Silicon Valley Author Brings Local History to Life

Many of Silicon Valley residents have visited the Mystery House in San Jose, but few know the designer and first owner of the Mystery House, Sarah Winchester, also owned huge parcels of land in Los Altos and Mountain View before the two cities were incorporated. For those interested in learning more about what Silicon Valley was like during Winchester's time and even prior to that, local author Robin Chapman's new book is bound to enlighten and entertain.

The nonfiction book, Historic Bay Area Visionaries, features six past residents of the region around San Francisco Bay, and narrates historic events during their lives. It is for sale at Books, Inc. at 317 Castro St. in downtown Mountain View.

Interestingly, only two of the six visionaries were born in California. One of them, Lope Inigo, was literally native. The Tamien Ohlone were his ancestors. The other one, Juana Briones, was a businesswoman "in the first generation of Spanish speaking people in California, a group of people who liked to call themselves Californios because they saw California as their homeland," according to Ms. Chapman.

The other four visionaries were all transplants, just like many of today's Silicon Valley residents, though they didn't come to work in the high tech industry. Ms. Chapman's book depicts how they ended up here with vivid details.

Winchester was not the only celebrity among the four transplants. Robert Louis Stevenson and Charlie Chaplin are more widely known to the world outside of the Bay Area.

The author of Treasure Island and the silent movie superstar both came from the Great Britain. That's a fact anyone can easily obtain from Wikipedia. However, Wikipedia doesn't tell the reader how much weight Stevenson lost during his difficult journey to California to pursue the American woman he was in love with while Ms. Chapman portrays the 109-pound Stevenson as someone “so thin you could put your thumb and finger around his thigh” based on a quote from Stevenson's friend, which Ms. Chapman found through her research.

The breadth and depth of Ms. Chapman's research, plus her splendid storytelling, differentiate her book from stories of the same celebrities that can be found on line. That explains why people still need books during the Internet era.

This book includes one more Bay Area visionary, Thomas Foon Chew. He was a self-made Chinese entrepreneur. Reading about him would increase one's knowledge of the challenges early Chinese immigrants had to overcome. That's a chapter of California history no one should skip.

The six visionaries Ms. Chapman picked represent as much diversity as seen in today's Bay Area. In this book, Ms. Chapman shows how their legacy remains, and how history is still relevant.

A native of the Santa Clara Valley, Ms. Chapman holds a master's degree in journalism from the
University of California –Los Angeles and has worked in television news at several stations across the nation, including the ABC-TV station in Washington, D.C. In 2009, she returned to California and wrote her first book about her home state: California Apricots: The Lost Orchards of Silicon Valley, which is now in its fifth printing.

Ms. Chapman is scheduled to have a luncheon talk and book signing event from Noon to 3 p.m. Thursday (Nov. 15) at Union Presbyterian Church of Los Altos, 858 University Ave., sponsored by the Northern California Congregational Librarians. Cost is $15. For reservations, email Patty Grimm at pgrimml@pacbell.net or call Carol Campbell at (408) 859-7488.