Reading: An Englishwoman in California. Jane Austen's Niece !
Having discovered, to my great surprise, this book and author upon my first visit to the California Book Society on Sutter Street, a year ago, and having met the editor of the edition, Zoe Klippert, I subsequently purchased the Letters of Catherine Hubback 1871-76 which were housed in the Bodleian Library in Oxford University, where Zoe was taking a summer course. The lecturer, a librarian brought to her attention that there was a portfolio of letters by a descendant of Jane Austen's family who had gone to America that was unpublished.. She subsequently transcribed the script and the Bodlein library published the letters in 2010 .
With the arrival of my co editor of the RAS (Royal Asiatic Society) Journal in Shanghai, in 2010, Fiona Lindsay Shen, who is a "Scotswoman", to the LA area in August, I picked up the book again, and this time, read it with more relish. Thinking of her and her sons, in California, after their years in Shanghai, I enjoyed this viewpoint through English eyes, of California in the 19th century. .
Catherine Hubback was a novelist herself, starting her writing career by turning a fragment , called the "Watsons" from Jane Austen's hand, into a novel, and writing nine more in succession!By the twentieth century, they were dismissed as "rambling and melodramatic"; all are housed in the Bodleian library. I should think this might be a good task for a graduate student to take on.
Catherine was a niece of Jane Austen. Her parents were Jane Austen's brother Francis (called Frank), a captain in the Royal Navy, and his wife, Mary Gibson. The Chawton House was one of many estates owned by her uncle Edward, who had taken the name, Knight, as he had been adopted by a cousin, who had been childless, and consequently Edward became his heir. Jane Austen had lived in his house with her mother, when their father died. She wrote all her novels there.
Catherine was 52 years old when she left England for America, travelling on the Transcontinental Railroad and settling in Oakland, on the East Bay(where I now live, though I live in an extension of the Oakland Berkeley Hills some distance from Oakland and 20 minutes by car from downtown Berkeley. CH's son was in wheat brokerage and shared the house with her commuting by ferry to SF which at this time was the only means of passage, as the bridges were not yet built. While I have been living here, now about 18 months, the beautiful new Oakland Expansion bridge opened between the East Bay and San Francisco.
In letters to her eldest son John and his wife Mary in Liverpool, Catherine conveys the delights, as well as the "exasperation" she experiences in her new environment. She is critical of the fact that young American girls do not learn needlework, and learn such basics in school; if they want other lessons, their parents have to pay for it. She also finds them so alike, she remarks, especially as many were originally English.
Catherine creates a lace making workshop, to earn some income to supplement her son's income, which is diminishing. She recalls more prosperous days at Chawton House in England which remained in the (Austen) family from 1781-1993 when it was bought by an American Philanthropist, who has restored it and reopened the house in 2003 as Chawton House Library a center for study and research in early English women's writing. Catherine refers to Adela Portal, Edward Austen's second wife, in 1872
Catherine finds pleasure in gardens and Nature, as do many English. Almost any small plot in England has its garden of roses. She delights in flowering plants and trees, comparing them to their counterparts in England and Europe. One amusing ancedote details that she caught a hummingbird that had flown into the drawing room, fed it sugar and set it free. She said it was not so large as her finger.! There is hardly a day that I do not witness a hummingbird or two or three in the garden.
As for Americans and her neighbors, she comments on them with that English dry wry wit of observation, which Jane Austen utilizes in her novels. As a woman Catherine has concerns about maintaining her wardrobe and comments on letting out her dresses as her figure and her mobility change. Walking was de rigour, and is of course, English...she thinks nothing of walking 3-6 miles a day, ---rather like myself. Yesterday I clocked 6.5 miles and this is a century and a half later. .
Recalling how much I admired the straight backs of the Chinese, Catherine comments on American girls carrying themselves so badly...owing to the exaggerated Grecian bend, that they all look humpbacked and poke frightfully as we used to be told when we stooped our heads and rounded our shoulders -- it is very different from the fashionable carriage when the same style of dress prevailed formerly -- when to "bridle properly" was an art taught in the nursery.
I remember my mother instructing us, through the "Carry a book on your head" method...now I rely on yoga to keep my shoulders up and down and my spine straight I had not realized it was a cultural trait, but perhaps CH is right.
Catherine visits Monterey and Calistoga, travelling through Sonoma and Healdsberg, with a stay at the Geyers Resort Hotel and Mt Diablo, which I have wanted to visit, as John Muir's House Museum is there. The Muir property is part of the park system at Mt Diablo, near Martinez, about 30 minutes from where I live...so near and yet so far, as I have not managed the visit. There is no evidence that Catherine made the journey to Yosemite, though her son John does make the trip.
Catherine experiences a drought, the rainy season and an earthquake, during her time in California. Not unlike my own experience . We have also had a drought the past year in California; the paths are dusty and the leaves are falling, though it is not as bad in the Bay area as in Southern California, especially south of Los Angeles. I have also experienced tremors from an earthquake, recently. There are also all the commonly occurring wild fires and smoke that rises including the wild fire at Yosemite, last fall, when I had hoped to visit there.
Reading occupies Catherine's time, and she remarks on reading Baron De Hubner's wanderings around the world...some accounts of San Francisco. When she leaves to go to Virginia, she requests her Sir Walter Scott novels and MacCauley's Histories along with short novels.
Catherine conducts a lottery and sells all her laces when she leaves for Virginia. She had to change her sewing machine and does not find the brand name of the machine she used in England or a Wanzer, and therefore obtains a Wilcox & Gibbs.
As for her observations on children, Catherine criticizes the lack of a "needle" education with young girls and says the English will certainly beat the Americans in this art form, and of course, she is right as needlework and embroidery in England are among the most admired in the world. I however did learn needlework. I took a sewing course from the 4-H Club, and learned basic pattern cutting though I never made a dress of my own...since then, but it allows me to critique dressmaking. Without practice I have become rather inept and can hardly thread a needle unless I have to. I however, did love embroidery, and was quite accomplished at it, and enjoyed it all through my teens. Knitting never interested me, which is far more practical! The kind of motion of the needles was key, and I preferred the knotting and stitching in embroidery and the "pretty" result. .
Catherine communicates some good solid English sense, such as in her commentary to her son, John when he has troubles with his business. She tells him, in her letter of July 30th 1876 "To lose hope and spirit is the worst loss you could have except perhaps health, in the way of business. It is quite natural that you should be anxious, but you ought not to give way to despondency, since your difficulties do not come from any fault of your own, and so long as you continue to do what you believe to be right, you may feel sure you will be helped through all the perplexities which are troubling you. It is exactly in such cases that may be applied the command to take no thought for the morrow, for sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof..." ..whereas today we are always thinking about tomorrow and tomorrow. In August 1876, she writes John's wife, Mary, ""More conscientious and desirous to do what is right I know he(John) cannot be, but like everybody in this life he must have his good and bad times, to try and perfect his character. For nearly 30 years now I have had so much of change and disappointment and uncertainty in everything, mixed up with so much of good and so many helps and blessings, that I always feel when things are going well or ill that it will probably not last, and I feel quite sure that you will be helped through now."
Other less than cheerful observations are prejudice against the Chinese; she feels California would like to extradite all of its Chinese. She has a Chinese servant and has no hard feelings about Chinese. She feels the Blacks with whom she has contact are not good servants; they are too independent and lazy. However, the present situation shows that the Chinese were here to stay, as California probably has the largest concentration in the country. It was such an easy transition from China, in terms of population, as I see almost more Chinese than anglos on the street in San Francisco, though an increased proportion of Mexicans, Latin Americans, and Black Afro Americans on the streets compared to a decade ago.
Catherine's most harsh comment about American Culture was about my favorite holiday of past years, Thanksgiving. She says, in a letter of December 26th to her daughter in law, Mary, from Gainesville, Virginia. , "I was at Pittsburgh on Thanksgiving day; and I don't care for it the least -- it is only a day on which partriotic Americans stuff themselves with turkey and pumpkin pies, and their nasty mince pies, which are so gross they make one sick -- and have the effontery to compare their occupation of this country to the children of Israel in Canaan. To be sure so far as exterminating the original inhabitants they are something alike." Oh, dear, no comment. .
In a letter in 1876, she writes "Economy and extravagance are not affairs of a day or a week, but the result of everyday actions, in watching over the small items of daily life, or the reverse...I hear and read everywhere of the bad times, notwithstanding the low prices of everything,, nobody seems the richer,,,if things are cheap, people will not buy them The only people who seem to be rich here are those who cheat or steal in some way. Of course they don't call it by such names, but that is the truth." No comment.
In 1876, Catherine leaves for Virginia to live with her son Charles and his wife., She arrived in Oakland in 1871, so spent five years in California, during which these letters were transmitted to her eldest son and his wife, and will die one year later, in 1877. She concludes in her November 5, 1876, letter to Mary "...whilst in Virginia I shall have plenty to do for the others, and always companions when I want them. The dullest sort of life is having nobody but oneself to work for or please and when I have darned Edward's sock there seems to be nothing else to do from him. I quite think with pleasure of being useful again." Catherine looks forward to gardening, to playing with and teaching her grandchildren, and returning to her needlework, at their home, and of course, enjoying their company. This son and his wife with their four daughters move to a larger house, Oak Lawn, six months after Catherine's death at age 58
The two sons in California do not prosper as much as they had hoped. John Hubback in England remains successful, travelling widely - 11 trips to Russia and 12 to Argentina. He never returned to North America. He published three books about the grain trade and collaborated with his daughter Edith on Jane Austen's Sailor Brothers (1906). John left extensive memoirs, completing the last a year before his death in 1939, age, 95.
(I may have more to say about this experience of reading these letters by a niece of Jane Austen's in California, later. )
With the arrival of my co editor of the RAS (Royal Asiatic Society) Journal in Shanghai, in 2010, Fiona Lindsay Shen, who is a "Scotswoman", to the LA area in August, I picked up the book again, and this time, read it with more relish. Thinking of her and her sons, in California, after their years in Shanghai, I enjoyed this viewpoint through English eyes, of California in the 19th century. .
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| 11th and Grove, Oakland, where Catherine lived, 1871-1873. Fnd in Bancroft Library, Univ of Cal, Berkeley |
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| Mid 19th c painting of Chawton House, England, Catherine's birthplace (Jane Austen's house museum) |
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| Photography taken of Catherine Hubback, 1874 by the San Francisco photographer, G.D. Morse, (Jane Austen House, Gardener deposit) |
Catherine Hubback was a novelist herself, starting her writing career by turning a fragment , called the "Watsons" from Jane Austen's hand, into a novel, and writing nine more in succession!By the twentieth century, they were dismissed as "rambling and melodramatic"; all are housed in the Bodleian library. I should think this might be a good task for a graduate student to take on.
Catherine was a niece of Jane Austen. Her parents were Jane Austen's brother Francis (called Frank), a captain in the Royal Navy, and his wife, Mary Gibson. The Chawton House was one of many estates owned by her uncle Edward, who had taken the name, Knight, as he had been adopted by a cousin, who had been childless, and consequently Edward became his heir. Jane Austen had lived in his house with her mother, when their father died. She wrote all her novels there.
Catherine was 52 years old when she left England for America, travelling on the Transcontinental Railroad and settling in Oakland, on the East Bay(where I now live, though I live in an extension of the Oakland Berkeley Hills some distance from Oakland and 20 minutes by car from downtown Berkeley. CH's son was in wheat brokerage and shared the house with her commuting by ferry to SF which at this time was the only means of passage, as the bridges were not yet built. While I have been living here, now about 18 months, the beautiful new Oakland Expansion bridge opened between the East Bay and San Francisco.
In letters to her eldest son John and his wife Mary in Liverpool, Catherine conveys the delights, as well as the "exasperation" she experiences in her new environment. She is critical of the fact that young American girls do not learn needlework, and learn such basics in school; if they want other lessons, their parents have to pay for it. She also finds them so alike, she remarks, especially as many were originally English.
Catherine creates a lace making workshop, to earn some income to supplement her son's income, which is diminishing. She recalls more prosperous days at Chawton House in England which remained in the (Austen) family from 1781-1993 when it was bought by an American Philanthropist, who has restored it and reopened the house in 2003 as Chawton House Library a center for study and research in early English women's writing. Catherine refers to Adela Portal, Edward Austen's second wife, in 1872
Catherine finds pleasure in gardens and Nature, as do many English. Almost any small plot in England has its garden of roses. She delights in flowering plants and trees, comparing them to their counterparts in England and Europe. One amusing ancedote details that she caught a hummingbird that had flown into the drawing room, fed it sugar and set it free. She said it was not so large as her finger.! There is hardly a day that I do not witness a hummingbird or two or three in the garden.
As for Americans and her neighbors, she comments on them with that English dry wry wit of observation, which Jane Austen utilizes in her novels. As a woman Catherine has concerns about maintaining her wardrobe and comments on letting out her dresses as her figure and her mobility change. Walking was de rigour, and is of course, English...she thinks nothing of walking 3-6 miles a day, ---rather like myself. Yesterday I clocked 6.5 miles and this is a century and a half later. .
Recalling how much I admired the straight backs of the Chinese, Catherine comments on American girls carrying themselves so badly...owing to the exaggerated Grecian bend, that they all look humpbacked and poke frightfully as we used to be told when we stooped our heads and rounded our shoulders -- it is very different from the fashionable carriage when the same style of dress prevailed formerly -- when to "bridle properly" was an art taught in the nursery.
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| The Grecian Bend Style! |
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| The typescript which Zoe Klippert transcribes |
I remember my mother instructing us, through the "Carry a book on your head" method...now I rely on yoga to keep my shoulders up and down and my spine straight I had not realized it was a cultural trait, but perhaps CH is right.
Catherine visits Monterey and Calistoga, travelling through Sonoma and Healdsberg, with a stay at the Geyers Resort Hotel and Mt Diablo, which I have wanted to visit, as John Muir's House Museum is there. The Muir property is part of the park system at Mt Diablo, near Martinez, about 30 minutes from where I live...so near and yet so far, as I have not managed the visit. There is no evidence that Catherine made the journey to Yosemite, though her son John does make the trip.
Catherine experiences a drought, the rainy season and an earthquake, during her time in California. Not unlike my own experience . We have also had a drought the past year in California; the paths are dusty and the leaves are falling, though it is not as bad in the Bay area as in Southern California, especially south of Los Angeles. I have also experienced tremors from an earthquake, recently. There are also all the commonly occurring wild fires and smoke that rises including the wild fire at Yosemite, last fall, when I had hoped to visit there.
Reading occupies Catherine's time, and she remarks on reading Baron De Hubner's wanderings around the world...some accounts of San Francisco. When she leaves to go to Virginia, she requests her Sir Walter Scott novels and MacCauley's Histories along with short novels.
Catherine conducts a lottery and sells all her laces when she leaves for Virginia. She had to change her sewing machine and does not find the brand name of the machine she used in England or a Wanzer, and therefore obtains a Wilcox & Gibbs.
As for her observations on children, Catherine criticizes the lack of a "needle" education with young girls and says the English will certainly beat the Americans in this art form, and of course, she is right as needlework and embroidery in England are among the most admired in the world. I however did learn needlework. I took a sewing course from the 4-H Club, and learned basic pattern cutting though I never made a dress of my own...since then, but it allows me to critique dressmaking. Without practice I have become rather inept and can hardly thread a needle unless I have to. I however, did love embroidery, and was quite accomplished at it, and enjoyed it all through my teens. Knitting never interested me, which is far more practical! The kind of motion of the needles was key, and I preferred the knotting and stitching in embroidery and the "pretty" result. .
Catherine communicates some good solid English sense, such as in her commentary to her son, John when he has troubles with his business. She tells him, in her letter of July 30th 1876 "To lose hope and spirit is the worst loss you could have except perhaps health, in the way of business. It is quite natural that you should be anxious, but you ought not to give way to despondency, since your difficulties do not come from any fault of your own, and so long as you continue to do what you believe to be right, you may feel sure you will be helped through all the perplexities which are troubling you. It is exactly in such cases that may be applied the command to take no thought for the morrow, for sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof..." ..whereas today we are always thinking about tomorrow and tomorrow. In August 1876, she writes John's wife, Mary, ""More conscientious and desirous to do what is right I know he(John) cannot be, but like everybody in this life he must have his good and bad times, to try and perfect his character. For nearly 30 years now I have had so much of change and disappointment and uncertainty in everything, mixed up with so much of good and so many helps and blessings, that I always feel when things are going well or ill that it will probably not last, and I feel quite sure that you will be helped through now."
Other less than cheerful observations are prejudice against the Chinese; she feels California would like to extradite all of its Chinese. She has a Chinese servant and has no hard feelings about Chinese. She feels the Blacks with whom she has contact are not good servants; they are too independent and lazy. However, the present situation shows that the Chinese were here to stay, as California probably has the largest concentration in the country. It was such an easy transition from China, in terms of population, as I see almost more Chinese than anglos on the street in San Francisco, though an increased proportion of Mexicans, Latin Americans, and Black Afro Americans on the streets compared to a decade ago.
Catherine's most harsh comment about American Culture was about my favorite holiday of past years, Thanksgiving. She says, in a letter of December 26th to her daughter in law, Mary, from Gainesville, Virginia. , "I was at Pittsburgh on Thanksgiving day; and I don't care for it the least -- it is only a day on which partriotic Americans stuff themselves with turkey and pumpkin pies, and their nasty mince pies, which are so gross they make one sick -- and have the effontery to compare their occupation of this country to the children of Israel in Canaan. To be sure so far as exterminating the original inhabitants they are something alike." Oh, dear, no comment. .
In a letter in 1876, she writes "Economy and extravagance are not affairs of a day or a week, but the result of everyday actions, in watching over the small items of daily life, or the reverse...I hear and read everywhere of the bad times, notwithstanding the low prices of everything,, nobody seems the richer,,,if things are cheap, people will not buy them The only people who seem to be rich here are those who cheat or steal in some way. Of course they don't call it by such names, but that is the truth." No comment.
In 1876, Catherine leaves for Virginia to live with her son Charles and his wife., She arrived in Oakland in 1871, so spent five years in California, during which these letters were transmitted to her eldest son and his wife, and will die one year later, in 1877. She concludes in her November 5, 1876, letter to Mary "...whilst in Virginia I shall have plenty to do for the others, and always companions when I want them. The dullest sort of life is having nobody but oneself to work for or please and when I have darned Edward's sock there seems to be nothing else to do from him. I quite think with pleasure of being useful again." Catherine looks forward to gardening, to playing with and teaching her grandchildren, and returning to her needlework, at their home, and of course, enjoying their company. This son and his wife with their four daughters move to a larger house, Oak Lawn, six months after Catherine's death at age 58
The two sons in California do not prosper as much as they had hoped. John Hubback in England remains successful, travelling widely - 11 trips to Russia and 12 to Argentina. He never returned to North America. He published three books about the grain trade and collaborated with his daughter Edith on Jane Austen's Sailor Brothers (1906). John left extensive memoirs, completing the last a year before his death in 1939, age, 95.
(I may have more to say about this experience of reading these letters by a niece of Jane Austen's in California, later. )
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