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50
winter
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spr ing
reading the latest dispatches. They learned that the high school was badly
damaged and State Street lay in rubble. Two of the hospitals were out of
commission and Sheffield Reservoir had burst, sending its waters to flood
the already damaged lower Eastside where, to compound the injury, a gas
main had exploded. They immediately cancelled the recuperative voyage
and returned home to help.
Solano was the least of their concerns, though it had sustained
considerable damage. Not a piece of china was left unbroken, Kathleen
later quipped that in its replacement she felt like a young bride choosing
new china and furnishing a new house.
China patterns took second place to the city’s needs, however. Peabody
took on the chairmanship of the Santa Barbara Relief Fund committee
and Kathleen became chairman of the subcommittee to raise funds locally.
She gave a stirring speech at the California Club in Los Angeles to solicit
funds for the devastated city.
On February 21, 1927, Frederick Forrest Peabody was struck by a
cerebral hemorrhage. He died two days later. After a brief funeral service
at Solano, he was interred at Santa Barbara Cemetery. No grand marble
tomb marks his remains; rather, a simple sandstone boulder embossed
with brass lettering proves to be a fitting tribute to the quiet, retiring man
who, according to the
Independent
, “was ever reticent to take a prominent
place in the glare of publicity.”
The Legacy Lives On
Kathleen Burke Peabody shared in the estate, along with Peabody’s
children. Kathleen retained Solano and the Eagle Ranch. Two years after
Frederick’s death, she married Colonel John Reginald McKean whom she
had met while serving as a nurse in an American hospital in France where
he was recuperating from injuries sustained in battle. Tragically, as they
were returning from their honeymoon, McKean was fatally injured when
their automobile was involved in an accident. A year later, Kathleen married
Girard Hale, an artist, whom she had also met in Europe during WW I.
World War II proved that Kathleen’s charitable spirit had not flagged
over the years. She and Girard helped refugees in France until the
occupation forced them to escape. After the war, they completely rebuilt
the French village of Maille, which had been destroyed by the Germans.
Locally, she rented a clubhouse for the Girl Scouts and later donated the
building to them. In 1954, she donated 13 acres of Solano to the city for
a park. She died in 1958 and Solano was sold to the Center for the Study
of Democratic Institutions, which sold the property in the early 1980s.
Today, the house has been restored and is in private hands.
The good works of Kathleen Burke and Frederick Forrest Peabody eased
the suffering of those whose lives were devastated by war and natural
disaster. Their many philanthropic projects in Santa Barbara were aimed
at providing for the betterment of children through schools and play areas
and supportive institutions. Today, Santa Barbarans continue to benefit
from what this couple wrought.
(Sources: History of Santa Barbara County by Michael Phillips, 1927;
arrowshirts.com; Telegram and Tribune of SLO County, 22 April 1963;
“Eagle Ranch” by Frederick Forrest Peabody; Kathleen Burke Peabody letter,
10 July 1925; Eagle Ranch Timeline, www.atascadero.org; Santa Barbara
Daily Independent, 24 February 1927; Santa Barbara and Montecito by
David Myrick)
Opening of the East Beach wading pool, a project sponsored by the Peabodys circa 1920,
with Kathleen’s Wolf Scouts in attendance