Regional Oral History, Office the Bancroft Library Lurline Matson
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Regional Oral History, Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Lurline Matson Roth MATSON AND ROTH FAMILY HISTORY: A LOVE OF SHIPS, HORSES, AND GARDENS An Interview Conducted by Suzanne B. Riess in 1980, 1981 Copyright @ 1982 by the Regents of the Univeriity of California All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between the Regents of the University of California and Lurline Matson Roth dated October 28, 1981. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California Berkeley. No partof the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the agreement with Lurline Matson Roth requires that she be notified of the request and allowed thirty days in which to respond. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Lurline Matson Roth, "Matson and Roth Family History: A Love of Ships, Horses, and Gardens," an oral history conducted 1980, 1981 by Suzanne B. Riess, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancrof t Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1982. TABLE OF CONTENTS -- Lurline Matson Roth INTERVIEW HISTORY I FAMILY Father, William Matson Mother, Lillie Low The Trips Down to the Islands Lurline and Her Parents Mother: Leeside, Lessons Father: The Business The Character of Captain Matson Growing Up Country, Vacations, Houses Horses Consular Responsibilities Education, Study in Paris 11 MARRIAGE William P. Roth Courtship and Job The Roth Family The Fair, The Honeymoon The Airplane Business: Amelia Earhart The Twins Woodside "Why Worry" Buying Filoli 111 HORSES IV AN INTERVIEW ON MATSON HISTORY, WITH KARL KORTUM PRESENT V RED CROSS WORK, AND OTHER INTERESTS Red Cross Volunteer Chairman War and Postwar: Stables, Servants Other Shipping Families Other Volunteer Activities William Matson Roth VI FILoLI'S GARDENS The Gardeners Miss Isabella Worn Toichi Domo to Leslie Thiringer Fruit, Flowers, Vegetables, Picnics Other Gardens VII A TRIP TO FILOLI The Garden Design In the Gardens In the House The Parties: Tony Duquette United Nations Site Consideration Concluding Remarks TAPE GUIDE A TALK TO THF, DOCENTS by Lurline Roth Coonan APPENDICES AN INTERVIEW WITH TOICHI DOMOTO INDEX INTERVIEW HISTORY This oral history with Mrs. William P. Roth was conceived as a series of interviews on the history of Filoli, the RothsJ home in Woodside, California; on shipping, from the Matson.Navigation Company point of view; and on horse shows. One or all of these aspects of Mrs. Roth's life-- the house and garden, now in the'Nationa1 Trust for Historic Preservation, the heritage of shipping, through her father, William Matson, and her husband, William Roth, and the activities on the horse show/horse breeding circuits-- are what the name Lurline Matson Roth means to many. Beyond these major subjects, the interviews are about a girl growing up on both sides of the San Francisco Bay, and in Hilo, and on shipboard, about her education and career interests, about being wife and mother and volunteer, and about taking further community leadership roles, especially with the Red Cross in wartime. Mrs. Roth was extremely modest in the face of the ego-stretching possi- bilities of being an oral-history interviewee. She did not easily say "I did.. ." this or that. For a wider view of her life at Filoli the reader will want especially to read her daughter Lurline Roth Coonan's talk to the docents appended, and the interview with horticulturist Toichi Domoto, and the notes sent by designer Tony Duquette. The shipping interview with Yxs. Roth and maritime historian Karl Kortum is supplemented by appended reprints on shipping history, and biographical material on Captain Matson. The interviews took place September 22, 30, and October 6, 20, 1980, on November 13, with Mr. Kortum, and on December 17, and then after time out for the holidays, a cruise and a trip to her home in Hilo, the interviewing resumed with two meetings, May 4 and 11, 1981. The attached interview with Mr. Domoto was done on May 26, 1981. The setting for the interviews was Mrs. ~oth'sstudy, a bright, pretty room with beautiful, fragrant bowls of flowers, a fireplace, books, horse portraits, and two walls of windows with views of the Thomas Church-designed garden that came with the Hillsborough house that Mrs. Roth moved to when she left Woodside in 1975. In October, when I arrived, Mrs. Roth was making her social plans for the horse show, in December she was writing her Christmas cards, in May putting together the Red Cross's part in the benefit opening of Maxwell's Plum in Ghirardelli Square--an historically and architecturally significant and beautiful property saved and developed by the Roths. The November meeting where we talked Flatson history with Karl Kortum in the Roth offices in Ghirardelli Square was followed by an excellent Chinese lunch at Kan's. Mrs. Roth knows good food--my arrival sometimes interrupted menu- planning, and the opened cookbooks were inspiring. Once, as the result of a misunderstanding at the fish market, Mrs. Roth was having to face a lot of caviar for lunch, and leftovers for dinner. Successors to the birds that Lurline Coonan mentions in her story of growing up at Filoli were singing through the interviews in Hillsborough, a hallway away, but in good voice. The poodles were right there, small and fiercely fond of their owner, and a lot less so of the interviewer. For the final interview, Mrs. Roth and I took a day to go down to Filoli. We drove on familiar roads, home to a beloved place. We walked in the gardens, saw and met docents and volunteers preparing for the spring visits, and talked with Hadley Oshorn, the executive director. Somehow we managed to get locked in (we thought) the library at Filoli where we were interviewing, and after a lot of banging and bemusement, our hard push opened the heavy doors. It was the only time that Filoli seemed perhaps too large. Otherwise, it is very personal and accessible for all its grand and glorious scale. The interviews, after being transcribed, were edited in the Regional Oral Historyoffice, and checked by Mrs. Roth in the fall of 1981. Attention was given to finding good illustrations, pictures and appendices, and the family scrapbook, from which most of the pictures were reproduced, yielded a great number of negatives valued by The Bancroft Library for their artistic merit--Arnold Genthe studio portraits--and their historic merit--interiors, clothing, people. But the picture and the sound I most wish to have reproduced for pos- terity was the night of October 29, 1980, at the Grand National Horse Show when Mrs. Roth's four-year-old, Mountain Storm, showed splendidly, and her owner stepped out in the light of that vast and exciting place to present a cup, and was introduced, to standing ovation, as the champion horsewoman and person -she is. In preparing for these interviews I have had the help of Karl Kortum, Chief Curator, Maritime Museum, San Francisco; Mai Arbegast, landscape architect and horticultural consultant, on the Filoli Board of Trustees; Suzanne Caster, San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle Librarian; Mr. Charles Regal; Mr. Robert Richardson; iMrs.Ted Robbins; and the Filoli Center staff; and the librarians of the Strybing Arboretum. I am grateful to all of them. The Regional Oral History Office, established to tape record autobio- graphical interviews with persons prominent in recent California history, is under the administrative supervision of the director of The Bancroft Library, James D. Hart. Willa K. Baum is the department head. Suzanne B. Riess Senior Editor February 1982 Regional Oral History Office 486 The Bancroft Library University of California at Berkeley I FAMILY [Interview 1: September 22, 19801ilil Father, William Matson Riess: When were you born, 1890 or 1891? Roth: Eighteen-ninety is on my passport, so that is when I was born-- September 3rd. Riess : It appears as 1891 occasionally. Roth: Yes, it does and the reason is because during the fire we all lost our papers. I always thought that Mother made a mistake. But in any case, I'm 90 and that makes it 1890. Riess : Where were you born? Roth: In San Francisco on Broadway Street. Riess: At home? Roth: At home; no doubt at home in those 'days. Riess: Was life comfortable for your family at that point? Roth: Life was always comfortable for my father. He made life comfortable. If he was short of money, he found it somehow. He was always comfortable. It was really something in his character. He would go into the office, when the office first started, and say, "I want $200 for the week-end." ////This symbol indicates that a tape or a segment of a tape has begun or ended. For a guide to the tapes see page 146. Roth: The treasurer, Mr. McCarty would say, "But Captain Matson, you haven't got $200.'' He'd say, "Just give me $200.'' And he'd get it. [laughs] He didn't steal it. He'd get it; it was there. Riess: Do you think this is typical? Roth: Very typical of him. Mother had to makeup--it was hardforher because sometimes she was [left] a little short. Riess: What do you know about.your father's parents? Roth: Nothing, nothing.