Story Time
People, Places & Things
Explore La Jolla history out-of-the-box through the curious and inquisitive mind of local historian Carol Olten as she roves her way through a rich mixture of people, places and events from the late 19th through 20th centuries in a new series of Sunday afternoon story hours.
2:00 PM at Wisteria Cottage
The programs are informal with audience participation encouraged and will be held on successive Sunday afternoons starting October 12th.
La Jolla History Re-Imagined
A storyteller with an appreciation for words and humor, Olten has written and collected La Jolla stories as a journalist and historian since the 1960s when she moved to La Jolla to live, first in a Wind’n’Sea beach apartment and, much later, in a historic early 20th century cottage called The Dreamery on Park Row where she presently resides with a Samoyed named Nanook. Although her prime interests remain in art, architecture (and dogs), as the La Jolla Historical Society’s historian and editor of Timekeeper magazine, she has accumulated a wide variety of knowledge on numerous subjects ranging from the significant to the ridiculous. Her Sunday story hours will cover matters such as Scripps Institute of Oceanography founding director Dr. William Ritter’s lifetime fascination with the California woodpecker, evolution of the corner of Girard Avenue and Wall Street in architecture and cultural landscape, tea room popularity in the late 19th century, attorney Gordon Gray’s 1940s efforts to create MCASD and what was cooking in La Jolla kitchens in 1908 (the latter based on a cookbook published by the La Jolla Social Club in that year; you’d never guess the labor intensity of pickled lemons!).
Since the new series will launch with the coming holidays when food becomes a prime subject of concern and conversation, story hours will begin with a group of programs on eating and the history of restuarants and domestic cooking in La Jolla from the late 19th century through the present. We explore white table dining and adventure into the world of the many cafes, coffee houses, tea rooms, delis and fast food eateries popular - and unpopular - through the years. (Audiences are invited to share memories and experiences.) Also, you’ll find out what some of La Jolla’s early and most notable La Jollans cooked for dinner. Since food comes from seeds - plant or otherwise - story hour’s first program is on a little known early 20th century La Jolla farmer.
We hope to see you at Sunday’s Story Time!
A Dive into Dirt with Jethro Swain
A drifter looking for purpose, Swain came to La Jolla in 1910, purchased a considerable plot of land near the top of Genter Street, and made a serious effort to coax the dry clay of historic leftover eras into soil producing strawberries, potatoes, beans, etc. He raised chickens, kept cows for milk and a horse for plough and was moderately successful nurturing and selling his farm products until 1917 when he gave up and went back to Michigan. His greatest legacy to La Jolla was in daily diaries, recording happening of the everyday. Now they provide unusual insight into early La Jolla and the long hours of work involved in producing a single radish.
October 12Ginger Wine & Grandma’s Applesauce
Readings and commentary from the 1908 La Jolla Directory and Special Recipe Book published by the LA Jolla Social Club, one of several community groups formed to improve life in the then sparsely populated seaside village of cow paths and 200 pioneer citizens. The cookbook features about 125 recipes contributed by community residents such a Virginia Scripps (chicken curry, walnut cookies), Nellie Mills (guava jelly, New England baked beans), and Jane Easton (bananas with fried ham). Reading of the recipes today is a joy and great fun considering the cooks often simple instructions of ending a pie prep with a solitary word - Bake!
October 19Nobody’s Home: Ghosts, Seances & Eerie Tales
So ghosts don’t eat and fail to have much presence through La Jolla history but the spooky atmosphere of dark ocean caves and moody mists of marine layers, the place hardly lacks for bizarre and otherworldly stories. The tale of The White Lady cave is a prime example and foremost as gothic romance. But the main story we plan to spark this Halloween week is a celebratory dinner once served in one of La Jolla’s darkest and dampest caves by an eccentric gentleman who spoke Manx and wore unexplainable gold cuff links as he served macaroni and cheese.
October 26Whale of a Time
Yes, La Jolla really did have a whale barbecue. It was held at the Cove in June of 1917. The governor of Baja California attended. A 45-piece band entertained. Our program explores dubious events surrounding the festivities and attempts some answers to the obvious question - why barbecue a whale? Are you really that hungry?
November 2Sips Through Time, The Cricket & Other Tea Rooms
Who would have thought that the woman’s suffragette movement of the early 20th century spawned an entire revolution in the way females enjoyed themselves with new and different social pastimes - i.e. tea rooms. Sometimes declared “a woman’s town” in the early days with a significant number of the populace of the female gender, La Jolla developed a goodly number of gathering places for female conversation and sipping. The Cricket on Prospect at Cave run by a true Brit was the longest running, but many other opened doors for tea with cakes and light sandwiches including The Rose, a short-lived establishment of the present day. Our program explores their history.
November 9Let Us Eat Lettuce
Seeds as the start of the food chain and the possibilities of creating improved varieties adapting to the refrigeration of large quantities of produce shipped around the country, became a concern of the U.S. Department of Agriculture especially during the years of pre-World War II. This led to the department establishing experimental field stations, particularly in California areas where food crops like lettuce could be grown year round and, if able to be adapted to remain crisp and fresh in refrigerated shipping, would find happy faces in front of salad bowls around the country. Unknown to many, a large field station with acres of land for lettuce seed experiments was set up at La Jolla’s front door before UCSD was established. One of the results? Iceberg lettuce, no more wilting. A small girl whose father worked at the station as she went to school in La Jolla wrote a book about it many years later. Another great story about nothing much that became a bigger thing. We’ll tell that story on November 16th.
November 16Dining Experiences, Haute & Not So Much
A plethora of fine restaurants with haute cuisine and bowing wait persons have opened and closed through La Jolla history, but there are fond memories, too, of the holes-in-the-wall with the world’s best tacos and the coffee houses where conversations were equal to the brew. We start with the legendary Brown Bear on Prospect Street opening doors in 1917 and run by a former silent film actress named Lucille Spinney who lent as much drama to hosting as to serving Welsh rabbit. With Thanksgiving arriving later this week, we also review holiday menus of the past at some of La Jolla’s most well-known venues - La Valencia, La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club and Casa de Mañana- from days when dinner with multiple courses was an “expensive” treat for $2.50.
November 23