Name/Title
A carte de visite of Mattie Gussie Storke, Los Angeles, ca. 1874.Entry/Object ID
2013.474.1.1Description
A black and white carte de visite of Mattie Gussie Storke, William N. Tuttle, Los Angeles, ca. 1874. The infant girl in a wide dress, probably for a christening, seated on a chair or other item with a coverlet or similar piece behind her. Tuttle's cartouche identified him as a "heliographic artist" with an office in "Temple's Block." An ink inscription reads "To my Great-Grand mother, Mattie Gussie Storke." Minita Storke was born in July 1874 to Charles A. Storke, a native of New York who was a Union Army prisoner of war after the Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia, and graduate of 1870 from Cornell University, and his wife Matilda More. Matilda's father, a wealthy Santa Barbara cattle rancher, gave money to Charles Storke to found a Los Angeles newspaper, the Herald, in 1873. Storke the following year sold his interest, however, and went to Santa Barbara to practice law and serve as a state senator. Later, he was Santa Barbara County district attorney and the mayor of the city. He was editorial manager of the Santa Barbara Daily News and served on the state Board of Education. He also helped his son Thomas found the Santa Barbara News-Press newspaper. After his wife's death, he met Yda Addis, a writer who had been involved in a controversial engagement to former California governor and Los Angeles business man John G. Downey in 1887 and a subsequent affair and scandal in Mexico City. Storke and Addis were married, but she claimed cruelty from him and his son and he filed for divorce and years of trials followed, while Addis had other legal problems, such as an attack. Minita Storke was married to physician Alfred Banks and lived in San Mateo and San Diego. With some stains on the image and matte, soiling and abrasions, the overall condition is fair.Lexicon
Legacy Lexicon
Object Name
Carte-de-visites
