Dyer:
It must’ve taken a highly trained interior decorators or someone with an
artistic sense to work on the interior of the home. Do you have any additional information about
the work that went on back in the 1850s in designing interior?
Brooks:
No I don’t. I have no information
to that effect.
Dyer:
Has the home been redecorated regularly?
Brooks:
Some of the rooms there. This
room is all been redecorated. The
ceilings have been lowered here. I
lowered the ceilings three feet in the dining room here. Helped me did
into my living room…
Dyer:
Uh-huh.
Brooks:
…and
over on the…that wall there, there was a pass cover for the service that passed
the food out to the dining room.
Dyer:
Now we’re in the dining room now and looking through a door into the
kitchen and there was an opening in this wall between the kitchen and the
dining room.
Brooks:
Right, right in there is where it was.
Dyer:
So then the house must’ve made use of servants?
Brooks:
Evidently, must’ve had servants.
Dyer:
Oh is there a room for servants?
Brooks:
No, no evidently the servants lived out and came here during the day to
work evidently, but there’d never been any signs of servants living here.
Dyer:
Uh-huh.
Brooks:
There’s a…they’ve had to build bedrooms on to
take care of their own family.
Dyer:
Well a house this size and certainly this expensive must’ve been a
maintained by some servants.
Brooks:
Evidently, yeah.
Dyer:
Any idea what the cost was for the home?
Brooks:
No I haven’t; I have no idea. I’d
like to know just what a house like this would cost in those days. It…labor was cheap in those days, you
know. I don’t imagine it would cost so
much. Today it would probably cost a
fortune if they’d build a house like this.
Dyer:
What’s the estimate…your estimate on the ceiling height?
Brooks:
The ceiling there between 13 and 14 feet. I’ve never measured them
exactly, but I’m making a guess at 13, 14 feet.
Dyer:
What’s it like to try to keep your home warm in the wintertime?
Brooks:
Well that (___) I’ve lowered the ceiling
here in the dining room where it makes it easier to keep warm in here.
Dyer:
I suppose they had wood in the 1850s…
Brooks:
Oh yes the whole wood rotted. That’s the only heat there is in the home was
wood stove. At one time we were going to
put a furnace in and the wife and I talked it over and decided to keep it old
fashioned. They’ve gotten rid of
that. We had to keep those two rooms as
is so I’ve never done anything to change that.
Dyer: Has the government strongly requested
this?
Brooks:
Well at the time they had those architects here, they requested that to
try and keep those two rooms as is, see, so I’ve never touched them.
Dyer:
The parlor, does the government support it in any way?
Brooks:
They don’t support nothing.
Dyer:
That sounds like the government.
Brooks:
No I keep it all up myself.
Dyer:
Well other than the structural change in that you have done, are you
aware of additional changes made by the Cady’s?
Brooks:
The only change that I know of that Cady’s made; they built that bedroom
on the hearth side here.
Dyer:
Now that’s the one that opens into the dining room…
Brooks:
The one right there, yeah open to the dining (___)
into the back parlor.
Dyer:
…parlor. So how many bedrooms would that have given the Cady’s?
Brooks:
They get two bedrooms and then after Cady’s adopted daughter, married and had children, they build a
small bedroom for the boys down in the basement.
Dyer:
So that would’ve made three full bedrooms.
Brooks:
Yep, uh-huh.
Dyer:
It seems that the home is designed around the parlor. Was that a common practice in the…during…
Brooks:
Evidently it must’ve been.
Dyer:
This Mr. Cady was politically active.
Are you aware of any prominent meetings or prominent activities that
they had in the home?
Brooks:
No only other than he was very prominent in politics. He was a republican and on the republican
central committee and…but I’ve been told that he was very popular in the…very active
in politics.
Dyer:
Are there recorded incidents with fires in the area…range fires or the
downtown fires that threatened the whole…?
Brooks:
No I don’t know of any.
Dyer:
Since the home is located on a hill that tends to be rather steep in
some places, has there been a problem with slippage?
Brooks:
No, no there’s been no problem with slippage here. See this ground is all under…aligned with
slate and so it has a good foundation.
Dyer:
Uh-huh. Any problem from the
mines caving in or…
Brooks:
Well the Cady had a mine on the property next door here. That caved in quite a bit up here, but nobody
lives up on that vacant lot so it doesn’t make any difference. That mine next door was an extension to the
Bonanza mine.
Dyer:
But Mr. Cady owned the mine?
Brooks:
Yeah, yeah.
Dyer:
Did he work it himself?
Brooks:
I don’t know whether he worked it himself or whether he had somebody
work it. He had a store down on the Main
Street later and then he was postmaster here for a good, many years, so whether
he worked the mine or not, I don’t know or whether he had somebody work it for
him.
Dyer:
You have nicely landscaped the property with camellias, azaleas, and a
variety of other plants. Do you have
photographs in getting landscaping done by the Cady’s?
Brooks:
No, I changed everything around from the way it was when Cady’s had
it. All the
garden has all been changed; I’ve done all that myself. The back, back there where my (___) is, that was all a vacant lot back in there.
Dyer:
Hmmm. Did they have landscaping
or a garden around the house?
Brooks:
No just a flower garden a little bit the pew
flowers, shrubs that’s all there was here.
Dyer:
The house is not too far away from the court house. Of course the court house was added later…
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer:
…in
the 1890s, but there must’ve been some major changes in the layout of the
streets in the area.
Brooks:
There was…the streets have all been lowered. When I first come here, I think they were
lowered twice. (___)
that gray I came here once before.
The…Dodge Street on the south side of the house here when I first came
here, why, it was more or less of a cult they
had coming up there. There was weeds growing in the street and everything.
Dyer:
Well when they had the home originally, certainly, they did not have the
wide streets?
Brooks:
Oh no they were very narrow streets.
Dyer:
And the fact that we are on a hill and that many of the streets are
still narrow, I assume that we haven’t had significant change in the width of
the streets since they had the cowpaz or the trails or whatever. Well Mr. Brooks I think we ought to take a
tour of the house now if you don’t mind.
Maybe we could start at the front door and walk through and you can give
us a vivid picture of what the Cady’s
and what you have done here.
Brooks:
Ok.
Dyer:
Today’s the 30th of August and we’re about ready to take the
tour of the Cady home and we’re standing on the corner of Dodge Street and Norlin.
Brooks:
Dodge Street and Norlin, yeah.
Dyer:
Well let’s walk in as guest would, Mr. Brooks, and you can just sort of talk
a little bit about what we see and I’ll ask a few questions.
Brooks:
Ok.
Dyer:
We’re walking through the gate now.
Brooks:
This is part of the house here facing on Norlin
Street.
Dyer:
Now these steps are rather steep.
Were these the original ones?
Brooks:
No I replaced the steps. The
steps were originally wider steps. They
went way over to there and over there a little further over there.
Dyer:
So another five feet?
Brooks: Yeah.
Dyer: Make them…must be 15 feet wide
there.
Brooks:
Yeah and they got in bad shape in here four or five…oh more than six or
seven years ago I had them replaced.
Dyer:
Now this is, I guess, a kind of balcony is it? Where you can almost walk around half the
house?
Brooks:
This is the front of the house and the porch runs clean around to the
back; all around the south side of the house to the south side there.
Dyer: How about ringing the doorbell?
Brooks:
The doorbell is broke.
Dyer:
Well why don’t you explain what the arrangement was on that doorbell.
Brooks:
Well the doorbell was a knob out there that you pull and a wire that run
under the house to the side of the house and there was a bell up there fastened
on a spring and when you pulled it right, it jingled the bell up there.
Dyer:
Well with that spring keep a jingling then.
Brooks:
It kept it jingling. That was the
object of the spring so that it would keep it jingling.
Dyer:
Now we’re in the entry and the room that we’re standing in is…
Brooks:
This was a hallway and it was called a “breezeway” in the early
days. It was kind of a separation
between the two rooms here.
Dyer:
So you could walk from the front door to the…
Brooks:
Right out on to the porch.
Dyer:
The porch then.
Brooks:
And about 40 years or so ago, I remodeled this bedroom and I closed off
the hallway and made a bathroom up here in front.
Dyer:
Uh-huh. But this way you could
walk through the house and go back to the kitchen…
Brooks:
Right across the street…
Dyer:
…of
the dining room…
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer: …without walking through the…
Brooks: …through the rest of the house,
yeah.
Dyer:
The room to the left as we walk in; was that originally a bedroom or was
it…?
Brooks:
No, I think it was originally was a setting room or something
originally. It had the fireplace in it,
but it’s been a bedroom as long as I’ve been around here. But originally I think those old…those
blueprints that you have…
Dyer:
Uh-huh.
Brooks: …it shows it as kind of a
setting room.
Dyer:
Yes it’s not indicated as a bedroom…
Brooks:
No so it had been made into a bedroom in later years.
Dyer:
As we look back toward the open door, I notice that you have steam glass
around the entryway…
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer:
Was that the original part of the…
Brooks:
That’s all original. Those glass have been here all the time. They’re original.
Dyer:
So you get a little bit of the morning sun shining through here.
Brooks:
Yeah right through that stain glass, yeah.
Dyer:
Now as we move into the interior of the house and go to the right, we
are stepping into a more formal room.
Well why don’t you identify this room?
Brooks:
Well it’s all…I’ve always been told that this was called the “front
parlor” and that was the “back parlor.”
Dyer:
Separated by…
Brooks:
Separated by sliding doors.
Dyer:
Large sliding doors. Well this
would be a rather formal room.
Brooks:
Yeah for special occasions, for company, or something like that.
Dyer:
Well as we look around, why don’t you identify some of the
features? For example…we have here…
Brooks:
(___) chair there and the what-not…the
old what-not there and there’s a foursquare air force sofa
over there.
Dyer:
Do you have any idea of the age of the…
Brooks:
No I don’t.
Dyer: …giant sofa.
Brooks:
They tell me they’ve been here all the time.
Dyer:
They look like they’re in good condition.
Brooks:
Yeah there’s one little bad place there, but otherwise they’re in pretty
good condition I would say.
Dyer:
Was beautiful scroll work…
Brooks:
Yeah…
Dyer:
…surrounding
it.
Brooks:
Looks like hand carving there of some kind.
Dyer:
And black horse hair. Is that
real horse hair?
Brooks:
That’s real horse hair and they take the manes and tails of a horse and
weave it into cloth.
Dyer:
Uh-huh and then over in the corner you have a piano…
Brooks:
Piano…it too old. My
sister-in-law said she was 12 years old when they bought for her and she’s
about 82 now.
Dyer:
Uh-huh…and then you have special vases and…
Brooks: Yeah, oh yeah.
Dyer: (___)
(___).
Brooks:
…very
old vases…
Dyer:
…pictures.
Brooks:
…yeah.
Dyer:
That would go on the piano?
Brooks:
Piano, yeah and the old Ben Franklin stove there. The date on that is 1852.
Dyer: 1852 so that had to be somewhere
else before it was…
Brooks:
Well that one was made (___). It could’ve
been some years after that by the time he got it out here see.
Dyer:
Does that come from the east coast?
Brooks:
Oh yes. That made…pretty much all this stuff’s come from the east coast,
but I don’t think they made anything like that out here in those days.
Dyer:
Any idea why that’s called a Ben Franklin?
Brooks: Well I think Ben Franklin had a stove works.
That’s what they tell me; he had a stove works.
Dyer:
He is noted for lots of little inventions…
Brooks: Yeah, yeah.
Dyer:
…similar
to this. On top of it, you have an
interesting looking feature. It looks
like an iron…cast iron ornamental cup.
Brooks: I don’t know whether that was
there. Some people suggested maybe they
put water in it see. It’s kind of a
humidifier.
Dyer:
Uh-huh.
Brooks:
But no I don’t know whether that hold water or not.
Dyer:
Do you still use this Mr. Brooks?
Brooks:
Yes the Franklin stove I use it every winter. When I have these tours and when I have
company, I use it all the time.
Dyer:
Well the finish on it is certainly beautiful because it…is it (___)?
Brooks:
Yes I hear remarks about that.
It’s never been polished; just wipe it and it just has that shine all
the time. Evidently, it is very good
material that it’s made of.
Dyer:
It’s sort of a dull, metallic…
Brooks: …yeah.
Dyer:
…color
with very…
Brooks:
Most don’t hold their black, you know, but this hold a nice, shiny black
all the time.
Dyer:
And next to it, you have a piece of furniture.
Brooks:
Platform rocker.
Dyer:
Platform rocker.
Brooks:
I had two of those; two platform rockers.
Dyer:
Is there any particular significance with this particular one?
Brooks:
No not that I know of. They’re
just…
Dyer:
It is original furniture?
Brooks:
It’s original furniture, yeah. The two platform rockers where…these
chairs, are not quite as old, and they’ve been reupholstered.
Dyer:
Now these are smaller chairs than the platform rocker?
Brooks:
Yeah and the old marble top table there was all hand carving on there.
Dyer:
Well that’s beautiful scroll work…
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer: …around it on the legs and the
platform on which the marble rests.
Brooks:
And the old oil lamp on top there which I’ve had electrified.
Dyer:
That was originally an oil lamp?
Brooks:
Oh yeah it was originally an oil lamp and I’ve had it electrified.
Dyer:
It looks like European themed.
Brooks:
(___) (___) my wife’s father was Holland
Dutch.
Dyer:
Uh-huh.
Brooks: And I don’t know whether he was
the instigator in having that or not but he was Holland Dutch.
Dyer:
And next to it, you have the Bible.
Is that the family Bible?
Brooks:
No that’s not a family Bible. That’s just an old Bible. The date on it is 1860.
Dyer: What happened to the missing
piece on it; there’s a…to the right of the Bible a rather large piece.
Brooks: I don’t know.
A little dog chewed on it one time and took most of that bottom
off. It must’ve been something in it
that he liked because he chewed that off.
Dyer:
The dog was on one of the tours?
Brooks:
Yeah, yeah and the old lace curtains.
They’re very, very old. They’re
getting in very bad shape, getting ready to fall to pieces. About 35 years ago was the last time that
they were taken down and laundried and then it took a woman a weeks on all
backwards, so I’ve never touched them since.
Dyer:
That’s beautiful work done.
Brooks:
Oh yes.
Dyer:
I (___) (___)…
Brooks:
Never replace those if they ever…
Dyer:
Now let’s see that covers up the window there that must be eight feet or
so from the floor.
Brooks:
Yeah the window…the window’s about eight feet tall.
Dyer: And then jotting out from the
window another four feet up…three feet up you have the curtain.
Brooks:
I don’t know what they call it.
They have a name for that framework around there. I don’t know just what it’s called.
Dyer:
Uh-huh there’s a gilded framework around it (___)
(___)…
Brooks:
Yeah gild there.
Dyer:
Ornamental work.
Brooks:
I don’t know if that’s a gold leaf or not. Whatever it is it’s hold its color.
Dyer:
Have you had to go over and repaint?
Brooks:
Oh no that’s never been touched.
Dyer:
That must be gold leafs then because…
Brooks:
Must be gold leafs, yeah.
Dyer:
Such rich bonding…
Brooks: It hold
its color like that.
Dyer:
Now what about this shade, Mr. Brooks.
I’ve been admiring it the times I’ve been here.
Brooks:
They’re hand painted shades.
Dyer:
Looks like a garden scene with almost gold leaf in the paint, I
suppose.
Brooks:
Yes it’s some kind of a garden shape with all the flowers there.
Dyer:
Uh-huh and you have shades of this type throughout the rooms.
Brooks: Yeah. These two rooms that have had those hand
painted shades there.
Dyer:
And the second window almost looks like it could be used as a door to
the outside…
Brooks:
That’s what you call “French windows.”
They open up just like doors. You
can open them right up and you use them as a door.
Dyer: I suppose the outside was
shuddered then with…
Brooks:
The outside had had shutters.
I’ve taken all the shudders off because they’re a nuisance to keep clean
and I got them stored away. I can put them back on if I had to.
Dyer:
Uh-huh so this way you could leave the windows open and open the
shudders…
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer:
…and
get a breath of fresh air. Now over
ahead we have a chandelier, but you’ve told me before this is not the original
chandelier?
Brooks:
No the original was oil lamps. My
wife said they…the lamps hung there with all the crystals on it and about 1890
they put electricity in town and that’s when they put these lights…electric
lights.
Dyer:
Uh-huh.
Brooks:
And she told me that her mother sold the old lamps to some “Louie”
company.
Dyer:
As we look up, it looks like quite a distance from floor to
ceiling.
Brooks:
The ceilings they’re between…somewhere between 13-14 feet high and is
all the different borders of moldings and paper borders put around there and
the gold moldings and…
Dyer:
Is that a form of wallpaper on the ceiling?
Brooks:
Yeah that’s some form of wallpaper.
Different borders of wallpaper put around there.
Dyer:
Because that’s a rectangular shaped pattern…
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer:
…that
surrounds the circular base of the chandelier and then there’s molding outside
of it and then there’s another border.
Brooks:
The picture molding and then there’s two or three other moldings there
around.
Dyer:
And then as you come down the walls, you see one, two, three, four
additional strips of molding…
Brooks: Yeah.
Dyers: …with each one
marking another type of wallpaper. Is
this a special paper that’s on the wall now?
Brooks:
It’s a paper…its original paper put on there. It’s kind of a goldish paper.
Dyer:
Uh-huh.
Brooks:
With a leaf or a leaf there.
Dyer: I notice that some cracks are
beginning to appear in the wall. Has it
been a problem?
Brooks:
Well the floor is probably settled some see, and that naturally make a
crack.
Dyer:
Uh-huh. Now in this room there
are several very famous paintings by Ben Sears.
Why don’t we identify some of them and…
Brooks: Well the (___) up here is that is a scene taken…painted up around Kennedy
Meadows.
Dyer:
Uh-huh.
Brooks:
Just where I don’t know but they tell me it’s a scene from up there
around Kennedy’s Meadows on the river up there for dinners
lake or after I don’t know which.
Dyer:
Uh-huh.
Brooks:
With the two deer standing there in the foreground.
Dyer:
That’s beautiful with the treatment of light there in the background.
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer:
And then the rugged terrain and trees, water. And the other side above the piano, would you
identify this one for us?
Brooks:
Well they tell me that’s a scene from Bell’s Meadows. That’s right up (___)
south of Dodge Ridge.
Dyer:
Uh-huh that’s one of the routes followed by the early immigrants…
Brooks:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dyer:
…that
meadow. I particularly like the tree
there that…
Brooks:
Yeah that’s very interesting that old tree there.
Dyer:
The one…evidently lightning is taking the…
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer:
…the
crown in it. Well I know that meadow and
there’s a few changes up there.
Brooks:
Yeah…yeah.
Dyer:
Looks like it’s pretty…it seems to be dryer
now, at least, at this time of the year and…
Brooks:
Well in the fall it gets very dry.
The creek there dries up in the fall.
Dyer: I noticed in some of these Ben
Sears has his name written out in “Sears” and some of the others he has a “BS.”
Brooks: Yeah.
Dyer: You know I was wondering if
there was any…
Brooks:
No I just suppose on it depends on the mood he was in when he signed them.
Dyer:
And another one in this room.
Brooks:
This one over here. He painted
here in the yard. He was a great friend
of my wife’s mother. He’d pop in and
visit an awful lot, and he was up here one day and he took that old chronicle
and that bunch of fruit, put it out in the yard there, and painted that picture
and gave it to her; the day that old chronicles is August of 19, 1888.
Dyer: San Francisco Chronicle; looks
like a peach and a…
Brooks: …bunch of grapes.
Dyer:
…grapes
and…
Brooks:
…a
plum.
Dyer:
…a
plum there.
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer:
Did they do that painting here?
Brooks:
Done it right here in the yard, yeah.
Dyer:
Maybe he sketched it here and then…
Brooks:
Well he…I don’t know. My wife
told me that he painted it in the yard, that’s all I know. He could’ve sketched it here and then took it
down to the studio and finished it up.
Dyer:
What do we know about Ben Sears?
Since he was a frequent visitor here, did your family have tales to tell
about Ben Sears?
Brooks:
Well I’ve never heard of any tales except that he was quite a character
here. He frequent all assumed all the time and he’d make a painting for a
drink. He had all assumed and Tom decorated the walls and everything, and he
tell me he did paint on pretty near anything he could get his hands on to if
it’s a board or a piece of cardboard or anything he’d get his hands on to. Evidently he didn’t have much money in those
days, and he just had to take what he could get.
Dyer:
And canvas was probably scarce back in…
Brooks:
Yeah evidently canvas stayed scarce.
Dyer:
I noticed the one mural we were looking at earlier the looks as if it’s
not canvas but some…
Brooks:
Yeah it looks like a piece of oil cloth.
Dyer:
Well you can see patterns in the background.
Brooks:
Evidently it was oil cloth.
Dyer:
Where the sky is, it looks like a rectangular pattern on it…
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer: …as where the darker areas it
seems to cover that. Well I suppose
that’s a practical man in that place.
Brooks:
I’ve been to a showing of his pictures in San Francisco. In fact, this one here he painted in the
yard, they had that down there at Pioneer Museum in San Francisco here about four
years ago. They borrowed it from me and
had it on an exhibit there. They had quite a (___). His daughter had brought up a lot of
pictures from San Diego.
Dyer:
Uh-huh.
Brooks:
And they had them on display there.
I went…made a special trip down there one day to see them, and I’ve met
his daughter. She was over 90 years old
when I met her. I don’t suppose she’s
still alive now.
Dyer:
Well why don’t we walk into the other portion of this room. Now what do you call this room?
Brooks:
This is the back parlor here.
Dyer:
The back parlor.
Brooks:
It has one platform rocker in, some old chairs and the couch they tell
me that’s a “fainting couch.”
Dyer:
That’s a pretty small couch now that…for the ladies in case they…
Brooks:
Yeah…that’s what they tell me that was.
That was called a “fainting couch.”
Dyer:
The one end of it is elevated quite a bit…
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer:
…with
a headboard alongside of the couch.
Brooks:
The tell me that in the early day’s that women used to faint quite
often.
Dyer:
Well I noticed Mrs. Cady’s health wasn’t…
Brooks:
No her health was very poor, yeah very, very poor.
Dyer:
Did she have some disease?
Brooks:
I don’t know just exactly what was wrong with her…I’ve never…my wife has
never told me just what was wrong with, except I know she had very poor
health.
Dyer:
So that’s the fainting couch?
Brooks:
Yeah.
Dyer:
From that, we turn over to the other corner and what do we see over
there in the…
Brooks:
That’s an old Wheeler Moses sewing
machine. Very old sewing machine…use the
feet for power…
Dyer:
Uh-huh.
Brooks:
…then you put the cloth in from left to right instead of straight too
like you do on a modern machine, and it had a little emery
wheel in there to sharpen your needles with. In those days when needles were very scarce
and they had to use them over and over again; one get a little dull, why they’d
sharpen it and use it over again.
Dyer:
Uh-huh. Have you ever tried to
use this at all?
Brooks:
Oh at one time I overhauled it and got it in working order and I used
it, but that’s been a good, many years ago.
Dyer:
Well it’s in beautiful stated of repair because I’ve seen another one
over at the museum in Murphy’s that is not in good condition; about the same
model too. Well let’s stop this tape,
Mr. Brooks, and put in another one…