What Is This Large Memorial in Ennisbrook?

Every time I walk my dogs on the trail that runs through Ennisbrook, I wonder what the story is with this 15-foot-tall memorial. Do you know? —D.

I assumed this would be a cinch to research online, but I found nothing beyond a brief mention on the MuleTrail blog. So I went and looked at the memorial in person. It has a quote from Hamlet (“Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”), but neither a date nor a name, except for that of the sculptor, Frederick P. Humphrey.

I contacted Trish Davis of the Montecito Association‘s History Committee, who reached out to the developers of Ennisbrook—Jack Theimer, Kaye Theimer, and Chuck Farish. They said the memorial was part of the old Gould estate, and that I should try Marianne at the Ennisbrook Owners Association. She sent over a scan of a photocopied article with lots of good info, but she didn’t know where or when it was published. So I also asked the Santa Barbara Historical Museum, which forwarded two articles—from the Independent in 1999 and the Montecito Journal in 2004—that corroborated the first one. (Links to the articles are posted at the end.)

Here’s a synopsis…. The memorial is in honor of Frederic Saltonstall Gould, who had a 92-acre estate in what is now Ennisbrook; his wife, Clara Hinton Gould, commissioned the memorial after he died in 1920. In 1996, some boys playing on the grounds of the decaying estate “noticed a ring on a metal box set into a depression of the stone above the head of the angel,” wrote Marion Gregston in the Montecito Journal. “They pulled out the box by the ring, opening the box and out spilled a ‘dark powder.'” Upon seeing “Frederic S. Gould” on the box, their mother deduced it must have held ashes, and she and the boys return to the memorial to reinter the ashes into the box. James Powers, the caretaker for the estate (owned at that time by Kenneth Hunter Sr.), spotted them, and he took it upon himself to have the Goulds laid to rest together.

Frederic Gould’s ashes had been reported to have been sent to New York, with Clara Gould’s ashes to join them upon her death in 1948. But since Frederic’s ashes weren’t where they were supposed to be, Powers realized that Clara’s might not be, either. He tried searching the area around the memorial with a metal detector, to no avail. The Montecito Journal article wrapped up the story nicely:

Nearly a year after the boys had discovered Gould’s remains, Powers came across an innocuous slip of paper among Clara Gould’s documents. It was a receipt for a concrete box from a workshop on Milpas Street in Santa Barbara. He immediately realized that if her urn were encased in a concrete box, a metal detector would not register it. Powers searched in and around the angel again, this time without the metal detector, but turned up nothing.

Finally, thinking that it was a long shot, he called the monument shop and spoke to the owner. “Sure, I remember,” he told Powers. “She bought that box to have for her ashes when she died. I even know where they buried her. You know that old angel monument on their estate?”

The next day, shovel in hand, James Powers joined the monument shop owner out at the angel monument. Three feet down, they struck a concrete box. Inside the box was Clara Gould’s bronze urn. The mystery was finally solved and the Goulds could finally be together again. But where?

Determined that the Goulds, who had so generously donated their home and property to the Santa Barbara Foundation, deserved a beautiful resting place together, Powers contacted the Foundation and proposed that they underwrite a niche for the Goulds at the Santa Barbara Cemetery. The Santa Barbara Foundation heartily agreed, and Clara and Frederic rest together in Bay B, Niche 34, in the Santa Barbara Cemetery chapel.

To see the memorial for yourself, you can walk up Sheffield Drive till you see a wooden Montecito Trails Foundation sign on the left.

Alternatively, to avoid the pedestrian-unfriendly part of Sheffield, look for an unmarked path between two fences on San Leandro Lane, just west of Sheffield. It winds its way to the part of Sheffield that’s easier to walk.

The trail off Sheffield goes to Gould Lane, where you turn right and then look for another MTF trail sign on your left. (It’s just before the big brick house at the corner of Gould Lane and Jelinda Drive.) According to the Montecito Journal, Clara Gould was responsible for the the allée of pines leading to the memorial.

There are stairs on either side; at the top, you have a bit of a view (on a nicer day).

And then you can continue onward; the MTF’s Ennisbrook Trail goes all the way to the Ennisbrook Open Space and back in a loop.

Sources:
—Montecito Journal article (2004), part 2, and part 3
—Independent article (1999)
—Undated article from unknown publication via the Ennisbrook Owners Association, part 2, part 3

Got a question you’d like investigated? Email [email protected] or text 917-209-6473.

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Previous Burning Questions:
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