Marston House Museum

I am not a good mixer and I think this is one reason that makes it hard for people to elect me. Notwithstanding my real sympathy for the laboring man and for the real vital welfare of the community, my way of getting at it is more or less misunderstood. - George Marston on his mayoral campaign of 1913-

Among the friends who often came to father’s birthday parties were the William Templeton Johnsons. The new window’’ in the dining room was designed by Mr. Johnson. Golfing companion and associate in most of father’s civic endeavors, it was he whom father chose to be the architect of the Junipero Serra Museum. It may have been Helen and Templeton Johnson who commenced calling father Uncle George, a practice which quickly spread among his younger friends. Mary Gilman Marston from Volume II of the two-volume biography of her father’s life, George White Marston: A Family Chronicle. Image of described new window by Robert V. Marston House caretaker

"George and I began housekeeping in a tiny cottage on the northeast corner of Sixth and C Streets. We lived in several other rented houses before we built, in 1885, the house on Third and Ash streets in which we lived for twenty years. There our five children grew up with many happy companions. In front was the broad lawn with its shade trees and in the back yard a tall swing and a big pepper tree with a platform in its branches, drygoods-box play-houses, and plenty of room ...for the digging of trenches and a fort and the building of a boat. The most cherished indoor memories of the house center in the large living room, with grandmother’s chair in the big bay-window, and the fire-place bordered with the Shakespeare tiles which we rejoiced to purchase again when the house was recently torn down. (editors note.c 1907) -Anna Lee Gunn Marston Image Marston family, c. 1898 in their Victorian cottage garden at Sixth and C. Marston children Left to right Elizabeth, Mary, Harriet, Arthur, Helen; and Anna and George. Image Courtesy Marston Family.

When George opened his very modern fifth store in 1912, people were still learning of breaking news on large chalkboards, managed by newspapers like this fantastic image on April 16, 1912. (Courtesy National Archives) On the north side of C Street between Fifth and Sixth Streets, George unveiled and dedicated to the people of San Diego the largest store of all, a bronze plaque proclaimed it "The Marston Company." Designed by architects G. W. Kelham and Leonard T. Bristow, it was built in the Italian Renaissance style and of reinforced concrete, then considered to be the last word in retail store construction. Architects Mead and Requa contributed to interior design with a "Children's Corner" play area, and, in 1919, again commissioned for a drapery and hat room.

George Marston was very fond of music and in particular, performer Sir Harry Lauder, a Scottish singer and vaudeville comedian who was coined "Scotlands greatest ever ambassador" by Sir Winston Churchill. "When Harry Lauder came to San Diego my father was entranced by his magnetism of songs. Father got a great many of his songs and practiced them with the aid of a Scotch maid who had to tell him how to pronounce some of the words...he did it so well that people begged him t...o do it. So he had a costume made...a proper costume of kilts which he wore when he sang these songs."- Mary Thurston Marston One of father’s most delightful accomplishments was his singing of Harry Lauder songs. In his spare moments he practiced the Lauder mannerisms, the chuckles and the dialect, and when he rendered Roamin’ in the Gloamm’ Breakfast in Bed on Sunday Morn, When I was Twenty-one, and a Wee Dooch an’ Doris his audiences were inclined to consider him even better than Sir Harry himself. Whether performing at parties in Scotch costume or just breaking into song to entertain a friend, he was inimitable. Mary Gilman Marston from Volume II of the two-volume biography of her father’s life, George White Marston: A Family Chronicle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXW27qTUqic Image Sir Harry Lauder, courtesy National Portrait Gallery

Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve: Originally the pueblo lands of the Kumeyaay, George Marston purchased the first acreage for conservation, and along with botanists David Cleveland and Belie Angler he convinced the 1889 City Council to pass an ordinance preserving 364 acres. A like-minded friend and compatriot, Ellen Browning Scripps then took the lead, between 1908 and 1911, she acquired two additional pueblo lots and willed them to the people of San Diego. Today it is 1,500 acres of gorgeous and rare coastal wilderness.

From the diaries of one of San Diego's founding fathers, Tom Chong-Kwan, aka Ah Quin, from 1876 to 1902 written in both English and Chinese In 1880, he received letters from George Marston and Reverend Camp asking him to come to San Diego to serve as labor broker for the California Southern Railroad... Ah Quin and his wife, Sue, raised twelve children in their two story home on Third Street in San Diego. After he left the railroad, he began to expand his merchandising busi...ness and branch out into real estate. He acquired property around the city and county and leased land to farmers to raise vegetables in Mission Valley and in Bonita along the Sweetwater River. Ah Quin was an influential and highly respected member of the early Chinese community and was given the unofficial title of Mayor of Chinatown. Diary 3, 1878 August 12-1879 August 28 Scope and Content Ah Quin travels to San Diego by steamer with a friend in September, returning to Santa Barbara at the end of October. While in San Diego, Ah Quin becomes acquainted with the Marstons as well as Reverend Camp, and attends their Sunday/Bible schools, earning the respect and admiration of Mrs. Marston-San Diego History Center Document Collection Image of Ah Quinn courtesy The San Diego Chinese Historical Society. Learn more about Ah Quinn: https://sandiegohistory.org/arch/archivalcollections/ms209/ https://sandiegodowntownnews.com/ah-quin-a-san-diego-found/

Hats Off To Marston's! This was such a fun event, just two years ago- we look forward to the next one- so much had already been planned for the 2020 version- 2021 will be worth the wait! Group photo Top left to right Deirdre Lee, Jennifer MacDonald, Susan Whaley, Cat Frasier, Jennifer MacDonald Bottom left to right Susan Whaley, Cat Frasier, Debra Edmund, anonymous guests in Edwardian attire, Eva Miller. Photos by Paul Johnson... Cat Frasier looking stunning in her original Marstons dress and a view from above taken by Robert V.

Family Memories: "During my mother's childhood her home was next to the quaint and famous house of "Lord Timothy Dexter"; it (her mother's home) was large and furnished with taste and elegance, as shown by furniture and dishes which we possess...judging from the recipes in the family cookbook, the food was rich and abundant." -Anna Lee Marston IMAGE:Lord Timothy Dexter's residence next door to the Stickney residence, Newburyport, MA

Found it! #MarstonHouse #SanDiego #UtahMonolith

Yes... we do know its Fall! But some of us have been looking at plant and seed catalogs! A tradition every spring, Lilacs at Marston's, began in 1939 by vice president of the Marston Company, Tom Hamilton. Grown for Marston's in Pine Hills every year by the Barnes family, they began with two bushes, which eventually grew to three thousand!

From the "Presidio Park Plant Survey, by Parish Rye. In the late 1920s George Marston hired Percy Broell as park superintendent, who held that position for ten years and was instrumental in the development of Presidio Park. And in 1937, he produced eight maps with botanical legends documenting what he had planted and what was present in the park at that time. And thus began Presidio Park's horticultural experiment. That document remains unpublished. The maps he produced are u...nknown, until now. George Marston's efforts are the reason Presidio Park exists today. Because of his philanthropy, there is a Serra Museum, there exist roads, there are irrigation lines, there were personnel hired to do the work, there were governmental relationships built (much of the cobble stonework along roadside gullies, and other smaller structures were financed through WPA funding in the late 1930s thanks to Marston's influence) and there are plants that flourish there today. George Marston sought advice from many, including famed Landscape Architect John Nolen as well as from the beloved "Mother of Balboa Park," Kate O. Sessions. These ideas trickled down to the "Man on the Ground," Percy Broell. Mr. Broell was hired by George Marston and was Presidio Park's first park superintendent. He resided in the park in a house that no longer exists in what is today called the grotto, lying just upslope from the corner of Taylor Street and Presidio Drive. He is directly responsible for the original horticultural development and design. Image: WPA workers at Presidio Park, 1937. Photo courtesy San Diego History Center http://www.sohosandiego.org/pr/horticulturaldevelopment.htm

129 years ago: Bought a sunbonnet & a belt at Marston’s.Lillian Whaley, September 14, 1891. Image: Marston’s Department Store, Fifth and F Streets in San Diego, 1892. Built in 1881 by the architecture firm Stewart Brothers in the Italianate style, this was the third of Marston’s stores. The building is still standing. Photo courtesy Marston Family Collection.

George Marston led the effort for city planning in San Diego. Over three decades he sponsored two plans by one of the country's preeminent planners, John Nolen of Chicago. These plans, published in 1908 and 1926, ultimately guided San Diego's expansion and attention to abundant natural resources into the post-World War II era. Book covers-Images Courtesy David Swarens

As he (father) got older he became very much interested in playing golf; after he was 70 he played golf every Saturday afternoon. And he was a very good player." -Mary Gilman Marston Image: located in Old Town San Diego, this nine-acre golf course contains the Ruiz-Carrillo house, the first and oldest house in San Diego, c 1817. In 1907 George underwrote the renovation of this historic property and the development of a golf course that would surround the site. Opened in 1932..., the eighteen-hole course is one of the oldest par-three golf courses in the country. Golf course architect William Park Bell designed the links. George later donated the park to the City of San Diego. Photo courtesy Marston Family Collection See more

"These dye record cards reflect the efforts of the Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework, an embroidery collective founded by Margaret Whiting (18691946) and Ellen Miller (18541929) in the 1890s in the historic New England hamlet of Deerfield, Massachusetts ...."The Arts and Crafts movement was, in part, a reaction against the synthetic dyes first invented by William Henry Perkin in 1856, and these dye cards show the Deerfield embroiderers experimenting with dyestu...ffs that had been used for millennia: madder (Gallium) red from the dye-filled roots of a perennial plant, indigo blue from the leaves of a number of different species of shrub, Logwood purple from the heartwood of swamp trees from the Yucatan in Mexico, and oak galls (with copper and alum, according to the notes on the card) for brown. They reflect a different type of historic preservation effort one focused on recovering and retaining fading knowledge of the art of dyeing." See more