Performing Stars Turns 30

Performing Stars was established in July 1990 to help underserved kids in Marin County achieve their full potential. Based in Marin City, the non-profit celebrated its 30-year anniversary on December 12 with an online gala titled Le Cirque des Etoiles (The Circus of the Stars).

PHOTO FROM PERFORMING STARS

Young performers from the organization’s second year, 1991

The driving force behind Performing Stars is Felecia Gaston, who founded the troupe and still manages it today. On the website https://www.performingstars.org/about-us she recalls: “When I was a little girl growing up in Georgia, I watched little white girls go off to ballet class and I desperately wished I could go too, but it was unthinkable at that time due to segregation. However, I never let go of that dream, and I wanted to find a way to help other children of color fulfill their own dreams.”

In the late 80s, when Felecia was serving as an administrative assistant and cultural events coordinator for the Marin City Multi-Services Center, the Marin Ballet gave a mini-performance of the Nutcracker in Marin City. As described in the Performing Stars 30th anniversary souvenir booklet: “Seeing the enchantment on the children’s faces, Felecia was reminded of her childhood dream and contacted Phyllis Thelon, Development Director of the Marin Ballet. Thelon had been wanting to provide dance scholarships to low-income children. Felecia and Phyllis figured out the logistics and budget, and in June 1989, Felecia launched The Black Swan Dance Troupe, a group of 20 Mann City children awarded scholarships for a pilot ballet program.

That summer Felecia learned that the Multi-Services Center was closing. She called Anne Rogers, the Executive Director of the Marin Community Food Bank, knowing Ann had a soft spot in her heart for the kids in Marin City. Anne suggested that Felecia start a nonprofit to bring enrichment activities to underserved kids all over the county. After many conversations, Performing Stars was born.

In the space of a month —with the help of key mentors — a board was established which wrote and adopted bylaws, elected officers and proposed budgets for the next three years. Brad Caftel. an attorney for the National Economic Development and Law Center in Berkeley, provided pro bono legal work to set up the nonprofit status. Board member Mark Schillinger wrote an $800 check to the Secretary of State, and Performing Stars was ready to roll before the doors of the Multi-Services Center closed.

Anne provided office space, volunteers and board members Anne Rogers. Norma Howard, Area Manager at Pacific Bell, Virginia Spencer, author and artist, and Mark Schillinger, a local chiropractor. Each member provided unique expertise.

Meanwhile, Felecia was in survival mode, unemployed and living on her savings, driving a beat-up Volkswagen from San Francisco to Novato daily to pursue her dream. Luckily, she landed a job with the Sheriff's Department as a part-time traffic enforcement officer in Marin City.

By summer 1990, Performing Stars was a full-fledged 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Felecia spent three hours preparing for each hour of class. Her students were being taught appropriate behavior consistent with their expanding horizons. They were given nutritional snacks from the food bank, prepared by "Guiding Star Grandparents." The program grew, and by the fall of 1990, there was a wait list for students.

About that time, Performing Stars was invited to perform in the Mill Valley Memorial Day parade. Felecia recalls: "Anne Elkington volunteered to sew the costumes. I remember shopping at New York Fabrics for patterns and material, and several of us cutting out the fabric. Anne made every outfit for 50 children."

Also in 1990, Jim Farley of the Marin County Fair contacted Felecia about having the kids perform. “This was a very big deal,” she recalls. “Discovered at last!” Performing Stars became a regular event at the fair, and the community recognized it as valuable and here to stay.

As the company struts into its fourth decade, Felecia proudly reports that over 90% of Performing Arts alumni graduate from high school; at least 50% of that number go on to college or trade school and the remainder get jobs, because, as she puts it, “the ultimate ‘performance’ is to become productive members of society.” Many Performing Stars have gone on to become teachers and coaches, bankers, retail managers, medical assistants, cosmetologists, actors, a professional ballet dancer, a pastry chef, a videographer, and other successful careers.

The entire two-hour 30th anniversary gala may be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlLM4yft7tI&feature=youtu.be.

Mariana Richardson’s Tragedy

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

Last week we presented historian Elenore Meherin’s account of the murder of Mariana Richardson’s beloved Ramon de Haro by Kit Carson during the Bear Flag Revolt of 1846.

Here are some lightly edited excerpts from Ms. Merherin’s description how Mariana learned of this tragedy at her father’s Rancho Saucelito hacienda:

Mariana stood in the orchard, dropping golden apricots into a basket and telling herself with anxious ardor, “He will come today; he will surely come today.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Mariana’s brother, Stephen J. Richardson, in an 1861 daguerreotype

She twisted a rose in her hair and told herself excitedly Ramon would soon arrive. Was he not the fleetest horseman in a country famous for its riders? Long hours since, by noon at latest, he would have reached Sonoma; he would have seen his cousin, imprisoned at Sutter’s Fort and within the hour be galloping the ribbon of road homeward to her. She listened for the faint clump of hoofs and the snap of twigs in the shoulder-high mustard fields. In the distance a wolf howled; on the hills above the glen a herd of elk emerged, their great antlers making fantastic tracery against the pallid sky. There was no human sound.

She kept thinking of the day in the mountains when Ramon had swung the lariat and brought the wild white stallion, conquered to his haunches. She recalled his exultant smile and the pride and sweetness in his voice when he said so softly, “For you, querida. He is tamed for you!” Folded in a tiny locket on her bracelet was his last message, “Hasta la vista, pearl of my heart.” This promise he would surely keep.

Long after midnight when the moon was a cold white mirror tilted on the waters and the hills and trees were silvered with the coming dawn, Mariana awakened from fitful sleep. The sound of hoofs rang in the Glen. Not a faint and solitary sound but a frantic, crowding drum-roll. Scores of men were galloping onward.

She jumped up and pulled on the clothes she had so recently laid aside. There was a knocking at the door, a stealthy call urgently repeated. Mariana recognized the voices of her countrymen. She ran through the long dim sala, the red rose still twined in her black unconfined hair. Without hesitation, she flung open her father’s door. Joaquin de la Torre stood before her. And with him, thronging into the sala, his haggard, red-eyed, emaciated followers. They had been hiding five nights and five days since their defeat at the battle of 0lompali. Fremont’s fierce and naked Delawares had stalked through the hills, hunting them like wolves. They were hot on their trail. There was not a moment to lose. Starved though they were, they dared not pause to eat. Frightful was the fate meted to Californians whom Fremont overtook. This was the word Joaquin de la Torre feverishly rasped into Captain Richardson’s ear. He stood in the sala, his hands clenched on a rawhide chair. The tapers wavered over his handsome face, showing it sunk and gray. And he spoke of blood on the sands, of murder done. Mariana stood in the shadow and drank in the stark tale.

"There were three men killed,” said Mariana to her father as they stood on the patio.

"One of the murdered men was Manuel Castro, it is thought,” her father answered. “The two with him were probably Indian sailors.”

She said, “He did not say they were Indian boys. They were three men going north, Ramon was one of three and he was going north!”

In the early morning of July 1, Mariana and her brother Stephenr were galloping over the hills of their rancho. They came to a woodland where the wild forget-me-nots were a blue embroidery on the banks of a hidden stream. They rode slowly. And they saw the horsemen coming. Not two or four. There were scores; there were armies. In the lead was a swift rider whose reins glittered with silver and whose stirrups flashed with jewels. Swept across his shoulders was a scarlet and purple serape. It had a long fringe of gold. Mariana halted the white stallion. Her heart stopped with it. She said to her brother, "That is not Ramon; that is surely not Ramon. But he wears Ramon’s cape. He rides Ramon’s saddle!” That was the way the news came to Mariana Richardson. Ramon was dead. Fremont’s soldier came galloping to her in her lover’s clothes! The horsemen, unaware of the white-faced broken girl and the angry boy hidden in the woodland, went cantering brazenly to the Richardson hacienda.

Fremont requisitioned horses for his men and chartered a boat to cross the bay to the Presidio of San Francisco. He spiked the guns, which it chanced were lying on the ground, not a round of powder to fire them, not a soldier to mount them, and thus gloriously he took the fort. He wrote to his father-in-law, powerful U. S. Senator Thomas H, Benton, that he had defeated Joaquin de la Torre, driven him across the bay spiked the guns and freed tie territory north of the bay as far as Sutter’s Fort from Mexican authority. He wrote as though a battle had been fought and brave victory won!

Tragedy Strikes Rancho Saucelito

By Elenore Meherin and Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

In recent columns we’ve excerpted tales of life on William Richardson’s Rancho Saucelito in the 1840s, as told by Sausalito News historian Elenore Meherin. They focused on the life of Richardson’s daughter, Mariana. Our last installment told how her bucolic lifestyle was threatened by the Bear Flag Revolt, led by Colonel John C. Fremont.

IMAGE FROM PINTEREST

Kit Carson in a painting by William Tylee Ranney

Fremont had set up camp in San Rafael and the brave but out-numbered and out-gunned Californios attempted to halt his militia from taking their land. Mariana waited anxiously for word of her beloved, Ramon de Haro, who had been missing from the rancho for some time. Today, we present excerpts from Ms. Meherin’s account of a tragic moment in the ensuing struggle, at the hands of a legendary frontiersman:

Just across the bay from San Rafael, General Jose Castro was waiting with two divisions of his men. They were poorly equipped and numbered 150 men in all. Castro’s plan was to cross from San Pablo, unite forces and march on Sonoma. He knew nothing of Fremont’s presence at Mission San Rafael. A messenger was needed to reach de la Torre. Ramon with his twin and his uncle had just reached San Pablo. They were not soldiers of Castro’s army but they were loyal Californians and they were travelling north. Ramon volunteered.

It was a beautiful June morning with the waters rippling like melted sapphires. He was happy and in love. He had a rose from Mariana crumpled in his pocket and her answering note, “Do not make the waiting long, Ramon. My knees wear out with praying. I had rather dance, querido—with you!" Exultant and with the young blood singing in his veins, he took the papers Lieutenant Rico gave him. He stuffed them in his boots. They would be delivered . . . never fear! He was brave and handsome and beloved. What could the world do to harm a man like that?

Lieutenant Francisco Rico has left an account of the departure of the twin de Haro brothers and their aged uncle, Don Jose R. Berreyesa. The pages are in Bancroft Library at the University of California, open for anyone who wants to read. One of the Castros of San Pablo, Sergeant Manuel, took the party across in his boat. They rowed across the straits to Point San Pedro on the Marin County side. And they were seen from the corridors of the Mission building.

Sitting there on the rose-covered patio in the Sabbath peace was Captain John C. Fremont, Captain Archibald Gillespie and a company of Fremont’s men. There also, on a chance visit to friends at the Mission was Jaspar O’Farrell, pioneer surveyor for whom a street in San Francisco is named. O’Farrell's account of the shocking affair was widely published during Fremont's lifetime. It was never denied. Kit Carson, the scout and two trappers were sent forward to intercept the Californians. Carson had advanced a few hundred yards when, according to O’Farrell he returned to the patio and accosted Fremont directly. "Shall I take these men prisoners?”

Fremont replied, "I have got no room for prisoners.”

Carson and his companions then swung their horses about and galloped toward the Point where the Californians were about to land. The boys and their uncle stepped from the boat, they stacked their saddles on the beach and started walking the mile or two to the familiar Mission gardens. Here they would get horses and continue their journey. They had not the slightest foreboding. The lovely chapel was a friendly place. Here, often, they had prayed; here they had come for weddings and christenings and feast days. Laughing, they sauntered on. Horsemen approached. They came at the lull gallop. Fifty yards from the three Californians, the armed riders jumped from their mounts. They raised their rifles to their shoulders.

“But we are friends,” Ramon shouted. "We have no muskets.”

The three men raised their arms and dropped to their knees, confident of mercy. They waited, startled but smiling. The rifles barked. Without a word of explanation, they were shot to death. Meanwhile, back at the Rancho…

To be continued

Colorful Life of the Ferry Cazadero

By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society

A beautiful model of the Northwestern Pacific Line’s ferryboat Cazadero has been donated to the Historical Society by one-time Sausalitan Richard Aufort. The scale model was built by Richard’s father.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

SHS volunteers Roberta Maloy (l.) and Sharon Seymour, shown flanking donor Richard Aufort, accepted the model at the Society’s City Hall Exhibit Room

It turns out that the little-known Cazadero ferry had quite a unique history.  According to a 1995 edition of Northwesterner, a publication of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad Historical Society, “When the Cazadero was launched, it didn’t go anywhere because the paddlewheels did not hit the water.  Somewhere in the design it was not allowed enough weight. So the engineers decided the best thing to do was to put ballast in the bottom. With enough ballast, the paddle wheels hit the water and away Cazadero went.”

Despite that early snafu, the Cazadero was pressed into service almost immediately, according to an article in the Sausalito News of May 23, 1903: “The ferry Cazadero, built on lines similar to the Tamalpais, is now running although the boat is not entirely fitted up. However, this was found necessary owing to an accident to the Tamalpais. The old-time commuters inspected the new boat from bow to stern and pronounced her all right. She makes excellent time; is exceptionally steady, her engines not causing her to throb as is so frequently the case with ferryboats built for speed. The upper cabin is nicely arranged and over the wheels is built a cabin raised somewhat above the main saloon. The new boat is a valuable addition to the Sausalito fleet.”

The paper later described the 257-foot paddle wheeled steamer as “elegantly equipped,” with “a larger seating capacity in its cabins than any of the other boats now owned by the company.”

But the ferry endured a series of bizarre incidents throughout its four decades of service. In January, 1925 the News reported that a Coast Guard rum tracer ran into the side of the Cazadero “in a dense fog off Alcatraz Island while the ferry was headed for Sausalito yesterday morning. When Captain A. S. Shapley felt the crash and heard the cries for help he immediately stopped the ferry and had a lifeboat lowered. The lifeboat picked up the captain and one of the crew of the Coast Guard boat and returned them to their boat. In the heavy fog it was hard to ascertain the extent of the damage to the Coast Guard boat but the ferry was torn amidship. Very few passengers were on the ferry which arrived In Sausalito at 8:55 o’clock.”

A few months later, a unique passenger created an uproar, as described by the News: “Hugo protested so strenuously at being forced to ride on the Cazadero that he nearly wrecked the engine room and the lower deck. All the passengers on Hugo’s side of the boat moved out and gave him plenty of room, thereby showing their respect for him. Hugo, the belligerent one, is a horse, and Wednesday afternoon he was being taken from San Francisco to the Mill Valley golf club to assist in the building operations now in progress there. He kicked and protested all the way across the bay, but [his handler] managed to keep him as quiet as possible, so that the engine room was still intact when the Cazadero landed at Sausalito.”

In January, 1938 the crew witnessed an attempted suicide. According to the News, a commuter named Donald Campbell “jumped into the bay from the upper deck Tuesday afternoon while the boat was about a mile from the Sausalito slip. The water was so cold that Campbell evidently forgot his family and financial troubles, which he later said prompted his rash act, as he struck out swimming toward the lifeboat which Captain Alfred Wahrgren had quickly lowered. When the ferry docked here, Campbell was given a hot bath and first aid treatment at the Hotel Sausalito before being taken by his mother to the Ross General Hospital where they report he will recover.”

A happier event occurred the following year, when the ferry crew rescued a wayward swimmer: “Jerry Reynolds, U.C. student from Los Angeles was caught by an incoming tide Tuesday afternoon while swimming at Baker’s Beach, San Francisco, and carried nearly four miles away off Alcatraz Island until he was rescued by the crew of the N.W.P. ferry Cazadero, bound for San Francisco. He was taken from the water in an exhausted condition and given emergency treatment upon landing.”

By early 1943, her days were numbered. On March 4, the newspaper reported: “The Northwestern Ferry Cazadero has been taken away and the old-time coastwise steam schooner Santa Barbara has come back from her temporary sojourn in the South Bay. She’ll now function as she was intended to earlier, as a part of the harbor breakwater.”

And then, in January 1949, the News announced the demise of the old girl: “The final death knell of the former Northwestern Pacific ferry Cazadero, a familiar sight to thousands of Marin commuters for close to 40 years prior to the demise of the ferry system in early 1941, took place last week in the murky bay waters of San Francisco Bay near San Mateo.”

She was then moved farther south in the bay, where the ship that was once too light, ironically, “sank of her own weight,” according to the News. Navy salvage crews blasted the old, rugged, wooden hull into 12 sections and salvaged them for scrap. “Thus ends another of the colorful links with the past history of Marin's growth,” lamented the newspaper.

While City hall is closed, the Historical Society is exploring how and when the model will be on display for the public to view.