Did you know you can find more than 50 different kinds of seashells on the Mendocino Coast? Thanks to the late Dr. Richard White’s publication, “Mendocino Medicine and Gazetteer,” his interest in seashells can be shared 30 years later. Jane Russell’s hand-drawn illustration that appears on the cover of the report, “Seashells of Albion; The Gastropods, 1992.” “Seashells of Albion: The Gastropods” was a fascicle (printed [...]
Dolly Efishoff in 2001 with Middle School Interviewers Kyle Houghton, Charlie Carter, and Travis Bell. “Today is Friday, February 2, 2001 and I’m Charlie Carter. And I’m Kyle Houghton from the Mendocino Middle School Oral History Project. Our technical recorder is Travis Bell. Okay, we’re talking today with Eugenie Efishoff also known as Dolly, and her niece Carol Rallinshomes on Cummings Lane about a mile east [...]
With the world re-opening after difficult times, the Kelley House Museum is making its own plans to open its doors again…but we could use some help. The doors can’t be open if a friendly docent isn’t available to answer questions. Could this person be you? Veteran docent Judy Chapman greets visitors at the Kelley House Museum. First response to this question we usually hear is, “Oh, [...]
Fire destroys the Mendocino Grammar School, Tuesday, December 3, 1929. The tall structure left standing in the center is the bell tower. The school was replaced the following year with the building that currently houses the Mendocino Community Center. (Original photos from Kelley House Museum Archives and the Nannie Escola Collection) “What Became of the Little Red Schoolhouse” is a five-volume compilation of information on more [...]
The Kelley House welcomes Anne Semans as its new Director. Anne brings 30 years’ experience from the for-profit world, with a background in marketing, small business management, education, and hospitality. She is the author of four self-help books, and has written extensively on parenting, health, and travel. Before moving to Mendocino, Anne lived in San Francisco, where she worked with the groundbreaking, women-friendly, sex-positive, adult toy [...]
Stopping by to visit the Little River Improvement Club and Museum these days, visitors may not realize the small white structure was once the social center of town. The ticket for a 1948 Little River Improvement Club card party that inspired this article. (Courtesy Vince Johnson Collection, in Kelley House Museum) The building itself, located 1.5 miles south of Mendocino on the east side of Highway [...]
Ever hear of the Mendocino Medicine and Gazetteer? It was created by Dr. Richard White, who practiced medicine on the coast 45 years ago. A man of many interests, White started it in 1976 as a journal of rural medicine, and it grew to encompass a world of topics. Hand-drawn map of the Mouth of the Albion River, by R. Kezuka from “Mendocino Medicine and Gazetteer” [...]
Concrete Sidewalks Come to Mendocino by Karen McGrath and Carol Dominy This charming photograph, taken by our very own Mendocino photographer, Perley Maxwell, captures a group of friends, family, and neighbors on Christmas Day, 1906. (Emery Escola Collection, Kelley House Museum) At the front, the smiling man on the left with beard and bowler is Dr. Frank Peirsol. Behind him stands Henry Jarvis, co-owner of the [...]
Vintage Can of Oysters (Polished Pebble) The facts of the case are mostly undisputed. The only question that remains unanswered is whether saloon owner J. W. Barton was intoxicated when he fired his gun at Joseph M. Garvin, missing his head “by the fraction of an inch.”Joe was the proprietor of “Mendocino’s Cheap Cash Store,” a general merchandise establishment on Lansing Street, located where GoodLife Café [...]
At the Kelley House we were given a photograph with no caption, showing a teacher standing in front of a one-room schoolhouse with her students. But where is this place? The background was open clear sky which led us to believe it was a coastal school on a bluff, but which one? And how many coastal view schools were there? Turns out there were close to [...]