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RAMBLING REMINISCENCES

By Helen Finley Comstock

1970

Our maternal Grandfather Cornelius Hudson was born in South Carolina in 1851. His parents had arrived from Missouri in 1848 and had bought 2800 acres near Santa Rosa. Our Grandfather Finley came to California from Missouri in 1861 and to Sonoma County in 1888. He bought 240 acres of good farm land along Mark West Creek and 100 acres of pasture and hill land adjoining Fountain Grove. He was a former school master turned farmer. He built a sturdy 2 story farm house, which is now occupied by one of his Great Grandsons. Our grandparents had 9 daughters and one son (my father) but 2 girls had died in infancy. Grandfather was one of the first farmers in the county to plant his hay and alfalfa fields to hops and later to prunes. Ruins of barns -

Frances and I and three of my brothers were born in a cottage on Mark West Creek. It was a beautiful site surrounded by large old walnut and apricot trees. In those early days Mark West Creek flowed all summer and was a wide swift torrent in winter. From our windows high on the bank we watched great trees and often small sheds and buildings rush by - summer petrified wood chunks - Indian relics - potato patch

We both remember well the 1906 earthquake - the chimneys down, the spilled pans of milk in the pantry. We thought our little brother Mervyn was pulling down things in the pantry and cried, "Mama, make him stop." After the earthquake Grandpa's orange grove resembled a revival encampment - many acquaintances and relations arrived from San Francisco and stayed all summer - Dad and the hired men put up tents for them in the orange grove but Grandma and the girls had to do the cooking. Grandma was a very hospitable person but I remember a little grumbling about some of the ladies being lazy.

We are inclined to think of those days as perfect but we also had our share of violence. We hired Japanese workers to plant and "string-up" the hops. The hops were trained on sort of a string trellis. The heavy poles were very high - I seem to have 16 feet in mind - wires were run from pole to pole and were let down near the ground where a stake was driven by the vines - then a single strand of twine for about 4 or 5 feet - then 3 strands from that to the wires. The wires were then hoisted back to the top of the poles - American workers could not or would not do this work but the budding IWW (name) were constantly making trouble. One year Grandpa succumbed to their demands and hired workers through the organization. It was a terrible failure - The plants were not properly planted, the string trellises were not tied properly - the wires not hooked in place on the poles and many acres of hops fell to the ground - It was a miserable harvest. The next year the "boss Jap" H. Matashuma whom we called "Martin" was back with his crew of Japanese workers. In late August or early September, just before harvest, our barn and the barn of 2 neighbor hop farmers were set on fire - burning hay - equipment and in our case 2 horses and 2 mules which was a terrible loss. Fortunately dad had turned several mules and horses out to pasture the night before - Old Johnny

When hop-picking time was over Grandpa drove alone in his buggy to the Exchange Bank and carried home bags of gold and silver coins with which to pay the pickers. No one in those days paid by check.

In 1912 Grandpa bought an adjoining ranch of 52 acres and our family moved to an old farm house on Mark West Springs road - It was there that another girl and boy were born - making a family of 7 children. We all went to Mark West School where our younger Aunts had gone and to Santa Rosa High School where my father and his sisters had been students -

So - it was in September 1911 that Frances came to Santa Rosa and lived with Aunt Belle in an apartment on A Street and entered Santa Rosa High School. In January 1913 I entered High School and Frances and I drove the 4 1/2 miles mornings and afternoon. The High School was on Humboldt Street and we stabled our horse "Lany" in Mr. Coon's barn which was across the street from the school - We paid $1 each month for that privilege -

In those days the drive from our home to Santa Rosa was a pretty drive along tree lined dirt roads until about 1915 when concrete was laid on Old Redwood Hiway - That winter was dreadful - We drove thru deep mud to Coffey Lane, then to what is now Steele Lane and by much detouring finally arrived - rarely but sometimes late.

Santa Rosa in those days was a town of about 9000 people - There were many beautiful old homes and churches - Mendocino and College Avenues had large and lovely houses and gardens. The streets were lined with large old trees and every garden was filled with roses - climbing everywhere.

The unkempt house next door to me was the Davis Farm. When I first knew it it was a private home with a lovely garden. Next door to that was the Paxton home - then the Lumsden home - both designed by Brainerd Jones of Petaluma who was also the architect of my home, the original S.A.C. house and the Plum Tree on 4^th Street - which was originally the Harry Leppo home.

- 30 years ago

Rosemary and family lived across the street from me in a fine old farm house (I think it was Wilmer Parson's Grandparents home) next door was the Dawson Dixon home where Mrs. Dixon was "at home" every Wednesday p.m. for calling and tea. A large old oak tree stood behind the Dixon house and purple wisteria had climbed to its top - It was a gorgeous sight . The Lumsden home - now called the Belvedere was the home of my first school teacher Mrs. Wirt. She lived there with her brother and her daughter "Lettie Wirt" who was my German teacher in high school.

As early as 1870 Santa Rosa was known as an educational town - The Pacific Methodist College (where Santa Rosa Junior High now is), the Christian College on B Street (later sold to the Catholic Church as a home for the sisters), Professor Jones' Academy for Boys, Miss Chase's Private School for Girls, Dakeus Art School and last but very important Sweet's Business College. Many of Santa Rosa's most successful business men were graduates of Sweet's Business College.

Two beautiful creeks flowed through Santa Rosa until a few years ago - Santa Rosa Creek and Metanzas Creek merged at about the site of the present City Hall. A fine bridge was on Santa Rosa Avenue near Tupper and in a heavy rain storm the water rose very high. We all loved to go to the Main Street bridge to see how high the creek rose. That creek now flows thru concrete tubes -

I must go back to some of our famous or infamous institutions. Mark West Springs was a favorite resort for San Francisco people who came by train (N.W.P.) to Fulton and were met and taken to the resort by a 4 horse stage coach - As children we loved to see the coach go by. On holidays it always had flags flying from its staff.

Burkes Sanitarium was just a mile north and east of us on Mark West Creek - It was a very popular health spa and much social life was centered there. I can remember ladies and well dressed gentlemen playing croquet on the grounds in front of the wide covered veranda which ran across the from of the building. They also ran a coach to Fulton to pick up visitors but is was not so spectacular as was Mark West Springs.

Fireworks 4th of July

Story of Delirium Tremens patient

Story of Tong War

Wallace Ware (a colorful lawyer and resident of Santa Rosa) was Chief Prosecutor in the D.A.'s office when a Tong War of major proportions erupted in San Francisco. The Hop Sing and Suey Sing Tongs had ganged up against the powerful Bing Kong Tong Society. The cruel killing activities of these Tongs were usually confined to San Francisco's Chinatown but this one erupted on our ranch. Tho we had Japanese to plant and "string up" our hops we had Chinese to weed the fields. The Jap Cabin was on the creek and the China Cabin was in a grove of pine trees near where Larkfield is now. The two groups never mingled. Hom Hong was the boss of 7 Chinese who lived in the cabin and weeded the fields. On a Sunday in March 1916 when the coolies were doing their weekly chores about the cabin 3 Chinese arrived in a taxi cab. Hom Hong was chopping kindling on a chopping block when one of the new arrivals, Willie Yee, fired 5 pistol shots thru the head and heart of Hom Hong. He then turned to the 6 surviving workers and said, "There's one shot left for anyone who testifies against us." Then he threw the pistol into the hop field. The frightened workers refused to identify the killers and it took many weeks and careful strategy on the part of the DA's office to catch and convict them but eventually they all went to San Quentin. The story of the trial is fantastic - Read it in Wallace Ware's book - The Unforgettables.

Fountain Grove Colony is a long and fascinating story - too long to tell. Baron Kanaye Nagasawa, the Japanese Prince who survived all the original "Grantees in Joint Tenancy" of the Brotherhood became the sole owner of the 2000 acres. His nephew Koski Ijichi was the age of my eldest son Hilliard and they were in Future Farmers in Santa Rosa High School. Kanaye Nagasawa died on March 1, 1934 at 83 years of age.

Another story of violence was the lynching of 3 more in 1921 - men who murdered our popular sheriff Petrey.

I firmly believe from all I have seen that Sonoma County is the chosen spot of all the Earth as far as Nature is concerned - The climate is perfect. The air is so sweet that it is a pleasure to drink in. The sunshine is pure and soft, the mountains which gird the Valley are lovely. I almost have to cry for joy when I look upon the lovely panorama from the hillsides.

The gardens are filled with tropical plants - Great rose trees climb over the houses - Do you suppose I am not pleased to see fuchsias in the front yards 12 feet high, chrysanthemums with bushels of great blooms - Everything like a beautiful spring day all the time?

[This appears to be the end of Helen Finley Comstock's paper, but it is followed by something she calls "First Notes" and they are copied below except for those obviously included above].

Maternal Grandfather born in Sonoma County Oct. 25, 1851 - died at 73 - in Calistoga

5 children born in cottage on Mark West Creek - Dr. drove 5 miles from Santa Rosa - no phone - Grandfather drove to town to summon Dr. Small wonder many children delivered by mid wives - Frances' delivery by Dr. Burke 16th of December '96 of Burke's Sanitarium (more later) - I've heard many times of how Grandpa drove to town during winter storm in January 1899 to summon Dr. Finlaw who delivered me - Of course there were also no electric lights - heat was from 2 wood burning stoves in the kitchen and living room - The bathroom was non existent unless you consider an outdoor structure (always, for some unknown reason, just beyond the wood pile). We were encouraged to bring in an arm load of wood for the kitchen wood box when returning from a visit to the outhouse. The bath was a large round galvanized tub which hung outside the kitchen and was brought in for the Saturday night ablutions. The water was pumped by hand from the well, just outside the kitchen door, heated in large kettles on the stove and the rites began. Our hair was washed and "put up" on strips of knitted material or later on flexible kidskin curlers - we had clean night gowns and popped into beds which had been aired and sheets and pillow cases changed on Saturday morning. Those sheets felt wonderful - They had (the Monday before) been scrubbed on a wash board, boiled, rinsed and dried on clotheslines in the sun - ours were not ironed - mother had enough ironing to do - We were not unique. Few homes in the country at that time, had running water or plumbing.

[duplication of Grandfather Finley's arrival in Santa Rosa]

The stone ruins of the old hop drying barns can still be seen on the hillside as you drive along Mark West Springs Road. Larkfield and new homes now cover that once fertile and beautiful farm.

Adjoining the farm across Mark West Creek was the Twichell farm and Burke's Sanitarium. Burke's Sanitarium was a very popular health spa .... About 1911 or '12 Dr. Burke was accused by a patient (crazy Luetta my parents called her) of being the father of her child - A stick of dynamite wrecked her cottage, she was unhurt but Dr. Burke was tried and convicted of trying to murder her - He served some years in San Quentin and his beautiful sanitarium - without him - fell by the wayside in a very few years (my Grandfather kept the faith for Dr. Burke and it was at the Sanitarium that he died in 1916) Violence-

Santa Rosa was a town of approximately 7000 when we were children. ... Then the Raford Peterson home with its tiled roof and copper gutters and plate glass windows - the Dr. Rohr home where Sambo's restaurant stands - Mrs. Jordan (sister of FLOM) on the corner where the car lot is now - Further south on Mendocino were charming small homes - Dr. Finlaw, the Clark home, the beautiful old Shea home (which now stands on B Street near Klute Street - Bob Trowbrige had it moved there about 25 years ago. In the block between Fifth Street and 7th stood the Hardin Home - when I was in high school the IOOF had bought it for their lodge rooms' It is impossible to tell you of the beauty of Santa Rosa and of all Sonoma County in the early years of this century.

College Avenue - 3rd Street - Humboldt - 2nd - upper 4th Street.

Other well known persons - Robert L. Ripley (believe it or not) born Christmas day 1890 - white frame cottage at 1117 Orchard Street - shy - retiring - inferiority complex - protruding teeth.

School teachers - Fanny L. O'Mera FLOM - Stickler for proper English encouraged Ripley - gifts - called her mother - which astounded many of us who held her in awe - taught my father - aunts - Frances and me - still at Santa Rosa High School when Hill [Hilliard] entered - reception at Golf Club - 50 years. Story of inattention ice cream -

Mayor Madison - slight of hand - legerdemain - fireworks from Chinese -

Mrs. Albertine DuBois - quotations mottos on blackboard - inspiring poems - Charlie Dunbar - Mayor - 165,000 for sewer plant - saved - bridges - fire engine - unemployment relief - 4 bridges Main Street - So Avenue, E Street, So E.

Comment on Rev. Moon - etc - communal living and unconventional beliefs are not a new development in this era -

Fountain Grove was the first and most widely known Utopian Colony in Sonoma County. Conversations with angels, a Brotherhood of New Life which would embrace all peoples, immortality for the prophet and a strange set of highly esoteric sexual beliefs were the revelations of the spiritualist - poet Thomas Lake Harris, leader of the Fountain Grove Colony. From distant parts of the world came his followers.

Mrs. Wirt - 40 pupils $40 per month - Belvedere - small bay horse - shabby buggy - 2 sets of glasses - Lumsden - brother - Louisa (called Lottie) - her daughter - taught German.

Walked to school thru plowed fields - approx 2 miles -

Schools - Pacific Methodist College (Episcopal) moved from Vacaville to Santa Rosa in May 1870 by vote of trustees.

Citizens donated 10 acres and erected spacious building - $25,000, 300 students.

Christian College 1872 - 2500 on B Street.

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