We depart from San Francisco in May 1908 with plans to see the Far East and Europe and return in January 1909. Fog, of course, chills the air. Lil and I laugh at the weather because our exuberance makes everything amusing. The ship steams out past Alcatraz Island, which used to be a Civil War fort protecting our fair city without ever firing a gun. The same buildings have taken on a more sinister air now that they will soon house military prisoners. The fog wisps past the Citadel, perched high atop the rock. I shudder and turn away, not willing to think of war and prisoners at the beginning of my grand adventure.
The San Francisco Bay is choppy, but the Pacific Ocean itself is worse. We have chosen to travel with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. Their ships may not be as fast as those of Cunard or White Star, but they are the largest and steadiest ships that travel from San Francisco to the East. Our ship, the Siberia, is one of the line’s finest. Our staterooms are quite comfortable. They are paneled in white, with cherry trim, with a white enameled iron bedstead trimmed in brass. The sofa converts to another bed, and the folding lavatory stand boasts porcelain and cut-glass fittings. The room even has an electric light and fan.
A Filipino band plays as we steam away from California, as if to encourage us to look forward to adventure, not behind to miss our homes. Lil and I play golf on deck and eat our fair share of wonderful food, made even more luscious by the brisk sea air. This morning I eat strawberries and oatmeal for breakfast, with maple syrup. Lil has grilled ham and fried eggs. We both consume toast with marmalade and our usual tea. I may gain more than a few pounds on this trip!
We first stop in the Hawaiian islands. We have a day to sight-see in Honolulu, which is a vision of sun and flowers, before we once again are steaming east.
Ten days out, we enter Yokohama harbor. Snow-topped Mt. Fujiyama towers above us in stark contrast to Honolulu’s sun and sand. In Japan, I study the medieval shrines and temples. The Japanese culture seems free of the industrialism that has ruined modern design in Europe. On the surface, Japanese art is full of birds, flowers, landscapes, and seasons. The underlying design strategy appeals to me, however. Everything balances, with good geometry and modularity. Many pieces resonate within me, but Lil refuses to let me hire a ship to haul furniture home.
When we are on land, Lil and I are euphoric but exhausted as we try to see it all. Aboard ship I write to those at home, to Eva about the color and light, to Paul with reassurances about money, to Etta about the sightseeing, and to Bernard Maybeck about the architecture.
We continue on through China, leaving our Pacific Mail Steamship in Shanghai. When we agree that we have exhausted ourselves in Asia, we board a Blue Funnel Line ship for London. The trip takes five weeks and we relax, reading, writing letters, walking along the promenade deck, eating delicious food, and napping right in the middle of the day.
Meandering through Europe with Vienna as our goal is delightful. My favorite non-architectural time is spent in Palestrina, Italy. Lil comes alive when she sees the magnificent local copper urns. The craftsmen stare while she pores over them as they work. Once they realize she has knowledge and skill, though, they are thrilled to show off how they roll the big sheets of copper in two directions resulting in a large flat urn that looks like an hourglass. With handles, the village women balance the urns on their heads to carry water. Overheated in the Italian sun, we stop for refreshment at a cave-like wine cellar.
“Those urns were amazing!” Lil says, as if we haven’t been discussing the urns since we left the shop.
“Do you want me to leave you here?” I tease. “It seems we don’t need to go to Vienna?”
She looks shocked, then realizes I am teasing. We double over laughing, gasping for breath. Onlookers look away as we giggle uncontrollably like schoolgirls.
Once in Vienna, though, Lil’s entire demeanor changes. Before this trip, she was my helpmate, assisting me to build houses of my design. Now she comes into her own. She studies the hammered metal crafting, and I can see her mind awhirl, designing lamps with this sort of shade. She learns about electrical design, power-efficient lighting, and placement of lighting to reduce eyestrain.
During this time I am content to dream in cathedrals and read about the Arts and Crafts movement in Europe, where designs are returning to simple, almost medieval forms with romantic folk art decoration. I am consumed by the anti-industrialist statement this type of design makes. I doubt if an art movement can advocate economic and social reform, yet when I look at a beautiful Arts and Crafts piece, it speaks to me in that vein.
As Lil’s skill with metal and lighting grows, so does her confidence. She no longer hangs back in my shadow. It is her turn to shine. Making the most of every minute in Vienna, she attracts quite a following and meets some fellow artists she no doubt will continue to correspond with once we return to California. I nod and beam my pride of her to these new colleagues as she has done over and over again for me. I fully realize I am biding my time, content with Lil’s happiness, until we reach Paris.
One of our favorite places in Vienna is the Prater. It used to be imperial hunting grounds, and hunters still are active in a good part of it. Lil and I love the area where the world exhibition took place in 1873. Here we can listen to barrel organs and Heurigen singers and ladies’ orchestras. One day a children’s puppet show catches our attention and a young girl reminds me so strongly of Eva at that age I have the strongest pang of homesickness I have yet endured.
We stroll past the terrifying Riesenrad, a two hundred twelve foot tall wheel that in the United States is called a Ferris Wheel. This is the tallest one in the world. Neither Lil nor I have any desire to ride in its thirty swinging gondolas, but we can sit at the Schweizerhaus, have tea, and watch others tempt death.
Lil’s face relaxes into a smile. She loosely piles her hair into a more modern European style that becomes her, and she adopts a more slender, more fashionable gown. Today she wears one in pale lavender, a good hue for her dark hair. It fits snugly enough to show her shape but bells out at sleeves and hemline. Lil is the image of a modern artist, and my heart flutters.
“This is an amazing city, Em. The art and ideas fly thicker than the butterflies in Pacific Grove. The inspiration is overwhelming.”
“You are happy here, Lil, I can see that. I’m glad.” A young woman on the big wheel with her beau catches my attention. She screams daintily, and I shake my head in disgust. Lil grins. “The art world in Vienna offers enough to keep me studying for decades. The celebratory air in the city is pleasant, too.”
“Yes,” Lil nods. “Vienna is home to so many different people. It has a greater variety of cultures than San Francisco. I’m sure that is why there’s so much great art here.”
“But it’s not all smooth,” I say, looking over to the wheel, where the operator turns away a man in the yarmulke of the Jewish. He looks angry. I have attended the Episcopal church since we moved to San Jose, but I have never understood why the Jews are so vilified. Here in Hapsburg Vienna it is particularly blatant.
Lil follows my gaze and grimaces. “It’s too bad politics have to mar this artistic perfection.”
“The Bourgeousie are growing in wealth and numbers daily here,” I tell her as I watch the Jewish man argue a bit then give up and stalk off. “But none of them are really gaining any power. That is going to be a problem for the Kaiser some day.”
“Well, look at you,” Lil says with a smile. “I’ve never heard so much politics come from your mouth! Maybe I’ll make a true fighter for women’s rights out of you yet.”
“No,” I demur, “I’m willing to work for my right to a career and let others do the rest.”
“You don’t want to vote?”
“I’ll vote as soon as I’m able, but I don’t have time to carry signs and write letters and give speeches about it. I’ll leave that to Ellen VanValkenburgh.” We laugh together.
“This is our last day here. How do you feel about leaving Vienna?” I ask.
She turns a radiant smile on me that melts my heart. I will do anything for this woman. “I am at peace with it. I have scores of new ideas I am eager to try at home. It is time to move on.” A teasing lilt enters her voice as she echoes my words from earlier in the trip. “Shall we take ship from here to the States? Do we really need to go to Paris?”
“We’re going to Paris!” I growl in mock outrage. We have laughed together more in the course of this adventure than we have in the entire year prior to our trip. For that alone, I am thankful.
We arrive in Paris late in November, eager to see what the city has to offer, eager for new adventure. This is the last stop on our European tour. After our time here, we return to San Francisco, but for Lil the trip finished in Vienna. She comes to Paris because I want to be here. For me the trip has culminated in the jewel of the Continent. Like Vienna, Paris teems with artists, writers, publishers, patrons and art dealers from all disciplines and many countries.
Our place of residence in this fair city is the Hotel du Louvre. Its brochure says it has always had a reputation as a hotel of character, and attracts discerning guests of social, political, and artistic importance. Lil and I raise our chins, point our noses to the sky, and play the role of guests of artistic importance.
On our first morning in Paris, I am so full of anticipation that I go downstairs before Lil is ready. While I wait for her, I shop at Les Galeries du Louvre, a fashion store on the ground floor. I am not really one to return to San Francisco with an entire French wardrobe, but surely a few new gowns would be appropriate. An artificial Christmas tree festoons the store. I have never seen one before, and I peer closely at it. Constructed of feathers dyed green, probably swan feathers, the overall effect stuns, but it doesn’t smell like a fresh cut pine from the Santa Cruz mountains. Homesickness washes over me again and I firmly turn my attention to the lighting on the tree. In San Francisco people are beginning to put electric lights on their Christmas trees, but this tree still has tiny lanterns and delicate glass balls with candles inside. I realize Lil and I will be at sea on Christmas Day, on the first leg of our journey home.
Lil arrives with a cheery wave, and I put off shopping for another time. We explore the delights of Paris, including the fabulous Eiffel Tower. The city is full of machines, speed, noise, and confusion. I love it. Everything new and popular inspires me; film, vaudeville, the circus, jazz music. A quality to this place speaks to the soul of the artist, and I know I am not the only one to feel it.
We discover the Chat Noir, a cafe in the Montmarte neighborhood, and spend many nights there. The bohemian atmosphere fills our spirits and our stomachs with good food and debates about art trends. We meet high spirited and literary people—the Chat Noir even has its own newspaper.
The incredible natural light surrounding Paris overlays the whirl of the city. I think of Eva and her camera, and long to share this place with her. I write letters describing with inadequate words the specialness of this place.
When we tour the Beaux Arts School, I expect the heavens to open and angels to sing. It is, however, a quite ordinary school. I have presented myself as a prospective architecture student. I don’t know if my femininity or my forty-one years is more off-putting. The male bastion that leads the school has perfected the art of looking down their respective noses with a sniff of disapproval. I cannot imagine anyone finding the teaching here more inspirational than the streets of Paris or supping at the Chat Noir. Lil and I take our leave, looking down our noses and saying we might consider their school.
We giggle like school girls until we are once more among our own people in the Montmarte.
All good things must come to an end, or so the old proverb says. By the time we leave Paris I am ready to go home.
We take a train to London and embark on a Blue Funnel Line ship to retrace our route to Shanghai. Christmas Day dawns while we are somewhere off the coast of Hong Kong. The weather is warmer than any Christmas I’ve experienced, and there is none of the tradition that usually surrounds the day.
At home, when I was a child, we would have a candlelit tree with gaily wrapped presents piled beneath it. Papa and Fannie and all of us children would eat a sumptuous meal with holiday music and special treats. I remember it as only a child can, a happy family time. Adult Christmases never quite live up to those magical early years, and this one is the oddest.
The steamship line prepares a holiday dinner and sings some carols next to a tiny tree festooned with candles, and that helps put me in the spirit a bit. Later, in my stateroom, Lil and I exchange gifts. Mine is clearly a painting, and I am dumbfounded that she was able to buy and secure it aboard ship without my knowledge. I uncrate it and nearly weep. It is an Impressionist painting of the street in front of our Paris hotel, probably painted from one of the rooms above the one where we actually stayed. The scene is recognizable, but most impressive is the light. I peer at the signature. “Pissaro?”
“Camille Pissaro recently died,” she tells me. “He lived in our hotel and painted this there. I thought you’d like it.”
“Oh, Lil, I love it. Thank you so much.” And I can hardly wait to show it to Eva.
I lean it against the wall for now and hand Lil a tiny box. She is overcome with the silver bracelet I bought. It has two charms, one of the Riesenrad and one of the Eiffel Tower. Each charm has its own tiny diamond set into the design. "It's our light," I tell her.
“You and I together forever,” she whispers. Then she turns to me with tears of joy in her eyes, her arms wide and inviting.