The Family (club)

The Family Club was formed in 1901 after Ambrose Bierce wrote a poem that seemed to predict President William McKinley's death by an assassin's bullet. The Hearst chain of newspapers including the "San Francisco Examiner" and others owned by William Randolph Hearst published the poem, and some of the Bohemian Club members took offense. When McKinley was assassinated shortly thereafter, opponents of Hearst created a fervor over the poem's publication and banned Hearst newspapers from the premises. A group of 14 reporters, editors, and other Hearst newsmen, in the spirit of true Bohemians and asserting freedom of the press, resigned in protest to the censorship, formed their own club, and called it "The Family".[2]

Early public activities by the club included the sponsoring of a horse race called the "Family Club Handicap" held in Oakland in 1904. A racehorse named "Fossil" took first place, receiving a silver cup from the Family as well as US$1,000 from the California Jockey Club.[3]

The Family clubhouse was originally located at 228 Post Street, but the building was lost two days after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake in the subsequent calamitous fire, though not before serving as a temporary rest station and meal place for earthquake victims such as the bereft Conreid Metropolitan Opera Company.[4] The club rebuilt at the corner of Powell and Bush Streets, and still conducts meetings at this site two blocks from the peak of Nob Hill.

The Family's clubhouse has served as a venue for musical events such as an annual benefit for San Francisco Sinfonietta[5] as well as black-tie dinner lectures by various experts and personages such as Stanlee Gatti speaking to benefit horticultural programs[6] and Charles M. Schulz appearing to promote the Cartoon Art Museum.[7]

In 1909, Family club members decided upon the Woodside location for their rural getaways. While summering there in 1912, club members of a variety of religious backgrounds including Judaism, Protestantism and Catholicism pooled their resources to build a Catholic church in nearby Portola Valley: Our Lady of the Wayside Church. Architect member James R. Miller assigned the design of the church to a promising young draftsman at his firm, Timothy L. Pflueger. This was Pflueger's first architectural commission, and was the start of his interaction with The Family. Pflueger would soon join The Family to become a member in good standing,[2] and ultimately designed "The Tavern" at the Family Farm as an indoor performance venue, and a new interior for the City Home clubhouse, both being still in use today.

The annual "Flight Play", as well as a number of other stage and musical performances, are written and performed by club members. Plays aren't published or performed outside of the club, and all original written materials are retained as the sole property of the Club.[8] One handwritten musical score, Thine Enemy, composed by Meredith Willson for the 1937 Flight Play 20 years before The Music Man was staged on Broadway, will be donated by The Family to a museum in the composer's birthplace, Mason City, Iowa.[9]

Artists Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco were guests of architect Timothy Pflueger's at The Family Farm in 1930. The two leftist Mexican muralists argued forcefully with one another about art during one visit.[10]