Bad luck, good luck

But for luck (and not just good luck), many, if not most of us, would not be here.

In 1949, a boy was born into my maternal Grandmother's family; on that auspicious occasion, the boy's grandfather, Howard Beck Cutting, typed a six-page letter, which included some tidbits of family history. We all know that lore almost always contains both bits of truth and bits of conjecture as we strive to fill in the blanks (in both personal and world history), but it does make for a good story.

And so it was with the improbable tale of how a young man from Massachusetts met a young woman from Tasmania. I'll let excerpts from Howard's letter tell the tale:

You know Tommy, you had a very narrow escape from not being here at all. Way back in 1869 a train had stopped at a little station in California to take on passengers, and having done so it had started up to continue on its way. A man running to catch that train failed to do so by a slight margin. Perhaps he was very much disgusted with himself for having missed it, however, I am sure that he was glad he had done so. If he had caught it there would have been no Tommy Cutting. 

[…]

Great-great grandfather and great grandfather had learned the painting trade and they went into business in San Francisco. They accumulated some property, however, for one reason or another such pieces were sold, presumably at a profit. It was during this period of their work in San Francisco that great grandfather [Eugene Augustus] Cutting took a day off in 1869 to go to Redwood City. A railroad had been constructed from San Francisco to San Jose 50 miles south of the city. He was the man who missed the train back to San Francisco and during the interval while awaiting the arrival of the next train he met Mary Beck.

Drawn by the rush for gold in California, the family of Eugene Augustus Cutting had come to San Francisco from Sudbury, Massachusetts; The promise of gold and riches also brought Mary Beck's family to California from Launceston, Tasmania. Eugene and Mary were married in 1869 in Redwood City, San Mateo, California, and had four children. 

As if that wasn't enough good fortune, they lived through the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. The fire was ultimately stopped only six blocks from their home in the Mission District.

Eugene Augustus Cutting and Mary Beck

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As a postscript, the baby boy to whom the letter was addressed passed away just a few months ago, after two-year battle with a disease that finally took him, all too soon. 

Family is what family does

In an earlier post, I recounted how the Richardson family pulled together to help after the untimely death of a son-in-law; my grandfather, Russell Richardson, came to help her pack and move the family back to their parent's home in Sutherlin.

Interestingly, this was not the last time an untimely death put my grandfather in a position to help out. In late fall of 1939, his brother-in-law, Malcolm Gilmour, a sales manager for C&H Sugar Corporation suffered a massive heart attack and died. 

"…on the day of his death (Nov. 11, 1939, just after his 47th birthday), he woke up not feeling very well, and ate very little breakfast, but he had tickets for a football game, so he went. He continued to feel unwell, and left the game early to come home (he wasn't driving, he used public transportation). Their house on Bellevue Ave. in Piedmont was on the uphill side of the street, and there was a formidable couple of flights of stairs leading up to the front door. About two-thirds of the way up, he collapsed and died."

[email from Madge R. Walsh to James C. Richardson 5/28/2005]

Malcolm's wife, Ida Cutting Gilmour, was left suddenly without means and two children to support. She could no longer afford the large family home (houses in this tony enclave now go for $3-6 million and have ballrooms), and so moved in with her sister's home while a smaller house was built.

Which is why, in the 1940 census, the relatively modest Richardson household in Piedmont, California, was larger than usual, with not only Russell, his wife Jessie, and their two children, but also Ida and her two children, Malcolm Jr and Jean. The household included two 17 year-old cousins, both trying to decide what their education after high school would look like (and likely emptying the larder), my nine-year old mother, and a 20-year old cousin who was finishing up art school and who practiced bagpipes in the house. 

Because family helps family. 

Ida and Malcolm about 1920

Almost an Angel

My great uncle, Edwin Julian Cutting, was the youngest of five siblings, and the only one born outside the US--in Hawaii. His father, Eugene Lester Cutting, had found employment as a bookkeeper with the Hupmobile dealer in Honolulu, and had moved his family there. 

My grandmother recalled that Edwin used to get away with all sorts of things since he was the youngest and had an enchanting smile--why, he even sliced the butter from the wrong end, much to his mother's chagrin. He always chalked it up to being a southpaw.

 

Eventually, the family returned to California, and the children completed their education there. In high school, Edwin played baseball, and a dearth of professional talent led to a scout putting him in a game as a first baseman for the Los Angeles Angels -- during summer break in 1922. However, his family insisted that he needed to complete high school, which meant he could not play for the Angels until he graduated in the spring. In spite of this, the LA Club (which was then part of the Pacific Coast League) signed him for the next year. 

 

Edwin didn't stay away from the diamond completely though: he was picked up by a "bush league" team called the Thomson-Diggs (sponsored by a hardware store of the same name) in the Sacramento Winter League. The newspapers are full of hopeful hyperbole, as Edwin is one of eight AA picks that played on that team in the winter of 1922-23. If you look at his stats for the season, he's a reliable (left-handed) hitter (over .500), but his real value is defensive, as he picked runners off at first base in high numbers, averaging nearly 10 outs per game.

Indeed, the Thomson-Diggs lead the league, winning all their games until the very last. In a game delayed by one week due to rain, Edwin had to request permission from the Angels to play, as the date of the game, February 19, 1923, was the same date he was supposed to report for spring training for the Angels. Alas, the "Thomson-Diggs Nine" lost spectacularly 9-3 to the Leo Lobner's (they had fancy uniforms, since their sponsor was a men's clothier). 

 

In the end, Edwin never saw any more action with the Angels; The Long Beach Telegram reports on March 21, 1923: "Several promising young ball players who are not yet ripe to play in the Coast League will probably be turned over to the Shell Oil team by Los Angeles for seasoning in the Oil Belt league, according to word from Feistner this morning. They are Ed Cutting, first baseman, who is badly needed to take the place of Frank Metz, who is leaving after Sundays game for other climes." 

 

“Eddie” Cutting turns up during spring training with the Saint Louis Browns, where he is signed for the 1924 season, with the note that “Cutting is a left-hander and won't take much development to make him ready for the fastest company.” He trains hard throughout spring training in Mobile, Alabama, and sprains his ankle once. During spring training, a personal interest story describes him: "One thing particularly noticeable about Cutting is that he is almost always lit up with smiles galore. He has a fine disposition, loves to boost his native section of the country, California, to the skies, and is anxious to make good."

 

In April 1925, he married a Los Angeles débutante. As late as May 1925, it is noted that he will be retained as Brown’s property, though he never saw a professional game again.  

Edwin Cutting, Sacramento Winter League 1923

Jessie Dewey Cutting (Richardson)

by Madge Richardson Walsh, 2001

Jessie Dewey Cutting was born in San Francisco on November 5, 1895, in the apartment building her grandfather Cutting built next door to his home (both were still standing in the 1980s). Jessie was the third of five children, with two older sisters and two younger brothers. Her parents were not particularly happy at having another girl; when her proud father had rhapsodized in the family Bible over the birth of the first two girls, endowing them with lovely names — Marjorie Adele, Ida Mary — number three was recorded simply as "another girl." No mellifluous name for her, either: she was named Jessie after her mother. 

The Cutting home was in Honolulu, where her father, Eugene Cutting, worked as a sugar broker. When Jessie was about 11, and after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, they moved permanently to the mainland. Her mother had made regular visits to San Francisco to have her children; all these trips except the last were made in sailing ships.

In the Bay Area, they had a house on Nace Avenue in Piedmont, and Jesse went to the Piedmont Avenue School. 

Another disappointment developed: Jessie was born with congenital bilateral hip dysplasia in which the hip fails to make a socket for the thigh bone, and could not walk until a specialist operated on her when she was three. For one hip, the operation was successful; the other was not so, and she always walked with a limp. In her later years, arthritis compounded the pain, and her movements were restricted and she tired easily.  

This was not a period where women were encouraged to go to college, but Jessie persuaded her parents to let her attend what was then the California School of Arts And Crafts. This was during the tenure of Frederick Meyer, of Perham Nahl, and Xavier Martinez. Despite little support for her work, she did finish school, and did her practice teaching in art at University High School in Oakland, and then went into commercial art. She illustrated such new clothing fashions for Capwell’s department store sale brochures. 

Capwell's Advertisement, Oakland Tribune, Oct. 13, 1922

We have two of her oil paintings, one a still life exercise, the other the tawny hills and oak trees in the Piedmont uplands. While her active art career was brief, she remained a wonderful teacher, as her patience was infinite.

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Jessie died in 1984; in a gesture of his deep love for her, Russell established a scholarship at her alma mater, which is now known as the California College of the Arts. The Jessie Cutting Richardson Memorial Scholarship is awarded annually to 1-3 full-time students who are either U.S. citizens or eligible noncitizens and who demonstrate financial need and academic merit at CCA. Her family continue to donate to the fund so that her memory may remain alive in the hearts and hands of its many recipients.

Once Upon a Time: Honolulu

by Marjory Cutting Hulting

     On December 13, 1899, on my seventh birthday, we sailed from San Francisco for Honolulu. It was a foggy, bleak day when we left Marmee’s house and went to the wharf, the last part of the trip over large noisy cobblestones. Our trunks and our cat Billie, a huge part Persian, in a crate, were taken to the ship, R.P. Rithet, by a neighbor, Esther Hayes the expressman.

     By the time we reached the dock, I was thoroughly frightened at the strangeness of it all and the confusion, smells, fussing relations and my mother’s determined good-natured impatience. Billie had escaped from his slatted box, made by my young uncle Howard; so with this excuse, I cried. Everyone asked what was the matter, and knowing grown-ups always must have a reason, Billie’s loss was the simplest. I can look back and realize that Billie was not the main reason, but merely my excuse. Loving relations were my grandfather and grandmother Cutting, my Aunt Evelyn, Papa’s Auntie Grace [Beck] and Howard, then about 18. We love them all dearly and, on their part we were going to a very faraway place.

     Papa had gone to Honolulu some months before as a salesman for Waterhouse & Lester, a carriage supply firm in San Francisco where he was a bookkeeper, and a firm in Honolulu called Honolulu Carriage Co. had offered him the position as manager. He came home, made the necessary arrangements and returned to Honolulu, leaving my mother to sell the furniture (except the piano), put the house up for rent and take four children by sailing vessel to make a new home.

Our captain was Capt. MacPhail, a young, slight Scotsman with a decided accent. The first mate was Dr. Mr. (afterward Capt.) George Weston Gove, and a close friend of the family for many years thereafter. The second mate was another Scott named Mr. Burns, the delight of us children because he sang sea shanty type songs for us and had ridiculous things to say about the passengers, especially one old man who used to go to a barrel of seawater every morning and put it on his eyes saying, “nothing is so good for the eyes is good saltwater.” The mate took him off perfectly. We had Christmas at sea, and a passenger, Capt. Frieze, dressed a Santa Claus, came down through the cabin skylight with presents for everyone.

The Cutting's 1902 voyage aboard the R.P. Rithet

Snapshots: Honolulu

by Jessie Emma Dewey (Cutting), ca. 1899 

Ida and Jessie on the porch - a picture from the same roll

 On the back it reads:

"Gene & I took these snaps - developed the plates & printed them - terrible

Ida -               

At corner of Beretania & Alexander St Honolulu. Cottage built by Chinese contractors - note Chinese architecture. Thot these snapshots might amuse you. I was going to destroy them but will let you do it."

The same intersection in 2016 (via Google Street View)

Letter from Salina Cruz, 1919

A Letter from Russell Richardson to Jessie Cutting, Salina Cruz, Mexico

Salina Cruz, Mexico

3 p.m., Friday, March 28, 1919

Dearest,

            I had three letters ready to mail to you here, but the American consul says he wants to send some letters to the States by us – their mail service is so undependable, sometimes taking three weeks.

            There is quite a story to our arrival, so I shall go back and relate it in chronological order. At 7:30 this morning we anchored just outside the breakwaters to Salina Cruz Harbor.

            The motor dory was launched in the Captain sent Ted ashore in it to visit the consul and see if the dock was ready for us to oil. The sea was very rough and Ted got soaked from the spray before he had cut through the two breakers. They had just got off the bow of our ship when the engine died and they came drifting down on the ship. While the coxswain worked at the engine Ted fended her off. All of a sudden the engine started and with the wind and see in the same direction they were whisked from bow to stern in an instant. Then he circled about to get on his course and head for the gap between the two breakwaters. The little old dory rolled and pitched like an egg shell and when she climbed up a wave and suddenly reached the crest I swear she flew clear out of water. Not a few expected to see her capsize any instant. But once he got turned around it was all right, and he disappeared in ten minutes into the inner harbor.

            At ten he returned. We hoisted the boat and up anchor and headed in. The outer harbor is very small and the inner one smaller still. We aimed to pass through into the inner harbor and more alongside the dock – a sharp turn to our left.

            So far I have forgotten to mention that there is a terrific off shore wind blowing. I have never encountered anything like it. The mountains seem to form a funnel which collects the trade winds from a large area and concentrate them all to blow out of Salina Cruz Harbor. Many a hat was lost this morning – Lieut. Conover lost two (and they cost $12.50 each now.). When you went onto the forecastle you had to lean forward at a 45° angle and virtually claw your way into the wind. And on the bridge when we were underway heading into it, if you looked up with your eyes open the wind grabbed the lashes and pinned your lids down so that you couldn’t close them – making tears stream out. And if you put your head down and closed them, you could, only with great difficulty get them open in the face of the wind. ’S a fact.

            Well, in we went, slowing to 2/3 speed as we passed the breakwaters and to 1/3 halfway across the outer harbor. This entrance to the inner Harbor is 25 yards wide – the ship 31 feet. Allowing a little for the wind to carry us toward the left hand side, he headed straight for it. But the instant our nose entered the gap it was evident that she would not pass through without the ship hitting this concrete wall a glancing blow.

Russell's sketch superimposed over a satellite picture of the harbor today.

            Of course what I would have done under similar circumstances doesn’t make any difference – but I would have run up full speed and tried to skin through before we bumped at any rate: but he rang up 2/3 astern. Before the result of 2/3 astern was noticed we hit, just abaft of no. 4 smoke pipe. You could see the side bend in just like a football – but unlike a football it didn’t spring out again. The force of this impact through the stern out a bit and he grabbed this opportunity to try to forge ahead – going 2/3 ahead. To protect the propeller he stopped before she banged again and this time she bumped the propeller guard – bending this a little – though from the bridge, the skipper and all thought it had been carried away.

            As soon as she was clear he rang up two thirds again and cleared the entrance though it was perfectly evident that the beach was only a stones throw away – (I have drawn the chart true to scale). The instant the stern was clear he rang up two thirds astern but it was too late – we were going aground on the beach. So he let go an anchor to help stop his motion. We stopped all right when our nose ran into the sandy beach.

            Then we ran two lines ashore to the oil dock – from bow and stern. To do this we had to launch a boat – a dozen times this little dory nearly capsized but finally the lines were made fast. Then we heaved in on the lines and gave full speed astern on the engines and she came off slick as an ax. By noon we were tied up and oil coming aboard. It didn’t seem to worry Capt. Fletcher any. He was very cool all the time and never swore or showed any signs of weakening.

            After lunch he ordered me to go to the American consul – report our arrival and tell him that so far as he, Capt. Fletcher, was concerned, the official call of courtesy by the consul might be omitted, for he himself would call on the consul at 2:30. The consul was agreeable and so the Capt. is making his call.

            Dressed in my spiffy whites, down the main streets of Salina Cruz to call on the consul I felt like quite a personage.

            The place boasts 5000 inhabitants and four white people. It is typically Mexican – the numerous hounds – scantily clad, barefoot natives. Fruit vendors mostly women, met us on the dock. In town the narrow sandy streets are deserted except for a wild pig here and there and prehistoric wooden carts with cumbersome wooden wheels drawn by runty, bony, oxen. Nothing seems to thrive, the children are skinny, all are small of stature and the men can’t even grow a healthy appearing mustache. A flock of goats and kids obstructed the crossing at one street and even they were stunted, scrawny animals.

            We passed the city garrison. An ordinary Mexican structure was a long veranda along its front. The wall was completely covered with cartridge belts, hung there and numerous rifles leaned against it. A sentinel stood by the door in a strictly military posture, absolutely rigid, the gun by his side almost as long as he was tall. He looks neither to the right or left – yet I believe he saw everything. Next to the irregular mass of flat rocks bordering the street which I took to be a sidewalk was built a barricade of brick four feet high and two feet thick with rifle slits in it every few feet.

            Love in a hurry - Russell