[EIGHTEEN-FINAL]
EPILOGUE
John Guthrie
McCallum’s determination to settle in Agua Caliente no doubt was motivated at
first because he wanted a dryer climate for his three sons, Johnnie, Wallace,
and Harry who were stricken by the typhoid siege in San Francisco in 1881; his
two daughters, May and Pearl were spared.
But it should be remembered that no sooner had he arrived in San Bernardino Palm Springs —or the family home in Los
Angeles , even though an item from “Early Days in Los Angeles
W. McCallum, of Palm
Springs , is at the Hollenbeck. Mr. McCallum hails from a region where fruits
ripen earlier than in any other place in the United States . Palm Springs
is a very thrifty oasis between Banning and Indio ,
on the Colorado desert .
During 1890, ’91, the McCallum Ranch was resplendent with
orange, grapefruit, and apricot trees, several acres of alfalfa for grazing
(horses primarily; a few head of cattle) and up against the foot of the
mountain, a home built by Harry in 1888 which was to survive until 1970. John Guthrie had refashioned an Indian ramada
into a small home on Main Street ,
a cool white adobe with a large fig tree at the side of a front patio and room
for his wife Emily to plant a flowerbed.
From White Water
15 miles to Agua Caliente / Palm Springs
A City is Born
In the beginning it was John Guthrie McCallum’s “stone
lined ditch” that made it all possible, thirsty desert land replenished from
his ingenious irrigation system, melted snows spilling into the ditch, further
enhanced by water from Tahquitz Canyon and later, Chino Canyon north of the
village. All this in the face of
failures in other farming regions of the Southland. Water was the key, resulting in one of the
most unique experiments of land cultivation in the history of California: small subsistence farming free from
speculation; land settled by families who actually would live on the land and
own shares in a mutual water company, something envisioned by many other eastern
men lured by the gold rush, remaining in California after getting all they
could (or could not) from mining the gold fields.
At first others shared the dream with John Guthrie,
partners from San Francisco , Oakland ,
and Sacramento
who would risk farming in the desert, or so it was supposed. John Guthrie wanted nothing to do with
speculators! He dreamed of a new city —a community of
families sustained by burgeoning farmlands—early citrus crops grown in
abundance in the middle of winter. And
it did happen, and it could’ve been more, so much more, had it not been for
drought randomly insinuating itself into weather patterns after heavy storms in
1895, until by February, 1897, the McCallum ranch was failing.
McCallum Ranch 1897
However, nothing—not even drought and family tragedy—could
sweep away the City which John Guthrie had envisioned—a desert oasis that would
grow and flourish to benefit future generations. His youngest son, zealous and steadfast
Harry, kept the dream alive with the help of his sister May and her husband,
Hamilton Forline. Pearl would not find herself involved in the
enterprise until 1905.
And always the mountain, slumbering, patriarchal
god—towering San Jacinto rising in an unbroken jumble of bronze granite to the
summit from the very edge of the McCallum Ranch; and later from Pearl’s grand
pink villa, and Harry’s modest Hillside House—always the mountain defining the
valley.
Today as I write this, there are some three dozen direct
descendents of John Guthrie and Emily McCallum living. (The number changes annually—we seem to be a
very fruitful family!) All of them
without exception are descendents of John Guthrie and Emily, their daughter May
and Hamilton Forline, and their daughter, Jane Forline. Pearl ,
the youngest daughter, had no children; nor did any of the McCallum sons.
One evening in 1940 during an Easter break week’s stay at
my great aunt Pearl’s grand pink villa,
as we stood on the open porch looking out over the desert, the setting sun high
above us, the shadow of San Jacinto beginning to engulf the village, lights
from the restaurants and shops on Palm Canyon Drive, beginning to flicker and
brighten, standing behind me, her hand on my left shoulder, Pearl waved her
right hand back and forth across the vast lands stretching out before us.
“You see that land?” she said. “It’s mine, all mine, and some day it will
belong to you children, but you must promise to keep the memory of my father
alive. This city grew out of nothing from
his beautiful vision.”
Tennis Club
A day or so later sitting with her and guests on the
Tennis Club terrace, knees obediently held together (“Do not sit with your legs
spread, Dana,” Pearl once had commanded me as I sat on a lawn chair near the
pool), she stood next to one of large granite slabs which intruded on the
terrace grass. The club terrace was
noted for the large bronze granite slabs which Pearl had insisted must not be disturbed when
she built the club. The guests were
friends from Beverly Hills—“friends” because they were renting one of her cottages—small stucco homes scattered
below on her “front porch” as she called it out toward Palm Canyon Drive—a
couple approaching middle-age, their teenage son and his girlfriend. We listened to Pearl as she led the
conversation away from a persistent discussion on the merits and demerits of
various brands of liver pills and other unpleasantries, cajoling us with her
favorite topic—the desert.
Pat and Dana
Tennis Club by the Pool
1943
“I built my home into the mountain just as I did this
club,” she said, “You will find huge
slabs of bronze granite resting on the back patio of my home. The brook you see below runs from Tahquitz
canyon, the water brought down here by my father. We sometimes stock it with trout for fishing,
and I planted the dwarfed cotton wood trees you see there bordering the brook.”
The flume from Tahquitz Falls
I took advantage of a pause. (Well, after all, hadn’t she told me I needed
to learn how to enter a conversation gracefully—an admonition she’d learned no
doubt from her years at finishing schools in Los Angeles
and Chicago ,
but she never told me how exactly I was to do this.)
“Is there any break in the mountain?” I asked. “I mean, from here to the top?” (Oh, how I wanted her to say, “Certainly
not!” I suppose I loved that mountain as
much as my great grandfather.)
She paused quite regally, as if she were about to
proclaim something truly profound, her stern leathery face marked by years of
living in the desert climate. “No,” she
said. “The mountain continues from here
to the very summit of San Jacinto —ten
thousand, eight hundred and thirty-one feet above us. Some call the slope you see here, foothills,
but they’re wrong. The mountain goes
straight up unbroken, more than two miles!”
She moved over to one of the granite slabs which thrust itself onto the
grass, a welcome intruder. She placed a
hand on the rock. “You know,” she said,
“sometimes the mountain talks to me.”
The story doesn’t end here. Pearl died in July, 1966, her last Will and
Testament contested by some of May’s descendants, along with challenging
Pearl’s right to deny her sister’s descendants one-half of her estate, which
included property then appraised in the neighborhood of seven million dollars,
because a constructive trust had existed in the family since the death of her
father in 1897; and that Pearl had gained title to the land often illegally to
the detriment of her sister, May’s, descendants, but that it was not Pearl’s
intention to disinherit her sister’s descendants. In the final settlement in 1968, in the
matter of a Constructive Trust, the court agreed, but executors and the Bank of
America refused to offer one acre of land in the settlement. It’s ironic that the executor was the husband
of one of John Guthrie’s great-granddaughters, who also chaired the McCallum
Desert Charities Foundation set up by Pearl
in the Will.
This is another story. The mountain remains, but as previously told, Pearl ’s grand “Pink Villa” was torn down in 1970, replaced
by an office building for the Tennis Club which Pearl sold in the 1940s—a three storied
cement box with glass windows, the building of which necessitated gouging into
the mountain.
Again noting that, significantly, Pearl
used money from sale of the Tennis Club partly to repurchase her brother
Harry’s Hillside House, sold by him when he left Palm
Springs in 1901 to be with the family in Chicago .
We asked that Hillside House, including some forty acres of land be
included in the settlement; the defendants refused, offering an extra
twenty-five thousand dollars in the settlement.
Not a single acre or parcel of land would go the John Guthrie’s
descendants.
Harry's Hillside House
Aunt Pearl's Home
Hillside House was torn down in 1970, the mountain once
again gouged out to make room for two additional tennis courts by the Club’s
new owners. All the land ended up in the
Desert Charity Foundation. In one of Alice ’s visits to her
great aunt several months before she died, warned, “You’d better do
something. There will be nothing left
for you children.” Prophetic words,
indeed.
The Foundation built the McCallum Theatre and continued
to support the Palm Springs Historical Society, which has refused on several
occasions to assist me in publishing this history. Other charitable
contributions were satisfied by the Foundation by selling the land, since the
Foundation was required to invest itself of all it’s assets. But to whom was the land sold? Who owns
title now to the property inventoried in Pearl ’s estate which included land owned
still from her father’s estate in 1897?
Did the executor and other board members profit?
It is deplorable that Katherine Ainsworth’s “The
McCallum Saga” which flagrantly falsifies May’s (and Hamilton’s) sacrifices and
assistance in holding on to the McCallum Ranch after John Guthrie’s death in
1897, has not been challenged. This is
no surprise since this history supports the intentions of those who engineered Pearl ’s last will and testament, and perpetuates the
belief that May didn’t give a damn about Palm Springs ,
selling off her interests to the “disappointment” of Pearl .
This “legend” is not supported by facts which “They Can’t Tear Down the
Mountain” reveals.
McCallum Real Estate
– in a 22 page document, the author has prepared a complete analysis of
property dating from the inventory of John Guthrie McCallum’s estate, revealing
how fraud was committed by Pearl in getting control of May’s interests – but
certainly not with the intention of disinheriting May‘s children, after May’s
death in 1908. Those who assisted in
preparing Pearl ’s
last will and testament in 1966 were aware of this, certainly, yet succeeded in
doing just that. Should any of those
descendants wish to pursue this further, the McCallum Real Estate document is
available, as I am—a matter which should be discussed only in person. The door at General Kearny Road is open.
Consider this my own “Last Will and Testament.” For
me, no more sleepless nights as my sister, Alice , experienced through the years
following settlement in 1968.
