MEMORY—FALSE AND TRUE

Ernst F. Tonsing, Ph.D.

Thousand Oaks, California
22 June 2004

As an historian, I have always been suspicious of human memories, especially

those that have been passed down through generations or recalled after a great length of
time. It seems that the grander the remembrance, the more suspect it must be. One has
only to watch an episode or two of “Antiques Roadshow” to discover that a vase believed
by a family to have been given to an ancestor by Napoleon Bonaparte is really made in
the 1920’s, and a “peace pipe” reputed to have been owned by Geronimo is an artifact
from a Colorado Springs souvenir shop.

Thus, I had been unsure of my recollection of a comment by grandmother Ruth

Martin Tonsing, that she had accompanied her father to Santa Monica, California, to
dedicate a building at the National Soldiers’ Home in his name. This little note made an
occasional, fleeting appearance in my mind when I would drive south on the San Diego
Freeway past the Veterans Administration Hospital, but, I did not place much weight
upon the story.

To my surprise, during a visit of my uncle, Paul Tonsing, from Fort Worth, Texas,
in April, 2003, as I was driving west from Los Angeles on Wilshire Boulevard, he
mentioned that his mother had told him that she had visited the Home with her father,
John A. Martin, and that there was a building there named after him. I turned onto the
grounds and drove around looking for the name on some sign. There was none. I parked
and went into the main office and asked the people there, but no one knew anything about
it. I decided to forget it and drive with my uncle out to Santa Monica beach and up the
coast to Malibu, and then to my home in Thousand Oaks.

In anticipation of another visit by my uncle in mid-June, 2004, I determined to

make another try of it, and drove down to the Laguna Niguel Veterans’ Administration
National Archives near San Clemente. An afternoon of work pouring through crumbling
ledgers and brittle newspaper clippings revealed that the National Soldiers’ Home on
Sawtelle Boulevard in Santa Monica was founded in 1888, and had a Grand Army of the
Republic Post, No. 153, named after great grandfather John A. Martin. It had conducted
the celebrations of Memorial Day on May 30, 1895. But why it was named after him
could not be answered from the resources there. Yet, here was something more tangible
than the vestige of a memory from childhood. When he came, I told him about this, and
he reaffirmed his recollection of his mother’s words.

Still curious, I planned to make a trip to the Los Angeles City Library to go
through its archives of the newspaper, the Los Angeles Times. But, a couple of days
before I was to go, I decided to investigate the holdings of the local California Lutheran
University Library, and the Information Specialist, Pat Hilker, directed me to the
historical files of the paper available online by computer. After some false leads and
dead ends, I found the mention of “exercises” conducted by the Grand Army of the
Republic, Post No. 153, on Memorial Day at the Pacific Branch of the National Military
Home on May 30, 1890, five years earlier than the previous article. As G.A.R. posts
were not to be named after anyone living, the John A. Martin Post had to have been
established closely after the death of the Governor on October 2, 1889. But, there was no
mention of a building in his name, nor even that he had visited the home.

Then, I had an “eureka” moment halfway through the reading of over six
thousand entries under the Soldiers’ Home! There it was, in an article entitled, “Kansas
and Colorado,” dated December 26, 1887, in the Times:

Gov. Martin of Kansas, a member of the board of Managers of the

soldiers’ Home, was one of the “visiting statesmen” who recently came to
Los Angeles to view the country o’er and help select a site for a Pacific
branch home.

Thus, he had been there, and had helped establish the national home at its location in a
community called Sawtelle, now Santa Monica, at what was then several miles west of
Los Angeles, but which is now alongside the San Diego Freeway on the west side.

So, the memory of my grandmother’s words from nearly fifty years ago had some
basis in fact, but it was only partially dependable. This, then, is the scoreboard for the
recollection:

1. Governor John A. Martin had visited the National Soldiers’ Home in Santa Monica—
Half-true. The home had not been established there yet, but he was at the site.

2. There is a building named in his honor—False. But, if there is no building named

after John A. Martin, there had been a Grand Army of the Republic Post at the
Soldiers’ Home named after him shortly after his death in 1889. (Perhaps the naming
was to honor a founder of the home, or, perhaps there were old soldiers who had
served under Colonel Martin during the war living there.) It ceased to exist in the
first half of the twentieth century when the last veteran of the Civil War of this post
died.

3. Grandmother Ruth Martin Tonsing had accompanied her father to Santa Monica for
the dedication of the building—Maybe. She might have been with him. She was
born May 31, 1873, and would have been nine and a half years old at the time. But, if
she were with him, it would not have been for the dedication of any building, only for
the inspection of the site.

As you pursue the evidence from recollections, be prepared to be confused by

unproductive paths and illusory lanes of research. Memories can be deceptive. They can
be false, or partially false, but, on the other hand, they can be partially true if not wholly
true. God grant us the wisdom—and the good luck—to uncover the difference.