1915-08-11: ​​~TOUR STOPS~---images---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
​This page is not a currently a stop in any Tour.  But it's still worth your attention!
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1915-08-11: ​tour stops---~IMAGES~---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1915-08-11: ​tour stops---images---audio---~TRANSCRIPT~---notes---links---site navigation
Hotel Centrella, Pacific Grove Cal., Aug. 11th

​Dear Eva:

This is the first time since I arrived in California that I have had time to write.  I have taken in the sights diligently - the city of San Francisco, the Exposition the American Association not to mention our relatives.  Besides that I have had to scratch flea bites.  They are worse than mosquitoes and they bite in more inconvenient places.

We arrived here at two o’clock today and have had a few moments of leisure.  This isn’t much of a hotel - it is more of a country boarding house.  The one meal that we have had was very good.  They seemed to have a queer custom out here of serving the salad before the meat course.  I have encountered it three times, first at Cousin Melissa’s.  They began dinner with a salad, but had no soup.  At the West Point Inn on Mount Tamalpais they had the salad just after the soup and here we began with the salad and then had the soup.  It is all right when you know what is coming.  

Chadbourne’s

We spent three nights at Cousin Melissa’s.  Did Mother tell you about her?  Her mother was Grandma Provines’s sister, Aunt Betsy Stephenson.  Her daughter, Mrs. Scott, “Dottie”, and her two granddaughters live with her.  Ada is nineteen.  She is the one who won the Remington medal for her proficiency in typewriting.  I asked her about typewriters and she recommends the L C Smith and the Underwood.  She prefers the Underwood for correspondence but says that the L C Smith is better for stenciling, carbon copies, and for writing full pages.  Tell Will that she says the type arms such as his ought to be cleaned every day - it makes the writing look better.  Ada is pretty and very nice.  She is a hustler.  Cousin Melissa is like Aunt Mary but doesn’t look like her.  She is thin.  She is lively and quick and jolly like Aunt Mary.  Dottie shows marks of being an only child.  She really doesn’t seem as grown up as her two daughters.  That may be because she isn’t well.  She had an appendectomy and a gall-stone-ictomy last winter and isn’t over it yet.  They were very anxious to have us stay with them.  We could hardly get away.  We went back to San Francisco last night and stayed with Mrs. Morten.  She sent her love to you and Will and Margaret.

I had a fine time at the Science meetings.  I saw Dr. Coulter for a few minutes and he was so nice I almost hugged him.  There were not a great many that I knew.  The first person that I saw was Mr. Sackett.  We had some good times together.  We went to the reception to the A.A.A.S. and danced the whole evening.  I went to the Botanists dinner with him and had a good time.  We had a little table to ourselves in a little room behind the toast-master’s seat.

I saw Miss Smith for Smith College and spent part of a day with her at the meetings.  She hinted around to find out about the trouble we had had at Mt. Holyoke this spring so I told her all about it.  She said they were very curious about it at Smith as they had heard only Miss Roberts’s side.  Dr. Gauny said about it after hearing her that he was sure there were two sides to the story and he knew that Miss Roberts was a good deal of a politician.  It seems that the Smith people are not very fond of her.

We spent one day at Stanford.  Dr. Campbell entertained all the botanists at luncheon - a hundred of us.  The meetings were very good except the first day.

I attended the Exposition whenever time permitted.  Anyone can see that I did not go as often as Mother - my nose isn’t as red.  The bright sunshine here is giving Mother a fine color but it is also taking some of the skin off of her nose.  We spent more time on the outside than in looking at exhibits.  The grounds and the buildings are wonderful, by day or by night.

I have bought my present - a silver chain with amethyst pendants - the amethysts are pale.  It is very pretty.  I did not buy anything else except a wooden napkin ring.  I bought some photographs of trees at a store in San Francisco.  We spent so little time in the buildings that we weren’t tempted much.  If you send mail before or by the 17th send it to the Auditorium hotel in Los Angeles, after that to the Auditorium hotel in Denver Col.

With love to all the family,

Alma
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1915-08-11​: ​​​tour stops---images---audio---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
​1.
Hotel Centrella, Pacific Grove Cal., Aug. 11th
Pacific Grove is a coastal city in Monterey County, California.  The Centrella Inn is still in existence and is a National Historic Landmark, dating back to 1889.  If I’m ever in California, I want to go there.

I didn't think much about why Alma would have been in Pacific Grove, but I figured out while working on a Fernbank News that she was probably visiting the Hopkins Marine Station there.
2.
​We spent three nights at Cousin Melissa’s.  Did Mother tell you about her?  Her mother was Grandma Provines’s sister, Aunt Betsy Stephenson.
Aunt Betsy (Elizabeth Gracey Stephenson) and her daughter Melissa Stephenson/Stevenson Chadbourne are in Barb’s genealogy.  Since Aunt Betsy's mother was a sister of Grandma Jane Gracey Provines, Aunt Betsy's daughter Melissa was Mama Margaret's first cousin and Alma's first cousin once removed.  Aunt Betsy was born in 1813, and Melissa is 1841-1925, so she would be age 74 at this time, three years older than her cousin Mama Margaret.  Barb has four other offspring listed for Aunt Betsy.


3.
Cousin Melissa is like Aunt Mary but doesn’t look like her.  She is thin.  She is lively and quick and jolly like Aunt Mary.
​Aunt Mary was Mama Margaret's older sister Mary Provines Hicks, who died in 1909.  It's nice to get a description of Aunt Mary.  It makes her sound like St Nicholas.


4.
We went back to San Francisco last night and stayed with Mrs. Morten.  She sent her love to you and Will and Margaret.
I think there's something more about Mrs. Morten's friendship with Will's first wife Margaret, but I need to find it again.


5.
She hinted around to find out about the trouble we had had at Mt. Holyoke this spring so I told her all about it.  She said they were very curious about it at Smith as they had heard only Miss Roberts’s side.  Dr. Gauny said about it after hearing her that he was sure there were two sides to the story and he knew that Miss Roberts was a good deal of a politician.  It seems that the Smith people are not very fond of her.
Miss Roberts may be Edith Adelaide Roberts.  Wikipedia says:
Edith Adelaide Roberts (1881 – 1977) was an American botanist studying plant physiology and a pioneer in plant ecology. She created the first ecological laboratory in the United States, promoted natural landscaping along with Elsa Rehmann, and proved that plants were the main source of vitamin A.
and​
Roberts worked as instructor to an associate professor at Mount Holyoke College from 1915 to 1917, when she was employed by the United States Department of Agriculture as an extension worker.

6.
I had a fine time at the Science meetings.
Googling on "science meetings san francisco 1915" gave me:
American Association for the Advancement of Science--Berkeley and San Francisco. First meeting on the west coast. August 2-7, 1915.

7.
I saw Dr. Coulter for a few minutes and he was so nice I almost hugged him.
Wikipedia says:
John Merle Coulter, Ph. D. (November 20, 1851 – December 23, 1928) was an American botanist and educator.  In his career in education administration, Coulter is notable for serving as the president of Indiana University and Lake Forest College and the head of the Department of Botany at the University of Chicago.

8.
The first person that I saw was Mr. Sackett.  We had some good times together.
Mr. Sackett was a friend from Oberlin.  I've listed him in the Non-family page for Ohio folks.
​
9.
Dr. Campbell entertained all the botanists at luncheon - a hundred of us.  The meetings were very good except the first day.
Dr. Campbell sounds like this person in Wikipedia:
Douglas Houghton Campbell (December 19, 1859 – February 24, 1953) was an American botanist and university professor.He was one of the 15 founding professors at Stanford University. His death was described as "the end of an era of a group of great plant morphologists."​
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