The Leland House on Sir Francis Drake

For most of its history this was open grass and oak on the north side of the valley road west of Fairfax. The 1897 government map shows the North Pacific Coast Railroad running up the valley, with no houses near the lot. The road in front is today's Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.

In January 1951, R. W. Bogh of Fairfax, a real estate man, and Mrs. V. S. Loeber of Sleepy Hollow brought plans for a subdivision called Marinda Oaks to the county. The paper described a 12-acre first piece of a 110-acre tract "on the north side of Sir Francis Drake boulevard, fronting on the old railroad right of way. It is just north of St. Rita's Catholic church in the area known as Sacramento Gulch."

By June 1952 the first three houses were finished by builders Bostrom and Ford of San Rafael, with Bogh supervising. The paper said that when the tract was done, "some 400 families will be residents of the community," and that the first houses, at about $19,000, "all contain six rooms, a bath and a half, and a two car garage."

Drag the slider to see the lot from the air. The red line is the lot today.

1947195219571965199720042018

Elmer Lawrence "Buzz" Nielsen Jr. was born about 1919, the only son of Elmer L. Nielsen, manager of the San Rafael branch of the American Trust Company, and Gladys Nielsen of Bayside Acres. He graduated from San Rafael High, the College of Marin and the University of Oregon, after a year at Stanford, and worked in newspaper advertising.

On August 9, 1952, he married Edith M. Clayton, born Edith Murphy in Vallejo, at her parents' Vallejo home. The newlyweds took an apartment in San Rafael, and the May 1953 phone book lists them at 320 Third Street. By February 1954 Edith was "of Fairfax." From May 1954 the phone book lists them on Sir Francis Drake, and from 1956 at "2300."

Their son Mark Charles was baptized in August 1955 and their daughter Dale Rhian in January 1957. Edith was secretary of the Manor School PTA, a Brownie leader, and a member of First Presbyterian in San Rafael and the Sunny Hills Guild of Fairfax. She died on May 14, 1966, at 47.

Elmer stayed. The paper placed him at 2300 in 1967, 1970 and 1973, and a 1989 Stanford alumni directory still listed "Nielsen, Mr. Elmer L., Class '41" at this address, with the same phone number the family had in 1953. He died before May 1990, and his son Mark, as executor, sold the house to Steve.

1. 1951Marinda Oaks proposed by Robert W. Bogh and Mrs. V. S. Loeber.
2. June 1952First Marinda Oaks homes finished by Bostrom and Ford.
3. Aug 1952Elmer Nielsen Jr. marries Edith M. Clayton in Vallejo.
4. 1953The house is built on Lot 35 (county record and town file).
5. By Feb 1954The Nielsens are living in Fairfax.
6. 1955, 1957Mark and Dale are baptized.
7. May 1966Edith dies, at 47.
8. 1989-90Elmer dies; his estate is settled.
9. May 31, 1990The estate sells the house to Steve Leland.

Steve and Alexandra C. Leland bought the house on May 31, 1990. A 1993 deed put it in Steve's name alone, and in 1997 he and Linda J. Greene took title together. By February 2002 she was Linda J. Leland.

The knife maker

For more than twenty years Steve has been listed in the makers' directory of Knives: The World's Greatest Knife Book, the annual knife yearbook: at a Fairfax post office box in 1996, and at 2300 Sir Francis Drake from 1999 to at least 2018. His 2015 entry reads: "Traditional and working straight knives and folders of his design. Patterns: Hunters, fighters, Bowies, chefs... Does own heat treat. Makes nickel silver sheaths... Part-time maker; first knife sold in 1987. Doing business as Leland Handmade Knives. Mark: Last name."

His knives appear in the yearbook's photo pages too: in 2003 "a small hunter, or bird-and-trout knife," and in 2015 a 10.5-inch double-edged fixed blade and an elk-horn-handled hunter, shown here.

A bathroom for Winnie

In March 2014 Steve drew the plans and applied to the Town of Fairfax for a 99-square-foot second bathroom on the San Miguel Court side of the house. The lot is smaller than the town's minimum for its slope, so even a small addition needed a use permit. On the form he wrote: "My wife's mother lives here now and we need another bathroom." The town agreed that it "will allow the owners to take in an aging family member," and the Planning Commission approved it on April 24, 2014, with all members voting yes.

Built

1953, on Lot 35 of Marinda Oaks Subdivision No. 2

House

One story, 1,200 sq ft; 1,299 sq ft after the 2014 bathroom

Rooms

3 bedrooms; a bath and a half, plus the 2014 full bath

Garage

Two-car, 480 sq ft

Lot

5,600 sq ft by the county, on a corner, sloping up about 11 percent from Sir Francis Drake

Owners

The Nielsens, about 1953-1990; the Lelands, 1990 to today

Terry

Steve's mother was born Marie Therese Estrada in Los Angeles on September 10, 1922. Her father was José Florencio Estrada, a young man from Mazatlán, and her mother was Rosemary Capitain, a Los Angeles girl. They had married that February. Because Rosemary had married a Mexican citizen, she lost her American citizenship under the law of that time and had to apply to get it back in 1926. Her papers name her husband and "Maria T., born Sept. 10, 1922."

By 1930 her parents had split up. Terry, 7, lived with her mother and her Capitain grandparents in Los Angeles; the census lists her mother as divorced and working as a typist at the telephone company. In 1936 her mother married Charles Albert Rockefeller, and in 1940 Terry was Mary T. Rockefeller, 17. Her obituary says that after her father died she was adopted by her stepfather.

She married Gilbert Leland on February 5, 1942, by her obituary, raised four children in San Francisco and Terra Linda, and worked as a private nurse for newborns and premature babies. Her own mother, Rosemary, died in Marin in 1971, very likely living near Terry. Terry died at 99; her obituary ran in the Marin Independent Journal on January 31, 2022, and her service was at St. Anselm Church in Ross on February 5, the 80th anniversary of her wedding day.

"Her quick wit, twinkling, starlit eyes, generous smile, contagious laugh, warm hugs and joie de vivre will be forever in our fortunate hearts."Terry Leland's obituary, Marin Independent Journal, 2022

The Estradas of Mazatlán

Terry's father was born on October 28, 1901, at his parents' home, Calle de la Constitución No. 225, in the Pacific port of Mazatlán, Sinaloa. His father, José Macedonio (José María) Estrada, had married María Nicanor Vega in Culiacán in December 1898. The family moved to Los Angeles, where two more children were born in 1919 and 1920, and in 1919 José, then 17, came through the border at Nogales.

He became a jewelry salesman. On February 16, 1939, exactly seventeen years after his wedding to Rosemary, he was killed in a car accident on Highway 80 near Sierra Blanca, Texas. A passenger from Tijuana gave the details for the death certificate, and his body was sent home to Los Angeles. He is buried at Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles with his parents and his brother Carlos, under one family monument.

The Chouteau line

Terry's mother's family carried an old St. Louis name. Ringrose Capitain's 1942 death record gives his mother as "Sophia M. Choteau." That was off by a generation: his mother was Sophia Watson, and it was her mother who was born a Chouteau. Each step below is backed by a record.

1. TerryHer mother is Rosemary Capitain: the 1926 citizenship papers, the 1930 census and the 1936 marriage record.
2. RosemaryHer parents are Ringrose Capitain and Rosa Dietrich: her Los Angeles birth record.
3. RingroseHis mother is Sophia (Watson) Capitain: the 1880 St. Louis census, and his brother's and sister's marriage and death records, which name "Sophia M. Watson."
4. SophiaHer mother was Marie Antoinette Chouteau: the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1892 ("Mrs. Capitain's mother, was a Chouteau"), the 1899 Encyclopedia of St. Louis, and two Chouteau family genealogies (1893, 1934) that name Sophia, her husband and her children.
5. ManetteHer parents were Auguste Pierre Chouteau and Sophie Labadie: her 1843 St. Louis marriage record, which names them.
6. Auguste PierreHis father was Pierre Chouteau, who came to St. Louis as a small boy in 1764, the year his half-brother Auguste Chouteau founded the town: the published Chouteau genealogies.

Ringrose J. Watson, Sophia's father, was born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1819 and came to St. Louis as a baby. He served as a lieutenant in the Mexican War, went to Sacramento in the Gold Rush in 1849, and came back in 1855, the encyclopedia says, "with eighty thousand dollars in gold." He married Marie Antoinette "Manette" Chouteau in 1843. She died in 1858, "leaving one daughter," Sophia. Her father, Auguste Pierre Chouteau (1786-1838), went to West Point, worked in the fur trade and died at Fort Gibson in what is now Oklahoma.

The Capitains and the Dietrichs

Sophia Watson married Frank J. Capitain, who was born around 1846 in Frankfurt, Germany, and came to St. Louis in the 1860s. Their son Ringrose John Capitain, Terry's grandfather, was born in Missouri in 1875. By 1889 the family was in Los Angeles, where Ringrose was a student at St. Vincent's College, the school that became Loyola Marymount.

In 1902 he married Rose Philamena Dietrich, born around 1872 in Kansas to German immigrants, Charles and Rose Dietrich. In 1880 she was "Rosie," 7, in Atchison; by 1900 the whole Dietrich family had moved to Los Angeles. Ringrose kept books for a flour mill. He died in 1942 and Rose in 1954, and both are buried at Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles, near his mother Sophia.

Terry's stepfather

Charles Albert Rockefeller was born in Fort Madison, Iowa, in 1892 and served in World War I. He had a first family in Davenport, Iowa, before moving to Los Angeles, and married Terry's mother in Orange, California, in 1936. He died in Los Angeles in 1950. No record found connects his family, which came from Indiana, to John D. Rockefeller's.

The Lelands, further back

On his father's side, Steve's great-grandfather Frank Milton Leland was born in Ontario County, New York, in 1858, the son of Oscar Madison Leland. An 1850 Leland family history puts Oscar in the family of Isaac F. Leland and Valury Flint of Farmington, New York, descended from Lelands of Grafton, Massachusetts. Frank's mother, Cynthia, ended her days in Josephine County, Oregon, where Gilbert was born.

Frank became a consulting engineer. He built and ran the Oakland, San Leandro and Haywards electric railway in the 1890s; a 1958 railroad magazine credits him with designing what it called "the first electric locomotive ever used for hauling freight." In 1913 he managed the Balaklala copper smelter at Coram, in Shasta County, and was president of the Empire Copper Company of Mackay, Idaho, which is why the family moved between those towns. In 1921 he applied for a passport for a trip to Europe and Egypt.

His wife, Mary L. Hart, was born in El Dorado County in 1860 to Gold Country pioneers who came to California in 1858. She died in San Francisco in 1915 and is buried at Placerville. Their son Earle studied art at Yale in 1910-11 before following his father to the mining towns. Earle's wife, Frances Pearson, grew up with her Texas-born Coleman grandparents in Siskiyou County, and she and Gilbert are buried there, at Hornbrook. Gilbert's stone records his World War II service as a first lieutenant in the Army Air Forces.

• Who built the house, and whether the Nielsens were its first owners. The 1953 building permit is at Fairfax Town Hall, 142 Bolinas Road, and the 1953 deed is on paper at the Marin County Recorder.
• When and where Steve and Linda married, sometime between 1997 and 2002. California marriages after 1985 have no free index. The Marin County Clerk would have it if they married in Marin.
• Where Steve served after Navy boot camp in 1966. Only Steve can request his service record from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis.
• How long Winnie lived in Fairfax. Steve's 2014 note says she lived here; her 2016 obituary says she lived at Miller Creek from 1959 and died at home.
• Linda's exact birth date. May 27, 1950 comes from a public-records index, not a birth certificate. Oklahoma issues birth certificates only to the person or close family.
• Elmer Nielsen's death date and his second wife, Elda, who appears with him on a 1977 deed.
• Frances Pearson's parents. Her father was a Pearson born in Indiana and her mother a Coleman born in Texas; their names haven't turned up yet.
• Terry and Gilbert's marriage record. Her obituary says February 5, 1942. A family tree online says February 21, 1943, at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, while Gilbert was in the service. Neither record has been found.
• Terry's adoption papers. Los Angeles County adoption files are sealed. Steve or his sisters could ask the court.
• Sophia Watson's 1845 baptism, the one record that would close the last gap in the Chouteau line. It is in the St. Louis Catholic church registers.
• Whether José Estrada had a son in Mexico City in 1934, Terry's possible half-brother.
• The Lelands before Oscar. Isaac F. Leland and the Grafton, Massachusetts line come from an 1850 family history, not yet checked against original records.