Jack London and Vallejo

Author Jack London, shown here playing cards at the Vallejo Yacht Club around 1913
was a frequent visitor to Vallejo. Pictured above are (from left) George F. Hilton,
unidentified, Judge John Browne, and London. The Roamer, London’s yacht, was often berthed at the Club, and London himself spent much time around Vallejo and Benicia as a young man. His adventures up and down the Carquinez Straits were detailed in his book Tales of the Fish Patrol. In one passage from the book, London describes how he tried to maneuver a small boat through the brutally swift currents of the Straits:

“We were now at the mouth of the Straits, in a bad stretch of water. Here the Vallejo Straits and the Carquinez Straits rushed directly at each other. Through the first flowed all the water of Napa River and the great tide-lands; through the second flowed all the water of Suisun Bay and the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. And where such immense bodies of water, flowing swiftly, clashed together, a terrible tide-rip was produced. To make it worse, the wind howled up San Pablo Bay for fifteen miles and drove in a tremendous sea upon the tide-rip.”

“Conflicting currents tore about in all directions, colliding, forming whirlpools, sucks, and boils, and shooting up spitefully into hollow waves which fell aboard as often from leeward as from windward. And through it all, confused, driven into a madness of motion, thundered the great smoking seas from San Pablo Bay.”

Snow in Vallejo?

On the morning of January 9, 1913, Vallejoans awoke to an unusual site - snow in Vallejo! During the night, the snow began to fall and by morning the city was covered in nearly 4 inches. The next day the newspaper proclaimed: "Vallejo Covered in Mantle of 'The Beautiful.' Sees the Spirit of Winter Awakened in Many Breasts." The accompanying article described the reaction in the community:

“There were some near casualties due to excessive exuberance the primordial spirit. Miss Eleanor Morgan of Coalinga, who is visiting Mrs. Guy Peabody, was struck in the head with a hard snowball and knocked unconscious. Mrs. Louis Vandre slipped on the slippery sidewalk while dodging a snowball, and was badly shaken up, and Mrs. Richard Ruling was knocked unconscious. Several windows were broken during the morning.”

“For the first time since 1886, a white mantle of snow covered Vallejo for several hours yesterday morning. Since that date a few slight flurries have been noticeable, but the precipitation yesterday was the heaviest on record in more than a quarter of a century. The first specs were noticed shortly before 3 o’clock yesterday morning, and the fall was steady until 10:30. The weather was warm, considerably under the freezing point.”

“If some hardened individual from the frost bitten east should have chanced to have been in Vallejo yesterday, he would have wondered what sort of mania the people were suffering from. It is safe to say that it was the first time five thousand of local people had ever seen bonafide snow, except on nearby hills or the Sierras a few miles to the eastward, and its effect on the uninitiated was magnetic.”

“Young and impressionable children screamed with delight when they first peered out of the windows and saw the earth enveloped in the sparkling coat. Fond parents watched them desport themselves out of doors. Most approached the snow banks timidly, touched the stuff gingerly, smelt it, then tasted it. Then they rolled it into snow balls, awkwardly, yet instinctively, and a Jack London would have said they felt the experience of some ancestor, who in times past rolled and made balls out of frozen water. Young Vallejo then proceeded to sit down in the strange stuff, then rolled around in it, and the parents, who had seen something like this in their younger days, forgot to advise them about wet feet.”

“It was a strange sight for an observer, accustomed to snows and blizzards to watch the reception of the snow in Vallejo. In downtown streets staid business men forgot their dignity and gingerly rolled up the balls and belted passersby. An introduction was not necessary and many a new stiff hat is badly dented today as a result of a fusillade from men and boys, who made targets of everyone in sight.”

“Many showed their strangeness to the sensation of being in the snow. Where some east coast urchin would have snatched up a handful and vigorously ‘washed’ someone’s face in it, and perhaps rolled snowballs with ‘bullets’ in them, these past master features were lacking in Vallejo. The instinctive ‘spirit of winter’ which in many cases had been slumbering for three generations, awakened awkwardly but it nevertheless existed and blossomed forth.”

“The snow was such an uncommon treat that school authorities recognizing the futility of compulsory attendance at classes dismissed all the youngsters and allowed them to enjoy a white winter’s day.”

Christmas at Mare Island, 1945

From the Mare Island Grapevine, Friday, December 21, 1945:

"Mare Island employees were ready this week to celebrate their first peacetime Christmas in four years.

"Although a hangover of war shortages made Christmas presents scarce, most workers planned to celebrate Christmas in the traditional manner with their families.
Many families are together for the first time in many years, as Mare Island employees greeted their relatives from overseas.

"The proximity of the Mare Island area to the major Pacific ports made transportation difficulties minor for employees with sons returning from the Pacific, although many servicemen were reported stranded on the coast because of the transportation tie-up.

"Few parties were planned in Mare Island shops and offices because the special extended holiday schedule moves Christmas four days after the last Yard work day, and because of restrictions against parties on government time.

"The traditional Christmas trees and Yule decorations however were much in evidence all week.

"Many shops, offices and individuals on Mare Island helped make the season a happier one for patients at Mare Island Naval Hospital by planning parties for men in the wards.

"At the hospital it was reported that wards were competing against each other for Christmas decoration honors, with patients being assisted by corpsmen and nurses."

Pictured above is a menu from the 1945 Christmas dinner at the Mare Island Hospital. The dinner included Grape Fruit Maraschino Cocktail, Saltines, Cream of Tomato Soup, Celery, Olives, Pickles, Roast Young Turkey, Oyster Dressing, Giblet Gravy, Cranberry Sauce, Snowflake Potatoes, Corn Niblets, Buttered Cauliflower, Lettuce and Tomato Salad with Mayonnaise, Fruit Cake, Ice Cream, Hot Mince Pie, Hot Parker House Rolls, Coffee, Butter, Cigars, Cigarettes, Assorted Nuts and Hard Filled Candy.

USS Sperry

The sub- marine tender USS Sperry was launched at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard 68 years ago today, on December 17, 1941. Sperry was the first ship launched at Mare Island following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th. Usually, the launching of a new ship at Mare Island was accompanied by ceremony, celebration, and widespread press coverage. But the launching of USS Sperry was different. The declaration of war and the fear of more Japanese attacks made the launching a low key event. The Vallejo Times-Herald published only two photos of the launching ceremony, instead of the usual lengthy news story. Information about shipyard activity was kept to a minimum due to newly imposed wartime security restrictions. The brief radiogram shown here, sent by the Secretary of the Navy, touted the Sperry’s ability to meet the wartime challenge. Note that the message was sent to “All Navy Yards Except Pearl Harbor and Cavite.” Those bases were still reeling from the recent Japanese attacks and were under blackout conditions.

USS Sperry was one of five submarine tenders built at Mare Island. She was named for Elmer Ambrose Sperry, an inventor of precision instruments and a pioneer in American submarine construction. The sub tender was christened by Sperry’s daughter, Mrs. Helen Sperry Lea. California Governor Culbert L. Olson also attended the launching ceremony.

USS Sperry served throughout the Pacific during WWII and had a lengthy post-war career. She was eventually decommissioned in 1982, following a career of more than 40 years. Among her post-war commanding officers were renowned WWII submarine skippers Richard O’Kane and Eugene B. Fluckey.

Youth and Vice, 1887

In December 1887, the Vallejo Evening Chronicle reported on the following scandalous situation in San Francisco:

“The father of a child attending the public school in the Western Addition, called Wednesday on Secretary Bennett of the Society for the Prevention of Vice, to make a complaint against the indecent pictures circulated in cigarette packages. He brought a handful with him which he had taken from his little boy who was making an album of them after the manner of postage stamp collectors. He said the other boys were doing so, and exchanging with each other when they had two or more of a kind. The worse the pictures were, or the more female nudity they displayed, the more they were in demand, his son told him, and boys who did not smoke cigarettes themselves rivaled each other in begging the pictures. This he thought was a fruitful cause of demoralization among the youths of the city, and he asked if something could not be done to stop the sale of such pictures in cigarette packages. Mr. Bennett said that as the packages were not put up here but at the East mostly in New York, it would be difficult to reach the evil, which he recognized as a great one, but he would write to Anthony Comstock about the matter at once, and see if something could not be done to abate the unbearable nuisance.”

Cemeteries and Brickyards

This article from the Vallejo Evening Chronicle (August 20, 1918) refers to the original Vallejo Cemetery, which was located where the present-day railroad cut runs under Sacramento Street, just north of Tennessee Street.

"There need be no surprise that the workmen grading near the Vallejo & Northern cut unearthed skeletons. All old-timers remember that the original grave yard of Vallejo was located on the hill adjoining the fence bounding the Austin, later Carter, ranch on the south. Up to the year 1870 there remained the picket fence enclosures surrounding some of the graves. Nearly all the bodies are removed to the Carquinez Cemetery on the Benicia Road, but a few were allowed to remain there. A different and stronger growth of weeds and wild plants has always indicated where the ground had been dug up on the old grave yard site."

"This pioneer cemetery was in what was called the "brick yard." When one speaks of the brick yard to newcomers, they think of the brick works further north,* but the "brick yard" of old was the flat through which the Vallejo and Northern, now the Northern electric, excavation was made. It was so called because the soil in the vicinity was adapted to brick making and bricks were there made and sun dried. A pile of these old bricks stood there up to comparatively recent times. The Astor House** on Virginia Street was built of these bricks of home manufacture."

"The Vallejo soil is good for the making of ordinary brick. That is why so many efforts have been made to establish brick works here. They have failed because of the lack of some important element which had to be imported, thus increasing the cost of manufacture and making it impossible to compete with other places where conditions were more favorable."

"The present public cemetery, the Carquinez Cemetery, was donated to the City of Vallejo in 1857 by John B. Frisbie. When donated a road ran through the center, dividing the 25 acres equally between the Catholic and Protestant population. This caused the desertion of the cemetery which has just been unearthed."

* That brickworks was located on the northernmost end of present-day Wilson Avenue, along the Napa River.

** Now demolished

Basil Rathbone at Mare Island

During WWII, patriotic rallies and War Bond drives at Mare Island inspired shipyard workers to give their best and to support the war effort. On October 7, 1944, sixty-five years ago today, British actor Basil Rathbone was one of the featured guests at a noontime rally at the Shipyard. The day before the rally, the Mare Island Grapevine reported on the upcoming show:

“Basil Rathbone, noted stage, radio and screen personage, heads the list of stars and celebrities who will appear here tomorrow noon in a huge War Fund rally for Mare Island. The rally will be staged between drydocks 3 and 4, east of Gishville.”

“Monte Blue, star of silent films and one of Warner Brother’s first Vitaphone talkie heroes, also will be on the bill.”

“Rathbone, known internationally for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes on the screen and radio, is president of British War Relief in southern California.”

“One thought worth considering,” Rathbone said at the rally, “is that to whatever ally our War Chest dollar goes, it is the greatest way we can expand our way of living to other countries.”

“The suave British actor said that there were a million people destitute in London, because of robot bombs,” the Grapevine continued. “He told, also, of the desperate need in Athens, Rotterdam, and Poland.”

“We have so much to live for,” he concluded dramatically, “Let’s give them hope!”

Many other actors, musicians, and celebrities visited Mare Island during WWII to help boost morale. A partial list of those visitors includes Bob Hope, Shirley Temple, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Alistair Cooke, Louis Armstrong, Kay Kaiser, Bob Wills, Robert Taylor, Charles Laughton, Eleanor Roosevelt (and her husband), Jack Teagarden, Hattie McDaniel, Cab Calloway, Joan Blondell, Ann Rutheford, John Garfield, Una Merkel, Lionel Hampton, Jack Dempsey, and Arthur Rubinstein.