by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As we continue to mark the centennial of the building of the Temple family’s residence, La Casa Nueva, which was completed late in 1927, it is worth noting that the four children, Thomas, Agnes, Walter, Jr. and Edgar, were mostly away from home during its five-year construction, being sent to boarding schools locally, elsewhere in California and, for the three sons, in Massachusetts. This continued after the house was finished and until all of them graduated from their respective institutions in spring 1929.
This latest “Reading Between the Lines” post, which has often featured letters in our collection from Thomas to his father, Walter, Sr., takes us to a century ago this month, as he wrote and sent three missives during March 1926. The eldest of the Temple children was in his last semester at the Jesuit-run Catholic school, the University of Santa Clara (where some of his father’s brothers went to school in the 1860s when it was called Santa Clara College) and where he’d completed study at the preparatory high school four years prior.
There was a window of just a year, meaning the 1925-1926 school year, when his siblings were in close proximity. Agnes was in her first year at Dominican College, then an all-girls Catholic institution for women, in San Rafael, north of San Francisco, while Walter, Jr. and Edgar were at the Belmont School, also a Catholic school, in the town of that name south roughly halfway between San Rafael and Santa Clara.
Of the quartet, Thomas was by far the most consistent correspondent, having regularly sent letters to his father (and, prior to her late 1922 death, his mother, Laura) from his various schools from about the time that he and his siblings were sent from the late Teens to private schools after the family’s breathtaking bonanza from oil wells on their Montebello-area ranch. Thankfully, a great many of these missives were preserved and the trio highlighted here were donated by Thomas’s niece, and daughter of Edgar, Ruth Ann Michaelis, a frequent donor of family photos and documents over the years.
The first letter (all three are on letterhead of the university) is from 8 March and Thomas began by stating that he was “very happy to have seen you the other day” as the visit from Walter, Sr. “was as much of a surprise as when you first came up.” It was added that Walter, Jr. “stayed for lunch, then I took him to a show,” while Thomas remarked that he hadn’t heard from Agnes but “hope to see her Sunday.” Also mentioned was J. Perry Worden, hired at the beginning of the Twenties to write a Temple family history book that ended up unrealized after about a decade, though Thomas commented that the historian, best known for his editing of the 1916 memoirs of Los Angeles merchant Harris Newmark, “has made some valuable discoveries as no doubt he has told you by this time.”
As Thomas readied for graduation and the earning of his bachelor’s degree, he informed his father “I have not heard from Oxford, as yet,” he having applied for admission to the distinguished British university. He then noted that,
[I] am preparing a letter for Harvard. Don’t you think Milton’s idea of asking some influential man in New York [to] put in a word for me would do more good than all the correspondence I can do[?] Why not have him write[?] It’s just as practical, and perhaps more efficacious.
Milton Kauffman was Walter, Sr.’s business manager, responsible for overseeing Temple’s projects and, like Worden, who made a research trip to New England for the book but was also enlisted to visit schools, talk to headmasters and write a fair number of letters on behalf of the children, it seems as if he was at least under consideration for some of the same, though it is not known if he did so.
While Thomas added “you seem to have given up the idea of a trip all together,” this apparently meaning to the east coast and, specifically, Massachusetts, the home state of the Temple forebears dating back nearly three centuries, he then asked, “suppose I can’t get into Harvard? What then?” He posited the idea of writing to “make reservations for next year” meaning, presumably, fall 1927, while he added “I may hear favorably from Worcester,” a college at Oxford (thanks to regular reader Larry Lin for clarifying this point), where “if I can get Junior Standing there, I’ll go.” That being the case, “that means at least 2 years, in the culture & atmosphere you’ve been raving about.”
With Walter, Sr.’s return to the Homestead following the surprise northern visit, Thomas wrote, “I’m sure you found the rancho in good order” while “Bill [Knueven, married to Angeline, a daughter of Walter, Sr.’s sister Margarita] no doubt has the mayordomo’s [ranch foreman’s] job well in hand.” The Knuevens resided in the Workman House during his tenure as foreman, which was fairly short as they soon moved to Temple City, though Bill did, in 1930, build the dormitories over the sun decks over La Casa Nueva’s southern projecting wings as the ranch was leased by Walter, Sr., to the Golden State Military Academy.
The letter closed with some incidental items, though a visit to the prominent Leet family of San Jose, whom Thomas knew well during his school years, was mentioned with Thomas noting “I’m glad you were able to meet them” because “it is so seldom that you are active socially and why not move with the best.”
The following week’s missive, from the 14th, began with the report that Thomas recently returned from San Rafael “after a hot, tiresome trip” and that Agnes was recovering from a cold, though he “had a fine visit with her.” The important news was that the Temple children were all to return home for the Easter vacation, that holy day falling on 4 April, with a date for departure for the south dependent on the younger Temple sons and their ability to leave Belmont.
Thomas informed his father that,
I saw [Walter, Jr. and Edgar] at Belmont yesterday, had lunch with them and spent a happy afternoon, talking about old times, playing the piano, Walter a saxophone the Madero boy left him, and Edgar keeping time with the radio. They are both well and just can’t wait till Easter comes along.
Thomas’ letter writing proclivities were likely surpassed by those of Worden as the former remarked that “I hear from Doc. Worden every other day and he has made so many discoveries.” After commenting on the fine weather and the blooming fathers, Thomas noted that “he took a good look at Alcatraz Island today” and inquired, “how did your father get ahold of it[?]”
As has been discussed on this blog before, that famed island was granted to William Workman by Governor Pío Pico in 1846, shortly before the American seizure of California during the Mexican-American War. Workman then conveyed it to F.P.F. Temple, who quickly reached an agreement with John C. Frémont, who claimed to be acting for the federal government in giving Temple a $5,000 IOU that was never paid out. After learning in 1856 that Frémont was claiming Alcatraz as his property, Temple began pursuing his legal options and, over subsequent decades, efforts were considered for how to get a claim processed, though nothing came to fruition. After the United States took possession, a military outpost was built and then converted to a military prison, which was there in 1926, though the notorious federal prison opened in 1934.
Thomas reported to his father on another visit with the Leet family the previous evening and “they all ask to be remembered, especially Adelia,” while “they speak very highly of Agnes,” and closed the letter by discussing an upcoming school dedication at which he expected to see the Archbishop of the diocese.
Though the third letter here is from early May, it is being included because of its important reference to Harvard, tying back to the 8 March missive. In this late Sunday night, probably from the 8th, Thomas noted that he been admitted to the law school at America’s most prestigious university and added,
[I] am so glad that Worden landed me Harvard, it’s a great opportunity & you can rest assured that I shall do all I can to make your name [that is, the Temple family] as prominent there as it is at present here.
A major event around the time of commencement and Thomas’ graduation was a fiesta held also for a Santa Clara jubilee marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the university. He let his father know that he went to the Montgomery Hotel, now a Four Points Sheraton, in San Jose “& found the saddle & things” that Walter, Sr. must have shipped north for his son to use as part of the event. Thomas added “I hear you are coming up for the Fiesta” and “I am so glad for I’m sure you will enjoy it.”
Moreover, Thomas advised Walter, Sr. that “if you intend going to our Senior Ball you must bring your Tuxedo,” while asking his father to “please bring my serape” that was in his room, which was likely the one he used in the Workman House before La Casa Nueva was completed. A portrait of him was published in the San Francisco Chronicle following the fiesta as another jubilee event, coming after the baccalaureate mass, was a senior ball at San Jose’s Vendome Hotel and Thomas was one of three students in charge of that event.
Thomas ended his letter by stating that “San Jose is awaiting you with open arms and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it,” while also expressing, “I hope to see you proud of our oldest son” and “I’m sure that Meema [his mother] looks down from heaven, and never ceases to pray for me, or you.” After graduation, Thomas headed home for part of the summer vacation, though it was decided, after all, to embark, with a car shipped for their use, on a Temple family vacation to Massachusetts prior to the Temple sons enrolling in their various schools—Walter, Jr. and Edgar being admitted to Governor Dummer Academy (that’s right, Dummer, though this oldest continuously operating private school in the nation is now called Governor’s Academy)—as well as to visit Walter Sr.’s cousin Ellen Temple Bancroft and her family.
It is worth noting that, despite the expense of this trip and the sending of the sons to schools in the east, Walter’s finances were becoming more complicated. At the start of 1926, bonds were issued by the Temple Estate and Temple Townsite companies for funding real estate development projects in Alhambra and Walter, Sr.’s Town of Temple (renamed Temple City in 1928). While these raised the necessary capital to press on with work, this meant additional encumbrance of debt as the family’s main source of income, those wells at Montebello that deeply dropped in production, declined while spending increased.
No one, much less the Temples, in March 1926 could foresee the devastating economic crash three-and-a-half years later that ushered in the Great Depression, though the inevitable financial failure of the Temples was increasingly clearer by then. Thomas, with considerable hard work, earned his law degree at Harvard, though he’d long been nursing a passion for genealogy and history which he finally made his vocation.
There are many more letters from him that we’ll share in upcoming posts, so please keep an eye out for those!