Stories for Winter 2021
Peggy Tolk-Watkins and the Tin Angels
The Historical Society received a generous donation this year from the son of Peggy Tolk-Watkins, Ragland Watkins. It contained articles, newspaper clippings, LP albums, business records, drawings, books and photographs. Along with these items came a generous check. This augments our collection on a fascinating Sausalito resident who was a nightclub owner, artist, teacher, social worker and free-spirit.
Peggy was born and raised in New York City and began her career as a social worker on the Lower East Side. She first came to Sausalito in the 1940s, after the end of World War II and worked as a teacher in Richmond housing projects. She left to earn a degree in literature from Black Mountain College in North Carolina where she met a charming Southern gentleman by the name of Ragland Watkins. On her return to California, she opened a nightclub here called The Tin Angel which featured jazz and folk music. It was on Bridgeway on the site of present day Scoma’s. In 1952 she sold the club and left the area for a year.
When Peggy returned to the Bay Area, she moved to a home on West Court in Sausalito. She soon opened another Tin Angel, but this time in San Francisco on The Embarcadero. Her club was known for its flair, eclectic décor and its “scene,” which included poetry readings as well as jazz and folk music. It became a nationally known night spot. Several jazz musicians and singers started their careers at the Tin Angel. Turk Murphy played there. Odetta started singing there. Peggy brought New Orleans blues singer Lizzie Miles to sing at her club. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle described it as “a centerpiece in the new bohemian nightlife of the city.” (6/26/1973).
A year later she opened another bar, The Fallen Angel, in the house on Pine Street that was once the place of business of another Sausalitan, Sally Stanford. San Francico columnist Ralph J. Gleason wrote that Peggy had the knack of “getting interesting people to come to the club regardless of the entertainment of the moment. She was stimulating to talk to herself and that drew interesting people.”
Peggy Tolk-Watkins was also a self-trained artist and had a showing of her work at the DeYoung Museum in 1960. Her style has been described as primitive with highly imaginative depiction of animals and flowers. We have a copy of one of her paintings, “The Red Reindeer,” in our collection. It is inscribed to Ruth and Albert, i.e., Bay Area artist Ruth Asawa and her husband, Albert Lanier.
Peggy Tolk-Watkins lived a full and interesting life but it was cut too short. During her last few years she had serious health problems and she died in 1973 at the age of 51.
Collections Manager Sharon Seymour interviewed Peggy’s son Ragland after the donation was received. It is an interesting read of what Ragland remembers of his mother and Sausalito in the 1950s and ‘60s. Incidentally, the collection was brought to the Sausalito Historical Society by Addie Lanier, the daughter of Ruth Asawa and Alfred Lanier, who had helped take care of Peggy when she became ill.
--Lauri Flynn
Interview with Ragland Watkins
An Imperfect History of 588 Bridgeway
History at its most satisfying enriches the present moment. Providing a perspective allows us to see the world from a vantage point outside of the span of our own existence. Take Scoma’s for example. The building seems made for its current role. What else could it be but this restaurant, with its white tablecloths and expansive views, broad umbrellas shielding diners from the afternoon sun?
But of course, it wasn’t always Scoma’s. You can see that from the windows, still decorated with a hand motif from its days as the Glad Hand more than fifty years ago. It wasn’t always a restaurant, either. When it was first built in 1904, the building served as an office and maintenance shop for Lange’s Launch Co., a local ferrying and tugboat service provided by Mat Lange. Captain Lange ran regular ferries, charters, and the “paperboat” that brought over newspapers from San Francisco. He delivered papers to Alcatraz, Angel Island, Tiburon, Belvedere, Sausalito, and even the Mile Rock Lighthouse outside the Golden Gate.
After the Golden Gate Bridge opened, there wasn’t as much of a need for paperboats and ferry services. Renowned for his cooking – especially the clam chowder he served at beach picnics -- Lange and his wife opened the first restaurant in the building in 1938. Serving crab, hotdogs, and sandwiches, Lange also offered fresh crab for sale, and chartered fishing expeditions.
After Lange’s death in 1949, Peggy Tolk-Watkins took over the space, renaming it the Tin Angel. The name came from an angel hung on the outside of the building, which Tolk-Watkins had found in the rubble of a New York Church that collapsed after a fire. With multi-colored windows, a yellow piano, and an interior painted purple, red, black and green by Jean Varda and a crew of Black Mountain College students, the Tin Angel became a center for art, jazz and folk music, and bohemian life in Sausalito. Though the Tin Angel was only open in Sausalito for a few years, it quickly came to represent the dynamic, artistic side of the city that flourished after World War II. When the Chamber of Commerce held a slogan contest in 1950, one of the entries was “Sausalito: Home of the Tin Angel.”
In 1953, Tolk-Watkins sold the business to Al Engel, a banker, and Harrison Thompson, a top-ranked professional ice skater. Renamed the Glad Hand, the restaurant continued to show work by artists from around the bay area, and employed a number of local artists and writers as well, including abstract expressionist painter Walter Khulman, who worked as a cook for five years until a fellowship award from the Graham Foundation meant he didn’t “have to cook these chickens anymore.”
Though a gathering place for Sausalito locals, the Glad Hand also attracted tourists and visiting celebrities such as Helen Hayes and Vivien Leigh. Russia’s prima ballerina, taking in the view, declared San Francisco “the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen.”
In 1968, Engel successfully petitioned to have the restaurant moved 25 feet further out into the Bay. The next year, he sold the business to San Francisco restaurateurs Al and Joe Scoma and Victor and Roland Gotti. The brothers renovated the building, adding outdoor seating and brightening the interior by adding more windows to let in light and air, and of course more access to the view. Despite these changes, this small structure perched on the edge of the water has been a constant presence for over 100 years. Sausalito has changed. Newspapers are no longer brought by boat from San Francisco, and you won’t often hear the insistent rhythm of late-night jazz played along the
waterfront. But you can still enjoy a bowl of clam chowder or some fresh crab, and the restaurant still welcomes locals and visitors alike. And as you look across the bay to San Francisco, you might find yourself thinking that this view, and that city, are the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.
--Nora Sawyer
Thanks to 2020 Premium Level Members and Major Donors
Benefactor Level Members
Elizabeth Robinson
Jan & Maria Elena Keizer
Pat Ronzone & Joe DeBellis
Patron Level Members
Ellen Rosenstein & Dale Barnes
Jim Meyer
Terrance & Gail Callaghan
Michael & Nancy Moyle
Susan and Daniel Daniloff
James Scriba
Donald Sibbett & Brianna Cutts
Michelle & David Benjamin
Roxanne Sheridan
Stanford Hughes & E.V. Gilbreath
Barbara Rycerski
Sponsor-Business Level Members
Janet Leonard
Maren Randrup
Jim & Cathy DeLano
Chris Ver Planck
Joanne’s Print Shop
Lauri Flynn
Lloyd & Connie Latch
Michael Rex
Sausalito Imports
Patricia & Peter Bowes
Christopher Gate
Nancy & Jim Osborn
Jim & Rose-Meri Muldoon
Pam & Roger Abendroth
Margaret Perry Compagno
Hale R. Allen
Mary L. Robinson
Jacqueline Kudler
Major Donors
Ragland Watkins
Linda Hothem
Tom Theodores & Tricia Smith
Mickie Allison
Ann Heurlin
Letter from the President
On December 8th, Gail and I watched the Sausalito City Council meeting. We saw exchanges of “Congratulations”; “Thanks for your Service”; “I Enjoyed Serving with You”; “Thanks to the Sausalitians who Volunteer”. Then City Clerk, Heidi Scobel, administered the Oaths of Office to each of the three newly elected members. The images of the outgoing members were taken off the screen, the three new members assumed their “seats” and the meeting proceeded.
An orderly, mature transition. It made me happy.
The next day, I read a passage from W. P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe, upon which the movie Field of Dreams is based. The lead character muses about his home town. “Iowa City: memorialized by Meredith Wilson as River City in The Music Man. Shady streets, very old white frame houses, porch swings, lilacs, one-pump gas stations, and good neighbors. But the wagons have been gathered in a circle, and the pioneers are being picked off one by one by fast food franchises that spring up everywhere like evil mushrooms, by concrete-and-glass buildings, muffler shops, and Howard Johnson motels. Each of these destroys a little more history.”
Why do I divert to a baseball novel written almost forty years ago? Because Sausalito’s City Councils and Planning Commissions and Historical Review Boards and Community Appearance Advisory Commissions have made a lot of decisions over the years. Those groups wouldn’t have been involved unless there was some dispute over the design, or view effects or …
Over the years, the collective decisions of those volunteers has given us a hometown in which I was able to report to the City Council in October about the Cultural History of Marinship, entitled “History is Important in Sausalito”.
So at a time of Council transition, I thank the long line of Council members and committee members who have honored that statement, kept Sausalito salty, and avoided the “evils” which befell “River City”.
Living in my home town, it makes me happy.
* * * * * * *
In many ways, 2020 was a “lost” year for the Sausalito Historical Society. There were no Field Trips, or Walking Tours, no new Exhibits in City Hall, no in-person presentations in the Library, no Gala, and no in-person Annual Meeting. The Ice House has been closed for ten months.
But, we are doing what we can:
Larry Clinton continues to relay Sausalito stories in the Marin Scope on a weekly basis. We’ve begun a project to create an index for these wonderful articles.
Jim Meyer maintains our website: www.sausalitohistoricalsociety.org
Roberta Maloy deals with incoming communications and pays the bills.
Barbara Rycerski is completing an inventory of the SHS Art Collection.
Sharon Seymour continues cataloging our accessions.
Scriba is updating our Information Technology and Data Communication hardware.
Lauri Flynn handles our memberships and donations
Our Past Perfect data management system is being upgraded to increase functionality, security and accessibility.
Our Schools Program resumed in January, Virtual Style, with the local 3rd Graders
Scriba and Stacy Smith, a professor at Oregon State U, conducted a Virtual presentation on Racial Divide in California in the 1800’s. On January 13th, SHS Ambassadors Tami Bell and Dana Whitson told the story of Marinship’s Joseph James. Both were excellent programs.
Nothing planned for 2020 has been cancelled, just postponed. When conditions permit, we will reopen the Ice House, host a Gala, stage a new exhibit in City Hall, and reconsider field trips and walking tours which we had anticipated in 2020.
We’re still here on this end. We hope you’re still with us on your end. Please renew your memberships. If you have a Life Membership, please consider making a donation to the Society.
Jerry E. Taylor
Sausalito Historical Society, President
Recent Acquisitions at the SHS
COVID has not stopped people from donating to the SHS. Thank you to our donors! Here are some of our recent acquisitions.
Peggy Tolk-Watkins archives
Peggy was a “Free-spirited Sausalito artist” and former owner of the Tin Angel in Sausalito (see other articles in this newsletter.) Her son, Ragland Tolk- Watkins has made a major donation of items from Peggy’s archives, including photos of her artwork, manuscripts with her illustrations, photos of the Fallen Angel and Tin Angel, ephemera from The Fallen Angel and Tin Angel including fliers and cards for musical events at the Tin Angel, and a Tin Angel menu, record covers illustrated by Peggy for” Interviews of Our Time: Lenny Bruce,” “ Cal Tjader’s Latest Hits”, “Odetta and Larry” and “Paul Desmond Quartet,” newspaper clippings of her art shows etc, contracts with Odetta and others, collages by Peggy and photo portraits of her.
Music and Hippies
James Scriba donated “Making Rumors, The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album” by Ken Caillet and Steven Stiefel- a book that includes descriptions of the Record Plant, where the album was made, and a DVD of “Olompali: A Hippy Odyssey.” Olompali was started by Don McCoy, who once had a houseboat venture in Sausalito.
Jack Beckerman painting, “Bishop’s Lodge Road”, 1994
Britta Carlson donated this acrylic on canvas painting by Jack Beckerman, painting as Jack Beck. Beckerman was born in Mill Valley in 1920 and passed away in 2016. He exhibited at the Sausalito Art Festival in the 1970’s. He was an army captain, courier for General MacArthur in the Pacific Theater during WWII, CPA and a painter.
–Sharon Seymour, Collections Manager
Membership Information
Thanks to all who have renewed in the last year. We will be checking with some of you who may have forgotten. Also please note that our dues for a few membership levels went up slightly last year, for the first time in 10 years. If you have an annual payment through a service, such as PayPal, please adjust the amount.
You can find more information on membership on our website at: http://www.sausalitohistoricalsociety.com/membership
We happily welcome the following new members:
Ian Sobieski, Sausalito
Connor Turnbull, Corte Madera
Robert Nelson, Montgomery AL
Bernard St. Croix, Larkspur
Christopher Dewees, Davis
Board and Ambassadors
Board of Directors, 2020-2021
Jerry E.Taylor, President
Nora Sawyer, Vice President
Roberta Maloy, Secretary
Peter Bowes, Treasurer
Lauri Flynn, Membership, Accessions, Newsletter
Stanford Hughes, Facilities
Nick Roby, Member at Large
Jim Scriba, Docent, Exhibits & Events
Sela Selaska, Member at Large
Ambassadors
Tami Bell, Schools Program
Sandra Bushmaker
Larry Clinton, Marin Scope Contributor
John Cox, Docent
Susan Frank, Schools Program
Tom Hoover
Leon Hunting
Sallie Hunting
Jan Keizer, Docent
James Meyer, Website
Michael Moyle
Michael Rex
Linda Sempliner, Ice House Mgr.
Sharon Seymour, Accessions/Collections
Dana Whitson, Schools Program