Ernest Schweninger

Schweninger was born on September 9, 1892, in San Jose, California. His father was Fritz Seraphin Schweninger (1867-1918) who was born in Germany and immigrated to San Francisco in 1886; and mother was Helen M. Harmon (1869-1918) from Maine. He had one brother, George Washington Schweninger (1894-1956).[1][2]

After the 1906 San Francesco earthquake, when Ernest was 13 years old, his parents moved from San Jose to Carmel to open the first bakery on the south side of Ocean Avenue halfway between Dolores and Lincoln Streets. His father, Fritz, was friends with pioneer real estate developer Frank Devendorf.[3][2][4]

Schweninger was an eighth grade graduate in the Monterey School on June 30, 1906.[5] He was the first boy from Carmel to attend the Monterey High School. During his high school commencement exercises, he appeared in the senior play, She Stoops to Conquer.[3][6]

Schweninger went to the University of California, Berkeley (1912-1915). He was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity at Berkeley and graduated as a senior in the class of 1914.[7][8]

Louis Slevin's merchandise store, Schweninger's Carmel Bakery, and the Carmel Grocery Store.

In 1915, Schweningers parents acquired two lots adjacent to the Carmel Bakery, on Ocean Avenue, and opened the Carmel Grocery store.[2] Ernest worked in the grocery store and offered free auto deliveries.[3] On August 2, 1916, Schweninger voted in the petition to incorporate the city of Carmel-by-the-Sea.[9]

The bakery was successful, but in September 1917, the Schweningers announced they would close the business to spend more time with the grocery business.[10] The bakery sat vacant throughout 1918-1919.[11][12]

On May 1, 1918, during World War I, Schweninger was recruited at the Fort McDowell on Angle Island in San Francisco and was stationed with the United States Navy at Mare Island.[2] While serving in the Navy, both his parents died in an automobile accident at the summit of Carmel Hill on May 17, 1918. A Memorial service was held at the All Saints Church in Monterey.[13] Because Ernest was away serving in the war, his brother George was appointed administrator of the estate of his parents by the Superior Court. The estate was valued at $20,000 (equivalent to $360,310 in 2021).[14] After the war, in January 1919, Schweninger was relieved from active duty and returned home and took over running the grocery store.[15] In 1920, he reopened the Carmel Bakery leasing the building to Carl Husemann. The building was leased to several other people who ran the bakery.[2]

Abalone League players (lr) Fred Bechdolt, Edward Kuster, James Hopper, John Hillaiard, Ernest Schwinenger, Front: Talbert Josselyn, C.K. Van Ripper, R.C. Smith, Winsor Josselyn.

In 1921, Schweninger helped launch the Abalone League an amateur baseball and softball club. The founders of the league and first board of directors were Schweninger, Byington Ford, James Doud, Talbert Josselyn, and Frank Sheridan. The articles of incorporation stated that the "Abalone League is a cooperative association organized for the purpose of fostering athletics, particularly baseball, and to provide for the physical benefit of Carmel's citizenry." As a corporation, the league was able to sell certificates of membership.[16]

Ernest Schweninger's passport photo

In 1923, the Schweninger brothers sold the grocery store business to Benjamin F. Minges of Monterey, who operated it for 14 years. He kept the land and leased the bakery and grocery store buildings.[4] Now with time on his hands, Schweninger applied for a US Passport for his travels to the South Seas on May 21, 1923. He was described as 30 years old, 5 feet, 8 inches; writer, with a mole on his right cheek. He traveled with his close friends, writers Harry Leon Wilson and his wife Helen and Charles King Van Riper and his wife Helen. Van Riper identified that he had known Schweninger for five years in Carmel-by-the-Sea. They visited New Zealand, Society Islands, Australia, and Tahiti on board the SS Maunganui.[1] They also visited Japan after the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake.

Mr. Schweninger says that while much has been printed in American newspapers concerning the disaster, many of the awful deaths and loss of life and property have not been told, the government exercising a strong censorship on all news. There is much privation among the survivors. Except in the large cities, the Japanese are still a primitive people.

— Carmel Pine Cone
November 24, 1923[17]

Schweninger was a founder and charter member of the Carmel American Legion Post No. 512 in 1934. It was a veterans' organization and historic meeting hall located at the corner of Dolores Street and 8th Avenue.[3][2]

On July 5, 1949, Schweninger, age 56, married Carol Walker (1899-1989) in Reno, Nevada. She had two sons from a previous marriage and had come to Carmel-by-the-Sea in 1940.[4]

Acting

David by Constance Skinner, July 9, 1910

Schweninger appeared in many of the early Forest Theater and Theatre of the Golden Bough plays. He and his brother George appeared in the first theatrical production of David, written by Constance Lindsay Skinner under the direction of Garnet Holme of Berkeley, at the Forest Theater on July 9, 1910. The play was reviewed in both Los Angeles and San Francisco and was reported that nearly 1,000 theatergoers attended the production.[18][4]

Schweninger acted in plays with Herbert Heron at the Forest Theater. He was in Heron's comedy play Immortal Fame on February 26, 1915, sponsored by the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club.[19]

In 1917, Ernest acted in two summer plays, Androcles and the Lion, where he played the Captain, and A Thousand Years Ago by Percy MacKaye, where he played Calaf, Prince of Astrakhan.[20][21]

Carmel Land Company

Carmel Land Company Advertisement

In 1925, Schweninger became the sales manager for the Carmel Land Company and helped develop Hatton Fields, southeast of Carmel-by-the-Sea. The new company formed an office on Ocean Avenue between Louis S. Slevin's general merchandise store and the Carmel Bakery. Paul Aiken Flanders was president, Schweninger was secretary, and Peter Mawdsley was the treasurer.[22]

Thirteen years ago was partner in the only grocery store in Carmel and delivered his own groceries, thus giving all the visiting summer girls a close up and heart breaking view of Carmel's most popular young man and Forest Theater leading juvenile. Came the war and Ernie looked "just too swell" in a sailor suit. This he later changed for an Abalone baseball suit and kept on knocking home runs. A business suit followed and a whack at real estate. He is the hound's nostrils when it comes to his favorite hobby: running down old treasure clues and digging for gold behind the mission on moonlight nights. He is happily unmarried.

— Carmel Pine Cone
December 14, 1928[23]

The first to purchase land was director Perry Newberry. In August 1939, the company sold 22 miles (35 km), of the old Hatton Ranch, for $31,000 (equivalent to $603,907 in 2021) for the proposed Carmel High School.[24]

In 1947, the Carmel Land Company was sold to C. A. Fuller's Carmel Company. Schweninger continued as sales manager with the new company.[4]

Schweninger died of a heart attack at his home in Carmel-by-the-Sea, on Veteran's Day, November 11, 1957, at the age of 65. He is survived by his wife Carol and two stepsons. Funeral services were held in the Little Chapel-by-the-Sea and interment was at the El Carmelo Cemetery, in Pacific Grove, California.[3][25][4]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ernest Schweninger.

• Timeline of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California