Sketches of California in the 1860s: The Journals of Jesus Maria Estudillo ed. by Margaret Schlichtmann (review)

Reviews 79 Bartlett’semphases, Everson was a master printer who wrote poems in hisspare time; but such a simplistic, misleading and dull portrait does an injustice to the depth and complexity of Everson and his remarkably American poetry. Nothing new here, though, since the Western Literature Association has failed for years to recognize this poet’sachievements. DAVID A. CARPENTER Eastern Illinois University Sketches of California in the 1860s: The Journals of Jesus Maria Estudillo. Edited and Annotated by Margaret Schlichtmann. (Fredericksburg, Texas: The Awani Press, 1988. 180 pages, $10.00.) The journals of a young Californio, Jesus M. Estudillo, are pretty much what one would expect from a provincial young man, born in 1844, who grew up in what is now San Leandro (south of Oakland) and went to college at the University of Santa Clara. Here we have a teenage student’s account of what time he woke up, whom he visited, and the ups and downs of college life:“Class as usual, but again our teacher is changed in our arithmetic class . . .” etc., etc. This is local history on a small scale indeed. Margaret Schlichtmann (who, with Irene Paden, previously wrote The Big Oak Flat Road to Yosemite) gives an overview of the times in her introduc­ tion (“By the fall of 1849, while great pumpkins, squashes, peppers, red beans and onions continued to ripen on the still-warm earth, ominous clouds began to cast shadows of trouble over Rancho San Leandro with the appearance of more squatters”). Her commentaries also help explain the character of young Estudillo. When he complains about being criticized by a teacher for failing to prepare a lesson, Schlichtmann rushes to his defense: “Undoubtedly the diarist’s inferiority complex was accentuated in the presence of Father Young who did not appreciate J. M.’s emotional and sensitive nature.” This is the kind of commentator that every eighteen-year-old schoolboy who gets his journals published deserves. Most of the commentary involves explanations about specific names and incidents—glosses that show endless hours of research into the minutiae of how a particular canyon got named, when a cadet corps got founded, etc. Schlichtmann also expands on Estudillo’sdiary byquoting from Brewer, Dana, J. Ross Browne, and others who visited some of the same places, but described them more vividly. The journals also cover trips to Southern California and to other towns around the Bay Area. There are definitely nuggets of information here, but it is unfortunate that the publisher did not provide an index for those unable to read the book from cover to cover. MALCOLM MARGOLIN Heyday Books, Berkeley ...