The Nethertons as remembered by Haswell Leask

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96 Riverside and the Nethertons

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.

Linda : That was 1909.

Haswell: It was.

Linda: It was in a newspaper story.

Haswell: Well, she was attending Branciforte school. She was 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.

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.

Linda: Can you tell me of other parties or happy times at the homes?

Haswell: No, I don't remember a party there. 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.

One of them lives at Davis, her husband is a professor–retired now. And another lives in Woodland. And another one lives in Lindsay.

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.

Linda: I knew that he 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.

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!

***

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 of been a real new house when I had anything to do with it.

*****

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: I'm sure that one of my daughters has some. I turned over a bunch of stuff. 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. I haven't got the picture. I turned it over to one of my daughters.

He was a lawyer. 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 the 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.

[We are looking at a photo of the house as it is now.]

It's got a fence, it didn't use to have a fence. There was a basement with furnace. It looks to me as though the entrance is wider than it used to be. [The front porch has been partially enclosed.]

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 a while, but I never knew about it.

Linda: You had asked me if the carriage house is still behind the house--and it is--

Haswell: It was just a little bit of a shack

Linda: yes. While I'm thinking of it. What did the back of the house look like? Was there a porch across the back? Did the yard go back to the river?

Haswell: No, it didn't go down to the river. There was just a lot there. I would imagine the lot ended, you had to drive into your garage and that was the end of the lot.

Linda: What was beyond that?

Haswell: I don't remember.

Linda: Was there a porch across the back of the house off the kitchen?

Haswell: Yes, is there now?

Linda: No, it is my bedroom. Underneath there's a basement, and they also enclosed under the porch and extended the basement into two rooms.

Haswell: There used to be a furnace.

Linda: It is still there, but not connected.

Haswell: You haven't cleaned up those panels [in the dining room] yet?

Linda: No, not yet. But I plan to. [He means the wainscotting in the dining room. Over the years it has been painted both pink and white.]