The First Geek House in Santa Cruz. Part 2: The Nethertons

Modern Santa Cruzans of the Early Twentieth Century

I knew who lived in my house at 707 Riverside in the Seventies, but nothing about the original owners. (Read Part 1: Inspired by Chaos.) Who built this house? 

Everyone who asks this question starts as I did, with a chain-of-title search, as is suggested in Every Structure Tells a Story. I spent vacation time from work to spend days at the County Recorder’s office. I learned that the house had been a duplex through the Sixties, Fifties, and Forties. In 1931 it was sold from the courthouse steps to pay a $2500 loan. Then I spent days searching back through page after page, year before year, to find the next record, all the way back to a deed from 1906, where a Mr. and Mrs. William P. Netherton bought a lot on Riverside avenue. Who were they?

Mr. and Mrs. William P. Netherton bought a lot on Riverside avenue for $10 from Edwin G. Shafter on June 30, 1906.  The house was built the following year.

City Attorney and the City Clerk.

W. P. Netherton is building him a fine new house next to City Clerk Wright's home. Mr. Netherton is taking great pains to have a home for comfort and an object of beauty to the passing throng. March 10, 1907, Santa Cruz Sentinel

"Max Shafter in cherry tree." So says the caption on the photo from UCSC's historic photo archive. That house is unmistakably the house next door to 707 Riverside. Max Shafter tragically died young.  He was probably a friend of his neighbor Preston Sawyer who took many photos in UCSC's archive.  

The house is an early Craftsman, which would have been called “a modern cottage” at the time. People would continue to build "Victorians" for another decade; they built a modern house for the new century.

In those days, the house was numbered 96 Riverside. Originally the house had a small office, a "jack and jill" bathroom, and two bedrooms on one side of the central hall. On the other side of the call were a living room and dining room separate by pocket doors, and a kitchen behind a built-in hutch with leaded glass cabinet doors. Porches ran the width of the house on the front and back. The front looked out onto a residential street and the gardens of the Riverside Hotel on the corner; the back porch looked over the river. Pocket doors neatly seal off the private areas from public; a perfect, modest house for community-minded people.

Margaret Glassford Netherton, her mother Mrs Glassford Thornton, her daughter Hazel Shepherd Netherton, her husband William P. Netherton, and two unidentified guests in the dining room of 707 (96) Riverside, Thanksgiving 1911.

Afternoon light still streams over the Thanksgiving table every year, and as it has every Thanksgiving more than 100 years.

This is the only photo I have of the interior of the house and its original inhabitants.

How did I come to have such an intimate family photo?

Although I learned who had owned my house, I knew nothing about them until I was at the local historians' meeting in the early Ninties. When I announced to the group that I was looking for information about William Netherton, nobody had heard of him but Esther (Fields) Rice, who grew up on Riverside a block away. She muttered next to me, "His son-in-law lives out in Live Oak."

Mrs. Rice's brief comment changed everything. The next day I called this son-in-law, Haswell Leask, and we later met for two interviews. He told me stories, gave me photographs, and brought the Nethertons and their town to life.

My few hours listening to Haswell Leask was the closest I'll ever get to a trip in a time machine. I treasure the memory of our meeting. Mr. Haswell's daughter visited me a few months later, and shared her memories and family photos with me. Mr. Leask died a few years later, age 103.

The Nethertons As Remembered by Haswell Leask

Interview by Linda Rosewood at Mr Leask’s home in December 15,1994 and March 14, 1995.

Haswell: What can I tell you about 96 Riverside Avenue? I think I've got a story for you. My family would always eat dinner–supper–together. There were five of us children and my father and mother. One night, my father, during the course of the meal, put his hand in his pocket and brought out a handful of tickets, and said that he had gotten these tickets and that there was going to be a show at the Opera House that night . And maybe some of us would like to go. I was fourteen, and of course anything to get away from the home for the evening. So I grabbed a couple of tickets and got a hold friend and we departed, about three blocks we traveled down to Knight's Opera House.

We lived on Green Street at that time. We had no idea what we were going to see, but anything was clearly satisfactory to us. Well, the show started. It developed to be a program, sort of a vaudeville program, put on by the children from an orphanage. And it started. There were several acts and eventually a little girl came out and she sang and she danced, and she had a monologue, and I was tremendously impressed. The show ended.

The next morning I was having breakfast with my mother; we were alone. She asked how I'd gotten along the night before. I started in and told her about the show and told her about this wonderful girl and must been very enthusiastic because in the course of my discussion of thing I said I'd like to marry that girl. Well, my mother must have been very much amused. I went back to school. And the show was long gone and that was that until about six months later that girl appeared in school. And it developed that they had put the children out overnight at various homes. And this girl had been placed at the Netherton's. They must have been affected the same way that I was because they adopted her.

The cover of a newsletter-type publication by the Good Templars. From the collection of the California State Archives in Sacramento. No date, but probably the home that Hazel's family lived in. According to Mrs. Epstein (Haswell Leask's daughter), Hazel's birth mother, Mrs. Shepherd, was widowed when Hazel was 8 years old. She kept her daughter, Grace, age 2, but Hazel, Dan (age 4), Russel (age 6), and Freida (age 10) were sent to the orphanage at Vallejo. Laura (age 14) was sent to work on her own. Freida left the orphanage in a few years and started working. Hazel took a tour of Good Templar branches in northern California, as Haswell's story goes, and while they met her on this trip, the Netherton's decided to adopt her. Mrs. Epstein described the Nethertons as loving people, hungry for children.

Linda : That was 1909.

Haswell: It was.

Linda: It was in a newspaper story.

Haswell: Well, she was attending Branciforte school. She went on a visit to Mission Hill. Which was my school. Well, I lost no time in getting acquainted with her. And we stayed friends for the rest of her life. We were married in 1918.

Linda: What month?

Haswell: June 19th. I was in the Army and we went to—we started our married life in Fort Sill where I was with the school there.

Linda: Was she still living at Riverside when you married her?

Haswell: Oh yeah–we were married in the home. We were married there.

Linda: In the living room?

Haswell: Yes.

The wedding party took photos in the front yard. L-R: Mr. Samuel Leask, Mrs. Margaret Netherton, Haswell Leask, Hazel (Shepherd Netherton) Leask, Mrs. Samuel Leask, Mrs. Shepherd, Mr. Netherton. Mrs. Shepherd was Hazel's birth mother. 

Linda: Were you sweethearts with Hazel all the way through school?

Haswell: Good friends. I never asked her to marry me, never, we just knew we would. After we were married we stopped in Los Angeles, and Zazu [Pitts], who was just getting started, she steered us to a photographer to get a picture taken. Peggy must have them.

Hazel's cat.

Haswell: We went to high-school, I think I was in the seventh grade, that was 1909. It would be about that time that was when she was adopted. Well, we soon went high-school and of course that's where we formed our real acquaintanceship, in high school. And then I went off and left Santa Cruz and attended the University of California at Berkeley. And then I went into the first officer's training camp. And I got my commission and at that time I was a first lieutenant living on a $133.33 a month. Which wasn't quite enough. But then I got a promotion to second lieutenant and I got $166.66 a month.

And we decided we could get married.

Soon we went back there to Oklahoma and lived there for several months. And then she made a trip back to Santa Cruz, and while she was away, I got orders to report to Jackson, South Carolina, for embarkation to Europe. And then she came back to be with me until I left. And then the Armistice came along and I never got to Europe, which I always regretted.

Linda: And then what did you do?

Haswell: After my discharge, we came back to Santa Cruz , and then to Davis, to the agricultural branch of the University, and we lived there for not too long. And then bought the ranch in Waterford, in Stanislaus County, east of Modesto.

So then we moved to the ranch in 1918, no 1920, by that time we had our daughter Peggy–Margaret–named for her [pointing at photo of Mrs. Netherton]–and we eventually had four daughters. They grew up there and eventually married and left home, and they're scattered around all over the state. One of them passed away.

Linda: How long did you live on the ranch?

Haswell: 50 years.

Linda: Why come back here?

Haswell: My wife wasn't well, and we decided that we should move. We came back here about 24 years ago. And she lived about three years after that. She was eventually very ill. She had come out of the hospital and was in the bedroom. I wandered in there. She asked me, "Do want to spend some money on me?" I said "What you have in mind?" She said "I want to take a trip." I knew she'd never take a trip. "Where do you want to go?" "Australia." I said OK, knowing I was pacifying her. Eventually she got better and was able to leave the house. Never said anything more. She improved. Once we were driving to the doctor. We'd been there at least twelve times. I said "You ever talk to the doctor about that trip?" She said she was planning to ask him today. The doctor said it would be wonderful idea. We got a ship, went to Hawaii, Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, and the Fiji Islands. A wonderful trip. We got home. Things went on and it wasn't too long before she passed away.

Linda: What happened to her parents after you got married?

Haswell: Well, that was a sad story. Will Netherton was a wonderful man, kind, competent and a real good person. But he was the worst businessman in the world. He was a born optimist. He had a well-established legal practice. He invested in a large tract of land in Texas. And he hung on to that until the day he died. And I know he never got a cent of income from it. He always had visions of developing it, you know, into a very large place. During the war he involved himself in a mining enterprise. And that was not all successful. I think he borrowed a lot of money. And eventually, the Depression came, and he lost everything. He was destitute. Unfortunately, he became very ill, he had a stroke, and didn't live very long.

Mrs. Netherton 

William P. Netherton, Bank Director and Early Adopter 

Linda: I knew that they lost the house.

Haswell: Yes.

Linda: That was in the court records.

Haswell: So he died in the early 30's. He must have died about 1933. And his wife died a short time later. She [pointing to the photo of Hazel] had a wonderful opportunity, because she took care of them. There were very, very close. Of course, that was a long time after we were married. When her parents were ailing .... They were living in Oakland. She went up there, and spent a lot of time with them.

Linda: So that is where they died?

Haswell: Yes.

Linda: Do know what happened to his legal papers?

Haswell: Oh, I threw away, we threw away, oceans of paper.

Linda: I was afraid you'd say that.

Plans Of the People's Bank

The Watsonville Register says Mr. Weeks has also drawn plans for the new People's Bank at Santa Cruz. This is to be a $60,000 fireproof stone building. It is to be one of the finest banks in the interior of California. Mr. Weeks makes a specialty of bank buildings having made a study of this style of architecture. (Santa Cruz Surf, Sept 9/28/09)

Haswell: Well, when he died, and his wife died, there were still twelve shares of the Farmers and Merchants Bank that were worth about $10 to $12 a share. Hazel had them, and we would never sell them, for sentimental reasons. Until finally, they ended up as 2000 shares of Wells Fargo stock! [Later he told me the stock was sold and land was purchased to augment Big Basin park. There is a bench on the path to Berry Falls that commemorates this gift as “Leask Grove.”]

This is the corner of Cooper and Pacific, sometime between 1900 and 1906. The building in the center of the postcard is the Courthouse. The "Octagon" was the county Recorder's office or "Hall of Records." It is the dark low building to the rear and right of the courthouse. To the left is the Santa Cruz County Bank. To the right of the courthouse is the

IOOF building, with its clock tower. (It is this clock tower that was restored and sits at the end of Pacific at Mission and Water.) This photograph was taken from the second-story offices of the People's Bank. Mr. Netherton kept his office at #6, the center office, and its window still looks out at this same corner.

***

Haswell: When was your house built?

Linda: The year the Leask store was built is the same year the house was built–1906.

Haswell: That must have been a real new house when I had anything to do with it.
***

Mr. and Mrs. Netherton in front of 96 Riverside around 1912. The Netherton’s granddaughter told me that they considered themselves “very modern” and their new home was in keeping with their approach to life. She said Mrs. Netherton was very proud of the electric cooker installed on the utility porch behind the kitchen. 

Mrs. Netherton and her new dress. 

Mr Netherton, Hazel Netherton, her grandmother Mrs. Thornton, Mrs. Netherton. Behind them is the original back porch. In this photo one can see a corner of the house that was once next door, 100 Riverside that burned in the 1960s. One can also see the gable of the house that was across the street, 99 Riverside. It is similar to houses from the 1880s that remain on the block.

Haswell: Well, the strange thing was, that my mother and father, were married by an uncle of my mother's. Named Salem Haswell. Salem Haswell was a Minister who had a ... in the early days, he had a series of churches or groups up the Sacramento river. And he used to go through from place to place in his work. Much later on, he became the head of the California Odd Fellows Lodge, and that the same time, he founded the Good Temperance orphanage, that by trick is fate, she [Hazel] was placed in. Strange world. And of course Will Netherton was, later on, a trustee of the orphanage.

Linda: So that is more of his social conscience.

Haswell: Oh he had a lot of that, yes, yes.

Linda: Do you have more photos you'd like to show me?

Haswell: There is one I'd like to try to get you a copy of. It is a photo of him, in front of the house, in a car, called a Sunset, which was manufactured and built in San Jose. It's got right hand drive and it's an open car, and it has in it a bunch of children, about five or six kids, and I'm sure that when this traveling troupe of youngsters came to town, that he took them for a ride in that car, and she's in there. I'll try to get you one.

Mr. Netherton, Hazel Netherton, Mrs. Netherton and Mrs. Thornton in their car in front of 96 Riverside. The names of other man and the little girls are unknown. The house across the street is similar to others which are still on the block. Riverside Hotel in the background on the right.

Haswell: van Torchiana was a character. He designed the two main rooms of the house, the living room and dining room. Margaret, she was kind of shy person, a wonderful woman. But I think she let Torchiana, who was a law partner of her husband, make most of the decisions, and I think I would agree with her, they could have been improved on, and she ended up with a house that just wasn't her. She was a wonderful cook. I think she liked the kitchen all right.

Linda: What about that little room to the right of the front door?

Haswell: Maybe Mr. Netherton used it as an office. His father lived with them until he died. His father was a farmer of course. When I used to go over there the old man was there then. Hazel was very fond of him, that I remember that she is to have a lot of fun lacing up his shoes for him. He was an old, old man. He had someplace where he was sleeping.

Linda: You mentioned before that Mr. Netherton had the Cadillac dealership. Where was it?

Haswell: He never had it... he never had a place of business. He was just supposed to sell cars, and furthermore I never knew him to... I suppose he sold a car once in awhile, but I never knew about it.

According to Haswell Leask, William Netherton was the city’s first Cadillac dealer. He also said that he probably never sold a car. However, when the garage was demolished in the Ninties, we found a pair of license plates, unused, and still wired together. While I could find no newspaper articles about Mr. Netherton’s dealership, he did own a Cadillac in 1911.

Another New One

W. P. Netherton is enjoying a new automobile—a Cadillac forty, self starter.

—Santa Cruz Sentinel, October 15, 1911, page 6.

One might wonder why the newspaper would publish a story about someone buying a car. In 1911, buying a Cadillac that didn't need to be cranked over by hand showed the world that you were an early adopter of leading edge technology. Could it be that Will Netherton was... a geek?

"A Trusty Friend, and a Stern Foe"

According to various newspaper accounts, William Netherton came to town in the 1880s. He and a partner ran a grocery store on the ground floor of the Lodtmann’s hall on the East Side on the Doyle Triangle. The Nethertons were leaders in that Templars, a prohibitionist fraternitity and they met upstairs in Lodtmann's hall. One of the service projects of the Templars was to provide an orphanage for Californian children; the idea being that alcohol abuse destroyed children’s home life as well as their parents. The Nethertons adopted Hazel Shepherd from there when she was eleven.

Netherton was Justice of the Peace for the East Side when that neighborhood was not yet in the city limits, and then later ran for several local offices. Most races he lost, but he served as City Attorney a few terms around the turn of the century. Election coverage indicates he was supported by the liberal Santa Cruz Surf, and subject to excoriating editorials in the Sentinel. He was a founder of the People’s Bank, and his offices were on the 2nd floor, overlooking Pacific Avenue, and the rival bank across the street.

William P. Netherton

A born leader of men, a shrewd organizer, a true man, a trusty friend, and a stern foe, weld to a character like this, judgment, prudence, and a knowledge of the law, augmented daily by study and there you have W. P. Netherton. This is no machine-made puff, it is the truth, spoken from an intimate knowledge of the man and a great admiration born of the knowledge. Mr. Netherton in the prime of life as years go, but in all that goes to make the sober sensible citizen he is old and ripe. He's the grant secretary of the IOGT, edits the monthly official paper of that organization, is City attorney of Santa Cruz, and besides all these duties, attends to a private practice as large as that of anyone in the county. A good man, a good lawyer, the soul of truth and honor, may his shadow grow broader as long as he lives. (Beautiful Santa Cruz County, Phil Francis, 1896)

For a while, the Nethertons were friends and business partners with H. A. van Torchiana. Torchiana is known to historians as the author of The Santa Cruz Mission (1933). According to Haswell Leask, the Torchianas adopted two girls from the same Good Templars orphanage at the same time that the Nethertons adopted Hazel.

Jan 11, 1911, Santa Cruz Sentinel

The Nethertons were friends with more well-known Santa Cruzans of the era, especially city officials and the legal community. Besides being affiliated with the Leasks and the van Torchianas, the Nethertons’ social lives appear in the papers beside others in prohibitionist and legal circles. Silent movie star Zazu Pitts was a classmate of Hazel’s at Santa Cruz High School and they were friends their entire lives. Another family friend was Eva Whinery, a supporter of early efforts to restore Evergreen Cemetery. The wedding dress of Eva’s mother is in the MAH collection.

Hazel Netherton and friend in the front yard, 1912. The house at 100 Riverside is visible; it burned in the early 1960s.

William and Margaret moved to Oakland in the late Twenties as their health failed and they were cared for by their daughter and family friends. They were unable to pay back a $2500 loan from Edna Scott, the well-known educator. The house was auctioned from the courthouse steps in August 1931, and purchased by Martin and Arlie Moore, who later also borrowed $2500 from Edna Scott. (The fountain at UCSC's Cowell College is a memorial to Scott.)

In 1940, the house was purchased by Glen Ellis, who owned other houses at this end of the block, and who built the Hidden Motor Court next to the river behind the house. Correlating the building materials and the dates of ownership, it was probably Ellis who converted the house to a duplex in the 1940s. Someone painted the wainscoting in the dining room with 1950s-era pink enamel. After Ellis, a succession of real estate investors owned the duplex; its tenants include the R. V. Gregory family who ran a grocery store at the end of Riverside, the R. L. Richeys, and Mrs. Alma Payton.

In 1977, 707 Riverside was purchased by a young law student as a home for her friends while they were in graduate school. In addition to their scholarly activities, they were working on a project that combined their knowledge of Newtonian physics, betting systems, and the nascent art of computer programming.

Haswell Leask told me, very emphatically, that “Santa Cruz hasn't changed a bit. ” What he meant was that there have always been people like Will Netherton would build a “People’s Bank” right across the street from the bank owned by the local elites. There have always been people here who see that with the latest technology they can make a pile of money, and build with it a better world.

If you missed it, read Part 1: Inspired by Chaos