The items listed below may be important to our Village’s history, but I am not aware that they have been researched or properly described.
1. Sculptor/painter/illustrator/writer Jo Mora was one of Carmel’s artistic assets. When the Carmel Dairy opened in what is now the Mediterranean Market at Mission and Ocean, Mora had painted a mural around the inside of the soda-fountain-cum-restaurant. I suspect that it may still be there, covered by more recent paint. If so, a treasure would be exposed during the mural’s restoration.
2. All old-time Carmelites remember Louis Slevin and know that he was a noted photographer. Following his death, a large number of his photos was given to the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. John Williams of Carmel Highlands has searched through the Slevin Collection at Bancroft (an appointment is needed) and had problems because the photos have not been indexed. The preparation of an index (if not the copying of the entire collection) would be of great value to Carmel historians. The Harrison Memorial Library could easily get permission to do the job and could provide advice on procedures. Could Carmel Heritage provide the muscle?
3. When I arrived here in 1931, the Village was buzzing about an intriguing story concerning one of America’s best-known evangelists of the time, Aimee Semple McPherson. Apparently, she had left her Temple in LA to spend a surreptitious “vacation” in Carmel and the entire country buzzed about her reported kidnapping and miraculous return. Her story has not been written with the benefit of hindsight research, but I suspect that many people today would like to know about it. Judge Gordon Campbell is the person to write that story!
4. Somewhere around 1937-38, a “Captain Sharkey” came to Carmel, rented a house on San Antonio and became friends with Lincoln Steffins and Ella Winter. He left after a half year or so. My father knew him well and told me later that Sharkey had been sent here as a “spy” to entrap the Steffins on a charge of Communism. I have only heard of this from my father, but he was seldom wrong on matters of Carmel shenanigans. Worth some research, Marjorie Lloyd?
5. There are many references in Carmel’s historical writings to “Professors’ Row” on Camino Real. Someone should go through the old property maps and Stanford University’s faculty lists, identify buildings, and relate them to current buildings.
6. Gertrude Rendtorff was one of our more noted citizens. A detailed profile of her must be placed in our records and Kay Hamm Prine is the person to prepare it.
7. How did Carmelites get water before the Pacific Improvement Co. [later, Del Monte Properties Co.] put that pipeline down Mountain View in 1906 from what is now called the “Old Dam” on the Carmel River (and who knows where that was/is, except myself?). I have seen an old photo taken from Upper Trail before the turn of the century, aimed across “Manzanita Flat” towards the center of today’s downtown: it shows a windmill on the south side of Carpenter between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. Perhaps all of Carmel got its water from wells in pre-pipeline days. Alice Askew, who came to Carmel as a young bride about 1922, told me that there was (a) a water well diagonally across the street from her near the southwest corner of 5th and Guadalupe; (b) another on the south side of 6th just west of San Carlos, near the original wooden firehouse (now on Glenn Leidig’s property, it deserves a plaque); and that (c) an entrepreneur delivered water to houses using a horse-drawn wagon. There is no one around today with knowledge of those very old days but there are a half-dozen or so who have spent most of their lives here, who may remember stories told by their parents.
8. The story of Carmel’s “Tortilla Flats” (plural, because there were two of them) merits publication. But hands off, please!: I’ve been working on this one for a number of years.
Update:
These recommendations were written in 1992/3. On re-reading them about ten years later, I note that some of my items above need updated comments:
…Items 3 and 4 (Aimee McPherson and “Captain” Tom Sharkey) have been adequately covered in several histories of Carmel published in the mid-90s and later.
…Item 8 (“Carmel’s Tortilla Flats”) is a record of my own research. A copy of that record was placed in Carmel’s Harrison Memorial Library, Park Branch, in 1998.
