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Monterey and Carmel
Baum
You were down in Monterey and Carmel for several years, when Marty was teaching there.
Martinez
He only had summer classes there; that was the summer school for the California School of Arts and Crafts. He had two in Monterey
and two in Carmel. I think Monterey was 1910 and 1911, and 1913 and 1914 was in Carmel.
Baum
Well, shall we discuss Carmel in 1911 or so?
Martinez
Monterey was the art colony in the early days. We first belonged to the Monterey group — Charles Rollo Peters, Francis McComas, Armin Hansen,
the one who painted the sea so well, Boranda, who painted early California scenes, Charles Dickman, a genial character, Arnold
Genthe—they were the group. They thought nothing of Carmel.
Old Monterey was adorable then. We went down when they put the gallery in at Del Monte in 1907. In the beginning, that's where
we went to stay. For a year we went every three months and were guests at the Hotel Del Monte while the gallery was being
organized. Miss Blanche was to be the curator.
Walker
Blanche Partington?
Martinez
No, she didn't have anything to do with this. She was in San Francisco. That gallery went on for some years, until the hotel
burned down. Our group loved Monterey. The little main street when we first went down there was a combination of little Spanish
adobes and old false front pioneer stores. When I saw it again after a fifteen year absence, 1929, I
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was appalled. The beautiful adobes were gone and in their place were mediocre stores and buildings. It was an ordinary little
town.
In the meantime, Carmel which was nothing but a bunch of sand lots grew very fast and an effort was made to keep it unique,
while Monterey lost its picturesqueness. After the fire of 1906 Sterling went down and organized the big art colony there.
Monterey was ruined by the man who's putting money into it to save it now. He came with a pick and shovel and picked all the
adobes out. Now he's putting money into restoring the few of them left.
Baum
He was a developer?
Martinez
No, he was a contractor. He was a pick-and-shovel man who became a contractor in those early days.
Baum
I have Armin Hansen listed as being there.
Martinez
Yes, he was part of the group, Boranda and Dickman also.
Baum
The Bruton sisters?
Martinez
I knew them casually.
Baum
Lucy Pierce?
Martinez
Oh, I knew her well. She was a mediocre talent, a pupil of Marty's, if I may say so.
Baum
I had an idea there was a gathering of people.
Martinez
No, not in the early days, not when we first went down there. Charles Warren Stoddard — everyone loved him.
Baum
He was Monterey, not Carmel?
Martinez
Yes, he was Monterey.
It was when we first went down to stay with Peters that I met
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Charles Warren Stoddard. I had told Charles Rollo Peters that I wanted to meet Stoddard, so he brought him over to his studio.
Charles Warren Stoddard was one of those sweet and beautiful characters that one never forgets. He was quite frail at that
time; he died a year later. I think he was about 67. As I was going to be a writer I had trained myself for observation and
a fine memory. Also, it was an advantage to be a spectacular blonde, there's no getting over that. So Stoddard sat and held
my hand all evening and told me stories of the South Seas. In the meantime I studied him carefully. I remember that slightly
quavering voice and those beautiful blue eyes. He was fairly large and I memorized the look of him, the sound of his voice
— a quavering, slightly high voice, but with an irresistible appeal in it, which became stronger and richer as he talked.
That was the first time I saw him. The second time, almost a year later, was at the house which they now call the Stoddard
House, now demolished for the square in Monterey. We went there once. He was still not very well and he was in a sort of monk's
costume and sitting up in bed.
We saw him once more in 1909, two years later. Peters took us to see him and though he was in bed, pleaded with Charlie to
bring us in. I remember the darkened room. He was so pleased to see visitors. He was a gentle person, there was not an aggressive
thing about Stoddard. He was famous for his sweetness and gentleness and charm, and he had it still. He died a few months
after we saw him then.
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He had a blood clot in the leg and oftentimes, on the street, he would fall and would have to be picked up. I heard some very
prominent person say he was a drunkard because he was always falling in the gutter. I was horrified. Peters went into a rage
and explained that Stoddard had this thrombosis in his leg and because of it his leg would suddenly give way under him. He
was not a drinker at all, he sipped a little wine only. He used to love to be at this little old Spanish cafe where all the
artists met — McComas and Marty and Peters and Miller and others — would sit there and have wine of, if Peters preferred,
something stronger, he'd have his liquor and the rest would have their wine, while they talked for hours. Joaquin Miller was
often with them.
Walker
It's pretty obvious from Stoddard's diaries that he was a homosexual. I wondered if this was well known to the people around
him?
Martinez
He was so lovable and gentle we never thought of him as that. A San Francisco paper sent Stoddard down to the South Seas to
get material for them. He turned "native" and they had to send someone down to bring him back. Stoddard was the center of
the group there in Monterey.
Have you seen the letters between London and Stoddard? Norris of Carmel had those letters — I saw them. I was told he sold
them to the University of California. They're really charming, especially London's. He was a young boy then, drawn to Stoddard
the writer.
Walker
You said that Stoddard was wearing a monk's robe when you went over to see him. Do you remember what color it was?
Martinez
Oh, sort of a grey thing. He became a Franciscan, they call it "third order", and one can wear the habit. He went to Santa
Barbara and tried
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to enter the order but he was too ill and old, so they made him an "honorary" sort of a monk. [Laughter] He lived there for
a while with them, and after he came out he wore the habit just the same.
Walker
He didn't have a skull on his desk, though?
Martinez
I didn't see that. The room was a bit dark.
Walker
Herbert Heron has stayed in Carmel right up to the present, hasn't he?
Martinez
Oh, yes. He has always lived here and loves to talk of the early days.
Walker
Who is Fladin Heron?
Martinez
I don't know. I knew only Herbert Heron, the poet.
Many years later when I recalled a party given in his honor by George Sterling at the Pine Inn, Heron couldn't remember it.
There must have been a feud later to blur his memory, or erase it! He was a young poet then, a blonde boy with curly hair
and an adorable little wife with a tiny baby in her arms. She was so petite, with a handful of blonde short curls and a pale
blue dress of frills on frills like a pine cone. Quite a crowd was there — Harry Leon Wilson, Helen Green ( she wrote At the Actors' Boarding House), who came with Wilson — John Kenneth Turner and his wife, also a writer, Jimmy Hopper, and others I have forgotten. It was
quite a crowd.
Walker
Wilson had had two wives already.
Martinez
Well, Helen Green was one of the most irresistible women I've ever known, a Southerner. Her father was a famous Southerner
and had a string of fine race horses. She travelled all over the world with him with his race horses. She was very beautiful,
she had one of those deep southern voices, an exquisite accent, and a vast amount of southern charm.
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I got the story from the Newberrys. When her father was in England, they used to go to the biggest hotels. Papa was a lovable
alcoholic by the way. (This was Helen Green, she married a Dutch engineer named Van Campen in Alaska.) While they were there
in the de luxe English hotel, she heard a great uproar in the room next to hers, heard the scurrying of feet, alarmed voices,
and thought it sounded familiar. She put her head out. It seems in the room next to hers was a famous duke who was having
an alcoholic seizure and was dying. The servants were in a panic, hysterically trying to get a doctor when Helen walked right
into the room. She was only sixteen and said with authority, "My father's an alcoholic and I know what to do." She ordered
them to put him in the tub of hot water and she brought him out of the seizure, put him back to bed, and when the doctor arrived
and the duke came to, the doctor told him the girl had saved his life.
The duke was enchanted with this little blonde beauty. He also loved horses, so a friendship with her father worked out very
nicely. Finally one day he said to her, "I'm going to give you an opportunity that you deserve. I'm going to marry you and
take you to all the courts of Europe. Then when you're bored I'll release you and you can go back to America." So for two
years after they were married she went to all the courts of Europe, got thoroughly bored (Laughter). In the meantime, her
father was still alive, running the horses. Of course, with the influence of the Duke, he was amply taken care of. Then, at
the end of two years, whe thought she wanted to go back to America because she was bored, courts are stuffy, you know. He
gave her the divorce and gave her enough to live on for several years, and
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she went back to her father and in no time the money was gone, and her father died suddenly in the South.
Then she decided she had to do something for her living, so what to do? There was a link there I've forgotten, but she went
to a newspaper. She'd often stayed at this famous hotel in New York and she knew the telephone girls and loved to listen to
the conversations. So she started a column, on these two telephone girls in this great hotel and the sort of comments they
made, and it made a great hit. Then, on top of that, she wrote about this boarding house, a book on an actor's boarding house
where she was staying.
In the meantime, she'd met Harry Leon Wilson and he fell madly in love with her. He wanted to marry her and she wouldn't marry
him. She was tired of marriage by that time. She'd had two "cocktail marriages" and that was sufficient.
Baum
Who was the duke?
Martinez
I don't know. She didn't tell me the name. That's the only thing she left out. [Laughter] Part of the story I heard from her
and the rest from Bertha Newberry. Well, when she was recovering slowly from typhoid fever, Harry Wilson told her she ought
to go up into the wilds of Canada where she could really recover, away from the big city, and he would take care of her. She
thought it was a grand idea. So they started off. In the meantime her hair had fallen out from typhoid and she had six wigs
made. Every month one was sent up to her and the others were sent back to be redone until her hair grew.
So here he was, madly in love with her. She wasn't at all interested in him. They'd been up there about four months and he
wanted to take
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her on a trip to some fabulous place way up north. They had to have a guide, horses and a handler, and a pack outfit. Among
the guides was a very famous Indian guide who was completely familiar with the wilds. Somehow he took a dislike to Wilson.
On the way up he decided some day to bring about a battle. He was very talkative, not a silent Indian at all. It turned out
he was really a half-breed. Soon he got very objectionable and decided to be rude to Helen to gain his objective. Well, that
was too much for Harry. So they had a battle and he came out of the battle very much battered. The Indian won it. So she nursed
his bruises and while nursing him considered him a hero and fell in love with him. As soon as she warmed up, Harry turned
cool. To solve the dilemma they decided to come down on a trip to California. When they reached Carmel she realized it was
all a mistake and she didn't want to marry Harry. They were in Carmel when they decided it was over, and that was when he
met Helen Cooke. Helen Cooke and I were in some ways quite a bit alike.
Walker
She must have been very attractive, because Sinclair Lewis and Arnold Genthe both spoke of being in love with her. Was she
somewhat of a flirt?
Martinez
Very much. She gained everything she wanted, trips to New York or Washington by flirting and crying him into line.
Walker
Harry Leon Wilson later fought a duel over her. Do you remember that?
Martinez
Oh! My oldest brother, a prizefighter, was California's lightweight in those early days. When no story came out in the newspapers,
my brother wrote to Wilson, "Can I come down and give you a few lessons and that will take care of Mr. Criley for you." Wilson
wrote back how much he
― 206 ―
appreciated the offer and he would have taken it up if he were a little younger, but he thought he'd better let the matter
drop.
Walker
They went out in the early morning to fight it out with fisticuffs on Point Lobos. It hit the New York Times.
Martinez
[Laughter] Wilson was a strange sort of person. He was likable and very unlikable. Our first meeting was very unlikable. I
was about eighteen I think. Perry said, "There's a New York writer here and we want to give him a good time." Well, at that
time Marty and I used to go down to the Barbary Coast on sketching trips to the dance halls. Perry wanted to show him the
Barbary Coast. So Wilson wrote us and invited us to spend the evening in San Francisco. He said he was staying at such and
such hotel. We went first to dinner. He didn't know who I was and I didn't know him. I was talking to Fred Bechdolt on the
subject of Emile Zola. Well, I didn't think much of Zola and I was very good on airing my opinions. I saw this person opposite
me — he had a kind of a florid face, round, sour-looking, and he kept staring at me. This was Wilson. Suddenly he shook his
finger at me and he said, "You have a high school mind!" So I stared at him coldly and I said, "That may be your opinion".
I still didn't know who he was or that he was our host. So during the evening every once in a while he'd take a sour dig at
me, which didn't bother me much.
Newberry and Marty were to take him with us to the Barbary Coast. We went to the Bella Union and wound up at the Thalian.
I can tell you a lot about the Barbary Coast. One amusing episode —
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there was an English artist who had spent the afternoon painting a picture of the Ferry Tower on a canvas about six feet high
and not more than two feet wide for a commission. He started out with it under his arm and covered the whole Coast before
we left. The next day we wanted to see if he'd survived the night, because we'd left rather early, about two. In his studio
in San Francisco was the canvas and a group laughing hysterically. The entire canvas was covered with signatures of the famous
bawdy figures of the Barbary Coast, ribald sayings, songs and doggerel, and some added sketches — Spider Kelly and all the
madames on the Coast and many names we didn't know. It was simply a masterpiece. He said he was taking it back to England
as a souvenir of San Francisco. After two o'clock he couldn't remember what happened. He woke up in the morning, propped up
against a building with the canvas put carefully beside him.
Well, to go back to Harry Leon, we were his guests at the hotel, but had to get home early because we had a guest for lunch.
I said, "I've got to leave a message, what's the name of that fellow, Marty?" He mumbled, "I don't know." So I put"John Lane
Wilson" on this card and said that we expected him with the Newberrys for dinner. We went off home and had a little luncheon
for friends and then late in the afternoon Perry appeared with Wilson. He looked at me with complete astonishment — he hadn't
known who I was all evening. By that time I had heard who he was. He was considerably surprised after dinner watching the
ease with which I had handled numbers of people coming and going during the afternoon. Newberry said,
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"You should see her handle studio parties" and Wilson replied, "I think I made a mistake on that young lady". Newberry said,
"You made a very large mistake." Anyhow, Wilson became genial before the evening was over and we became very good friends.
However, I had not forgotten his insulting remarks.
I made a collection, starting with Nietzsche and Anatole France and several other famous figures of Europe on what they thought
of Zola, and seeing him a week later, remarked, "There's only one thing I hold against you, Harry, what you said about my
remarks about Zola. I can't resist showing you I'm in good company." He smiled as I went through the list and said, "You are
a terrific young person!" (Laughter) "Now we can be friends. I'm feminine to that degree that I do resent the statement of
my high school mind."
Walker
Did he live in Carmel before he moved down to the Highlands?
Martinez
Yes. You know where you turn onto Carmelo? There's a brown house on the right hand corner in which he lived. He and Helen
Green had it.
Walker
What about Helen Green?
Martinez
She left immediately. They were only there about three months during the summer and then she went back to New York. We didn't
see her again.
Walker
Well, tell me about Bertha Newberry.
Martinez
Bertha and Perry came from Saginaw, Michigan. Perry at that time was interested in law enforcement and he had come to join
the police force in San Jose. He had lots of hair-raising stories to tell of those early days. He was there for a short while,
and then decided he didn't want to be an officer. He was only on probation and could leave if he wanted to. In those days
you didn't have officers' schools, he
― 209 ―
told us, you were just on probation. So he went to San Francisco and he got into an advertising firm, which put him in contact
with the artists. I'll never forget the way he met Marty. This advertising firm wanted a big Marquette Whiskey ad on one of
the buildings in San Francisco. Perry told them "We'll get Martinez, because he's an Indian and he'll give you a swell one."
He'd just come back from Paris and there was a continuous stream of stories about him in the papers. Perry came to see Marty
and asked him to take the job with excellent pay. He said, "Well, how much whiskey will you give me?" "Oh, we'll give you
enough for several years." He agreed and finally the design of Marquette and the Indians was perfect and the head of the firm
was satisfied. It was to be a twenty foot venture. I think the cartoon is in Marty's scrapbook. They couldn't find a scene
painter and the painters who painted billboards were not artists and were atrocious. So Marty decided he'd have to do it himself.
They not only paid him well afterwards, but they gave him gifts of a dozen bottles of whiskey on the holidays for two years.
Newberry was in this firm that got the job for Marquette Whiskey and Marty and he became friends. Bertha was a green-eyed
blonde, petite, and with a great sense of humor. She and Marty used to sing La Bohème together, and though she didn't know it, she faked it well enough to create an illusion. We were close friends for years
until they moved to Carmel and we often visited them until Kai went into school. We didn't go down for fifteen years and lost
contact
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with them. Afterwards she died.
Marty and I were in the production of "The Toad," which she wrote. Marty was to be a conspirator and only had one thing to
say, "I killed him with my knife." What he said was "Oh Gawd, I keeled heem weeth my knife."
Walker
Was "The Toad" any good?
Martinez
No. Bertha, without any experience in the theatre, wrote the play. No, it was not good. However, we had fun playing in it.
Also, there was a feud about the play. It was the only time I came in contact with Michael Williams. The opposition were harassing
Williams, a new-comer, who was unaware of the feud to boil up, to accept the role of High Priest. Because he was a Catholic
they expected him to lend dignity to the part
Heron practically thought he owned the Forest Theater and was used to using it as his in the summer. But Perry Newberry had
gotten into the Pine Cone of Carmel as editor, and he had become first Mayor of Carmel. So, as an official he could take over the theater. There was
a woman mayor before him, a Mrs. de Sable. Therefore, he had the say for the Forest Theater and took it over for Bertha's
play. We went down to be in the play. I was lady-in -waiting to the queen. Sophie Treadwell McGeehan was the queen. She was
on the Bulletin. Her husband, William McGeehan, was the editor of it. He went to New York and became sports editor of one of the big New York
papers afterwards. And Helen Cooke was supposed to be the Virgin of the Sun or something or other, who lured the priest away.
The priest was
― 211 ―
Michael Williams, later editor of the
Catholic Commonweal.
Walker
Who was the toad?
Martinez
I don't remember. (Laughter) However I do remember that I decided to have a real Egyptian headdress. I studied the Egyptian
sculpture. I braided all of my long hair into little braids and pressed them with an iron until they looked like an Egyptian
headdress. So I was the only one with a correct headdress in the whole cast.
The feud between Heron's backers and the Newberry outfit reached a crisis. At that time Williams was something of a good pal
companion and the Heron group decided to get him drunk and ruin the play. At the intermission Newberry said to me, "You go
down to the dressing room and watch Williams."
Walker
Had he already become a Catholic?
Martinez
Yes. He was trying to make up his mind whether to marry or to become a monk. That's why he was playing this part. When I read
his biography years later I had to laugh, because I was there when he was making his decision.
Walker
I thought he was married before he came West.
Martinez
No. It was after this big decision, whether to be a monk or get him a wife. So, Newberry said to me, "Now, you stay in Williams'
dressing room and keep the fellow straight because somebody is trying to slip him a bottle of whiskey."
Michael was drinking pretty heavily at the time. I went in and sat down - he stared at me balefully for a moment, and then
said, "What are you doing here?" I said, "I'm ordered to stay here."
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So he looked at me coldly for a minute and he said, "Why?" I said, "You know why." He said, "What nonesense!" He went on putting
on his make-up and didn't pay any more attention to me. Anyhow, I wouldn't be budged even though, every once in a while, he
gave me a cold stare. It took about half an hour before he was ready. I could see he was already about half seas over to begin
with and it wouldn't have taken more than a snort or two to topple him over. When they gave him his cue and he went on the
stage, Newberry and the cast all sighed with relief.
Later, I saw Williams walking down the beach and he told me he made the big decision. He went East and married.
Walker
Do you know why Bertha was called Butsky? Perhaps because she liked to smoke ...
Martinez
Oh, that rings a bell! She was called Butsky because, the only woman smoker in the group, she was always running out of cigarettes
and hunting up the butts in the trays to put in a jar.
Walker
Couldn't she afford to buy cigarettes?
Martinez
Perry didn't approve of her smoking to begin with, so she'd collect the cigarette butts when people weren't looking to use
herself. When I was young a woman who smoked was considered a loose female. Victorianism ruled even the art world then.
Baum
Then extracurricular romances were not acceptable to the group.
Martinez
Oh no, they'd get indignant. Of course, Marty had the good Mexican idea, keep your wife under your nose like a squaw and don't
ever let her look up.
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So many friends said to my father, "Whitaker, how could you let that beautiful child marry that old savage!" He'd reply, "Don't
worry about Elsie, you worry about Marty. She'll reform him, I can assure you!" It was a foolish marriage. Marty didn't have
a chance. I'd learned all about arguing from my father. Everybody said that the Martinez quarrels were so entertaining. We
didn't quarrel like ordinary people about each other. He'd go back and talk about the great Mexican culture when the Britons
were in caves, and we'd start off with cultures and come to tracing the annoying ancestral traits in each other, especially
those traits we disliked in each other's race. It was wonderful. But poor Marty had a hard time just the same.
Walker
Did Newberry have any artistic talent?
Martinez
Oh, yes. You'll find in Marty's album a number of the little pamphlets he did of Bertha and Marty. And he wrote a little poetry,
too.
Walker
But by and large he was a businessman.
Martinez
Yes, otherwise yes. He was a dear, too.
Walker
Bertha remained his only wife — he never married again?
Martinez
No. Oh, yes, he did, one of George Sterling's first flames. Ida Brooks was a school teacher and George brought her up to the
studio. She was very nice, very likable. Twenty years later, after Bertha died, Perry Newberry married her in Carmel. She's
still there, by the way, in Carmel. A nice little person, too. She was very devoted to Perry. He had a long period of heart
trouble before he died. I didn't see the Newberrys after we left Carmel in 1915. We lost contact, but we had been very close.
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One Thanksgiving we'd gone over to the Mexican Beanery — whenever we were hard up we went to the Beanery — a plate of beans
was ten cents and with it a large glass of wine. You could have a quart for about ten cents more — cheap wine, but not bad.
Then we'd go down to the Barbary Coast. Perry was political boss of North Beach. Perry was working for Dan Ryan, the lawyer
who was running for mayor on a good government ticket after the Schmidt and Ruef scandals. Perry had North Beach and the Barbary
Coast as his area to get support and votes. So he knew all the figures in the Barbary Coast and took us to meet them. Marty
and the artists loved sketching there and we wives loved the picturesqueness of the Coast.
Baum
This was before the Perrys went to Carmel?
Martinez
Yes. And that reminds me of another episode. Bill Irwin's wife, Hallie, came up to San Francisco. What a wonderful character!
She was always interested in mining and she had brought a wealthy miner with her. She said, "Kids, we're going to have a good
time. You can be sure we didn't go to the beanery that night. We went off to the Barbary Coast. Marty was sketching. There
was a very pretty entertainer there and she sat beside me. Marty said, "Don't you think it's time we go back pretty soon?"
It was one o'clock. She looked at me and she said, "Are you married to him?" I said, "Yes." She said, "Poor kid". (Laughter)
That was my first real sympathy.
Walker
Back to Piedmont: When Havens was here in Piedmont, was Harry Lafler working for him? Selling lots?
― 215 ―
Martinez
Yes.
Walker
Lafler was involved in real estate in Carmel, too?
Martinez
Yes, Big Sur and the country down there. He was just one of the minor poetic talents and went into real estate to make a living.
I'll never forget Gladys Couvoiser, his bride, whom I knew very well.
He took her to his homestead at Big Sur on their honeymoon. Gladys arrived with her six Borzoi dogs — into the marble palace
dug into the raw marble, with terraces and especially a large bath — a Roman tub hewn out of the marble rock with a natural
waterfall that slid down the rock into the tub. She said the only thing she enjoyed there was the marble tub.
Walker
Was this his second wife?
Martinez
Oh, second or third. He married a school teacher when he was a young poet, and was divorced just before he came to Carmel.
After Gladys, he married a charming girl who committed suicide. Then he married a nice stable woman. You know how Harry died.
He was in his car, coming up very fast on the highway on a wet night in a terrific rain. He put his head out the window to
see what he could of the highway and a truck passing too close cut off his head. His wife and child were in the back. Harriet
Dean remarked, "It wasn't the first time a poet has lost his head."
Walker
You said he was likable.
Martinez
Very likable. That's why he was there so long.
Walker
Was Fred Bechdolt also an attractive person?
― 216 ―
Martinez
We all liked Fred, but he was not part of our group then. I went to his baptism. Of all the large number that we knew in the
early days in California he and I were the only ones baptized in Carmel Mission many years later. He was baptized about a
year after I was, I in 1937, he in 1938. Una Jeffers came to the baptism and he cried on her shoulder overcome after he had
made his profession of faith. When he recovered he said to me, "Isn't it funny that we two old pagans are the only ones of
that bunch that landed where we ought to be, in the Catholic Church?" We used to get together often and laugh about that —
reminiscences of the early period of art groups and their feuds in Carmel.
Walker
Una didn't join?
Martinez
No.
Walker
Did I understand correctly that the chap who ran the Golden Bough Theater was Una Jeffers' first husband?
Martinez
Custer was her first husband. The three of them were fellow students at Occidental College. Jeffers had asked her to marry
him before Custer. She married Custer first. Then, she found marriage to Custer a mistake, and she divorced him and married
Jeffers.
Walker
Why did Jeffers come up to Carmel?
Martinez
He came to visit the Custers and fell in love with the landscape and the seascape.
Walker
Not before the separation.
Martinez
No, I think not.
Walker
As I understand it, he didn't come up to Carmel until several years later.
― 217 ―
Martinez
No, I guess that's true. David Alberto, the musician, told me that he and his wife were sleeping on the beach when they came
down to get started in Carmel because they didn't have any money and were waiting for a loan. Jeffers was building the tower
and he'd come down all day long to get stones for his tower. Mrs. Jeffers was kindly and would often bring them buns and dishes
she'd made. They lived on the beach for ten days until he managed to get a loan from his family and they rented a cottage.
As a piano teacher he became very successful.
Walker
I was reading Van Wyck Brooks' autobiography and he said he used to see Jeffers go up the hill with rocks and it always reminded
him of Sisyphus.
Martinez
[Laughter] Yes. It was said that he was not very well at the time and he regained his health building his home.
Harry Downey gave Una Jeffers a little statuette carved by an Indian because she loved it. She loved the Mission and followed
his restoration with great interest. She loved the little primitive Indian statue and once a year, she used to go with Scoobie
O'Sullivan a Catholic friend of hers and ours, to the Mission. She would take it out of her bag, set it up on the front seat,
sit in back of it and meditate for half an hour. Scoobie told us he had done that for about fifteen years. She kept it in
a niche in the tower.
I came closer to them for a short period because they had a little grandson and Pal and I used to take him to the Serra School
with Monique who lived with us at the time. They were the same age and went to school together. I was always very careful
never to
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take advantage of their appreciation. He would come out to thank me every once in a while and he'd stop and talk a few moments.
But after Una died, Monique used to go often to play with the little boy. Once, Jeanne DuCasse went along. He was two years
older than Monique. Jeffers took the children up in the tower and showed them the desk that Una worked on, and on it still
were some of her manuscripts and the little Irish harp she'd played on. He drew their attention to the Indian statue she loved
in its niche. Even Jeanne felt the loneliness in the tenderness with which he handled all these objects precious to her, and
the moment's silence as he held them. Monique and the little boy were about seven or eight and Jeanne was ten.
You didn't know about the time she tried to commit suicide, did you?
Walker
No. I understood that he went to pieces pretty rapidly after she died.
Martinez
Well, I think that he had cancer and was ill. I saw him a number of times after, but he sort of withdrew from everything.
Walker
Why did she try to commit suicide?
Martinez
Well, they were down in Taos, and Mabel Dodge Luhan was one of those people who was never satisfied until she'd broken up
families. She had broken up six down there that I knew about. She'd married six times herself. So she brought from New York
this beautiful girl as a lure for Jeffers. They went down to visit her and Jeffers happened to look at her a couple of times
and that was too much for Una. She shot herself, but didn't succeed. She survived it, and they left and went back to Carmel
and never left Carmel after that.
― 219 ―
Baum
Was Lincoln Steffens there?
Martinez
Oh, he was a delightful person, the best raconteur I ever heard. He told us of his romance with Mary Austin. While he was
in Carmel, he got very interested in Mary and she reciprocated. He'd asked her to marry him. Finally, they got to the point
where Mary decided they might marry. "Well," she said, "the only thing, Lincoln, is I must go back to New York to finish my
book." So they both went back to New York. She returned to her apartment and he to his apartment. They decided they'd spend
some time together and see if they really could make a success of marriage. He told us he was certain that Mary was cautious.
Mary would say, "I can't see you until four o'clock this afternoon. My work's going well". Or, "I can't see you at all until
this evening because my work's going very well." At the end of about two months it began to strike him as funny, and so he
said to Mary, "We've got to make a decision now, since this arrangement doesn't suit me at all. I think it's about time that
we came to some decision." So she replied, "Well, give me a little more time."
Well, Mary finally decided on her own to find an apartment that would suit both their needs as writers. When she found the
perfect apartment, she found Lincoln Steffens and Ella Winter also hunting an apartment. [Laughter] There was a blow-up on
the spot and he married Ella Winter instead of Mary. Ella was wasting no time at all, she was all for having her husband on
the spot.
Baum
I thought Steffens had to work a long time to persuade Ella to marry him.
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Martinez
Well, he might have known her before that, but they were getting the apartment, going to be married, and settle down in it.
And Mary was figuring on getting this apartment for herself and Steffens. He told us the story himself. He laughed, "That's
what finished up the romance with Mary."
Walker
Was Steffens in Carmel at all in the early days?
Martinez
I don't think until later, no. He was there during the years we weren't down in Carmel much. But we saw him up in Berkeley
and Piedmont.
Walker
My impression was that he didn't settle there until the twenties.
Martinez
I don't think it was until later, no. I never met Ella Winter at all. At the time we saw much of him, he was connected with
the University, doing some work for them.
Walker
Did you ever meet Mary Austin's husband?
Martinez
Yes. I felt sorry for him — a gentle creature. They used to call him Mr. Mary — it was awfully cruel. He was a small amiable
man who adored her, thought she was the greatest genius who had ever lived and waited on her hand and foot.
Walker
Did the Carmel group like him rather better than Mary?
Martinez
Mary was a kind of difficult person to like, but the joke of it was that he knew her before — I think she had just written
The Land of Little Rain and my father wrote and congratulated her on a masterpiece. She came up and stayed with us. She was a little tiny thin thing,
as thin as a string with a mass of beautiful hair which she took down to show all of us. She was as large as a tank before
she died. Harriet Dean told me of having met her in Santa Fe where she was living.
― 221 ―
Walker
Did she talk at all about her child? Apparently she had a subnormal child.
Martinez
She talked about that tragedy to my father, but I have just a vague memory of her referring to it as a tragedy. She had two
of them, one died at three years of age and the other lived to be sixteen. Their spines were defective.
Baum
Of both children?
Martinez
Both. The spine was soft or something and they couldn't walk. This little sixteen year old never walked.
Walker
She gives the impression in her autobiography that this is one reason she broke up with her husband.
Martinez
Do you know that biography of this old friend of hers, of her life?
Walker
Doyle?
Martinez
I think I have it — about her youth and girlhood. I remember her talking about the tragedy to her of this little girl who
died at sixteen.
Walker
Did Mary and Marty ever talk about Indians?
Martinez
Oh, by the hour. At the time of the 1915 Fair she had a backdrop painted for some of her Indian productions and had Marty
come over to see the settings and advise the artist. So he saw a good deal of her then. But she had become a rather forbidding
character about that time, not noted for her graciousness at all.
Walker
I understand she was called by the group "God's mother-in-law."
Martinez
That's it. [Laughter] She was the voice of authority, let me tell you.
Baum
You mentioned Bill Irwin. Did they call him Will or Bill?
― 222 ―
Martinez
They called him Bill. He married Inez Haynes Irwin. Hallie was his first wife. She was a grand character, but a wild westerner.
After the marriage ceremony, they had it all prepared, so when they went into the bedroom at night each had a big sign that
they'd taken from the zoo, "Don't tease the animals." They put them at the head of the bed.
Then Bill Irwin married Inez Haynes Irwin who was just the reverse of Hallie because she was an easterner and a writer. She
wrote a good but not outstanding novel. She was a dear person and a good friend of Theodore Dreiser. He was the one who encouraged
her.
Baum
Did the people down in Carmel work, or did they mostly have fun?
Martinez
Well, they worked considerably. They had to earn their living after all. But some of them played harder than they worked and
did not last long there.
Baum
Where did their income come from?
Martinez
That was the question that nobody knew. Sterling had his uncle, Havens, to depend on — the only lucky one.
Baum
It didn't cost too much to live there?
Martinez
Oh, you could get good "dago red" for two bits a gallon, tubs of beans for next to nothing. You could go fishing for abalones,
mussels, all free — raid orchards and a few things like that. You could get vegetables very cheaply from the Japanese or Chinese
and you could live quite comfortably.
Baum
You did need a house.
Martinez
They were very cheap, too. Some of them camped out, when necessary,
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in the summertime. The Albertos, as I said, lived on the beach for a while. Life was easy and gay at that time.
Walker
Did you ever meet Eugene Fenelon.
Martinez
Oh, I knew him well, a character, too. He bought a little piece of property in the orange groves in Pasadena and wound up
with an oil well.
Walker
Fenelon was a man of all trades — he worked on the "Snark", and helped build George Sterling's house for him.
Martinez
Fenelon was a friend of Sterling's from his old home in Sag Harbor, New York. Roosevelt Johnson and Fenelon were both from
Sag Harbor.
George himself told me that he had left with Mrs. Rounthwaite, his oldest sister, a large amount of poetry which he boasted
would burn up the town. We never found out after his death what became of them.
Walker
A great many of his poems are here and there in the Bancroft. One of his sisters sent hers to the Bancroft Library.
Martinez
That must have been the Rounthwaite collection.
Baum
Edwin Markham?
Martinez
I didn't know him at all. I went to Keith's studio when I was about fourteen years old with Charley Keeler, a Berkeley poet.
He took my father and me to Keith's studio. Keith was a handsome fellow. At the moment he was enchanted by a fine Chinese
gong that had just been given to him. He was on his knees beside the gong and motioned for us to come and join him. We all
knelt while he tested his gong, and enchanted, expatiating as to its superior qualities. We did not have
― 224 ―
time to stay longer so I had little time to study his pictures.
The funniest thing happened. I saw a sign of an exhibition of Keith's work down at the Public Library the other day. I was
with a friend and we stopped there. After looking at the canvasses I told the secretary the story about the gong. She said,
"Well look behind you", and there it stood — and recalled a pleasant visit.
Walker
We haven't asked you about Jesse Lynch Williams and Ray Stannard Baker.
Martinez
I knew Mrs. Jesse Lynch Williams in Carmel, but I never knew him. Ray Stannard Baker came down there. He has amusing passages
about the Sterlings in his book. If you haven't got it, I have the book, Ray Stannard Baker's memoirs. He has quite a chapter
on Carmel.
Walker
So many people — writers, painters, theatrical people — went to Carmel, were there for a few weeks or months and then drifted
away.
Martinez
Garnet Holme was the name of the English producer who put on "The Toad."
Walker
I meant to ask you what Arnold Genthe was like. Was he a ladies' man?
Martinez
Oh yes, he was a ladies' man all right, but a discreet and sympathetic friend.
Walker
He says in his book, "I'm not going to write about the women in my life."
Martinez
What a magnificent array of beauties he portrayed, with an inner empathy of women's beauty, which he displayed so superbly.
He was a very distinguished German, and a very brilliant European.
Walker
Was he likable?
Martinez
Oh very, yes. Women just fell in droves for this handsome German who could realize their dreams of themselves.
― 225 ―
Walker
He did it with protocol?
Martinez
Very much so, but with his friends he could be natural.
Frederick Clapp was the figure we knew through Porter Garnett. Fred was quite a while in Berkeley, giving lectures on art
for the University of California Extension School. I heard his first lecture and went to more of them with Porter Garnett.
Porter was in the Bancroft Library cataloguing manuscripts. He and Frederick Clapp became great friends. Then Clapp went to
Europe and was in Florence doing research and working on his art book. There he met his wife whom he called the"distillation
of civilization" and with whom he fell madly in love. Her father was Ede, the English ambassador to Hungary, and her mother
was an Hungarian countess. Her mother died early and she and her father lived in a palace in Florence. Her father died suddenly
and Fred was the only one there to keep her through this very difficult and trying time. There were very very difficult problems
when one died in Italy, and Mr. Ede wanted to be buried there. So during the long said affair she had fallen in love with
Fred. So he married the "distillation of civilization". She was a charming person, gracious and very intelligent and she looked
like an aristocrat.
Baum
Is he still alive?
Martinez
I think so. With his wife and Marty dead, we lost contact with him.
His trials and tribulations with the Frick Collection were very amusing. [Laughter] The letters from Clapp, which are in the
scrapbook, are often telling about his difficulties in building up the famous Frick Collection in the proper gallery setting.
― 226 ―
Walker
Did you know Bruce Porter?
Martinez
Quite well, but our contact with Porter was casual. He was a rather conventional person and I think he was so overcome with
marrying William James' daughter that he never recovered from the shock. She was a very impressive person, though quite charming
the one time I met her.
Walker
What did he do, stain glass windows mostly?
Martinez
Yes, beautiful ones.
Walker
He was a great friend of Frank Norris, I know.
Martinez
Yes, but he was a rather conventional person. When we were several times at parties together, I felt that he didn't like bohemians.
So, we didn't see much of him.
Walker
He was quite interested in mysticism; the mystical passages in The Octopus seem to be almost wholly the result of Norris' friendship with Bruce Porter.
And Porter Garnett ...
Martinez
Oh, Porter! [Laughter] He was a southerner, a Virginian. When the southerners were ruined by the Civil War they sent a group
of them out to San Francisco to work for the government after we took California. We had just taken California and the group
contained Porter Garnett and the famous Colonel Trumbull, and the Holmes's, the Footes, that's Porter Garnett's wife Edna
Foote's people, and several others.
Porter had some minor official position in the government. He came into the office, always looking like a fashion plate of
a southerner, just walked in and collected his salary and that's about all. Porter told me
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he was never quite sure what his job was. Finally they decided he was expendable, so he took jobs on magazines and later spent
years working in the Bancroft Library cataloguing old manuscripts.
Walker
Did you know Gelett Burgess?
Martinez
When I met Gelett Burgess Marty and I had been married about seven months. He took one look at me and he said, "What did you
marry Marty for? He should never have married." I replied, "I know that, Marty doesn't." He looked surprised and was quite
friendly after his first shot. A little short fellow, he had plenty of personality and a most amazing voice. He used to sing
cowboy and French revolutionary songs, bellowing like a bull. You could hear him a block away. He loved jokes.
We had gone to Les Beaux in southern France, a tiny Greek city on top of a plateau that strangely thrust its bulk out of the
earth. He had been there and as a joke, he bought an acre of land there for his sister. She of course never would go there,
never would see it, but he still bought the acre for her and loved to boast about it.
Walker
He came to Carmel and died here.
Martinez
Yes. He came to see Marty several times but I didn't see him at the time. I know he thought Marty's marriage a disaster and
was annoyed that I agreed with him.
Walker
I was going through some Carmel clippings and I ran across a whole folder about the murder by a Japanese artist there.
Martinez
Yes. I had met her at one time. We weren't there when it happened, and friends coming up from Carmel told us the story. It
seems that
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this Japanese gardener of hers fell madly in love with her and when she found that out she got scared. She'd been nothing
but a friend of his at the time, and she got scared and fired him. After that he murdered her.
Walker
You don't know anything about her as an artist.
Martinez
Only that she was a very mediocre one.