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Anna Marston’s Records of a California Family Comes Home
By Robin Lakin
March/April 2024
 Anna Lee Marston’s inscription on the flyleaf of her copy of the 1928 edition of Records of a California Family, which she edited. Courtesy SOHO |
 Title page and image of Sonoma, California in Anna’s 1928 copy of Records of a California Family; courtesy SOHO |
 Anna Marston’s hand-penciled edits and comments on page 165 of her copy of Records of a California Family: “This first Christmas together was a very happy one…Letters instead of books.” Courtesy SOHO |
 The original appearance of the Records of a California Family cover, had the donated book survived intact. This is the cover of a book also signed by Anna Lee Marston as a gift to Margaret Weddle. Courtesy Abe Books |
SOHO recently received a special donation from a Gunn family descendant—a 1928 edition of Records of a California Family. Anna Lee Marston edited the book that recounts through family letters the Gold Rush journey her parents took from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Sonora, California. Anna’s father Lewis C. Gunn traveled overland in 1849, and her mother Elizabeth, and siblings Douglas, Chester, Sarah, and Lizzie followed in 1851, enduring a six-month voyage around Cape Horn aboard the Bengal.
The book contains correspondence between Lewis and Elizabeth Gunn and between Elizabeth and her mother and sisters, with Anna providing written context. Elizabeth’s descriptions of tasks, fashion, make-do recipes, and the colorful neighbors who created a support system in this remote mining town are engaging; the descriptions of little Anna born there in 1853, are clear indicators of the woman she was to become.
Almost 100 years old, the donated book carries a rich history. It once belonged to Anna Marston and was passed down to Laura Gallo Rodríguez, who was a ward of the Marstons through the Neighborhood House Association in the early 1920s. Established by Anna and George Marston's daughters, Mary and Helen, in 1914, the association fostered community and social responsibility. Laura, known as the "Mother of Chicano Park," continued the legacy of social justice she learned from "Aunt Helen." The book was later given to the donor by Laura's daughter, Mary Lou (Lilia) Rodríguez Agosto, adding to its historical significance.
The cover is missing and the pages are worn, with Anna’s name and address penned in faded brown ink on the flyleaf. She penciled edits throughout and occasional musings in the margins. “Would have been lonely” is penciled next to a December 22, 1852 letter, in which Elizabeth, four months pregnant with Anna, writes that Lewis had just left for Stockton (he did not make it back for Christmas), and describes the incredible amount of work she accomplished that day.
As a mature woman, Anna read far more between the lines of these letters than she ever could have in her youth. The edits that Anna Marston noted in her copy never appeared in a later edition of Records of a California Family. Even without the small changes, the original content reflects a strong, intelligent, and hard-working family.
Now this invaluable book has come full circle, back to the Marston House, where Anna reflected upon it and inscribed new impressions. Records of a California Family is available for purchase in the Marston House Museum Shop.
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