Reasonably Educated Bumpkins

(Photo stolen from these guys)

This is Annie Bidwell, or, if you'd like to be formal about it, Annie Kennedy Bidwell. Around Northern California she is most famous for the following things:

~ Generously donating about ten square miles of land to the city of Chico, for a municipal park (now known, of course, as Bidwell Park)
~ Knowing a lot of influential people of her day, including three U.S. presidents, John Muir, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony
~ Being a teetotaler, and casting a long, alcohol-free shadow upon the land she donated to her town (much to the chagrin of some golfers at Bidwell Golf Course)
~ Having a really big pink house

(Photo stolen from these guys)

But there's one story about Annie Bidwell that you don't know. It's a tiny story, admittedly; most of my family have forgotten it. But I remember it, because the first time I heard the story, it made Annie Bidwell a real person to me. My own tiny link to history.

My grandfather, Frank LaGrone, was born in 1903. When he was about seven, he and his little sister Stella were on the lawn of Annie Bidwell's mansion, for some reason. They had probably been playing in Big Chico Creek, or over at Children's Park (just across the creek from the mansion, and also a Bidwell endowment). They peeked into the carriage house to see the dusty and forlorn horse-drawn carriages, decaying in the dark after the advent of the automobile.

And as they were investigating the carriage house, Annie Bidwell herself appeared. What did the great lady do? Shoo away the tiny trespassers? Scold them for snooping?

She gave them cookies.

Annie Kennedy Bidwell (1838 - 1918)

Henry Frank LaGrone (1903 - 1990)