Letter from Alma to Eva: 8/16/1915
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Alma, in Los Angeles, California with her mother, writes to her youngest sister Eva, who is keeping house for Will and his toddler daughter Maggie in Savannah, Georgia.
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Los Angeles, Cal., Aug. 16, 1915
Dear Eva:
We arrived here from San Diego this evening and found your letter written on the “Angler.” I think it is a good thing that you had a trip between the packing and settling. We haven’t had our trunk since last Sunday - Sunday a week ago but I expect to see it tomorrow morning. It isn’t lost but we have been circulating so rapidly that we haven’t used it but have lived out of our bags. We had a very tiresome trip to Los Angeles last Friday. We left Pacific Grove at ten in the morning and did not arrive in Los Angeles until eleven at night (we were an hour late). After it was too dark to look out of the window Mother was very much bored. She complained that there was nothing to do - we couldn’t even watch the porter wake up berths and wonder whose he would wake next. We left the next morning for San Diego. We had a very nice stopping place there - Hotel Arno - at a very modest price. Some people we met on the train going to Grand Canyon recommended it. We took an auto ride to Point Loma - it wasn’t a “rubber neck wagon” it was a new Dodge car. I discussed it with the man who drove it while we were waiting for the two ladies who went with us to come out of “Ramona’s Marriage Place”. (We stopped there to see the old Spanish House and Mother and I were out in ten minutes but these two ladies went to a lecture and kept us waiting an hour. The man who took us was rather hot about it - because it kept him late so that he couldn’t meet a train.) He likes the Dodge very much and says that it is an economical car to run - he has had it only two weeks. Before this he has had a Maxwell and two Buicks. It was very comfortable except when we struck some rough roads, and there it bounced me rather high.
Mother and I went to the Blue Moon for her birthday dinner. We had fish, chicken, potatoes + tomatoes. Mother had pie and I had figs for dessert. As you see I am eating the fruit of the country. I have also tried other things. I have had tamales several times, and enchiladas several times. I tried chili concarne once and liked it except that it is rather too hot for me. I have eaten many kinds of fish but I haven’t seen any sand dads. I am making up for the strawberries I missed by going to Savannah in June. I suppose you do not need to be told that Mother is sticking to ham and eggs and such staples. I always get her to try some of my ventures but I can’t raise much enthusiasm.
I almost forgot to tell you how different we found San Diego from Philadelphia. There are signs along the streets saying, “Danger, lower your Klaxon.”
The Exposition in San Diego is so small in comparison with San Francisco that we felt that we could do it up quickly. The goods are very beautiful. This morning we went to Coronado and sat on the porch of the swell hotel.
Mother and I are getting anxious to start home. We are bursting with the wonders and beauties that we have seen. We will leave here Friday or Saturday of this week I think. Now that Mother knows Mitch Hanlin’s address she is in even more of a hurry. Write to us at Chicago care of Mrs. Louis Lindstadt 1132 East 45th St. We will be there about Aug. 26th or 27th. With love to all -
Alma
Dear Eva:
We arrived here from San Diego this evening and found your letter written on the “Angler.” I think it is a good thing that you had a trip between the packing and settling. We haven’t had our trunk since last Sunday - Sunday a week ago but I expect to see it tomorrow morning. It isn’t lost but we have been circulating so rapidly that we haven’t used it but have lived out of our bags. We had a very tiresome trip to Los Angeles last Friday. We left Pacific Grove at ten in the morning and did not arrive in Los Angeles until eleven at night (we were an hour late). After it was too dark to look out of the window Mother was very much bored. She complained that there was nothing to do - we couldn’t even watch the porter wake up berths and wonder whose he would wake next. We left the next morning for San Diego. We had a very nice stopping place there - Hotel Arno - at a very modest price. Some people we met on the train going to Grand Canyon recommended it. We took an auto ride to Point Loma - it wasn’t a “rubber neck wagon” it was a new Dodge car. I discussed it with the man who drove it while we were waiting for the two ladies who went with us to come out of “Ramona’s Marriage Place”. (We stopped there to see the old Spanish House and Mother and I were out in ten minutes but these two ladies went to a lecture and kept us waiting an hour. The man who took us was rather hot about it - because it kept him late so that he couldn’t meet a train.) He likes the Dodge very much and says that it is an economical car to run - he has had it only two weeks. Before this he has had a Maxwell and two Buicks. It was very comfortable except when we struck some rough roads, and there it bounced me rather high.
Mother and I went to the Blue Moon for her birthday dinner. We had fish, chicken, potatoes + tomatoes. Mother had pie and I had figs for dessert. As you see I am eating the fruit of the country. I have also tried other things. I have had tamales several times, and enchiladas several times. I tried chili concarne once and liked it except that it is rather too hot for me. I have eaten many kinds of fish but I haven’t seen any sand dads. I am making up for the strawberries I missed by going to Savannah in June. I suppose you do not need to be told that Mother is sticking to ham and eggs and such staples. I always get her to try some of my ventures but I can’t raise much enthusiasm.
I almost forgot to tell you how different we found San Diego from Philadelphia. There are signs along the streets saying, “Danger, lower your Klaxon.”
The Exposition in San Diego is so small in comparison with San Francisco that we felt that we could do it up quickly. The goods are very beautiful. This morning we went to Coronado and sat on the porch of the swell hotel.
Mother and I are getting anxious to start home. We are bursting with the wonders and beauties that we have seen. We will leave here Friday or Saturday of this week I think. Now that Mother knows Mitch Hanlin’s address she is in even more of a hurry. Write to us at Chicago care of Mrs. Louis Lindstadt 1132 East 45th St. We will be there about Aug. 26th or 27th. With love to all -
Alma
1915-08-16: tour stops---images---audio---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
We arrived here from San Diego this evening and found your letter written on the “Angler.”
Was it the Angler? Alma's handwriting is not helping. Either way, I don't understand.
2.
After it was too dark to look out of the window Mother was very much bored. She complained that there was nothing to do - we couldn’t even watch the porter wake up berths and wonder whose he would wake next.
I love Mama Margaret (despite the fact that she died 30 years before I was born) and I love getting a glimpse of her in one of her less lovable moments.
3.
We took an auto ride to Point Loma - it wasn’t a “rubber neck wagon” it was a new Dodge car. I discussed it with the man who drove it while we were waiting for the two ladies who went with us to come out of “Ramona’s Marriage Place”.
Would a "rubber neck wagon" be a vintage 1915 tour bus? At any rate, Alma would have known that Will was interested in buying a car, so naturally she discussed the car with the man who drove it.
4.
“Ramona’s Marriage Place”. (We stopped there to see the old Spanish House and Mother and I were out in ten minutes but these two ladies went to a lecture and kept us waiting an hour.
Wikipedia says:
The Casa de Estudillo, also known as the Estudillo House, is a historic adobe house in San Diego, California, United States.
In 1887, a front-page article of the San Diego Union declared the Estudillo home to be "Ramona's Marriage Place", saying, "To sleepy Old Town (the house) is known as the Estudillos, but the outside world knows it as the marriage place of 'Ramona.'" This was despite Jackson never having visited the house, but in the novel, Ramona was married in a "long, low adobe building which had served no mean purpose in the old Presidio days, but was now fallen in decay; and all its rooms, except those occupied by the Father, had been long uninhabited". Despite the novel being a work of fiction, visitors flocked to the building thinking it was the actual location of Ramona's marriage. To be clear, the Union did not simply invent this story; a tourist had already scratched the name "Alessandro" (Ramona's husband in the novel) in one of the walls. The caretaker decided to capitalize on the attendant publicity and began selling off pieces of the house as souvenirs. Naturally, the building's condition began to deteriorate rapidly.”
5.
Mother and I went to the Blue Moon for her birthday dinner.
Mama Margaret turned 71 on August 15.
6,
I have eaten many kinds of fish but I haven’t seen any sand dads.
This must be sand dabs.
7.
I am making up for the strawberries I missed by going to Savannah in June.
So, at the beginning of the trip, Alma travelled down to Savannah and met Mama Margaret there, and also saw Will and little Margaret.
8.
There are signs along the streets saying, “Danger, lower your Klaxon.”
Again, Alma's handwriting isn't helping. Something about a Klaxon, anyway.
9.
This morning we went to Coronado and sat on the porch of the swell hotel.
The Hotel Del Coronado, where much of the great 1959 movie Some Like It Hot was filmed. In 1944 or 1945, when Will's son Roger was a naval officer in the Pacific, he and his wife Edie spent some time there. She loved it, so I'm sure she talked with Aunt Alma about it.
10.
Now that Mother knows Mitch Hanlin’s address she is in even more of a hurry.
Mitchell Hanlin must have been a Gracey cousin, descended from a sibling of Mama Margaret's mother, Jane Gracey Provines. Mama Margaret and Alma did see him in Denver - see:
11.
Write to us at Chicago care of Mrs. Louis Lindstadt 1132 East 45th St. We will be there about Aug. 26th or 27th
This is cousin Amy Provines, born 1894, a daughter of Mama Margaret's brother Charles Amos Provines 1859-1911. In Alma's August 25 letter she didn't seem so sure that they would be visiting Amy.
We arrived here from San Diego this evening and found your letter written on the “Angler.”
Was it the Angler? Alma's handwriting is not helping. Either way, I don't understand.
2.
After it was too dark to look out of the window Mother was very much bored. She complained that there was nothing to do - we couldn’t even watch the porter wake up berths and wonder whose he would wake next.
I love Mama Margaret (despite the fact that she died 30 years before I was born) and I love getting a glimpse of her in one of her less lovable moments.
3.
We took an auto ride to Point Loma - it wasn’t a “rubber neck wagon” it was a new Dodge car. I discussed it with the man who drove it while we were waiting for the two ladies who went with us to come out of “Ramona’s Marriage Place”.
Would a "rubber neck wagon" be a vintage 1915 tour bus? At any rate, Alma would have known that Will was interested in buying a car, so naturally she discussed the car with the man who drove it.
4.
“Ramona’s Marriage Place”. (We stopped there to see the old Spanish House and Mother and I were out in ten minutes but these two ladies went to a lecture and kept us waiting an hour.
Wikipedia says:
The Casa de Estudillo, also known as the Estudillo House, is a historic adobe house in San Diego, California, United States.
In 1887, a front-page article of the San Diego Union declared the Estudillo home to be "Ramona's Marriage Place", saying, "To sleepy Old Town (the house) is known as the Estudillos, but the outside world knows it as the marriage place of 'Ramona.'" This was despite Jackson never having visited the house, but in the novel, Ramona was married in a "long, low adobe building which had served no mean purpose in the old Presidio days, but was now fallen in decay; and all its rooms, except those occupied by the Father, had been long uninhabited". Despite the novel being a work of fiction, visitors flocked to the building thinking it was the actual location of Ramona's marriage. To be clear, the Union did not simply invent this story; a tourist had already scratched the name "Alessandro" (Ramona's husband in the novel) in one of the walls. The caretaker decided to capitalize on the attendant publicity and began selling off pieces of the house as souvenirs. Naturally, the building's condition began to deteriorate rapidly.”
5.
Mother and I went to the Blue Moon for her birthday dinner.
Mama Margaret turned 71 on August 15.
6,
I have eaten many kinds of fish but I haven’t seen any sand dads.
This must be sand dabs.
7.
I am making up for the strawberries I missed by going to Savannah in June.
So, at the beginning of the trip, Alma travelled down to Savannah and met Mama Margaret there, and also saw Will and little Margaret.
8.
There are signs along the streets saying, “Danger, lower your Klaxon.”
Again, Alma's handwriting isn't helping. Something about a Klaxon, anyway.
9.
This morning we went to Coronado and sat on the porch of the swell hotel.
The Hotel Del Coronado, where much of the great 1959 movie Some Like It Hot was filmed. In 1944 or 1945, when Will's son Roger was a naval officer in the Pacific, he and his wife Edie spent some time there. She loved it, so I'm sure she talked with Aunt Alma about it.
10.
Now that Mother knows Mitch Hanlin’s address she is in even more of a hurry.
Mitchell Hanlin must have been a Gracey cousin, descended from a sibling of Mama Margaret's mother, Jane Gracey Provines. Mama Margaret and Alma did see him in Denver - see:
11.
Write to us at Chicago care of Mrs. Louis Lindstadt 1132 East 45th St. We will be there about Aug. 26th or 27th
This is cousin Amy Provines, born 1894, a daughter of Mama Margaret's brother Charles Amos Provines 1859-1911. In Alma's August 25 letter she didn't seem so sure that they would be visiting Amy.
1915-08-16: tour stops---images---audio---transcript---notes---~LINKS~---site navigation
DOCUMENT LISTS FOR PEOPLE:
- ALMA: DOCUMENTS ----- Outgoing
- EVA: DOCUMENTS ----- Incoming
- MAMA MARGARET: DOCUMENTS ----- Related
- PROVINESES & GRACEYS: DOCUMENTS ----- Mitchell Hanlin, Amy Provines Lindstadt
OTHER DOCUMENT LISTS:
- DOCUMENTS SORTED BY WHERE THEY WERE WRITTEN ----- California
- DOCUMENTS SORTED BY SOURCE ----- Barbara
- AUDIO READINGS OF THE DOCUMENTS: 1910-1919
OTHER RELATED DOCUMENTS/PAGES:
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