On my den’s bookshelf sits a well-worn but cherished copy of
”
Treasure Island.
”
During my growing-up years in Hollister, this novel took me on a
South Seas adventure to battle pirates and search for buried
treasure.
On my den’s bookshelf sits a well-worn but cherished copy of “Treasure Island.” During my growing-up years in Hollister, this novel took me on a South Seas adventure to battle pirates and search for buried treasure.
Recently, I learned the boy who inspired author Robert Louis Stevenson to write this famous book once made his home here in our South Valley region. The tale of how Stevenson created his novel is an adventure story in itself, full of surprising twists and turns, and trials of the heart.
And it’s especially appropriate to tell the novel’s creation tale this week. The South Valley Civic Theater recently began its children’s show production of the musical version of “Treasure Island.” Directed by Gilroy’s Whitney McClelland, the swashbuckling stage production will run at the Morgan Hill Community Playhouse through Dec. 9.
Our story begins in July 1876 when the 28-year-old Stevenson arrived in the southern France resort town of Grez to rehabilitate from a life-long bout with tuberculosis. There at the Hotel Chevillon, two of his cousins introduced him to a quick-witted woman named Fanny Vandengrift Osbourne. The struggling author fell in love – “at first sight” he later wrote – with this attractive Victorian American from Oakland.
Creating the dramatic complication that’s an absolute must for all great love stories, Osbourne was unhappily married to a notorious philanderer named Samuel. She also had a young son named Lloyd and a daughter named Belle. And she was still grieving the loss of her son Hervey, who had recently died in Paris of tuberculosis.
For several months in France, Stevenson and Osbourne’s romantic friendship blossomed. Then one sad day, she left to return to her California home, probably assuming she’d never again see the ambitious young author who had fallen so deeply in love with her.
Stevenson returned to his family home in the Scottish city of Edinburgh. There in the summer of 1879, he received a telegram from his lady love. It informed him she had decided to divorce Samuel and had moved from Oakland to Monterey. Against the advice of his family and friends, the author set on his own determined trek to reach her.
On Aug. 9, 1879, in the port of Glasgow, he took steerage passage on the Devonia, a steamship heading on a 10-day voyage to New York City. A few days after arrival, he boarded a transcontinental train for California. He’d later write about this journey in his travel books “The Amateur Emigrant” and “Across the Plains.”
When Stevenson’s train reached Oakland a few days later, he crossed San Francisco Bay by ferry and caught a Southern Pacific train heading south. As he passed through our rustic South Valley region, his heart must have fluttered as he now came so close to his beloved lady. He must have looked out the train window and felt the enchanted glow of love.
The Scottish author soon arrived at the Salinas depot where he caught another train making a short hop to Monterey. Strained by the three-week, 6,000-mile journey, he soon found himself at Fanny’s home. His emotions must have been high as he knocked at her door.
Fanny’s reaction to his arrival, however, wasn’t exactly a tender one. Facing a conflict of emotions in regards to her divorce and a possible romantic future with Stevenson, she immediately turned him away.
Rejected and penniless, he struggled with newspaper writing jobs in Monterey. To soothe his soul, he often strolled the rugged coastal trails of Point Lobos a few miles south of Carmel.
Eventually Fanny changed her mind and opened her heart to Stevenson’s love. In December 1879, she divorced Samuel, and on May 19, 1880, she married Stevenson at San Francisco’s St. Andrews Presbyterian Church. The two honeymooned in the Napa Valley village of Calistoga, then set sail for England, settling in Bournemouth where Stevenson became a devoted dad to Lloyd and Belle.
One rainy winter day, to amuse his stepson Stevenson drew a map of Point Lobos, turning it into an island. At Lloyd’s encouragement, he spun a story of pirates and hidden treasure. He later transformed Lloyd into “Jim Hawkins,” the 12-year-old boy narrator, and scribbled the adventure down as his first novel – “Treasure Island,” published in 1883.
Stevenson enjoyed 14 happy years of marriage to Fanny. In 1888, the couple voyaged to the South Pacific and bought a Samoan plantation they called “Vailima.” The natives named Stevenson “Tusitala” which means “Teller of Tales.”
Stevenson died in Samoa on December 3, 1894, from a sudden cerebral hemorrhage. He was buried on the summit of Mount Vaea that overlooked the sun-silvered sea.
Fanny returned to California to make her home in San Francisco. One day in 1900, she visited the Mt. Madonna home of Gilroy “cattle king” Henry Miller. She felt so enchanted by the location that she purchased land near the end of Redwood Retreat Road and built herself an English-style cottage there. She called her get-away home “Vanumanutagi,” which means “Valley of Singing Birds” in Samoan.
After Fanny died in February 1914, her son Lloyd inherited Vanumanutagi. He lived on the beautiful estate for many years with his wife Ethel. The house was later sold to Gustave and Dorothy Knecht, and in 1969, it was purchased by Leo and Jeanne Ware of Palo Alto who, on occasion, open it specially for Robert Louis Stevenson buffs. The couple even named their dog “Fanny” in honor of the remarkable woman who built it.
On two occasions, I’ve visited Vanumanutagi. Inside, I once stood in the library den and wondered about the love story that led to the creation of one of the world’s favorite children’s books. I felt no doubt that when grown-up Lloyd Osbourne made his home here, on rainy winter evenings he would open up a copy of “Treasure Island” and recall the day his stepfather, author Robert Louis Stevenson, drew a map and told him a tale of pirates.
