The Hoovers spent many happy years at Rancho del Oso, south of Pescadero. When Mildred died in 1940, Theodore was grief-stricken but found solace in the memory of the Taj Mahal he had visited decades earlier. He recalled that this “wonder of the world” had been built in honor of a lost love–and Rancho del Oso–his natural wonder–was a testament to Mildred, his lost love.
Hoover eloquently expressed this sentiment in the epilogue of Mildred’s memoirs.
“I now understand,” Hoover wrote, “and see clearly that it was his attempt to form a concrete expression of that haunting mixture of pain and pleasure that is in the hearts of all good men who have ever loved and long loved and lost a loving and good woman.”
Theodore Jesse Hoover died at age 85 at his beloved Rancho del Oso in 1955. He never achieved the fame and notoriety of brother Herbert–but he lived a full life and is remembered fo rhis great love for a wonderful woman.