ORAL HISTORY PROJECT OF THE MARIN COUNTY FREE LIBRARY Anne T. Kent California Room Original recording available at the Anne T. Kent California Room © All materials copyright Marin County Free Library. Transcript made available for research purposes only. All rights are reserved to the Marin County Free Library. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the: Anne T. Kent California Room Marin County Free Library 3501 Civic Center Dr. #427 San Rafael, California, 94903

---

INTERVIEW WITH GENEVIEVE BOTHIN DE LIMUR
by Carla Ehatt
April 24, 1982

INTERVIEWEE: Genevieve Bothin De Limur (GD)
INTERVIEWER: Carla Ehat (CE)
ALSO PRESENT: Michael Casey (MC)
DATE OF INTERVIEW: April 24, 1982
TRANSCRIBER: Marjorie Hoffman


CE: Today is Saturday, April 24, l982. Continuing the Oral History Project for the Anne Thompson Kent California Room, this is Carla Ehat. And today finds us down the deep Peninsula. We are in the lovely garden and terrace at the home of Mrs. Andre De Limur.

GD: You’ve done that beautifully.

CE: Genevieve Bothin De Limur. And she resides at 245 West South Inez.

GD: West Santa Inez.

CE: Thank you, in Hillsborough, California. Her grandson, Michael Casey, is with us today and has arranged this lovely meeting. It’s a pleasure to be here, and hopefully Genevieve will share some of her reminiscences of her father, Henry Bothin, her mother, Jane Whittier Bothin, and tell us a little bit about life in Ross Valley and the Bothin contribution to Marin County. Genevieve was born in San Francisco on December 17, 1894, in the family home on Van Ness Avenue and Jackson Street. I presume, then, your home was one that was dynamited after the earthquake and fire?

GD: Yes, that was done.

CE: It’s certainly nice to be here and good morning, Genevieve. Tell me, what brought your father from Ohio in about 1875? What brought him to California?

GD: I haven’t the slightest idea.

CE: Did he ever tell you why?

GD: I haven’t the slightest idea, and I know nothing about his mother and father. I just know that he came to San Francisco and then I don’t know whether he lived here long or not, and then he married my mother in San Francisco.

CE: You mentioned earlier over coffee that your mother’s home was the Whittier Home, now the present California Historical Society building.

GD: Yes.

CE: That’s quite a famous landmark in San Francisco.

GD: Yes, it really is, and it’s quite extraordinary how it worked out. It was left to my aunt, Mrs. Weir, and then it was finally – My mother was always in wrong with my father because she was always doing the most terrible things. She was the first woman to smoke in San Francisco. She was the first woman to run a car. She was into everything. She trained horses. I can’t do anything.

CE: You mean, compared to your mother?

GD: Yes. She really was quite extraordinary, a very attractive woman. She lived to be 92. But they were divorced. She was divorced from my father in – I think it was shortly after the earthquake, probably about 1907.

CE: You were young.

GD: Well, I was 12 years old. That’s not so darn young. And she – I’m getting all mixed up; I can’t even think of my mother’s name.

CE: Jane.

GE: Yes, Jane. So they were divorced, and at that time divorce was just not accepted in any way in the world, and I nearly died. I think now it’s been made very much more easy for children because the parents are always friendly.

CE: And it’s easier for a woman. There’s no longer a stigma to it.

GD: No, it’s no longer. In fact, the year I came out, I remember, 1915, all the ones like the Donohues never asked me to any of their parties because I had a divorced mother and father. And, you know, you take that terribly seriously when you’re young. I mean, it’s just like – It’s a terrible thing. So that divorce was really awfully tough in those years.

CE: Michael said earlier an interesting vignette about this extraordinary achievement of your mother getting the first woman’s driver’s license. Do you recall her story on that? Where did she take it?

GD: In San Francisco, in a tiny little Ford car, and she was the first woman to get her license.

MC: How did that happen? If I recall correctly, she was taken to the Polo Field along with the other applicants and there was a ritual they had to go through to get their license.

GD: Now that I don’t remember at all.

CE: And if you didn’t hit any of the balloons or something?

GD: I don’t remember that at all.

MC: Okay, I thought you were the one who told me about that.

GD: No, somebody else must have told you about that.

CE: Well, you were very young, of course. You were a child when the earthquake occurred. Do you remember any of it at all?

GD: Oh, I remember every minute of it! And I still don’t go to bed at night without my wrapper right by my bed. You know, after you’ve once gone through that, a really big earthquake –

CE: My mother did also.

GD: Did she? And I never wanted anything heavy hanging over my bed. And that I still –

CE: You mean like a frame, a heavy frame picture?

GD: Yes, picture. Oh, that stands out.

CE: What was your reaction? Can you think back to those years? Had you any idea what was occurring?

GD: No, not the slightest. There was this terrible noise, and then I know my mother had this little dog at the time, and the dog just barked and barked and she ran and grabbed me and took me down the stairs, and you could hardly find your way down. It was the dust from the walls.

CE: Were there other brothers and sisters?

GD: No, no, I was the only one. I was the only child that lived. Mother had five children, but I was the only one that lived. In those days they all died so young, except my brother who was 14, who was older than myself, and he died of infantile paralysis, the only case in San Francisco at the time, talking awfully funny.

CE: That’s interesting. That’s interesting.

GD: But you see, in that time, they didn’t have the ways of curing people and helping children, knowing what to do.

CE: Okay, now after the earthquake and fire, and you had to relocate. Your home was destroyed. Where did you go then?

GD: Well, I can’t say when. I always think from a child I lived over in Ross because that was the first house we had. The house on Van Ness and Jackson was the house that my grandfather gave my mother when she was married, so that’s where I lived in San Francisco, always.

CE: Yes, but did you spend the rest of any –

GD: And then every summer we went to Ross.

CE: Ross Valley?

GD: Yes, every summer we went to Ross.

CE: From childhood up?

GD: Yes, from childhood up.

CE: Okay, let’s talk about these dwellings because there is some confusion. There are three houses, I think; at least two that your family lived in in Ross.

GD: Yes, we had the house.

CE: Where was the first one?

GD: The first was right across the creek from the Schmiedells, right across the road from the house that my father then lived in. But you see when –

CE: Was that a home that your father built?

GD: Oh, yes, both of our places he built. But the original house was just a little shingle house, and it was terribly attractive in a redwood grove, perfectly charming, really, and my mother loved gardens. And then she was one of the starters of the Lagunitas Club which was right across the way; she and Mrs. Schmiedell and Mrs. Dibblee.

CE: That was about 1903.

GD: That must have been about 1903, yes.

CE: And Doris Schmiedell’s father, in his collection of photographs, has some charming ones. Michael, maybe you’ve seen them, or you’ll see them during the Ross celebration next weekend. The girls in their flowing dresses and the men in white flannels, just charming.

GD: Yes, that Lagunitas Club was perfectly charming.

CE: And it was started originally, I understand, as just a country club, not specifically tennis but it evolved into that. Although Doris tells – Do you have this recollection? As a youngster, she remembers being awakened by the roller. They had a steam roller. It watered down the courts and the crush of those shells from the Indian shell mounds. Do you remember that?

GD: Yes, that I do remember, too. I think there were only two courts there at that time. Yes, because it was – It was just built in a very, with logs really, in a very inexpensive way. And then we were kind of at the end of a road. Then you went on about three miles of road that went up to the old Porteous place. Has that been brought into your things?

CE: Yes. Mrs. Kent was able to get an original photograph.

GD: Mrs. Porteous was kind of a strange woman, or something. She lived up there alone; she was the only woman and she lived way up alone in this house.

CE: And that’s before Phoenix Lake was built.

GD: Oh, is that what they called it. Oh, that was Phoenix Lake, yes, that must have been it.

CE: Well, Phoenix Lake was built after the turn of the century but it was originally a skid row where lumber was brought over from where Alpine Dam is today. It was pulled over by oxen over through that valley where Phoenix Lake is, down Lagunitas Road, down to Ross Landing and put on barges and taken to San Francisco.

GD: Oh, really? And then when we went up over to Mrs. Porteous’ place we drove by that and went over to Bolinas.

CE: That’s the Bolinas Road. And Doris talks about going to Bolinas. It would be an all-day trip in a wagon with the dogs following, and the dust –

GD: All day trip, in a wagon. Oh, yes, and the horses, and the whole thing. I don’t know how long a distance that was.

CE: I wonder if you’d corroborate a story that it’s been said that Mrs. Schmiedell, one reason she and your family and Stewart McNear wanted to make that club there, was that it had been a saloon.

GD: Oh, that I –

CE: Lumbermen, when they’d come over those hills and they were thirsty and tired and it was called the Pink Saloon.

GD: Well, then we were right opposite a saloon!

CE: And Mrs. Schmiedell didn’t want any part of that.

GD: Oh, my heavens, she wouldn’t have.

MC: Actually, I heard it was more than just a saloon.

GD: Is that so? That I’ve never heard.

CE: So, “We’ve got to get rid of that. We can’t have that around!”

GD: Oh, no we can’t have that around. But Mr. & Mrs. Schmiedell were quite some – They were really very interesting people. But I mean, oh, they were both the strongest type.

CE: I understand, from Doris Schmiedell, her mother was a perfectionist in everything. If they went up to their place at Lake Tahoe, next to where the William Kent’s had a place on the lake, why, she would have everything all, the foodstuffs all prepared for so many days’ camping.

GD: I didn’t realize she was that – She was a very attractive woman, but a very stern woman, extremely so.

CE: Do you recollect going to that first house of your father then, as a child, the one that was under the redwoods?

GD: Oh, that’s the one I always lived in. Then right after the earthquake, then my father was divorced and then I went – Because I was weakling and kind of pathetic and, oh, terrible, so then I went and lived with my mother. Then my mother came down here and built this house after the earthquake.

CE: I see, I see.

GD: And our house in San Francisco was not – None of us were insured, you see, because all were German companies, so nothing was paid. And we stayed in San Francisco all during that three or four days after the fire came and burnt our house down and everything.

CE: Where did you stay?

GD: My father had all these flats and he lost a hundred buildings in the earthquake.

CE: He lost a hundred buildings!

GD: But that doesn’t mean expensive buildings, what they call lofts. And those were what brought the money in, I mean, the one-story buildings. And then he had all these old flats down on Lombard Street, so we just went down there, lay on the floor and slept, and then we’d take the car and go up and watch how the fire was going. One rather interesting story that you’ve probably been told, but I mean – The night before the earthquake was the opera, and if the earthquake had been three or four hours earlier everybody, really, in San Francisco would have been killed because they were all there at the first night of the opera. And that’s when Caruso sang. And that next morning, I had an aunt who was living at the St. Francis Hotel, and so mother said, “Let’s go down and see how she is.” So we went down there, and I sat out in the car with the chauffeur and this man came over, and it was Caruso’s valet, and he said, “Mr. Caruso will give you a hundred dollars,” and a hundred dollars in those days was really like a million, and said, “If you’ll take Mr. Caruso out to the Cliff House, he’ll give you a hundred dollars.” And fortunately this Fred Wakeman, who was our driver, said, “No, I can’t. I have a little girl here and they’ve gone in the hotel, so I can’t possibly do that.” And then that afternoon we had a Chinese cook and we were eating out on Jackson Street, because we weren’t allowed to go in our houses except for just a few minutes to grab something, and we were sitting there and along comes a small express wagon with a horse, and there is Caruso sitting on the front seat with a valet and all his trunks making for the Cliff House. And he never returned to San Francisco, and never sang again in San Francisco.

CE: That’s a charming story.

MC: Grandmummy, do you know anything about what’s happened to that house?

CE: That first house?

MC: Yes, the first house. It’s no longer there.

CE: In Ross.

GD: No. It seems to me, now that you speak of it, it burnt. It burnt down. It seems to me that’s what happened. Because my father, he built the house across the way there, which was the most hideous house. He had no taste. It was the ugliest house you’ve probably ever seen in the world. And then, very shortly after they were divorced, then he married Nellie Chabot from Oakland, who was supposed to be a great heiress. My father loved money. And she had a million dollars and she apparently – He was so excited about the million dollars when he told me about it, but it ended by being a very, very happy marriage and he made a lot of money for her. And then she moved into this house and she had beautiful taste and – Elsie DeWolf, who I think, without a doubt was the one who did everything in America for good taste, she came out here and she did three houses. She did my father’s house in Ross. She did the Crocker house down here, and the Grant house.

CE: J. D. Grant on Broadway?

GD: Yes, that house, and the house down here in Burlingame that Mrs. Grant had, which was a beautiful house.

CE: Now we’re talking about the second Bothin home which is now owned –

GD: That’s the second Bothin house.

CE: Which is now owned by the Gabrielsons?

GD: Yes, I don’t know who –

CE: Which is a Mediterranean Italianate, Mediterranean architecture, like a villa.

GD: It cheered up. My stepmother put awnings on. It was beautifully done inside and really made a perfectly lovely house and a lovely garden. And in fact, all those yew trees that are in the park at the –

CE: In the park? Where? At the Union Square?

GD: Yes, at Union Square.

CE: Are from his garden?

GD: Yes, from his garden. Doesn’t really go, though.

CE: From the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

MC: Yes, must have been that.

GD: Yes, must have been that.

CE: That’s wonderful.

MC: And that would make sense, Grandmummy, because it was right about 1916 that he left to go down to Santa Barbara.

GD: He went down to Santa Barbara after the San Francisco earthquake. He bought that house in San Francisco after the San Francisco earthquake, because he had the house in Ross which my stepmother did over and made attractive.

MC: Well, did he build that house in Ross, then?

GD: Oh, heavens yes. Nobody else could have built it.

CE: Did you ever hear who the architect was?

GD: Oh, no, I think he was.

CE: He was the architect?

GD: I think he did it. Because he’d rather work with cement and things like that.

CE: Tell us a little bit about your father. Describe him physically and his character and his temperament.

GD: Well, he was a very attractive man. They said he was the toughest man in business in San Francisco, but when you met him and talked to him he was full of charm, would recite poetry and had a very attractive side to him, but a very tough side in business, apparently. And I’m tight about things. I can see where I – And I’ve gotten it from him.

CE: Was your relationship fairly close with your father?

GD: Yes, very nice except he was annoyed when I went with my mother, so I think he took it out on me that way. And I didn’t really like my step-mother. As long as she’s dead I can say this, because, I mean, she didn’t like children and she’d never had children. I think she was quite old. And then she lived a little too long after he died, because I had to wait for forty years and that’s rather a long wait for the stepmother. When you’re married to a husband who spends all the money –

CE: When he remarried, did you go to the second home?

GD: Oh, yes.

CE: Often, or for the summer?

GD: Oh, I didn’t like it but I went about once a month.

CE: Like a command performance?

GD: It was a command performance, and –

CE: How would you get there?

GD: I’d get there on the ferry boat, go over on the ferry boat and when I came back on the ferry boat with him he’d give me a dollar and I was terribly pleased. I’d get a dollar for the weekend.

CE: So you did it for money?

GD: I did it for money. You see, I’m a money-minded lady.

CE: You’d take the train. Now, try to think back.

GD: Well, we took the boat. We took the ferry boat at the foot of Market, and then we got off at Sausalito, and then we went and got – And the trains got to be electric trains, and that was very exciting.

CE: That was about 1907. They were electric.

GD: Yes, then they became electric. Before they were just the good, old –

CE: And then how would you get up to your father’s home on Lagunitas?

GD: Oh, I think we were about the first people to have a car. We had a car called the Knox car. Instead of having a round thing, it had one of those straight rods that would turn like – Very ugly car. And we had, let’s see – And we lived in that Ross house. And I adored that because we were on a creek and I loved the country and all that, and I think Ross is beautiful.

MC: Grandmummy, could I ask you a couple of questions along in this? Henry Bothin built the first house that you talked about. Do you remember about what year it was that he built that house?

GD: No, I have really no idea. But I know that my brother died when he was 14. He was seven years older than I was, and I remember being down there by the creek when Mother came over and told me he died.

MC: So that would have been 1901?

GD: Yes, that would have been 1901.

MC: Grandmummy, going back again to this first house that he built, do you remember why it was that he built that house?

GD: Oh, only just because he adored Ross. But how he got to adore Ross, I don’t know.

MC: That’s what I was getting at, if you had any idea.

GD: And then as soon as he was divorced from Mother, then he got very interested in the Bothin Convalescent Home. In fact he almost – He was crazy about a young girl, a young girl, I mean, she was a child around seven or eight years old, and I’m always surprised he didn’t adopt her. Her name was Vivian Goff. And that’s who he got interested in the convalescent home, and that’s where Elizabeth Ash got him interested in everything.

CE: Well, we want to explore that whole story but, Michael, aren’t there some other questions you want to ask your grandmother about these houses?

MC: As far as the first house is concerned, were you living in San Francisco on Washington Street at the time that they first became interested in Ross?

GD: On Jackson Street.

MC: On Jackson or Van Ness?

GD: Jackson and Van Ness.

MC: Okay. So they came over and built that first house just as a summer house?

GD: Oh, yes, because Ross in those days was never a winter place. It’s just like Lake Tahoe now. You used to go up there for two months in the summer, July and August. If you’d go up there before or after you were – Oh, it was terrible.

MC: But then, then, the house he built for Aunt Nellie, was that –

GD: He didn’t build it for Aunt Nellie, but he built it, and thank God Aunt Nellie came along at that time.

GD: Oh, he built it originally for your mother?

GD: He built it for himself. I’m a little mixed. I really don’t know. I think he did build it for himself.

MC: Do you know when that was built?

GD: Not the slightest idea.

MC: Was it built before or after the earthquake? Do you know that?

GD: Oh, after the earthquake, I think.

CE: Michael, interrupting you, where’s the site of this house?

MC: This is the Gabrielson’s present house.

CE: Present house?

MC: Yes. That’s the largest house.

GD: I don’t suppose really it was very large; it seemed like a palace when I was there.

MC: Would this have been after the other house was destroyed, either by fire or however?

GD: Yes, this I think was after. I think this was after. Because then as soon as they – Thinking of divorce, you see, around the earthquake time. And then Mother got the money for the house in town, which I think is rather interesting because the lot sold for $65,000. And then Mother came down here and bought this piece of property, and –

CE: What year was that, Genevieve?

GD: That was, I would think, about 1907 or 1908. And then Mother built this house and bought the land and built this house and this cost $65,000. Isn’t it extraordinary?

MC: I’ve always thought that Henry Bothin built another house in Ross also and that was the one –

GD: He built a house where the stables used to be on the first place and the H.M.A. Miller’s rented that. Do you know C.O.G. Miller had –

MC: Yes.

GD: They used to call them the Alphabet Millers because there were so many Millers and he was C.O.G. and this was H.M.A. And he built the house and the Millers rented that. She always used to talk to my daughter.

MC: But there was also the house that Ned and Esther Griffith lived in for many years and is now lived in by Lad Wilsey, Al Wilsey’s son, and that was just down Lagunitas from the second house.

GD: Oh, yes, that was a house he built also for renting, and the Hunts had it for many, many years. I’ll tell you who the Hunts were. Their son is, wrote that book on bullfighting, and now lives in Santa Barbara.

MC: Barnaby Conrad?

GD: Barnaby Conrad. Then why the Hunts? Why were they named Hunt? It was Conrad?

MC: The Conrad’s.

GD: Yes.

MC: Okay, but didn’t he build one of those houses for Miss Ash?

GD: No, no. She tried to get him to build a house but he never built the thing for her. She got everything else out of him.

MC: Did he build that house for the Conrads, or did he build it for himself?

GD: I think he built it for an investment, because he was always building for investments and selling.

MC: I see. And then rented it to the Conrads, or sold it to the Conrads?

GD: I rather think he sold it to the Conrads.

MC: I see.

GD: Is that house still there?

MC: Yes, yes.

CE: Who were some of your associates when you were a young girl coming over to Ross Valley and Ross?

GD: Well, the Schmiedells, I saw all the time, and I used to see Anne Dibblee, and that was the Bert Dibblees. Then I used to see Amanda McNear, and Barroll McNear who really was a drip.

CE: Are these children of Seward McNear?

GD: Yes, Seward McNear and Mrs. McNear; they had Amanda and Barroll who really was a drip. Maybe he’s alive. Let’s cut that out, because I’ll never go to Ross again.

CE: Some of these neighbors that you spoke about earlier –

GD: Oh, the Hales. Do you remember? Hales live right opposite the Schmiedells. The Hales live right opposite you, where you live now. Reuben Hale. No, not Reuben Hale. What was his name?

MC: That was, I think, the Dibblee house.

GD: No, the Dibblee house was a little bit further; it was further down the road.

MC: Oh, okay, the one that Doc Cook lives in now.

CE: Yes.

MC: The one that would be right next –

GD: Then there was a house about opposite Dibblees, was the Nichols, Peggy Nichols, sister of Charlie Mills.

CE: How about Milton, the Esbergs? Did they come later?

GD: I think they came later.

CE: How about Barry? Stone House?

GD: Yes, I remember all the Barrys.

CE: Well, I don’t know anything about the Barrys; that’s where Kay Kirk lives today.

GD: Weren’t they all, the Barrys, weren’t there three Barry men or something? I remember the name.

CE: The Barry house and the Griffith house were built by the same architect; they are all stone.

GD: Yes. And they were all on the left hand side as you’re coming towards that hill.

CE: Right. Tell us a little bit about the Griffiths. Did you know Millen?

GD: Oh, yes, I knew Millen and he was married to Constance McClaren.

CE: Was he a contemporary of yours, or younger or older, or – when you were over there?

GD: Oh, I think he was older. He must have been three or four years older.

CE: When you’re children, that’s a difference.

GD: Oh, God, yes.

CE: Like Doris Schmiedell was a little younger than you.

GD: Doris was younger.

CE: And Betty?

GD: And, of course, Betty was younger.

CE: Ted?

GD: Ted I remember awfully well. Ted didn’t turn out so well, I believe. I don’t know. I don’t know whether he had been drinking.

CE: What would you do?

GD: Play with children like Anne Dibblee. We’d climb trees and –

CE: Go on picnics.

GD: Do entirely different than children do now. Now they go to the movies, do things like that.

MC: Grandmummy, do you remember one time about five or six years ago, I drove you over to our house, and as we came up Lagunitas you kept looking off to the left and looking off to the right and pointing at different driveways and saying, “I used to roller-skate on this driveway, and such and such lived on that street.”

GD: Yes, well that – What do they call that road?

MC: Lagunitas.

GD: No, I know Lagunitas, but then as you come across what used to be the old railroad station, and there was that dark road that went up to Branson School.

MC: Shady Lane?

GD: Shady Lane. It was all those places along there. There was Mrs. Rose’s place; there was the Veldon place; there was the Davis place. I remember all them.

MC: Do you know anything about who planted the elm trees along in there?

GD: No. I think they’re older than I am. It’s about the only thing that is.

MC: But I don’t know whether they’ve been replanted or whether –

CE: Harrison Dibblee says that his grandfather, Albert Dibblee, planted them.

GD: I imagine those are the Dibblee’s.

CE: And the road up to his estate, Fern Hill, which he –

GD: Albert Dibblee must have been Bert Dibblee.

CE: Yes, I would imagine so. But, he bought something like 75 acres in 1870 when they had to subdivide all of that area, and –

GD: And then Branson School, that was built by Mr. Moore, wasn’t it?

CE: No, it was built by Martin, the railroad man. The one who electrified the railroads built that.

GD: Yes. He had a boy called Louis Martin.

MC: Is there a Moore who you remember from Ross?

GD: Yes, yes, Kenneth Moore was the one that Leslie Miller married.

CE: How about Henry Moore that built your home?

MC: I was just going to say, Henry Moore built our house.

GD: Henry Moore doesn’t ring a bell at all.

CE: I don’t think they bought that house until about 1913, it seems to me. In fact, we can get the history of that house from Jean Polland. Dr. Polland’s widow knows the story of that. I’d like to read something if I may, Genevieve, from a book that was published last year by the Marin County Historical Society called Marin People, Volume Three. There is a profile of your father in here and I’d like to read the first paragraph. “Henry E. Bothin loved the Ross Valley area and he loved children. Combining these two loves, he helped create one of the finest youth centers in the Bay Area.” Now I want you to tell us, if you would, there’s a little conflicting stories in some of the references. There are two places. One is called Arequipa, and the other is Hill Farm. But it is my understanding it was all part of one piece of acreage, about 1,200 acres, west of Fairfax on the beginnings of the road over White Hill.

GD: Yes, and a very beautiful piece of land.

CE: Now, the story goes that he met on the ferry one day this nurse bringing a child to San Francisco who tubercular –

GD: And that nurse was Elizabeth Ash.

CE: That nurse was Elizabeth Ash. She had been involved, I understand, with Alice Griffith in the Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Association.

GD: Oh, they were very close. I was trying to think whether they were they related. But they were very, very close.

CE: Yes. And this struck your father. Is that true, that he was touched by this child and the need to have to take the youngster to San Francisco for care?

GD: Oh, very much so. And Elizabeth Ash is the one that started it and said, “Oh, you do something to help them out.”

CE: “Do some good work. I’ve got an idea.”

GD: “Yes, that’s what I really want to do.”

CE: Well, is Hill Farm, then, the first thing that was started for the children?

GD: Oh, yes that was the very first.

CE: I see.

GD: And then, I don’t know. Arequipa was built, and then I can’t seem to remember. Did he give it, or did he rent it, or what, to Cabot Brown? And then Cabot Brown had that for a tubercular –

CE: Well, Arequipa was dedicated September 14, 1911, and the record shows that your father gave the land and the money to build this sanitarium for tubercular working women, working women.

GD: Well, I didn’t realize for working women, but I knew he gave that.

CE: Well, they couldn’t afford, you know, the costly price of many sanitariums and the room and board was supposed to have been only a dollar a day. Did you ever hear anything on that?

GD: No, but I can very well understand it.

CE: And a fascinating sidelight to the story is that they started making pottery. Do you have any of the Arequipa pottery?

GD: No, I do not.

CE: Well, it was an idea to turn a profit and give the women an opportunity to say, “Well, I made my contribution,” and they stayed –

GD: Yes. Yes, I remember that faintly, but not very well. And then, of course, the reason that Cabot Brown gave that thing up was because that’s when they had a cure for tuberculosis and they didn’t need it any more, and that’s why it was given up. And then who did it go to then, Arequipa?

CE: I don’t know. I thought maybe you could tell me.

GD: I have no idea.

CE: The Girl Scouts used it, didn’t they? For years, the Girl Scouts used the property?

GD: Oh, yes, the Girl Scouts.

CE: Did you visit the place, Eve?

GD: Oh, yes. I used to a long time ago all the time.

CE: When you were young?

GD: And I remember Cabot Brown asked to take me over there one day and I thought it was because he liked me and it was just to get me over there to get me interested. I thought he just thought I was very attractive and wanted to drive me over but it wasn’t that at all.

CE: Arequipa is an unusual word, I understand Peruvian in derivation, and means “place of rest.” Did you know that?

GD: No, I did not. But now that’s very much what my father would have named it, because, I mean, he was – As I said, he was a curious man with outside interests of that type. When you thought he was a hard businessman, you know, and then he had the other, very beautiful side to him.

CE: Interesting. Sort of a Renaissance man, in a way.

GD: Yes, he really was, you know.

CE: It’s on record that he made his initial fortune in commercial real estate.

GD: It was all real estate. He had a wonderful eye for the property he bought in San Francisco.

CE: Do you have any of the Arequipa pottery in your home?

GD: No, I have none of it. I should have.

CE: How about you Michael?

MC: No.

CE: They say that there was hardly a home in Marin County that was without a vase or a bowl from Arequipa.

GD: No, I’m ashamed to say I absolutely don’t.

CE: And then I understand later the women went into – They added millinery, dressmaking and basketry to their efforts.

GD: That I don’t remember about at all.

MC: When did you cease going over to Marin County without any regularity?

GD: Well, as soon as my mother and father were divorced, you see, I lived –

CE: How old were you, again?

GD: Oh, I think I was – It was shortly after the earthquake. I was born in 1894, and the earthquake was 1906. How old does that make me?

MC: You were twelve.

CE: Twelve. You were twelve years old.

GD: And I was kind of a backward child, so I didn’t –

CE: You mean shy?

GD: Shy, and stupid, and –

CE: How did you overcome it so beautifully?

GD: No, but I really was. I was kind of – And I was a sad child. I took my mother and father’s divorce terribly hard, so until I was married I was kind of pathetic.

CE: Did you cease going to Marin County after that?

GD: Yes, I only went over for that dollar about two or three times a year.

CE: Oh, got off in the ferry boat.

GD: I got paid off on the ferry boat.

MC: How often did he go over?

GD: Oh, my heavens, he went over every day during the summer months and he lived over there up to when he died. You see, he died really very young. He was only 68. When he went down to Santa Barbara to live and bought this hill in the back of Santa Barbara, he’d get up every morning at seven o’clock get on his horse. And he had about four Mexicans working for him and Mexicans, I imagine in those days, cost about three or four dollars a day, so it was not very stylish. And he’d go up on the hill on his horse and tell them what to do and what not to do. He made that hill so beautiful. He put orange groves and water coming down the hill like Villa d’Este, and that was his idea. He was going to make it something very beautiful. And then one of the big boulders didn’t get pushed quite fast enough by the three Mexicans so he got in and pushed, strained his heart and died, died at around 68.

MC: Yes, he died on my mom’s fourth birthday.

GD: He died on your mother’s fourth birthday?

MC: That was 1923. Do you remember when it was that he left Marin County, though, and went down to Santa Barbara?

GD: That I’m not sure, Mike. He bought that house. It was the Richardson place in Santa Barbara, and he must have bought that very soon after the earthquake because he didn’t have that house with my own mother.

MC: Because he also built the house that the Gabrielsons live in now, the second house, that he and that woman that you mentioned earlier came over to decorate.

GD: Elsie DeWolfe.

MC: Yes. You said he built that also after the earthquake.

GD: Yes, those are all built, I’m quite sure, but that I couldn’t vouch for completely.

MC: But then after the earthquake when the house on Van Ness was dynamited, did he live in Ross fulltime until another house was built in San Francisco, or –

GD: I think he married very soon after the earthquake. So then he would have lived in Ross, and then they bought the house in Santa Barbara very soon after that, a lovely place.

CE: Why Santa Barbara, I wonder?

GD: Well, you know Santa Barbara is a great place for older people to go.

CE: Well, that’s true.

GD: It was a – Many Chicago people came out there and built, and Santa Barbara was so beautiful in those days. And there was a very gay little set in Santa Barbara, and then there was a great set of older people who went there.

MC: But in the meantime did he ever buy or live in another house in San Francisco after the one that was dynamited?

GD: No, no.

MC: So after that happened, he lived full time in Ross until he moved to Santa Barbara?

GD: Yes, that was it, yes.

CE: Did you visit him down there, Genevieve?

GD: Oh, yes, a dollar, too.

CE: Down there?

GD: Yes, I’d get a dollar down there but I used to stay there a little longer.

CE: You’d think it would be worth two dollars, considering the distance.

GD: It may have been two dollars but I’m not sure. But I used to go down there. It wasn’t her fault. She never had children. She was an old maid, and she just – She just didn’t –

CE: Was she a beauty or something?

GD: No, just money, I think. She was awfully nice, beautifully educated, had a lovely singing voice and she sang at the drop of a hat, and she was a terribly nice person. But she just wasn’t used to children. And I can see that now, you know, if you’re a certain age and you haven’t had children.

MC: What did that do to Henry Bothin’s love of children? Did he continue to have the same way with children afterwards?

GD: Not quite as interested. He always loved children.

MC: Did he do anything for children down in Santa Barbara?

GD: No, I don’t think he did anything. But all his real estate, everything he had – Then he went into real estate in a big way in Santa Barbara, and then everything he had in Santa Barbara he left to the Bothin Helping Fund.

MC: Which was then set up with you as one of the original trustees?

GD: Yes, I was one of the original trustees. I think I was Vice President.

CE: What was the mission of this foundation?

GD: Well, it’s a foundation now in San Francisco called the Bothin Foundation. And he left a million dollars to that. Of course it’s far more than that now, and it was just a charity.

MC: And incidentally, its primary goal, always was until a year ago, to fund and keep up Arequipa.

GD: In those days it was one of the first foundations. It was started in about 1912, if I’m not mistaken. And in those days he said, “Just anybody that you can be of help to, this is the money you use.” And, of course now, foundations, they watch you like a hawk, and you can’t do it to individuals. You have to do it very carefully to, for buildings and hospitals.

CE: Well, we have an experience in our own county, the Beryl Buck Foundation.

GD: Well, yes, I just heard that and that’s an enormous foundation. What she left is wonderful. Because I know, I had a most heated argument with Herman Phleger, who’s a lawyer, and I said, “You’re going to get a lot of money from Mrs. Buck who died.” And he said, “No. Marin County is going to get it.” And I said, “You’re crazy.” Well, we had a big thing, but Mrs. Buck – But it was also the Bucks who lived in Woodside, and they left – And when you have a fight with Herman Phleger you really have to know your business. He really is quite a person. I shall never forget, I sat next to him at a dinner a lady in Ross gave, and for no rhyme or reason in the world I said, “You know, I think that the Hanna will is the most terrible thing I have ever known.” I believe Mrs. Hanna left 38 million. I think the family got ten million. It all went to lawyers and all that. And he said, “Oh, do you think so?” And I said, “Yes, I certainly do.” He said, “Well, I was her lawyer.” So, we let that go. Then for no rhyme or reason I said, “Wasn’t Mrs. Hearst a stinker not to let Mr. Hearst marry Marion Davies?” Because Marion Davies married him purely for money, and then I think she really loved him and I think she was a wonderful person. She was an old drunk, but I think she was wonderful and he adored her. And he said, “Oh, you feel that way? I was her lawyer.” Then to end up my conversation I said, “I think Mr. Nixon did the most wonderful thing in China.” He said, “Do you? I can’t stand him!”

CE: You were making points that day.

GD: But you know, we’ve become the greatest friends because I always say when I – “What can I do today with you?” and we’d go right on and we have a very good time.

CE: Genevieve, did you ever visit the Hearst place up in Wyntoon?

GD: Yes, I did. I was always interested in that place at Wyntoon because my Grandfather Whittier had it first.

CE: He had it first?

GD: Yes, he had it first, and he adored it and loved it, and then the Wheelers came in on that. I don’t know whether he owned the place, or whether he rented it, but he was a great fisherman, adored fishing. And the fishing, he considered, got rather poor there and then he went ten miles down the river and got four miles of river which was called squatters rights, you know. In those days you could – And then he got awfully interested in that property up there. But what Miss Hearst did to Wyntoon, I think, was perfectly lovely. I mean, I went up there.

CE: Did you ever see photographs of it, Michael?

MC: I never did.

CE: Like a Bavarian chalet.

GD: And then I went up there and stayed with Mr. Hearst and Marion Davies, and then Harry Crocker at that time was looking after – I mean, Mr. Hearst had him there all day. He really became the court jester. First for Charlie Chaplin, and then for Mr. Hearst, and he was – Henry Crocker’s son and his sister now is Mary Julia Sutton. But he was the most attractive young man. When he went to college he was considered the most popular man. Then when he came back to California, he just got in with that Hollywood crowd, and just got interested in that, and he was just the court jester down there.

CE: Genevieve, let’s get back to you and your life. You said earlier you had – When did you come out?

GD: 1915.

CE: Where did you do this?

GD: I did it, I think, at the Fairmont Hotel. My grandfather did it for me, gave me thé dansant.

CE: Describe a little bit of what it was like for those people who have never seen such an affair.

GD: Oh, I don’t know. I think – In those days if you were a good dancer you had an awfully good time. But I mean, they had these, thé dansants. I think they were cheaper to give than a ball, and you danced. You got there in the afternoon about four, and then you danced, and then you had a kind of a supper. I really don’t remember that much.

CE: Not too much. But you were what, about sixteen?

GD: Oh, no, I was about eighteen or nineteen. Because I didn’t marry until I was 23. And then, in those days, you made your debut, and then they just wanted you to get married, your family, and there was nothing else to do, just marry, and try to catch a man. I married just before the war. I married Edmonds Lyman at that time.

CE: Did you get involved in any sort of good works as following your father? What were some of your outlets?

GD: Oh, yes. I was very interested in the Children’s Hospital. My mother was one of the founders of that and I was always very interested, and very much interested in the auxiliary, and I was the president of that for quite a number of years.

CE: Where were you living then?

GD: My father gave me a house down here. It was $28,000, He said, “You’re –” What is that saying? “You’re bleeding the beet?” Oh, he thought I was terribly extravagant. $28,000.

CE: Bleeding the –

GD: Yes, what is that thing? Bleeding the beet, or something like that?

CE: Blood from a turnip?

GD: Yes, I guess that’s it.

CE: So you lived down here when you were married, then?

GD: Yes, I lived down here. I lived down here, you see. I lived here always. So that’s why Ross is really –

CE: Where did you go to school? May I ask?

GD: I went first to Miss West’s School on Van Ness Avenue, and then I went to Miss West’s School when it moved, after the fire, up on Scott Street, and then I went to Burke’s School for a time, and then I went to Miss Bennett’s in Milbrook, New York.

CE: Do you remember Katherine Burke?

GD: No, I don’t, I just – Oh! Katherine Burke I knew very well. She was a delightful, wonderful person.

CE: They tell me that she and, oh, possibly Mrs. Stanwood at Hamlin’s and possibly Katherine Branson are a breed of headmistress that they don’t make any more.

GD: No. And then Miss Murrison’s –

CE: Miss Murrison’s School. Did Doris go there, too, Doris Schmiedell?

GD: I guess she did. I knew Doris and Betty and Teddy in my younger days.

CE: Over in Ross?

GD: Yes. Then when I came down here to live I didn’t see much of them. Now I see a lot of Betty. I don’t see Doris much.

CE: Do you consider yourself a Peninsula woman?

GD: Oh, I suppose I do. I suppose I do

CE: Or a San Francisco lady? Peninsula?

GD: But I always hate the idea when they call this Hillsborough. I don’t know. It’s kind of a snooty name. It used to be San Mateo. I lived in San Mateo. And San Mateo, Burlingame – People knew if you went to Europe where you lived if you said Hillsborough. Hillsborough was just cut out, a certain tract of houses, and given us less of a tax to pay. And it was just really snooty. And then after the places got cut up, people go, you see them in shops, and they say, “Where do you live?” “I live in Hillsborough.” And they act awfully swell about it, but I mean, there’s nothing swell about it, in my opinion.

CE: Did you know Ross is considered the Hillsborough of Marin County?

GD: Well, there you are. I guess it is.

CE: But it really doesn’t compare, in a way. It has a beauty and vastness.

GD: Oh, I think beauty. I think Ross is the most beautiful place. I think the weather – You get twice as much rain as we do down here.

CE: Bigger drops.

GD: But I think, as far as beauty goes, there’s no comparison. Because I think it’s very ugly down here. The trip couldn’t be uglier down, and I think it’s very ugly.

CE: Well, you go down 280.

GD: Now, I know I live next to the Hearst House here. I went through all the – Patty Hearst, when she was kidnapped –

CE: That’s right next door to you?

GD: Yes, that’s right on this side. But let me tell you something interesting about it. It’s been an unlucky house. The Ed Tobins built it and lived there and raised their two children and had a wonderful life. Then, after they died – I don’t think anybody has lived in it except for Hearst more than three years. They move in, they have a baby, and then after the baby stops crying they get a divorce, about two years old. And when the Hearsts had the kidnapping they sold it for $250,000. Then it went three years and sold it for $500,000, then it went three years and sold for $700,000. Then it went right on up the thing and the last people that bought it here paid – Because they’re just asking now – You’ll be interested to hear, yesterday, I went through it. They’re asking $2,200,000 for it now. And these last people bought it for a $1,200,000 and they put in about a million. They put a slate roof which cost $140,000. They have no money and now they have moved out and the house is half finished, and it’s up for $2,200,000. And it has half the land of this place because this used to go down to the Polo Field, and then Mother sold it when she gave it to me. She kept it and built that house there and –

CE: Behind the reflecting pool?

GD: So I have just an acre and a half.

MC: That’s the one I remember because we spent a summer down there, right after your mother died.

GD: Yes.

MC: I also remember very distinctly being in there when your mother did die, that same day.

GD: Yes.

CE: When did your mother die?

GD: I knew you were going to ask me that. I never know dates.

MC: 1954.

GD: 1954, yes.

MC: And she was 94 years old.

GD: She was, I think, 92, wasn’t she?

MC: 92 or 94. She was a delightful lady and she drove right up until the year that she died.

GD: Oh, let me tell you, she was astonishing.

MC: Fabulous.

GD: Loved men, didn’t care a hoot for women, but was terribly attractive.

CE: I imagine you’ve had some delightful parties in this beautiful home.

GD: Yes, it really – I love this home. I just adore it.

CE: I mean, this has been a sixty-plus year experience for you, this house, hasn’t it?

GD: Oh, yes. I mean, think how long I’ve had it. Mother gave it to me about 50 years ago and I just adore it. It’s a very happy house and I’m just – I’ve done a lot to it. And then I married Andre De Limur and he only lived five and a half years so then when I came back I did a lot to it because I realized I was going to live here for the rest of my life, and I – It’s too big for me, but I just love it. In winter I live upstairs because I – I don’t live downstairs so much.

MC: I might add, incidentally, a while back you asked Grandmummy what kind of good work she had done.

CE: Yes.

MC: The Bothin Helping Fund is a very active foundation in San Francisco and you’ve been on the Board now since what, 1912?

GD: Yes, since we started.

MC: And has given quite a bit of direction to the Foundation, which has been active for seventy years.

CE: Do you have your Board meetings down here, or do you go to the city?

GD: Oh, no we have them in town. We have them in town. And it has been wonderfully well-run, and Mike’s younger brother runs it and has done a superb job, I consider. Don’t you?

MC: I think he has.

GD: Oh, I do. I think he’s been a dream. And I think we’ve given – We used to give big amounts. Now we’ve cut it down to smaller amounts, so having so many charities that don’t get any help from anywhere else, which I think is wise to do.

CE: Do you enjoy, Genevieve, coming to San Francisco and –

GD: Yes, but you know, I’m 87, and I’m not so hot now. I mean I get terribly tired.

CE: You’ve seen many changes, and not all of them good, I’m certain.

GD: Oh, I’ve seen changes, not good, but I think San Francisco – And then I lived in Washington five and a half years. My husband died 10 years ago, and I loved Washington, but I think there’s no place like California. I think after you’ve once been raised here, I think we’re the luckiest people in the world. And I say California, I mean right around here.

CE: The Bay Area.

GD: And Hillsborough.

CE: Genevieve, I can’t thank you enough for allowing Michael to bring us down here and sharing some of your reminiscences of Ross Valley. It’s been very enriching and also it’s been a pleasure and a delight to meet you.

GD: Well, it’s been very nice and I’ve enjoyed having you and your sister more than I can possibly say.

CE: Thank you.

GD: Absolutely, and you’re sweet to have come.