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)