We Presco Children would walk several miles to Lake Temescal to go swimming – if we had ten cents to get in. It was our paradise – our bliss!
Now that it appears the Neo-Confederate End time Terrorist for a Killer Jesus is going to take over our Democracy – and end elections – I am looking at forming The Bohemian World of America that will cater to white people who are not MAGA-MITES. Many Blacks and Latinos are going to vote for Trump, and put him in office. I suggest the millions of dollars donors give Democrats, be used to fund BWA, that will be limited to 100,000 members. One of our projects is to sustain and build Ball Parks that will have Art Shows, Poetry Readings, and Bohemian Slot Machines that will help pay for more Happy Magic Lands. I love the Comet Train that went over our Magical Lake.
John Presco
Ambrose Biece
Lake Temescal in Oakland became a Mecca for Poets and Plein Air Artists. The poet, George Sterling met Ambrose Bierce at a campsite on the lake where the Presco children used to go swimming. These two men would found the Bohemian Club where some of the richest men in the world would come to camp out. There is something to be said for living a frugal existence, a Bohemian life around a campfire, in the good company of creative men and women. These early Bohemian campers would prepare the way for the Hippies that were born in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley. The ideal was to live in a little shack, pay next to no rent so one could concentrate on what truly matters.
One could say my grandfather was a Plein Air Poet. He must have taken the photo above of his wife camping on Santa Cruz Island that was also made into a post card. Did Royal try to become a photographer in order to earn monies to support his craft and family?
I did three Plein Air paintings in the course of my life, and have plans to make it a big part of my life. This is why I purchased my classic Ford truck.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2011
In 1892, Sterling met the dominant literary figure on the west coast, Ambrose Bierce, at Lake Temescal and immediately fell under his spell. Bierce — to whom Sterling referred as “the Master” — guided the young poet in his writing as well as in his reading, pointing to the classics as model and inspiration. Bierce also published Sterling’s first poems in his “Prattle” column in the San Francisco Examiner. Sterling also met adventure and science fiction writer Jack London, and his first wife Bess at their rented villa on Lake Merritt, and in time they became best of friends. In 1902 Sterling helped the Londons find a home closer to his own in Piedmont, near Oakland. In his letters London addressed Sterling as “Greek” owing to his aquiline nose and classical profile, and signed them as “Wolf.” London was later to depict Sterling as Russ Brissenden in his autobiographical novel Martin Eden (1908) and as Mark Hall in The Valley of the Moon (1913).
“He was the founding president of the Frank and Eva Buck Foundation, which grants college scholarships in Northern California and has been on the Board of the Jeffers Tor House Foundation in Carmel for many years.”
April is Poetry Month. I sent Monica Korde a small poem – with a crack in it! For several days, I’ve been composing a letter to the Government of Belmont in regards to Belmont Wedding Day. This morning I concluded these elected officials know nothing about Art, Poetry – and Bohemians – and they don’t want to know anything. Why? Well, they got their One woman Cultural Event – in Monica – and she seems very agreeable, even…pliable! Why aren’t I funded? Have any millionaires offered to help me put together this amazing history? No. I assume people think I’m very wealthy. I’m on SSI.
Last night I had a long nightmare, where I went to THAT HOTEL again. It wa filled with drunks and addicts – and the severely mentally ill. We were on the verge of homelessness. My Governor has spent millions on – THESE PEOPLE. I have been clean and sober for thirty-six years. You would think I would have some value to many City Governments? I’m going to try a new approach. Above are pics of Jackie Jensen who was known as the Golden Boy when he went to UC Berkeley. Dr. William Stuttmeister was one of the first to graduate from UC when it was located in SF. He was one of this cities first dentists. He made a lot of money.
Below is an account of William’s wedding to the daughter of the founder of Belmont. If these two had not gotten married, then my grandmother, Melba Charlotte Broderick, would not have been born, and, she would not have rescued Jackie and Bobby who came to live with her after their mother had a “nervous breakdown”. Melba took care of these boys for a year, and they graduated from Oakland High, where Vic, Mark, and myself attended. These three males owe their existence to Carl and Doretha Janke, who were dug up out of their graves in the middle of the night, and put in the grave of Mutter “Heinrich, Dorothea’s mother, whose headstone was put back in place! In 1972 the founders of Belmont – did not exist! When you do a genealogy, birth, death, and burial plots are noted. LATER, the stone you see today, was ordered from the stone maker, and it replaced Mutter’s stone! What the hell happened to that stone. Mutter’s genetic material helped Jackie Jensen group up and play for…..THE NEW YORK YANKEES! Wow! Almost everyone loves baseball…..America’s Game!
John Madden and Ken Kesey played football for the Oregon Ducks! How about a Godzilla Run in Twin Pines Park – with Sadie Hawkins Run – too!
In September of 1958, my new friend, Bill Arnold, told me a woman came into his art class, and talked about me with Bobby Jensen who taught art at McChesney High. She asked Bobby to watch over me, because I was very disturbed. I had done a Plein Air oil in the vineyard out back of the Melba’s home in Roseville. I found a pond hidden in a grove of trees. Melba loved it, and went to get her friends so they could see how talented her grandson is. This, bid me to wipe that beautiful painting off the board, and in its place I rendered a very disturbing surrealistic message. Bill shook my hand.
“Congratulations. At twelve you have achieved notoriety as an artist. But, what I don’t get is – she just walked in to my class! She wasn’t invited. She didn’t address us. She just came in to talk about your mental illness. Who are……you people?”
On page six, Mr. Morris explains why there was a delay in the closing of the estate;
“By September 2000, however, plans were underway for a biography of Decedent, which Petitioner hoped might create interest in her work. The book was published in 2002. Although the book did not spur the hoped-for interest in Decedent’s life and work, efforts continued to market the concept of a screenplay based upon Decedent’s life. Petitioner hoping that this might be brought to fruition, elected to keep the estate open. However, it is the Petitioner’s belief the likelihood of an increased interest in Decedents work is negligible, and the time has come to close the estate.”
1888: From the Daily Alta, an article on the marriage of Dr. William O. Stuttmeister and Augusta D. Janke.
Daily Alta California, Volume 42, Number 14175, 24 June 1888 STUTTMEISTER-JANKE.
One of the most enjoyable weddings of the past week took place at Belmont, Wednesday morning last, the contracting parties being Miss Augusta Janke, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. August Janke of Belmont, and Dr. Wm. Stuttmeister of San Francisco. The house was handsomely decorated with a rich profusion of ferns and flowers, and at the appointed hour was filled with the relatives and intimate friends of the contracting parties. At 11 o’clock the wedding march was played and the bridal party entered the parlor. The bride was attended by Miss Alice Stuttmeister, a sister of the groom, and Miss Minnie Janke, a sister of the bride, as bridesmaids, and Dr. Muldownado and Wm. Janke, a cousin of the bride, were groomsmen. The Rev. A. L. Brewer of San Mateo performed the beautiful and impressive ceremony under an arch composed of flowers and greens very prettily arranged, after which the guests pressed forward and offered their congratulations. The bride was attired in a very pretty and becoming costume of the crushed strawberry shade, and wore a corsage bouquet of orange blossoms. She carried a handsome bouquet of white flowers. After the guests had paid their compliments the bride and groom led the way to the dining-room, where the wedding dinner was served and the health of the newly married pair was pledged. The feast over, the guests joined in the dance, and the hours sped right merrily, interspersed with music singing and recitations, until the bride and groom took their departure amid a shower of rice and good wishes. Many beautiful presents were received. Dr. and Mrs. Stuttmeister left Thursday morning for Santa Cruz and Monterey, where they will spend the honeymoon. On their return they will make their home in Belmont.
1911: Dr. Willian O. Stuttmeister was practicing dentistry in Redwood City, CA. (Reference: University of California, Directory of Graduates,
This morning I awoke with the realization that Jackie Jensen and Ken Kesey led paralell lives in regards to their Sports history. They were both Golden Boys. Jensen excelled in sports at the University of California, and Kesey at the University of Oregon. Both men met their wives at college. Jackie met Zoe Olson who swam in the Olympics. Ken would have wrestled in the Olympics if not for an injury. These two athletes look alike. We just had Olympic Trials in Eugene. Jackie played for the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. Why wasn’t Ken’s sports history promoted? People came from all over the world, many knowing Eugene is the home of the Pranksters, but, did Zane Kesey show up at the stadium in Further? Did visitors stick around to go to the Country Faire?
About half of the Marin Community Foundation’s $1.7 billion in assets is money from the original Beryl Buck endowment; the rest is donor-advised funds. In addition to managing the Buck Trust’s assets, the foundation administers charitable funds for more than 450 people, families and businesses. These giving accounts are known as “donor-advised funds” because the donors consult with the foundation regarding how their money should be spent.
He later built a large four-story stone tower on the site called “Hawk Tower”. While he had not visited Ireland at this point in his life, it is possible that Hawk Tower is based on Francis Joseph Bigger‘s ‘Castle Séan’ at Ardglass, County Down, which had also in turn influenced William Butler Yeats‘ choice of a poets tower, Thoor Ballylee.
Bob Buck is the President and principal owner of Del Monte Aviation. Mr. Buck acquired and redeveloped Monterey’s fifty year old Del Monte Aviation in early 1996, using his more than five thousand pilot hours as a guide.
Mr. Buck’s development of Del Monte Aviation followed many years of activity in real estate development, agribusiness and oil production. He is a founding partner of the Carmel law firm of Heisinger, Buck and Morris. Mr. Buck is active in charitable endeavors, now serving as Vice Chairman of the Buck Institute in Marin County, California, a medical research facility specializing in the problems of aging.
He was the founding president of the Frank and Eva Buck Foundation, which grants college scholarships in Northern California and has been on the Board of the Jeffers Tor House Foundation in Carmel for many years.
Robert Buck owns the law firm that stepped into to be the Special Executor of Rosamond’s creative legacy after Vicki Presco refused to serve. Robert is connected to the Buck Trust and Institute that is right out of a science fiction novel in regards for searching for the Fountain of Youth. Robert also owns Del Monte Aviation that flies in professional golfers to play at Pebble Beach. This beats anything Thomas Pynchon could dream up. ‘Inherit Vice’ should have been like ‘Chinatown’. Pynchon is in the Presco Family Tree. I married his ex-wife.
Critics argue this is an unnecessary expense, and that the money would be better spent on the needy of Marin—as Mrs. Buck wished. Dr. Peters responds to this critique in his characteristically careful and politically sensitive manner: “Do I need a special master to tell me whether or not I need to make sure that Dr. and Mrs. Buck’s money as to their will is spent appropriately?” He asks. “No, I don’t need that.” But, he adds: “Justice Strankman is a most thoughtful, intellectual partner to have. He’s a real resource to think through the issues. He and the court have been most supportive of our reach well beyond Dr. and Mrs. Buck’s family and played a key role in supporting our efforts to attract other donors…” All told, the Buck Trust has doled out more than $1 billion. After 25 years of stewardship by the Marin Community Foundation, it is time to ask how successful it has been in meeting the Bucks’ challenge of providing help for the needy.
On page six, Mr. Morris explains why there was a delay in the closing of the estate;
“By September 2000, however, plans were underway for a biography of Decedent, which Petitioner hoped might create interest in her work. The book was published in 2002. Although the book did not spur the hoped-for interest in Decedent’s life and work, efforts continued to market the concept of a screenplay based upon Decedent’s life. Petitioner hoping that this might be brought to fruition, elected to keep the estate open. However, it is the Petitioner’s belief the likelihood of an increased interest in Decedents work is negligible, and the time has come to close the estate.”
“If Christine’s parents had embraced her talent, there might be existing works from her childhood, but this was not to be. Fearing that Christine would steal her brother’s spotlight as the family artist, Christine’s mother, Rosemary, forbade Christine to draw at home.”
I learned at an early age that most human dealings are about recovering Lost Prestige. When I read the Bible for the first time in 1987, I got the core message. Jesus is the Parodical Son returning to his place of birth in order to right a great injustice – and wrong! He reads from Isiah, and his folks people – go nuts – and try to throw him off a cliff! They falsely identify Joseph as his father – but the Jews got that one all wrong – and lose their God to Roman and Greek converts. Oops!
What went wrong – here! Joseph is the epitome of Lost Prestige. His wife Mary gets to brag on his son – till kingdom come! Good Ol Joe is regulated to the background as is Melba’s second husband Joe Wilkins. In this amazing photograph, we see a question mark that guesses – is this Joe? Study this article on bragging rights, because there is a battle going on over this in the photo below.
When a partner of Robert Brevoort Buck sold our family history to an outsider, he made a judgement, a ruling, that a family member was unfit to reord the Presco Family History that has to be SEIZED in order to PAY OFF CREDITORS. Sydney Morris has complete confidence in Stacey Pierrot hiring a ghost writer with monies that the Heirs will eventually realize. What is important is to FIX the waning interest in Rosamond’s hack commercial work. This is the real tragedy here – that began in 1987 when no one wanted the four images produced for the Family Art Partnership by Vic&Vic and Christine Rosamond. I had come down from the North for my annual visit, and Captain Vic was all in tizzy because his idea to market Rosamond’s Art via American Express cards, was not working. Half my family was going to lose Melba’s Windfall. Reluctantly my opinion was sought.
“Produce a coffee table book of Christine’s work.”
‘But, aren’t we giving away Rosamond images -for free? The idea here – is to make money!”
“Oh shoot! Darn! I forgot. Never mind.”
Eventually MY IDEA was accepted, but I had to be divorced from all The Family Art lest I want……SOME MONEY! Well, I don’t deserve any money because I helped my mother oppress Christine’s artistic genius she owned when she snuck into the closet in the girl’s room to render masterful works of art – when she was three and half!
Study the Family Photo. Vicki looks to be around three and a half. Did she ever catch her older sister – slipping into their shared closet with a flashlight? Did Rosamond slip a mind-numbing drug into Vicki’s cereal in order to prevent her from blurting out the truth.
“Guess what? My big sister did a amazing pencil drawing of a horse that rivals the horse that Leonardo did!”
The basis for my lawsuit will be how Buck and Morris ASSUMED the loyal fans and collectors of Rosamond Prints – WERE COMPLETE IDIOTS – and were not insulted! How many were mothers – who loved to brag about their children – and hoped they would be as gifted as Rosamond. Why not author a lie – saying Rosemary was very proud of her achievements and encouraged her – all the way! So did her older brother!
“Ahhhhhhhh! How nice! And they got sober together? What a miracle!”
Focus in on The Trinity…..Christine, Rosemary, and John. Why are our images standing out. Even in black and white we look – enhanced! Why? According to the second ghost writer, who did a coffee book thing, Rosemary ONLY WANTS ME to be a world famous artist. The million dollar question is, when did I WANT TO BE a world famous artist? Don’t I get a say-so? I appear to be eleven in this photo. I did not decide to become an artist till a year later. I was looking at being a architect at this time.
The other real question, is, how did lynch know my mother only wanted ME to be famous? And, here’s the BONUS QUESTION…..why wouldn’t any mother want BOTH HER CHILDREN to be famous – especially her daughter/ Do you see it? Do you see it? Why does Pierrot approve of The Mother of a World Famous Artist – being disqualified and disowned from THE SUCCESS? Forget about me! Lynch says Rosemary knew her daughter was doing fine art – at home – and only allowed her to paint at school? Did Rosemary keep this a big secret – from me – lest I feel too much pressure to succeed? Or, did the knowledge I was crushing my sister’s creativity – too – make me feel very artsy?
Morris and Buck sold a world famous art gallery located in Carmel to a non-artist – who got to STRUT ABOUT AND BRAG! Stacey Pierrot was invited to civic cultural events. Her blessing – was sought! She knew nothing about art. Did she ever write a poem?
In reading the STELLAR VITAS of board members of the Buck Foundation, I consider how my life would be transformed is I could say I was the owner of the Rosamond Gallery – or at least – THE GENERAL MANAGER! The goal was to make money and increase the waning interest in Rosamond’s work – that included images of my nephew. Imagine if a couple fly in from Monte Carlo on a Lear Jet. Entering the gallery, they tell me they collect Rosamond’s.
“Can you tell us more about Rosamond. There is so little information!’
“This is your lucky day! I am John, her brother. My mother said I was Christine’s John who “prepared her way.” Get it?”
“Oh by God! Yes! CHRIST-INE!”
“We’ll take a dozen!”
“You choose which ones you think are best for us! I want to tell my friends Rosamond’s Brother personally – CHOSE THESE ONES!”
“Bless you!”
Why does Melba look so concerned in the photo above? It’s because she lost much prestige when she fell in love with Viola, and then had a son by a famous gambler. I do not think she was told the Stuttmeister Dead was moved to Colma. Melba grabbed as much prestige as she could. She was stingy with the truth she helped raise Jackie Jensen ‘The Golden Boy’. Rosamond could have done a series of Jackies. What about me?
Jackie went to Oakland High School with my father. He and Zoe had a drinking and drug problem which should be of some interest to Alcohol Justice. I am the only artist who did a image of Christine – and have plans for another!
I never got a dime from Rosamond’s Art. Never touched a penny. There is something very wrong about this. But then, there is something – so right! I kept my integrity. I resisted temptation – just like Jesus!
Here she is, the devil who played evil mind games with me – and dead members of my family!. She wrote a book on the City of Belmont – and did not tell me for three days. We were having a squabble over how the facebook for the Belmont Historical Society is set up. My first posts identified me as a close relative of Carl Janke. Did Snitty Miss Cynthia – jump for joy and say;
“Oh by God! I thought you were all dead. I wrote a book on your family. Have you read my book? Do you have more family photos – and history?
One of the first posts I posted was on Cipriani found La California in Italy. did she jump for joy at this news. Did she tell me this was fantastic research. This is a ex-librarian. Don’t they take a oath to respect writers of books, and the history of people – written by relatives. What gets me, she did not approve the Tiffany window in the Janke-Stuttmeister crypt with the name of Augustus Janke on it. Why would she withhold this beautiful historic image from the people of Belmont. I suspect she is a parasite and a thief who stayed up all night pouring through the blog – that she said she did not know existed1 Outrageous. I spoke about the deaths in the family and the books and movie scripts about my famous sister. Is she gong for another Rosemond Book? You think she would have said
“Your sister is Rosamond? Oh my God, I had some of her work. And her grandfather is Carl Janke? Oh my God. Lets co-author a book together!”
But, what got me, is, she took down this photo of the Janke-Stuttmeister crypt after I told her this is where my grandfather moved OUR DEAD after they were dug up from their not final resting place, the Oddfellow cemetery.
As fate would have it, I posted my video of Chuck Kesey on his brothers mural, on Davina Hurt page. Snitty Catherine falsely claimed in her history book, the Grateful Dead lived, or, practiced their music in Ralston Hall. I have been on the bus with Kesey. I believe I posted on Nancy Hamren who worked at the Kesey Creamery and made a famous a yogurt. I will be letting The Dead Family – found all over the world – know that I came upon a trap-door spider that FEEDS OFF THE DEAD. My grandparents knew Joaquin Miller, who was promoted by Ida Culbreth, the head of the Oakland Library. This is a CONSPIRACY! Snitty said she is the only one to blame. How many read my posts, and knew I was handing them a gold mine? Did they should a warning. Did thy say;
“You need to talk to Cynthia Karpa McCarthy! You two have alot in common!”
No we don’t.
Here is the Satan-Cherry atop the who stinking History Theft. I posted on the Tanforan Cottages and my theory Cipriani bought one of Janke’s homes he brought around the Cape in 1849. I said this;
“Someone needs to look at these houses to see if they are screwed together.”
I believe I posted on the dumb claim Ciriani tore down a house in Italy and had it shipped to Belmont. Miss Snitty stole that idea from aother alleged historian, Dd Snitty say;
“Wow! Fantastic theory! Can you come here! Well ut you up in a fine hotel. We can get the city to lend us some construction workers!”
“We will review the content for its interest to our followers.”
How many others shared with THE REVIEWERS and got the same treatment – and walked away? I told Cynthia to let me post away, and if THE REVIWERS don’t like it, tell me, and I will take it down. How many visitors to this group – that give a rat’s ass. I will lodge a complaint with facebook.
Greg Presco Hi Greg , I have been enjoyed some of your posts and photos that are directly related to the Belmont area and you have provided some new photos and information that will be put in a file, but please try not to post anything that is off topic or is not Belmont Area related. Thank you ,Denny Lawhern Belmont Historian
“My name is Cynthia McCarthy and you can blame me and me alone, not the Belmont Historical Society. You can email me at carthy@gmail.com.
“Midway between San Francisco and San José, Belmont is where an Italian count reconstructed his villa transported from Italy,“
“In Mr. Sydney Morris’s Report of the Administration he says on page 4 line 10;
“Petitioner hired Stacey Pierrot, who had been assistant manager of the gallery during Decedent’s lifetime, to run the gallery and prepare and execute a marketing plan. The gallery was run by the estate until March 1996 when the gallery was sold to Ms. Pierrot through a contract approved by this Court. During the time that the estate operated the gallery, aggressive marketing efforts were made in an attempt to stir interest in Decedent’s work and increase the potential market for her work. In spite of these efforts, interest in Decedent’s work continued to wane.”
On page six, Mr. Morris explains why there was a delay in the closing of the estate;
“By September 2000, however, plans were underway for a biography of Decedent, which Petitioner hoped might create interest in her work. The book was published in 2002. Although the book did not spur the hoped-for interest in Decedent’s life and work, efforts continued to market the concept of a screenplay based upon Decedent’s life. Petitioner hoping that this might be brought to fruition, elected to keep the estate open. However, it is the Petitioner’s belief the likelihood of an increased interest in Decedents work is negligible, and the time has come to close the estate.”
If Christine’s parents had embraced her talent, there might be existing works from her childhood, but this was not to be. Fearing that Christine would steal her brother’s spotlight as the family artist, Christine’s mother, Rosemary, forbade Christine to draw at home. The only time she could express herself was at school or in her closet, by flashlight, when everyone else was asleep. Though we don’t have images to prove it, Christine’s kindergarten teacher has said that, by age five, Christine was already drawing with adult skill. She can remember Christine’s pictures of animals having near perfect detail and perspective.
In addition to oppressing Christine artistically, Rosemary also dominated Christine with physical violence. Trying to support four children with only a high school education and little help from her alcoholic husband, Rosemary was often enraged. She took this rage out on Christine and Christine’s earliest known works reflect it. In Teenage Drawing II, her subject is reticent and withdrawn. In Teenage Drawing III, the woman looks shocked and angry.
Above is a photo of my father’s mother, Melba, and her childhood friend, Violet (Vie), near Joaquin Miller’s house. I heard they were into Isadora Duncan. Did they meet Miller and his daughter at this age?
Joaquin Miller lived in the Oakland Hills above the Stuttmeister farm and orchard located in the city of Fruitvale that would later be incorporated into the city of Oakland. Miller was titled the `Poet of the Sierras’. His farm was called `The Heights’ and was a Mecca for California artists and poets. This eccentric Bohemian was friends of William Broderick and would accompany Melba Charlotte Broderick, the mother of Victor Presco, to San Francisco where Melba met her husband, Hugo Presco, a professional gambler in the Barbary Coast.
Miller carried the infant father of Rosamond on these adventures that proved too much for Melba who divorced Hugo when Victor, Melba’s only child, was three years of age. Joaquin Miller was invited to England by the Pre-Raphaelite poet and artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and had dinner at his house with most of the Brotherhood present. The four Presco children would converse with Miller’s daughter on the phone, she calling herself `The White Witch’..
The boy in the two photos is Melba’s brother, Frederick Broderick, with his cow, Daisy. This had to be taken on the farm in Fruit Vale.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2011
Angela Isadora Duncan was born in San Francisco, California on May 27, 1877. She was the youngest of four siblings: Augustin Duncan, Raymond Duncan, and Elizabeth Duncan. Their parents were Joseph Charles Duncan (1819–1898), a banker, mining engineer and connoisseur of the arts, and Mary Isadora Gray (1849–1922). Soon after Isadora’s birth, her father lost the bank and he was publicly disgraced. Her parents were divorced by 1880 (the papers were lost in the San Francisco earthquake), and her mother Dora moved with her family to Oakland. She worked there as a pianist and music teacher. In her early years, Duncan did attend school but, finding it to be constricting to her individuality, she dropped out. As her family was very poor, both she and her sister gave dance classes to local children to earn extra money.[citation needed]
Lake Temescal in Oakland became a Mecca for Poets and Plein Air Artists. The poet, George Sterling met Ambrose Bierce at a campsite on the lake where the Presco children used to go swimming. These two men would found the Bohemian Club where some of the richest men in the world would come to camp out. There is something to be said for living a frugal existence, a Bohemian life around a campfire, in the good company of creative men and women. These early Bohemian campers would prepare the way for the Hippies that were born in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley. The ideal was to live in a little shack, pay next to no rent so one could concentrate on what truly matters.
One could say my grandfather was a Plein Air Poet. He must have taken the photo above of his wife camping on Santa Cruz Island that was also made into a post card. Did Royal try to become a photographer in order to earn monies to support his craft and family?
I did three Plein Air paintings in the course of my life, and have plans to make it a big part of my life. This is why I purchased my classic Ford truck.
In 1892, Sterling met the dominant literary figure on the west coast, Ambrose Bierce, at Lake Temescal and immediately fell under his spell. Bierce — to whom Sterling referred as “the Master” — guided the young poet in his writing as well as in his reading, pointing to the classics as model and inspiration. Bierce also published Sterling’s first poems in his “Prattle” column in the San Francisco Examiner. Sterling also met adventure and science fiction writer Jack London, and his first wife Bess at their rented villa on Lake Merritt, and in time they became best of friends. In 1902 Sterling helped the Londons find a home closer to his own in Piedmont, near Oakland. In his letters London addressed Sterling as “Greek” owing to his aquiline nose and classical profile, and signed them as “Wolf.” London was later to depict Sterling as Russ Brissenden in his autobiographical novel Martin Eden (1908) and as Mark Hall in The Valley of the Moon (1913).
The Society of Six was intensely devoted to a self-imposed set of rough-and-tumble attitudes that they found necessary for the maintenance of the visual purity in their works. They sensed that they were not making new art merely for the sake of newness, but with an exhilaration that was born from an overthrowing of subservient visual posturing over various sanctified art modes. Although they were a part of the San Francisco Bay Area modernist art scene in the 1920s, they had an allegiance primarily to themselves, and they were forced to be their own best audience. Influences upon them ranged from nineteenth century Impressionism to European Abstractionism. Although it is fairly easy to trace the more obvious influences, “The Six nonetheless, managed individually to fashion their own painting styles into fresh and ingenuous outdoor paintings which appear generally American and specifically Californian. They were regional painters in the best sense of the word. “Will Bohemia arise in Oakland,” was the question asked in an article in the Oakland Tribune on April 22, 1917. The reporter told of the formation of an artist’s club of the East Bay with a membership of more than 30 painters, sculptors and art students including Selden Gile, William H. Clapp and William A. Gaw (1891-1973). Many of the things that made the area seem so desirable to “The Six” were mentioned in that review, such as the picturesque waterfront and the sunny rolling hills above the Bay. Oakland was depicted as “…a Bohemia where kindred spirits meet with art and the great adventures that stimulate art to color its atmosphere.”
For almost 10 years, 1917 to 1927, until Selden Gile moved to Belvedere,[2] his cabin on Chabot Road in Oakland was the weekly meeting place for “The Six.” The “Chow House,” as it was called, had electricity but no toilet or bath.[3] What the accommodations lacked in convenience was more than made up for by the heated art discussions and garlic-laced meals that Gile, the generous host, provided. He frequently offered a formidable home-brewed beer to wash down his famous meals and, occasionally, the proceedings were enlivened by the bottles exploding. In addition to the beer, they fortified their meetings with at least two gallons of “dago red” wine which were delivered to Gile every week by an Italian bootlegger friend.[4] Occasionally, von Eichman showed up with his “San Jose Cheer,” a prune whiskey that helped to lubricate their discussions.[5] Clapp, the sedate curator, was dubbed “Ho-Ho-Ho” by Gile because that was Clapp’s usual exclamation when he arrived at their meetings. He was considered to be the gentleman of the crowd.[6] As Siegriest recalls, “Clapp was a very quiet sort of fellow, polite and quiet.” He also remembers with discomfort, “the way these guys would talk in front of him…he looked embarrassed but he would join in.”[7] “The Six” friends rarely missed a Saturday or Sunday evening get-together at Selden Gile’s place..[8] William Clapp was the only member of the group who had received formal instruction in France.[9] Born in Canada, in 1879, but reared in Oakland, Clapp returned to Canada, in 1900. He studied there and at the Académie Julian in Paris under Jean-Paul Laurens, as well as the Académie Colarossi and at the Ecole de la Grande Chaumière. Before returning permanently to live in Oakland, about 1917, Clapp had been considered a radical painter in Montreal. In fact his studies in Europe and Paris, and his later familiarity with the modernist Canadian “Group of Seven” who showed for the first time together in Toronto in 1920, contributed immensely to “The Six’s” cohesiveness. Not coincidentally, “The Six” had initially been called “The Group of Six,” undoubtedly prompted by Clapp’s knowledge of the Canadian painters.[10] His previous studies in Paris and Montreal had acquainted him with an attitude that considered manifestos and closely-knit groups to be essentially supportive of art. An Oakland Tribune critic finally named the Oakland-based group of artists “The Society of Six,” perhaps cribbing the title from a contemporary group of vanguard French musicians led by Eric Satie, “Les Six,” who had been in the news as musical innovators.[11] In 1923, Clapp initiated a policy of annual shows for “The Society of Six” as part of a progressive exhibition program in the Oakland Art Gallery.
Bob Buck is the President and principal owner of Del Monte Aviation. Mr. Buck acquired and redeveloped Monterey’s fifty year old Del Monte Aviation in early 1996, using his more than five thousand pilot hours as a guide. Mr. Buck’s development of Del Monte Aviation followed many years of activity in real estate development, agribusiness and oil production. He is a founding partner of the Carmel law firm of Heisinger, Buck and Morris. Mr. Buck is active in charitable endeavors, now serving as Vice Chairman of the Buck Institute in Marin County, California, a medical research facility specializing in the problems of aging. He was the founding president of the Frank and Eva Buck Foundation, which grants college scholarships in Northern California and has been on the Board of the Jeffers Tor House Foundation in Carmel for many years.
Robert B Buck is 74 years old. Robert lives in Carmel, California. Other places in which Robert has lived are Monterey, California; Palo Alto, California; Pebble Beach, California and Fort Collins, Colorado. Robert has worked for Marin Community Foundation, Heisinger Buck & Morris, Del Monte Aviation, Green Acres Family Holdings and Speedy. Alexander R Buck, Robert B Buck, Lacy Williams Buck, Jeremy Buck and Robert Buck are some of Robert relatives.
I just discovered that Robert Buck has been on the Board of the Jeffers Tor House Foundation for many years. I assume Lacy Williams Buck is his daughter, she too on the board. What this tells me, is, Robert Buck understands historic family legacies. Why then did his law firm utterly destroy my family legacy, and its star, Christine Rosamond Benton. Before they did this, they destroyed my niece, Shannon Rosamond. I am sure Robert Buck and his partner, Sydney Morris, know Lawrence Chazen, and Robin Beare, who suggested my niece be KEPT IN JAIL, instead of being in HER GALLERY selling Rosamond prints. Morris blesses the desire of ‘The Caretakers’ to write a biography and make a movie. Robert Buck’s book ‘When You Close Your Eyes’ denigrates and demonizes my late sister. Only Charles Dickens, or Victor Hugo, could do The Real Rosamond Story – JUSTICE!
After my near-death experience, I began to do drawings of Atlantis. I worked on them while living on my boat in the Oakland Estuary. Across the water, was Alameda Naval Air Station. I heard and saw Navy Jets taking off and landing. It is here that I see -Atlantis Rising!
I was born in Oakland. Recently, Las Vegas lured away the Oakland Raiders and the A’s taking much of my family history to Sin City. What I propose is building the largest Casino in the world in Alameda, complete with a major league baseball team called…..The Alameda Acorns!
My brother and I would drive onto the Air Station in our father’s 1949 Ford truck to deliver produce to the officers club. American Taxpayers will give the military around 900 billion dollars in a Big Gamble we don’t go to war with Russia or China. What are the American People getting in return. Most Republican’ leaders won’t condemn Putin for invading Ukraine! How many billions have we spent?
What I suggest, is that certain military bases, now closed, be turned into casinos, where profits will be turned into low-cost housing. I see a lasting partnership between the Military and the Poor who need a place to dwell. .
If you don’t like gambling, how about Government owned and operated Play Lands – full of American Magic, Unity, and Happiness? Our enemies are enjoying our DISUNITY – we paid a trillion dollars for! What a waste! Good American Money is being poured down the drain while some politicians threaten to take away Meals On Wheels for Seniors. who need a Safe and Happy Place to go to enjoy the society they paid for. We can do better!
Play ball!
John Presco
How Big Is the U.S. Military Budget Compared to Other Countries?
EARLIER THIS WEEK, on the Disney forum DISBoards.com, a user named KYMickey posted a meme of a demonic-looking white man with a passing resemblance to Gov. Ron DeSantis dressed in a Prince Charming costume, in front of Cinderella’s castle. “DeSantis World,” the caption reads, referring to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. “Disney’s dumbest villain yet.”
“Good luck, governerd,” one reply reads. “Nobody outlawyers the Mouse.”
Here is a photo of my great grandmother, Alice Stuttmeister, when she was young. She and a friend (in background) are on Neptune Beach in Alameda California. Here is another theme park like the one Carl Janke founded in Belmont across the bay.
Jon Presco
Neptune Beach (California)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search Neptune Beach was an amusement park on the shore of San Francisco Bay in the city of Alameda, California. The park was served by the Southern Pacific Transportation Company and ferries from San Francisco. It operated from 1917 until it closed in 1939. Opened in 1917, Neptune Beach occupied a beach front zone now known as Crab Cove and was originally owned by the Strehlow family. Admission to the park was a dime. The park was described as a place for private picnics, with a clubhouse for dancing, and barbecue pits. The Cottage Baths were vacation cottages, available for rent. There were dances on Friday and Saturday night.[1] [edit] AttractionsThe Strehlows owned and operated the beach and filled in a section of the Bay to add an additional Olympic-size swimming pool and a roller coaster with views of the Bay. Its two outdoor pools hosted swimming races and exhibitions by swimmers such as Olympian Johnny Weismuller, who later starred as the original Tarzan, and Jack LaLanne who started a chain of health clubs. The park also featured a hand-carved carousel from the Dentzel Company and a Ferris wheel. The park closed down in 1939 because of the Great Depression, the completion of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge, people circumventing paying the admission price and in general, the rise of car culture. Once the Bay Bridge was complete, the rail lines that ran past the entrance to Neptune Beach, on the way to the Alameda Mole and the Ferry, lost riders in droves. People began using their cars to escape the city and the immediate suburbs like Alameda and traveling further afield in California. Alameda lost its resort status as more distant locations became more attractive to cash-rich San Francisco tourists. Young people in town became aware of ways to avoid paying the dime for admission to the park. Strong swimmers or even waders could sneak in on the bay side by swimming around the fence. While some of the resort homes from Neptune Beach still exist and can be seen near Crab Cove, the vast majority of the structures—the carousel, the Ferris wheel, roller coaster and other rides—were auctioned off in 1940 for a fraction of their original cost.
Opened in 1917, Neptune Beach occupied a beach front zone now known as Crab Cove and was originally owned by the Strehlow family. Admission to the park was a dime. The park was described as a place for private picnics, with a clubhouse for dancing, and barbecue pits. The Cottage Baths were vacation cottages, available for rent. There were dances on Friday and Saturday night.[2]
The Strehlows owned and operated the beach and filled in a section of the Bay to add an additional Olympic-size swimming pool and a roller coaster with views of the Bay. Its two outdoor pools hosted swimming races and exhibitions by swimmers such as OlympianJohnny Weissmuller, who later starred as MGM’s Tarzan, and Jack LaLanne who started a chain of health clubs. The park also featured a hand-carved carousel from the Dentzel Company and a Ferris wheel.
Both the American snow cone and the popsicle made their public debuts at Neptune Beach where they were first sold in 1923. The popsicle name comes from Frank “Pop” Epperson who sold his Epperson Ice Pop known as “Pop’s Sicle.”[3][1][4]
The park closed in 1939 because of the Great Depression, the completion of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, people circumventing paying the admission price and, in general, the rise of car culture. Once the Bay Bridge was complete, the rail lines that ran past the entrance to Neptune Beach on the way to the Alameda Mole and the Ferry, lost riders in droves. People began using their cars to escape the city and the immediate suburbs like Alameda and traveling further afield in California. Alameda lost its resort status as more distant locations became more attractive to cash-rich San Francisco tourists. Young people in town became aware of ways to avoid paying the dime for admission to the park. Strong swimmers or even waders could sneak in on the bay side by swimming around the fence.
While some of the resort homes from Neptune Beach still exist and can be seen near Crab Cove, the vast majority of the structures—the carousel, the Ferris wheel, roller coaster and other rides—were auctioned off in 1940 for a fraction of their original costs. During World War II, the federal government bought the space to hold offices and renamed it Neptune Pointe.[5]
Cal Neva Resort & Casino, previously known as the Calneva Resort and Cal-Neva Lodge,[1][2] is a resort and casino straddling the border between Nevada and California on the shores of Lake Tahoe. The original building was constructed in 1926, and became famous when the national media picked up a story about actress Clara Bow cancelling checks she owed to the Cal-Neva worth $13,000 in 1930 ($210,900 today).[3] After burning down in a fire in 1937, the structure was rebuilt in only 30 days. In 1960, entertainer Frank Sinatra purchased the resort with several others, including singer Dean Martin and Chicago mobster Sam Giancana.
A group of investors bought the Cal-Neva in 1935, and recruited William “Bones” Remmer[9] to act as its president and the pit manager of the casino.[10] That year a 13-year-old Judy Garland performed at Cal-Neva for the first time.[11]
When I saw the plans for the stadium for the Oakland Acorns, my Atlantis Prophecy came to mind. I will be called mad, but I saw many things coming, including this mind-game Biden is playing with Putin – who has to be reading this blog – because he is keen on restoring the Russian Monarchy, and is why he is backing off NATO. Miriam Starfish Christling and Victoria Bond, are good at this guessing game. The last thing Putin wants in the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire, because it is the blueprint for the European Union – and NATO! Putin wants America to be forever sick and disabled, thus his Christian Think Tank is stirring up Truckers. Much of my blog is now a fantastic book!
I lived on a houseboat and sailboat here at the end of Adeline Street next to Schnitzer Steel. Adeline is the ramp that ended where Sea&Land was. The Sunshine Harbor got filled in. My girlfriend and I, along with another person who owned an old tugboat, were the only residents that lived in the industrial area. My history is important to this new development.
My grandmother raised Jackie Jensen and his brothers for a couple of years. Jackie played for the Oakland Oaks baseball team. I’m going to take my run for Governor of Oregon more seriously.
Schnitzer Steel Settles Environmental Violation Claims at Oakland
US media reported that Portland based scrap metal recycler Schnitzer Inc will pay USD 4.1 million to settle a lawsuit by Alameda County and the State of
While the Oakland A’s have yet to ink a deal for building a new Major League Baseball stadium at Howard Terminal, a 50-acre waterfront site to the west of Jack London Square, Governor Jerry Brown has signed the Oakland Sports and Mixed-Use Project Bill (a.k.a. AB 734) which could expedite the A’s development of the site.
Keep in mind that any redevelopment of the waterfront site would still require approval from the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), the State Lands Commission and other regulatory agencies, not to mention the City of Oakland itself.
And once again, Lew Wolff, the current A’s chairman emeritus and co-owner of the team at the time, had characterized the redevelopment of Howard Terminal as being “as close to impossible as anything” back in 2013.
The Oakland A’s ownership is planning a third Vegas run in search of some sort of ballpark deal in Sin City after a negotiating session on a new downtown Oakland ballpark goes poorly.
In the biography of Clint Eastwood by Patrick McGilligan ‘Clint, The Life and Legend’ I read this on page 30.
“Glenview, near Ardley Avenue, Crocker Highlands (named for the banking Crockers, who donated the site) and Frank Havens School (named for one of the Piedmont city fathers – three of the grammar schools the boy attended – were within a close radius of Piedmont. Haven was already a local institution, and one day, at Crocker Highlands, the tousel-haired boy sat for a class photograph with schoolmates that included Jackie Jensen, the future outfielder for the Boston Red Sox.*
The United States approved over $3.8 billion in foreign assistance to Israel in 2019, the most recent year of complete data. About $8.5 million of that aid went towards the economy, and the remainder went to the Israeli military. This is part of the 10-year, $38 billion Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2016. It is the third agreement of its kind, following two signed during the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations. The agreement supports updating the Israeli aircraft fleet and maintaining the country’s missile defense system. The deal provides $500 million in missile defense funding and $3.3 billion in other military funding per year from 2019 to 2028.
Here are the opening words for the little book on Belmont, by MacCrisken:
“Every story deserves to get told. When we hear the stories of others, we grow empathy, pride, and an overall connection to the world. From this booklet, I hope you learn how this land has evolved into the wonderful town that you now call home, and that the work that you put into the world never truly fades as it continues to live in the everyday lives of others you’ve touched. Thank you to everyone at the Belmont Historical Society, Karin Saltzherr, the GSNorCal council, and an extra special thank you to the wonderful Denny Lawhern who truly is the spirit of Belmont and whom without, this project would absolutely not be possible”
It appears Carolyn Yau got permission to use the photographs that Cynthia captured – somehow! Why was I not offered the use of the photograph of one of my great grandfathers, William Janke, that is buried in the Stuttmeister crypt? Cynthia did not even tell me she wrote a book. She suggested I was violating someone’s copyrights – which can be miscrued as a THREAT – a scare tactic aimed at getting me to give up and walk away with all my posts in the hands of Belmont Historical Society. Some guy said my info was interesting, but could I keep it local. I thought he was referring to my posts on Vice President, Kamala Harris, the Black Panther, and the History of Oakland. Indeed, Cynthia then took off all of my posts and left a phtogrpah of the Janke Stuttmeister picnic – that could have been at Belmont. All my words and MY STORY was disapeared in what may be the Rudist History Event in American History,
My father, made a loan to Jack London’s daughter, and as thanks she let him pick a first editions book. He chose ‘Martin Eden’ which contains scenes he acquired when he worked in Belmont. Cynthia knew this – as did all members of the Historic Soceity. Here was the post the fellow liked.
The Mayor needs to question all people involved in the Historical Society that THEY DID’NT LIKE ABOUT MY STORY…..that deserves to be told. When did they start their COVERT WEEDING process? When did the CONSPIRE to oppress the parts THEY did not like, and somehow make the parts of MY STORY – THEIR STORY! And, when did they discuss authoring another book. These are vampires. This is out of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. They became the OWNERS of the town history they prey upon. I am looking at the publisher who seems to be selling this SCHEME to folks who have no roots and looking to mine the gold. This goes against the ethics of people who do their genealogy and share information for free.
FOR MONEY?
They, or just Cynthia (she took all the blame) did not like the idea that FAMOUS PEOPLE came out of Belmont, and thus that history is INCLUSIVE to the Belmont vortex they made. Cynthia has been on a power trip. This is outrageous! She STALKED ME and my famous family.
Belmont Historical Society, Belmont, CA sent Today at 8:03 AM
Cipriani describes himself as Florentine in his diaries even though he was from Corsica. He recounts meeting another Italian speaker in Nevada and tells him he’s “Florentine, thank God!”
Belmont Historical Society, Belmont, CA sent Today at 8:03 AM
One of the photos and captions is from the book I wrote. I am not certain if you think much of this information is new to us.
You sent Today at 8:44 AM
What are you suggesting? Who is us? The Janke family is MY family not your family. Millions of families brag on their family history no matter how mundane. This is all I am doing. I did not come to battle with volenteers who I thought would be glad to hear from descendants of the Founder of Belmont. I thought MY history was being rejected as it was twenty years ago by kin of your famous cop who controlled the city history. I never encountered the way you set up your facebook group and assumed the worst and appologised. I even removed post to show I am not at war with a group of volunteers who may be working on books and have written books. I know being related to historic people gives me an advantage. The Benton’s are kin to the Bonaparte family that Cipriani had extensive relationship with.
Belmont Historical Society, Belmont, CA sent Today at 8:44 AM
Greeting! Thanks Greg for your message. We are not here right now, but we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. We are a small organization with a handful of volunteers. Thank you for your patience.
You sent Today at 8:53 AM
New to us? I don’t get this statement. I can get the opinion of a professional writer as to what he makes of this. You may be treating me as a outsider a author who thinks he is in competition with you
You sent Today at 9:00 AM
Here is my good friend, Mark Gall. For 25 years we have discussed out family history. He grew up in Hunter’s Point and will be in my book. Our mutual friend also went to Harvard and wrote a Eisenhower bio. He was an editor for Double Day. How long has each member of the Belmont Society been volunteering to gather my family history? Thank you for the good job you have done. https://pages.uoregon.edu/mgall/vita.htm
“We are related to historic people somewhere.“
Belmont Historical Society, Belmont, CA sent Today at 9:39 AM
“There’s no competition, for Pete’s sake.“
Belmont Historical Society, Belmont, CA sent Today at 9:39 AM
“Maybe your friend the editor can explain copyright to you.
Belmont Historical Society, Belmont, CA sent Today at 9:39 AM
“Everyone is related to “historic people.”
You sent Today at 9:50 AM
Are you suggesting I am violating YOUR copyright, or, a group’s copyright? I just want to make sure. There is strong evidence that MY family has been collecting OUR history for hundreds of years. Here is the proof the Benton family is kin to the Bonaparte family who were close friends of Cipriani. My famous artist sister married the artist, Garth Benton, the cousin of the artist Thomas Hart Benton. My niece Drew Benton is an artist, and so am I. This constitutes a artistic dynasty – when you include my mother’s cousin, the actress Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Benton-1403Zebulon Howell Benton (1811-1893) | WikiTree FREE Family Treewikitree.com
Carolyn Yau Girl Scout Troop 33004 Gold Award Project
“There’s no such thing as an uninteresting life, such a thing is an impossibility. Beneath the dullest exterior, there is a drama, a comedy, a tragedy.” -Mark Twain
Captain Owen O’Neill was an Englishman who brought passengers to and from England and San Francisco on his ship the Hell and Mariah by means of journeying around Cape Horn in South America in the mid 1800s. After his retirement from traveling to and from Europe, O’Neill used the lumber he brought with him around Cape Horn up Belmont Creek from the Bay to build a house and dock in the Belmont marshland to bring people between Belmont and San Francisco. That house he built for him and his family was located along Old County Road and what is now O’Neill Street. Today, some of O’Neill’s descendants still live and work in the Belmont area; and this area is the last remaining wetlands area preserved from development in Belmont where native wildfowl, migratory birds, and spawning fish can nest and feed
The building of what is now known as The Van’s Restaurant is one of two remaining buildings from the 1915 Japanese Exhibition at the Panama Pacific International Exposition held in the San Francisco Marina District in commemoration of the opening of the Panama Canal; the other building being the Palace of Fine Arts. Land Baron E.D. Swift purchased the building and sent it down the Bay to Belmont. In 1921, it was transported by horse and mule to the top of the hill, where it is today. In 1933, Elsie Smuck bought the building and renamed it “Elsie’s” where it became a speakeasy that was rumored to have had slot machines and dice games. When Prohibition ended, Elsie turned it into a legalized saloon. Elsie left the saloon to a Burlingame citizen who sold it to two gentlemen who opened a restaurant called “Gevan’s”. After ten years of partnership, the two parted and one shortened the name to “The Van
Around 1897 when he was 21 years old, during a time in which he would write 15 hours a day and buy stamps so he could eagerly send manuscript after manuscript to publishers, who would eventually become classic American novelist Jack London had run out of money. London’s step-sister(Eliza)’s step-son(Herbert Shepard) got him a job working as a helper in the laundry of the Belmont Academy for the rate of 30 dollars a month. The school was sure that their new equipment could get through the work at twice the speed, so it hired only two men to do the job of four. The two constantly worked unpaid overtime and were always exhausted. London never got a chance to read the books he had hoped to read while there. London quit his job at Belmont Academy once the school year ended in June. His experiences working in the laundry can be seen reflected in the fictional, titular main character of his novel Martin Eden.
Tiffany window in the Janke-Stuttmeister crypt in Colma
Yesterday, The Belmont Soda Works – rose from the ashes like a Phoenix Bird. That a Senator refers to Jason Bourne and “spy movies and books” is a REAL COUP for me, and a testimonial to my amazing research, and this blog. My Man In The Field, Spooky Noodles, suggested more than once, important people -must be reading Royal Rosamond Press! Four of my characters suffer from a Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Victoria Rosemond Bond, does sculptures to deal with her GAD at BAD. I wanted my spies to be VERY HUMAN, for in looking within for what makes us tick, they have boosted their powers of observation.
WE ARE FLAWED
We own….”sticky thoughts”?
John Presco
President: Royal Rosamond Press; Belmont Soda Works; California Barrel Company
Raymond Chandler wrote about the people my grandfather hung around with, and did business with. The fact my mother made porno movies and was a prostitute for Big Bones Remmer, put’s me in the Black Mask revival, and put’s my fictional character, Smoky, on the Bohemian Gangster map.
Jackie Jenson and William Stuttmeister attended the University of California at Berkeley. My grandmother, Melba Broderick raised the Jensen brothers after their mother had a “nervous breakdown” These were the words used – and no more information was offered about this shameful thing. My father, Victor Presco, told me he and Jackie attended Oakland High School at the same time. Vic was proud of this fact, but, also jealous. The Golden Boy was the most famous person in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was an Oakland Boy who chose to play for the Oakland Oaks over the Yankees. Above is Jackie with teammate, Billy Martin, who would coach the Oakland A’s. Billy’s name was heard by people who love baseball – all over the world!
I am waiting on confirmation from a researcher at the Sacramento Library, that my great, great grandfather, Carl Janke, brought six portable houses around the Cape on a clipper ship in 1849, and erected them in Belmont California. This would make the Janke Family California Pioneers. That they operated three businesses in Belmont, a soda works, a theme park, and a stagecoach line, moves them to the top of Bay Are entrepreneur, next to William Ralston ‘The Man Who Built San Francisco’ who lived in Belmont. Alice Stuttmeister married William Broderick, a officer in the California Barrel Company located five miles from Belmont is Dogpatch. William Stuttmeister developed about forty homes in Oakland, and named some of the streets. When I was born we lived on Berlin Way.
Jackie Jensen and Christine Rosamond Presco-Benton abused drugs and alcohol. As an alcoholic with thirty-four years of sobriety I can say Jackie was an alcoholic – who would have benefitted by going to Narcotics Anonymous – if it existed. I suspect both his parents had a “drinking problem”. and Bobby and Jackie were abandoned by their dysfunctional parents. When someone becomes a star, and is in the public limelight, we know that their core being, and weaknesses, get amplified. Fear of flying is just a symptom – and a smokescreen! I would like to see some professionals take a modern look at the Jensen family. Melba was a good friend of Bobby Jensen. Her mother was Alice Stuttmeister. She lived on 13th. Avenue in Oakland in a beautiful Victorian where six members of te Presco family lived.
I wrote a letter to the Probate Court and pleaded with them not to sell ‘The Family Recovery’ to outsiders because we will need this device that saved my life – to save the lives of our children and grandchildren – because alcoholism is passed on in our DNA. My sixteen year old daughter I did not know I had, was about to walk into my life. After the death of Vicki Presco over a year ago, Christine’s daughter came to own evidence, she and my brother, Mark Presco, conspired with Stacey Pierrot to go around legal guidelines. This tells me they did not like Christine and my sobriety, because we were revealing unsavory family matters. That they approved of Tom Snyder doing OUR FAMILY tell-all -they both reading the rough draft of ‘When You Close Your Eyes’ – is proof they wanted to cut me out of realizing profits from the movie they had in the works. Profits from this movie – would not got to the two Heirs. Vicki and Mark Presco knew nothing about the Stuttmeister-Janke family history, or, the literary history of my grandfather, Royal Rosamond. They did not know the Jensen family history.
John Presco
Copyright 2021
“Jack Eugene Jensen was born on March 9, 1927, in San Francisco to Wilfred and Alice (Delany) Jensen. Wilfred owned a meat-cutting business and worked briefly as a patrolman, but he and Alice divorced when Jackie was 5 years old. Alice, an Arkansas native, worked at various jobs in San Francisco to support Jackie and his two older brothers. Alice and the boys moved several times during Jackie’s childhood, mainly in Oakland. Wilfred was the second of Alice’s four husbands.”
After his junior year at Cal, in the spring of 1949, Jensen disappointed many Cal loyalists by forgoing his senior year, instead signing a contract to play for the Oakland Oaks baseball club of the Pacific Coast League. Jensen had been scouted by several major-league teams, including the New York Yankees, who reportedly offered him a $75,000 bonus. The Oaks matched the bid, and Jack decided that the Oaks offered a higher level of competition than the lower minor-league berth the Yankees had suggested he would get. Jensen hit .261 in his first professional season, after which he was sold (along with Billy Martin and others) to the Yankees.”
William Oltman Stuttmeister went to the University of California and practiced dentistry in San Francisco. He bought two vacation properties in San Geronimo where he retired and died. The Maillard, Count Cipriani, Napoleon, and Prince Victor Napoleon connection is interesting. Is this the continuation of the Belmont Colony? Was this land purchased with a recovered treasure? Many have searched for the lost treasure of Sir Francis Drake near this valley overlooked by the ‘Sleeping Maiden’ mountain.
Below is a video showing Cipriani’s home inside Ralston’s additions. It was a portable house. An expert needs to compare this with the Tanforan cottages. Samples of the wood and screws need to taken and compared to the houses Janke brought around the Cape. William married Augusta Janke.
Jon Presco
Yesterday I found a image of an appartment building William built on McCallister street in 1910 four years after the earthquake. My great, great, grandfather helped rebuild San Francisco. This morning I found an old photo of the Dental College he attended in San Francisco that became a part of the University of California. That these apartments are named ‘Laurel’ goes with my theory that William built around forty homes in the Laurel District – that could have been named by him. William, who helped build Oakland, is a pioneer in the field of Dentistry, and is labeled such by Redwood City. The Stuttmeisters lived in Fruit Vale, and their kin, the Jankes, founded the City of Belmont. They are listed as Pioneers of San Francisco.
06/06/11 at 9:44 PM
Hi Jon,
You are a good researcher! You remarked that someone lived in Pankow? That is new to me. This German family left Mecklenburg in 1732. They became citizens of Berlin. They started out selling pelts, and that grew into furs with a large warehouse in Berlin. One Stuttmeister, who was a builder/architect had his office at the Kaiser’s court. They grew quite wealthy. Kim went to the Records department and received a list of all the residences that the Stuttmeister had in Berlin, and she took pictures of all the churches, where they were baptized and the properties they had owned. . Freddie has always said that the Stuttmeister was not their true name, but the records in Germany indicate that Stuttmeister was their legal name.
Daryl Bulkley
Months after my sister’s death I went to the Sacramento Library and looked at microfish about a legal battle between the heirs of Carl Janke’s estate in Belmont that appeared in the San Francisco Call. I lost the copy I made of that article that I am certain mentioned William O. Stuttmeister, and the sisters of Augusta Stuttmeister-Janke. Carl’s sons did not want Minni and Cornillia, to have anything, and one brother (or cousin) took their side, and was cut out. This has to be William, or W. JANKE. “The bride was attended by Miss Alice Stuttmeister, a sister of the groom, and Miss Minnie Janke, a sister of the bride, as bridesmaids, and Dr. Muldownado and Wm. Janke, a cousin of the bride, were groomsmen.” When Victor Presco turned twenty-one, the the Janke spinsters offered him a moving company in San Francesco. Apparently they saw him as the heir to the Stuttmiester legacy, and the Hope of a return to former glory because they had no children. How about their brother, William? Rosemary said this; “Your father was a made man.”
“W.A. Janke, founded the Belmont Picnic Grounds, and the first Turn Verein on Bush Street.”
Yesterday I received information from Shirley Schwoerer of the Redwood City Library, that said my ancestor, Carl August Janke, was instrumental in establishing a Turnverien in Belmont, and the Bay Area. Was it the first?
“He erected the old amusement hall of the Turnverein, and managed this for several years.”
Janke may be the first real estate developer in the San Francisco bay area.
“In 1849 the family came around the Horn on an old Clipper ship, and Mr. Janke brought with him on the trip the material for six portable houses. He set up these houses, and at once engaged in a successful business, as a building contractor.”
Yesterday I talked to Dick Moyer, a curator of the Crockett Museum. I had talked with his late father back in the 70s about my grandfather, Hugo Presco. He said he was a great man, known as a gambler. I asked Dick about the gambling in Crockett, but he knew very little. There were some raids during Prohibition, but Moyer had not read the article that I found in 1994 that said there were about sixty bordello and gambling houses in Crockett. My father had said the same thing. Rosemary said there were about five thousand people at Hugo’s funeral, including the Mayor of San Francisco. Was the funeral held in Crockett? According to my mother, Vic took the money collected for burial, and went and got drunk. Where Hugo is buried, is unknown.
Vic took us to see his father but one time. Hugo was living on a houseboat in Scowtown located in the shadow of the Carquinis Bridge. We had to walk along a maze of floating dock. A malato answered the door, then went and got The Gambler. In reading about gambling in Portland’s Scowtown, Hugo’s houseboat could have been the sight of a infamous poker game that was impossible to raid. You could see, and feel the cops coming as they rocked the dock.
Mr. Moyer told me he had a drawing of Scowtown on the wall in his office done by a Portuguese resident. I asked him if he would get it scanned and put on the museum webpage. I told him I was writing about my famous artistic sister. Dick didn’t get it. Royal Rosamond’s novel ‘Bound In the Clay’ was compared to ‘Tobacco Road’. consider John Steinbeck’s novel ‘Canary Row’.
Victor William Presco wanted to be a bigger man then his father. Above we see the captain with on e of his Chriscraft boats he had docked in Martinez, located about five miles from Crockett. In 1969 I took my father and his best friend and business partner, Ernie quinones, down to the estuary and showed them any empty plot of land. I told Vic he should get together some investors and build a commercial community here. Jack London Village was built several years later, and is now about to be torn down. How time flies. Mr. Moyer is kin to Jim Strehlow who owned Neptune Beach in Alameda. Bobby Jensen, the brother of the Yankee ball player, Jackie Jensen, did watercolors of the boats in Jack London Square, and was my teacher at McCheznie High.
I was living on my sailboat about a mile from the square when I had my brain-storm. In 1962 I did a watercolor of Oakland’s produce market where Vic operated Acer Produce in an old Victorian Warehouse located on 4th. Street and Webster. This painting was chosen to tour the world in a Red Cross show.
My father was born on December 15, 1922 in San Francisco, California. His parents were Wilfred Jensen and Alice I. Jensen. My father had two brothers; Jack E. Jensen and an older brother Wilfred (Bill) Jensen. Jack became a gifted athlete, All American College football and baseball player. Jackie played for the Yankees and Red Sox (MVP 1958). Bill was a business man. The family moved to Oakland when my father was in elementary school.
The Depression came along, and the family business (butcher shop) went out of business. Wilfred senior left the family and did not return until after WWII. Hard times hit the family hunger and malnutriti … Displaying 750 of 3667 characters.
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This morning I awoke with the realization that Jackie Jensen and Ken Kesey led paralell lives in regards to their Sports history. They were both Golden Boys. Jensen excelled in sports at the University of California, and Kesey at the University of Oregon. Both men met their wives at college. Jackie met Zoe Olson who swam in the Olympics. Ken would have wrestled in the Olympics if not for an injury. These two athletes look alike. We just had Olympic Trials in Eugene. Jackie played for the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. Why wasn’t Ken’s sports history promoted? People came from all over the world, many knowing Eugene is the home of the Pranksters, but, did Zane Kesey show up at the stadium in Further? Did visitors stick around to go to the Country Faire?
At the dedication of the Kesey Mural I talked to Chuck Kesey about the trophy sitting atop the bookcase. He ran down some of his brother’s athletic achievements. He had won many trophies. What became of Jackie’s trophies? I captured Springfield Mayor, Christine Lundberg, on video standing under Giant Ken. I told her about the oppression and censorship at the Emerald Art Association that I and other artists experienced. She assured me this had all changed, and Springfield was moving in a more inclusive direction.
What’s going on here? One has to wonder if the Nobody People are jealous of this history, and want to drag it down and pin it to the mat. The Kesey family demonstrated against the UofO abandoning its wrestling program, while Knight promoted Track Town.
Jackie’s brother Bobby, was a well know artist. The EEA was founded by the wives of men who owned logging companies up river, the same men Mim’s refers to who made it a point to not hire blacks. The Mim’s house is located arround the corner from the Cogswell House. Geroge Miller married a Cogswell. His brother, Joaquin Miller, used to accompany my father’s mother on the Frutivale Trolly when she and those famous poet went to San Francisco. This is a literary-newspaper history that needs to be amplified. My grandmother raised the Jensen brothers for a year. I was told their mother had a nervous breakdown, and went into a sanitarium. But, there was the hint she abandoned them.
Normal biographies about creative people include the creative people they came in contact with that had an influence on their creative history. If there are any historic people hovering about, they are included. The Jensen brothers and Zoe Olson did not make it into the two biographies of Christine Rosamond Benton, nor did Joaquin Miller and the artist, Thomas Hart Benton. Jackie and Zoe Jensen are two of the most famous people that came out of Oakland. Both went to Oakland High School where Robert (Bobby) Jensen taught art. Victor was a classmate of the Jensen brothers. They were role models for Mark and I. My brother played on Oakland High School’s only championship team. This fact was missed by the ghost writers, Tom Snyder, and Julie Lynch, who were hired by outsider and self-titled caretaker of my family legacy, Stacey Pierrot.
My friend Bill Arnold was in Jensen’s 9th. grade class, when my father’s mother walked in and began talking about me. Nancy Hamren was in this class, she later becoming well know for her yogurt at the Kesey family creamery. Bill heard my name and moved closer. Melba was telling the artist she raised during hard times, that I was a deeply troubled young man, and, if Bobby should ever have me in his class, could he take me under his wing, guide me in some manner. This famous watercolorist never approached me. He is not a shrink. If he had he would have discovered my watercolor of a sailboat had toured the world in a Red Cross show when I was twelve. I have found artists on the internet who prospered under the tutelage of Jensen who rendered boats in Jack London Square and the Oakland Estuary where I lived on my sailboat, and, on a houseboat like Victor Hugo Presco.
Yesterday I went to the Oregon Country Fair and found peace there, along with some forgiveness for my father due to the two chapters I wrote about him. Vic Presco was mentally ill, psychotic. What he did to his two sons – is against the law! He could have gone to jail. What people have done to me since Christine was killed by a rogue wave, borders on being criminal. Christine, Rena, and myself suffer from mental illness. The people around us tried to prosper from our disability and our creativity by making us out to be insane! My biography is forced to bring their extreme abuse and destructiveness out of the darkness. They will be exposed for the sake of art, and all creative people.
What Melba did was try to embroil Bobby in the never-ending turmoil her son brought into the lives of all around him. Not once did Melba declare her son was mentally ill. I was her son’s Scapegoat. Because I was sensitive, kind, and loving, and because life was very hard for me, my mental illness was employed by people around me as a smokescreen to hide their disturbed minds, and at the same time rip-off my creative genius. Below are articles on creative people and mental illness. Above is a photograph of my watercolor that Rosemary posed her children in front of. Christine was not drawing and painting in the closet. The true drama that whirled around us, was the struggle two very close friends were having with their insane fathers. I have only touched the surface of the creative relationship between Bill Arnold and I.
The Rosamond gallery in Carmel should have been springboard for the surviving family artists, and writers for generations to come. Instead it was sold to a un-gifted outsider who was backed by Vicki and Mark Presco who had no creative gifts. They were cashing in and slandering the creative members of our family. They put obstacles in our path, just like Victor had in his psychotic need to get all the attention.
I just called the Crockett Museum. I am considering donating much of the history I own. Victor Hugo Presco lived in Crockett on a houseboat. He never met the author, Royal Rosamond, who was estranged from his family when he died. Their children married and had four children. I would like to bring these two grandfathers together in this humble little museum – along with Christine – who was born nearby in Vallejo. Vic used to deliver produce here.
‘The Gambler and the Poet’
Mary Ann Tharaldsen and I almost moved to Crockett that I believed would be the next Sausalito. I am glad I was wrong. Perhaps my ex should donate her painting to the Crockett Museum, and, Pynchon could be the curator in disguise? I see him showing of the giant stuffed sturgeon.
Here is a partial biography of Robert Jensen. I will have to pay $15 dollars to read the rest of it. I am looking for Terry to talk to him in person. I suspect the Jensen brother suffered from mental illness due to the hard life they had. Do you think Robert wants to be posthumously associated with these writers and artists? Do you see how this works?
Jon Presco
Copyright 2015
Jack Eugene Jensen was born on March 9, 1927, in San Francisco to Wilfred and Alice (Delany) Jensen. Wilfred owned a meat-cutting business and worked briefly as a patrolman, but he and Alice divorced when Jackie was 5 years old. Alice, an Arkansas native, worked at various jobs in San Francisco to support Jackie and his two older brothers. Alice and the boys moved several times during Jackie’s childhood, mainly in Oakland. Wilfred was the second of Alice’s four husbands.
Jack entered Oakland High School in 1941 and became an immediate sensation. Besides starring in baseball and football, he also wrote for the school paper, became class president, and was the idol of all the other kids in the school. In the spring of 1942 guidance counselor Ralph Kerchum, taken by the possibility of greatness in his student, recorded an interview with Jack and made a 78-rpm record for posterity. The questions were not probing (“What’s your favorite sport?” “Baseball.” “What’s your next favorite?” “Football”) but indicate the effect Jensen had on adults as a teenager. Kerchum became something of a surrogate father to Jensen, and remained a close friend for the rest of Jensen’s life.
Jack graduated from high school in January 1945, and enlisted in the Navy, as both his brothers had done. He enrolled in radio school hoping to work on a communications ship, but he was still in school when the war ended in August. He was then stationed at a base in Idaho, mostly playing football and working as a lifeguard. He stayed in the Navy until his discharge in the summer of 1946. That fall he entered the University of California on the GI Bill.
The well-built (5-feet-11, 190 pounds) Jensen’s athletic reputation, built in high school in neighboring Oakland as well as in the service, made his college football debut much anticipated. The first time he touched the ball, a punt return against Wisconsin, he ran 56 yards for a touchdown. By the end of his freshman year he was considered the finest back in the Pacific Coast Conference (today called the Pac-10), and was selected to play in the East-West Shrine game. In his sophomore season, the Golden Bears finished 9-1, with Jensen the fullback and best defensive back. The following season, 1948, Jensen was a consensus All-American, rushing for more than 1,000 yards and leading the team to an undefeated season. Jensen was injured early in the second half of the Rose Bowl game, and his Bears were defeated by Northwestern.
Jensen also starred on the baseball team at Cal. In 1947 he was the team’s ace pitcher, hit .385, and helped his team win the inaugural College World Series. In the regional final he outpitched future football Hall of Famer Bobby Layne of Texas, then helped his team win the final series against a Yale team that included future President George H.W. Bush. Jensen was academically ineligible in his sophomore year, but came back to help the team to a 31-17 record in 1949, earning All-American honors as he had in football.
By this time Jensen was one of the more famous athletes on the West Coast, both for his sporting exploits—he was universally called The Golden Boy—and his relationship with diving champion Zoe Ann Olsen. Jensen and Olsen both attended Oakland High School, though she was three years behind him. When they began dating in 1946, Jensen was a freshman at Cal and Olsen was 15 years old and still in high school. Olsen was a Golden Girl in her own right, and won the silver medal in springboard diving in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. The two were blond, attractive athletic heroes, and the press could not get enough of their story.
After his junior year at Cal, in the spring of 1949, Jensen disappointed many Cal loyalists by forgoing his senior year, instead signing a contract to play for the Oakland Oaks baseball club of the Pacific Coast League. Jensen had been scouted by several major-league teams, including the New York Yankees, who reportedly offered him a $75,000 bonus. The Oaks matched the bid, and Jack decided that the Oaks offered a higher level of competition than the lower minor-league berth the Yankees had suggested he would get. Jensen hit .261 in his first professional season, after which he was sold (along with Billy Martin and others) to the Yankees.
On October 16, 1949, he and Zoe Ann were married in Oakland in front of 1,500 people and surrounded by dozens of reporters and television cameras. The couple was escorted to the ceremony by motorcycle escort. Jack was 22, and Zoe Ann was 18, an Olympic star and recent high-school graduate. Their marriage would remain the subject of magazine stories even as they privately struggled to live as one famous couple. Jack pursued his career, while Zoe Ann mainly stayed home and raised a family.
I just discovered that Robert Buck has been on the Board of the Jeffers Tor House Foundation for many years. I assume Lacy Williams Buck is his daughter, she too on the board. What this tells me, is, Robert Buck understands historic family legacies. Why then did his law firm utterly destroy my family legacy, and its star, Christine Rosamond Benton. Before they did this, they destroyed my niece, Shannon Rosamond. I am sure Robert Buck and his partner, Sydney Morris, know Lawrence Chazen, and Robin Beare, who suggested my niece be KEPT IN JAIL, instead of being in HER GALLERY selling Rosamond prints. Morris blesses the desire of ‘The Caretakers’ to write a biography and make a movie. Robert Buck’s book ‘When You Close Your Eyes’ denigrates and demonizes my late sister. Only Charles Dickens, or Victor Hugo, could do The Real Rosamond Story – JUSTICE!
Rosamond Press 
