Rhoda Anne Williams and Walter Hinds Doty hadn’t been married too long when a mysterious visitor showed up in their driveway.
Stop the Presses: Marie Gingras Mystery Solved
For half a decade, I’ve been working with relatives to try to figure out where the bedeviling Marie Gingras (1861-1937) came from. I’m pleased to report that, thanks to the hard work of cousin Sue Wolfe, the mystery has been solved
Hidden Evidence Proves the Kruttschnitts Did Actually Live in Tucson House
By the time Patti Toci and her husband bought the Julius Kruttschnitt, Jr. house in Tucson, previous owners had taken virtually everything the family had left behind. Then, one day in the 1960s, a remodeling crew opened a plaster wall and discovered a small piece of uncrumpled paper behind the lathe. “It was a receipt,” […]
Marie Rose Pickering Thought Her Housekeeper Was the Better Person
Marie Rose Pickering wrote in a Brisbane, Australia newspaper in the late 1930s that her black housekeeper, who came once a week to polish floors, was way ahead of her “in the development of character and personality.” Marie admired how hard her housekeeper, Daisy, worked after walking five miles from the “blacks’ camp.” Marie Pickering went to Australia after her husband, Julius […]
Society Pages Describe Marie Gingras as French Down to Her Highly Polished Fingertips
Marie Gingras Pickering lived her life, warts and all, under the harsh magnifying glass of the San Francisco society pages, judging by the countless references made to her and her family in newspaper accounts during the early 1900s. A cursory search reveals that she hosted countless bridge and tea parties, always with elaborate flower decorations; served as a patroness of a […]
Marie Gingras Pickering: The Missing French Connection
In the early 1880s, Frederick Manthano Pickering set out to make his fortune. He traveled more than 3000 miles by covered wagon from his hometown of Portland, Maine, all the way across the country to San Francisco. Two years later, he sent for his childhood sweetheart, Marie Gingras. Marie’s route was more circuitous, but equally daring. Taking her Hope Chest, which remains […]