A Two-House Family

324 Scenic Avenue Martinez studio 1913.jpg

A Two-House Family

Elsie Martinez:

Well, after twelve years I left Marty and moved over to Harriet Dean's house which was just down the street from the studio. She moved here to live near us. It had been a little too hard on Kai because Marty was rather tyrannical. He wasn't well and he was getting old — he was then in his late sixties — so I thought it would be better for Kai and me to be away from him.

However, we took care of him — got his meals and looked after him when he was sick. Separation was not too difficult for him. I think teaching exhausted him quite a bit, and I think he'd grown to where he wanted silence and quiet again, like the Indian he was. When our separation was decided upon, I think he was rather relieved.

In 1939, when we moved to Carmel, my brother moved into Harriet's house and took care of Marty. Two years later Marty became ill, so we came up to get him and took him to Carmel. He was with us for seven months before he died in 1943. Pal, Kai and I were very devoted to Marty. He always called us "his people".

Baum

Who lived in this house?

Martinez

He lived here at the studio and we lived with Harriet Dean (747 Scenic Avenue).

Baum

How had you met Harriet Dean?

Martinez

It was in 1916, I think. She was with the Little Review with Margaret Anderson. They were then in Chicago and New York for a while. Finally they came to San Francisco to get new interest and support to keep the Little Review going.

I was not circulating at that time; I had the baby, three and a half, to care for and I was not going out much. Marty had gone over to some celebration at Coppa's. In came this picturesque girl and sat down beside him. She never said a word, just sat there waiting for some friend to come in. She knew who Marty was, of course. Pretty soon he started to quote something from Nietzsche's Zarathustra, and stopped and paused, and she finished the line. So then he turned to her and said, "Well, who are you?" She said, "I'm Harriet Dean, I'm on the Little Review". "Oh," he said, "then we're going to be good friends."

Harriet Dean and Marty were very great friends. Marty was devoted to her and they were very great friends right up until the day he died.

Baum

Did Marty resent the fact that you moved over with her?

Martinez

Not at all. He included her in "his people". From then on things ran along rather smoothly; there were no cataclysms in either of our lives. Then we moved down to Carmel in '39; this old friend of Pal's [Harriet Dean] had this place there and she wanted us to take it over. So we exchanged the two houses. She took our place up here, we took her place down there, and settled down. She was going into a Catholic order at the time so that she wanted us to take the place in Carmel. That's where we've been for 25 years. Marty died in 1943. The doctor had called us up and said, "Marty is really in a quite serious condition, he is getting too frail to go on with his teaching at the college." So we went up to get him and brought him down with us, fixed up Kai's studio for him. Kai was in San Francisco and engaged to be married to Ralph DuCasse. He lived for six months. He had a good time in Carmel with his old friends. He was quite happy there the last months.