Marie TOUYA of Méracq

 The New Colossus

Emma Lazarus - 1849-1887

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The Journey

When sixteen year old Marie Touya sailed into New York City's sweeping harbor, past the colossal and towering Statue of Liberty, that gift of the French people to the people of the United States, she was stunned by its high copper magnificence.  Lady Liberty’s gleaming torch had been greeting them from the Atlantic seas, as they had clustered about the railings of the steamship’s deck for their first glimpse of their destination, her high beacon leading them finally into those wide, safe waters.  Marie’s young heart must have been filled with an abundance of emotion.  Especially relief--to finally have made it safely across the vast north Atlantic after some three weeks aboard that steamship La Bretagne. [Not sure here—some say ten days-others three weeks]

By that date of 30 October in 1893, the heat of the summer had finally receded and a temperate/cool 52 degrees had returned.  And their voyage had not been threatened by another hurricane.  There had been twelve in the Atlantic that season, and New York City was still recovering from a fierce one in August that had taken down hundreds of mature trees across the boroughs.  But in her brief time there, Marie would probably not have been aware of that. 

Her focus, now, was on getting through the rigorous health inspections and examinations to which she and her fellow travellers would be subjected, in a foreign language.  Ellis Island, the first stop for arriving immigrants, had only opened one year earlier when Marie finally stepped foot within its cavernous halls. 

She had had enough of the high seas by then, and as La Bretagne made its graceful way towards the clean brick structures rising up there in the middle of the harbor, she had plenty of time to gaze up proudly at France's towering copper statue of Lady Liberty and a kind of pride filled her heart for her motherland.  And then the waves of sadness arose again--remembering her tearful departure from her family and friends--to be leaving her parents, and 14 year old brother, Jean Baptiste, and her elder sister, also named Marie, who had been so near her confinement with her first child when she left.  Marie had watched her elder sister’s struggles as she had gone to work in the big city of Pau as a domestic servant, and her sister had encouraged her in this great endeavor.  Marie would find greater opportunities in this new country of hers, and hopefully would escape the poverty that had gripped Bearn in recent years.  She breathed in the fresh salt air in the breeze, and felt the strength of that hopeful breath move through her being.   She would need it.  She straightened her tired shoulders and lifted her chin as she tidied her abundant hair, and tried to imagine the French colony of San Francisco awaiting her on the other side of this great and foreign continent before her. 

Her journey was only halfway done.  And, along with the other young men and women, she would need to navigate the schedules of the many criss-crossing railroad lines that would connect her to the far west.  Numerous railroad lines departed from the port city.  Fortunately, she was not the only one from the ship who would be making the journey to San Francisco.   First, they would be heading to Chicago, where transfers would be made.  

Marie may not have known, then, that the great Chicago World's Fair and Columbian Exposition was coming to an end that very same day, after six months of welcoming the citizens of the world to that innovative and transforming  display of first electric lights.  The first World Congress of International Religions had also met there at the same time, despite some of the outcry because other than Christian groups had been invited to participate.  Racial discrimination was strong in this democratic ”land of the free and home of the brave.”  And she did not know yet that the powerfully popular and happy mayor of the city of Chicago had been murdered in his own home the very night before, by a disgruntled young man who had rang the bell and barged in past their housemaid, casting a somber pall over the shocked city and the whole country.  The newspapers were full of it.  But they were written in English and she had not yet mastered her new language.  That would come in time.

The French Laundries of San Francisco

We do not know the details of Marie’s final journey or who was awaiting her arrival in San Francisco.  It was usually a pre-arranged agreement to meet relatives already there—though we know of none that she may have had,— or it was an arrangement made by contract to come to work in one of the numerous French laundries throughout the city.  We do know that by 1895, she was indeed working in the French laundries of San Francisco.  The laundries were a sure place where young immigrants could find work and room and board. But at the time of Marie’s arrival, they could also be places of harsh working conditions.  

In the early 1890s, some attempts were made to relieve young women of the burden of their working conditions.  At that time, there were over one hundred laundries operating within the city. [Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1891]. Some workers, like the shoe makers, were able to exert some control with unionizing.  But it was a short-lived effort for the laundry workers at that time, and any hope died out for several years, until about 1900.  At that time, workers were required to live in the upstairs or back accommodations and usually worked from 7AM to 10 PM with only a half hour break for lunch, and less for a dinner, provided by the establishment.  And indeed, the food was less than savory.  They worked six days a week with only their Sundays free.  The men usually performed the heavy double washings, rinsings, and wringings. The women’s work involved first the removal of all buttons from shirts and dresses prior to washing and then the re-sewing of such buttons afterwards.  And for garments of different fabrics, such as lace trim, so too, removal was necessary.  Their irons were heated on a gas-fired stove, and mangles were, like-wise, heated for the pressing of larger pieces.  Mangles were primitive in the 1890s, without any safety guards, and often people thought they were more aptly named for the effects on a young woman’s arm that would inadvertently become caught between the rollers. (Mangle also being an English verb for twisting and ruining an item.) By 1895, such incidents of crushed arms and burnings were not uncommon and often left a young woman permanently disabled. [Chronicle 15 May 1895, Stockton Daily Evening Record 17 Jun 1896]  [nb Some laundry workers always made it a habit to wear gloves outdoors in order to conceal the swollen and chemically burned condition of their hands—cousin Melody Lassalle, from her grandmother’s oral history]

There was much grumbling amid the workers, though many were afraid to speak up for fear of losing their positions, for often they were sending some of their thirty cents a day wages home to France for their struggling families; in other cases they were the only bread winner for their elderly parents and their hungry children in the City.  In their silence they were demoralize and ill; so many, recorded in the funeral records of Julius S Godeau, were dying in their lost youth to tuberculosis.  But across the country, especially in the East, changes were taking place with unions being formed; even some women were opening their own laundry in Washington, DC., with a woman manager.  It is also noted that, there, their efforts were also to save their work from the Chinese laundries’ competition. [San Francisco Call 13 Jul 1895]. This was also so in San Francisco and California.

Finally, in the summer of 1895, anonymous letters, written to the Labor Commissioner, again gained attention in San Francisco.  Inspections were made and suddenly the newspapers were filled with editorials and full page investigative reporting, illuminating the dire conditions, and calling for reform.  Some reporters had themselves employed within several laundries; the facts of the letters were not only confirmed, but became the subject of a steady stream of reporting, decrying the slave conditions. [Women in Trade Unions in San Francisco, Volume 3, Lillian Ruth Matthews, University of California Press, 1913]. 

Most likely, to release herself from the conditions of the laundry accommodations, Marie Touya married another laundry worker that Fall, on 5 October 1895.  [San Francisco Call 6 Oct 1895 Page 11].  Louis Lamotte, who had been in the city since 1880, was a  native of Herbeumont, Luxembourg, Belgium.   Louis Lamotte (1870-1939) had immigrated with his parents, Joseph Leopold Lamotte (1850-1920) and Marie-Joseph Boulanger (1850-1913), when he was only ten years old and had settled into the large Belgium colony already in San Francisco.  Louis had lived with his parents until their divorce in 1888, for mental cruelty, and then, with his mother at 48 Seventh Street, south of Market Street.  He was their only surviving child of two.  They all worked in the laundries. [Fold3-City Directories for San Francisco 1895]

After the divorce, Marie-Josephe had opened her own Marie Lamotte French Laundry on Seventh Street, and Louis lived and worked as an ironer with her there.  When his mother Marie-Josephe decided to remarry in 1893, Louis stayed on at that flat and quickly set his eyes on beautiful and stately Marie Touya for a replacement for his mother’s care.  Even so, after their marriage in 1895, they moved in with his mother on Third Street where Marie-Josephe had opened a new laundry, now under her new married name, Marie Nevraumont, and both worked there in her laundry. [(1890) (1891) (1896) (1997) Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995].  We know from the 1900 US Census that by 1900, when his mother had left the City, Marie and Louis moved nearby to a flat on Shipley Street where they were right across the street from the Cames laundry where they most likely worked, while they were also busy with their union work for the French Laundry Workers Union.  They were only a few blocks away from my grandfather, Jean Baptiste Lounibos (1873-1929) and his uncle Antoine Lassalle (1862-1932) on O’Farrell Street where together they had a winery outlet for the Valley of the Moon Winery in Sonoma.

Louis Lamotte was several years older than Marie Touya, ambitious, a fast talker, and a charmer. And while he was working as a laundryman, he was also learning how real estate worked, beginning to make land transactions in the City, though not on any laundryman’s modest salary.  We might surmise that running his mother’s laundry had been a profitable enterprise for them, and as we see both Louis and Marie become active in the unionizing of the laundry workers to improve the conditions for laundry girls, we might also suggest that his mother Marie-Josephe’s laundry was not one of those that imposed unsafe or dire conditions upon their workers,    Marie Touya was only 23 years by then and still learning the ways of the City and English.  By marrying, Marie would no longer have been required to live within the cramped and difficult conditions for single women in other laundries.  

In 1898, the editorials and full page exposes began to run again in both the San Francisco Examiner and Call newspapers, calling out the “Plea for the Laundry Girls,” who were “Slaves to the Mangle,” and “Slaving for 30 cents a Day.” Concerned with the reports he was hearing,  Labor Commissioner Fitzgerald visited all the laundries in the City.  He brought with him reporters and artists to document their findings.  He found harsh, over-crowded conditions in some, the larger laundries, especially, where the hot and vapouris fumes filled the rooms with all the bacterial dirt of the city.  Many of the workers were visibly sick and often fainting as they were forced to stand at their work for hours without relief.   He wrote that it is a “gross and inhumane treatment of women…..I have found children under the age of fourteen working for over 70 hrs per week for the mere pittance of $7.50 per month or 2 cents per hour….It is an appalling state of affairs.”  His report was published amid a full page of articles with illustrations drawn by his accompanying reporters. [23 Jan 1898 San Francisco Examiner].  And through August of 1900, these full page exposes with stylish illustrations, ran near daily, describing in detailed description, the week in the life of a laundry girl. 

Many of the owner-employers of course fought back.  J P Verger of the Hayes Park Laundry on Cayuga and Mission Roads was against the changes, remarking,  “It is the girls’ fault, actually, that they work so long, for if they work 15 hours/6 days, they will then get $35 a month.” [22 Aug 1900 San Francisco Examiner p 9]   The following day, editor William Randolph Hearst penned his own response for the workers in an editorial, noting the pitiful request for a thirteen hour day:  “Grateful for the effort to make their working day thirteen hours long!  That is the word that comes from the laundry girls in response to efforts to regulate the time of labor in laundries.  Doesn’t that strike you as a rather pitiful thing?…..Of course thirteen hours is better than sixteen hours for a working day, and we hope the reduction will be secured.  The man who works his horse sixteen hours every day is likely to go to jail.  If he escapes that he is pretty sure to lose his horse.  We are sure that laundry girls deserve a good deal more consideration than horses.” [23 Aug 1900 SF Examiner]  

It seemed to work.  A twelve hour ordinance was finally passed, but the girls, as my father would often say, had to “stay on their toes” and keep fighting.  In early October, the laundry girls protested again, this time themselves, presenting to the Board of Supervisors a petition: “not as has been stated to compel employers to observe the twelve hour ordinance recently passed, as they have done so, but the petition is in opposition to one filed by the laundrymen asking that the ordinance be so changed that the girls may be employed as late as 8 o’clock at night instead of 7.  The protest is receiving signatures at 221 Mason Street.” [7 Oct 1900 SF Examiner]

In late November of 1900, a labor union for French Laundry Workers was finally formed, with Marie Touya’s husband, Louis Lamotte, elected to be their president.  In early December, “nearly 200 French laundry workers were present for a meeting held at 812 Pacific Street (Barbe Laundry?) yesterday afternoon. Addressed by A Dijean of the San Francisco Labor Council.  A new constitution was read and adopted.“ [3 Dec 1900, San Francisco Examiner p 4]. 

Again the employers fought back, cutting wages by 20%.  Strikes began.  Mrs Benita Godeau had been seated on the Labor Council, the first woman in ten years.  When she refused her employer M Piegal's demand to reduce wages at her Sutter street laundry, the entire staff went on strike. [3 Feb 1901 SF Examiner p 8].  Two weeks later, the Shoemakers’ Union’s Label Committee reported having addressed a large meeting of Laundry Workers, Branch No. 23, whose members passed resolutions to the effect that they would buy nothing but union label shoes; and the shoemakers, believing in trades union reciprocity, agreed to only patronize union laundries. [23 Feb 1901 San Francisco, California, USA].  And, twenty-five tickets were ordered purchased [by the Shoemakers' Union] for the Laundry Workers’ ball.. [Organized Labor, Volume 2, Number 14, 4 May 1901]. 

The San Francisco Examiner made note that Summer of Louis Lamotte:  “Elected President of French Laundry Workers No 23. FRENCH LAUNDRY WORKERS--Union No 23 has elected these officers: President, Louis Lamotte;  Recording Secretary,  Valerie Cariciat;  Financial Secretary, Antoine Paillet; Treasurer, Marie Bosq.  [28 Jun 1901 In SF Examiner]. 

Louis Lamotte and Marie Touya’s effort had been successful.  The following winter, that long struggle was recognized at a banquet held downtown:  “Presented With a Watch.  President Lamotte of the French Laundry Workers' Union Honored.  The members of the French Laundry Workers' Union No 23 gave a banquet at a downtown rotiserrie Saturday night in celebration of the first anniversary of the organization.  There were 128 at the tables.  After the good things had been discussed, M Esperance, on behalf of the union, presented L Lamotte, president of the organization, with a beautiful gold watch suitably engraved.  This token was given in appreciation of the services of President Lamotte during the past year.  He thanked the members and urged them to stand firm for their principles.  Speeches were also delivered by A Goustiaux, M Walle, secretary of the Journeymen Bakers' Union, H Gallagher, assistant secretary of the Labor Council, and several members of the union.  A string orchestra under the leadership of A Dijeau furnished the music. [25 Nov 1901 SF Examiner]  I hope they danced the night away.

Their success continued into the following year, with Louis Lamotte being re-elected to the position of president; and, this time, with Marie Touya also being recognized by being seated on their executive committee, along with Jean Pierre Verger who had originally objected to the the changes:  LAUNDRY WORKERS ELECT.  French laundry Workers Union No 23 have elected the following officers: President L Lamotte; vice president Z Encoyard; financial secretary, J Bouscat; recording secretary, M Artous; treasurer, Charotte Bersinger; sargeant-at-arms, A Rougeol; conductor, J B Lande; executive committee-- J P Verger, J B Lande, Mrs Lamotte, C Vidal, M Causse, E Encoyand. A Rougeol; finance committee--C Vidal, A Bersinger, P Nicholas; administration committee--J P Esperance, J P Verger, C Vidal. [30 Jun 1902 SF Examiner]. Six months later this same list of officers is again published on 21 December, and again on 31 December, but in the final list given in the year, Mme Lamotte is now serving on the financial committee of the union, a position of great trust. [ 21 Dec and 31 Dec 1902 SF Examiner]

Besides laundry worker balls, other festivities were organized to provide some holiday relief for the workers.  Franco-American celebrations were held at The Chutes, a popular full city block amusement park in San Francisco, with some 3000 people attending. It was Bastille Day!  The morning focused on the serious matters of greeting the official delegations of the City and the French Counsel General with his dignitaries, along with 27 committee men (Louis Lamotte was on the Ball committee,) then hearing their speeches, and the singing of the “Marseilles”—twice; while the evening gave way to lighter matters of dancing, drinking, riding the chutes (water slides,) and the excursion train, all aspects of this landmark amusement park.  Great pyrotechnic fireworks displays culminated the event. [14 Jul 1902 SF Chronicle]

Other gatherings took place at the Shellmound in Oakland for the Fall of the Bastille.  This popular destination, the Shellmound in Alameda County, allowed them to cross the wide bay on the ferry for an excursion that had been unthinkable for many of the workers before the establishment of their unions.  As well, there were regular annual picnics which took place in San Francisco’s Germania Gardens in the Presidio for the laundry workers. [12 May 1902 SF Call]

Laundry workers in Los Angeles, Stockton, and San Jose began to elect officers for their own new unions.  Gradually their efforts were combined.  [2 May 1901, 5 Oct 1901, 21 Dec 1901 SF Examiner]  By 1903, a new State Council meeting was held in San Francisco with a new Board of Directors appointed.  Louis Lamotte was seated on the board and elected as a delegate to the state meetings.  Other leaders were called north to the state of Washington to help organize workers there. [17 Feb 1903 Examiner]  [nb. There is some note that the French Laundry Workers Union, for all their good done, was not able to fully enforce their new accomplishments, because of the family-run nature, employing their own relatives, of so many of the French laundries]

El Verano Villa in The Valley of the Moon

By 1904, Marie and Louis had left the City and the French Laundry Workers behind them. They had followed Louis’ mother, Marie-Josephe Boulanger, to the north across San Francisco Bay to Sonoma County.   Marie-Josephe’s new husband, Alfred J Nevraumont, along with his brother, Louis, had purchased the Caliente Hotel and the El Verano Villa in that little hamlet near the town of Sonoma.  El Verano had been a French enclave for many decades by then and offered holiday escapes from the City for many of the French in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Numerous resorts had sprung up there and throughout the Sonoma Valley, and over the years and under the Nevraumont management, the El Verano Villa would become one of the most popular family resorts for the next twenty years.

The Nevraumonts were a notable family.  Alfred J Nevraumont (1847-1936) was the eldest of the eight Nevraumont children who all, except one daughter who sent her children, had emigrated to San Francisco from Herbeumont, Luxembourg, Belgium, the same city from which the Lamotte family originated.  They began arriving about a decade (early 1870s) before Louis Lamotte’s family.  Alfred had been a butler in his early years in San Francisco, as his brothers continued to arrive after him.  The Nevraumont brothers, together, ran a grocery and bar at 117 Ninth Street at Natoma, and then on Minna Street before brothers Louis and Alfred bought the El Verano Villa in 1900.  Louis had been a shoemaker, like Tolstoy, and remained a bachelor his whole life.  The brothers eventually settled into a large corner property on Duboce Street at Guerrero (1905) where they continued to run their popular family grocery and saloon, while the family lived in the substantial quarters above.  They were handsome men, grocers, shoemakers, and cooks—and they loved each other’s company.  [From the oral history of Marguerite Kelstrom, descendant of the Nevraumont family]

Alfred was 46 years old when he surrendered his bachelorhood and first married Louis Lamotte’s mother.  They all had lived together for about six years when Alfred and Louis, his brother, bought the El Verano Villa in Sonoma Valley and became my great grandfather’s neighbors. [Jean Pierre Lounibos (1840-1917) had the Bellevue Hotel just down the road—amid the Dutils, Pilastre, Roberts resort families]  Louis Nevraumont had also been harshly assaulted, knocked down and kicked in the head, at the saloon one evening at closing time in 1897 which may have made the move to the country inviting? [1 March 1897 San Francisco Call]   On another occasion, burglars had broken in during the night and attempted to blow open their safe; fortunately, they “only succeeded in disfiguring the combination and opening two tins of sardines,” “though supplied with all the tools necessary”—which were left behind in their hasty departure—“to rob a bank vault,  They found their labors so arduous that the contents of the tins were required for their lunch.” [21 Mar 1903 San Francisco Chronicle]. Comical as the article was describing this burglary attempt, those culprits later murdered a police officer over in Oakland which ended their crime spree.  [19 Dec 1904 Oakland Tribune].  By 1914, when another robbery attempt was made to hold up the proprietors and their patrons, the brothers had a gun under the bar and succeeded in chasing off the culprits without firing a shot, except into the ceiling [20 Aug 1914 SF Examiner]  The Nevraumont brothers Joseph (died 1913), Ernest, Lucien, and their sisters continued to run the grocery and bar in the City. 

Alfred, Marie and Louis began to enhance the grounds of the Villa, “planting a large number of trees…This will add much to the appearance of this popular resort and will no doubt please the large number of guests that make it their rendezvous every summer." [1902. Gordon Lindberg. The Springs, by Mike Acker]  Shade was important in the heat of the summers, and as the trees grew, they provided a lovely setting for relaxing for their guests.  The resort was comprised of three main buildings: the main house, called “The Palace” with thirty accommodations, with an adjoining kitchen and dining hall, as well as a large dancing hall—some said the best in the valley, and a separate bar. There we several tent/cabins as well.  They kept chickens, cows for milk, and usually a pig for slaughter.  Guests were met at the nearby train station by the villa’s horse-drawn taxi and delivered to their steps.  Nearby was fine trout fishing in the Sonoma creek and, short walk away, the famous hot mineral springs which offered bathing.  $5 per week at the villa.

Numerous land purchases were also being made to extend the grounds, these made principally by Marie-Josephe and her son Louis Lamotte.  Louis was becoming quite adept at land acquisitions.  In fact, that is nearly all we see he and Marie-Josephe doing through their first ten years there, gathering up numerous lots in the El Verano Land Improvement Company.  Alfred Nevraumont, who was manager and a cook, likely oversaw the workings of the kitchens, along with Marie Touya who handled the office and activities.  

Marie Touya also handled the large correspondence for the office and ordered from a German supply house the lovely photo postcards of various views of the villa.  Advertisements were regularly placed in the City’s papers.  And Marie wrote letters home to her father and family, especially sending those photo postcards (some of which fortunately survive today with Jacques Laborde in Meracq) so they could see where she was now living, away from the congestion and difficult labor of her years in the city laundries and their unionizing work.  She also continued to send her family postal money orders to help them with finances. [Marie Touya’s postal cards—Jacques Laborde] 

Marie’ Touya’s mother, Jeanne Catherine Lacoste (1845-1901) had died in 1901 which must have been a difficult experience for Marie, being so far away.  Adding to her sorrow was the hospitalization in Pau of her elder sister two months later.  Her sister, also named Marie (1871-1918), had married Louis Pierre Lannes (1867-1942) eighteen months after the birth of her first son, Jean Louis, who had been born two months after our Marie (1877) had departed France.  Since then, sister Marie (1871) had had four children in five years, and their circumstances in Pau were not good.  Her children were unwell in their growth, and we can surmise that the elder Marie had depended on her mother a great deal as she tried to provide for her family.  The loss of their mother had probably affected her greatly.  At that time, medicine did not recognize or provide for women who suffered from post partem depression, or poverty.  Two months after the death of their mother, the elder Marie was listed with “neuropathic madness,” but she also suffered with a chronic tuberculosis which was not recognized.  And as it progressed painfully through her system, it would eventually kill her.

Our younger Marie had escaped the poverty of the Pyrenees, but not the suffering of her family. Still, as we see her working at the Villa, we also see her able to take some time away, making overnight excursions back to the City.  “Mrs L Lamotte visited San Francisco Sunday and Monday" [30 Jun 1905 from Mike Acker, the manager of the Springs Museum and author of the book "The Springs”].   Returning to her duties in El Verano, she took care of their guests, providing creative entertainments for them, though there were some who needed more than amusements.  After the earthquake had struck in 1906, many people came to the Valley to escape the ruins and the horrendous fire, to recover from the shock.  Some brought their own tragedies.  

One such was William Stark, a San Francisco machinist. He had lived on Germania Street with his wife and two daughters, and had left them in the City shortly after the destruction to come to Sonoma Valley in order to recover from the shock.  He had been spending most of his time there, but his mind was said “to have weakened under the shock following the earthquake and fire.”  In August, three months after the quake, he broke a mirror in his room at the El Verano Villa and, with the splinters, committed suicide there.  He lingered there for a day before he finally succumbed.  An inquest had to be held. [5 Aug 1906 Press Democrat]. Three months later, a San Francisco fireman, Dan O’Connor, aged 32, who had contracted a “cold” while fighting the terrible blaze that destroyed the City after the earthquake, died at the Villa, unable to rally from the effects of that terrible event. [Argus Courier 19 Nov 1906]   And in 1908, a young Swedish man, A. Petersen from Oakland, succumbed there from Tuberculosis shortly after having arrived. [Petaluma Daily Morning Courier 9 Mar 1908]  The effects of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire lingered on for years throughout the entire San Francisco Bay Area.  (It had also destroyed my Grandfather’s wine store on O’Farrell Street and their home on Stanyan Street and, after sleeping for weeks in the Chinese cemetery, they were able to secure passage out of the City, and back to Sonoma where the chimneys had fallen in and all the china was broken in my Aunt Annie’s home in Glen Ellen.  Aunt Annie took them all in, regardless.  My Grandmother, Irish Agnes, who was born in San Francisco, declared she would never live in the City again—and she did not!)

But mostly, The El Verano Villa catered to a regular and returning clientele of French families.  And the business seemed to be thriving.   Still, and rather oddly, an advertisement ran in the San Francisco papers in July of 1909:  “Summer resort men attention. Do you want the best paying resort north of San Francisco in the beautiful Sonoma Valley?  The El Verano Villa is FOR SALE.  Will pay big interest on money invested; the best of reasons given for selling.  MRS A NEVRAUMONT & CO., El Verano, Sonoma County.  Information at 199 Duboce Ave.  NEVRAUMONT BROS” [San Francisco Examiner 13 Jul 1909].  We do not know what “the best of reasons” were.  Nothing seemed to have come from the advertisement, at least on the surface of things?

On one other occasion we see Marie Touya travelling, again without Louis Lamotte, into San Francisco from the Valley of the Moon, on an occasion most memorable, that is noted in the local newspaper, when “Mrs Marie Lamotte was one of several El Veranoites to go to San Francisco to hear Tetrazzini sing. [28 Dec 1910 Santa Rosa Press Democrat]. 

Mme Louisa Tetrazzini’s outdoor concert on Christmas Eve took place before Lotta’s Fountain—that fountain “that gives drinks to the multitudes” and was a gift from an earlier diva, Lotta Crabtree.  This concert that Marie Touya was so fortunate to have attended had stilled the great City into a profound joy.  Mme Tetrazzini was the greatest diva of her day, a coloratura soprano, and she had broken her contract in New York City to come to San Francisco in order to give her street concert for the people.  

The choir of the Cathedral Mission of the Good Samaritan, in surpliced robes, had begun the performance with Christmas carols—“O come, All Ye Faithful…”  And come they did.  Over 250,000 people filled the streets under a breezeless, starlit sky, flooding Market Street “from the Palace Hotel far up to Fourth Street.  It bulged down Third, it overflowed into Geary.  It clung to an angle of vision in Kearny Street.  And it stood silent and bareheaded while the singer sounded her rare notes—the pathos of ‘The Last Rose of Summer’…and the brisk waltz song from Gounoud’s opera, ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ with its trills and its light and its phantasy of sound.” [SF Call 25 Dec 1910]   Broad beams of the searchlights from the roof of the St Francis Hotel “shot down Geary Street and brightened the platform.  A pair of spotlights from the Monadnock building shone on the singer. The sparkle on her gown, after she had dropped her orange silken mantle, caught the white spotlight and tried in vain to match the sparkle of Tetrazzini’s voice.  It was hopeless.” [SF Call 25 Dec 1910]

Mme Tetrazzini’s high D note was said to have carried a quarter of a mile throughout the City.  And a long pause of many moments followed the last song before the crowd erupted in joy and cheers.  Then the orchestra also erupted with “Auld Lang Syne.”  The rebuilt city had finally recovered from the terrible devastation of the earthquake and fire of 1906.  Few divas would have dared such an outdoor concert but, for Tetrazzini it was as much a gift as that which she had given.  “This I shall remember always as my night of nights. No setting, no audience, no scene has ever so deeply moved me.  In no other city in the world would this have been possible on Christmas eve.  I shall carry the memory of it with me always.-Louisa.” [Examiner 25 Dec 1910]

And Marie Touya also carried that memory all through her life.  The experience had suspended the difficulties she had known, perhaps only for time, but the memory never left her.  She had heard an angel sing.  And most likely wrote home to her father of the thrill of attending that memorable event.

As the villa was advertised as a family resort, Marie arranged numerous activities for their guests.  There were excursions to nearby towns in the Villa’s bus, with the local sheriff at the reins for the trip.  Some travelled to nearby Petaluma for a night on the town.  Others travelled northwards to the county seat.  “Deputy Sheriff Joe Ryan, the well known officer and proprietor of the livery stables at Sonoma, drove up to town (Santa Rosa) on Wednesday morning, handling the ribbons over a four-in-hand. The big bus was filled with a merry company of summer visitors at El Verano Villa.” [14 Jul 1911]

There were swimming picnics at the nearby Sonoma creek, and fishing expeditions to other well stock trout creeks of the valley; or leisurely short walks to the hot mineral baths five minutes away.  (This west side of the valley burbled with mineral springs, some of them developed by my great grandfather, Jean Pierre Lounibos who, in 1873, had come from Ogeu-les-Bains where our maison stands just up the lane from those reknown springs of that village where young Henry Quatre (King Henry IV) had often rested with his courtiers as a boy.  Sonoma Valley was much like their valley in Bearn.)  And there were the dances held in the Villa’s large dancing hall with local bands providing music into the wee hours of the morning on that “best dance floor in the valley.”  And masquerade balls.  On holidays, special events were scheduled.  On one Bastille day celebration, Marie Touya devised to have workmen climb to the air vents high on the roof and release a finale shower of red, blue, and white confetti, blown by the fans, upon their delighted guests below with its surprise and wonder. [Santa Rosa Republican 19 Jul 1911]

Louis Lamotte gradually took over the position of manager from Alfred and Louis Nevraumont who also owned another resort—the Caliente Villa in nearby Agua Caliente.  Louis Lamotte also loved fast horses and, in 1909, it was noted that ”Louis Lamotte, proprietor of the El Verano Villa, has one of the fastest road mares in this valley and enjoys driving her. [Press Democrat 26 Mar 1909]  Louis was also gradually making his way into the business community and the county courts, joining the Chamber of Commerce, learning how the ropes worked.  By 1910, the rumblings of Prohibition were beginning to sound louder throughout the country, and securing their liquor licenses was of utmost importance to the running of the resort. 

He was elected to the board of trustees of the valley’s newly formed chapter of the Knights of the Royal Arch, a Pacific coast organization of liquor dealers and saloon keepers who had an eye on the growing push for Prohibition (to finally come into effect in 1919.) [Santa Rosa Republican 24 Apr 1911]  Louis Lamotte had his own interests to protect.  Early in the following year he joined a delegation to the County Board of Supervisors to present resolutions to limit the liquor licenses in the county to within city boundaries, thus effectively putting out of business the numerous roadhouses, speakeasies, and social clubs, that had operated throughout the county for generations, while protecting his own business. [Press Democrat 6 Feb 1912]. Prohibition was still seven years away, but the debate and fight was on and hotly contended throughout those years.

 In August 1911, a new law made drunkenness an insanity charge, by which one could be sent off to Napa State Hospital—along with those who suffered from poverty, or the inability to speak English, or as were women deemed dispensible or unruly to a man’s idea of how a woman should behave.  It was a tidy solution. [Santa Rosa Republican 11 Aug 1911]

Rigid lines were being drawn both by the advocates of the Women’s Christian Temperance League who had campaigned for decades for Prohibition, as well as the racial lines against the Chinese and Japanese and African American communities.  Racism was overt.  It was firmly a White man’s world in the United States and at the El Verano Villa.  Louis was on the edge of it all.  In October 1911, he booked Billy’s Rice’s En Tour Minstrel Tour into the Villa:  “Will show at Lamotte's El Verano Villa.  L Lamotte, the proprietor of this now famous resort, is always up to date in obtaining the best talent for his guests. Dancing will follow the show” [San Francisco Examiner 6 Oct 1911]  [nb  Minstrel shows were performed by white men in black-face make-up with exaggerated lips, involving musical numbers, comical skits and jokes delivered in an exaggerated Black dialect.  They had become popular after the period of Jim Crow Reconstruction (Southern aparthied) in the United States (ca 1880) and carried on into the 20th century. [John Sheehy, Petaluma Historian in “Blackface and the Egg City Minstrels.”  https://petalumahistorian.com/blackface-and-the-egg-city-minstrels/]

On 17 July 1913, Louis Lamotte’s mother, Marie-Josephe Boulanger died.  Accounts are confusing, saying she died in Los Angeles with notices running there, while others, including funeral director, Julius S Godeau, who buried her, saying she died in San Francisco.  Little is known thus far.  Marie-Josephe had been a constant and powerful force in her only son’s life, the two continually working together either in the laundries that she ran, or later in the resort her second husband ran, or in the remarkable number of real estate transactions the two had recorded throughout her life.  Perhaps she had been ill for some time, and that was the reason for the 1909 advertisement to sell “the best paying resort north of San Francisco.’’   We do not know.

But there are puzzling questions.  Was her health in question four years before her death?  And with so many involved in the Villa, was she the kingpin of it all?  Perhaps.  Louis and Alfred Nevraumont appeared to be quite comfortable in their own circumstances.  [We see Louis Nevraumont purchasing the Duboce Street property where the Nevraumont Brothers would move their families and business about the time of the earthquake. And Alfred was also making land purchases in San Francisco while also owning the Caliente Villa in the Sonoma Valley.]  But in 1910, Alfred and Marie Nevraumont had transferred all their 17 lots in El Verano to her son Louis, though not to his wife Marie Touya. [Wives were usually included in such deed transfers]  Perhaps Marie-Josephe  had been ill.

Two months prior to Marie-Josephe Boulanger’s death, another series of ads and recordings appear in the San Francisco, Sonoma, Napa, and Sacramento County papers: “NOTICE Stockholders of the El Verano Villa Association and El Verano Improvement Assoc will learn something greatly to their interest by communicating at once with the Pacific Improvement Co. 401 Crocker Bldg, SF. A D Shepard, Sect’y.” [Sacramento Bee 19 Apr 1913, Also, SF, Napa, Sonoma counties.]. These are followed by a call for election:  “El Verano Villa Association. Meeting called by three members for an election. Warrant to A D Shepard, Stockholder of said corporation, by Hon H T Barnett, Justice of the Peace in San Francisco.” [14 Apr 1914 The Recorder-San Francisco]   Then, a month later:  “A new meeting is called to reproduce the destroyed by-laws of said corporation and elect a new board of directors of five. Signed J M Crawley, Clerk of the El Verano Villa Association.”  [7 May 1914 San Francisco Recorder]

A few months later, Louis Lamotte is also buying land in the new Western Division of San Francisco, then selling it the following year for double the price for which he purchased it, and having building contracts accepted there through the next few years. [ 21 Aug 1914, 2 Oct 1915, 18 Mar 1916 The Recorder/San Francisco]. His interests in the Valley are still clear, at this time, but no longer focused on the El Verano Villa.  Instead he is attending out of town banquets of the Elks’ Club with many of the powerful men of the courts and county. [18 Jan 1917 Petaluma Argus Courier]   In 1919 he is meeting with the Taxpayer Association and county Board of Supervisors to raise interest in the coming elections for roads and highway bonds.   He is named precinct chair for El Verano. [29 Apr 1919 Petaluma Argus Courier]

What we do not see is a concern for his wife’s own grief that followed the death of her beloved father Jean Touya dit Lapet (1839-1917) in Meracq in October of 1917, one year before the signing of the Armistice of “the war to end all wars” and, then the death of her sister Marie (1871-1918) from Tuberculosis the following year in the hospital in Pau.  The great pandemic of the “Spanish”  Flu of 1918 was just beginning and so was Prohibition.  Women were finally winning the right to vote.  But the death of her father in Meracq had nearly severed Marie’s ties to her family in France.  Only her brother, Jean-Baptiste (1879-1940) remained for her in France. (Jean Baptiste had entered the French Army when he was 20 years old, and was only released from service when he was nearly 50 years.   He had been sent into Tunisia as a Zoauve-2nd class in the 18th Regiment Infantry and was serving there when their mother died. Tunisia was not an easy environment for soldiers. Illness was wide-spread there amid the troops.  He returned with PTSD which haunted him throughout his life)

Marie Touya’s grief must have been profound and isolating.  And dangerous.  For, in El Verano, there was a new woman in town.  A young 27 year old woman who had just gone through a very high profile divorce in San Francisco from her philandering husband.  Rita Cecil Gonella m Wyatt was divorced in August 1919, and by 1920 she is a registered Republican voter and homemaker in tiny El Verano, the same year Marie disappears from the list. [1920 Voters Registration List].  

After the divorce of Marie-Josephe Boulanger and Joseph Leopold Lamotte in 1888, for mental cruelty, we see little mention of Louis Lamotte’s father.  We know that they all had been laundrymen in San Francisco, including Joseph’s brother, Charles who had died 30 January 1903 in San Francisco. [Charles Lamotte—Age 43 years. Uncle of Louis Lamotte, brother of Mme Ducroux, and Joseph Lamotte. (Also seen at 15 Bluzome Street with Joseph in 1882. ) [SF Call 30 Jan 1903].   At some point in time, father Joseph also moved to Sonoma county, residing in Santa Rosa where he worked as a stone mason.  Although only a few miles north, we see no contact or connection between Louis and his father.  Yet, in the midsts of all Louis’ activities within the courts of Santa Rosa, acting as delegate, juror, appraiser—we see no mention of any visits to his ailing father in the numerous local new items which wold usually note such items.  At this same moment in time, Louis Lamotte’s father died in Santa Rosa.  “ JOSEPH LAMOTTE OF MELITUS IS CALLED—Joseph Lamotte, a well known resident of the Melitta section for many years died at a local hospital yesterday morning after a long illness. He was injured in an accident two years ago while engaged in a stone quarry and never recovered, having been a semi-invalid ever since. The deceased is the father of Louis Lamotte. who for many years has conducted the El Verano summer resort at El Verano, and a brother of Mrs Lucien Piquard, Mrs. Edward Reding and the late Mrs. Leonie Ducroux and Charles Lamotte of San Francisco. Mr. Lamotte was a native of Herbeumont, Belgium, aged 70 years, and had resided in California for more than forty years. He was engaged in the paving block industry for many years up to the time of his injury.” [10 January 1920 Press Democrat]

A month later, though, Louis Lamotte is again seen in Santa Rosa, called to the courts for jury duty on a robbery case in Feburary of 1920.  By the end of the month he is living alone, with only one laborer at the El Verano Villa.  Alfred Nevraumont has moved out, and over to the Caliente Villa where he also is living alone.  And we find Marie Touya living at Napa State Hospital amid over 1200 other women, locked up as insane. [1920 US Census]

Two months later Louis Lamotte is named an estate appraiser for the estate of an incompetent person [13 Apr 1920 Santa Rosa Republican].  And ten days after that, he has guardianship papers drawn for his own wife Marie Touya:  “Letters issued by Judge Denny to Louis Lamotte in the estate of Maria Lamotte, an insane person upon bonds of $200 secured by Thomas Baines and Joseph Escolty, both of Sonoma.  Attorney Robert A Poppe represents the guardian.” [23 Apr 1920 Santa Rosa Republican].   It was the day before Marie Touya’s forty-second birthday.

It is interesting to note that in 1919 and 1920 there is an unusual number of insanity cases within the county.  In 1919, “fifty of the fifty-four cases examined by the insanity commission were committed to the State hospitals for the insane.” [1 Jan 1920 Santa Rosa Republican].  In May 1920, the same Judge Denny ruled on a complaint for annulment, on the grounds of insanity since married, on “the conclusion of the plaintiff,” made by a man who had been married for over twenty years; Judge Denny held that “to grant the petition of the plaintiff would be to make a mockery of the sacred act of marriage—a condition toward which our lax laws seem to be swiftly moving at the present time.” [21 May 1920 Santa Rosa Republican]  Again, in July 1920, “an unusual number of insane patients have been brought to the county jail” and “Judge Denny will hear their cases at once” [14 Jul 1920 Santa Rosa Republican]

Perhaps Judge Thomas C Denny had been distracted from his courtly duties by his own marriage only a few months earlier, in January of 1920, (to the heiress of one of Sonoma’s first pioneer families.)  [14 Nov 1919 Ukiah Daily Journal].  Had he been distracted when he issued those letters of guardianship to Louis Lamotte?  Or, had a deal been made amid the backrooms of the courthouse, or at one of their fraternal or civic meetings?   The irony remains in that, within the course of one month, Judge Thomas C Denny’s decrees would vary so widely on “the mockery of the sacred act of marriage” regarding two marriages of over twenty years duration?

Nevertheless, Louis Lamotte was riding free.  The Great War was over. In April 1921, he purchased a new Studebaker, special six automobile, replacing his fast mare for the modern era. [23 Apr 1921 Petaluma Argus Courier]  The following month he joined the Highway Commission to inspect the new routes from Santa Rosa to Sonoma [19 May 1921 Petaluma Argus Courier]  And in the following year, he was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce for El Verano [12 Apr 1922 SF Examiner]   Perhaps Louis was a little too free riding.  It was, after all, also now the Era of Prohibition, and in August 1922, he “was arrested on the charge of having liquor illegally, and cited to appear.” [11 Aug 1922 —]

In December 1923, he filed for an annulment of his marriage to Marie Touya, after twenty-six years of marriage.  Marie Touya had been locked up now for three years.  Eight days later, without any testimony, except that from Louis Lamotte himself, stating that Marie Touya had been insane before the time of their marriage, through their marriage, and was now presently insane, an annulment was granted, this time by Judge Campbell.   Perhaps by then, Judge Denny had seen the light in the abuse of the insanity claims and would not hear the anullment petition?  [30 Dec 1923 Santa Rosa Press Democrat, and Court Papers].  A month later, Louis LAMOTTE sold the El Verano Villa and moved back to the City into that new home in the Western Addition with young divorcee Rita Gonella Wyatt.  

Three years later, the El Verano Villa burned to the ground. The main building with some thirty rooms, the kitchen and adjoining dining room—all gone. [21 Sep 1927 Healdsburg Tribune]  Louis Lamotte continued to sell real estate, in San Francisco, letting his taxes go delinquent on the few parcels he still held in El Verano. [ 03 Jun 1926 Santa Rosa Republican, 5 Aug 1933 Santa Rosa Press Democrat]. He was financially secure with the sale of the Villa as The Great Depression gripped the country.  He died on 26 May 1939 in St Joseph Hospital of a painful Acute Uremia and Kidney Retention, at the age of 68 years, and was buried by Julius S Godeau, at Holy Cross Cemetery.  His only legacy seemed to be aptly framed in a brief and garbled obituary, full of inaccuracies, published in a town in which he had never lived. [3 Jun 1939 Petaluma Argus Courier]  No one knows what became of that engraved gold watch—or his principles.

Perhaps Marie Touya was insane?  Perhaps the death of her father and sister had tipped her over the crest within a decidedly love-less marriage?  I might have held that to be a possibility—until I read the court papers filed in the annulment.  Louis Lamotte simply went too far, there, in his accusations.  No other witnesses.  No usual examination by physicians.  And having the courts appoint a guardian, ad-litem, rather than shouldering the responsibility himself, reveals much more of his own character than it does of Marie’s.  Marie had already been locked up for three years, and with her family who would have defended her now all dead, he had no one about to object, except perhaps Alfred Nevraumont.  But he, too, may have had enough of the Lamottes.  Growing old, Alfred J Nevraumont returned to the Duboce Street home of his brothers and lived out his days happily with them, 88 years, probably making a fine soup while brother Louis cobbled a shoe. 

We have gazed long into the two portraits that remain of Marie Touya, seeking an understanding of her nature and character, noting that while always impeccably dressed with a flower in her abundant hair, she chose to be thoughtfully seated at ease, reading the newspaper. We have studied her script for signs of emotional distress, and have seen a hand of competence and personal charm, and a mind busy with the Villa’s affairs, and caring for others.  And we have seen too much of her life’s work to think that such a strong and courageous, responsible and talented woman “was insane” before her marriage and all throughout it, to believe such allegations made by a man as ambitious and ruthless as Louis Lamotte.  At sixteen, Marie had travelled, alone, out of her small southwest village of Meracq in the Pyrenees, travelled across the breath of France for the first time, to the busy port of Le Havre in the northeast, alone, at sixteen;  she had crossed the great Atlantic and gotten herself from New York City, through a complicated network of trains, in a foreign language, and travelled for days across the vast continent of North America into a bustling San Francisco.   She had worked for years within the formation of the first French Laundry Worker’s Union, riding the waves of opposition;  she had sat on their Executive and Financial committees, managed the busy desk of the year round clientele of the El Verano Villa, and had gotten herself on a Christmas Eve night across the bay to hear the great diva Mme Tetrazzini sing in the streets, for the people of San Francisco.

These are not the actions of a forty-two year life—nor such the positions that were held, of an insane woman, as Louis Lamotte named her.  My sense is that Louis wanted out, (though why not a divorce?  His mother had.) — and after the death of his ever-hovering mother, Louis wanted a younger woman he could mould to his liking, who would not stand up to his arrogance. Someone who would flash on his arm in a flashy new car whizzing down his brand new roads.  No, Marie was of a serious demeanor.  And in Marie’s sadness with the deaths in France, he had found a way to depict her as of unsound of mind, like all her family in France.  Of course this was not the case.  But it worked.  He cast off Marie as easily as he cast off the Laundry Workers’ Union and the El Verano Villa, and all his accumulated civic duties in Sonoma County, and went on to his greener pastures of Rita Gonella Wyatt who seemed to have had an eye for wandering men.  After Louis’ death, she went on to marry yet another much older man.  She was not buried with Louis Lamotte.

And our dear Marie Touya?  What a strength of soul and heart!  We know that she spent some twenty-five years in Napa State Hospital.  We know that there were several other French women incarcerated with her, so we might hope she had some companionship within those imposing walls.  Perhaps she worked as a laundress?  But we do not know the nature of her time there.  Napa’s records are locked, even to families one hundred years later.  Small wonder.  Once named Imola, “the facility was originally built to relieve overcrowding at Stockton Asylum.  By the early 1890s the facility had over 1300 patients which was over double the original capacity it was designed to house. The original main building known as "The Castle" was an ornate and imposing building constructed with bricks.  Facilities on the property included a large farm that included dairy and poultry ranches, vegetable garden and fruit orchards that provided a large part of the food supply consumed by the residents.”  [https://www.dsh.ca.gov/Napa/index.html]. 

When Marie was first recorded there in January of 1920, there were over twelve hundred women there. [1920 US Census].   I did not count the number of men inmates.  Grossly over-crowded—a condition which continued for decades until the governor finally visited one day and closed it down.  Demanded changes be made to relieve the over-crowding.  Gradually those who were not insane were released back into the communities as willing sponsors were found, who were given a stipend for their care.  We surmise that that is how Marie Touya finally was released, and spent her final thirty years back into Sonoma County.  But we do not know if she suffered under some of the first lobotomies performed at Napa State Hospital through that time.  We do know that a Social Security form was filled out for her there for health insurance benefits; well, partially filled out, that is.:  Name. Date of Birth. Parents’ names and origin.  And a code number which indicates Alzheimer’s Disease and related Dementias. Again, suitably vague.  No date of filing.  Records still locked.

We know from her death records that, at that time, she had been living back in Sonoma County for thirty years, the last eight spent at the Manzanita Manor in Cloverdale, a retirement home of some 68 patients.  [Fred Young Funeral Home records/Patti Foster [patti @srmp.org (707) 894 2540]  Someone had cared well for Marie Touya after her release from Napa, and then had provided for her care at Manzanita Manor, a home that was known all over the county as the best retirement home around.  (We would love to learn who it was who cared for Marie through those last thirty years.)  There she continued to be cared for, not only by an excellent staff, but also by the Cloverdale community who regularly visited and entertained them there with music and song, festivities and concerts, especially on holidays and her birthday.  The Cloverdale Reveille newspaper featured a regular column for the Manor, noting Marie Touya “attending party celebrations” and her birthday being celebrated in April of 1970.  So, her last days were spent being cared for herself, just as she had cared for so many others over her years, and had entertained them through all of her active life.  The singing never stopped for Marie Touya, and I hope she had the opportunity to tell her companions of the Christmas Eve night she had heard Tetrazzini sing in the streets to the people of San Francisco in 1910.

Marie Touya died on 8 Feb 1976 at the age of 99 years, from bronchial pneumonia.  She had been, otherwise, in a healthy condition. She had earlier had a fracture of her left hip which was well healed.  She was then grey-haired, blue eyed, 5 feet tall, and weighed 90 pounds.  Because by then, she was thought a pauper with no family, the county buried her in an unmarked grave in the County of Sonoma Cemetery in Santa Rosa, unknown, nearly forgotten—until Sonoma County Coroner’s historian and archivist, Sandy Frary, and her diligent crew began the renovation of that little pauper’s field they called the County of Sonoma Cemetery and found her.  They documented her in the records, and plotted a map of the grounds, and posted the information online where we found Marie Touya and her burial place.  And then, from there, we found her death records and autopsy report, which filled in a bit more about her life after Napa.  [Fred Young Funeral Home records/Patti Foster [patti @srmp.org (707) 894 2540] 

(And I had discovered that I, when teaching at Santa Rosa Junior College there in the county seat, and running on my lunch hours through the lovely, oak shaded old cemetery, often pausing there and trying to clear back the overgrowth from some of the marked graves there, forty years ago, had been pausing right at Marie Touya’s unmarked grave.  Perhaps my French compatriot and neighbor of my great grandfather had been calling to me even then?  Did I hear an angel sing?)

But all this story began back in France.   Marie Touya of Meracq was nearly forgotten in France, until her great niece Marie-Claude Heydemann, living near Paris, discovered Marie Touya’s unmarked photographs and called her cousin, Marie’s great nephew, Jacques Laborde, living in Meracq, the descendants of Marie Touya’s sister Marie and her brother Jean-Baptiste. When Jacques discovered Marie’s postcards sent home—together they both set out to find their lost Great Aunt in California.  Bless you, Marie-Claude and Jacques, for your curiosity and loving effort; and for allowing all the rest of us to be part of Marie Touya’s  remarkable journey.  [JAL -Bastille Day 14 July 2020]

NOTES

https://poets.org/poet/emma-lazarus. Emma Lazarus sonnet is engraved on the pedestal at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.

https://poets.org/poem/new-colossus?gclid=Cj0KCQjwjer4BRCZARIsABK4QeUf-wAqv4O4Ffab6Wyl3xdjDDNIB8dTFCpIzY0h9aI5aVzg5sFN5_caAtJaEALw_wcB

Emma Lazarus  (1849–1887)  Posthumously famous for her sonnet, "The New Colossus," which is engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty, Emma Lazarus is considered America's first important Jewish poet…A descendant of Sephardic Jews who immigrated to the United States from Portugal around the time of the American Revolution, Emma Lazarus was born in New York City on July 22, 1849…Lazarus was asked for an original poem to be auctioned off as a fundraiser for the building of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Though she initially declined, Lazarus later used the opportunity to express the plight of refugee immigrants, who she cared greatly about. Her resulting sonnet, "The New Colossus", includes the iconic lines "Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," and is inscribed on a plaque on the pedestal of the monument.

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Cholera sweeping across France in June 1893

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43805483?seq=3#metadata_info_tab_contents

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SS La Bretagne departing NYC 4 Nov 1893 to Le Havre San Francisco Chronicle. Location: San Francisco, California.  Issue Date: Saturday, October 21, 1893,. Page:  Page  14.,   From about 2nd --30th for the voyage--trans atlantique

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https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Willig-78

From the Biographies: Oral History of their process of emigration from Le Havre--ala five years earlier. SS La Gascogne is a sister steamship of SS La Bretagne:

"They purchased their tickets for the ship at Basal, Switzerland. The family left the port of Le Havre on July 2, 1888 on the Steam ship La Gascogne, of the Red Star Line. After arriving at New York on July 30, 1888"

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 from Wiki

La Bretagne was launched 9 September 1885 by CGT in Saint-Nazaire.[2] Built for France to New York service, she had a 7,112 gross tonnage (GT) and measured 150.99 metres (495 ft 4 in) long between perpendiculars and 15.78 metres (51 ft 9 in) wide. Equipped with twin triple-expansion steam engines driving a single screw propeller that drove her at 17 knots (31 km/h), she was outfitted with two funnels and four masts carrying a barquentine rig.  La Bretagne was initially equipped with accommodations for 390 first-class, 65 second-class, and 600 third-class passengers.[2] Her hull was made of steel from the foundries at Terre-Noire and featured eleven bulkheads which created twelve watertight compartments; her deck was planked with Canadian elm and teak. The ship cost $1,700,000 (about $48 million today)[3], exclusive of decorations which were provided for $75,000 by CGT employees.[4]CGT career

La Bretagne began her maiden voyage from Le Havre to New York on 14 August 1886,[2] and arrived on 22 August after a storm-tossed voyage carrying 281 passengers.[4]

(That year, the final touches were being finished on the Statue of Liberty. The copper statue, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, had been designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and its metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue would be dedicated on October 28, 1886.)

In June 1891, a westbound passage was marred when a drunken man flung his five-year-old son overboard in mid ocean. The man was seized and straitjacketed while a boat was launched in an unsuccessful attempt to save the boy.[5]

In the last quarter of 1892, La Bretagne seemed to be jinxed. (That summer cholera was showing up all over France.).  In September, a cholera outbreak, traced to a United States immigrant brought aboard the Hamburg-Amerika steamer Moravia, caused all steerage traffic to be suspended and CGT's New York traffic to depart from Cherbourg for the next two months.[6]   

La Bretagne, arriving in New York in mid-September, was caught in the middle of the outbreak and was detained at the New York Quarantine Station (though the liner had no cases reported on board).  Among the passengers aboard was John D. Washburn, the United States Minister to Switzerland, who was leaving his diplomatic post.[7]  

On her next voyage, a purser's error resulted in the ship being detained for an "uncomfortable long time" off Liberty Island in early December while the error was sorted out.[8][9]  Departing from her pier at the foot of Morgan Street in New York on 11 December, a pilot error resulted in La Bretagne plowing 50 feet (15 m) through a pier at the foot of Franklin Street.[8]  The New York agent for CGT estimated that it would take two weeks to repair the eleven plates crushed by the collision.[10]

Notes

    "Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique". The Ships List. 12 April 2006. Retrieved 2 July 2008.

References

    Bonsor, N. R. P. (1978) [1955]. North Atlantic Seaway, Volume 2 (Enlarged and completely revised ed.). Saint Brélade, Jersey: Brookside Publications. ISBN 0-905824-01-6. OCLC 29930159.

    "Four new French steamers" (pdf). The New York Times. 25 March 1885. p. 8. Retrieved 2 July 2008.

    Bonsor, p. 656–57.

    Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved January 1, 2020.

    "Her maiden voyage" (pdf). The New York Times. 23 August 1886. p. 8. Retrieved 2 July 2008.

    "Flung his little son overboard". Chicago Daily Tribune. 24 June 1891. p. 9.

    Bonsor, p. 631.

    "La Bretagne's passengers" (pdf). The New York Times. 19 September 1892. p. 9. Retrieved 2 July 2008.

    "La Bretagne's hard luck" (pdf). The New York Times. 11 December 1892. p. 10. Retrieved 2 July 2008.

    "Penned up on La Bretagne" (pdf). The New York Times. 6 December 1892. p. 2. Retrieved 2 July 2008.

    "At work on La Bretagne" (pdf). The New York Times. 12 December 1892. p. 8. Retrieved 2 July 2008.]

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NOTES

Of William Stark and Donald O’Connor—Victims of the 18 April 1906 Earthquake and Fire: 

For more stories of the after-effects of this disaster, people who were sent to Mendocino to Talmadge State Hospital “out of their wits” and their first-hand accounts compiled by historian Sandy Frary:  http://santarosahistory.com/wordpress/category/insanity/    Sandy gives accounts of other people who had died in Sonoma County from the effects and ”shock of the earthquake.”  

ALSO includes an eyewitness account by a reporter for the Oakland Tribune who arrived in San Jose to Agnew State Hospital which had collapsed.  Patients wandering about in a daze, and several had died.  

ALSO,  includes the Glen Ellen /Sonoma story,  “The Madwoman of Glen Ellen”—Sandy writes: Our story so far: Mary Ellen Pleasant – AKA “Mammy” Pleasant, although she never replied to anyone using that racist nickname – was an African-American woman of historic importance before the Civil War and during San Francisco’s Gilded Age.

Louis Lamotte’s Shady Friends and Cronies

John Serres (1855 Escout, France-1937 Agua Caliente Sonoma CA imm 1874 son of Jean Pierre Serres (125 FR- 1912 SF, brother of Catherine Serres Sarthou (1853 FR-1932 SF m Jacques Sarthou 1845 FR-1916SF)) m Catherine Leppert (1858 Alsace-1924 Agua Caliente Sonoma CA)—neighbor of Louis Lamotte, Marie Touya and the Nevraumomts.  Bought the Bellevue Hotel from my grand Jean Pierre Lounibos in El Verano (ca 1904).  

Co-signer with Louis LAMOTTE on Pierre Bidou-the Baker’s application for naturalization (Denied.)  

 [Pierre Bidou the Baker moved on to Oakland.  He married Marie Lembeye, youngest daughter of Jean Lembeye who had bought Maison Lounibos in Ogeu-les-Bains after our emigration.]  

The Serres Family is an old family in Sonoma Valley. (He earlier had run a bordello in SF/1900  at 771 Howard at Tehama.  Hotel of over 40 lodgers.  Also arrested there for “allowing a minor into a house of prostitution” when two men abducted two young girls off the street and took them to Serres’ hotel (STUDY). 

John Serres bought the Bellevue Hotel from my grand Jean Pierre Lounibos, and then turned around and sued grandpere and uncle Antoine Lassalle for rent $1248)  JPL countered sued. Result JPL had to pay $650.  Serres begins advertising the Bellevue about 1904.  

The same year, Sonoma Constable Charles H Ohm dies at his home in Agua Caliente in early Feb 1904, leaving an estate of some $100,000—some say much more (Richest constable in the USA.  Ohm, an early Goldrush mining magnate, had bought the Burns estate in Agua Caliente and drilled/struck hot mineral waters there, in Dec 1902). He was noted as critically ill on 26 January 1904, and died shortly afterwards.  With his death, his estate was left to his wife in his will dated 17 Mar 1900.  

But John Serres then produced a second will (dated 13 Jan 1904) that left the entire fortune to John Serres with no bond, and only the stipulation that Serres pay the widow $75 /month.  Cornelia G Ohm countered with an opposition, “alleging that the signature of her husband to the document was procured by undue influence and at a time when deceased was not of sound and disposing mind by reason of strong drink, and that he was incompetent to make a will.”  “Regarding the charge made by Mrs Ohm that her husband was unduly intimate with Ada Ridley at the Serres place of business (Bellevue Hotel), an emphatic denial is made, as is the charge that Serres presented bills of Ada Ridley to deceased for payment.  Attorneys J T Campbell and A B Ware represent the proponent” [15 Mar 1904 Santa Rosa Republican]. Serres’ opposition will was dismissed by the court-a fraud.  Cordelia G Dodge Ohm died quite suddenly 6 Sept 1905.{9 Sep 1905 Petaluma Daily Morning Courier].   [nb This Ohm story of John Serres reveals much of the character of this man, the close friend and neighbor of Louis LAMOTTE]

John Serres, formerly proprietor of the Bellevue Hotel in El Verano, has purchased from the Franzinelii estate the El Verano Saloon, on the corner of Riverside Ave. and Grove St. He will make many improvements in the place and keep a stock of high class wet goods and cigars of approved quality.  Mr.Serres has a host of friends every where and will no doubt, make a decided success at his new stand. (1908) [Thomas Baines also makes purchase from this  Franzinelii estate at the same time]

John Serres —Proprietor of the El Verano Club Saloon.  All the leading brands of many of the leading business wines , liquors and cigars at Riverside Ave and Grove St. [https://archive.org/stream/casomvhs_000326/casomvhs_000326_access_djvu.txt] (1908)

Six generations of the Serres have lived in Sonoma Valley—presently John Serres Ranch Wine [https://serresranchwine.com/ with PHOTO of present John Serres]

Serres’s sons:

 Son Joseph Anthony/Tony Serres (1883 SF- 1967 Sonoma CA) shorty after the Ohm phony will scandal, married the said lover of Ohm, Ada Ridley/Riley, at St Francisco Solano church in Sonoma.  [Ironically, in 1910 Tony Serres is living in Cloverdale running a hotel (with three boarders) with his wife Ada, his mother-in-law, and of the three older boarders-butchers-one is my Uncle Tony Lassalle who Serres’ father had sued when buying the Bellevue Hotel.].  Tony Serres goes on to work at Mare Island and for Standard. Oil/Richmond.

Son John Henry Serres (1879 SF- 1906) who was bartender for his father at their brothel in SF, “died in El Verano at age 27 years on 12 June 1906” [Chronicling America, 1967) SF CALL]

Son John Pierre Serres (1888-1952) managed the old Watriss ranch in Agua Caliente. When Watriss died, he left it all to John Pierre Serres. (No mention of a phony will as in his father’s OHM estate debacle). I believe it is his family that still resides in Sonoma Valley.

Thomas Baines—bondsman for Lamotte vs Touya— A carpenter of Sonoma, was engaged in shingling the new hall being erected as an annex of the Bellevue Hotel and by some mischance slipped and fell a distance of fifty feet.  No bones broken [6 Jul 1903 Daily Morning Courier].    Thomas Baines has purchased from the Franzinelii estate, realty and personal property  for $1700. ([John Serres also makes purchase from this estate at the same time] [21 Apr 1908 Daily Morning Courier].   

• 1910–-12th juror in case of Dr Willard P Burke for dynamiting the tent of Miss Lu Etta Smith, his employee, and her infant daur.  Burke claimed Smith to be insane. (Infant daur said to be Burke’s daur.) Clarence F Lea-Prosecutor. Verdict: Guilty.  

• 1910—lunches at Union Hotel/Sonoma with others and governor inspecting Wickersham ranch for trade school.  

• 1913—“Pres of El Verano Development Assoc, well known real estate man”…  

• 1913- petitions guardianship of minor nephew of $20,000 estate.   

• 23 apr 1920—secured bond’$200 for Louis LAMOTTE guardianship of Marie-insane person.  

• 21 Apr 1921—3rd annual account of the guardianship of Milton Albert Peterson, a minor, in estate valued at $35,144.64.  

• 13 Jan 1923—on commission to appraise private property on Schellville-Santa Rosa road.   

• 1923—fires swept through Boyes Springs recently

Rita Cecil Gonella m Wyatt m Lamotte m Boeken (1892-1980) remains Louis LAMOTTE’s widow for about 15 years living in the 8th Avenue home;  she went on to marry widowed Frederick W Boeken (1873-1965) Manager/Superintendent of the San Francisco Municipal Railway, in 1954, when he was 81 years old and she was 62 years old.  Fred had been a handsome and notable figure in San Francisco, serving as Manager/Supt from 1912-1940;  widowed of Josephine E Dewan (1872-1939) in 1939, with one daughter, Eleanor J/Jessie Boeken (1909-1996)   Jessie married Tennesseean Mine Engineer Joseph Homer Keene in Manila where they lived for some years, then returned to SF and lived with her father at 172 Beaumnt Street.  Fred  C Boeken was a native of Kansas, Past Grand Master of Odd Fellows Lodges of California and a life member of of the Transportation Club of SF and former manager of the Municipal Railways of SF, (for some thirty years) as noted in his 28 Jan 1965 obituary. [SF Examiner].    

Rita’ Gonella’s obituary (9 Sep 1980) lists her as “beloved wife of the late Fred Boeken, loving aunt of Rita Boeken [Rita’s step-daughter], Mabel Stoffer and Dorothy and Gloria Dati, a member of the NDGW Native Daughters of the Golden West-Minerva Parlor and St Gabriel’s Senior Citizens Club.”  Currivan’s Chapel of the Sunset, 2550 Irving Street a 26th Ave to Mass of Christian Burial at St Gabriel’s Church Ulloa at 40th Avenue to Holy Cross Cemetery [10 Sep 1980 San Francisco Examiner]

Court Appointed Guardian, ad litem

Assemblyman Emmett Ignatius Donohue 1923. Petaluma, California

I might doubt that Marie ever met Emmett Donohue, since she was already at Napa by the time of his 1923 appointment/guardian and anullment.  He was running for election at the time of the guardian appointment. Of course, I have no idea. He died a tragic young death in a car accident, leaving his young family  JAL.  

Death of Emmett I Donahue 8 May 1931. Napa, California.  On the 8th. Attorney/Assemblyman was enroute to Sacramento to confer with Senator Slater.  Car turned in front of him, (near Agua Caliente, ironically.)  Tomales pioneer family, practiced and lived in Petaluma.  Father of young family.  [Napa Valley Register] 

Funeral for Emmett Ignatius Donohue 15 May 1931. Petaluma, California.  Largest attendance in the city history.  Closed down the County.   Former District Attorney, State Assemblyman,  Veteran of WW I/France.  Father of three --fourth was born six months after his death.  He was running for the Assembly/1922-3  when he was appointed Marie's guardian. 

[nb Uncle John Baptiste Lounibos, a family friend, was an honorary pallbearer at his funeral and took over his practice in Petaluma afterwards.  Handled his wife’s legal matters.  He may have been a mentor to Uncle John. (nb Ask cousin Anne Lounibos Trott.  Anne will see if they have anything in their files—[Nada. JAL]

Must include Paul Verdier—Travel companion from La Bretagne to San Jose to San Francisco to El Verano and the owner of Verdier French Cottage, formerly Dutils. (arriving there just as Marie is locked away, and dying there before her release —Paul was a travel companion of Marie when they left France for California on La Bretagne. She>SF and Paul>San Jose. [There was also a Verdier working in the Cames Laundry on Shipley Street in 1900, possibly a cousin]  Paul worked in San Francisco for many years, eventually settled to El Verano with his family, living with Anna Dutil at her resort and, after her death, they bought the resort which became Verdier's French Cottage. He was host to many and lived 58 years. Ironically his years in El Verano began just as Marie was being sent to Napa and Paul died just about the time Marie was released.  

Obituary:  Verdier—In El Verano, Sonoma County, September 6 1945, Paul, beloved husband of the late Mariette; devoted father of Eleanor Verdier of El Verano, Paul Verdier of the US Navy, and Mrs Clotide Piro of San Francisco, loving grandfather of John Paul Piro, San Francisco and father-in-law of John Piro of San Francisco.  Friends are invited to attend the funeral Tuesday September 11, 1945, at 9;30 am from the mortuary of Julius Godeau, 41 Van Ness Avenue, in San Francisco, thence to Notre Dame des Victoires Church, Bush and Grant, San Francisco, where a mass will be celebrated for the repose of his soul, commencing at 10 am.  Interment, Holy Cross Cemetery. [Oakland Tribune]

Death of Mrs Paul Verdier/French Cottages—6 May 1933 • El Verano, Sonoma, California, USA.  Mariette was the wife of Paul Verdier who had accompanied Marie on their voyage from France to San Francisco. Unfortunately their running the of the Verdier French Cottage in El Verano came just as Marie was being sent away by Louis Lamotte/1920.   Obituary:  Mrs Verdier, of El Verano Resort, Is Taken by Death.  Succumbing to a long illness, Mrs Mariette Verdier died this morning a her El Verano home.  She was a native of San Francisco where she was born April 29, 1872.  Survivors are her husband Paul Verdier, owner of the French Cottage resort, at El Verano, and three children--Eleanor, Paul, Jr., and Clotilde Verdier, all of El Verano.  One sister, Miss Josephine Athenour, lives in San Francisco.  Mr and Mrs Verdier purchased the French Cottage resort twelve years ago and have since resided there.  Mrs Verdier was widely known in Sonoma County and was prominent in the Native Daughters of the Golden West and the Young Ladies Institute of Sonoma.  The body will lie in state at the Lafferty & Smith chapel until Monday morning when it will be taken to San Francisco for funeral services, to be held Tuesday morning.  [Santa Rosa Republican Santa Rosa, California. 06 May 1933, Sat]

Napa State Hospital.  In 1872, a site was selected and work began for the erection of the 500-bed, four- story, Gothic Hospital building.  The Hospital originated in response to overcrowding at Stockton Asylum, the first State Hospital.  Napa State Hospital opened on Monday November 15, 1875 and is the oldest State Hospital still in operation.  The Hospital was once self-sufficient, with its own dairy and poultry ranches, vegetable gardens, orchards and other farming operations.  Treatment programs for developmentally disabled residents were present from October 1968 to August 1987and from October 1995 to March 2001.  The Hospital does not accept voluntary admissions.   [https://www.dsh.ca.gov/Napa/index.html]

Napa State Hospital.  The facility was originally built to relieve overcrowding at Stockton Asylum. By the early 1890s the facility had over 1,300 patients which was over double the original capacity it was designed to house. The original main building known as "The Castle" was an ornate and imposing building constructed with bricks. Facilities on the property included a large farm that included dairy and poultry ranches, vegetable garden and fruit orchards that provided a large part of the food supply consumed by the residents.  "The Castle" was torn down after World War II. [1]

References. "Once upon a time, a hospital castle was Napa Valley's centerpiece". Napa Valley Register. February 20, 2018.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napa_State_Hospital]

Marie Touya was not actually a pauper at the time her death:  Six months after her death and burial, a notice appeared from the County Record of Estates:  Estate of Marie Lamotte. County Record of Estates that have come into the hands of Sonoma County. Marie left an estate of $284.49. (It was not used for her funeral expenses.)  In the hands of County of Sonoma. [23 Aug 1976  Petaluma Argus Courier]

The County of Sonoma Cemetery.    Directions: Highway 101 north to Santa Rosa. Take Steele Lane exit east. Right on Franklin Avenue. Cemetery is on the left side directly behind Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery, which is just past Santa Rosa Memorial Park and the Odd Fellows Cemetery.  Description:  The County of Sonoma Cemetery is located on three acres directly behind Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery on Franklin Avenue in Santa Rosa, California. Originally, it was a part of the Stanley Cemetery. 

The property was purchased by the County of Sonoma in 1944 for the burial of the county’s indigent dead. The cemetery is under the jurisdiction of the Sonoma County Coroner’s Office.  The first burial was in 1969 and there are currently 349 burials there and soon to be 350. Total of 350 memorials. All the burials have memorials on Find A Grave and have been transferred into this correct cemetery listing. It's been a long and tedious project that is now complete!

****This cemetery is NOT the same as the Old County Cemetery a/k/a Chanate Historic Cemetery!****  County of Sonoma Cemetery is not well known and is not listed on any online Sonoma County cemetery lists yet. Hopefully that will change in the future. It was not too long ago given its current name by the Coroner's Office.   County of Sonoma Cemetery signs will be erected at both entrances. When that happens, photos of the signs will be added to this page. Source: Sandy Frary, Sonoma County Coroner’s Office Archivist. /Last Updated by: Arborvitae #47298569 on 1/30/2017 [https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2620663/county-of-sonoma-cemetery]