by Paul R. Spitzzeri
With graduations galore this time of year, this seems like an opportune time to share another missive from the treasure trove of Temple family letters from the Museum’s collection, this continuing to help us better understand and interpret the family. In their Spanish Colonial Revival house, La Casa Nueva, we frequently include artifacts related to the activities and interests of the four Temple children, Agnes, Edgar, Thomas and Walter, Jr., in their bedrooms, located on the second floor of the dwelling.
Much of this relates to their schooling, mostly in the years 1928 and 1929, the only two full years that the Temples lived in the completed building, which took a remarkable five years to construct. During that period, Agnes was completing her studies at the Catholic women’s institution, Dominican College in San Rafael, north of San Francisco, while her brothers were in the Boston area, not far from the Temple ancestral home of Reading, with Edgar and Walter, Jr. at Dummer Academy for high school and Thomas at Harvard Law School.
This double edition of “Getting Schooled” and “Reading Between the Lines” takes us back to May 1925, when there was a different separation for the quartet, who began attending private schools, mainly as boarders, very soon after the astounding discovery of oil by Thomas at their Montebello-area ranch catapulted them to remarkable levels of wealth. Agnes was readying to receive her high school diploma at St. Mary’s Academy in southwest Los Angeles (it is now in Inglewood), while the two younger Temple sons were at the junior high and high school level at Belmont School, also a Catholic campus, in the tony city of that name south of San Francisco.
Thomas, meanwhile, was in his seventh year at the University of Santa Clara at the south end of San Francisco Bay and where, decades before, his uncles Francis and William attended the Catholic men’s school, operated by Jesuits, when it was known as Santa Clara College. Thomas enrolled in 1918 at the preparatory high school and matriculated in spring 1922, after which he entered the California Institute of Technology, near the family’s Alhambra home, to study petrochemical engineering.
After his mother’s death at the end of the year (which was also the early stages of the building of La Casa Nueva), a devastated Thomas declined to return to the Pasadena institution and elected to return to more familiar and comforting circumstances at Santa Clara. Over the next four years, he worked on his bachelor’s degree, with an emphasis on the law along with the classical education that was standard educational fare at Jesuit colleges.
The letter, a gift from Edgar’s daughter, Ruth Ann Michaelis, a frequent and generous donor of family materials to the Museum, was on the school’s letterhead and Thomas, a very dedicated correspondent to his father (a prior post here covers a 12 May missive), helpfully later added the date and year, befitting his later chosen profession of history and genealogy as he forsook the law. It is interesting to see that he addressed the letter to his father at “Rancho de la Puente” at Puente (the name “La Puente” was adopted with incorporation of the city in 1956) As always, he referred to Walter, Sr., as “Dadup” and, as was often the case, acknowledged the standard weekly telegram from his father (it was not for a few more years until Walter, Sr. began writing letters, which were very much appreciated by his son.)
The first item in the letter concerned Thomas’ expression that he was “glad to hear that Agnes had her class mates & the Sisters over” for a senior class party at the Homestead, which included a lunch, games, activities and more and for which we’re fortunate that a photograph taken by Albert J. Kopec, who also documented some of the construction of La Casa Nueva during that period, has survived and is in the Homestead’s holdings.
The image shows some 55 young women posed on a cement walkway in front of an arched entrance to the Mission Walkway, which wraps around three sides of the residence and which, in the floor, contains inscriptions of the names and founding dates of the 21 California missions and the sub-mission at Pala in San Diego County. Portions of the still-existing low adobe wall flanking this section of walkway were not yet coated in concrete, but the wall with its arched “windows” was completed and some of the landscaping in place outside it.
The distinctive wooden gates in the arched entrance and including an authentic 19th century Workman family cattle brand from Rancho La Puente as a latch for the right-side gate are closed. Because of the Mission Walkway wall, only partial glimpses can be had of La Casa Nueva, but a section of the tiled main roof is visible above the wall. Through the arch, the end of the east wing looking as if it about finished, while a bit of the west wing can also be made out through two arches to the left of the gate and a fraction of the east side is seen through arches to the right.
It is not believed that the St. Mary’s students spent much time in the house, though it would seem obvious they at least were given a tour of its luxuriously ornamented interior, especially the Main Hall, while Agnes almost certainly showed off her bedroom. They were largely entertained in the auditorium that was the largest of three 1860s winery buildings and in which there was a stage (Agnes probably gave a recital on the piano there), as well as ping-pong and pool tables and a film projector on a landing over the entrance.
The auditorium was situated about where our Homestead Museum Gallery is now, while to the south was another winery structure, which served as a dining hall with a capacity of some 150 persons. Near these was the large reservoir, used for irrigating crops, but also for swimming (albeit without chlorine!) and which had a diving board, slide, night lighting, a grandstand and dressing rooms. While Thomas wrote, “I do hope it did not rain for you said in the telegram that you expected it,” the weather was good enough so that some of those attending took a dip, as a photo here from the event shows.
The main thrust of Thomas’ letter was his excitement for the end of his junior year and his return home, with Walter soon to send the family chauffeur north to fetch the trio of Temple boys. Thomas remarked, “glad that you are sending up Don [Thomas Don Godman] for I’m sure we’ll enjoy the trip and it will be nice to have him here.” He added that he would be ready to leave Santa Clara in nine days and his brothers a week later, though, during that gap, Thomas “arranged to stay with the friends [whose names were not mentioned] from Mexico, who have been kind enough to offer their hospitality all year.”
He continued that he could either stay with that family or at a hotel “for the padres [at the university] want every fellow out of here by the night after Commencement.” Meanwhile, noting that he would “like to [be] done here by the 30th,” Thomas told his father that he was “planning a picnic, for the children,” meaning his teenage brothers, “on the 31st, Sunday, and would like very much to have the car,” with Godman, of course, driving.
Thomas remarked, “I’m sure I could use [the car] as well here as at home,” and he went on that, “Don can take his time coming up,” while asking his father “have a trunk put on the back, on the usual trunk brackets on the running board, as one usually has a lot of stuff to take home.” It would have been nice to have known what the model and make of the vehicle was.
In other news, Thomas informed his father that “I went to a nice dance last evening and took the young Leet girl,” this being Adelia, who he mentioned in other letters, as well. He added that “she is the daughter of the owner of the beautiful Spanish house on the Alameda” in San José “that I pointed out to you.” Thomas commented, however,
For one of her position and station she is quite unsophisticated. Her grandfather was the first banker of San José, [Edward] McLaughlin—Leet married his daughter. Very nice people and I find that San José is full of them if you know who to meet and choose your friends [accordingly?]
It is notable that Thomas made the comment about Adelia’s lack of sophistication gjven the humble circumstances his family was in not even a decade before prior to the windfall of oil revenue that put them into wealth.
Another reference in the missive concerned news from Agnes that someone named “Mariquita” was very sick and concern that she might die, which he noted, “would break our hearts.” This would seem to refer to María Concepción Duarte, whose mother, Teresa, was the daughter of Margarita Temple Rowland, Walter Sr.’s sister.
The child, who was just three years old, passed away on 12 May and, after her funeral was held at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Puente, she was interred at the “Temple Rancho,” meaning El Campo Santo Cemetery at the Homestead—but it is curious that, if this was the same person as “Mariquita,” or “Little María,” that Thomas would not have known about it, unless this was someone different.
In any case, Thomas then turned to the concluding semester at Santa Clara, writing that his finals included two-hour exams on “3 Letters subjects” and “4 law subjects,” as well as a 10-minute oral exam in his philosophy course and a 20-minute one in law. He mused that “it’s an ordeal everyone must go thru” and told his father “I hope to make it with the help of God & some elbow grease.”
To conclude, Thomas reminded Walter, Sr. that he and his brothers would be back at the Homestead for their summer vacation on the 5th of June, two days before their father’s 56th birthday, though he added, “send Don up as early as you can for I can use him to good avail here.” What followed was a very brief reference to La Casa Nueva:
Price had in mind a lantern at Monterey for the patio. It might pay to investigate it & as we have lots of time [we] may take a ride down there.
Architect Roy Seldon Price was hired to complete the house after initial plans, largely conceived by Walter and Laura Temple, were drawn up by the firm of Walker and Eisen, which worked on Walter’s early commercial building projects, though Price took on later ones, such as the Temple Estate Company Building, razed nearly 30 years ago, in Alhambra. The architect communicated with Thomas about his ideas for La Casa Nueva and hoped that the son could convince the father of their merit, which looks to have been the case here.
The letter then concluded with “my Love to you all & I hope my suggestion as to the time to send Don, meets with your approval”—by all, this would seem to mean Walter’s girlfriend, Maud Bassity, his sisters Margarita Rowland and Lucinda Zuñiga and the latter’s husband, Manuel, as well as any other family members then living at the Homestead.
These documents, among many in our collection relating to the Workman and Temple family, provide us details that not only help with documentation of their activities, but also give us insights into personalities that are often not otherwise available. We’ll continue to offer more of these as part of the “Reading Between the Lines” series, so keep an eye out for those.