Blair
- James Evans
- Sep 13
- 5 min read
I have already made several references Blair Birdsall Dobbas Cranston, but there is more to say about her.
Every community has one or more leading families, and the Birdsall family would most likely fit into that category. (See References for added information.)
There were three Birdsall children: Blair, Thersa, and Mary. I don’t know their relative ages, but, naturally, they were all members of the San Souce Club. Thersa married Fred Haswell, who I remember little about. Mary married Bill Jansen, who was the local Chevrolet dealer.
As things would happen, Bill and my father were good friends in their early days. My father occasionally reminisced about a trip that he and Bill took to Lake Louise and Bampf in Canada before they were married, probably around 1930. It was one of those experiences that provided him with pleasant memories.
Blair was an alumna of Mills College in Oakland. Mills is the oldest women’s college west of the Mississippi. My sense is that many held Blair in high regard because she was “finished” at an exclusive school. And, indeed, Blair was a very cultured and sophisticated woman for our little rustic community. Most people, in general, and women, in particular didn’t go to college. My Aunt Emma did, as well as Mirriam Griffith, who both were teachers.
I didn’t know Blair well until after her husband Jim Dobbas died. As mentioned, earlier, Jim’s sister, Marsha Dobbas Cranston died not long thereafter.
Robbie Cranston, Blair’s nephew by marriage, and I visited his Aunt Blair during several summers while we were in college. Blair had inherited her father’s 1929 Lake Tahoe home in Meek’s Bay Vista, a residential neighborhood just south of Meeks Bay and the Meeks Bay Resort in the south-western quadrant of the Lake.
I can’t imagine a more beautiful setting except, perhaps, the Amalphi Coast of Italy. The house was set down the hill in the pine trees a little way below the highway that circles the Lake. It was set high enough from the lake shore to provide a wide panoramic view of the outer portion of Meek’s Bay and the northern shore in the distance.
The house, itself is constructed of native volcanic rock with a high pitched roof to shed the heavy winter snow. There is only one bedroom in the main house which adjoined the central living area.
Unlike the resort homes that are typically build today, this house was rustic in the lodge style common in the 1920’s and ‘30’s. There was a large stone fireplace for cool summer evenings and cold winter nights. The furnishings were simple Indian and Craftsman style pieces. The kitchen had a sheet metal sink and the “luxuries” of running water, indoor plumbing and electricity. The whole idea, I would imagine, was that you were “camping out” in comfort.
The lake and downhill side of the house opened onto a large flagstone patio contained by a low flagstone wall.
That was my favorite place. What a treat to sit out in the canvas swing reading the Saturday Evening Post while motor boats buzz by down on the Lake’s surface.
At one time there were two additional smaller buildings on the property that served as dormitories, each housing about six beds. One of the buildings had burned down, so the remaining one provided a small bathroom and several beds for guests.
A dock at the end of a downhill path at waterside had been built in the more recent past. From the house the Lake surface appeared in its famous aquamarine color that can’t be adequately described in words. Here and there blue grays dappled the under laying color as clouds cast their shadows on the water. When you got to the dock, however, the water lost all of its color and you could see every detail of the rocks making up the lake bottom for some distance and depth.
From the porch at the house, the Lake shimmers with an opaque turquoise color. Like an organic living thing, it is dappled with light and dark patterns created by the sun and the clouds. The thin clear air creates almost a psychedelic feeling resolving the view with an etched quality. Perhaps this has as much to due to the oxygen depleted atmosphere as to the lack of particulates in the air.
What a wonderful place. In more recent times Pat and I have stopped by and trespassed onto the property on several summer occasions, even as far as the patio where we could take in that wondrous view. The silence of the house and property has a regal quality. It seems to preserve and hide away all of the wondrous feelings and emotions that
I should also mention Meek’s Bay Resort, located a mile of so north at the bottom of the hill from Blair’s home.
Meek’s Bay is one of the most picturesque locations on Lake Tahoe. It’s a relatively small crescent shaped bay located in the south-west corner of the Lake, and is essentially the last neighborhood on what is thought of as the “West Side” of the Lake.
The site was originally an Indian campsite at the mouth of a creek that runs into he Lake. I have a book on the history of Meek’s Bay Lodge somewhere, but I can’t find it. Perhaps it will reappear and I can add to my memory of the Lodge’s history.
My recollection is that the Meeks Family bought the property in the 1930’s, and built a summer resort consisting of cabins, a main lodge, a campground, a movie theater, and the other accoutrements associated with a family resort not unlike those found in the Catskills in upper New York State.
My first encounter with Meeks’ Bay Resort must have been around 1946 or 1947. I remember taking a day trip to the Lake with my parents that the Cranstons in their old, pre-World War II Chevrolet “woodie” station wagon. In those days, Highway 40, the predecessor of Interstate 80, was a winding two lane road from Auburn over the Sierra summit and then quickly down to Donner Lake and Tahoe and Reno, beyond. It was always a perilous journey because everybody usually had to fall into line and crawl along behind a freight or logging truck climbing the grade. As a consequence, everybody’s car radiator boiled over in the high altitude, and you had to frequently stop at a turnout to allow the motor cool down. This we did, and we also occasionally stopped at a tavern so that the grownups could have a refreshment to cool down as well.
The beach at Meeks Bay struck me, even at this early age, as absolutely wonderful. The shore was a beautiful crescent of creamy sand on which families had set up umbrellas and beach chairs. Kids were splashing and swimming in the water taking no heed of the frigid temperature.
Off-shore beyond the buoys that sheltered the swimming area, a big Cris-Craft speed boat lumbered by with its mahogany hull and decking , chrome fittings, and stern flag fluttering. I looked at that boat and thought to myself, “This is another world.” I didn’t particularly like the idea of being an infrequent “day tripper” to such a place. I decided that I wanted to grow up to have enough material wealth to stay here, if not own property on the Lake. There’s no doubt that this experience stuck with me. It reinforced my desire to leave Auburn and to go to college, and to seek a more expansive life.
