Alma de Bretteville Spreckels | |
|---|---|
 Alma de Bretteville in 1904 | |
| Born | Alma Charlotte Corday le Normand de Bretteville (1881-03-24)March 24, 1881 |
| Died | August 7, 1968(1968-08-07) (aged 87) San Francisco, California, US |
| Occupations | philanthropist,art patron,art model |
| Known for | Founding of theCalifornia Palace of the Legion of Honor |
| Height | 6 ft 0 in (183 cm) |
| Spouses | Adolph Bernard Spreckels (1908-1924) Elmer Awl (1939-1943) |
| Children | 3; Alma Emma Spreckels (later Rosekrans), Adolf Bernard Spreckels, Jr., Dorothy Constance Spreckels (later Munn) |
| Relatives | Charles de Bretteville (nephew) |
| Honours | Grand Cross of theLegion of Honour (1924) |
Alma de Bretteville Spreckels (March 24, 1881 – August 7, 1968) was a wealthysocialite andphilanthropist inSan Francisco, California. She was known both as "Big Alma" (she was 6 feet (1.8 m) tall) and "The Great Grandmother of San Francisco". Among her many accomplishments, she persuaded her first husband,sugar magnateAdolph B. Spreckels, to donate theCalifornia Palace of the Legion of Honor to the city of San Francisco.
Alma Charlotte Cordayle Normand de Bretteville was born in 1881 on a farm nearLake Merced,[1] in the then-ruralOutside Lands of San Francisco, the fifth of six children of Viggo and Mathilde de Bretteville, twoDanish immigrants.[2] Farming was difficult in the sand dunes that formed the outskirts of San Francisco at that time, and the farm was unsuccessful, prompting the family to relocate back to the main part of the city, moving to a small flat on Francisco Street, onRussian Hill.[3][4] The family was very poor during her early childhood. Viggo descended fromFranco-Danish nobility through his grandfather who emigrated during theFrench Revolution and used that as an excuse to avoid working[4] while simultaneously deriding the "nouveau riche" of California.[5] In contrast, Mathilde had enough ingenuity and business sense to open a combination Danish bakery, laundry service, and massage parlor which became the family's source of income.[6] At age 14, Alma's father had Alma quit school to work full-time for the family laundry delivery business, often for wealthy customers whose lifestyle she came to admire.[4]
She had developed a love of art and enrolled in theMark Hopkins Institute of Art to study painting, eventually specializing in the painting ofminiatures. While there, she earned money as anartists' model, and eventually, becoming a nude model for paintings in the city's saloons.[5] Now flush with cash, she became popular around town, and found herself intimately involved with awealthy Klondike ex-miner named Charlie Anderson. After their relationship deteriorated, she sued Anderson in 1902 forbreach of promise and won, though Anderson soon returned to the Klondike and never paid on the lawsuit. She would later claim that she had sued him for "personal defloweration".[5][7]
Alma de Bretteville met her future husband thanks to a rumor that she modeled for theDewey Monument byRobert Aitken, which can be found inUnion Square. One version of the story holds that Aitken hired Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, who had modeled for Aitken previously, to model for the statue. However, a 1902 article detailing the monument's construction states that Aitken's model was Clara Petzold[8] or Petzoldt, a popular artists' model in San Francisco at that time.[9] Regardless, this statue was selected from a number of entries and only barely made the cut, thanks to the crucial vote of the chair of the Citizens' Committee,Adolph B. Spreckels. Although he was 24 years older than she was, he was smitten by Alma, and after a five-year courtship, they married on May 11, 1908.[5]
Initially, they lived in Adolph's house inSausalito, where their first daughter, Alma Emma, was born in 1909. However he soon purchased a property inPacific Heights where he had aBeaux-Arts mansion built, which was completed in 1912. The home was later known as theSpreckels Mansion, which in the 2000s became the home ofDanielle Steel.[10] In the meantime, son Adolph Bernard Jr. was born in 1911, followed by another daughter,Dorothy Constance, in 1913. It was after Dorothy's birth that Spreckels learned her husband had contractedsyphilis before their marriage, as he began showing symptoms of the disease. Alma and her children, however, avoided contracting syphilis.[5]
After the mansion was completed, Spreckels began throwing opulent parties befitting a woman of her status. Although attended by local celebrities such as authorJack London and sculptorEarl Cummings, there were a number of people who were disdainful of her earlier infamy and snubbed her invitations.[5] This motivated her to gain some respectability for herself, which she did by going toParis. There, she met entertainerLoie Fuller and through Fuller, other artists, most notablyAuguste Rodin. With Fuller's encouragement and contacts, Alma Spreckels eventually became one of the more influential art collectors in the U.S.[5]
She returned from Paris right after the beginning ofWorld War I. Having purchased a number of Rodin's works directly from the artist, she had them displayed at the 1915Panama–Pacific International Exposition. It was there that Spreckels fell in love with the French Pavilion, which was a temporary building constructed only of a wood frame covered withstaff, a kind offaux stone made from a mixture ofplaster andburlap-type fiber. She decided to have a permanent and exact replica of the building constructed so she could permanently contain her burgeoning art collection, but it would be another nine years before this dream could come to fruition.[5]
In the intervening time, she busied herself with charity auctions, raising money for war-torn France, Belgium, and Romania. For one such event at thePalace Hotel, she was able to obtain donations from U.S. presidents and other renowned individuals. Her own collection was not spared: her prized RodinThe Genius of War also went on the auction block.[5]
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After some persuading, Adolph eventually agreed to fund Spreckels' museum project. To acquire more art and financial support, Spreckels returned to Europe. The French government agreed to supply some, andQueen Marie of Romania donated a replica of her Byzantine Golden Room. While Spreckels was in Europe, PresidentWarren G. Harding requested her help in compiling a report on post-war working conditions for women for theDepartment of Labor's Women's Bureau,[11] which she dutifully carried out.
In 1921, ground was broken for the Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum in Lincoln Park, San Francisco. As Spreckels envisioned it, the building is an almost exact, full-scale replica of the French Pavilion from the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, which in turn was a three-quarter-scale version of thePalais de la Légion d'Honneur inParis designed byGeorge Applegarth and H. Guillaume. At the close of the exposition, which was located just a few miles away in the current Marina district, the French government granted Adolph permission to construct a permanent replica of the French Pavilion.[12] The museum opened on November 11, 1924, six months after Adolph's death. During the dedication ceremony, the Counsellor of State of France announced that Spreckels had been awarded the Grand Cross of theLégion d'honneur.[5]
Spreckels continued her charity rummage sales during theGreat Depression, this time expanded tothrift shops, which were eventually given toThe Salvation Army to operate. She also continued her devotion to the arts, obtaining more and more works for her museum as well as coordinating and partially funding the development of theMaryhill Museum of Art inMaryhill, Washington, after the death of her friendSamuel Hill.[13]
Spreckels met Elmer Awl, aSanta Barbara rancher and businessman, during her inquiries into the Samarkand Hotel, aPersian-themed hotel which had fallen into disrepair. She purchased the property for $55,000 in 1937 and proceeded to renovate it, hoping to provide another home for her now-overflowing art collection. Spreckels and Awl hit it off immediately and were married in 1939. Awl moved to San Francisco, but the hotel was not particularly successful and Spreckels sent him back to Santa Barbara to manage the business, but he was also unable to stem the losses. They decided to rid themselves of the property but could not find a buyer. Eventually, the hotel was swapped for a dairy farm inMarin County worth $80,000.[14]
When the U.S. was drawn intoWorld War II, Awl, as a member of theUnited States Coast Guard Reserve, was called to active duty. While he was away, Spreckels formed a new charity, theSan Francisco League for Servicemen, which gathered supplies for the Army and Navy. She even donated her vastSonoma County ranch to the Army to use as a recreational facility. Near the end of the war, Spreckels discovered that Awl had been having an affair with her younger cousin Ulla de Bretteville, whom Alma had brought over from Denmark and who had lived with Alma for several years. She quickly divorced Awl in 1943, while he was still stationed in Central America. Elmer Awl and Ulla de Bretteville would later marry in 1945.[5] The terms of their divorce allowed Alma to retake the name Spreckels.
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Spreckels' last major project was the construction of theSan Francisco Maritime Museum. When it opened in 1951, her collection ofmodel ships that had been on display at the 1939–40Golden Gate International Exposition was the main exhibit. However, she had had a feud with museum founding director Karl Kortum[15] and as a result, did not receive much recognition for her role in that museum's establishment.[5]
After her son Adolph's death in 1961, she lived mostly in seclusion, visiting only with her daughters and grandchildren. She died in 1968 ofpneumonia at age 87, and was interred atCypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma.[5]
She lives with her family at 1024 Francisco street.
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