Guest Post by David Hoexter
August 2015
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| Coastal Sonoma County and the Pacific Ocean |
I
inspect properties for environmental hazards.
Recently a project brought me to rural
Sonoma County, California, about 65 miles northwest of San Francisco.
That is, 65 miles as the crow flies, much
further (and slower) as the truck drives.
The site was located at about 1,400 feet in elevation along a ridge
paralleling the coast, was populated by an old apple orchard and an alpaca, and
was surrounded by vineyards, redwood groves, and fields with dramatic views of
the Pacific Ocean, way below.
Slopes on
either side of the ridge were precipitous.
Rarely have I been paid to visit such a lovely place.
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| Sonoma Apple Orchard |
The
property was occupied by an old house, which turns out to have been a hotel and
stagecoach stop in the second half of the 19
th century on the route
from the inland town of
Santa Rosa to the coastal town of
Gualala, via the out
of the way town of
Bodega.
The prominent
industry was logging of redwood trees, and the roads, such as they were, would
have been deeply rutted by logging equipment and transport.
The trip today, along the Russian River and
bypassing Bodega, is about 67 miles and according to Google Maps, takes about
two hours (often steep and curvy), but in the 1870s the route was much longer
and required three days with two overnight stops.
To the traveler, it probably felt like six.
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| 1870s photo of the house |
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| Notice the stagecoach! |
So
at any rate, here I was in the home of the current resident, a delightful 90 years
or so lady who had lived on the property since the early 1950s. I’ll call her Clara (not her real name). But so what?
The point of this is, that on a wall facing the front door, was a
delightful array of items, and prominent (to me at least) was a lovely American
advertising calendar plate. I spotted it
from across the room.
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| Can you see the calendar plate on the wall? |
Further
perusal quickly established that the merchant, who had given away the plate to
his customers, was W. A. Wernecke, “The” Butcher, whose phone was Main 84. Location not evident. I recognized the pattern from 1910, and
thought I recognized the name “Wernecke”.
On returning home, I found that my eBay research of calendar plates
(conducted religiously since November 2010) had already netted two examples of
the same plate, and that one of the eBay sellers identified Wernecke’s location
as Santa Rosa, California. A quick
Internet search resulted in confirmation from two Google Book sources: I found a 1902 advertisement for W.A.
Wernecke, “Dealer in all kinds of Fresh and Salted Meats, Sausage, Lard, etc”;
and a 1910 listing in a May 1910 publication of the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows of the State of California (IOOF), announcing W.A. Wernecke’s
death. So sadly, Wernecke was not able
to benefit from his advertising give-away.
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| Advertising calendar plate |
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| W.A Wernecke The Butcher! (hard to see advertising on the plate above). |
Returning
now to the owner of the plate, I learned that the plate had belonged to Clara’s
mother, who had in fact lived in the Santa Rosa area. Most likely, Clara’s mother, or perhaps her grandmother,
was the recipient of the plate, directly from the hands of the butcher, W.A.
Wernecke.
For
those who may have missed it, I discussed advertising calendar plates in a
previous Dishy News posting.
Briefly, advertising
calendar plates were American-produced and widely distributed between 1906 and
1921, with production peaking in 1910.
They were complimentary gifts from merchants to their customers, and
although some of the merchants were located in cities and larger towns (such as
Santa Rosa), many were located in extremely remote and very small towns, often
with only a few hundred population and a few hundred more in the surrounding
area. For more information,
read my earlier blog.
For
nearly five years I’ve documented the American advertising calendar plate, and
now have about 1,500 in my database. The
endeavor is time consuming but academically and aesthetically pleasing, and
I’ve purchased not a few as examples.
But for all the research and buying, nothing has given me more pleasure
than to see a treasured example in the living room of a 90 year old lady living
miles from the nearest real town on a ridge overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
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| Sonoma County Coastline |
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| Sea Life at the mouth of the nearby Russian River/Notice seals and birds (pelicans, cormorants and seagulls). |
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| Resident Alpaca Resting in His Apple Orchard |
