Posts Tagged With: Robert Louis Stevenson museum

Charles Schulz museum

Pleasant Hill, CA

Saturday and Sunday have been our literary days, visiting the museum of cartoonist Charles Schulz (1922-2000), the museum of author Robert Louis Stevenson, and the home and National Park Service historical site of playwright Eugene O’Neill. Saturday started with the 75 minute drive back north to Santa Rosa where the Charles Schulz museum is located. Hopefully you have surely heard of Charles Schulz who for 50 years drew the Peanuts cartoon strip with Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, etc. If not, look it up now.

Schulz has a special appeal to us since he spent many of his early years in St. Paul, MN. His interest in drawing and in cartoons dates from an early age and classes in Minnesota introduced him to new skills, mentors and life long friends whose names pop up as characters in his comic strips. His hockey references date back to these days and he continued to play hockey even after he moved to California in 1958 at age 36. After his service in WWII, he returned to MN and one of his first jobs was as a letterer for a Catholic newspaper. He worked on a 48 page anti-communist booklet given to school children. Luckily he had been working on drawings for comic strips for years and in 1950 Peanuts first appeared in seven newspapers. By the year 2000 when he died, it had appeared in over 2600 newspapers.

Charles Schulz writing office-where he made doodles of potential ideas

The museum has both permanent and rotating exhibits. It includes references to the cartoonists who influenced him and the many cartoonists whom he inspired and mentored. He drew all of his strips, doing even the lettering of the captions. He always considered himself as skilled in lettering and his use of various type styles and fonts was an important element of expression necessary in comic strips of just four panels. As he grew older, he was less able to master the details and one can observe a change in the print size and fluidity of the drawings due to his essential tremor illness.

Driving to St. Helena

Leaving Santa Rosa, we drove over mountains with snow, through valleys, and among vineyards to St. Helena, CA. Due to a wealthy American businessman, St. Helena is the home to a small museum housing a huge collection of artifacts relating to Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894). Stevenson is a Scotsman, not an American. He did spend some time in this area, including his honeymoon. Among others, Stevenson wrote Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr.Hyde, Kidnapped, and a Child’s Garden of Verses.

At the museum we received a 30 minute guided tour of the premises which highlighted Stevenson’s life. He suffered from poor health for much of his lifetime. Rejecting the expected career route of lighthouse design and engineering practiced by his male ancestors, Stevenson received a university education in law which he never practiced, turning to the arts and writing. With an allowance from his parents, he traveled around Europe, eventually arriving in Grez-sur-Loing where he met his brother and a married woman named Fanny van de Grift Osborne. Fanny was an American, 11 years older than Stevenson. Several years after the first meeting, they began a relationship that eventually ended with her divorcing her husband and marrying Stevenson. They traveled extensively around Europe, spent some time in America, and then lived in the Samoa for his last years.

Stevenson’s was a celebrity during his lifetime but critical opinions varied over the years with his scholarly reviews increasing lately. He has always remained popular around the world, he is one of the most translated authors of recent time.

Napa Valley and wild mustard

We left St. Helena and drove back roads through Napa Valley. Vineyards were everywhere, as part of large wineries and as part of backyards. The yellow blossoms of wild mustard are visible where ever one looks, the period from January to March being bloom time. Wild mustard has been planted in many vineyards to protect the soil and replenish it with nutrients.

Finally back in Pleasant Hill, we have dinner at a local Italian restaurant. While dinner last night at Outback was very good, their happy hour meal specials are only valid on weekdays.

Sunday began with church in Danville, about 15 minutes south of Pleasant Hill. St. Isidore was probably the most crowded church we have been in for years. Afterwards we had a pastry and visited the Museum of the San Ramon Valley. The museum was having a display of local quilts created during the pandemic. A volunteer with extensive knowledge of quilts gave us a wonderful explanation of the quilts while we waited. We had 2 PM reservations for a tour of the Eugene O’Neill house which is a National Park site.

Eugene O’Neill National Historic Site

O’Neill (1888-1953) received four Pulitzer Prizes and one Nobel prize-which funded the purchase of this home. His most famous works include Beyond the Horizon, Anna Christie, Strange Interlude, Long Days Journey into Night, Mourning Becomes Electra, and the Iceman Cometh. His style of realism engaged theater goers to think, not just laugh. O’Neill and his third wife Carlotta purchased 158 acres of land on a hillside for a writing retreat. He was successful at this time, both financially and artistically. After a nomadic existence for most of his life, he was seeking a writing refuge, a place he could call home. Carlotta and he decorated the home to reflect Taoist contemplative concepts.

ONeill also had health problems and a tremor in his hands made his ability to write almost impossible. WWII took away access to servants and he and his wife lived in a series of hotels for the remainder of his life, dying in 1953. After moving out, most of his possessions were sold or distributed so the house does not fully reflect the home as it was during their time there.

We were lucky for the indoor activities, today the rain was steady and cold. Dinner was just a sub from Jersey Mikes, eaten back at our hotel room.

The books of Robert Louis Stevenson

Ed and Chris, Feb. 26