[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ background_color=”#d9ae52″ use_background_color_gradient=”on” background_color_gradient_stops=”rgba(224,153,0,0.73) 0%|rgba(224,153,0,0.91) 100%” background_color_gradient_overlays_image=”on” background_color_gradient_start=”rgba(224,153,0,0.73)” background_color_gradient_end=”rgba(224,153,0,0.91)” background_image=”https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/altatena-woods-bgrnd.jpg” background_position=”top_center” custom_padding=”39px||41px|||” transparent_background=”off” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Title Header” _builder_version=”4.23.2″ text_font=”Crimson Text||||” text_text_color=”#ffffff” text_font_size=”30″ header_font_size=”63px” background_layout=”dark” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
Margaret Collier Graham – Foothills First Lady 1877 -1913<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row column_structure=”2_3,1_3″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.23.2″ _module_preset=”default” header_4_text_color=”#6B6B6B” custom_margin=”||21px|||” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n By Michele Zack<\/p>\n Our area was a cultural and literary vortex even before Altadena existed. Margaret Collier Graham was often at its center \u2014 attracting writers, artists, thinkers and luminaries as friends. She is buried in Mountain View Cemetery, and we are fortunate to have her literary light shining on us.<\/p>\n She, her husband Don, and sister Jenny arrived in the Indiana Colony in 1876, within two years of its founding; the college-educated pioneers\u2019 first home was a tent pitched on seven and half acres on North Orange Grove. With $423 dollars they built their first home \u2014 the only one in the colony facing the mountains, instead of the street. \u201cIt was a bungalow, but we didn\u2019t know it,\u201d Maggie wrote later. \u201cEveryone who passed stopped, and asked my husband why he didn\u2019t set it with the compass.\u201d Their liveliness and wit quickly endeared them to the community, and she and Jenny and Literary Society friends published The Reservoir, the colony\u2019s first newspaper. In a letter home, Maggie commented: \u201cmost of the women in the colony are women\u2019s rights women who agreed on the importance of keeping the issue alive.\u201d<\/p>\n Don suffered from tuberculosis, which was the reason for their move west. From Iowa, and like most of early Pasadena, they were progressive-minded people who had supported the Union cause, abolitionism, and Temperance (to a degree.). Within a few years, this became the town that welcomed Owen and Jason Brown, their sister Ruth Brown Thompson, and husband Henry.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/graham.jpg” title_text=”graham” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.23.2″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” show_in_lightbox=”on” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.23.2″ _module_preset=”default” header_4_text_color=”#6B6B6B” custom_margin=”||21px|||” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Owen was a long-time fugitive from the law, escaping after the raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, failed to start the slave rebellion his father, John Brown, had planned. Residents created a \u201csafe space\u201d for the outlaw, universally described as \u201cshy and gentle.\u201d<\/p>\n Don and Margaret were lovers of nature, and Don became the area\u2019s first mailman. He made three trips a week to Los Angeles to pick up mail and passengers; during these, he was fond of reciting Shakespeare and Homer, and discussing the Latin roots of local place names. When a passenger suggested that as a stage driver, he must be able to \u201ccuss awful,\u201d Don replied with dignity that, to the contrary, he drove \u201ca great moral hack.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_3,2_3″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Margaret-Collier-Graham.jpg” title_text=”Margaret-Collier-Graham” align=”center” _builder_version=”4.23.2″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” show_in_lightbox=”on” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.23.2″ _module_preset=”default” header_4_text_color=”#6B6B6B” custom_margin=”||21px|||” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Margaret devoted herself to writing, and soon found success, publishing five stories in the Argonaut and Frank Leslie\u2019s Popular Monthly, two early California periodicals, in 1877. Her prose, early examples of \u201csocial realism\u201d, were said by the poet of the Sierra Joaquin Miller to be so Californian, \u201che could smell the sagebrush\u201d in them. She also taught at Pasadena\u2019s first school, where five of her students were Benjamin Eaton\u2019s. Eaton was a founder of Pasadena, built the school, and lived on future Altadena land next to the canyon named for him \u2014 before moving to South Pasadena.<\/p>\n Maggie and Don also moved to South Pasadena, where Don, before he died in 1890 at age 42, became that city\u2019s first mayor. As health permitted, he\u2019d managed to become wealthy as the real estate developer of both Elsinore and Wildomar in Riverside County. They built a flamboyant and picturesque mansion, Wynyate (Welsh for Vineyard), in 1887, where Maggie held salons attended by litterati, local and visiting, every Sunday \u2014 long after Don\u2019s death.<\/p>\n Mary Austin, western writer and high priestess of prose, California Poet Laureate Ina Coolbrith, Los Angeles Times flamboyant editor Charles Lummis; and naturalist John Muir all were regulars. Muir would set out from Wynyate on walkabouts lasting a few days, taking only bread and cheese with him. He wrote about his hikes in such places as the San Gabriels, where he camped in Eaton Canyon, calling its falls, lined with moss and ferns, \u201cA little poem of wildness.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.23.2″ _module_preset=”default” header_4_text_color=”#6B6B6B” custom_margin=”||21px|||” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n After Don\u2019s death, Maggie became as least as famous as most of her visitors, appearing in national publications such as Harpers and Atlantic Monthly. She published several volumes of short stories, including \u201cThe Wizard\u2019s Daughter,\u201d and wrote a monthly column for Land of Sunshine, discussing manners, morals, women\u2019s issues, and the necessity of good taste.<\/p>\n Her lovely final resting spot in Mountain View Cemetery would have pleased her \u2014 she once wrote: \u201cI have lived in California since 1876 and have in consequence no desire to go [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Margaret Collier Graham attracted writers, artists, thinkers and luminaries as friends. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8297,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsletter-2023-fall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8292"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8345,"href":"https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8292\/revisions\/8345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altadenaheritage.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
to heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n