“J. E. Packard is having a neat cottage built on his lot near the school house grounds. We have no building boom, but several new houses are being erected about town.” Thus it was reported in the Mendocino Beacon on March 21, 1891. What has become known as the Packard-Johnson House was one of two houses built for Justin Packard in the east part of town, on the large lot south of the grammar school on Pine Street (the present day Community Center).
Packard-Johnson House, c. 1990. (Photographer: Bill Wagner)
Packard came to Mendocino about 1876 and in 1877 he and his brother Charles bought the drug and jewelry store of R. H. Witherell on Main Street. C. O. Packard ran the drug department; Justin was the jeweler. Charles was to run the drugstore for 36 years, but Justin went home to Maine to care for his widowed mother and returned to Mendocino only occasionally.
John D. Johnson, who had been the builder of the house, decided to buy it as an investment when Justin left. He purchased it in 1891 for $5,500. He owned other rental properties on the east side of town. His tenants were supplied vegetables from his huge garden and water from the two wells on the Packard property. In 1891 Johnson rented the house to Dr. James Milliken and family, who lived there for nine years.
There were to be many other renters; among them were a dentist, Dr. Bosford, the Arthur Dodge family, and the Roy Hayters, all large families for this big house. Renting continued until Johnson’s death in 1927 at age 87.
Louis and Kate Anderson, both Coast natives, purchased the house from the estate. Louis was born in 1872 in Little River; Kate Bannerman was born in 1882 at Kibesillah. They were married in 1899 and had two children, Lucille and Roy; sadly, Roy died in infancy.
Louis, a woodsman, worked in lumber camps and in later years at the Mendocino Lumber Company. According to Walter Jackson’s diary, his thumb was cut off by a wire cable in 1927. He was also an ardent fisherman.
Kate’s life was devoted to nursing. She operated a maternity home in Mendocino in the Hansen House (the present Café Beaujolais) during the 1920s in conjunction with Dr. Preston, but she also worked with Doctors Knorr, Wolfe, and Lydig. Kate’s daughter, Lucille, was her last patient at the Hansen House when her granddaughter, Beatrice, was born in 1928. Alvin Mendosa was Kate’s “last baby.” She went to Mamie Mendosa’s home to care for her.
In her “retirement” from mothers and babies, she started a bridge club in 1929 with 12 socially prominent women. They met for 42 years, every third Tuesday evening of every month. Charter members included Edna Jackson, Eleanor Smith, and Dora Doolittle, who were still active in 1971. Others who had joined the group were Laing Chambers, Billie Ellis, Nannie Escola, Marquita Rybloom, Bessie Strauss, and Anne Valentine.
At the time Louis bought the Packard-Johnson house, he deeded it to his daughter, Lucille, and her husband, Clarence Freathy. However, they decided they did not want the property and turned it back to the Andersons, who moved into it from the Hansen House. The Andersons celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1949. Louis died in 1959 and Kate in 1969. Lucille then inherited the house, but sold it when she and her husband moved to Healdsburg.
Its present owners [in 1991], Heidi and Barry Cusick and their family, have added the impressive water tower. [Today the house is owned by Eric Hillesland, who is also the owner of the Alegria Inn on the east end of Main Street.] The house sits on the comer of Pine and School Streets with its many memories of past tenants, its walls and garden filled with the pulses of the past and present.
— Reprinted from the March 28, 1991 Mendocino Beacon.
The Kelley House Museum is open from 11AM to 3PM Thursday through Monday. Walking Tours of Mendocino are available throughout the week. Visit the Kelley House Event Calendar for a Walking Tour schedule.