I LEFT A PART

May 26, 2007

In San Francisco it was traditional to honk about being a multi generational native, as opposed to a recent immigrant.  There appeared to be no requirement for high social status in order to feel pride in your ancestor’s lineage being anchored to the end of the peninsula that formed the Western boundary of a great bay. 

My own predecessors, as understood from overheard family chatter, had earned their livings with honest sweat or variations of public service.  I say “overheard”, as there were two things not openly discussed in my imitate family unit, sex and other family members.  It was not possible to come up with an example of how my family behaved towards each other until the post 9/11 granting of “Freedom” to the citizens of a middle eastern nation whose inhabitants had not gotten along with each other for more than a thousand years or so.   “Freedom” didn’t appear to help.

 My mother’s side, had the claim to being San Franciscans.  My father, born in Watsonville, California,  and his predecessors, including his mother, Grand Ma Gerry, born in San Juan Bautista, California, had none. 

My father’s father had come to California at about the turn of the 19th/20th Centuries, as a child with a brother and a couple of sisters, brought across this great nation from Pennsylvania, by a father who worked his way , in various jobs, and arrived in California as a single parent, having lost his wife, she died, in Billings Montana. When he got to Watsonville, where his brother already lived, he got a job with the Southern Pacific Railroad as a construction laborer.

One of his sons became a railroad engineer, steam, for the Southern Pacific Railroad, and the other, my grandfather, became a boiler maker.  Which also, “boiler maker”, was the name of drink combination that could be ordered at any one of the numerous salons of the time, and which my grandfather did, frequently, which resulted in his life moving in directions which weren’t talked about, openly, a lot in my  house.  My grandfather’s affection for alcohol  was embraced by his wife, Grand Ma Gerry,  with sad effects on their own and their children’s lives.

 My, and my children’s and grand children’s, claim to being “Multi Generational San Franciscan” is firmly anchored with my mother’s mother, Grand Ma Annie.   Annie, who I knew when about 5 or 6, was a big loud, mustachioed woman who frightened me.  And who limped from an injury she acquired one early morning in 1906, she was 14, as she started to descend the stairs to begin preparing  her father’s breakfast.  The earth shook.

Her father was a cooper and lived near the Waterfront, known as the Embarcadero, where he practiced his trade.  His, Mr. Armstrong’s,  home was destroyed by the legendary fire that followed the Earthquake.

Annie’s husband, Eugene Collette, my mother’s father, was the variation of public service person refereed to earlier.  He was, as my limited understanding suggests, first a street car conductor and then a San Francisco Fire Man.  I know almost nothing about him, as years and years before I showed up, Annie and Eugene had separated, perhaps because Annie was big and loud, mustachioed and frightened him, and there was little family chatter about him.  They appeared to have had a jihad, although they professed to being Roman Catholic.  She refused his pleas for divorce. She wanted his Fireman’s pension. She got it.

What with such an awareness of my family’s past, I had acquired an interest of history in general, and particular interest in California history. This lead me to join the California Historical Society.  My primary reason for membership was to obtain the regularly published California History magazine.  There was also the opportunity to take part in Society activities.

One of the activities took place in 1959.  A tour of Historic San Francisco Bay Area Military sites.  Ever since the earliest Spanish construction of gun batteries at the Presidio to guard what became known as the Golden Gate,   the installation of the latest technology of artillery to protect the Bay from naval attack had continued up through World War II. 

After WW II, the advances of warfare technology made obsolete these installations so that they were all abandoned and allowed to deteriorate, or in rare situations, preserved as historic sites.  Members where invited to tour some of these sites, using a tour bus, meeting to board the bus at the Whittier Mansion, headquarters at that time, of the Society.

The Whittier Mansion, at the corner of Jackson and Laguna, on the Pacific Heights, over looking the northern part of the bay, and the Golden Gate, was built in 1896, for William Frank Whittier and was possessed by Mr. Whittier and his heirs until 1938 when it was sold to the German Third Reich, which used  the building as the German consulate.  When the United States declared war on Germany, the mansion came under the jurisdiction of the Alien Property Custodian, and then in 1956 the Historical Society moved in.  It was a grand space.

With what, might in retrospect, might be viewed as satire, I had invited a business colleague, Eric to share the tour with me.  Eric was a post WW II immigrant from Hamburg who had been a member of the Hitler Youth, had taken part in the construction of the Atlantic wall in France, and had participated in, in  opposition to,  the Allied invasion of Europe, as a member of a German heavy artillery unit that had retreated through France and Belgium back into Germany.  His unit surrendered at the end of the conflict.  Eric had an interest in fortifications and things artillery.

When Eric and I entered the bus we went to the rear, and after we settled down, we were joined by a lone gentleman.  He was quite tall, elderly, mid-80’s perhaps, dressed in a superbly tailored gray tweed doubled breasted suit and was wearing a fedora.  We introduced ourselves.  His name was Marshall Dill.

As the bus traveled through a commercial area of the city, on the way to the military sites, Mr. Dill pointed out a particular building and said that he had recently sold it and that it ran all the way through the block to the next street.  An unusual thing to say.

As we drove from site to site a guide used the bus’s sound system to enlighten us travelers on the subject.  At each site we would disembark to wander about and view that installation.  Some, designed for smaller caliber ordnance, prior to the Civil War were of brick construction, and those from about the turn of the century, 20th, up to WW II were of reinforced concrete.  

A most impressive site visited was Fort Point.  A massive brick fortress built right at the edge of the entrance to San Francisco Bay, just prior to the Civil War.   A segment of the Golden Gate Bridge was designed to arch over Fort Point, and protect it from demolition when the Bridge was built in the 1930’s.

While the Golden Gate Bridge soaring above Fort Point, and then leaping across the Golden Gate is very impressive, it is to those below a bit intimidating.  It appears to threaten to either leap on you or fall on you.

The Battery Spencer site. however, overlooking the northern end of the Bridge, being even at a greater elevation from the sea than the legendary batteries of  the Rock of Gibraltar, not only permit you to look down on the roadway of the Bridge, but to feel at level with the whole structure.  Across the roadway, through the suspending wires, and around the towers an unparalleled  sweeping view of the San Francisco Bay, the city, islands, and many of the communities that boarder on the bay is provided.

Battery Spencer, constructed in the 1890’s, had been equipped with 3 cannons of a size to match those that were, at that time, mounted on battleships. 

At all of the stops, Eric and I would wander about with Mr. Dill.  He made many interesting comments and observations.

When we all returned to the Society’s Headquarters there was a champagne reception.  The mansion provided a grand setting as waiters passed amongst us with trays of sparking glasses of sparkling wine.  Also passing amongst us were ballet dancers from the San Francisco Ballet Company.  Dressed in stiff gossamer skirts and toe shoes, the handsome young women,  with arms filled with brochures, encouraged the drinkers to support the Ballet Company.

As Eric and I stood sipping, with Mr. Dill, a ballerina came up to us.  Mr. Dill chatted with the young lady in an appealing and charming way.  She damn near blushed.

After a bit, Mr. Dill said his goodbye and left the room.  Some time during our conversations, he had indicated that because of his aging he had lost his drivers license.  He had also said he didn’t like to be driven by a chauffeur.

When we left the mansion, we saw Mr. Dill on the corner.  He was waiting for a taxi to pass by so he could flag it. I offered him a ride to his home, and he accepted.

His house was down from Pacific Heights,  fronting on Marina Boulevard and across from the Saint Francis Yacht Club with a view of San Francisco Bay  that swept from the Golden Gate Bridge across to Marin County and to communities of  the East Bay.  

We parked on Scott Street, next to the side of Mr. Dill’s house.  Like many single family dwellings in San Francisco, the house occupied most of the space on the lot and had a ground floor with a garage and other rooms, and principal living space on the upper floors.  The side of the house met the edge of the sidewalk.

Through a door towards the rear of the building we entered a rustic wood paneled room that was likely called the “rec” room.  Perhaps for adults, as there was a “bar”.

Eric and I were asked if we would like a drink.  Mr. Dill took a key from his pocket and unlocked a small padlock that secured a cabinet behind the bar. “My help will some times help themselves,”  he softly grumbled as he opened the cabinet, which contained rows and rows of bottles.

Almost every inch of wall space, not taken up with cabinets and door ways, was covered with framed 8 X 10 photos.  Black and white, and reminiscent of The March of Times or Life Magazine.  With a glass of Scotch on the rocks in hand  I moved my gaze from image to image, and should I comment, or query, Mr. Dill would respond.

A large manor like home isolated amongst wooded landscape. “That was my home in Woodside. I sold it.”

It was, perhaps, understandable because of the shared geography of the San Francisco Bay Area, that folk from different ends of the social spectrum would share sites of life experiences.  Woodside, from my childhood, was a place where my family would visit friends, in modest circumstances, and stop at the “Peanut Farm”, a bar and restaurant with free peanuts, in the shell, in buckets on bar and tables, and discarded shells all over the floor to be walked on.  Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

An image of an appropriately attired gentleman astride an impressive steed. “My favorite horse.”  I of course assumed that the rider was our host.
 
The photo of a group of men in a four door, opened, touring car, with many, including uniformed police officers, surrounding it.  Without comment I recognized, seated in the rear seat, Wendell Willkie, one time candidate for the office of President of the United States.  Next to him, if I was correct, was our host.

White tie and tails, and handsome gowns and jewelry, were displayed in one photo,  that called to mind images of  the presentation of the Nobel Prize.  In the center, a white haired, and heavily be-medaled and sashed, figure was presenting a sash to a younger man, in tie and tails.  The recipient was our host. The presenter was the king of either Denmark or Norway.   Excuse my poor memory.

I asked, “Why did you  get such an award?”  “I performed a service for the king, “ said Mr. Dill as his finger came up to touch a decoration, whose detail matched the sash he was receiving in the photograph, in the button hole of his suit’s lapel.  Nothing more was said.

Marshall Dill was fast becoming my ultimate model of adult cool. Further evidence supporting this would come.

A sequence of four photos brought to mind my childhood visit to the Golden  Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island.  This 1940 visit, with my parents and brother and sister,  was remembered mostly from the photo albums that recorded almost every aspect of my family’s life.  A large number of photos of my family members had been shot all over the fair grounds, usually included in the photos were iconic buildings and massive works that were clearly art deco, the fashion of the time.  One of these iconic works was a massive figure of a bare breasted woman with forearms raised, and the palms of her hands displayed.  She was positioned at the top of a flowing staircase like fountain, in front of a decorative screen.  The statue was named “Pacifica”.

The first photo of the sequence showed the statue leaning slightly forward from the upright position. The subsequent photos revealed much more lean, then a cloud of dust as the statue impacted the terraced fountain, and finally, with dust cleared,  the demolished icon.

Of course, as a 5 or 6 year old, I remembered little or nothing of the great art from the Exposition.  Those images were acquired from latter newsreels and the publications of Fair History.  I only, in my own mind, have retained 3 images from being dragged about the day of that family visit.  The Coca Cola bottling line.  Over powering. 

The assemblage, by the Levi Straus company, of about 20 or 30 ventriloquist dummy sized animated dolls, dressed as cowboys, with different cowboy hats and different cowboy boots and different flannel shirts, but all with the same Levi jeans, and arranged along and about what appeared to be a corral fence.  They moved, bodies twitched and rotated, while from their mouths,  came cowboy songs.  I may have known that they were dolls.

I remember most clearly my Heinz pickle pin.  About the size of a small gherkin,  this model of a pickle had “HEINZ” embossed across the front and a locking pin on the back.  I recall the pride with which I wore my Heinz pickle pin as we traveled across the dark waters toward The City on a ferry boat at the end of our visit.

At Mr. Dill’s invitation we began a tour of the house.  Through a door we came to a circular stair case that accessed the upper floors.  In the center of the stair case was an open elevator.  He entered the lift and slowly began to rise.  Eric and I, using the stair case, were able to match the rate of his ascent.  

From the street level we traveled pass the second, then the third to a fourth level.  The fourth level was a simply furnished “penthouse”.  In the stair case were a number of paintings, including a good sized portrait of a handsome woman.

“My wife,”  he commented as he traveled upward.  In the penthouse he pointed out a row of framed water colors.  They were colorful scenes of activities in the gold fields of ’49. “These are the earliest California water colors.  I’m leaving them to the Historical Society.”

Through out the day Mr. Dill would make different comments that, in no particular order, included:

“When I had a house down the block a bit, this house was owned by the biggest bootlegger in San Francisco.”

“I kept my boat across the way at the Saint Francis Yacht Club.  I would travel to Treasure Island from there.”

A book with a graphically bold dust jacket, about Germany prompted, “This was written by my son.”  The author’s name read, “Marshall Dill, Jr.

As our bus passed the Pacific Union Club, former Flood Mansion, on Nob Hill, “The people there were sort of boring.  Sitting around reading and drinking.”

That comment was of particular interest to me as it represented another “shared” venue with my family.  Of course my father wasn’t a member of the Pacific Union Club, as it appeared that Mr. Dill was, but rather, for a short time, had had a job as a steward.  Although my father’s tenure was short, it provided a classic tale of the robber barons firing the humble steward because he insisted on spending Christmas Eve with his family rather than at the Pacific Union Club serving sherry and plates of brie.   A damn hero of the working class.

I digress …… “When they, the Bohemian Club members would go to their camp in the redwoods near the Russian River, they would pee on the redwood trees.  It was kind of funny to see all of those people peeing on redwood trees.”  Another connection, as my family would occasionally stay in Guerneville on the Russian River.  There were a lot of redwood trees.  Never saw a redwood tree peed on.

“My mother was born on  a sailing ship after it passed Cape Horn and that was heading towards San Francisco at the time of the Gold Rush.”

“My family was descended from Commodore Perry, who had “opened” Japan to the Western world.   Perry had been so well received by the Japanese that he had been given a sizeable piece of property.  He had been the first foreigner to have been granted property there.  Over the years our family had not only retained that property, but had also maintained a family relationship with the Japanese Royal Family.”

Mr. Dill said that prior to the Second World War, he and his sister still retained ownership of this property.  It was located at Yokohoma, on Tokyo Bay,  and had been, for some time, leased, as I recall, to a ship building firm.  They may have been building aircraft carriers.  Or battleships.

As short time before America became involved in the conflict, with Japan occupying parts of China,  A Prince of the Royal Japanese family had scheduled a diplomatic journey to Washington, D.C.  The Prince, who Mr. Dill knew, was to visit and be a guest.  “Had to send my Chinese cook on a vacation.”,  he remarked.

During his visit the Prince brought up the Yokohoma property.  Mr. Dill  expressed his family’s delight in having this gift to Commodore Perry,  for in addition to the pride of historical association,  the considerable financial return was valued.  The family looked forward to this important element of their relationship with Japan being maintained by future generations. 

The Prince indicated that it was his understanding that the firm leasing the “Perry” property was considered offering to purchase it.  Mr. Dill thought not.  The royal guest had been politely insistent.

Eric and I left Mr. Dill’s home after spending the better part of the day in his company. 

Robert
Developing an Interest
July 28, 1940
250th Coast Artillery
Camp McQuaide
Watsonville, California

And time slowly passes……….

When thinking of my meeting with Mr. Dill, I was always able to recall his name because of a popular TV show of that time, “Gun Smoke”.  The name of the principle character was “Marshall Matt Dillon”.

Recently I decided to utilize the advances in computer technology that had occurred since my meeting with Mr. Dill.  At that time I had begun training to become a computer programmer for a Burroughs 205 Computing Machine, which was a devise that utilize vacuum tubes and a rotating magnetic drum “memory”.  Supporting this four thousand decimal word  memory computer, with an add time of 10.5 milliseconds, was an  air conditioned room, with raised flooring and dropped ceiling. 

My current home desk top computer, sharing a part of my cluttered desk,  powered by a Pentium II processor and controlled by an operating system that is largely responsible for Seattle, Washington coming out of San Francisco’s mighty shadow.  Or so it seems to this kid from the Noe Valley,  who’s awareness of Seattle was only ignited when the third Starbucks opened in the Boston area.  Now 61! 

A query to the World Wide Web found, at the online archives of the California Historical Society, a listing, “Guide to the Marshall Dill, Sr. Papers, 1920-1961”.

Marshall Dill was, according to the papers, associated with ….” the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, San Francisco Housing Authority, San Francisco Grand Jury (Foreman), San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, and the Alien Enemy Hearing Board of the Northern District of California. The collection reflects Dill's involvement in the civic affairs of the city in the 1920s through the 1940s. The bulk of the collection centers on his position and activities with the Golden Gate International Exposition, of which Dill was appointed president in 1940.”  And the Bohemian Club, of redwood tree association.  

During my brief visit with Mr. Dill, he never brought up his lofty associations. He just chatted about things that interested him  and was responsive to my questions.

Adult cool hardly covers Mr. Dill’s stature.  Significant  participant in his community may.

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