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The Marstons: A California Family – Part 6
The Courtship of George Marston and Anna Lee Gunn
By Robin Lakin
May/June 2023
 Anna Lee Gunn, photographed in 1874 in San Francisco, shortly before her arrival in San Diego. Courtesy George White Marston - A Family Chronicle |
 George White Marston photographed in 1875 in San Diego, about the time he met Anna Lee Gunn. Courtesy George White Marston - A Family Chronicle |
 July 30, 1876 San Diego Union article announcing Anna Lee Gunn as principal of the San Diego Academy, open for its seventh term. Courtesy genealogybank.com |
Sonora native Anna Lee Gunn arrived in San Diego in 1875 after spending her teen years in the bustling city of San Francisco. She joined her family (who had arrived in 1869) at their charming home with a pretty garden of flowers and trees, at the southwest corner of State and B Streets.
Trained as a teacher, Anna was quickly hired to teach at the San Diego Academy, operated by her sisters Sarah and Lizzie at 9th and G Streets. The school offered classes in English, French, Spanish, Latin, instrumental music, singing, calisthenics, and drawing. Within a year, Anna would be named its principal.
Shortly after their reunion, the Gunn sisters performed at Horton’s Hall in a popular entertainment called “tableau vivant,” living pictures of scenes from paintings or plays. The costumed actors froze in place against a backdrop painted by local artist John H. Richardson, a decorative and scenery painter and sign-maker.
San Diegans performed Longfellow’s “The Courtship of Miles Standish” and “The Hanging of the Crane” along with “The Mistletoe Bough.”
Anna was chosen to play Priscilla Mullins in “The Courtship of Miles Standish.” Her costumes came from a trunkful of 18th-century gowns worn by Anna’s great-grandmother. Anna donned silk brocade gowns of blue and crimson, a French calico, and a calash (a large, wired collapsible hood to cover the tall powdered wigs and hairstyles of the period) on stage that night. The memorable climax: Anna astride a wooden horse “trundled” off stage.
Scenery painter Richardson campaigned successfully for the role of Standish, and George W. Marston, a young merchant with a penchant for parlor tricks and comedic impersonations, auditioned to play John Alden, who was to win the hand of the fair Priscilla.
Thus, Kismet brought George and Anna together, later to become spouses, parents, and visionary philanthropists. Whether George was first smitten by Anna's charm, or her wide, expressive brown eyes, or her dark wavy hair elegantly coiffed upon her head, it was the "prettiest and smartest of the Gunn sisters," said her elder sister Sarah, that simply stole his heart.
Anna was no doubt enchanted by George’s smile, twinkly eyes, humor, spontaneity, warmth, and compassion. She described him to her Aunts Mary and Hannah Stickney as “good as gold.”
After a courtship of two years, George and Anna were quietly married on the evening of May 3, 1878 in the flower-bedecked bay window of the Gunn’s parlor, a promising union for the couple and for San Diego, witnessed by loving family and most intimate of friends.
Read the rest of the ongoing The Marstons: A California Story History Series.
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