Gertrude ‘Tulita’ Bennett Davis Westfall (1889-1962)
Tulita was born on September 15, 1889 in Monterey in the original (circa 1817) Boronda adobe. She was the only child born to parents Edward Bennett & Emma Rosenda Butler. After Edward died unexpectedly while traveling to Alaska, Emma & her daughter moved to San Francisco. Eventually, Tulita returned to the family adobe where she was raised by her Great Grandmother Petra & Great Aunt Gertrudis (just as her mother Emma had been).
After graduating from Monterey High School she attended UC Berkeley, SF’s California School of Fine Arts, SF’s Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design, LA’s Otis Art Institute & the Art Students League in NYC. Her teachers included Pedro Joseph de Lemos, Frank Van Sloun, Lee Fritz Randolph, Rudolph Frederick Schaeffer & Henry Varnum Poor.
On January 21, 1909 the Salinas Daily Index announced that a marriage license was given to “Lester F. Davis, age 38, native of Maine, and Gertrude Bennett Ambrosio, age 19, native of California, both residents of Monterey.” From that union, Tulita’s only child Casimir Adriana Davis was born on March 11, 1912, in the Boronda Adobe From20 years later Casimir would give birth to her own son Lester Irving Sowell on March 12, 1932 in this same ancestral home, making him the 6th generation to be born there.
In the September 18, 1916 Salinas Daily Index we read that “a number of artists and art students from New York, San Francisco and Monterey arrived in Salinas yesterday on a brief visit and were entertained at dinner by Mr. And Mrs. George Hartnell at their home on (332) Lincoln Street. It was a jolly gathering of congenial spirits, and the afternoon, which was devoted to music was one of unalloyed pleasure. The guests included S. Westfall of New York, John Carroll, Sam McCloud, Francis Swain, Mrs. Tulita Davis, Hilda Duarte and Alta Duarte, students of the San Francisco Art Institute; Mrs. Ambrosio and Miss Casimar Davis of Monterey, Mrs. P. W. Soto and Mrs. M. L. Davis and daughter of Salinas.”
Soon Tulita would divorce Lester Davis & marry fellow artist Samuel Henry Westfall (24 years her senior). Together they traveled throughout California & Mexico & lived in San Francisco, Oakland, Hayward, & Los Angeles before returning to the Boronda Adobe in the 1930s. In 1940 after her husband’s death, she sold the Boronda Adobe & moved to a cottage on Monte Verde Street (between 8th & 9th) in Carmel.
Skilled as a watercolorist, painter & etcher she had works in numerous exhibitions, including the following: California Artists, Golden Gate Park Museum, 1915-16; San Francisco Art Association, 1918, 1931; California State Fair, 1926 (a prize for ‘The China Goose’); Oakland Art Gallery, 1928-34; Santa Cruz Art League, 1931; California Statewide (Santa Cruz), 1931, 1939; GGIE, 1939; & Carmel AA.
Tulita Westfall died on December 8, 1962 in Pacific Grove. She was buried in Seaside’s Mission Memorial Park’s Garden of the Last Supper.
Karen Sowell Dyer, in memory of her brother Lester Irving Sowell (1932-1950) who was killed in the Korean War, recently donated Tulita’s 1925 oil painting of an unidentified woman (possibly Señorita Maria Ygnacia Bonifacio) to MHAA. It is currently displayed @ our Stanton Center location.
Michael Mazgai
