Jack London’s Chair: Hiding Here in Plain Sight

SACRAMENTO, CA (MPG) – While researching the history
of the California Writers Club Sacramento, our 100th- year
anniversary will be celebrated Oct. 18, I came across a newspaper article from
1955. It described our branch’s 30th-anniversary celebration at a
local hotel. Referenced was the presence of a chair that Jack London used when
writing.

Attendees pawned over it and had great fun posing for
photos in the famous author’s chair. The chair had purportedly been given to
the club by London’s widow. He had died nine years earlier at the age of 40. I
thought to myself, boy, Jack London’s chair here in town? The reporter who
wrote this article surely got snookered by a masterful publicity stunt.

Soon after, I found another newspaper article, dated 10
years later, covering our 40th anniversary. This article pictured our first President
Edna Becsey, now in her 60s, seated in “Jack London’s chair.” So the myth about
the chair still lingered. But this time, intriguing details emerged: the year
it was donated and the name of the person to whom it was donated.

Moreover, the chair, “squat, spool-backed swivel chair
(wearing) the scars of more than a half-century,” was written by syndicated
columnist Helen Bottel, one of our own members. I wondered if there might be
truth to this tale, as farfetched as it seemed.

The widow “donor” mentioned in the article was Jack
London’s second wife, Charmian. The couple had built the Glen Ellen ranch
together. Although Charmian was known to suffer dementia in her later years, a
relative of Jack’s was giving possessions away on her behalf in the 1950s. The
article said that in 1954, the chair was gifted to a Mrs. Pratt. 

The aforementioned Mrs. Pratt and husband, Henry Noyes
Pratt, would have known Charmian London from the early days of the California
Writers Club formed in Alameda County in the first decade of the 1900s, as all
writers ran in the same circles in the Bay Area, Sonoma County and even south
to Monterey County.

The Pratts were very involved and knew the likes of first
and second California Poet Laureates Ina Coolbrith and Henry Meade Bland. Pratt
edited the Overland Monthly, which belonged to a Western Writers Club, and was
a prolific poet and lyricist.

But back to Sacramento: By the time that Pratt first
crossed paths with Sacramento writers in 1925, he was newly installed as the
California Writers Club president.

Mary West Mills, who wrote about women’s issues such
as childcare, had come to Sacramento to give a writing class. Noting the
success of a group calling themselves Sacramento Writers, she encouraged them
to join the California Writers Club.

Although living in Oakland, California Writers Club
President Pratt liked Sacramento for its heritage of the Gold Rush, the Pony
Express and the long-range electrical distribution lines.

The state’s political heart and a roaring economy fed
by hearty industries appealed to him. Pratt liked movies and Sacramento was
becoming a favorite location for Hollywood. The city was home to the Senator
Hotel, considered the finest on the Pacific Coast, and to the Crocker Art
Museum.

Concerned about dusty roads from Sacramento to Oakland
that complicated travel to meetings, Pratt urged the Sacramento writers to form
their own off shoot, “Branch #1,” of the California Writers Club.

Eleven years after the formation of “Branch #1,” the
Pratts moved to Sacramento where he accepted the esteemed position of curator
of the Crocker Art Museum. He became a beloved local figure. After Pratt died
in 1944, his wife Nita, stayed.

The thought that Nita might have received Jack
London’s chair on behalf of Charmaine London, then donated it to our club,
posed a new concern.

If this were true, where was the chair?  Had it ended up in someone’s garage? Had it
gone by way of a local junk yard, its significance forever lost in garbage? The
Pratts left no children. Few members of the club from that time were still
alive.

On a whim, I sent the dark newspaper photo of the
chair to the Jack London Museum in Glen Ellen, asking if someone might
recognize it. While this was too easy a solution and the outline was barely
visible, it was worth a try.

Museum historian and volunteer coordinator Susan St.
Marie wrote back that they couldn’t make out what the chair looked like. With
help from the Center for Sacramento History, I received a lighter copy to
forward. St. Marie wrote that there were four Jack London chairs in their
inventory and she would see if the chair was there.

A breathless trail of excitement came with this
inquiry, even if only a small possibility, to think that something so important
had once been in the care of our club. Not weeks passed but when word came that
they had located the chair, sitting in the Jack London cottage, elation rang
out. The chair was safe. Hope had paid off.

But how the chair got there remained a mystery. Then
Ward Eldredge, State Parks curator for the Glen Ellen area, weighed in.
Consulting old records, he identified the date of the donation made to the
museum: 1977.

Eldredge’s records corroborated the belief that the
chair was given to Pratt by London’s widow, Charmian. Eldredge found out that
the principal donor was Irene Donelson, the wife of local attorney Ken Donelson
who together had written, “When You Need a Lawyer and Married Today, Single
Tomorrow,” published by Doubleday. Irene was said to be the first woman to
attend McGeorge College of Law in the late 1940s.

Also listed as a donor was long-time member Gladys Morse,
sister of the first President, Edna Becsey, who was photographed sitting in the
chair.

State Parks archives suggest that Gladys might have
made the initial inquiry about donating. So loyal was Gladys to the club that
she was known to have never missed a meeting in decades. Also in the records
was a hint of backstory, “…based on material left by her deceased sister…” Edna
Becsey.

What was the backstory? By now, because both sisters,
Edna and Gladys, were deceased and neither left offspring, the materials left
by Becsey will remain hidden. 

Meanwhile, St. Marie invited us to the Jack London
Museum to see “our” chair. So, on March 8, six of us made the 90-minute drive
to Glen Ellen. There, St. Marie took us on a three-hour tour of the grounds. In
the cottage, we saw our chair. We could imagine Jack London sitting there,
writing some of his stories and novels.

In the visit’s aftermath, we are relieved to know that
for more than two decades, the Sacramento area was entrusted with a historical
artifact, and that our leaders did the right thing by returning London’s chair
to the safety of his beloved property in Glen Ellen. Leave it to a group of
writers to look into the future, beyond their own mortality, by returning a
priceless artifact in plain sight just where it belonged. 

Kimberly A. Edwards, recent past president
of the California Writers Club Sacramento, is chairing a group putting together
“100 Years of Writing Excellence in Sacramento” on Oct.  19 at Northridge Country Club. Contact
cwcSacramentwriters.org for information on attending and making donations.