In hard-to-find memoir, 1890s Benicia comes to life

By Steve McKee

SHE WAS BORN IN BENICIA IN 1883, and it was here that she grew up and learned to make sense of the world. At 19, she moved to Vermont to marry into a family of strict Puritans, but years later she returned to the West to make a living, barely, digging in a gold mine. Faced with exhaustion, hunger and despair, she willed herself to find a way out. At age 50 she wrote about it all, and wrote well.

Her name was Elsie Robinson. Her memoir was published in 1934. After hearing about it from my friend, fellow writer and Benicia history aficionado Donnell Rubay, I found a copy online, bought it and read it. I quite liked it, and the more I thought about it in the days that followed, the more certain I was that I would write about it here. In its first chapters, 19th-century Benicia comes alive, and it seemed to me that fans of Benicia should know about this remarkable book.

But then I learned that the Benicia Public Library had only one copy kept as a reference book that couldn’t be checked out. So last month I bought three of four copies I found online on Amazon and donated them to the library. The used copies weren’t too much of a strain on my bank account, and now anybody in town can easily read a compelling firsthand account of life in old Benicia.

The book is titled “I Wanted Out!” and if that seems to be a negative statement about our little town, it really is more a reflection of Elsie’s state of mind throughout most of her life, wherever she went. Truth is, she remained proud of her upbringing in “rowdy Benicia,” a colorful little town that then seemed to be on the very edge of civilization.

For the first two chapters, daily life in old Benicia is made real. No matter how much you think you can envision 19th-century Benicia — the big train ferry, the brothels along the waterfront — for true-to-life detail the Book of Elsie is a must-read. A sample:

“At the other end of the street the ‘dobe dirt gave way to barnacled piles that reached far into the bay. There was a ferry slip at the end of the long pier — a great ferry, ‘The Solano,’ largest, then, in the world that took the overland trains across. Frequently she lost her way in the fogs and went blustering around like a blowsy, disreputable old harridan until she fetched up short in somebody’s backyard.

“But of far more moment than the Solano were the certain small, shuttered shacks built along the piles — or anchored to them in ‘arks’ . . . the homes of the ‘red light girls.’ All day the tide came and went beneath those shuttered houses. At flood, the water slobbered and clucked under the rotting beams. At ebb, the stink of the flats oozed through the yawning cracks.

“Then the sun set in a great swash of scarlet, and the color ran in veins of copper and crimson over an oily indigo of mud, and suddenly, through shutter chinks, there broke the glow of lamps, the crackle of laughter, and tinkle of mandolins — and out across the swaying planks, teetering on their high heels, minced The Girls on their evening parade.

“A long, rough street that began with a convent and ended in a bawdy house. I loved the convent. But there was something about those bawdy houses . . . I never knew which end of the street I preferred! I still don’t know!”

The young Elsie goes along to get along. The older, wiser Elsie finally learns what kind of internal strength is needed to take command of her life. If only the savvy 50-year-old Elsie could have had just five minutes to talk with the 19-year-old Elsie about some of her choices! Yikes! But I suppose every life has its share of that.

Elsie’s life from her birth in the 1880s until she wrote about it in the 1930s spanned an era of great change in the world, especially for women, and she realized it. She was a keen observer of things, with a modern sensibility and a breezy way of writing. And that’s what kept my interest throughout her tale, even after the growing-up-in-Benicia part of the story ended.

There are, too, some highlights unique to her era. We get to experience the “terror and beauty” of what it was like that first night when an electric light was added to her house by her older brother, as she sat with her family in awe, wondering just what was this mystical energy inside that intense white glow — a truly astonishing event after a lifetime of nights spent in the dim mellowness of gas lamps. And we experience the effort required to don formal Victorian clothing.

Aunt Elsie lived it and then wrote about it with a frankness we moderns can appreciate. For Benicians, though, the most interesting reading comes from seeing our little town come alive on the page.

Many of our favorite things from past and present are vividly described: the convent at the top of First Street; the oversized Victorian houses known as “follies” by the locals; the overgrown gardens; the boardwalks on the sides of First Street that provided places for kids to play hide-and-seek and drunks to sleep off a bender; the city blocks loaded with saloons; the graveyard (what we now call City Cemetery) where Elsie made her midnight deal with God to be shown all that life had to offer, as long as she wasn’t a crybaby about it. Both parties lived up to that deal.

That’s probably enough said. If you want more, go online to benicialibrary.org and click on “Catalog and Accounts” (key step!), then type “I Wanted Out” in the search box. Your options for getting the book will be displayed.

After that you just wait to be contacted by the library when it’s available — no extra effort required.

Steve McKee is a Benicia architect specializing in residential design and a member of the Benicia Historic Preservation Review Commission. He can be reached on the Web at www.smckee.com or at 707-746-6788.