Clarence hied north immediately to join his wife, who had been
painting in Monterey. He announced they would travel north on a
motor trip the following Monday.
Apparently, Ruth had caught her parents by surprise. She and
Billy embarked on a life that included ranching, camping, and
travelling the rodeo circuit until they moved to Pacific Grove in 1927,
where Billy continued his work with horses for various ranchers.
In 1947, Billy suffered a fatal heart attack while roping a horse in
Salinas. Ruth married twice more and eventually returned to live in
Santa Barbara at 1052 Las Canoas Lane in 1951. She was a peek-a-boo
view and a stone’s throw away from her girlhood home of
El Cerrito
.
A SUMMER PLACE
L
ike many of the well-to-do, the Blacks had a summer place
and joined the exodus of Santa Barbarans heading for summer
cottages. While the Knapps went to Lake George, the Blacks headed
for Lake Joseph, Ontario, Canada, where in 1910 they had purchased
Caldwell’s Island near Mary’s mother’s island estate, St. Helens. Lake
Joseph is one of 1,600 lakes in the Muskoka region. It became a resort
destination in the 1880s when the Canadian government built a
colonization road into the area as well as several locks connecting three
of the lakes.
Clarence renamed his island Black Forest and made some
alterations to the 1895 cottage. In 1913, he commissioned the
building of a 50-foot tower of five stories mounted by a flagpole. From
its window, he could see the ports of the three lakes.
Life on Lake Joseph was filled with water sports. Standing canoe
races were popular, and speed boats sped from lake to lake, stopping
only long enough to pass through the lock system. There were rafts
to jump from and inner tubes to float on and sedate excursion boats
where white-clad ladies in beribboned straw hats sedately cruised past
the wooded landscape.
On land, there were lawn tennis and badminton and leisurely
strolls through the woods. One anecdote of the time says that Clarence
kept a barber’s chair at his boathouse for his daily shave. Each morning
as he strode along the meandering path to the dock, he would hide
MOGULS
&
MANSIONS
(top) Billy crossing the Klamath River circa 1921
(below) No Bryn Mawr for Ruth; instead she chose life on the ranch
and the rodeo circuit; (bottom left) Ruth and Billy visit Clarence and
Mary at the Abrego Adobe in Monterey in 1936; (bottom right) Billy
in fur chaps near
El Cerrito
in Santa Barbara circa 1920
62
winter
|
spring
