A Challenge from the Donner Summit Historical Society

Today I finally got a moment to read my copy of the Donner Summit Historical Society Newsletter. They referenced a postcard written in 1913 from a E De Choudens of Truckee to a Miss A Mitchell of Alameda. They asked if anyone of the readers knew if the Mitchells still owned the Alameda house located at 1031 San Antonio Av. 

They went on to pose quite a few interesting questions - Was the writer in love with his correspondent? Did he send the picture? What had Miss Mitchell sent him? What did E. de Choudens do in Truckee in 1913? What lessons was he wanting to give? How long had he been in the country (given his language errors). Did it ever snow that winter? Did Miss Mitchell come to Truckee? Did she speak French (in those days only those with good educations could)? Did they meet in France while Miss Mitchell was on a Grand European Tour at the conclusion of boarding school for proper young ladies? Did they ever get together? Is there a record of marriage? What were their lives like after 1913? To me that was a challenge to my historical sleuthing. So I pulled all my internet search skills together and this is what I found.

The house at 1031 San Antonio was built in 1890 and is still there. It was sold in 1978 so it is unlikely that the Mitchell family still owns the residence. It is quite a large victorian (8 bedrooms) so the Mitchell's would have been a prominent family. 

De Choudens was a swiss ski instructor who worked at Truckee in 1913 at the Winter Carnival teaching people how to ski. In 1940, he resided in Meadow Lake Township, was 63, had become a US citizen and was single (so he was born in 1887 and he did not ever marry A Mitchell). 

Ms. Mitchell was Alexine Mitchell of Alameda. She was born in 1887, was a graduate of Stanford University, served as an ambulance driver, then a nurse in a french hospital during WW1. She was the daughter of Capt. Josiah A. Mitchell who survived 43 days in an open longboat after the clipper ship Hornet burned at sea. Mark Twain wrote a story about his adventure (Long Boat to Hawaii). She was also related to Charles Lee Tilden the founder of East Bay Regional Parks. 

Ms. Mitchell married rather late in life (she was still single at 33 when she returned from France). She married Walter Luboski. He later changed his name to Walter Gregory. They had a son, Dr Michael S Gregory who went to Cal, taught at SF State, was a founding board member of the National Endowment of the Humanities. He passed away in 2005. 

So to answer some of the questions:

What did E. de Choudens do in Truckee in 1913? Taught skiing at the Winter Carnival in Truckee CA

What lessons was he wanting to give? Ski 

Did it ever snow that winter? The postcard was written in February 1913. They got 73.00 in January, 9.00 in February, 17.50 in March and 15 inches in April. The next season, they got much more snow with 156 inches in January alone. 

Did she speak French (in those days only those with good educations could)? I think she probably did speak French based on the information about her tiime serving in WW1

Did they ever get together? Is there a record of marriage? They never did marry - it is hard to tell if they ever dated. She may have been a ski student during Carnival. 

What were their lives like after 1913? We know a bit about Alexine's life (there is even an interview with her about her time in the war online) but de Chouden is referenced on the internet very little. 

Did they have a relationship? Who knows. Perhaps descendants of Ms Mitchell know a bit more.

October 2013

Last weekend, Jim and I went to the lodge with the plan of working on the sauna casita, the BBQ hut and, if time allowed, cutting down some of the dead cedars for firewood.

On Saturday, Jim ran the 220 wire from the lodge over to the sauna and installed the "box" with the needed panels for the wiring.  Next he installed the door I purchased a few weeks ago at Habitat for Humanity.  It is a solid oak door and should wear well in the snow.  Next time we are up at the cabin, I plan to give it a good coat of spar varnish.  And finally, he dropped the ceiling inside the sauna so that the square footage would meet the recommendations of the sauna tech machine.  We still need to insulate (spray stuff), put in the cedar paneling and slate flooring, add the decking, and install the fixtures. We are still hopeful we can get this done by Christmas.

I went out to lunch with mom, Mary, Pattie and Annie.  We were lucky that Annie was here for her youngest daughter's wedding and was able to stay an additional week to visit with us.  We went out to lunch in Auburn and a pretty nice bar and grill. It was fun to laugh and talk and be together again.

I also ran a trip to Home Depot for supplies for Jim, got the trailer tire replaced and went to the grocery to get us some food - we had brought very little up from home this time.

Sunday, we put the tire on the trailer and pulled it up the hill to return it home. It is our spare trailer that has been stored at the lodge for a year.  We are going to convert it to a flatbed for use with the Polaris we are getting this week.

We also managed to work on the BBQ Hut. This year we decided that it was too hard to get the BBQ into the Snow Shed each year so, I purchased some culls at Home Depot and rustled up some metal roofing to be able to build a storage hut for it.  It will be housed on the lodge deck and will be strong enough to weather the snow during our long winters.

We also started cutting down some of the dead cedars (the ones that are closest to the road by the school for easy hauling up to the firewood stack.  We cut down about 5 trees, some small, some a bit bigger.  All pretty much dead from the beetle blight we are suffering in the sierra.

Don was up at his cabin getting it ready for guests and we spent a very small time with him (he had to get back to Sacramento - so no dinner guest).   I got to see our friendly neighborhood dogs (Brandy and Lucky) and the kids who own them.

Quincy spent most of his time running about the yard, hoping for sticks to be thrown for retrieval.

All in all, it was a pretty productive work weekend. We plan to return the first weekend of November to continue work on the sauna and hut and to split some of the firewood that we cut.