The Historical Goldmann Family
By Debra Staab
The Loma Prieta Museum (LPM) is delighted to announce that we recently received some generous historical artifacts from descendants of the well-known mountain family of Dr. Edmund Goldmann. The donations included a lovely full-size cream-colored silk piano shawl and the most charming quilt sampler created by Inez and Juanita Goldmann in 1888.
Raised near the Rhine River, Edmund Goldmann received medical doctor training from Heidelberg University and the University of Giessen and then completed his postgraduate studies at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. From there he moved to New Orleans where he ran his own successful medical practice, including effective handling of a local yellow fever outbreak. When the Civil War started, Goldmann fled north and became a surgeon in the Union Army until the end of the war.
After the war, Dr. Goldmann briefly married Amelia Correth, the daughter of a German count. Sadly, she died the following year in childbirth. In 1878, Goldmann wedded a German woman named Marie Henriette Juliane Bergstedt, known to her friends and family as Julia. They met and married in Texas but soon moved to Monterrey, Mexico where Dr. Goldmann became the family physician for two Mexican presidents.
During the time they lived in Mexico, the Goldmanns had two daughters, Inez born in 1881 and Juanita in 1884. The family became unhappy with the general health conditions in Mexico and moved back to Galveston. Their son, Edmund Jr., was born there in 1885. In 1887, the family moved to San Jose, CA where Dr. Goldmann continued to practice medicine for the next three years. During that time Goldmann purchased 26 acres of land in the Santa Cruz Mountains from Ernst Meyer.
Meyer was from the Danish/German region of Europe, and over time he subdivided his 1,400 acres by selling parcels to about a dozen others who had emigrated from the same region. The area subsequently became known as the German Colony. The Goldmann family moved to their new property in 1890, and a fourth child, Elsa, was born there a year later.
The couple built an expansive home with an 80 foot veranda along the length of the house with views of the Santa Cruz Mountains. There were also cottages and a gazebo with views of Monterey Bay. Julia was an avid gardener and planted hundreds of flowers, especially roses, irises, and daffodils. They named their estate Villa Bergstedt after Julia’s maiden name.
Dr. Goldmann continued to serve the community as a medical physician. When he retired, he expanded his two-story resort-like house into a convalescent home aimed at patients who just needed a bit of rest and relaxation to recover from one ailment or another. The popular rest home functioned well until Dr. Goldmann died in 1910. Julia continued to live at Villa Bergstedt until she died in 1938.
Although Dr. Goldmann was a prominent local figure, his daughter Juanita became a local legend in her own right. Juanita, who was called Nita by her family and friends, was a writer who kept a journal from the age of 15 (1898) until her death in 1962, a massive record of 64 years. The writings reveal in great detail what life was like living in the Santa Cruz Mountains during that time frame. Juanita continued to live at Villa Bergstedt until she died in 1962.
The original diaries of Juanita Goldmann were safely stored by her relatives for many decades. In the early 2000s, another local writer and historian named Marlene Wiley tracked down those diaries for the purpose of historical preservation. Marlene and her husband Neil Wiley co-founded the Mountain Network News (MNN) in 1988. Sadly, Marlene passed away in 2017.
It was Marlene who over a few years arranged transportation of the journals to and from the family and painstakingly copied each and every page of those diaries. It appears that she photographed each diary page separately and then pasted the photographs onto three-ring binder paper. In the end she filled five fat white binders with journal pages and a sixth about the family in general. In addition Marlene copied hand-made drawings created by Juanita and also documented her interactions with the Goldmann relatives during the preservation process. Marlene went on to pen several articles about the Goldmann family, Juanita’s diaries, and Villa Bergstedt for the MNN.
Earlier this year the Loma Prieta Museum received an inquiry about Juanita’s diaries from her great-great niece, Julie McMillan. Having started her family research in junior high school as a history assignment, Julie has become the current Goldmann Family historian. To assist Julie, I contacted Neil Wiley who graciously donated those six binders of Goldmann material to the museum. Picking up where Marlene left off, the LPM is now digitizing the diaries and placing each paper page into a protective plastic sleeve.
In August of this year, members of the LPM met with Julie and exchanged much information. Julie brought her memories along with many photos, postcards, the sampler, and the piano shawl. The LPM gave the now digitized Goldmann family binder back to the family. Sadly we learned that it is likely that the original diaries have been lost after the death of the family member who had them last.
With the originals missing, Marlene’s copy has become even more valuable. I never knew Marlene but I can confirm that she was a woman of high intelligence, meticulous, detail-oriented, and a fantastic writer. The Loma Prieta Museum is forever indebted to her efforts.
The LPM continues the arduous task of digitizing the remaining diary pages—it takes time. Planning ahead for our physical museum space, clearly the Goldmann family story and related artifacts will make an ideal wall display for the community’s enjoyment.
Sources:
Powell, The Reign of the Lumber Barons, 2021, pp. 146-148.
Payne, The Howling Wilderness, 1978, pp. 129-130.
Direct conversations and notes from Julie McMillan.