Betweenwhiles, as one crisis after another came and went, I was still
constant to the idea and still felt my responsibility to the California,
and from time to time as circumstances permitted, was strenuously
endeavoring to reach the directors and stockholders. The president, in
spite of his optimism, had fled from the Hotel St. Francis and gone to
the home of his mother on Clay and Larkin streets. For the same reason
he left there and went to the yards of the Fulton Iron Works where his
yacht "Lady Ada" was laid up, got her off the ways and tacked over to
Tiburon where he remained for some time. Finally word was received from
him that the directors of the company would hold a meeting at the Blake
and Moffitt Building on the corner of Eighth and Broadway, Oakland, on
May 2, 1906. Who really located them, scattered as they were, and finally
got them together, has remained an unexplained mystery. It must have
been either the president or Chief Clerk Shallenberger. The late Mr.
James Moffitt, a stockholder in the company and the owner of the
building named, kindly secured for us two rooms in that building for an
office. They were on the third floor facing Broadway and the location
and the habitat of the company was disclosed by a canvas sign which,
banner-like, hung upon the outer wall proclaiming this to be the office
of the California Insurance Company. For furniture, there was a flat top
desk and a typewriter (both secondhand) and the balance of the equipment
was handmade, of ordinary lumber, by a local carpenter. There was not
very much cash among those thus assembled, but, fortunately, the company
had maintained a deposit in an Oakland bank and this was immediately
available for checking purposes.