Photograph by Kathy De La Torre
Mary McHugh, who still lives in Saratoga, looks at a photograph of her youngest brother.
Upstairs, Downstairs
Mary McHugh came to Hayfield as a mother's helper, but soon became an indispensable part of the family
By Sandy Sims
Mary McHugh came to Saratoga on Oct. 7, 1926, to temporarily lend a hand to the staff at Hayfield mansion. "I figured I could stand anything for six months," she recalls. Besides, she had a sewing job, starting in April, for a well-known tailor in San Francisco.
But, one thing led to another and McHugh remained in Saratoga the next 75 years, more than 50 of those years at Hayfield. The 18-year-old Irish immigrant would become a source of strength and wisdom that the family at Hayfield mansion would bind itself to over generations.
McHugh, in turn, would become part of a wealthy, well- established Saratoga family and live in one of Saratoga's important landmarks for more than half her life.
The tall girl, from a poor farm in Ireland, would get to know and become friends with the rich and famous, writers, symphony conductors, politicians, actors, designers, academicians and the well-heeled in Saratoga. She would organize banquets at Hayfield, sometimes for more than 50 guests. She also would help raise two generations of Hayfield children. Because she was skilled at sewing, she would repair everything from silk lamp shades to the seat of poet Robert Frost's pants.
At the age of 92, blind in one eye, almost blind in the other, hard of hearing, and struggling to get around with her walker, McHugh today lives in a modest house a few doors from the old mansion. Not a day goes by without someone visiting her.
"People still want her advice," Carol Torre, the youngest of the three original children at Hayfield, says. "She's a grandmother to the whole world. She's an oracle."
Torre's son Michael, a philosophy professor at the University of San Francisco, says McHugh possesses something--a goodness--that goes deeper than just being nice. "She has something special, and you want to know the secret."
"I don't know what I do," McHugh says, "I guess I just listen." But Michael Torre says part of it is her Irish penchant for telling stories, her insight, and her laughter as she tells the stories. He claims her as his "godmother," because the way she has lived her life is the reason why he converted to Catholicism. Torre's brother, Nicholas, also converted to Catholicism.
Even Saratoga history buff, Willys Peck, called on McHugh when he was gathering information about Saratoga and the Hayfield mansion. "The Hayfield mansion was the ultimate in elegance," McHugh says. "Finger bowls at every meal."
The California-style, English country house was designed about 1917 for Chauncey Goodrich, a San Francisco attorney, and his wife, Henriette, by the famous architect Julia Morgan. The mansion got its name because it was built in the middle of a hay field.
McHugh remembers the house with its eight bathrooms, seven or more bedrooms and an apartment above the three-car garage (when three-car garages were unheard of). On the side of the garage was a small barn for the milk cow, the chickens and a donkey. There was a rose garden, a tennis court, a swimming pool, an extensive front lawn, a cutting garden, a vegetable garden, a turtle pool, a creek flowing by the long driveway and more.
There the Goodriches entertained the elite and were generous to all, including their staff.
In 1998, after listening to Saratogans' concerns about the fate of the historic Julia Morgan house, the Saratoga Planning Commission subdivided the old Hayfield land (now the Spaich property) off Douglass Lane into 15 parcels. The Hayfield mansion would remain on the largest parcel, because of its historic significance.
Fourteen new homes were built on the rest of the property with public trails along the creek and no through access. "The new homes there are lovely," McHugh says, "but Hayfield has lost its elegance."
In the 1920s, Saratoga was mainly farmland, white in spring with the blossoms of prunes and apricots, and not much downtown. "That's when Santa Clara County was called the Valley of Heart's Delight, you know," McHugh says. There wasn't much of a town.
Sacred Heart, then, was a small church on Big Basin Way where bells rang every Sunday. "I was the only altar society for the church," McHugh says. She spent Saturday afternoons washing the church's altar linen and altar boys' robes and cleaning candlesticks. She brought flowers from Hayfield for Sunday's mass. In those days, the priest came in from Cupertino.
Photograph courtesy of Mary McHugh
The Hayfield house, designed by Julia Morgan, is still a landmark in Saratoga.
McHugh was no stranger to beautiful country. She came to the United States from the countryside of County Roscommon, Ireland, along the banks of the Shannon River. Her life in Ireland had been very different from her life in Saratoga.
"Everyone was poor in Ireland," McHugh says. Wealth was measured by the size of a family's land and the number of cows. She was the oldest of eight children, living on a farm where the family cottage had a thatched roof. They grew all their own food, milked their cows, churned their butter, and had no running water. "It was strange when I first saw a pound of butter or a quart of milk from the store," she recalls.
From her devout Catholic parents, McHugh developed a deep sense of service. "We weren't the poorest of the poor," she says, "and my mother always had an awareness of others." Her mother kept her busy on the days before Christmas, Easter and other holidays, putting together extra butter and milk for people who had less.
But it wasn't all work and no play on the farm. McHugh recalls her father singing Irish songs by the fireside every night with a child on his lap. "He sang Mary Ellen to me," she says. She explains that many Irish girls were named Mary after the "blessed Virgin Mother." That is why the girls are called by two names. She's Mary Ellen.
She is proud of her heritage. "My mother was Honoria O'Donnell. And the O'Donnells were Irish heroes during the 800 years of fighting the English." McHugh has memories of the Irish civil war, when British soldiers stopped Irish men and interrogated them. She remembers her father being dragged in for questioning. "They're still working it out in the North, now, aren't they," McHugh says.
She came to the U.S. soon after the Irish Free State was formed in 1922 (it became the Irish Republic in 1949). Her 1925 passport has the insignia Irish Free State on it, which, she says, makes it a historical document.
McHugh's generation grew up with the idea of immigrating. They waited for a relative or friend in America to sponsor them. "My generation is hardly represented in Ireland because so many of us came to America," she says.
Her opportunity came in the form of a second-class ticket from San Francisco where her mother had relatives and friends. McHugh was 17 and in the middle of a three-year training program to be a tailor. She wasn't eager to leave yet.
She had set her sights on working for a good Irish tailor, or even a major U.S. store like I Magnin's. "But," she says, "when you got your chance, you took it."
Her training with the needle has served her well her whole life. At Hayfield she sewed clothes for everyone, including school uniforms for a relative in San Francisco. She often used old clothes or scraps of fabric. There was Mr. Goodrich's Chinese silk robe that she repaired, the difficult-to-make slip for a wedding dress, a child's Scottish costume that garnered first prize, competing against an outfit for which comedian Gracie Allen had paid $120 (a fortune then). Carol Torre recalls McHugh knitting sweaters all the time, laying them between two mattresses to block them, and then sending them off to Ireland.
Even though she would be heading for the new world, leaving Ireland was tough. Many who left never returned. In fact, it would be 23 years before she returned to County Roscommon when her brother was ordained. "You know it's very special when an Irish son becomes a priest," McHugh says.
McHugh recalls leaving Ireland for the first time. At Queens Town, County Cork, she would board the S.S. America. "For two days, we were treated like cattle," she says, "even searched for lice." However, she was fortunate; she had a second-class ticket and her father's brothers in New Jersey arranged to pick her up at the New York dock. All of this meant she didn't travel steerage and would skip notorious Ellis Island.
After a two-week visit in New Jersey with her father's relatives, McHugh rode the train to San Francisco. "I always thought I would settle in New Jersey, too," McHugh says. "But, then, my life hasn't gone the way I expected."
At first, McHugh found San Francisco bleak, no grass, all cement. "I looked out, and all I saw was sidewalks and houses," she says. "I cried myself to sleep at night and wrote many letters home." Like so many young women from Ireland, McHugh became a mother's helper. And, like so many young Irish in San Francisco, she found her way to the Knights of Red Branch (KRB) hall to dance reels and jigs, with names like the Sack of Barley and Bridge of Athlone.
Like most Irish immigrants, McHugh sent money home. "After paying your debts, you start right in helping people at home," McHugh says. Over the years her money helped her parents build a new house on the farm, and also pay for her youngest brother's high school, college and seminary education. During World War II, she even sent tea home. Only recently, with the expense of a daily companion, has she stopped sending money to Ireland.
She lived in San Francisco for just one year before heading to Saratoga. McHugh would find a kindred spirit in Henriette Goodrich. Though propriety was always observed by McHugh, the two women grew to care deeply for and respect each other. Mrs. Goodrich always gave to others. McHugh says, she put people through college and medical school and gave to local organizations. But, nobody ever knew about it.
The pay at Hayfield was good, too. During the Depression, while others let their domestic help go or cut their wages, the Goodriches did neither. "Mother went to the bank and borrowed money to pay the staff," Carol Torre says. Torre and McHugh remember Henriette told them how the banker had coached her to tell him the money was for home improvements, so he could lend her the money.
Mary McHugh around the age of 20, while living at Hayfield.
Photograph courtesy of Mary McHugh
Life at Hayfield had its troubled times. Chauncey Goodrich was ill for many years before he died in 1940.
Henriette's second husband, Willard Durham, died early, too. For a number of years the family lived in Berkeley, where Durham was an English professor at the university. Family and friends continued to use and care for Hayfield mansion during that time. It was in Berkeley that Robert Frost came to stay. He was there to receive an honorary degree, and McHugh sewed up a split in the pants of his tuxedo. "He was a lovely, lovely man," McHugh says, "but his hair looked like he hadn't put a comb to it for a year."
Willard Durham died of emphysema in 1955. "I took complete care of him for five years," McHugh recalls.
McHugh was always willing to take on tasks others didn't want to do. She could make decisions and take on any responsibility. "Mary was so competent medically," Michael Torre says, "that the family doctor thought she was a trained nurse." Torre says McHugh even gave shots.
When McHugh's mother died in Ireland in 1955, Henriette encouraged her to bring her father over from Ireland to live at Hayfield. McHugh recalls the night she brought him home. The front lights were on at Hayfield--a signal to bring him in the front door.
"When we got close, Mrs. Durham pulled open the door and said, 'Welcome home,' to my father. I was concerned about him coming to such an elegant place to live, tromping around in his heavy boots and all," McHugh says. "I didn't need to worry. He fit right in."
But he had a habit of scooting his chair around that McHugh didn't understand. She realized one day that this habit came from those nights in Ireland when he scooted his chair back and forth to adjust to the heat from the fireplace. He lived at Hayfield six years till his death in 1961.
McHugh took her father's body home to County Roscommon. However, she had to seal the coffin in order to take it on the plane, which presented a problem. An Irish wake requires viewing the body. She figured out she could get the top sealed in glass. The big Mass and wake took place in New Jersey where most of her father's family had settled. In Ireland, she followed tradition and found friends to dig his grave. "We don't pay grave diggers there," she says.
Henriette married once more, this time to Benjamin Lehman, also a professor from UC-Berkeley. But, this time her husband outlived her. "I stayed on and cared for Mr. Lehman till he died in 1978," McHugh says.
The house went up for sale in 1979. When Hayfield was sold, McHugh was the one who stayed on to disperse the contents. "I was the only one who knew all three families and what belonged to who," she says. For example, there were two Steinway pianos, both signed by Steinway. One needed to go to a granddaughter in the Midwest. Not an easy task when the movers balked because the piano was too large. She got it done.
McHugh has had health problems of her own. In the 1960s she underwent surgery for a benign brain tumor. "Hayfield was a lovely place to convalesce. I sat by the pool and they adjusted my umbrella and brought me tea." The surgery left her partially paralyzed and deaf and blind on her left side. But, she recovered enough to resume her job at the mansion.
Over time she had a heart attack, broke both hips and suffered injuries in two car accidents. "She's always remained positive," Michael Torre says. Lately it's gotten tougher since she broke her second hip and since her eyesight has gotten worse.
The children and grandchildren who grew up at Hayfield recall McHugh rubbing their backs with alcohol when they were ill, bringing them tea and cookies when they were in the pool and milk shakes just before bed. They still enjoy her stories about characters at Hayfield. "You need to hear her talk about Uncle Tevis to know her humor and laughter," Michael Torre says.
McHugh is in constant contact with all her nieces and nephews in Ireland, New Jersey and other parts of the world. "I don't write now," she says, "and I have a terrible phone bill."
She still visits with members of the old Hayfield staff. She and Ernest White have hung on to the Hayfield post office box. "The two of them used to haggle like cats and dogs," says Michael Torre. They care for each other a lot. White was the only "colored" man in Saratoga when he was working at Hayfield.
Torre and his brother, Nicholas, took McHugh back to Ireland after the family gave her a huge 90th birthday party.
This time, McHugh saw a different Ireland. The old farmhouse is a shed now, and McHugh's nephew lives in a nice new house on the land. Instead of farming, he and his wife work in a bacon factory. With the infusion of high-tech companies and the government ensuring that everyone is educated, Ireland has become prosperous. Many Irish are moving back to the old country these days.
Just outside McHugh's front door, an old wooden sign hangs slightly crooked. It reads, Hayfield Haven. She explains that Hayfield mansion had always been considered a haven for family and friends, and that someone made the sign for her and told her that her house would now be the haven for people. "I can't entertain them on the same level here," she says. But, be sure they will find that Irish charm. She still loves to have company.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
