He has a special [romantic] appeal to women– and his often dreamy, fantasy view of life can be enjoyed at the Borsini-Burr Gallery in Half Moon Bay (235 Main St., 1-877.712.2111.)
“Three Graces” by Michael Parkes. (This isn’t an “ad”.)
Peter Kyne: Coastside Author (5)
Peter Kyne of Moss Beach returned from the Spanish-American War in the late 1890s and got work in San Francisco as a bookkeeper for a waterfront shipping firm. Maybe he knew it, maybe he didn’t, but Peter Kyne was collecting a trove of stories for books he would write in the near future.
But before he actually picked up pen and paper, he tried to work in the “real world” one last time–selling men’s hats, ties and shoes.
Discovering that he wasn’t a good salesman, Peter Kyne finally decided to do something with the colorful stories that had come his way. He was good at developing simple plots and had a little hit on his hands with the publication of “Cappy Ricks” –a book about the founder of the Blue Star Navigation and Ricks Lumber and Logging Companies. Kyne had a winner in Cappy Ricks, the character, and wrote follow-up books with the colorful CEO doing all kinds of things, including traveling the world, all before the end of WWI.
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From John Vonderlin
Email John ([email protected])
Kyne, the Dolbeers, Carson, and the Donkey
Hi June,
I found about a dozen hits in a search of the old newspapers, using Peter Kyne, and the more productive, Peter B. Kyne, as Search terms. Most of them were bland, except for a couple that mentioned him as testifying in the “High Society”-tinged, Dolbeer Estate Trial/Scandal and as having inherited $5,000 from the estate.
He testified, along with many others, that Bertha Dolbeer seemed totally rational and sane the last time he saw her. That was when she had come into the office at Dolbeer & Carson, where he was a stenographer, for some piece of business, not long before she committed suicide by jumping out of a window of the Walforf Astoria.
She was a very rich young woman with a tragic past. Her deceased father, John Dolbeer, invented the “Steam Donkey Logging Machine,” that gets mentioned often in the Coastside logging stories; and thereby revolutionized 19th Century logging, especially of the giant redwoods.
At some point earlier, after a fire, and needing capital, Mr. Dolbeer formed the Dolbeer & Carson Lumber Company with Mr. William Carson. This was a giant of the lumber companies in Humboldt, harvesting the old growth as fast as possible, to get it to S.F., to build Victorians on the hills. Mr. Carson, is now remembered most for the extremely ornate, “Carson Mansion,” in Eureka, that he had built.
When Mr. Dolbeer died he left about a million dollars to his only survivor, his daughter Bertha. For Bertha’s mother, an invalid, had committed suicide when Bertha was 2, and her brother, four years older, was killed when she was nine, by being thrown from a wagon and run over.
When Bertha died she left the bulk of her estate to her longtime, closest confidant, a young female cousin, and most of the rest in five and ten thousand sums to many friends. The relatives were outraged and took it to court. And lost. Mr. Kyne’s testimony wasn’t critical, but he must have really appreciated the rather princely sum for that time, $5,000, that his testimony helped cement. He also seemed to have benefited from the exposure he got at this high profile trial, where descriptions of the fine clothing of the Society attendees was included in the coverage, as he was listed in the following years as a participant in hoity-toity events in various newspaper articles.
Combing the Coast: HMB Used Book Store
I was drawn to the window of the bookstore on Main Street when I saw the copy of “Combing the Coast” by author Ruth Jackson. Ruth used to live in one of the only homes at Tunitas Creek, a home set off by itself overlooking the ocean–I like to joke that Tunitas Creek is the heart of eccentric sculpturess Sybil Easterday-land.
I met Ruth Jackson briefly (an older lady I remember as being bundled up) when she attended the premiere of “The Mystery of Half Moon Bay’ at Pete Douglas’s Bach Society in Miramar.
I’m Going To Try On The Morning Before I Get Into The Day…
Labor Day for Ed Wilkinson
Princeton Harbor: Do You Feel Safer At The New Intersection Of Capistrano & Hwy 1?
Tell me what you think….
Keri Morgret wrote:
“I work in Princeton and come north on 1, so I use the intersection daily. The road narrows down quickly to one lane, so I usually get in the far left lane for my left turn, since I’m going to be merging left anyway. I don’t like the light arrangement because of the short merge on Capistrano, but haven’t thought about problems of the opposite lane turning.”
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(In the photo the car I am sitting in faces two other cars and both of them are turning left into Princeton. This is a new configuration. Previously, only the left lane turned into Princeton, now it’s two lanes. I find that cars in the new second lane come very close to cars turning left into El Granada (only one left lane turns into EG), compare, for example, the distance with the new configuration at Half Moon Bay.)
The Chronicles of Diana….
I’m really into Tina Brown’s (editor Vanity Fair, New Yorker, Tatler, founder of Talk magazine) new book about Princess Diana because, yes, she uses fabulous adjectives throughout–but mainly because it’s not a superficial read…. although Diana cries and sobs a lot, which becomes a big turn-off– the author tries something which is new to me in a “biography”–from time to time she talks to the reader–in a nod to blogs– giving her opinion, for example, on whether and exactly when the Princess had her first extramarital affair (if you are really curious about that sort of thing.) As a lifelong fan of psychology, I enjoy the way Tina Brown digs into her subject. Very smart–and Very Funny. 
Half Moon Bay Ocean & Sand
New Moss Beach Sign: And You Thought I Wouldn’t Notice…I Like It…Better Than The Old Green One
Peter Kyne: Coastside Author (4)
When, as an adult, he began writing, some of the plots in Peter Kyne’s books included businessmen, the deals they cut and the maneuvering for power that went on in back rooms–all crafted with experience gained working in a Half Moon Bay general store.
East Coast critics never took Kyne’s work seriously, dismissing him as a “local atmosphere writer.” [Jack London, he wasn’t.]
Eventually Half Moon Bay got too small for Peter Kyne and he decided he needed real adventure, lying about his age and enlisting in the army in 1898, in the midst of the Spanish-American War. Off he sailed to the tropical Philippines, with dreams of good plots for stories in his head–but where instead he fell ill with diseases that accompany poor sanitary conditions.
When Kyne returned from Manila and shed his army uniform, he was ready for a quieter life, so he signed up for business school and was hired as a bookkeeper for a shipping firm on the San Francisco waterfront. [This front-row position would prove to be the best choice for finding good plots for stories!] For one thing, he was there when the hardened stevedores came out swinging with their fists when they went on strike for higher wages and better work conditions in 1903.
…to be continued…