After serving as curator at the Kelley House Museum for four years, and guiding it through the challenges of COVID, Karen McGrath has retired. Her tenure was marked by interesting projects and exciting technological advancements, and we shall miss her greatly. However, there is a silver lining: we have hired a new, young curator who could not be more perfect for the job. We welcomed Marguerite [...]
July 21, 1937 - Mae Bishop died at a hospital in Berkeley, just 5 days after her 20th birthday. Dr. Preston had recommended that her parents, Chet and Elizabeth Bishop, take her there when she became ill a few days before. “Despite good medical care, she did not improve and developed pneumonia. Already weakened, she did not have the strength to withstand this, and soon succumbed.” [...]
Photograph described on back, handwritten in ink as, "The Last Load, July 20, [19]13 some classy outfit. Comptche ranch 'on the ridge'." A wagon load of hay may be seen, being drawn by two draft horses. Two men stand by next to the wagon and horses. There is a mule (?) in the foreground. A man leaning on what is probably a pitch fork stands in [...]
Thomas Foster Rowe and Nancy Emeline Rowe. (Gus F. Rowe Family Collection, Kelley House Photographs) July 18, 1929 - Mrs. Nancy Rowe disappeared while picking blackberries near her home on Albion Ridge. The 75-year-old grandmother had started out with her berry pail shortly after lunch. A search party was formed that afternoon “when she failed to return to her home in a reasonable time [...]
Ice Cream Soda Fountain inside the Remedy Store, Mendocino. (Gift of Carl A. Moore) In 1928, Dr. Russell Preston, beloved Mendocino physician, purchased the town’s only pharmacy, Pioneer Drug Store, located in the building just to the east of here on Main Street. There had been a drug store in that location since 1877, operated by a series of druggists including R. H. Witherell, [...]
Coombs Siblings, c. 1905. Group photograph of the Coombs family siblings, pioneer settlers of Little River, taken in their later years. Standing: Elizabeth Coombs Pullen and Richard Coombs Seated: Ann Coombs Stickney and Caroline Coombs Rice July 16, 1910 - Richard G. Coombs of Little River passed away at the Fort Bragg hospital where he had been recuperating from injuries sustained in a stage [...]
There are people who don’t like to wander through cemeteries, perhaps because they want to avoid remembering that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. But for some of us, an hour or two in an old cemetery is like a magical turn in Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine. If you belong in the latter category, the new Kelley House tour of Evergreen Cemetery is [...]
A color image of the south entrance to the Jerome B. Ford House, located on Main Street in Mendocino, before restoration, c. 1975. Image was taken from the Mendocino Headlands looking north. Of the many buildings the Mendocino Lumber Company owned on the south side of Main Street, the historic Ford House is the only one that remains. In April 1854, Ford returned to [...]
Northeast corner of Lansing and Ukiah Streets, 1932. The Johnson building on the corner housed the Mendocino Justice Court on its first floor. The two small rental houses down Ukiah Street on the right, were built by architect/builder/undertaker J. D. Johnson. Stauer's Grocery Store was located on the left and is currently the home of Goodlife Cafe & Bakery. July 11, 1942 - The [...]
Playing at Big River Beach, 1920-1940. Children playing and swimming and people boating at the mouth of Big River. One can see the Big River bridge in the background. (Gift of Dot Johnson) July 10, 1930 - The wheel of a large truck crossing Big River Bridge cut through the floor of the bridge about 60 feet from the north end and fell into [...]