San Diego History Center Is a Museum, Education Center, and Research Library Your Contribution Founded As the San Diego Historical Society in 1928
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The Journal of San Diego Volume 59 Summer 2013 Number 3 • The Journal of San Diego History Diego San of Journal 3 • The Number 2013 59 Summer Volume History Publication of The Journal of San Diego History is underwritten by a major grant from the Quest for Truth Foundation, established by the late James G. Scripps. Additional support is provided by “The Journal of San Diego History Fund” of the San Diego Foundation and private donors. PRESERVE A SAN DIEGO TREASURE The San Diego History Center is a museum, education center, and research library Your contribution founded as the San Diego Historical Society in 1928. Its activities are supported will help to create an endowment for by: the City of San Diego’s Commission for Arts and Culture; the County of San Diego; individuals; foundations; corporations; fund raising events; membership dues; admissions; shop sales; and rights and reproduction fees. The Journal of San Diego History Please make your check payable to The San Diego Foundation. Articles appearing in The Journal of San Diego History are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life. Indicate on the bottom of your check that your donation is for The Journal of San Diego History Fund. The San Diego Foundation accepts contributions of $100 and up. The paper in the publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Science-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Your contribution is tax-deductible. Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. The San Diego Foundation 2508 Historic Decatur Road, Suite 200 San Diego, CA 92106 (619) 235-2300 or (858) 385-1595 [email protected] Front Cover: Watercolor painting of the Villa Montezuma by George T. Kern (1921-2007) c. 1976. Courtesy of Phil Kern and the Friends of the Villa Montezuma. Back Cover: Reproduction of a painting by Arthur Beaumont in 1944 titled “Confidential Mission (U.S.S. San Diego).” Gift of the USS San Diego Reunion Association to the San Diego Maritime Museum, Photo #15509. Design and Layout: Allen Wynar Printing: Crest Offset Printing Editiorial Assistants: Travis Degheri Cynthia van Stralen Joey Seymour The Journal of San Diego History IRIS H. W. ENGSTRAND MOLLY McCLAIN Editors THEODORE STRATHMAN DAVID MILLER Review Editors Published since 1955 by the SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1649 El Prado, Balboa Park, San Diego, California 92101 ISSN 0022-4383 The Journal of San Diego History VOLUME 59 SUMMER 2013 NUMBER 3 Editorial Consultants Published quarterly by the San Diego History Center at 1649 El Prado, Balboa MATTHEW BOKOVOY Park, San Diego, California 92101. University of Nebraska Press A $60.00 annual membership in the DONALD C. CUTTER San Diego History Center includes Albuquerque, New Mexico subscription to The Journal of San WILLIAM DEVERELL Diego History and the SDHC Times. University of Southern California; All back issues are accessible at www. Director, Huntington-USC Institute sandiegohistory.org. of California and the West Articles and book reviews for VICTOR GERACI publication consideration, as well as University of California, Berkeley editorial correspondence, should be addressed to Editors, The Journal of San DONALD H. HARRISON Diego History, Department of History, Publisher, San Diego Jewish World University of San Diego, 5998 Alcalá J. MICHAEL KELLY Park, San Diego, CA 92110 Committee of 100 Balboa Park All article submissons should be ROGER W. LOTCHIN computer generated, double-spaced University of North Carolina Chapel Hill with endnotes, and follow the Chicago Manual of Style. Authors should submit NEIL MORGAN an electronic copy in Microsoft Word. Journalist The San Diego History Center assumes JOHN PUTMAN no responsibility for the statements or San Diego State University opinions of the authors or reviewers. ANDREW ROLLE ©2013 by the San Diego History Center The Huntington Library ISSN 0022-4383 ROGER SHOWLEY Periodicals postage paid at San Diego, CA The San Diego Union-Tribune Publication No. 331-870 (619) 232-6203 ABE SHRAGGE www.sandiegohistory.org Independent Historian RAYMOND STARR Note: For a change of address, please San Diego State University, emeritus call (619) 232-6203 ext. 102 or email [email protected] PHOEBE S. K. YOUNG University of Colorado at Boulder ii CONTENTS VOLUME 59 SUMMER 2013 NUMBER 3 ARTICLES The Villa Montezuma Museum at 125: Surviving and Thriving with Friends of the Villa Montezuma Charles Spratley and Louise Torio 101 Honorably Representing San Diego: The Story of the USS San Diego Joey Seymour 121 Trails and Tales of Balboa Park Linda Bradley Dowdy and Anne Stephens Vafis 139 A Pattern of Seismicity in Southern California: The Possibility of Earthquakes Triggered by Lunar and Solar Gravitational Tides David Nabhan 157 BOOK REVIEWS 171 iii The Villa Montezuma Museum at 125: Surviving and Thriving with Friends of the Villa Montezuma Charles Spratley and Louise Torio For over 125 years, rooftop gargoyles have held a protective watch over the Villa Montezuma Museum, located on the corner of 20th and K Streets in San Diego’s Sherman Heights Historic District. The Victorian mansion, built in 1887 for pianist and celebrated spiritualist Jesse Shepard (also known as author Francis Grierson), remains one of San Diego’s architectural and cultural treasures. In 1969, five dedicated members of the San Diego Historical Society (SDHS), now the San Diego History Center (SDHC), led by Kathleen “Kay” Porter, worked to purchase the house for use as a neighborhood museum and cultural center. For the next forty years, volunteers known as the Friends of the Villa Montezuma (FOVM) helped in the care, restoration, and stewardship of the house museum. They also contributed their time The Villa Montezuma Museum by George T. Kern (1921-2007), circa 1976. George’s son Phil Kern, PE, is an Advisory Board member of and talents to the lives of Friends of the Villa Montezuma (FOVM). Courtesy of FOVM inner city residents who had Charles Spratley is a former San Diego Historical Society site administrator for the Villa Montezuma Museum, and author of Piercing the Veil: San Diego’s Haunted History (Schiffer, 2012). Louise Torio, resident of the Sherman Heights Historic District, conducts monthly walking tours to benefit the Friends of the Villa Montezuma, Inc. (FOVM). Charles and Louise serve the FOVM as Vice President and President, respectively. 101 The Journal of San Diego History no cultural center in their District. Incorporated as a non-profit, FOVM continued to watch over the Villa after the SDHC decided, during difficult economic times, to consolidate focus on its Museum of San Diego History in Balboa Park. Regrettably the Villa Montezuma Museum closed in 2006, and FOVM began focusing on raising funds for much needed restoration. Today, the museum’s future is brighter than ever thanks to the efforts of its friends, who have not wavered from their sole mission of restoring and re-opening this splendid historical landmark. The Villa’s path to becoming a cherished house museum The Villa Montezuma Museum (also known as the Jesse Shepard/Francis Grierson House) has been described as one of San Diego’s “monuments in gingerbread.” With its stained glass windows, detailed woodwork, and elaborate turrets and tower, it represents a high point in the history of Queen Anne Victorian architecture. Shepard, who described it as a “Palace of the Arts,” built and furnished it according to his own design, and “the original intention has been successfully carried out in every particular by the architects Comstock and Trotsche,” although later authors would claim that it had been built in accordance with instructions from the spirit world.1 Kay Porter, 2008. Kay Porter has been a supporter of the San In the 1950s and 1960s, Victorian houses became Diego Historical Society and the the focus of preservation efforts as once-fashionable Friends of the Villa Montezuma for more than 40 years. Courtesy neighborhoods fell into disrepair. Jim Moss, then of FOVM. Executive Director of the San Diego Historical Society, said, “In 1953 the San Diego Historical Society decided to preserve historically significant structures in the area, but it wasn’t until 1969— 16 years—that it began to do it.”2 Until then, the organization focused on the establishment of a research library and the Serra Museum. In 1970, Kay Porter and her friends and SDHS supporters and board members Dr. Nicholas Fintzelberg (chairperson of the Villa Montezuma Committee); John Henderson, FAIA, and Homer Delawie, FAIA (partners in the architectural firm of Delawie, Macy, and Henderson); and Harry Evans pooled their personal funds to purchase the Villa and spearheaded the campaign to get the City to purchase the house if SDHS did the restoration. The group worked hard to identify funding sources. The restoration took nearly three years, the painstaking work paid for 102 The Villa Montezuma Museum at 125 by a mixture of civic pride and City funding. Over $82,000 for restoration came from SDHS, the City of San Diego, the Junior League of San Diego, the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD), the San Diego Model Cities Program, and individual donors.3 To provide matching funds for the HUD grant, “benefit dinners, cocktail parties and receptions were separately hosted by the San Diego Historical Society’s Women’s Committee, by the Contemporary Arts Committee of the Fine Arts Society, and by the Native Daughters of the Golden West.”4 The 1970s were boom times for local history. The Bicentennial celebration led to a reawakening of appreciation towards the nation’s historic landmarks while, at the same time, museums around the country sought to bring history into urban and ethnic communities. SDHS found that it could use the Villa Montezuma to branch out from State Senator Jim Mills spoke at the its singular location in Mission Valley above Old 1972 dedication ceremony.