Jack London's Neighborhood: A Pleasure Walker’S and Reader’S Guide to History and Inspiration in Alameda

By Mary Rudge

This book can serve as a guide with information about Alameda that may have been relevant or add interest concerning Jack Londons life and times in Alameda. Individuals may use this little handbook to explore, and follow for themselves a walk from place to place. Eventually Jack London Walks may be offered by story-tellers or history docents or as a commercial enterprise equivalent to historic walks in Oakland, San Francisco and other areas.

There are very few island cities such as Alameda in our nation. I hope you will enjoy seeing Alameda and these places as they exist today and putting them in the context of the history of this area which had significance to the story of Jack Londons life and times in Alameda.

This is your invitation, to Jack Londons Neighborhood.
It is my neighborhood, too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781456809348

Mary Rudge

Alamedas Poet Laureate Mary Rudge is a phenomenon who is unique but not rare since many literary persons: William Saroyan, Jack London, Don Blanding, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Duncan, poet-musicians such as Jim Morrison of The Doors, with Phyllis Diller, (and numerous visual artists, musicians, writers, fi lm-makers, actors such as Tom Hanks, and peace activists not encompassed in this book) have made a connection to this island that has become legendary for the genius of its people in a place so small. Readers of this story-map of the islands literary history by Mary Rudge will have a fascinating experience following the route around the island where her ardent heart leads you; where poets in the past have been touched by the sense of place and their experiences. A walk around Alameda, following passages in this book, is an adventure in the real world of the excitement in lives of poets.

Book preview

JACK LONDON’S

NEIGHBORHOOD

A Pleasure Walker’s and Reader’s Guide to History and

Inspiration in

Alameda

by MARY RUDGE

JACK LONDON’S NEIGHBORHOOD

Copyright 2002 Mary Rudge,

Copyright 2013 Mary Rudge, Revised, material added.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4568-0933-1

                Ebook         978-1-4568-0934-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

A first draft of this book was made to be presented as a commemorative pre-publication copy in honor of the Jack London Society Sixth Biennial Symposium, Kauai, Hawaii, October 9-12, 2002, Radisson Kauai Resort, Lihue.

All material in this book is protected by International Copyright Law and is the property of the individual writers, artists, photographers, and organizations credited.

To contact Authors/artists or for permission to use any part of this book in any media, contact: [e-mail]

Front Cover: Archival Photo of Jack London from the Oakland Main Library History Room Collection. Back Cover Art: Collage by Tom Golden of Poet Mary Rudge.

Rev. date: 08/30/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

83926

On the Celebration Day, December 12, 2002,

of becoming Alameda City’s First Poet Laureate

I bring to the public this book

documenting some historic legendary writers of poetry

and the places they knew in Alameda.

Dedication 2002

to Alameda’s

Acting-Mayor Al DeWitt

City Council members:

Tony Daysog, Beverly Johnson,

Barbara Kerr

and in memory of Mayor Ralph Apezzato

and to

The Alameda City Arts Council

The Alameda Free Library

Alameda Recreation & Parks

to all my friends,

and my children: Jordan, Robin, Star,

Caroline, Alice, Glen, Diana

2012 Revised Publication in Memoriam: Al DeWitt,

Caroline Rudge and Jordan Rudge

FOREWORD

A sense of place can be a contributing factor to genius.

There is a tangible bond that ties Alameda with the world of literature at large, and this is the number and caliber of creative writers and artists who have lived or spent quality time in this tiny island community. There is a long history of poets and writers who helped put Alameda on the cultural map, just by virtue of their having been here at some time. It is assumed Alameda had some impact on their spirit, aesthetics, and sense of direction in the world.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London, Jim Morrison (of The Doors), Hank Saroyan Jr., (former Alameda High School student body president) Emmy-winning director of Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies on CBS-TV, and his Pulitzer Prize-winning uncle, William Saroyan, are among those with a history here. William visited his older brother Henry—Hank’s father—who lived in Alameda and was the model for several characters in William Saroyan’s books. Isadora Duncan, one of the luminaries in this book with a connection to Alameda, is known world-wide for dance innovation. She was one of the first dancers to dance to poetry.

Isadora danced to poems written by her brother Raymond (& other poets) read aloud by Raymond and her sister Elizabeth. She also wrote poetry and a book on her life. Others noted in Alameda’s Literary History, with connections to poetry, include Robert (Symmes) Duncan (poet of a later time period, connected with the Beat generation, not related to Isadora), Floyd Salas, myself (Mary Rudge), Jimmy Lyons, Phyllis Diller and her daughter Sue Diller Mills.

Alameda’s Historians include; Imelda Merlin, George Gunn, Woody Minor, plus newspaper columnists; Everett Johannes, Win Currier, Monte Monteagle, and more. Recently, Eric Koos and Dennis Evanosky of the Alameda Sun newspaper, have published writings on various aspects of Alameda.

An entire panorama of poets keep poetry alive on the island by publishing anthologies, holding public meetings, workshops and readings, through many venues. Alameda Island Poets have awarded prizes to poets in Alameda Schools. Poets, individually and collectively, have brought recognition of Alameda to other areas. Winning awards, publishing books, sponsoring events, writers continuously make impress on and are influenced by, this city.

It is important to explore the dynamics of areas which have had life-shaping and mind-bending effect on writers. Alameda is important to a number of writers in all genre. Alameda is especially significant to the broad area of people interested in the historic life of Jack London; his development as writer and persona who has made impact on the world.

Jack London continues to be a subject of study in many schools around the world. Numerous films have been made from Jack London’s writings. Other authors have written about him extensively. Annual conferences and events focused on his life and works are held by educators, historians, booksellers, writers and others, often on an international level.

I take inspiration from a symposium on Jack London at Huntington Museum and Gardens which was called The Wisdom of the Trail, from Jack London’s story by that name. The trail exists in Alameda of locations where Jack London had experiences, some of which influenced or figure in his writing; all of which can be followed by individuals who want to learn more about this writer and Alameda. Some of the locations where Jack London’s life-expanding experiences in Alameda took place are of intrinsic importance in understanding Jack London.

This book is especially for anyone who wants a pleasant walk around this Island City meditating on, enjoying, and perhaps drawing inspiration from Jack London’s neighborhood. Alameda can best be appreciated by knowing the island’s history through the highly exciting personal involvement of walking. The city is an open air museum… (Woody Minor, Lecture, Alameda Historical Museum, February 28, 2002). It is truly possible here to commune with the past. (Victoria’s Legacy, Tours of San Francisco Bay Area Architecture by Judith Lynch Wildhorn & Sally B. Woodbridge, published by 101 Productions, San Francisco). Alameda is preserved . . . to an enviable degree.

Alameda is virtually a living educational experience, in architectural types and resources. Material is created by the Alameda City Planning Board and Design Review Board, along with the Historical Advisory Commission which will help citizens and guests have just such an experience (from Alameda Heritage Days Souvenir Album, 1978, Mary Rudge, Editor).You may use this book you hold in your hands, to follow for yourself a walk from place to place, as if through various time periods. Make notes in the margins, and you will have your personal journal of your experiences in Jack London’s Neighborhood.

This book can serve as a guide with information about Alameda that may add interest concerning Jack London’s life and times. With interesting stories, or little known information, it may introduce you to some other writers you had not previously known as poets or as connected to Alameda. Eventually Jack London Walks, or Writers Walks, may be offered by story-tellers, history docents, or as a commercial enterprise equivalent to historic walks in Oakland, San Francisco and other areas.

There are very few island cities such as Alameda in our nation. I hope you will enjoy seeing these places in Alameda as they exist today and putting them in the context of the history of this area, so rich in literary inspiration. There is much to appreciate in a walk through time, in this fluid and ever-changing city, which had significance to the story of Jack London’s life and times in Alameda.

This is your invitation, to Jack London’s

neighborhood.

It is my neighborhood, too.

When you visit Jack London’s Alameda neighborhood, you will find some of the pieces to the puzzle of his legendary life that still intrigue Jack London scholars and readers today.

*   The first school Jack went to was in Alameda.

*   On the Davenport land where his stepfather farmed, 5 year old Jack had a dog, Rollo, his family had a horse to plow with and pull their wagon and which they could ride. The best horses in Alameda were in the West End and Jack developed a lasting lifelong love for horses.

*   Jack first drank alcohol at age 5, in these fields.

*   He came back to buy tile to roof his dream house in Sonoma from a factory on the very land where he had lived at age five.

*   Daily seeing water and boats and with famed writer Robert Louis Stevenson visiting adjoining property, Jack could early see a destiny for himself as writer and sailor.

*   As a teen-ager he found a girl-friend, Mabel Applegarth, and wrote a poem to her. They biked around Alameda and other places.

*   He studied boxing in Alameda, where many renowned boxers trained.

*   Jack took studies to enter the University of California in Berkeley at Anderson Academy, now Longfellow Park.

*   A person who was one of the greatest influences of his life, Jennie Prentiss, lived in Alameda to be close to Jack, for whom she was a second mother.

Woodstock Park; Here the history of Jack London in Alameda begins. In 1881, only 6000 people lived in Alameda, (Encinal Newspaper Feb. 12, 1881), when Jack London lived on this tract of land known as the old Davenport property. The wealthy Davenport allowed a poor family named London to live in a small house on the land to farm part of it, from 1881 to 1883. The five year old child of this family was Jack London; destined to be known as the most prolific, most famous, best selling, best paid writer in America for his time.

The property also held a grand family home, said to be one of the three most magnificent mansions in Alameda at that time. In 1883 the 15 acre Davenport tract was divided. The west 8 acres now hold Woodstock Park and part of Western housing. Woodstock Child Care Center (moved) and Woodstock school building adjoined. On the east 7 acres N. Clark and Sons Pottery, Brick and Tile Works was built then became the site of Chipman School building, subsequently Charter schools, facing Lincoln Avenue. Behind the school, Atlantic Apartments, once Davenport land, face Poggi Street. N. Clark and Son’s factory, with its long underground kiln and tall smoke towers, was separated from view of the west 8 acres by Eucalyptus trees, planted in a line. Eucalyptus fragrance was said to purify the air, breathed in for health. Eucalyptus oil was put into cough drops.The leaves were placed under carpets; this was thought to keep homes free from sand fleas and other insects.

Woodstock Park can be entered by walking east from Third Street by Brush, Spruce or Cypress Streets. Walking west, the land once ended at First Street. Beyond was only marsh and Bay water. There were so few houses that even from Third Street there was a clear view of the Bay.

In 1881, the London family could easily walk two or three blocks to the water to dig clams, gather oysters, and fish, to supplement their diet as others did. Natives, who lived on this land before them, ferried the Bay in their tule reed boats. Marks of their presence are left in shell mounds, and their bones lie here, under the earth.

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Some tribal people believe (as Chief Seattle said to Isaac Stevens, governor of Washington Territory in 1854, There is no death, only a change of worlds), their spirits would be here, that what lives, lives forever.

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The famed writer and Spiritualist, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, knew Jack and proclaimed after Jack’s sudden death (at age 40, in 1916), that if ever a spirit would have the strength and sense of adventure to cross over, it will be Jack; Jack, among us, revisiting his fields of home, his neighborhood.

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In their farmhouse on this Davenport tract, Jack London’s mother, Flora Wellman London, held séances. She spoke with an invisible Native American spirit guide named Plume, and to her, he was part of the family.

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Spiritualism was prevalent across the U.S. when Jack London was born. The epicenter of Spiritualism in the USA seems to have been the San Francisco Bay Area, including Alameda as a part of Oakland. On the shores of Oakland’s Lake Merritt; people would pitch hundreds of small tents and camp, holding Spiritualist gatherings lasting three days or more.

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Flora was a prominent spiritualist in San Francisco before her marriage to John London.

Adding to the Jack London lore of this area, Monte Monteagle (East Bay Regional Park District Historian, Public Relation Department Head, a former journalist) reported that Woodstock neighborhood youngsters, lured as if to a haunted house, peeped, fascinated, through cracks under the shades, then whispered around that they saw little Jack, stretched out atop a table with seven pairs of hands spaced around the table edge, levitating the furniture… Used by his mother as a rare child medium, Jack was an attraction no other holder of séances claimed or equaled.

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The adult Jack perhaps laughed and loved being a part of so many stories. After all, an impediment to researchers on Jack London is that Jack loved to tell stories, and wrote some of the best about himself.

He gave this warning in a letter to a friend, Anna Strunsky: There are poseurs. I am the most successful of them all.

Critics said, in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jack was a self-divided man hiding among the shining myths of his own creation, and in the Chicago Tribune: "Jack didn’t have a life—he had lives!"

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When he first came to Alameda, Jack was not legally a London. He had not been given a surname at all; he was just called Jack. His unwed mother, Flora Wellman, had called herself Mrs. Chaney. Though no record is known of a previous marriage (or divorce), Flora married John London when her baby was seven months old. She did not give Jack a legal name until forced to, in order to register him in school.

Jack’s stepfather, John London, farmed on the Davenport land for two seasons, bringing in crops of vegetables, especially corn. Then Davenport died. The land was to be divided and sold. On Jack’s seventh birthday, Jan. 12, 1883, the London family loaded a horse-drawn wagon with all their belongings and left their home.

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Biographies of Jack London show the family next living on a potato farm in San Mateo. Later, planting orchards and crops in Livermore; helped by Capt. Shepard and his three sons who came to board with the London family. Someone may have helped them get these various new starts, as planting crops and orchards in Livermore meant investment—and it would have taken awhile to make a profit. Unfortunately the farm was foreclosed; the London family went to Oakland. Jack returned to Alameda for various reasons as he grew. He even came to buy tile and brick from N. Clark and Sons for the home he was building, Wolf House.

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At age 5 Jack was put to work on the Alameda land where John London farmed. One task given Jack was to carefully carry a heavy bucket of home-made alcoholic brew to his thirsty step-father who was laboring in the noonday sun. Historian Monteagle told that Jack, carrying this drink (Monteagle quaintly calls it the nectar) began taking sips of it. So did young Jack meet John Barleycorn—his lifelong enemy with whom he fought; it often spilled into some of Jack’s work and more seriously may have contributed to Jack’s death of uremic poisoning. The first meeting brought danger (Monteagle’s report): One day the child, Jack, "gulped