Los Gatos Weekly-Times file photograph
Cadet Charles Erskine Scott Wood led a colorful life, part of it in Los Gatos.
Col. Charles Erskine Scott Wood, movie-star handsome in his West Point uniform, came to Los Gatos in 1919 to write a biography of his father, an acclaimed military surgeon and intimate of President Ulysses S. Grant during his military days.
The entrance to Wood's estate on Santa Cruz Highway just south of town is flanked by two cat statues. The present owners and residents of The Cats are Bruce and Eva (Diane) Ogilvie.
Wood's lifestyle here was described this month by Beth Grover Rondone, a resident of San Jose. She lived at the Wood property with her aunt Emily Seaman, who came here from Portland with Wood to be his writing assistant.
It was Grant who obtained Wood an appointment to West Point and his older brother William to the U.S. Naval Academy.
Upon graduation, 2nd Lt. Wood went on active duty at Vancouver Barracks, Washington Territory. In 1877, he took part in the campaign against the Nez Perce Indian tribe led by Chief Joseph.
The Nez Perce experience and subsequent action in Eastern Oregon to subdue the Bannock tribe ultimately led Wood to reject a military career and thereafter support the cause of Northwest Indians. Indeed, he and Chief Joseph became friends and traded sons for a summer, Rondone recalled.
While adjutant at West Point, Wood entertained Mark Twain; together one weekend they secretly printed the first copies of "1601," a satire written by Twain, but which he never signed. The book was judged obscene in its day. The title refers to the reign of England's Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603). The late Eugene Westphalen, who lived on Tait Avenue, entertained friends with a recorded reading of the book, its main theme being to determine who broke wind in the queen's royal court.
After his encounter with the Nez Perce, Wood had a tour of duty at West Point before he left the army in 1883. He and his wife of four years, Nanny Moale Smith, a former Washington D. C. debutante, decided to make their home in Portland.
He completed his law studies in New York before settling in Portland, where he became part of a major law firm. His partners were conservative Republicans. They either did not know or did not care that Wood was a contributor to Socialist newspapers and tracts.
Continuing his liberal ways, Wood defended Margaret Sanger, an advocate of free speech and birth control, and anarchist Emma Goldman--both of them advocates of woman's suffrage.
Wood was catnip to the ladies of Portland and had an open affair with Sara Bard Field, who came to Los Gatos with him.
In 1886, he was asked to organize the Oregon National Guard, an assignment that brought him the title of lieutenant colonel.
Wood was a central attorney in a contract involving timberlands and railroads, and his pay was reported to be the first million-dollar legal fee in the U.S.
Part of his fee went to settling a divorce with his wife and the rest went into his Los Gatos estate and the stock market. Sissy Seaman, his Portland secretary, and her niece Beth joined his Los Gatos household. Seaman was to help with his father's biography. The stock market crash of 1929 greatly reduced Wood's income and he dropped the biography.
Seaman and her niece moved into Los Gatos, where Beth became a reporter on the Mail-News and the wife of printer Frank Rondone. She recalled in her widowhood that Wood wore white robes and white flowing hair. "He didn't like being called Santa Claus," Rondone recalled from her San Jose home. "He was a fabulous storyteller." He died at age 94 in 1944.
Wood wrote "Heavenly Discourse," a satirical account of prominent persons like Billy Sunday talking with St. Peter and God. The faith healer said, "Remember what I did in Philly, St. Louis and Portland? I can put Heaven on a paying basis."
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, April 17, 1996
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