| Los Altos Lodge No. 712: | Last Updated on March 16, 2005 |
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Our March Stated Meeting will be our annual inspector’s visit. It will be a formal “Black Tux” night for the officers. In order to save time I will open the lodge at 5:00 PM There will be a tentative 1st degree on Monday March 14th, and a firm 2nd Degree on Monday April 11.
As most of you will recall, one of my goals for this year is to more actively support our youth groups. As a result of this effort, the Job’s Daughters Mtn. View Bethel has asked to use our lodge room and dining area for their annual Officer’s Installation, as well as for one of their degrees.
The date has been set for Saturday March 19th starting at 12:00 Noon. I would consider it a great favor if all our officers and many of our members would make a point of attending this event. This might be a great chance for any of our members to introduce their daughters to one of our youth groups.
On Tuesday April 19 our lodge will host a “Public Education and Masonic Youth Future Night” starting with a 6:30 sit down dinner which I plan to have catered. This will be the evening which will find us presenting a $2,000 scholarship to a deserving local public school student, a $1,000 Teacher of the Year presentation to a local teacher, and three supportive Masonic Youth encouragement awards, one to each of our Youth groups. Members of Job’s Daughters, Rainbow, and De Molay will unite to bring in the flag, and act as greeters, and each group will give a short presentation on how our youth groups can work to support our Public School System. This event will also be participated in by Mtn. View De Anza, and Palo Alto Roller Lodges, and they will also be making presentations that evening.
Finally, any Los Altos Lodge member attending these events should remember our dress code will be suit and tie for each evening. I, and our Master of Cermonies for the evening will be in black tux. If any officer has other suggestions or ideas regarding the above items, please feel free to inform me of same.
This year our Grand Master has taken a great interest in Masonic information and education. Each month he has decided to share interesting Masonic articles with us. His March contribution, having to do with the history of California Masonry follows. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Fraternally,
Luis Oroczo
Master
I am monitoring our reservation line closely. This month we obtained zero reservation on our line. Please be advised that the line is still available for reservations and information. The number is (650) 569-6276. Please let me have your reservation for the stated meeting dinners either via the line or directly at my home (408) 564-7045.
On February 8, three representatives from Los Altos Lodge No. 712 attended the third degree conferral on Rick Matchell. Rick had received his first two degrees in our Lodge After these degrees and for health reasons Rick retired from his job. After his health improved he settled in his home in Sacramento.
Last year the Brethren of Los Altos voted to allow Bicentennial Daylight Lodge No. 830 in Sacramento confer this degree on Rick. They did a great job! The member that delivered the lecture was 92 years young and did an impeccable presentation. There were about forty brethren present. Richard Rosenberg, our esteemed Sterling Bailey, and I drove up with a couple of Rick’s Masonic neighbors, Bobbie Byers and Claude Kieth. It was a great visit and a pleasure to see how these old timers put on a degree. The brethren of Bicentennial send greetings and well wishes to our lodge and were glad to be of service.
One of my emails contained the following story. I found it very interesting and food for thought.
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “yes.” The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.
”Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided,” I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things - your God, family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions - things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car. The sand is everything else - the small stuff. ”If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”
What most intrigued me about this dissertation was the thought “How is Masonry represented in my jar?” While giving this some serious thought, it occurred to me that Masonry is one of those items that probably starts out as a grain of sand and like a pearl, grows into something bigger and more beautiful. Now I ask you “How is Masonry represented in your jar?”
Fraternally,
Ernie Castillo,
Junior Warden
How Freemasonry Came To California And Hawaii
Freemasonry came to California and Hawaii by land and sea. Adventurers who challenged the wilderness and mastered it carried freemasonry overland. They trapped the beaver, lived on bear and buffalo, fought Indians and caroused away their hard-earned wages. They were known as the Mountain Men.
When the American frontier moved swiftly from the Mississippi to the Pacific, these men were the leaders, guides, scouts, soldiers and statesmen. They displayed pragmatic wisdom about morality and politics. Their morality did not concentrate on abstract ideas or achieving an ideal virtue. They concentrated on human deeds and their consequences for good and evil.
Most of the mountain men came from Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Ohio. They had a long tradition of Indian fighting and pioneering behind them. But in the Rocky Mountains everything in nature was bigger and wilder than anything their fathers had experienced. The mountain men who survived the constant danger and hardship were toughened to an extraordinary degree of courage, skill and physical fitness.
Among the earliest men to bring moral restraint, respect for law and justice and for the rights of each individual human being, was Christopher "Kit" Carson. He had learned these attitudes toward other men at the altar of Freemasonry. Carson arrived in California in 1829. He was made a Mason in Montezuma Lodge No. 109, New Mexico, under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Missouri. Carson carried the first overland mail from Taos, New Mexico to military headquarters at Monterey, California. He was with General John C. Fremont at the capture of Sonoma, California, in 1846-ending the Bear Flag Revolt.
So far as can be determined the first Master Mason to establish permanent residence in California was Abel Stearns, from Salem, Massachusetts.
He settled and prospered in the "pueblo" of Los Angeles. In 1842 he had the distinction of shipping the first gold mined in California to the Philadelphia Mint. Stearns obtained the gold as payment for goods that he sold to the miners in Los Angeles County. It is interesting to note that I this discovery of gold in 1840 in amounts large enough to send back East, caused not a bit of interest .except in the local area. Yet, a few ~ years later the discovery' of a few! flakes of gold at Sutter's Mill caused the mad California Gold Rush.
The first American settler in the Napa Valley, famous today for its grapes and wines, was George Yount. Yount received the degrees of Masonry in Benicia Lodge No.5 and fro 1856 to 1864 served as Grand Bible Bearer of the Grand Lodge of California.
The Reverend Saschel Woods, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister and a member of Wakanda Lodge No. 52 of Carollton, Missouri, brought the first Masonic charter carried to California. The Charter was for Western Star Lodge No. 98 of the Grand Lodge of Missouri, and was dated May 10, 1848. The Lodge was to be opened at Benton City, California. Woods traveled to California with Peter Lassen, who was named Junior Warden in the Charter. In 1848 Peter Lassen was the leader of an immigrant train of twelve wagons, whose owners planned to settle on Deer Creek in California. The route they followed was remote and impractical, and the party endured many trials until they were finally rescued.
Between this first charter and 1850 some fifteen other charters and dispensations found their way to California. The following were used to form Masonic Lodges:
1. California Lodge No. 13 (now No.1), San Francisco. Chartered by the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, November 9, 1848.
2. Pacific Lodge (now Sublime -Benicia Lodge No.5), Benicia, dispensation from the Grand Lodge of Louisiana Ancient York Masons, June 5, 1849.
3. Davy Crockett Lodge (later Davy Crockett No. 7 and San Francisco No.7), San Francisco, dispensation from the Grand Lodge of Louisiana Ancient York Masons, 1849. Charter revoked in the 1850s.
4. Connecticut Lodge No. 75 (now Tehama No. 3), Sacramento, chartered by the Grand Lodge of Connecticut, January 31, 1849.
5. New Jersey Lodge (later Jennings Lodge No.4), Sacramento, dispensation from the Grand Lodge of New Jersey, March 1, 1849.
6. Sierra Nevada Lodge (now Madison No. 23 of Grass Valley), Centerville, dispensation from the Grand Lodge of Indiana, May 1848.
7. Lavely Lodge (later Marysville No.9 and Corinthian No.9, now Corinthian-Hammonton No.9), dispensation from the Grand Lodge of Illinois, October 1849.
8. Pacific Lodge, Long's Bar, dispensation from the Grand Lodge of Illinois, October 1848.
9. Lafayette Lodge No. 29 (later Nevada Lodge No. 13), Nevada City, chartered by the Grand Lodge of Wisconsin, April 20, 1850.
10. Gregory Yale Lodge, Stockton, dispensation from the Grand Lodge of Florida, 1849.
Many of the outstanding leaders of early California came from Masonic ranks. Benjamin Wilson arrived in 1841 and became the second Mayor of Los Angeles and a member of Los Angeles Lodge No. 42. Dr. Robert Semple came to California in 1844 and affiliated with Benicia Lodge No.5. He served as the President of the first California State Constitutional Convention held in Monterey in 1849. Nine of the 48 delegates to that Convention were Master Masons. Their influence far outweighed their numbers. They brought California into the Union as a free state, and they adopted a strong public education platform.
The first Masons to reach California were seafaring men who traded along the coast from San Diego in 1he south to the Russian settlements in the north. They were a hardy lot and feared neither man nor the elements. Their trading and whaling took them as far as the Hawaiian Islands.
Captain M. LeTellier organized the first Masonic Lodge formed west of the Missouri River on board the whaling ship Ajax in Honolulu harbor, on April 8, 1842. He held a commission from the Supreme Co unci1330 of France "to setup Lodges in the Pacific Ocean and elsewhere in his voyages; to issue warrants, to call upon the Supreme Council for charters; to make Masons at sight... ." The Lodge ritual was in French, and the degrees were the first three degrees in the Scottish Rite. The Lodge was named Le Progress de l' Oceanie No. 124-it is now under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Hawaii.
Among the charter members of this Lodge were John Meek and Henry Sea. Captain Meek had settled in the Hawaiian Islands in 1809 only 31 years after the English Freemason Captain James Cook discovered them. Meek was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts. He was the Captain of a ship engaged in otter hunting along the California coast as early as 1812. He may have been the first Master Mason to visit California.
The first Mason to settle in California was a seafaring man named Robert Jonathan Elwell. Captain Elwell was raised in Lodge St Andrew in Boston in 1823. In 1829 he married the daughter of the owner of a Spanish ranchero and settled in Santa Barbara.
And so Freemasonry came to California and Hawaii by sea and by land. Men whose lives were influenced by its teachings carried Freemasonry into the American frontier. They in turn were influential in the 'development of the California and Hawaii we enjoy today.
The Masons who contributed to the founding of California were men of active and men of the world. They did not keep their Masonry only in their Lodges-they practiced out of the Lodge the great ideas taught in it. ' When writing the first California Constitution men such as Robert Semple applied the Masonic principles of respect for law and justice and the rights of individuals by insisting that California be admitted to the Union 1850 as a free state-not allowing slavery to be part of the new State. Education was important to these Masons, and so they created a good system of public education in California. John Swett, the first Superintendent of Public Instruction in California, was an active Freemason.
Men today are pioneers still. The complexities of modern life require the same pragmatic wisdom practiced by the mountain men and early sea captains. In raising our families, going about our jobs, participating in civic affairs, we need all the courage and skill that our forefathers had. Freemasonry equips us with the attitudes of moral restraint, consideration for the less fortunate, and understanding of human nature that will give us strength - like our great grandfathers - enabling us to leave our communities and state better than we found them.
Applied Freemasonry is the key.
NOTE: This paper is largely based on a paper by MW Eugene S. Hopp, Past Grand Master of Masons in California and Hawaii, February 14, 1975, published in the April 1975 issue of The Philalethes Magazine
Public Education & Youth Futures Night
Sponsored by Palo Alto Roller, Mtn. View De Anza, & Los Altos Lodges, Will take place on Tuesday April 19, 2005. Following a sumptous dinner at 6:00PM, the events will include presentations & awards to teachers, students & Masonic Youth groups. Reservations are required call (650) 569-6276 or (408) 564-7045
Schedule For 2005 Dinner for all events begins at 6:30 PM Date Host Program Wed. Jan. 27 Liberty Rod Work Mon. Feb. 28 San Jose 1st Deg. Mon. Mar. 28 Golden Rule (At Morgan Hill) Chicken Feed Tues. Apr. 26 Palo Alto Roller 2nd Deg. Wed. May 25 Fraternity 3rd Deg/lst Sec. Thurs. Jun. 23 Mt. Morahia 3rd Deg/2nd Sec. July is Dark Thurs. Aug. 25 Friendship Investigations Mon. Sept. 26 Golden Rule Gr. Lodge Preview Oct. 8-12 Grand Lodge Communication Sat. Oct. 15 On The Hill GM Reception Mon. Oct. 24 Los Altos Gr. Lodge Results Tues. Nov. 22 Mtn. View DeAnza Swansong
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