Volume 90, Number 1 - California Historical Society

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Neither pheasant nor geese could have been all
that plentiful, because by all accounts the most
common meal for entertaining purposes was
Miller’s “bandit luncheon,” a meat stew with
onions and vegetables cooked in a large pot over
an open fire for two to three hours. A variation
was the “Hungarian bandit luncheon,” a
kebob of small steak, bacon, and a slice of onion
on skewers. 37 From the early 1890s, when the
Hights began to welcome a steady stream of
both transient and resident Japanese, the cuisine
diversified to include tea and sushi. Goose or
kebob, these meals took place among the redwoods
in the canyon along Palo Seco Creek on
the property’s northern border, or near the Abbey
under what was variously described as an arbor,
an arbor with roses, or “a bower of white roses.”
In unseasonable weather, the repasts were moved
a dozen yards east to Margaret Miller’s, Joaquin’s
mother’s, winter cottage. 38
The guest list of one such bandit lunch combined
Berkeley artist William Keith and his
wife; the author Cora Older, wife of local editor
and reformer Fremont Older; the author Bailey
Millard, at the time in between San Francisco
and New York editing jobs; and resident artist
and aristocrat the Hungarian count Geyza S.
de Perhacs. All during his Oakland period, but
especially in the early 1990s when he was a
stringer, Miller drew heavily from his acquaintances
among the contributors and staff at the
venerable San Francisco Morning Call (after 1895,
the San Francisco Call). One dinner was prefaced
by a pitcher of water containing one of Miller’s
stocks of goldfish, described by guest and Call
“auditor” Howard Hurlbut, a would-be poet and
recent sojourner among the Crow Indians. Also
in attendance were Ethel Brandon, a local leading
lady, and her sister, a poetry contributor to the
Call. To honor the departing New Yorker Edmund
Russell, Upper Fruitvale’s most prominent
host again called upon poets, in this instance
Edwin Markham, David Lesser Lezinsky, and
Coolbrith. 39
California History • volume 90 number 1 2012
Although Miller was inclined toward more intimate
entertaining, near the end of his presence in
Fruitvale Heights he also annually held what he
called Whitaker Day, in honor of Herman “Jim”
Whitaker, his wife, and their seven children. 40
The son of English wool manufacturers, Whitaker
had arrived in Oakland in 1895. He worked odd
jobs while moving his family from one cheap
immigrant neighborhood to another. Eventually,
this close confrere of Miller’s was to enjoy success
with his novel The Planter, an exposé of conditions
on Mexican rubber plantations.
Superficially, Whitaker shared much in common
with John Herbert Evelyn Partington, another
intimate. Both men were British, Oakland-based,
and the father of seven children. The resemblance
ended there, however, because Partington,
a graphic artist, had a going business, a school
for newspaper illustration. Also, in contrast
with Whitaker’s earthier progeny, the Partington
children were destined to become artists of one
kind or another. Gertrude painted Miller’s portrait.
Blanche and Richard were familiar figures
at the Hights. Blanche, the Call’s drama and
cultural critic and a much-admired beauty, was
a confidante of Ambrose Bierce and a source of
romantic interest for Noguchi. 41 Until the quake
wreaked havoc with the city’s theaters and art
schools, young Dick worked at the family’s San
Francisco school. Afterward, he ran the art gallery
that real estate developers Francis Marion
“Borax” Smith and Frank Havens opened in the
upscale suburb of Piedmont.
As Havens’s nephew and right-hand man,
George Sterling would have been instrumental in
securing the gallery position for Dick. A wouldbe
poet, Sterling was the dashing, unannounced
leader of a group of young men that included
Dick, Ambrose Bierce’s younger son, Leigh,
and the journalist Austin Lewis, who along with
Bierce’s brother Albert and his son Carleton were
regular imbibers of Miller’s store of 110 proof.