Los Angeles County
Biographies
CORINNE KING
WRIGHT
In childhood, inspired by the stories of the romantic life of the Spaniard in the early days of California as related by Don Antonio Coronel in his adobe hacienda, a veritable casa del rosas which nestled in one of the oldest orange groves in the city of Los Angeles, Mrs. William Henry Wright, nee Corinne King, began what has been her most signal service to posterity—that of collecting data and documents pertaining to the history of California prior to 1850.
From old Indians who worked for her father at her home at San Bernardino, where her girlhood was spent, Mrs. Wright obtained many of the Indian legends which have been published. In many a Spanish chest or forgotten niche she has procured letters and papers bearing testimony of the social and political life of the first Angelenos, which have furnished the material for much of her literary work. By far the most important product of her researches from an historical point of view is “The Mystery Play in California,” for the book is unique in the fact that it is the first work to be published giving an authentic and detailed description of the Pastores as produced in the Missions and in the homes of the wealthy dons of the pueblas. The text includes a translation of a seventeenth century Pastores that was brought to Los Angeles from Mexico by Don Ygnacio Coronel in 1836. For this thesis Mrs. Wright received the degree of Master of Arts from the University of Southern California. Another work from original sources, presented to the Historical Society of Southern California, is the “Conquest of Los Angeles,” in which the writer disproves from documentary evidence many erroneous statements regarding the political and military actions of that drama that have passed unchallenged in the histories of the state. She writes as a student of histology, seeking neither to exalt or deprecate either the American or the Californian, but only to tell the truth. Her novel, “Cold Embers” with this period as a background, was published in 1932.
The following excerpt is from a newspaper article which appeared in the Alhambra Post-Advocate under date of September 9, 1933: “The presentation of ‘Old Mission Memories’ in the Mission Playhouse was greeted with a reception, which added glory to the dramatic writings of Corinne King Wright. The lead portrayals were delivered with an emotional verse well in keeping with the past records of finished actors who took the roles.”
When still in her ‘teens, Mrs. Wright visited the old South, the land of her birth, for the purpose of studying and preserving Negro folk-lore and folk-songs. It was during this visit that she extended her researches to a study of voodooism, the strange, savage blood-worship of the African. At New Orleans she interviewed the aged daughter of the once-famous sorceress and voodoo queen, Marie Lavou, and obtained much valuable information, but was earnestly warned by the old mulatto of the danger of her mission and especially of the risk of publishing a description of any of the rites performed by the superstitious believers of the cult. But now, after the lapse of years, her notes gathered in 1903 and prepared for publication are in press. When the writer puts aside the more serious themes her rhymes and stories for children reflect a sympathetic understanding of the quaint philosophy of childhood.
Aside from her work with the pen Mrs. Wright has been equally occupied with the brush, and many of her paintings have been hung in the art exhibitions of the state. The best known landscapes are those portraying the witchery of the old missions when seen under the softening influence of twilight or moonlight. It is as a portrait painter, however, that technical skill is so combined with intuitive understanding that the result is a work that places Mrs. Wright in the front rank of the portrait artists of the west. As art supervisor in the schools of Alhambra for more than a decade this tireless worker was an inspiration to instructors and students alike, and did much to foster an appreciation of art and architecture in their direct relation to the domestic and civic life of the community.
The world of art and letters, however, has not prevented the participation in movements for the betterment of society and the preservation of the priceless landmarks of California. Mrs. Wright is an active member of the San Gabriel Woman’s Club, of which she was the founder and is now president, honorary president of the San Gabriel Historical Association, the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Daughters of the Confederacy. During the World war she was president of the first auxiliary in America organized for the purpose of furnishing comforts for the soldiers, the Auxiliary for Company E, One Hundred and Seventeenth Engineers, Rainbow Division. Her son, Kenneth Wing Wright, was a member of this famous company of the battle-scarred division, “the first to go and the last to return” from France.
Mrs. Wright is the daughter of the late Robert Hawkins King, whose maternal grandfather was an English baron, but who considered service upon the staff of Washington to be a greater honor, and the title remained in the American family, unused, until the middle of the last century. Mr. King’s paternal ancestor was the founder of Queens College, Chapel Hill, now the University of North Carolina, which graduated many famous Southern men, among them William Rufus King, a descendant of the founder. Edwin King, one of the organizers of the Vigilantes of San Francisco, and James King of William, the intrepid editor whose assassination forced the Vigilantes into action, were members of the family.
The mother of Mrs. Wright, Martha Melton, was in her maternal lineage of French Huguenot descent of the family of SoRelle, who came to Canada in the first years of the seventeenth century and thence to Georgia, a family of which few men bear the name, yet whose feminine line has given America a number of statesmen and military leaders, among them Theodore Roosevelt, General John B. Gordon, Thomas Watts, the attorney general of the Confederacy; and the “fighting parson,” Wiley SoRelle. It was on this last named great plantation that Mrs. Wright was born. She was brought to California in infancy when her parents, impoverished and discouraged by the vicissitudes of the long years of the reconstruction period, made the long journey via New York and the Isthmus of Panama to San Pedro and thence by stage to San Bernardino. Here the Mormons had surveyed and laid out a beautiful townsite, but had abandoned it and returned to Salt Lake City some years previous. Mr. King bought half a “square” at Eighth and E streets. It was to beautify this home that the first eucalyptus tree was imported from Australia into California about the year 1872.
Mrs. Wright was educated in the schools of San Bernardino, then entered the State Normal School of Los Angeles, and has the distinction of having been graduated at the age of sixteen. She holds her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Southern California. In 1893 she married William Henry Wright, the son of a California pioneer, whose Puritan ancestors founded the town of Saybrooke, Connecticut, in 1648. Of this marriage there are two sons, SoRelle and Kenneth King, and two daughters, Dorothy and Corinne. The family home, “La Solana,” is in San Gabriel.
Transcribed
7-25-12 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: California
of the South Vol. V, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages
213-216, Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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