EPILOGUE

MARIETT FOSTER CUMMINGS
(Memoirs by Her Niece)
LUCY FOSTER SEXTON

The first home of the Foster family and their friends coming across the plains was San Jose, California. Mariett Foster Cummings and her husband had come with her father on his second trip.

Her new home was at the junction of Alviso and Almaden Roads, about a mile from San Jose. It was a low, six-room cottage with porch across the front and six French windows and two doors upening out upon the porch.

The three front rooms were furnished in mahogany which had come around the Horn as had also the windows, doors and hardware. The bedroom was furnished with a rolled end bed, an oval dresser and a highboy. The curtains in the three front rooms were pale blue and gray damask with lace behind them, the carpets with large pink roses and pale greens.

The parlor was furnished with lounge sofa, chairs, card table and folding tea table. The upholstery was black hair-cloth. The dining room contained a folding dropleaf mahogany table with small side table and writing desk. In this desk the old letters and her diary were found, years after she had willed it to her nieces.

At the rear of the house was a back bedroom, kitchen and workroom and back porch. They had planted an orchard and flower garden. A large sycamore tree, over which climbing “Seven Sisters” roses grew, shaded one end. Each porch support had other varieties of roses and many shrubs and flowering annuals grew vigorously, as only California shrubs can grow in a short time.

This home Mariett Cummings’ brother, Isaac G. Foster, bought furnished when he crossed the plains; also the several acres of land that went with it, as Mr. and Mrs. Cummings wished to go to Columbia [Tuolumne County] to the mines. Mrs. Cummings took her melodeon and secretary with her.

The town was built over a gold mine and eventually they mined it off, or others did who came later. Here she felt the love of a mother for her niece, Mary, of the loss of whom she writes in her diary. They were very prosperous there and next came to San Francisco, where her husband was in the furniture business at the corner of Montgomery and Pine in a large basement.

Their home in San Francisco was on Mason Street Hill, another large cottage where she entertained for many years. Her wide hospitality made a sweet influence in San Francisco.

They went with a party of artists into the Yosemite Valley from Columbia when it was scarcely known. They camped and made the first sketches which revealed the beauties of Yosemite to the wondering public.

It was on this trip that she made an oil painting from the floor of the valley. Two sketches by another artist, George Terell, one of Nevada Falls, the other of Vernal Falls, dated 1858, were presented by Mr. Terell to Mrs. Cummings. When they returned, they exhibited their work in Columbia City and San Francisco.

This was a delightful trip to the Valley. The route, with their pack train of mules was by way of Indian Canyon trail. They camped in the meadows of Royal Arches, Mrs. Cummings told me, “because of better grass and fewer mosquitoes, and to avoid the Digger Indians, staying there a week.”

In her will she gave Lucy Foster Sexton the oil painting which she made on this trip, and her paint box. To another niece, Stella Olmsted Foster, she gave the two sketches of Terell dated 1858, and the daguerreotype of Mrs. Cummings. These articles were presented in June, 1925, by the nieces to the Museum in Yosemite.

Her home was filled with beautiful furniture, a grand piano, and China was sending her wonderful things. Her cabinets had many treasures. Her help was Chinese; these she had to train. Her collections of paintings, silver, china, cut glass and linens were the treasured gifts she left her nieces.

To the writer were left her oil paints and paintbox of California make and wood; her Caucasian shawl; hand made and tucked linen ball dress; gold nugget gold pin; cut glass; painting of Yosemite by herself; pictures and many other treasures. Her parrot had died and its painted portrait was among the things treasured.

At one time on Shotwell street besides her garden and plants there were three parrots, a mocking bird, goldfinch, many cages of canaries, a dog, a cat and goldfish. These took an hour’s care, then another for the garden and house plants, another with the cook. She loved fancy dishes, always doing them herself. Then she had the afternoon to herself, with the evening open for other things.

She said one must have a time for each duty, and some for the improvement of one’s self. The care of her father was one of these, and she classed it as a loving duty. His last days were in her constant care in this beautiful home overlooking San Francisco Bay and the Berkeley hills. Her brother Isaac, sister-in-law Roxanna, and the writer were often with her there.

She was a lover of old lace and an expert in its value. These were the fullest years of her life. She often visited her brother Isaac G. Foster, and his family, on the coast back of Stanford, bringing her gray and scarlet parrot.

When the parrot was having its bath one day, a woodpecker was placed in the cage. When the parrot saw it she screamed and flew out the door for half a mile into a hillside of blackberries but was recovered. Mrs. Cummings was a great help to her sister-in-law in her shopping, as they went to San Francisco twice a year for supplies and again to San Jose for fruit, and for visits to old friends. It was only a day’s trip of thirty miles to each place.

She had been allowed to dance herself, so planned her niece Lucy’s party dresses and hats. When her little namesake came she did many charming things for her. She felt deeply her sister Juliet’s not having advantages out on the stock ranch at San Luis Obispo. The wild flowers of the coast were a perpetual joy to her and our first lessons in botany.

The home was filled with specimens, the table never without its adornment, nor the rooms. All were to her things to admire and she could hardly find words with which to express herself.

She sometimes brought her friend, Miss Emerson, with her, and both were good horsewomen. The beach and the mountains and the redwoods made time pass quickly on these outings. She entertained many noted people at her home in those early days at dinners and receptions. Her beautiful voice and her recitations added to many charming gatherings in that City of Gold with its wealth of the world being sent it in exchange.

She always kept her friendship for Doctor Spencer and his family and many times they were together. At that time a young man from the Bank of California made his home with them. She delighted to show her niece the theatre and art galleries and to treat her to that great luxury, ice cream.

One of her friends, a banker, lost his wife, leaving a child two years old. He wished Mrs. Cummings to take care of his little son. She did so, and gave her love to it, as did her husband. She loved it as a mother, as though it were her own.

The boy was beautiful in face. He took several years of constant care as he was delicate. He grew up to be the sorrow of their lives, one of those so called sandlot hoodlums of San Francisco’s early days.

The building of the Nob Hill palaces was a delight to her and the Park, she said, was her own planning. She had much to do with its planting and growth from a ranch of sandhills; also the Woodward Gardens with museums and greenhouses in their time, like her, transplanted from the east to the west, an education and training, a leaven to lighten California’s young life and bring to it a love of the beautiful things only dreamed of, yet to be realized in her lifetime.

Mr. and Mrs. Cummings moved to Piedmont Springs as the husband’s health had faded. There another daughter of her sister Juliet, Stella Olmsted, came to stay with her, her brother’s son Fred, visiting there week-ends while he went to business college in San Francisco. Stella lived with her for awhile. Those were jolly days for the young people.

The family came back to Shotwell street, San Francisco, where they lived until the husband and the child they reared died. There, after her father had left her some money her brother Isaac tried to get her to invest it in a home, but she thought the Comstock mines were so rich they were a better investment.

She put all her money in them and lost it all, even her diamonds going to pay assessments. After closing her house she was companion to two elderly people, reading and being with them daytimes. Her object was attained. She received enough to put her in the Crocker Home for Old People where she had her lifelong friend, Miss Emerson.

She came south to visit her niece Lucy and nephew Eugene. They both urged her to make her home with them, and almost she said “Yes,” their gardens so appealed to her. She was taken very sick and had to go to the Bard hospital, Ventura, to be treated. Her niece Lucy with two daughters and the granddaughter went to visit her there. The four generations were grouped, two of them named for her Mariett the second and Mariett the third, in the room, and she was a happy woman to have lived to see her name carried on.