Whaley House Museum

10/05/2020

197 years ago: Thomas Whaley, whose portrait as a young man adorns the entryway of the Whaley House, was born on October 5, 1823, to Thomas and Rachel Whaley at 3 Mott Street in New York.

10/05/2020

138 years ago: Mabel Eloise Whaley, pictured here as a child, was born in the Whaley House on October 5, 1882, her grandfather Thomas Whaley's 59th birthday. She was the daughter of John Thomas Whaley and Anna Amelia Whaley.

Photo courtesy SOHO.

10/04/2020

Continuing our “Will O’ The Wisp” theme from yesterday’s post, here is an antique box of Will O’ The Wisp patent “Night Lights” candles as displayed in the Whaley & Crosthwaite General Store. The Will & Baumer Co. was formed in 1875 when The Will Company merged with The Francis Baumer Candle Company. Still in business today, the company specializes in candles for church use.

10/03/2020

119 years ago: “The Liberty Belles” was a musical in three acts set in the dormitory of a young ladies' seminary, a cooking school, and a Florida hotel, and ran from September 30, 1901—December 28, 1901 at Hoyt’s Theatre (aka Madison Square Theatre) in New York.

Pictured is Lillian Whaley’s sheet music for the show’s hit “The Will-O-Wisp Song” which appeared as a supplement in The San Francisco Examiner.

Courtesy SOHO.

10/02/2020

Nineteenth-century hanging lamp illuminating the back bedroom upstairs in the Whaley House.

Photo D. Glass.

10/01/2020

94 years ago: Ghost Stories magazine, Volume 1, Issue 4 from October 1926, featuring Married After Death.

09/30/2020

It seems like something's always cooking in the Whaley House kitchen!

Photo D. Glass

09/29/2020

This beautiful black kitty helps keep watch over the Whaley House while we are temporarily closed.

Photo C. Pro.

09/28/2020

This beautiful c.1849 candlestick, part of a three-piece set of candelabra from Cornelius & Co. depicting characters from James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans, features character Cora Munro and adorns the mantle in the Whaley House parlor.

09/27/2020

09/26/2020

87 years ago: "Ghosts on a Tree" (1933) by Austrian painter Franz Sedlacek (1891-1945).

09/25/2020

134 years ago: Lillian Whaley photographed with friends by Parker: Landscape and Portrait Photographer, Fifth Street, San Diego, 1886.

"Then a group of four—Helen & Ed Mermann, Ada Sledge & myself taken in ’86 when I was suffering so terribly. I cared little for my personal appearance then and I look rather slouchy in the picture—my hair long on my forehead, uncurled & pushed back most anyway, my eyes half shut as usual in my photos. My expression—I can’t describe it. I know how I felt then. My brain felt like sawdust. I was half crazed and yet I suppose I look cheerful and strange circumstance! I weighed more then—124 lbs—than ever before or since. It may have been owing to the long, heavy stupid almost torpid way in which I slept. Thank God I could sleep in those days, otherwise I’d have gone crazy, I think."—Lillian Whaley, December 8, 1891.

Photo courtesy SOHO.

09/24/2020

Our feline friend loves lounging around the Whaley House.

Photo C. Mahadevan.

09/23/2020

73 years ago: "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace...am bored stiff. Too much alone."—Lillian Whaley, September 23, 1947.

Photo of Whaley House, dated September 1942, courtesy SOHO.

09/23/2020

127 years ago: Theresa Eloise Whaley (1889-1899) was the daughter of Francis Hinton “Frank” Whaley and his wife Susan E. Murray Whaley. Here she is in a photo taken in September 1893 in Mendocino, California, shortly before her fourth birthday.

Photo courtesy SOHO.

09/22/2020

A what-not is a piece of furniture similar to the French étagère which was very popular in the Victorian age. It consists of slender uprights supporting a series of shelves used for displaying ornaments, trifles, sea shells, photographs, and other “what nots”. While the what-not seen in the Parlor is not an original family piece, Lillian Whaley recalled that the family had one in this room when she was a child.

09/21/2020

09/20/2020

A stereoscope, predecessor of the View-Master, was a must-have for any Victorian parlor. Pictured here is the Holmes stereoscope, along with some stereo cards, on view at the Whaley House.

09/19/2020

At 205 years of age, Stickney & Poor is the oldest spice milling company in the United States. This 19th-century pepper crate is displayed in the Whaley & Crosthwaite General Store inside the Whaley House.

09/18/2020

129 years ago...

Photo D. Glass.

09/17/2020

147 years ago: In a letter to his father dated September 17, 1873, Frank Whaley wrote: "George has become a musician, he plays the harmonium splendidly and I with the banjo make first-rate music. He also plays the bones well. I leave it (banjo) home with Mamma because they (Rev. Wilbur) have taken the melodeon from her (on loan)."

09/16/2020

Thomas Whaley’s 1870s terrestrial globe from A. H. Andrews & Co., a Chicago company with additional locations in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, that specialized in school and office furniture. The globe is on display in Mr. Whaley’s study in the Whaley House.

09/15/2020

This c.1880s Eastlake platform rocker, tucked in a cozy corner of Thomas Whaley's study, is an original family piece.

09/14/2020

129 years ago: “Bought a sunbonnet & a belt at Marston’s.”—Lillian Whaley, September 14, 1891.

Pictured is Marston’s Department Store at the corner of Fifth and F Streets in San Diego, 1892. Built in 1881 by the architecture firm Stewart Brothers in the Italianate style, this was the third of Marston’s stores. The building is still standing.

Photo courtesy Marston Family Collection.

09/13/2020

Photo by D. Glass, Sunset Cliffs, 2018.

09/12/2020

A bevy of beautiful nineteenth-century dolls, relaxing in the authentic Whaley family crib. These lovely ladies don’t seem to mind being temporarily relocated to the Theater while the Nursery gets a deep cleaning, though one looks like she could use a little “uplifting” herself.

09/11/2020

Taxidermy was a very popular hobby during the nineteenth century. This Victorian glass-domed diorama contains three taxidermy birds with a nest and is displayed beneath the arch in the Whaley House.

09/09/2020

276 years ago: One of the earliest medicinal patents was obtained by English merchant Robert Turlington in 1744 for Turlington’s Balsam of Life. According to a 46-page brochure printed at the time, Turlington’s Balsam was effective for treating “kidney and bladder stones, cholic, and inward weakness” among many other ailments. The product, which contained 27 ingredients in an alcohol solution, became very popular in both England and America. Pictured are reproduction bottles as displayed at the Whaley House Museum.

09/06/2020

09/04/2020

In the nineteenth century, friction matches were often called “Lucifers,” a play on two meanings of the word: Lucifer is Latin for “light bringing” and was one name for the Lord of the sulfurous fires of Hell. Pictured are reproduction Lucifers on display at the Whaley House.

09/02/2020

Hagley Museum and Library is located in Wilmington, Delaware on the site of the gunpowder works founded by E. I. du Pont in 1802. This example of early American industry includes restored mills, a workers' community, and the ancestral home and gardens of the du Pont family.

Pictured are reproduction Hagley Mills gunpowder flasks on display in the Whaley & Crosthwaite General Store.

09/01/2020

The Renowned Tanner Troupe

"In late 1868 when the Tanner Troupe established their enterprise on the second story of Thomas Whaley's residence in Old Town, which set in motion San Diego's live performance revues...."

Enjoy this short fascinating history on the Tanner Troupe!

San Diego's first commercial theater arrived in late 1868 when the Tanner Troupe established their enterprise on the second story of Thomas Whaley's residence in Old Town, which set in motion San Diego's live performance revues.

09/01/2020

94 years ago: Ghost Stories magazine, Volume 1, Issue 3 from September 1926, featuring The Mystery of the Floating Head.

08/30/2020

95 years ago: "Margaret had a birthday yesterday. She was nineteen. She goes into training at the Mercy Hospital the 1st of Sept. Came in her nurse's rig to let me see her. A hard profession to choose... I think all women should know the fundamentals of nursing."—Lillian Whaley, August 30, 1925.

Little did Lillian’s grand-niece Margaret Anna Reynolds (pictured, right) realize when this photo was taken that in a few short years it would be necessary to put her nursing skills to the test when her husband, police officer Lynn Gerlach, was rear-ended on his motorcycle at a stop sign on his way home after his shift and was paralyzed. Margaret cared for her husband and two little boys at home until her husband's death a few short years later.

Photo courtesy SOHO.

08/29/2020

114 years ago: Thomas and Anna Whaley’s great-granddaughter Margaret Anna Reynolds was born in Stanislaus County, California, on August 29, 1906 to Mabel Whaley Reynolds, the daughter of Anna Amelia Whaley, and her husband Frederick Marion Reynolds.

Photo courtesy SOHO.