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July-August 2025
Volume 5, Issue 4
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An Unexpected Gift
Philip Charles Monroe (1947 – 2024), The Hurdy Gurdy Man, who with his monkeys entertained at Fisherman’s Wharf for 34 years gifted several organs, his cart, monkey costumes, his own costumes, and a wonderful collection of photographs and memorabilia to MHAA.
Early in May of 2025, MHAA was contacted by Marsha Andrews, a friend of Philip’s, who notified us of the gift. The items were retrieved and are now in storage area at Stanton Center. They are in excellent condition.
Inventory of the items is underway, and all items will be photographed and added to the MHAA collection. At a future date, the items will be exhibited in a suitable location in Stanton Center. We will let the membership know when this exhibition is ready for viewing.
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Left: Philip entertaining in front of the Custom House.
Right: Several monkeys that worked with Philip over the years.
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Gary Spradlin, President, Monterey History and Art Association
MHAA - member supported and volunteer driven since 1931
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Myron Angelo Oliver (1891-1967)
Myron was born on June 16, 1891 in Fulton, Kansas to parents Joseph Kurtz & Annie Bishop Oliver. Soon the three would move to California where Joseph (a muralist & portrait painter) briefly became an art teacher for Pacific Grove’s branch of the University of Pacific. In June 1896 Professor Oliver opened his Custom House Art Emporium in Monterey. The April 10, 1897 Monterey Cypress reported that the shop offered “a rare collection of works of art & interesting curios. In addition to these goods, Mr. Oliver also handles artists’ materials and picture moulding. Professor & Mrs. Oliver are artists and much of their work displayed shows great merit.” Young Myron thrived in the wharf’s environment & the family store where he met many artists & visitors.
Myron (also called Angelo) attended both Monterey’s Grammar & High Schools. His 1910 senior graduating class consisted of 6 boys & 1 girl. After high school he studied with Lester Boronda & took additional art courses @ the Los Angeles Art Students League. One finds in ‘Jennie V. Cannon: the untold history of the Carmel & Berkeley art colonies’ by Robert W. Edwards that “in 1912 Oliver entered Stanford University to study graphic arts, crafts and mechanical drawing; he contributed drawings to The Chaparral, a student magazine, and joined the Hammer and Coffin Club. Oliver was a student in the 1914 Carmel Summer School of Art taught by William Merritt Chase. He frequently assisted the latter, often as a chauffeur, and received in compensation a sketch portrait in oil of himself by Chase inscribed ’To my friend Oliver.’ Following his 1915 graduation from Stanford, Myron continued his formal training for fourteen months at the Art Students League in New York City with Frank DuMond; he spent the summer in Gloucester and studied under Haley Lever….he apprenticed at Lester Boronda’s framing business and furniture workshop. He became an exhibiting member of the Salmagundi Club and contributed to shows at the National Academy of Design.”
On May 31, 1921 Myron married fellow artist Dorothy Gertrude Welsh @ NYC’s 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church. Also from Mr. Edwards’s book one learns that “Myron applied for a honeymoon passport to travel in Europe and he was officially described as five feet ten and a half inches tall with blue eyes, brown hair, a mustache and a scar on his ‘pointed’ chin. When family matters detained his wife in the United States for six months, he decided to sketch with fellow artist Phillips Frisbie Lewis in Brittany. Thereafter the reunited Olivers purchased an old Red Cross ambulance and toured extensively through France, including Paris, St. Tropez and Nice, as well as Italy. While in Florence he studied frame making as well as the old methods of applying gesso and laying gold leaf.” Mrs. Oliver returned home in November 1922 & Myron in April the following year. Once reunited in Monterey, Myron continued painting & helped run the family’s shop. He became well known for his artistic frames (Jessie Arms Botke had him design & build custom frames for her larger canvases). He was a key craftsman for Effie Fortune’s Monterey Guild. A founding member of the Monterey History & Art Association, he also helped Frances Elkins restore & refurbish the town’s adobes.
In 1927 he was among the artists who showed @ the Carmel Art Association’s 1st exhibition in a large room in the Seven Arts building. 2 years later the 12/27/1929 Salinas Morning Post reported that “the curio and art store at the corner of Decatur & Main streets, Monterey, owned by J.K. Oliver, was damaged to the extent of $5000 by fire started by spontaneous combustion last Friday evening. An exhibit of paintings by William Ritschel, Armin Hansen and other famous artists, which was hanging in a room of the building, was saved from the flames by Oliver’s son, Myron. Practically all of the damage was covered by insurance.” Just 5 years earlier he had helped Josephine Blanch save paintings from a fire @ the Del Monte Hotel Art Gallery.
In the 1930 City of Monterey directory Myron & Dorothy Oliver are listed as follows: Manufacturer Furniture, Picture Frames, Art, Mirrors, Etc. Original Designs in Gold and Silver Leaf, 150 Main, Tel 279-J. The Olivers & their 3 children (Myron Jr., Ramon & Margot) lived in the charming adobe Casa de la Torre (circa 1852) @ 502 Pierce Street. One finds in a 1/10/1931 Salinas Index Journal article that a Monterey Historical Society has been organized…“articles of incorporation of the Monterey History and Art Association, limited, formed in Monterey to collect and preserve works of art and other material dealing with the history of Monterey and of California, were filed with the secretary of state here (Sacramento) today. The organization is of the non profit type. Fifteen directors named, many of them prominent in art and civic circles on the Monterey peninsula, were: Carmel Martin, Myron A. Oliver, Gouverneur Morris, Allen Griffin, Harold Mack, Roger S. Fitch, E. R. Gibson, E. C. Fortune, R. S. Kynnersley and J.G. Pillow, of Monterey; Louis C. Merrill, Mrs. Laura G. Wheeler and W. O. Raiguel of Pebble Beach; Bernard Rountree and Stanley Wood, Carmel.”
Myron was a longtime member of the CAA where he served as its president between 1942-1947. In 1943 painter Abel Warshawsky proclaimed: “Let us not forget Myron Oliver, president of the Carmel Art Association. For long, he has given and still gives freely of himself, his time and material. To him is due more than to any other in our art community the will to carry on. Unhappily (for the rest of us) as a painter he is far too modest. Surreptitiously, almost, I was fortunate to uncover a number of his paintings that had been hidden away. They showed craftsmanship of high order, more than a keen sense of color, and a wide range of subject matter. It is time that his friends remove the bushel hiding his light.” The 8/3/1945 Pacific Grove Tribune informed that “the burn the mortgage party held by the Carmel Art Association last Sunday was so successful that the association has been enabled to retire the $2000 debt, and undertake much needed improvements with an additional amount raised over $1000 according to a report made this week by Myron Oliver, association president. The party was attended by over 500 people. Of these 100 won oil and water paintings, and etchings, contributed by local artists for Gallery benefit.”
Myron Angelo Oliver (painter, craftsman & photographer) died on February 19, 1967. He & his wife are buried at the Monterey City Cemetery.
Casa Serrano is fortunate to have 3 of his oil paintings in its collection: ‘Monterey Bay’ (1916), ‘R. L. Stevenson House’ (1916) & ‘View of Monterey #2’ (1917). It also has an antique Spanish table from Burgos that he restored.
Michael Mazgai
Above photo: Myron A. Oliver, artist, craftsman and photographer
| | 1899 Oliver Custom House Art Emporium ad in the Monterey Cypress | | Myron Oliver with his mother Annie in front of the Custom House Art Emporium 106 Main (photo credit Oliver family) | | |
Monterey Grammar School - Myron Oliver front row with flower circa 1900
(photo Mayo Hayes O'Donnell Library)
| | 'Monterey Bay' 1916 oil painting Myron A. Oliver | | 'R. L. Stevenson House' 1916 oil painting Myron A. Oliver | | 'View of Montrey #2' 1917 oil painting Myron A. Oliver | | Oliver Christmas Card 502 Pierce Street (Casa de la Torre) | | Antique Spanish Table (Burgos) restored by Myron Oliver | | Antique Spanish Table (Burgos) Restored by Myron Oliver - 3 drawers each signed by M.A.O. | | |
Local People
Eric Sand
Eric Sand lives in the Carmel Valley and is a Realtor in the Carmel Valley Village in the office his grandfather, Harold O. Sand, built as his brokerage in 1946. Eric is active in Monterey History and Art Association. He is on the board of MHAA and Co-Chair and El Maestro of La Merienda.
Eric is a sixth generation Californian whose lineage can be traced back to Joseph and Joel Walker, western pioneers who forged the Oregon and Santa Fe trails in the early 1800s. Joel Walker was also a delegate to and a signer of the California State Constitution in 1848.
Joel Walker's daughter, Isabella, married Edward Ingram, who originally homesteaded several hundred acres just above Big Sur in the 1870s, and which later came to be known as the Brazil Ranch. Their daughter, Edna B. Ingram, married Benjamin Franklin Wright, who developed the upper part of Franklin Street in Monterey and who became a mayor of Monterey in 1923 and had two daughters, Helen and Margaret. Helen married Carmel attorney Shelby Robison and Margaret married Carmel Valley real estate developer Harold O. Sand and they had one son, John Wright Sand who married Nancy Ann Hale. They had four sons: Eric, Toland, Lee and Christopher.
Eric’s maternal grandmother is Alice Hilby Hale, whose father was Francis Martin Hilby, one of the original developers of Seaside in the 1920s. Francis was also the owner of the Palace Drug store on the corner of Alvarado and Franklin. Francis’ sister, Agatha Hilby Few, bequeathed the land to the City of Monterey that the current Monterey City Council Chambers is situated on. Alice was married to Donald Hale who ranched in the Carmel Valley and whose father was Lester Hale, a cabinet maker and oil painter who moved to Carmel after the 1906 earthquake.
Donald Hale’s step-father was Frederick Bechdolt, a writer and at one time a Police Chief of Carmel in the 1920s and 1930s.
If you have a friend or relative that would like to share their story about living in or around Monterey, please contact Monterey History and Art Association at MHAA.org1931@gmail.com
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Miss Christine Jack
This article focuses on a member of the Jacks family who made many contributions to her community in Paso Robles. Miss Jack's gravestone in Paso Robles and her death record indicate that her first name was Christina.
From ‘Pioneers of San Luis Obispo County & Environs’- pages 19/20
By Annie L. Morrison and John H. Hayden
The Friends of the Adobes, Inc. 2002.
Just what a woman can do when she inherits the thrift of the Old World and Scotch (Scots) energetic sturdiness is shown in the interesting story of the life of Miss Christine Jack, particularly that part which has to do with her contribution towards making California history. She was born at Creiff (Crieff), Perthshire, Scotland, the daughter of William Jack, who first saw the light of day at Strathallan, in the same shire- a plain man, a dealer in wood, who died where he had lived, esteemed by all who knew him, bequeathing no doubt to his daughter, some of those personal characteristics which have contributed to make her so popular in Paso Robles, where she has long been a resident. Her mother was Janet McCune (McEwan), a native of the Scottish Highlands and a woman of rare attainments and worth.
William Jack married twice, and had by his first wife five sons and a daughter, and by his second wife a son, David, and two girls: Margaret, who died in early childhood, and Christine of this review. David was born in 1826 (1822) attended the public school in his village, and at the age of seventeen (nineteen) crossed the ocean to New York, where he secured a position as a bookkeeper with the firm of Flood, Mackay & O’Brien. Six years later he made for California via Panama, and at Monterey again took up bookkeeping. He acquired some land and became a farmer and stockman, and soon owned several large tracts in various parts of Monterey County. He settled in Monterey, where he died at the ripe age of eighty years (86). Mr Jack married and was blessed with seven children, all of whom are living. In 1857 he was able to revisit Scotland and see his boyhood home. As a Presbyterian and a Republican he made his contribution to the bettering of both religious and political conditions in the country of his adoption.
In 1866, her parents having both died, Miss Jack joined her brother in California, travelling by way of New York, from which city she set out on the steamer “Caledonia”, bound for the Isthmus of Panama, and after crossing that strip of land took the steamer “Arizona” for San Francisco. She lived for a time with her brother at Monterey, when she bought a ranch Josephine, in San Luis Obispo County, operating it for twenty years. She made a large stock ranch of her possessions, raising shorthorn Durham cattle. She had a dairy of forty-five cows, and churned three times a week, turning out more than a hundred pounds of butter at each churning. The milk was panned and skimmed by hand, Miss Jack doing all the work herself. Such was the quality of the butter that it was rated as the best in San Francisco market; and such, too, was the care that she gave her cows that each knew her voice and would come to her. A mile away from her nearest neighbour, she never suffered from loneliness; for she cooked and did all the work required at the ranch house, even to washing and scalding the pans. She was in fact very busy, undertaking, in addition, to raise calves and hogs.
On account of rheumatism, Miss Jack nine years ago came to the Paso Robles Hot Springs, and there she has remained, for the most part, ever since. While working her ranch, some fourteen hundred acres at the head of Santa Rosa creek, she discovered a quicksilver mine on the property which she named the “Bonnie Doon”: and the mine of cinnabar ore she worked for many years, putting in a retort and manufacturing quicksilver. While she was visiting the mine one morning, the shaft of which had been left carelessly uncovered, she walked into it and fell a distance of three hundred feet to the bottom, and was so seriously injured that her frame was shattered and several bones broken. She was rescued and brought to her residence; and very fortunately, by good surgical attention, she fully recovered.
Miss Jack once had a peculiar experience where a dog came to her assistance. She had made a trip to Cambria, and in the meantime a hard rain-storm had broken; and, returning home on horseback - having declined an urgent invitation to stay all night with some friends, thinking she must get back home- she found Santa Rosa creek had become a raging torrent. On reaching a certain crossing her mare, Fannie, refused to swim the flood, though urged in every possible way; and finally, when Miss Jack was despairing of getting across, a mysterious dog came out of the storm. When its intelligence grasped the situation, it looked up at Miss Jack, and then at the horse, and plunged into the stream; after which the mare, evidently inspired by the example, followed and carried her mistress safely over.
In the old days at the ranch when she used to get up at four, and sometimes at three o’clock in the morning, she kept things lively at the mine; but finally she sold the ranch and leased out the bonanza. Now, in her years of leisure, she resides with her companion, Mrs. Mary Doling, taking a keen interest in her Park Street home and in the little social world about her, particularly in the works of charity undertaken by the Presbyterian Church; and not failing to follow the devious ways of politics, she shows the keenest interest in republican affairs. Miss Jack is a very liberal and generous-hearted woman, and she seems never to become weary of well-doing in spite of often being imposed upon; she always has fed the hungry and weary travelers who come to her door, and still she is ever ready, so far as she is able, to assist those less fortunate than herself. She is well and favorably known, and everyone speaks of her in the highest terms of appreciation.
The excerpt above is from “Pioneers of San Luis Obispo County & Environs” has been provided with the kind permission of The Friends of the Adobes.
| | Christina Jack is buried in Paso Robles, California | | |
LIBRARY NEWS
MHAA’s used book sections in the museum store at Stanton Center and at Mayo Hayes O’Donnell Library continue to draw visitors and book collectors alike. Book sales are proving a reliable way to entice visitors to spend time in the museum as well.
REMINDER: Mayo Hayes O'Donnell Library welcomes and appreciates book donations to refresh our Used Books sale carts in the library and at Stanton Center. Books should be in good condition (please no textbooks or damaged material); subject matter should relate to art, architecture, local and California history and biography.
All sales support MHAA. THANK YOU.
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Steinbeck in Monterey
Now – December 14
Join the National Steinbeck Center for a deep dive into John Steinbeck and Monterey with the 2025 exhibition “Steinbeck in Monterey” now open at the Monterey History and Art Association Museum.
The City of Monterey was Steinbeck’s stomping ground through his childhood and into his thirties. Here, he had some of the foundational experiences of his life that appear in his writing, again and again. This exhibit explores the interplay between living and writing.
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Rental Opportunity
Approximately 1000 sq. ft. is available for rent in the Doud House at the corner of Scott Street and Van Buren Street. This space has been used as office space and as an art studio in the past. If interested in knowing more, please contact MHAA using the association’s email: mhaa.org1931@gmail.com. Thank you.
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MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL REMINDER
Our membership year is October 1 to September 30; please remember to renew your membership to continue receiving our newsletter, invitations to lectures and events, and FREE ADMISSION to Monterey History and Art at Stanton Center.
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Come visit our exhibits at Stanton Center.
Free admission for MHAA members!
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P.O. Box 1082
Monterey California, 93942
montereyhistory.org
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