Dear Little Daughter (Part 2)

If you missed Part One, click HERE.

ABOVE: HELEN & ELIZABETH BROWN WITH THEIR HORSE, BABE, AT THE FOREST HOUSE, 1900

It was late Saturday afternoon when the box and its contents came home with me.

That night, Kendra and I sorted through the pages of the album that held the Dear Little Daughter Letter and, using dates on letters and documents pasted inside, managed to put the pages back in order. It alone had so many more stories to share.

We learned the album had been kept by a young couple named Shirley Walter Allen and Helen Brown, who had married in 1913. Its first entry was proudly headlined ‘On Our Honeymoon.’ Photographs told us they had stayed at the Hotel Arlington in Santa Barbara, which four years earlier had been rebuilt following a devastating fire.

Other photographs showed stops along the California coast as they made their way to the house in Red Bluff, which they shared with Mrs. Conelley.

A newspaper clipping revealed that Shirley was deputy supervisor in Lassen National Forest.

Ah-ha! This must be why they moved into the tent in the midst of the forest.

Soon, we discovered Helen’s family had even deeper roots in the area. Drawn by the California Gold Rush and the lure of riches, her great-uncle, Marshall Short, left his home in Ashland, Ohio, and sailed for California in 1850, crossing through the Isthmus of Panama bound for San Francisco. While he initially tried his hand at mining and also ran pack trains, he soon realized he wasn’t very good at either. So he pivoted.

A craftsman by trade, Marshall partnered with two others and constructed what became a destination for locals and travelers: The Forest House.

It was a place where miners and travelers could stop along the trail, exchange gold and coins for goods and services, and even enjoy events that took advantage of a ‘double-jointed’ dance floor above the bar of the main building. The Forest House also became home to the largest orchards in all of California.

It was not lost on me that Marshall Short’s journey, which began with one purpose in mind, had led him down a different path. It also wasn’t lost on me that what he had done took guts and required him to trust the journey.

In 1890, Helen’s parents – Clara and Robert Brown – purchased an interest in The Forest House, Robert being Marshall Short’s nephew. With the exception of a brief stint in Texas, the Brown’s lived at The Forest House until 1909 when, following Marshall Short’s death, the place was sold.

So, it was here that Helen – the Dear Little Daughter’s Mom – and her sister, Elizabeth (Aunt Bess), spent much of their youth. It was also likely that this is where Helen and Shirley first met.

Before the weekend came to a close, the album had one more story to share.

A newspaper clipping told us that just one year after their marriage, Shirley had been present when Lassen Peak – the only active volcano in the U.S. – erupted on May 20, 1914 after having lay dormant for thousands of years:

SEES ERUPTIONS OF LASSEN PEAK

PROF. S. W. ALLEN HAS EXCITING EXPERIENCES NEAR VOLCANO – Will TEACH AT UNIVERSITY – JOINS FACULTY AT COLLEGE OF FORESTRY – PASSES LAST SIX YEARS IN WILDERNESS OF CALIFORNIA

“The awe-inspiring and unique experience of having been on or near Lassen Peak in Northern California all the past summer, and from day to day witnessing the volcanic activity of the mountain, was the lot of Prof. Shirley W. Allen, who has come here to join the faculty of the New York State College of Forestry, Syracuse University.

For six years, Prof. Allen has been deputy supervisor of the Lassen National Forest in which the peak, the only active volcano in the United States, is situated. From the forest service headquarters, sixteen miles away, where dust from the crater fell during later outbreaks, he witnessed the first eruption, May 20. In company with J. S. Diller, the geologist, he visited the crater July 20, after the twentieth eruption had occurred.”

“There’s magic in this box,” Kendra said.

Indeed.

Recalling the abruptness with which I had responded when she first told me about the box, I was acutely aware that in less than 24 hours, our flea market find had somehow begun to shift my spirit from a state of disillusionment to hope.

The weekend came to a close, and the box was put away for the time being. But its magic seemed to follow us and, in fact, grew even stronger.

Read the next segment of this story in Part Three.