Volume 90, Number 1 - California Historical Society

Monthly, marveled at the cultural attainments
of these young Asians, who “talked freely” of
“Emerson, Wordsworth, Longfellow, of Shakespeare”
and also of Bunyan, “Victor Hugo, Walt
Whitman, and even Bernard Shaw.” In addition,
they were more versed in Russian literature than
were their American equivalents. 50
In contrast to the passing students, the Japanese
live/work servants were indispensable to the
Hights’s operation. Speaking to a reporter in the
spring of 1895, Margaret Miller referred to the
“two young Japanese” who had been “living with
us here for a long time receiving instruction in
English from Joaquin.” A more accurate description
of the pedagogy would be Miller’s encapsulation
of his relationship with Yone Noguchi, who
arrived in the spring of 1895 and stayed for five
years: “This boy is the right sort; he does just as
he pleases—lives in the cabin yonder. I never go
into it. Sometimes he comes in here and we talk
of men and books.” 51
Although honored to be at the famed Hights,
Noguchi and his peers were essentially houseboys.
However, unlike their comrades elsewhere,
they received no compensation (Noguchi stated
that the only object he received from his host
were two pairs of woolen socks to replace his
tattered ones). 52 A revealing photo (page 56)
of Miller with three Japanese youths and two
horses (unusual among archival photos of casual
scenes in that it bears a specific date, June 6,
1891) gives a sense of their status. In this image,
the poet is every bit the proud ranch owner. One
arm is tossed casually over his horse. Two of
the Japanese hold the horses. A third looks out
shyly from behind Miller. The front steps of the
Abbey appear to the right and in the distance are
a lordly view of Fruitvale’s eponymous orchards
and a snatch of County Road #2509. The “fruit
grower and poet,” as he had once again listed
himself in the local directory, is showing off his
steeds, his servants, and his domain. 53
In 1893, student-laborer Yonejiro (Yone) Noguchi (1875–1947)
took up residence at the Hights, where he began his English literary
career and embarked, in 1897, on a correspondence with
Charles Warren Stoddard. This autographed portrait, made on
July 4, 1897, was one of three he sent to Stoddard, each posed in
western rather than Japanese dress, a preference acknowledged
by Miller during Noguchi’s almost decades-long residence in the
United States. Noguchi, Miller explained to the San Francisco
Chronicle, “objects to that sort of interest, saying that he wants
to write for America, and depend solely on the value of his
work.”
Courtesy of the Huntington Library, San Marino, California
The following year brought Takeshi Kanno, the
longest, most continuous Japanese inhabitant.
A self-styled philosopher, Kanno was to become
embroiled in two scandals: his interracial marriage
to the sculptress Gertrude Boyle and her
desertion of him for one of his much younger
countrymen. This regrettable fate, including his
eventual remarriage with Boyle, has not been
sufficient to win lasting fame for the luckless
Kanno. 54
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