“She had a passion for the outdoors, roaming the unsettled hills behind Berkeley and Oakland, finding peace and solace from the hectic life among her brawling sisters. To live her own life was her greatest ambition.
…
Grace Elizabeth Biddle Roberts was a forty year old spinster when she first reached Big Sur. Born November 11, 1871, the fourth child of a spunky Irish immigrant and her mining engineer husband, Grace grew up in a family of five sisters and two brothers. The father’s early death forced their mother to take in boarders in their large house close to the new campus of University of California. The girls did the chambermaid work and imbibed the heady intellectual atmosphere, drawing their friendships from academic circles.
…
Esther recalls excursions with Grace to the swimming hole or down Sycamore Canyon to visit the Pfeiffer homestead as fascinating and illuminating adventures, for the woman was intensely alive and curious, and her enthusiasm was contagious. She was a vigorous walker, thinking nothing of donning her green corduroy divided skirt for an early morning walk across the flats of the Hill ranch to the lighthouse and back to the lodge before breakfast.”
~Excerpt from Big Sur Women by Judith Goodman
*Photo by Andrea on HWY 1
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