Tribune Tuesday: A Very Nervous Man

From: The Oakland Tribune, 26 August 1904

AFRAID SHE WOULD KILL SPOUSE
---
This is Reason of Mrs. Sietz Coming to This City


Mrs. Seitz, formerly a lodging house keeper was arrested this morning by Policeman Caldwell on a warrant from San Francisco, charging her with feloniously defrauding Minna Dun?e out of a large sum of money in the sale of a lodging house at 62 Ellis Street, San Francisco.

Mrs. Seitz states that there is nothing in the accusation. She says that she paid $1,600 for the lodging house and sold it for $1,200.

In explaining why she had come to this side of the bay, Mrs. Seitz said that she had lost money and that her husband was a very nervous man and that it would kill him if he knew that the money had been lost. She says that she intended to earn the money which was lost by working.

California Quotes: Whiskey Diggings

"A thick haze veiled the horizon and rendered the sunset less pleasing than we had expected to find it. A hurried walk of an hour in the twilight brought us to a small mining camp called Whiskey Diggings where we found good accommodations for the night, and to our surprise, found it a very quiet, sober place in spite of its suggestive name. I learned that the peculiar name of the camp originated as follows: Three Irishmen went there two or three years before from an adjacent mining camp to prospect, taking a bottle of whiskey with them, and returned drunk and reported that they had discovered not gold but "whiskey diggings," and the place was ever afterward called by that name."

---

From: My Adventures in the Sierra, by OG Wilson, 1902, p. 117

Tribune Tuesday: Jack London Deeds Lot

From: The Oakland Tribune, 30 August 1904

HOME FOR DIVORCED WIFE
---
Jack London Deeds Lot and Will Build the House

As part of the settlement with his wife in regard to their property rights, a deed to a lot on Thirty-first street, with a builder's contract for a pretty shingled cottage was filed for record this morning by Jack London, novelist and newspaper writer, who is being sued by Bessie Maddern London for a divorce. She is to have the same until she marries again, in which case by a provision in the deed the property is to revert to him.

The land was purchased from AJ and Sophie Snyder for $1,575 and building to be erected is to cast $2,175. It is a 45-foot lot, about midway between Grove and Telegraph avenue, on the south side of Thirty-first street.

At the time of the withdrawal of the injunction restraining London from drawing any of his salary as war correspondent or royalties from his books it was stated to Judge Greene that the property rights had been settled out of court. The first complaint in the divorce action filed by Mrs. London, containing several typewritten pages of the misdeeds of London, was also withdrawn, and a second complaint filed, charging simple desertion as the ground for the suit. The building of a home for Mrs. London follows along with other arrangements made in regard to the settlement of their difficulties.

A default has been entered against London in the divorce action now pending in the court, and the matter has been referred to the Court Commissioner Clarence Crowell for the taking of testimony.

California Quotes: Grotesque Feet

"A walk of a few minutes from the north steps of the Del Coronado brings us to an ostrich farm. Why the word farm is applied to it, I hardly know. It has a comparatively small area of ground, perhaps an acre. It is bounded with a close fence, high enough to prevent the escape of the ostriches. Of these there are thirteen, in a sort of corral, inside the inclosure [sic]. Their two-pronged, grotesque feet have beaten every sign of vegetation from the arena; and they have the pleasure of sauntering about over the sand as in their native desert. Some of these solemn creatures are black as to their wing feathers and tail, others a kind of saffron color; and both varied with patches of white. Some parts of their bodies present only a surface of wrinkled skin. The beak is rather useful than aggressive in its construction; and the eye is the most strangely introspective organ that I have ever seen in bird or beast. It suggests to you that the possessor has been studying into the mysteries of Buddhism, and expects, in due course of time, to enter into Nirvana."

---

Photo from Outwest Magazine, Volume VI, 1896, p. 138.

Text from Transactions of the American Horticultural Society, Volume V, 1888, Page 321

Tribune Tuesday: Severely Beaten

From: The Oakland Tribune, 18 August 1904

PRIZE FIGHTER IS BURIED
--
Charles P. Tye is Laid At Rest in Grave

The funeral of Charles P. Tye, the prize figher who lately went insane through the effects of a fight and afterward died, was held to-day from the parlors of a local undertaking establishment. The funeral was conducted under the auspices of Oakland Aerie No. 7, Order of Eagles.

Tye leaves a widow, Mrs. Lucie Tye, and two children, Frank and Charles Tye.

The deceased was well known in local sporting circles. He was by trade a butcher, but previous to engaging in that occupation he had made a record as a prize fighter. During the butcher's strike he resigned from his union and went back to his old profession of pugilism. A fight in Dietz Hall, the opera house, in which he was severely beaten, resulted first in his losing his reason, and afterwards his life.

California Quotes: Isolated Cottages

"The Livermore Sanitarium was started in 1893 by Dr. John W. Robertson for the treatment of nervous and general diseases. Since 1894, however, it has been practically devoted to the treatment of mental diseases.

In 1912 Dr. V. H. Podstata, formerly superintendant of Elgin State Hospital, Illinois, and Dr. Willhite of Dunning, Chicago, became interested in the institution, since when it has been conducted under the joint names of Drs. Robertson, Podstata and Willhite.

There are no large buildings, but many isolated cottages, some for single individuals, and all without either window guards or enclosed restraints. All patients receive individual nursing and care.

The general hydropathic building was completed in 1906 and occupies grounds entirely separate from the cottages."

---

From: Insitutional Care of the Insane in the United States and Canada, 1916, Volume 2, p. 59. Photo from Oakland: Athens of the Pacific, 1897, p. 38.

Tribune Tuesday: The Same Tent

From: The Oakland Tribune, 09 August 1904

LABORER ROBBED

George Petroff, a laborer employed on the main lake sewer, reported to the Chief of Police this morning that he had been robbed of $20 last night. He lays the crime at the door of Joseph Jones, a colored man, who took lodgings in the same tent with him last night. A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Jones. Petroff says that he had the money in his trousers which he placed under his head on going to bed. He was not awakened by the process of extracting the money.

Are You A Real Genealogist?

Well, it's that time of year again, when we all start getting bored with ourselves and start wondering if other people we deal with online are "real genealogists" or not.

In the interest of transparency, I have decided to provide anyone interested with a flowchart of my own gauge of your genealogical realness, as decided by me, using my own criteria. Sort of a mind-map of how I am judging you whenever I read your blog/forum post/wiki edit/diary entry/doctor's note/grocery list. Just so everyone knows where I think they stand.

Click on the image to get a readable version. Good luck, and here's hoping you are a real genealogist like me!

California Quotes: The Mansion of Mr. Yount

"We stopped for a night at the hospitable mansion of Mr. Yount. This old man had led an adventurous and chequered life, in the course of which he had fought under Jackson at New Orleans, and in the Seminole war, had been taken prisoner by the Indians, and actually bound to the stake. He had been a hunter and trapper, and Indian fighter at large, in the heart of the continent, until his combative propensities were gratified--and he finally found himself one day at the "jumping-off place," and made his first attempt at ocean navigation on the bosom of the broad Pacific. In the unpretending skiff of an otter-hunter, often unaccompanied save by his trusty rifle, he coasted the shores and islands of California, in search of the pelt of his valuable prey.

While employed one day (in the year 1836) in his regular pursuit, he chanced to steer his skiff into the navigable creek or estuary of Napa, rightly judging it a place of resort for his furry friend.

The valley was then inhabited by none but Indians, and he made his way up to a beautiful spot, a few miles from his boat, which had been selected for a rancheria by a tribe called the "Caymus". Here he sat down to rest, when suddenly there flashed upon his mind, like a gleam of light, a long-forgotten prophesy of an old fortune-teller in his native state. He declares that the Sybil had predicted the spot of his future residence in terms exactly answering to the description of this valley, including all the accessories of grove, plain, mountain, river, and even "medicine-water" as the Indians call the springs.

The old man pondered over this prophecy, counted his gains, which had been considerable, and philosophized over the vicissitudes of human life--not forgetting, however, to examine the valley more carefully.

On his next visit to Monterey, he became a citizen of California, and obtained a grant of land embracing the charmed spot indicated by the western witch."

---

From: A Tour of Duty in California, 1849, p. 93.

Tribune Tuesday: Hospital Cases

From: The Oakland Tribune, 03 May 1904

Hospital Cases

Harry Dawson is the victim of a gamecock. He went to the Receiving Hospital today with a hand badly swollen with blood poisoning and is in a dangerous condition. He lives at 657 Jefferson street. He explained that he had a "stag" whose natural spurs he had not yet cut off. The cock took a fly at him the other morning and stuck his finger, and the bad hand is the result.

Masagi Kobaushi, a Japanese, went to the Receiving Hospital suffering from a dog bite. He lives at 533 Sixteenth street and told Steward Harry Borchert that a dog had sprung upon him and bitten him. He was suffering from a lacerated wound in the left thigh.

George O'Hare of 1641 Market street was the victim of a soda water bottle this afternoon, which struck him in the forehead and inflicted a bad laceration, which needed several stitches to med. He said that two men were fighting and one threw a bottle which missed its mark and struck him in the forehead.