.”

COMPARE AND CONSULT TESTIMONIALS OFFERED

Get at the bottom. See and judge for yourself. Call on Mr. W. H. Harvey of 264 Eureka street, San Francisco, whom Fer-Don relieved of over 200 gall stones after one treatment.

[..]

These are facts–these testimonials can be verified–these are no mythical persons. They are stories of the phenomenal success of the Great Fer-Don, a marvelous record of a marvelous man, and in the face of these statements you cannot afford to take chances on the wile and unfounded claims of others who fraudulently claim to be what they are not.

PIG GIVEN AWAY TONIGHT

The show at the rink had a good crowd, in spite of the bad weather. Tonight the pig will be given away. The person winning it will be obliged to carry it out in their arms.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 22, 1909

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THE CRIMINAL OPERATION

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Almost everything could be printed in turn-of-the-century newspapers except vulgar words, and high on that forbidden wordlist was “abortion.” Search all of the digitized 1909 California papers and you’ll find the a-word only ten times, and then just referring to terminated pregnancy in farm animals. At the same time, editors needed to write about women having abortions because newspapers obsessively covered crime stories, and at the time anyone who performed an abortion was charged with second-degree murder. Thus a vocabulary of euphemisms was born: It was the “criminal operation” or the “malpractice,” sometimes a “treatment.” Thus readers of the Santa Rosa Republican learned that a San Francisco doctor had performed “the operation” that resulted in the death of a local girl, 18 year-old Leora Henderson.

Abortion was far more common in America 100+ years ago than it is today, thanks in great part to the 1873 Comstock Act (no relation to Santa Rosa’s Comstock family), which was a federal law outlawing use of the mails to send contraceptives or information about contraception. Although there are no national surveys for this time period, medical experts have estimated that between one-sixth and one-third of all pregnancies were terminated. While looking through the Register of Deaths for Santa Rosa for possible 1906 earthquake victims, I stumbled across a young woman who died of self-induced abortion just a few weeks after the quake – unusual only because abortions were almost always secretly performed by a physician or midwife. As far is known, none of the local medics performed abortions but it is statistically likely that one or more did.*

Miss Henderson probably found her abortionist through San Francisco newspaper classifieds. The “Medical” column in the SF Call was almost entirely advertisements from “ladies’ specialists” including Dr. West, whose ad read, “Ladies’ specialist and women’s friend for many years. Immediate relief for the most obstinate cases at one visit. No pain, no delay from home. Low fees.” Why she picked him is unknown; others claimed to be cheap or guaranteed “instant relief.” Maybe she liked the promise that there would be “no delay from home,” which sounded like a quick turnaround. Informed of her death, her parents, who had a farm near Santa Rosa, said they didn’t realize she had even gone to San Francisco (or for that matter, was pregnant).

The inquest found Leora complained of pains in her sides and Dr. West referred her to another doctor, with instructions to go to a particular hospital if she worsened. He called a Doctor Boyd and said he should expect to see her at the hospital, “but it was nothing serious.” Boyd was called out of town for the day and forgot, but late that night the head nurse at the hospital contacted him about the case. Dr. Boyd said he would check on her in the morning. By morning she had died of peritonitis.

The coroner’s jury found that yes, “a criminal operation caused death,” yet made no charges against Dr. West. And that was that.

Without knowing more, it’s unclear what conclusions we can draw from the jury’s decision. It appears they narrowly held that she died of medical complications, ignoring that the event leading to her death was considered murder in the eyes of the law. Maybe the jury (all male, as all juries were at the time) viewed death following abortion as a woman’s misfortune, the same as death following childbirth.

From an article in the SF Call the following year, we do know even when “malpractitioners” were prosecuted, just one in four was convicted. Judging by the San Francisco newspapers, it seems that the only time that abortion doctors risked facing jail time is when patients died in their office and they went to great lengths to make sure they weren’t caught with the corpus delicti.

Warning: What follows is not for the squeamish.

A few months after Miss Henderson died, 24 year-old Eva Swan sought an abortion from Dr. James Grant. (In a bizarre coincidence, Grant’s San Francisco office used to belong to Dr. West, who had recently moved his practice to a better location downtown.) In the days that followed, Eva became gravely ill and Grant took care of her at his home. When she fell unconscious Dr. Grant realized she would not live, and after she died ten days later he was prepared to act. He sawed off her legs to fit the body into a trunk, poured gallons of acid over the remains, and hauled it to a house he had rented for the purpose of burying her in the basement. There’s much more to the whole story that you can read here, but as you can imagine, every new revelation in this horrific tale made front page headlines. Such great public outrage was spurred that it was even proposed that abortionists could be prosecuted under the Comstock Act, apparently because they advertised in newspapers which were mailed to distant subscribers. Yet despite the strength of the prosecution’s case, Doctor Grant still got off with a twenty year sentence, of which he served nine.

Incredibly, the Eva Swan case was not unprecedented. Seventeen years before, another San Francisco abortion doctor sawed up the body of a patient who died under his care. And in a Ripley’s Believe-it-or-Not twist, the man charged with that murder was none other than Dr. West.

Dr. West went on trial two years later, in 1895. (Trial coverage in the San Francisco Call was quite good for its day.) His defense was that he had not performed an abortion on Addie Gilmour, but had only been asked to look after her by another doctor (who denied it under oath). She died a week later. While strolling down to the Coroner’s office to report her death, West met with Dr. Tuchler who suggested medical students would pay a good price for a female cadaver. Dr. West testified he agreed and when he returned to his office the body was gone. The judge instructed the jury that they were only to decide on whether Dr. West had performed an abortion on the woman. In less than an hour the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.

It might have gone differently, however, if Dr. Tuchler had testified; afterwards, he told reporters that he had been called out of town on a medical emergency and wanted to tell the court he believed West was innocent, but he was now angry because West had lied about his role in the matter. According to Tuchler, West dismembered the body and packed sections of it in oil cans which the two of them dropped into San Francisco Bay on the ferry to Oakland. Anatomy students did that all the time to dispose of dissected body parts, Tuchler said. For his role in the dumping, Tuchler asked for Gilmour’s head, the skull of which would complete a skeleton he was assembling. Dr. Tuchler wrapped her head in chicken wire and hung it underwater near Sausalito, telling reporters it was also the custom of anatomy students to leave body parts in the Bay like that to reduce them to bones. Unfortunately for him the encaged head was prematurely found, causing understandable commotion.

Today, West and Grant would probably be prosecuted for murder with depraved indifference. Both hid seriously ill women in their backrooms, not consulting with specialists or seeking a higher quality of care as their condition worsened. While waiting for the women to slowly die, they plotted how to chop ’em up and throw away their parts. They were furtive men; Dr. West said at his 1895 trial that he disguised himself sometimes and it came out that Grant’s real name was Robert Thompson. How typical were they of the army of male “ladies’ specialists” that practiced abortion medicine at the time? That history’s unwritten. (An overview of abortion in turn-of-the-century America can be read on-line: “When Abortion Was a Crime“.)

As for Dr. Grant/Thompson, he moved to Boston when he was paroled and started another abortion practice, this time under the alias “Stanton A. Hudson.” In 1911 Dr. West was again in jail because of a botched abortion and yet again escaped charges (that young woman sought help at an emergency hospital and lived).

Leora E. Henderson’s parents buried her in the Rural Cemetery, adding an inscription to her tombstone: “Budded on earth to bloom in her soul.” I’m not sure what that means, but it certainly sounds very nice.


*It is possible that Madam Preston, who made and sold all manner of nostrums, offered an under-the-counter abortifacient. Among the Preston papers is a 1907 letter from the wife of a Sebastopol farmer who wrote, “I’ve heard you have a preparation that is good to cause a miscarriage…” 
DOCTORS ARRESTED
Complicated in Death of Miss Leora G. Henderson

Dr. E. S. West and Dr. Winfield Bynres of San Francisco are under arrest in that city for their complicity in the death of the Santa Rosa girl, Miss Leora G. Henderson. They were arrested Friday by the police of San Francisco, who say they have information that Dr. West performed the criminal operation on the young lady that resulted in her death. Dr. S. G. Boyd, who is wanted by the police in this matter, did not show up at his office yesterday. Peritonitis followed the girl’s criminal operation and that was the cause of her death.

John Henderson, the girl’s father, when asked about his daughter in San Francisco, stated that he neither knew of the girl’s condition, nor of her presence in San Francisco.

– Santa Rosa Republican, October 23, 1909
WEST FACES MURDER CHARGE
Believed Responsible for Death of Girl

The police of San Francisco are convinced that Dr. E. F. West of 115 McAllister street, performed the operation that resulted in the death of 18 year old Leora Henderson of this city at St. Thomas’ Hospital on Thursday morning. West is in the city prison and will probably be charged with murder after the coroner’s inquest.

West steadfastly denies that he was connected with the case and declares that he never saw the girl, but the  statement to the police of Dr. Winifred Byrne of 894 Eddy street, and Dr. Samuel G. Boyd of 1334 Van Ness avenue contradict his assertions.

Dr. Winifred Byrne, who was questioned by the detectives Friday evening and later placed in custody at the city prison, was released Saturday morning. The police are assured that she was in no way criminally connected with the girl’s death.

In a written statement made by Dr. Byrne Saturday she said that the girl told her a few days after she visited her office on Eddy street that she had been operated on by Dr. West the first day she arrived in San Francisco and that he had advised her to go to Dr. Byrne’s place for care, and if she became worse to go to St. Thomas’ hospital, where Dr. Boyd would attend her.

Dr. Boyd arrived yesterday from Redwood City, where he had been called to perform an operation. He told the police that Dr. West called him up several days before the girl’s death and said he had a patient whom he would sent to St. Thomas’s hospital and wished he, Dr. Boyd, would attend her. Dr. Boyd was busy and forgot about the girl and did not, in fact, at any time see or attend her.

– Santa Rosa Republican, October 25, 1909

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THE MELANCHOLY MILLIONAIRE OF LOS GUILICOS

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

On the train to Santa Rosa a little over a century ago, you might have exchanged a nod of recognition without knowing who he was. His was a sort-of-familiar face, someone who could be spotted going or coming several times a year, maybe with his wife and daughter or the two young men who were his sons. But once the train arrived, the portly middle-aged man vanished; he couldn’t be found at any of the hotels or bending his elbow at any of Santa Rosa’s many saloons. He wasn’t at card parties or lodge hall dances. He didn’t hobnob at all. Probably not a soul on the trains knew they were looking at Thomas Kearns, the millionaire owner of Los Guilicos.

Official Residence Of The Governor Of Utah Postcard

Kearns had one of those incredible 19th century rags-to-riches life stories. In 1883, legend has it, he was farmhand pitching hay; six years later he was one of the owners of the Silver King mine, then the most valuable silver mine in the world. With his boundless wealth he built an extravagant Salt Lake City home for his family in 1902, which today is the Utah Governor’s Mansion (see postcard at right). Three years later he bought the William Hood House and ranch at Los Guilicos.

Unlike the family’s opulent Utah mansion, the farmhouse near Kenwood was nothing special; it’s unclear if it had been updated since its pre-Civil War construction, or even if electricity was available in 1905. Kearns hired architect William Willcox to expand and modernize the place, but he also took a hands-on approach, working with a Santa Rosa cabinetmaker to design and build a massive 14-foot dining room table and sideboard cabinet. (Photo of the table is below, and the cabinet can be viewed in the previous article.)

From mentions in the Press Democrat column on arrivals and departures we know that Kearns and his family spent quite a bit of time here, including the complete summer of 1905, which was before renovations started. There were some years where he or his wife could be found at Los Guilicos nearly half of the time, particularly after the remodeling ended in 1908. It was a true second home and not a vacation getaway; the Kearns’ should properly be considered locals – their sons even went to college at Santa Clara rather than in Utah or out east. In “Sketches of the Inter-Mountain States,” the 1909 history of Utah and neighboring states, his equal residence in California was acknowledged: “Senator Kearns and his family reside in a magnificent home on East Brigham Street, in Salt Lake City, and at one of the finest ranches in California, near Santa Rosa.”

Yet curiously, this side of his life is rarely, if ever, mentioned in modern profiles, including his book-length biography. Because of that, some of the most interesting questions about Kearns are unanswered and even unasked: Why did he want a house in Sonoma County, where the family apparently had no friends, family, political connections or business interests? And once he owned Hood House, why did he spend so much time here, so far from the life he had struggled to make for himself and everyone he knew? The answer to his Rosebud secret probably lies in the late winter of 1905.

Given his wealth and wealth of connections, it would be surprising if Thomas Kearns had not become a politician. He knew three presidents and hosted a dinner for President Teddy Roosevelt at his Salt Lake City mansion. Consider, for ex, the nexus of money and power revealed in just this one deal: Senator William A. Clark of Montana sought help from Kearns in extending his railway line from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City. (Clark was a man so remarkably corrupt that Mark Twain wrote, “He is as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag,” and also looked just like Conan O’Brien wearing a cheap fake beard, which is conclusive proof that he was a person of low character.) Also involved in the railroad deal was Richard C. Kerens, who was on the National Republican Committee and a personal friend of Kerns. Our very first glimpse of Kerns in Sonoma County comes from a 1906 PD article about Kerns showing off his new place to his pal (misspelled as “Kernes” in the transcription below).

A TWO-THIRDS TERM SENATOR

Thomas Kearns was a U.S. Senator from Utah between 1901 and 1905, filling out the four years remaining on an unexpired term. Many in the LDS church would have liked the seat go to a member of their faith, but just two years earlier a Mormon polygamist had been elected to the House, creating such national uproar that he was expelled immediately after being admitted to Congress. Kearns was politically well-connected with the Republican leadership, and that he was an ardent Roman Catholic “gentile” didn’t hurt a bit. The Mormon hierarchy endorsed Kearns, amid allegations there was a quid pro quo deal for Kearns to buy the Salt Lake Tribune and defang its anti-Mormon slant.

His alliance with the church began crumbling within a year as political fortunes rose for Reed Smoot, who had been talked out of running against Kearns in 1901. The next year Smoot was elected the junior Senator from Utah, despite opposition from Senator Kearns and the rest of the Republican establishment, including President Teddy Roosevelt. Republicans feared Smoot would face a Congressional inquisition similar to the hearings over the polygamist. And indeed, once he was seated, the Senate opened investigations into whether he was a secret polygamist or if his extremely high position in church hierarchy placed him in conflict with his oath of office.

With the end of his term approaching in 1904, Kearns was denied another LDS church endorsement. Supporters of Kearns retaliated by forming the anti-Mormon American Party, and criticism of the church resumed in his Salt Lake Tribune. The political career of Thomas Kearns ended when Senator Reed Smoot convinced the Utah state legislature to replace Kearns with a Mormon (Senators were not yet elected by popular vote). Kearns said farewell to the Senate in his “Conditions in Utah” speech, where he bitterly denounced the power of the Mormon church. He charged the LDS “monarchy” lied repeatedly to the U.S. in order to gain statehood in 1896, falsely claiming polygamy was banned and the church did not meddle in politics.

But Kearns had no fervent political loyalties. Earlier he made large contributions to both parties, first to the Democrats in 1896 because he supported candidate William Jennings Bryan’s demand for currency using silver, and then to the Republicans in 1900 when it was clear that the McKinley-Roosevelt ticket would win the White House. He was fond of going to conventions and speechified on behalf of his friend Teddy Roosevelt at every opportunity. That he served in the Senate at all was a bit of a fluke, as discussed in the sidebar.

Kearns’ stint in the Senate was uneventful, perhaps because it was so short. No legislation bears his name, and what bills he introduced were pork barrel giveaways for special interests in Utah. He asked for 20 acres be given to his wife’s aunt for a home for old miners; he wanted to open up part of an Indian reservation for mining. An old military fort received an upgrade. It was all apparently small matters like that. A researcher would need to drill down to the voting records to find what issues he supported or opposed and if not for the passion exhibited in his infamous farewell speech, one might think he didn’t really want the job at all.

When the Mormons declined to support his candidacy for reelection, Kearns felt used and betrayed. He had valid reasons; he had brokered a relationship between the Republican party and LDS church long sought by Mormon leaders (a good paper on this topic can be read here) and found patronage jobs in Washington for Mormons. He had vowed to oppose any proposed constitutional amendment against polygamy. He had purchased the Salt Lake Tribune and quashed its LDS criticism (although there’s no proof church leaders demanded he do so). And probably most bitterly, he had been used as a stalking horse to ease the way for Utah to have two Mormon senators. Kearns’ “Et tu, Brute” moment came when Utah’s junior senator, Reed Smoot, personally led the Utah politicking to oust Kearns and replace him with his friend and fellow Mormon, George Sutherland. Smoot drove the knife in further with his remarks about Kearns’ farewell speech, adding an ethnic slur: “It certainly was a spectacle to see Kearns deliver his speech yesterday. It made the people from Utah ashamed that there was such a person as Tom Kearns claiming to be a citizen of Utah. His speech was written in English and delivered in Irish.”

Thus Hood House might also be nicknamed, “Kearns’ Redoubt.” His four-year ascent into politics had ended with an abrupt and humiliating crash, through no fault of his own. He apparently purchased the Los Guilicos estate shortly thereafter. In the summer that followed he probably saw the roomy home with bucolic views of Sonoma Valley as a fine place to lick wounds and drift in melancholy. Years later Santa Rosa newspapers frequently mentioned he was entertaining friends from Utah, and you can bet their small talk tread lightly around some topics of political gossip, particularly the sore point of his own fall from greatness as the Catholic who lost his Mormon blessings.

In hindsight, we can see everyone lost when Kearns was forced out of the Senate, including the Latter-Day Saints church.

The Senate allowed Reed Smoot to be seated, but opened hearings on his fitness to stay. The Smoot hearings dragged on for three years, and became a trial of the LDS church itself. Women’s groups nationally lined up against Smoot and Mormonism in an anti-polygamy crusade that smothered Washington in petitions and letters. But over those long three years, anti-Mormon sentiments weakened. President Roosevelt originally commented that Smoot was not fit for office, but by end of 1906 he said the women crusaders were guilty of “persecution” and “hysterical sensationalism.” The New York Times also flipped, denouncing in 1907 opposition to Smoot as “mindless and bigoted”. At the end of it all, a majority of Senators did vote to boot Smoot, but he was admitted because a two-thirds vote was required.

The big loser in this draw were the women’s groups, having lost some popular sympathy as well as momentum in their great fight for suffrage. The LDS church lost because Kearns might have been able to shorten the hearings – or lobby other Senators to drop some of the most damaging lines of inquiry – if he had remained as the senior Senator. In Utah, the Kearns affair boosted opponents of the church and the American Party dominated Salt Lake City politics through the rest of the decade.

The drama also had far-reaching impacts on American history. Senator Smoot was co-author of the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which is considered one of the major causes of economic hardship during the early years of the Great Depression. Kearns’ replacement in the Senate, George Sutherland, was eventually appointed to the Supreme Court, where he became the leader of the “Four Horsemen,” a reactionary bloc that sought to overturn FDR’s New Deal programs for recovery. The four Justices were frequently hung in effigy at political rallies.

Kearns didn’t live to see what would become of Smoot and Sutherland two decades later; he died in 1918, shortly after he sold Hood House. I would like to think his ghost is still rattling chains in those empty rooms of the place he must have thought of as a sanctum. I would like to think his ghost is having a good chuckle over the two men who destroyed his political life becoming two of the most hated politicians in America.

Fourteen-foot dining room table designed and built by Santa Rosa cabinetmaker F. S. Smith in 1909 for Senator and Mrs. Kearns. Other photographs of the sideboard and dining room can be found in the original article on Hood House.  Photo courtesy Mark Parry/Artisan Architecture

MILLIONAIRES IN SANTA ROSA NOW
Senator and Prominent Chicago Railway Magnate in Party

Former United States Senator and Mrs. Thomas Kearns of Salt Lake City, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. R. C. Kernes [sic], Miss Kernes and Miss Baney of St. Louis, and Miss Bettinger of St. Joseph, Mo., are at the St. Rose. The party came up to the Senator’s Los Guillicos [sic] ranch yesterday morning and were met at Kenwood by automobiles from Santa Rosa. After a visit to the ranch the party were taken for a ride through the valley and then for a visit to the grounds of Luther Burbank.

Mr. Kernes is a prominent railroad man from St. Louis and the fact that he is visiting through the Sonoma Valley has given rise to the suspicion that he may be inspecting the line of the proposed electric railroad from Sonoma to Santa Rosa, which is believed to be part of a through line to the bay or to connect with the other lines planned to cross the lower end of the county en route from San Francisco to Lake county with a view of investing in the enterprise. It is known that he was given a good opportunity to see all the advantages of the valley while taking the automobile ride.

– Press Democrat, March 28, 1906
A HANDSOME HAND MADE DININGROOM SET

F. S. Smith of 1209 Ripley street has just completed at his place and has ready for delivery a handsome natural oak dining room set for Senator and Mrs. Thomas Kearns of Kenwood. The dining table is a massive affair weighing 850 pounds, and is six feet square closed. It can be extended to fourteen feet and is one of the most attractive pieces of furniture ever seen in this city. The buffet, serving table, pedestal and dozen chairs are all made to match. The whole set is handwork by Mr. Smith, and were worked up from designs he drew and submitted to Senator and Mrs. Kearns for approval prior to receiving the order.

– Press Democrat, July 11, 1909
THE KEARNS FAMILY HAVE RETURNED
Senator and Mrs. Thomas Kearns Entertain Cardinal Gibbons and Other Catholic Church Dignitaries

Former United States Senator and Mrs. Thomas Kearns and family and Miss Bess Faddies have returned to their beautiful country home in the Los Guilicos Valley, from Salt Lake City. They went to Salt Lake recently to be present at the dedication of the new Roman Catholic Cathedral there, one of the most costly and handsomest edifices in the west.

At their Salt Lake City residence Senator and Mrs. Kearns had the honor of entertaining His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons, who dedicated the cathedral. They had other distinguished guests, including several of the Bishops and other dignitaries of the church.

– Press Democrat, August 28, 1909

The many local friends of Senator and Mrs. Thomas Kearns will be pleased to know that they expect to spend the Christmas holidays at their very hospitable home “Kearns Ranch” in Sonoma Valley. They will have a large house party of relatives and friends to enjoy the holidays with them. Mrs. Kearns is expected back from New York about the first of December.

– “Society Gossip,” Press Democrat, November 21, 1909

The two sons of Senator and Mrs. Thomas Kearns will be here from Santa Clara College to spend the Christmas holidays. Senator Kearns will also join the family for celebration of the holidays at the beautiful Kearns residence at Los Guilocos [sic].

– “Society Gossip,” Press Democrat, December 19, 1909
DELIGHTFUL EVENT AT KEARNS RANCH
Party Given by Senator and Mrs. Kearns in Honor of Miss Clara Driscoll

At the picturesque Kearns ranch last night there was a brilliant party at which Senator and Mrs. Thos. Kearns were “at home” to many invited guests. The function was arranged in honor of Miss Clara Driscoll who is visiting the Kearns ranch from her home in Salt Lake City.

Many guests from this city drove out to Los Guillicos to enjoy the delightful hospitality and participate in the many pleasures of the evening. Mrs. Kearns, as usual, entertained with the cordial and lavish hospitality for which the home is known far and wide.

After the hour devoted to the reception during which all the guests had the pleasure of a formal introduction to Miss Driscoll, dancing was enjoyed in the ball room adjoining the mansion. Later an elaborate supper was served.

– Press Democrat, December 29, 1909

Mrs. Thomas Kearns expects to leave for Salt Lake City about January 15. The Hearns have a magnificent home there and it is like ‘Kearns Ranch’ near this city, one of the most hospitable of homes. I overheard Mrs. Kearns telling some friends at the Overton party the other evening how much she and Senator Kearns enjoyed their picturesque county mansion in the Los Guilocos [sic] Valley. Thanks to them many Santa Rosa friends have been afforded much pleasure there, too.

– “Society Gossip,” Press Democrat, January 9, 1910
SENATOR THOS. KEARNS HERE FROM SALT LAKE

Former United States Senator Thomas Kearns has arrived here from Salt Lake City, accompanied by Mrs. Kearns, and is spending a few days at his beautiful country home near this city, Kearns Ranch. Since his last visit here Senator Kearns has made several trips East and has been a very busy man. He is delighted with the appearance of things in Sonoma county at the present time.

– Press Democrat, April 7, 1910

The week of festivity will be auspiciously ushered in by the reception and high tea Sunday afternoon, at which Mrs. Thomas Kearns will entertain in honor of her sister, Mrs. Gallivan, a charming woman of Salt Lake City, who is here to spend the summer. The hours of the function are from four to seven o’clock and many Santa Rosans are included in the invitation list. They will drive to Kearns Ranch or will take the afternoon train from this city. Of course, it goes without saying that Mrs. Kearns’ attractive hospitality will be delightfully exerted. The hostess and her guests were wishing Saturday when the threatening raindrops fell that sunshine would abound for the happy hours to be spent at Kearns Ranch.

– “Society Gossip,” Press Democrat, May 1, 1910

KEARNS RANCH, the delightful country seat of Senator and Mrs. Thomas Kearns near this city, was the scene last Sunday afternoon of a reception given by Mrs. Kearns in honor of her sister, Mrs. Gallivan, a charming woman from Salt Lake City.

With its commodious rooms, richly furnished and arranged in luxury and comfort, the Kearns home is an ideal one for entertaining. It was specially so on this occasion as the affair partook of an outdoor party on the beautiful grounds where Nature has aided the landscape gardner in a distribution of majestic oaks, shrubbery and flowers in all their glory.

After meeting Mrs. Gallivan, the motif for the function, and the hostess Mrs. Kearns, who received their guests on the veranda beneath a clustering rose vine, which was a riotous mass of sweet-scented rosebuds, the guests wandered at will among the flowerbeds and amid a wilderness of roses–at Kearns Ranch during the blossoming time it is a continuous rose carnival–rested on the rustic benches or in the hammocks or swing seats in the shade of the overhanging branches of trees. It was an afternoon of sunshine and everything looked its best. Music, sweet and an allurement to pleasure, mingled very effectively with the enjoyment of the rambles through the grounds. It was furnished by a large orchestra stationed in a leafy nook on the lawn. During the hours of the reception and during the serving of high tea the orchestra played, Miss McDermott presided over the punch-bowl, serving the guests with delicious refreshment.

At tea the guests assembled in the large reception rooms, where tasteful bouquets of roses and other blooms gave a delightful finish to the pretty scene. In serving Miss Bess Faddis, Miss Clara Einhorn, Miss Geraldine Grace, Miss Wickson, Miss Elizabeth McDermott and Miss Helen Kearns were among those assisting.

Mrs. Kearns and Miss Wickson ex- [missing line of type] people from Santa Rosa, Kenwood, San Francisco and other places. Many of those invited drove down to the Kearns home in automobiles and others came by train and in vehicles. Mrs. Kearns was a much complimented hostess. She could not have entertained more effectively.

Mr. Kearns and Miss Wickson expect to leave shortly for Salt Lake City where they will spend some time. They will return before the summer is over, however, to pass several months here.

– “Society Gossip,” Press Democrat, May 8, 1910
MRS. KEARNS RETURNS FROM SALT LAKE

Mrs. Thomas Kearns returned to her beautiful country home, Kearns Ranch, near this city, on Saturday night after an extended absence in Salt Lake City as well as on a  trip to the East. Mrs. Kearns expects to spend a considerable portion of the summer in Sonoma county. She went to Santa Clara College on Monday to attend the commencement. The Kearns boys are students at Santa Clara. Mrs. Kearns’ many friends are glad to welcome her back.

– Press Democrat, June 21, 1910

The week opened very auspiciously with the dinner party at Kearns Ranch…The scene in the spacious dining room of the Kearns mansion was fascinating in the extreme when the guests entered to the strains of music from an orchestra. They stepped into a lovely bower of flowers and light with the immense round table artistically set with its silver and glass and its clusters of daintily shaded candelabra, occupying the center. The rich old oak ceiling and the oak-panelled sides of the room were set off with bright adornments of flowers and more candelabra. It would be hard to picture a more alluring effect from a decorative standpoint or a greater incentive to appetite as one course followed another during the two hours the guests sat at the table enjoying the delightful menu and the intermingling chit chat, story and orchestral music.

The pretty place cards at each corner were set off with a miniature of an ocean liner, this latter feature particularly complimentary to Miss Wright in view of her coming voyage…

– “Society Gossip,” Press Democrat, July 3, 1910
SEN. THOMAS KEARNS IS HERE FOR A VISIT

Former United States Senator Thomas Kearns of Salt Lake City is here for a visit of several weeks at his beautiful country home “Kearns Ranch” near Kenwood. Senator Kearns is a man of much prominence financially as well as politically and is the head of the American party which in Utah has given battle to the Mormon forces. He is a mining man, and owns a large amount of property in Salt Lake, in addition to several newspapers, and other public service enterprises.

– Press Democrat, July 13, 1910
SENATOR KEARNS RETURNS FROM SALT LAKE CITY

Senator Thomas Kearns has returned from Salt Lake and is now at his country home, the Kearns Ranch near Kenwood. Mrs. Kearns has been spending the past week in San Francisco awaiting the arrival of the Senator and they have both returned. The Senator is a busy man and will only remain here for a few days and then he and Mrs. Kearns will go east to stay until after the holidays.

– Press Democrat, October 10, 1910
SENATOR KEARNS AND WIFE HERE FOR A VISIT

Former United States Senator and Mrs. Kearns arrived from Utah on Sunday at their beautiful country home, Kearns Ranch, near this city. Senator Kearns took an active part in the recent elections in Utah, and otherwise has been very busy with the handling of his immense interests. He enjoys a visit to his picturesque estate in the Sonoma Valley, where he is carrying out many improvements. Thomas Kearns is also here and is feeling much better. He recently underwent an operation for appendicitis.

– Press Democrat, November 29, 1910

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