River in Ruin: The Story of the Carmel River

6. Carmel’s Theater of Water: Enter Two Therapists from Oakland

58 On Monday, August 8, 1921, Anne Nash and Dorothy Bassett, with all their belongings in tow, boarded a southbound train for Monterey. The two hospital occupational therapy instructors from Oakland were moving to Carmel. Dorothy’s mother was already living there, and her brother Willard arrived later to start a newspaper called the Carmel Cymbal. When the two women arrived in Monterey, they stopped to check on their baggage and missed the connecting stage, so they started walking over the hill to Carmel. Luck was with them and they hitched a ride to the lot in the Fourth Addition that they planned to purchase from Frank Devendorf. That night, their first in Carmel, and against the local rules, they heated soup over a tiny fire in the dirt road and slept on a bed of pine needles. By Friday of their first week, they were inquiring about the water supply to their lot. “Rose at 5 after a delightful night’s sleep on our pine needles ,” Anne Nash began writing in her diary. “To the beach to cook our breakfast and then for a long walk by the valley and the woods on the other side. Went to the real estate office . . . but Mr. Devendorf will be back tomorrow. The rest of my baggage came at 3 and we arranged our temporary camp. Heated beans and had a scrumptious dinner.” The next day, Devendorf showed them around the undeveloped Fourth Addition, informing them that he doubted he would be able to get water to the lot the two women were most interested in buying, but he would let them know. Anne and 6 carmel’s theater of water Enter Two Therapists from Oakland Carmel’s Theater of Water 59 Dorothy began to settle themselves into their camp. During their first week in Carmel, they regularly went to the glistening white sand dunes at the beach where, over an open fire, they cooked breakfasts of scrambled eggs and toast and then lingered over the warming coals before heading to town in search of Devendorf and an answer to their water needs. Each day the question of water went unanswered, but Nash and Bassett were undaunted. They returned to their lot of choice and talked about their house and garden plans before preparing dinner over canned heat. “A joyous life!” Anne wrote in her diary toward the end of their first week of cooking breakfast at the beach and planning for their new home and garden. A routine began to set in. For the next few weeks, Nash and Bassett, reluctant to start building a home that didn’t have a water supply, went to Devendorf’s office to inquire about what progress was being made. Devendorf, sometimes optimistic and sometimes unpromising but always hopeful, said he was trying to see what could be done. The women, anxious to improve on their meager life of camping, found the town dump and salvaged stove parts that they took back to their camp and reassembled. “Constructed a wonderful stove with rocks as a background —oven and all complete. Dined sumptuously on baked potato, string beans, bacon, and cantaloupe for dessert,” Anne noted in her diary. They went to town to see Devendorf nearly every day, hoping to get some encouragement, innocently unaware that supplying water from the Carmel River to the Fourth Addition was not entirely Devendorf’s responsibility. Under the conditions of the sale of Carmel’s water plant, it was the responsibility of the Monterey County Water Works to supply water, not only to the developed portions of Carmel but also to the new Fourth Addition. Still, Devendorf was acutely aware of the two women’s need for water, so he personally hauled it by horse and cart to their lot. Nash and Bassett at least had some water 60 Six for their domestic use until Devendorf figured out a more efficient method. “A beautiful sunny day,” Anne wrote in late August. “(To) town right after breakfast. Met the Marshall on the way who stopped and talked and advised us to build a log cabin . . . Mr. Devendorf not in, hence still no news about the water. Returned to camp and restored our composure by doing a large washing and reading fortifying fragments from Marcus Aurelius. To town again at 3. No mail! No packages. No nothing. Bore this with stoic calmness also. An appetizing dinner . . . and to bed promptly...