Interviewed by Carla Ehat and Anne Kent,

June 15, 1977

Transcribed by Marjorie Hoffman

Edited by Marilyn L. Geary

David Russell Keil

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transcription of this oral history interview.

David Russell Keil’s 38 acre estate is

part of the first Mexican land grant in

Marin County, Rancho Corte Madera Del Presidio, which was granted in 1834 to John Thomas Reed. Upon

her father’s death in 1843, John Reed’s daughter, Hilarita, who later married Doctor Benjamin Lyford,

inherited over a thousand acres in Tiburon as her share of the Rancho .

My family bought this estate from the Lyford descendants in the 1880’s. They came over here in

about 1881, but the first homes were on Belvedere. This area in here wasn’t settled until sometime

later. This house that we’re in now was built about the turn of the century. There were stables here

before that. The family always used it as a summer home. They were in San Francisco, and they

came over in a little steam launch.

Actually, there was a small house on the property called the Rose Cottage that had been built by

Dr.Lyford. It was really sort of a little hideaway that he could come to and do some of his weird

experiments. If you’ve ever read some of the stories of Lyford, you know what could have hap-

Keil’s Cove, 1895

Oral History Project of theMarin County Free Library

Anne T. Kent California History Room.

Original tape recording available at the Anne T. Kent California History Room.

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Anne T. Kent California History Room

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3501 Civic Center Dr. #427

San Rafael, California, 94903

pened out here. But the place itself was built, as I

would say, in about 1898 or so in there. The original

home in Belvedere, was at the end, and was leased

from the Belvedere Land Company. My family

wanted to have a more permanent place, and they

came over here.

They actually paced out the land, the way I under-

stand the story, just what they had seen from a row-

boat. They just paced out the area. Sometimes they

ask me why the property lines run so strange. The

reason, I believe, was that my grandfather, when he

paced it out, he went 40 feet over the crest of the hill,

the theory being that nobody could build up and look

down on you. So the lines don’t go to the crest of the hill, they go 40 feet over the crest of the hill.

My grandfather had a lot of little ideas like that. Like in this house here where we’re sitting now,

when we did some of the renovation, we found little brown packets of dirt in the spaces between the

joists. When they were cleaned, it turned out they were forty four blank shells for cartridges. The

reason for that was that if the house ever burned down, my grandfather wanted to wake up. He didn’t

care about the house burning down, but that was his own fire alarm.

My grandfather David was originally a Bavarian. I don’t like to say this about the old fellow, but I

think he was a draft dodger because of getting out of the German army at that time when the princi-

palities were want to get their revenues by leasing out regiments. Young men who didn’t have too

good an education were subject to it. The oldest boy in the family had a good education, became a

head of one of the gymnasiums over there, but the other two boys came here and arrived in San

Francisco (when it was under Mexican law). I remember one of the stories in the family was that

David Keil used to always say, “I did not come to the United States. I was here and the United States

came to me.”

He came from a little town outside of Munich or somewhere. When you look through the history of

early California, you’ll find a lot of those early Germans mixed in with the Spanish. And one of the

reasons for that was just this: they didn’t want to get into the compulsory military, and they came

over. They were all very young men. You know, you see these pictures of the grizzly forty-niners,

and they were all about 18 or 19 years old. It wasn’t until quite a bit later that my grandfather came

to Marin County.

My grandfather liked yachting. He liked boating and the two boys, both my father and my uncle,

also enjoyed yachting. They were founders of the Corinthian Yacht Club. They thought that they

would bring yachts over here and that this might be a site for a club. I don’t know whether they were

turned down. It would have been a nice site. In fact, the St. Francis Yacht Club was looking at it at

one time. But they came over here and built the houses. As I say, in the beginning, it was used

purely as a summer home.

The Goodall family, Mrs. Hugo Keil was a Goodall, they were the original Pacific Steamship Com-

pany. Old Captain Goodall was one of the first trustee’s of Stanford University. You might even

remember the last of that line. There were many ships in that steamship line. The end of that line was

the old Yale and Harvard. Captain Goodall’s son ran that.

Tower and archway marked entrance to Lyford’s Hygeia.

And now can I digress a little? I’ll tell you a ghost story. You get down on the beach here on a very

silent night and the wind is blowing just right, you’ll hear the dripping off of what we call Water

Spout Point. Now I like to think that that isn’t water, but that’s really blood, because this was the

supply area for all the ships in the bay for water. Originally the water was brought down there, and

they used to skull out to the sailboats in the bay during the early 1850’s and 1860’s and bring water

to them. Ultimately they developed a paddle wheel or boat that you could supply the water to the

ships. And from that time they developed the famous Longshoremen, Stevedores, of the Pacific,

which were owned by Goodall and his group.

There was plenty of violence. They used to call the people the fresh water marines. They actually

had guns mounted on the front of their boats. This tradition was carried on to where it was a mo-

nopoly. No ship could be serviced in this area except it went through this group. This function was

taken over by the Steamship Companies ultimately and then in 1934, still blood running in the

streets, they killed four men with your General Barrows and the rest of them in the great strike. Out

of that Bridges took over and continued on the tradition. From there it moved to Seattle, San Pedro,

and into the Gulf posts. The docks were always steeped in violence. As I say, sometimes when it’s

very quiet over here and you hear that little drip, that’s where it all started right down here at Water

Spout Point, which is one point of the Keil Cove. It runs from Water Spout Point to the Bluff Point.

My father’s name was Edward, and Edward lived in San Francisco always. My Uncle Hugo was a

widower without any children, in a way fortunate for me. However, my Mother ran both houses

(both my Uncle’s and this house) after Uncle Hugo’s wife died in May 1922. My Uncle stayed on

and lived in this house occasionally. He traveled considerably. When I talk about traveling, I think

it’s rather interesting that he made, I think, about 22 trips to Europe and about 3 trips around the

world. He was supposed to go out on the Titanic when she sank, he and Aunt Tee. They had tickets,

and then they decided to stay in London. He was standing at Lakehurst waiting to get on the Zeppe-

lin when she blew up. So he lived sort of a charmed life. He died on his 80th birthday in about 1940.

Uncle Hugo was a very nice personality. He was President of the Downtown Association in the

Chamber of Commerce. He was head of Police Commission right after the graft prosecution. I

succeeded to the President of the Downtown Association many years later. He was a good raconteur,

entertained considerably, and spoke fluent German because both my father and uncle went to school

in Germany after attending school here. They went to Germany, so they both spoke German. I don’t

say that I speak German. I studied in the Foreign Service School, but I’m very poor about it.

Uncle Hugo was not as large as my father. I would say he was a man of about five foot ten or so. My

uncle was president of the Police Commission, after the graft prosecution in Mayor Taylor’s term,

who took over after the Schmidts. Then the great feud was going on between the Spreckels and the

DeYoungs, and all that shooting outside and so on. Biggy was the Chief of

Police, and he came over to talk to my Uncle. Biggy had a belief that no

policeman should ever carry a gun. He sort of had the idea of the English

bobby system where policemen don’t carry guns.

It must have been a very important discussion that Biggy had with my Uncle,

but he left here and he never arrived in San Francisco. Three days later his

body was fished out of the Bay, and my Uncle’s gun was on it. This is in all

the San Francisco history books you read, so I’m not telling anything. Chief Biggy

Biggy came here by Police Launch, the San Francisco Police Launch. And it had an operator and

they operated it from the wheelhouse. It was quite a story. The newspapers were full of it at the time.

Although he had quite a blow on the back of his head, it could have happened from hitting the

gunwale going down. But the interesting story is that the Chief of Police of a major city has this

happen to him, and there is no investigation. There’s nothing. Anyhow, these are the little things that

sort of make the place where we’re sitting now interesting.

When my grandfather acquired this land, it was bare, not much growth. Now this would be before

my time, but there were scrub oaks on it, you know. Most of the foliage was planted here, and most

of the trees were brought from Menlo. I think Aunt Tee did a lot, and of course my wife has done an

awful lot too.

I was born in San Francisco. As a boy, I came over for weekends, and then for about two years we

lived here more or less on and off. In the late 30’s my uncle, being alone, was here. My father had

died, and I was always very close to my uncle, in spite of our age differential. We took trips together.

I had a very good relationship with my father too, excellent.

Anyway, Uncle Hugo asked my wife and me to come over here and build so we’d be near him. And

the price was just exorbitant to build a house, you know. We were a newlywed couple. We had quite

ambitious ideas. When we got the bids on the house, it was over $5,000 to build this beautiful, big

house, so we had to abandon that right away. So we fixed up the barn, which cost about $5,000. My

son is there now. It’s sort of pleasant to keep it in the family. We remodeled it, and still I think it is

one of the most attractive houses done by Paul Ryan.

Paul Ryan was the architect of the Roman Catholic Cathedral, and he also worked on the Grace

Cathedral. This was his first job out of Beaux Arts. When we did this house over, we were first going

to tear this down because it was old. It’s four stories high.

You know this old house, it just sort of wanders on. It’s like

James Adams in its frame.

But anyway, we discussed it with Paul Ryan, and he de-

cided that it would be worth saving, and by that time my

family was coming along, and we needed the extra rooms,

so we fixed up this house. We never did build on the Point,

which is, I think, one of the finest lots in the area, because

you can look all the way up to Vallejo and all the way

around. It is completely encircled by water.

There is a lake that is fed by the springs. The original maps

called it Salt Lagoon. That was dredged out. I have pictures

here of the steam shovels that were in there digging it out.

My grandfather’s idea mostly was to build a reservoir. You

see, we had no water here. Marin Municipal Water wasn’t

here so, we had to be self-sufficient.

The thing that you should remember, first of all, is that this

was where the water came for the ships in the bay, so there

was water on the hills. The second thing that was rather Early map showing Keil’s Cove

interesting was that up until a few

years ago, the Steinhardt Aquarium

used to come into this place to pick up

fish out in the bay, right in the front, in

the cove. I asked them why they

wanted to do it here, and they told me

that this particular fish lived in that

area, right out in Keil Cove. It lived in

an environment of low salt. And the

reason for that was there were so

many springs under the bay at that

point, fresh water springs. So they are

coming up, and there are about three

or four of them coming up in the lake.

The lake is about a five acre surface

lake. It also drains all the hills you

notice around here. It drains down, so the majority of the time the water, in the winter, is running

directly into the bay. We just cap it and catch it, because the lake originally was six to seven foot

deep. It held a lot of water for the gardens, and we could pump it.

The little pier and gazebo was built by Warner Brothers when they made a picture here once. That

was a movie called Petulia. I’ve forgotten who the stars were in it. Joseph Cotton would be about my

age, you see, but the younger ones I don’t recall. They liked this setting, and let’s be frank, they had

125 people which they serviced in the tennis court. In other words, they fed them and all that. The

crew came every morning. And they were here - well, we were gone for almost a month during the

time. And when I said, “let’s be frank about it,” what I meant was they could get security here.

I don’t think we’ll ever do it again, because it takes a lot out of a place. Oh I must say, they painted

the whole thing, and they were excellent. I simply said, “Look. I will loan you the place provided

anything that is not the way I want it when I come back, you will have to fix. And I will be the sole

judge.”

They said, “Well, nobody has ever asked us to do a thing like that.”

And I said, “I never asked you to come here. And I’m not getting anything for it. I’m doing it just out

of goodwill, so why don’t you look somewhere else.”

Well, he came back, and he said, “All right, we’ll take it, because we’ve looked into you, and we

think you’re a reasonable, honorable man.”

I said, “Don’t believe it.” But they did, they came back, and there were a few minor things hap-

pened. They took hundreds of pictures before of just the way the house was, and they put it back

exactly that way or as close as they could. There were a few minor things. I called their attention to

them, and they were taken care of immediately.

They just said, “You take care of them and send us the bills, no questions asked.” So I’m adding this

because I want you to know it was very friendly. I don’t want to leave an impression that there was

anything bad. It was kind of a fun thing, but I won’t do it again.

Tiburon, early 1900’s

My son, Russell David Junior, lives in that house. There is another house on the property where you

came down which is my daughter’s. Her name is Molly Keil Heinz, and she married Bill Heinz who

was the young patent attorney. He’s the son of very old friends of ours, Adrian and Zabina Heinz

from Piedmont. They were looking around to build a home. He was a patent attorney, and he was

going into business in San Francisco. They lived in the East Bay, and I said, “Well, we have on the

driveway coming down about three hundred feet of beach frontage which no one even knows is

there. So why don’t you just cut it through and build a house there?” which they did. And when they

built the house I gave them the land, that’s all.

So it’s nice now. My wife and I were feeling so sad one time when everybody left. Gabriel, Gay, is

our oldest daughter. She is living in San Francisco and is unmarried. Molly was away, and Russ had

just got married, and they were all gone. Vern and I were just sort of rattling around in the place with

swimming pool, tennis court and so on, which we didn’t use too much. We were actually thinking of

maybe giving it up. Just about this time these things happened that I’m telling you about. Russ came

back and decided he would like to live in back of the Cove. He was raised here, which was great,

and we have a very fine relationship. And Molly then decided to build a house, or before, I forget

which way, and so they’re all back and now the grandchildren are here. So it’s really wonderful

because the place can really get some use now.

As you most likely know, the property is designated on the master plan of Marin County as a future

park, which has put a cloud on the title. Of course, this has a tendency also to keep my taxes down,

which isn’t too bad. This was once on the ballot in Marin, and it was voted down by the people. It

was in a group of locations to be purchased, under a bond issue which was voted down. And I don’t

know, it’s the old story. I think these things happen. I’ve lived long enough now and been in enough

civic things to know that when these things occur, it’s like a baby being born. It will be born you

know. It’s nothing you really direct, if it’s needed.

When I was a young boy, there was still railroad activity down in Tiburon. I did travel on the Marin,

which was a little ferry that ran to Sausalito and connected up with the North Western Pacific. I

traveled it many times. I always thought North Western Pacific had something to do with it. But

James F. Donohue was a little bit ahead of my time.

James F. Donohue arrived here, and I’ll tell you one little story now. James F. Donohue wanted to

build the railroad in here from Donohue’s Landing and change the name to Donohue, but they

decided not to because it was too confusing. They kept the station at Donohue Landing in Petaluma,

and they didn’t want this to be Donohue and then have Donohue Landing. It was too much. So they

asked him if he’d leave the old name Tiburon and not change the name to Donohue. Otherwise we

would be living in Donohue now.

Donohue had a son-in-law. He was a champagne salesman in San Francisco by the name of Baron

Von Schroeder. Donohue had the Hotel. And the Hotel was built just like Del Monte was with

Southern Pacific. It was built at the railhead to bring traffic, to bring pedestrians. And when the

railroad was coming through, he tried to get the right of way from the Garcia’s, (the Lyford’s) and he

couldn’t get it from old Hilarita. So he sent his son-in-law Von Schroeder, who explained to Hilarita

that Donohue was coming anyhow. Now he was a German, I should get out of any Irish there when

I say that. He was a German, so he explained that the railroad was coming anyway, so please let his

father-in-law get the rights.

She wouldn’t give it. So Von Schroeder finally figured out, being a good salesman, he figured out

this little antidote. He said, “Now he’s going to build the railroad anyhow and those workmen that

are here and their families will not have their spiritual lives attended to. And you are a good Catho-

lic, and you know that you have a responsibility, a spiritual responsibility. I can say this. I’m a papal

knight so I can say this.” And so he

said, “Look, regardless of where Mr.

Donohue builds the railroad, you

should build a church to take care of

the spiritual needs of the workmen and

their families.”

Of course, this was very, very hard on

Hilarita, because she had given away a

lot of money and land already - places

on Strawberry Point to the sisters from

St. Mary’s and to the Franciscans or

whomever they were. Baron Von

Schroeder said, “I can get my father-

in-law to build the church if you give

the lot and if you give the right of way

to come through direct, otherwise you

have that on your conscience.” So the piece was given which was sort of a rocky promontory to

begin with. It wasn’t worth much and the Northwestern Pacific Railroad was true to their word. They

built St. Hilary’s Church for the right of way. I don’t know if that’s been written down, but I think it

should be.

When we took the old bell down there, we thought it was a bell from one of the steamships, the

ferryboats. And it wasn’t. It says on the bell - “gift from the Baron and Baroness Von Schroeder.”

They must have been up at the Hotel Rafael, running up there at that time. So that’s a little story

about landmarks.

Oh, I remember something of the Hotel Belvedere, but I think most of it was from hearsay, you

know, of people who lived there. I remember a very good friend of mine by the name of Jay

McEvoy was born there. They were people that had come after the earthquake and fire, that’s what

they were doing. The cottages are still standing you know. Yes, some of them are, and people are

living in them, those little shingle cottages that come right down towards the end.

I recall the Arks floating in Belvedere Cove and the Night in Venice. The family would come over

and stay during that week, or that weekend, and then we would go over and there was just one big

open house. We knew most of the people in the old days in there, and most of the house boats were

out of the lagoon by that time.

These houseboats were anchored outside, and some of them were pulled up on the beach. In fact,

mine, the Crockers and the Keil’s had one houseboat up on the beach. And it became rather a rough

neighborhood. It was a place where, let’s say, the yachtsman came, and the yachtsmen weren’t quite

as dignified a group as they are today. So the word went out that no respectable woman would set

foot on the Island of Belvedere. For that reason it had a very bad name for a long while. Then that

St. Hilary’s Churck, built in 1888

There were lots of Japanese lanterns, all over and on the boats, it was really a lovely time. The

lanterns were on there and of course the net base was here, and, at least in my day, the coaling

station. And the coaling station, by the way, was able to coal a ship in, I’ve forgotten, six or eight

minutes. And the Pacific fleet usually could get deep water there so - I’m getting back and off my

subject - but to go into the Nights

in Venice, the band would come

over in a launch, and we’d have

that and all the open houses. Before

this was connected here, Belvedere

and Tiburon, there was an opening

there and a bridge and then in the

winter the houseboats and the

yachts would seek shelter in the

lagoon.

This was when the problem was

going on with the Belvedere Island.

The soldiers were on top of the

Island, and we didn’t know

whether it belonged to the govern-

ment as an Island, an inland body of water, or whether it belonged to the original Corte Madera Del

Presidio grant. That was one of the sore points along the line of the fact that it wasn’t an Island as

long as it had a Lagoon. It was a problem. I imagine they never wanted to reestablish once they got

the ruling that it was a peninsula.

Because you see what the Garcia’s had done was they had given quit claim deeds, not true deeds, to

the property, because they didn’t know whether they owned it or not. So a quit claim deed merely

says, if I have any interest, I’m assigning it to you. So they made no misrepresentations, but nobody

knew how secure their title was until the courts had decided in favor of the fact that it was part of the

original Garcia’s and then the title flowed correctly to the people. And when the Belvedere Land

Company had finally, I guess, sold off what they thought was the available land or the good land,

then the Allen’s stepped in and did a beautiful job on it. I think just magnificent after that. Because

people wondered what was going to happen to the residue.

I have over 1,000 feet of water frontage in this Cove. But between myself and the Net Depot is the

old Tilly house, which is now Schellebarger. You can see those stone gates. And you might remem-

ber the Tilly’s because they were fascinating people. The Tilly’s, they came from Long Island, and

they used to come here in the summer. There was the daughter and granddaughter. Well, Mr. Tilly

was deaf and dumb. I was about to say a deaf and dumb mute, but he’s not. He’s a deaf and dumb

Boat race in the 1880’s

was overcome by this advertising in England and so on. A lot of the original people that came to the

Belvedere Land Company, which was long before the Allen’s took it over, were solicited in England,

and they came here.

We knew quite a few people that were afraid of the San Franciscans. The reputation that the City

had, it wasn’t too great. But the houseboat was sort of a Bohemian type of life. What was that great

party came here from Washington D.C. that used to live over here, that used to row out to the house-

boats when she was a little girl, she talks about them in her - what was her name? Elsa Maxwell.

person, and Mrs. Tilly was also. They were

quite wealthy, and he used to come out here

with a quite large retinue of servants, but

most of them were charity cases, because

they were also deaf and dumb. So the whole

household in there, except for the children,

were deaf and dumb right here.

We would always run up and wave flags and

everything because the family wanted to

welcome the Tilly’s. And they arrived in

these three cars that they had set out from

Long Island with the sloping fronts, the old

Franklin air cond-car and the chauffeurs, I

can still remember them. He invented the

flying mail sack. He was an inventor, and he

invented the tamper proof mailbox. Every time you lift down a lip and put a piece of mail and drop

it, it goes click. You’re paying him a royalty, at least in those days. Anyhow they had quite an

establishment there. It was very interesting.

You mentioned the Coaling Station, and my mother still tells the story about going over there to the

‘Tilly’s one day and having to write on these little papers and what she wrote to be very nice was,

“Doesn’t the noise of the Coaling Station bother you?” So Mr. Tilly thought that was very funny,

because it did make quite a racket. We didn’t hear it but when that ship came in and they would let

the coal down the chutes, it made quite a noise. There was six or eight places at once, you know, and

the roar was just terrific. It took six or eight minutes to coal, but that didn’t count the tying up and so

forth.

There used to be enormous mountains of coal here for the ships. And you know the interesting thing

was there was one ship in the

United States Navy that wasn’t

converted. I shouldn’t say one

ship in the Navy, I should say

one ship on the Pacific Fleet. I

have to be careful here. And

the purpose of it was to use up

the coal in the California City.

But you see that was another

interesting story, the California

City routine. Well, the reason

that that was called California

City was this fellow (Benjamin

Buckelew) patented it years

ago, because he felt that

Kansas City, Kansas was a big

name. New York City, New

York was a big name, and if he

Ark

Keil Family Boating on the Bay

owned California City, California he could sell it. He almost sold it to Oakland. The Council voted

it down by just a matter of one or two votes,, this was quite in the early days, to be called California

City, California. And there is now a California City, California somewhere in the south, but for years

he controlled it.

He designated the area, had

the name applied to it. I

suppose you could do it by

filing in those days, and he

then preceded to be sole owner

of the right to that name, and

he tried to sell it. You could

see it, New York, New York,

California, California, you see.

So anyway for years, that has

been known as California City,

and that was where the Coal-

ing Station was. And then

during the War, there right

next to the Coaling Station, we

spun cables, and we had the net tenders kept there. And the net tenders used to come over here.

They had the nets across the straits there, the Golden Gate.

During WWII, there was quite a traffic of Navy ships in and out through Raccoon Straits, going on

their way to Mare Island and back. My only relationship with the military was my dogs used to

break up the dress reviews over there by licking their hands. Of course, they had all the steaks and

the cornucopias and everything over there, so I couldn’t keep them away. I was breeding those

Chesapeake Bay Retrievers at that time, and they’d go over. The first thing I know the Chief would

come in through those gates there and say, “Compliments of Captain Layton Sir, your dogs.” And

he’d pull the dogs out and hand them back to me, and I couldn’t handle the god darn dogs. The jeep

would turn around and go out through the gates, and the dogs would go over the hill before I knew it

they were back at the military base.

I remember we used to use the dairies, I mean we would permit the cattle to go on our hills because

we wanted them to take the grass off, you see. We would permit them to pasture and for that we were

paid in manure, which was wonderful. You know there was no tax in the exchange. We went over

and got loads of manure, and then we allowed them to graze, and it was a wonderful system.

Pete Albertini was our gardener. He came over here right after the First World War. We called him

Pete. His son works for the Marin Municipal Water Department. The son was born right on the place

here, Ray. And Pete was with us for 55 years or more, and he took loving care of this garden. He

came over as the second or third gardener, (I don’t know what) and he stayed on. Naturally we’ve

cut down considerably on help, but Pete was here until just a few years ago. He died in Marin at the

convalescent home right up there behind the Civic Center.

There weren’t very many stores in the early days. There were a lot of saloons. The railroad men and

the bad reputations. The old Round House I remember quite definitely. The Chapmans ran the store,

and (Roy)/Sam was quite an athlete at the University of California. He played for the big leagues

U.S. Navy Coaling Station, 1909

afterwards. I think he was a football player or baseball player, and then he went into professional

baseball. I don’t know whether there’s any of them left or not. The other ones were the Beyries that

ran a little place. You see these were small stores. There weren’t too many people here.

(Mrs. Kent: The little Marin that you mentioned I think really did belong to all of the people in

Belvedere. It was their private affair, and I think only you people in Belvedere and Tiburon had the

right to go on it. It was really like a private yacht. I wish I had gone on it, I wish I had.)

The old Eureka used to come in, I think. once a day, you know, to take the milk and so on because

these were dairy farms. I never was on the Marin, but I heard that the people commuted on the

Marin. They bought whatever they needed in the City, and they came home on the Marin.

The residents here didn’t need Marin County. They didn’t have a good road out to Marin, and they

didn’t want it. They were absolutely independent. Goldburg Bowen made deliveries here every day, I

believe. So we did all our ordering by

phone. We lived very compact.We

never went out.When we got here,

we were isolated.

There was a fellow by the name of

Maury Gale, I remember him very

definitely. You went to his house. He

had motion pictures every Saturday

night, and you sat on the floor with

the young people and some of the

older people from Belvedere. They

all came there. There was no need of

having the movie house, you know,

because he brought the movies. He

had something to do with the movies. And I remember, it was a wonderful way to entertain your

girlfriends, you know. You could bring them over, and it cost you absolutely nothing.

My wife Bernadette came from San Francisco and our families knew each other for years. But the

romance was started after we both graduated from college. We were both in Washington D.C. I was

in Foreign Service School, and she was taking her Masters in Social Services. Bernadette was a

Social Service worker. Her maiden name was Millerick. I’ve gone to the Rodeos and the Millerick

Ranch, when we were young, and all the uncles look just like Bernadette’s father to me. I mean they

all look alike.

I’m not a yachtsman. I have my own mast puller in case I ever have a boat. I have a mast puller,

that’s as far as I go. But I have a sort of theory, at least I had a theory a long time ago, that you’re

either a family man or a yachtsman. You have to make a choice. Knowing myself, I figured I get

enthusiastic about a thing, and I’d start with a rowboat and try to trade up to the Queen Mary, and I

figured somewhere along the line I’d be overboard, and I might as well not start, but we do still have

a trophy on the Bay. The perpetual trophy was started by my Uncle.

I took the pier out at the request of my insurance people, because boats were tying up there at night

and something might happen. A person could be bitten by a dog. It might not be even by my dogs.

Tiburon Main Street

Related Links:

• History of Keil Cove, by David Russell Keil

• Tiburon/Belevedere: Railroads and Codfish

• Belevedere/Tiburon Landmarks Society

And so they warned me. They said it was an attractive nuisance, and you’d better get rid of it, so I

did. It is bad in a way, but this is part of the things we pay for having a bigger population.

I was educated at St. Ignatius and also at University of San Francisco. I hate to think about that St.

Ignatius. I just got my golden diploma there. Fifty years. My class was 1927.They had a very nice

little commencement, and they marched you up with all my fellow classmates. There wasn’t a very

big class, but there was a Marshall someone, Garret McInery and a whole lot of people you might

know. Then I went on and took my degree from the University of San Francisco and then to Foreign

Service School in Washington D.C.

I was more or less encouraged, I guess, by the family to go into the Foreign Service. They had

certain connections at that time. It was more or less Germanic before the time that Hitler got into the

act, although most of my friends back at that time in the German Embassy were young lions as they

called themselves. They were young, the original start of the young Nazis, so then the relationship

got very cold, and it was better for me to come back and fix the plumbing in the buildings. It was

safer. I hate to think of what could have happened.

In World War II, I was in the Coast Guard. We appraised all that land for the ammunition. Remember

when we were putting the ammunition here? In fact they were bringing in the Atomic Bomb in here,

That was the Army engineers, and we did quite a bit of work on that. Most of the hillside was ap-

praised at $200 an acre. Now that was practically at the end of the war, so you can imagine what the

increase has been.

Yes we’re so much ahead of our inflation, you know, I still can’t keep up with it. Well, I think now I

can just change the decimal point. In other words, the meal that used to cost me $1.50 costs me

$15.00, the hotel room that I used to rent for $6.00 is now $60.00, so all I do is change the decimal

point, and it doesn’t bother me. But when I come to your Marin houses, I find something else hap-

pening. It’s more than just changing the decimal. We used to appraise by a simple method. We used

to get out on the curb and look at the building, and we’d start well below it, and we’d keep raising it

by $1,000 or by $5,000, and when the hair stood up in the back of our neck, we knew we’d gone far

enough, and we’d say that’s the value. Now that’s my old system of appraising, and I don’t think it

stands up to the computers and the calculators that they’re using now.

You may also enjoy reading the complete transcription of this oral history interview.