"The Most Interesting Woman in the World... you've never heard of" Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

Lucretia Osborn McKleroy: “The Most Interesting Woman in the World… you’ve never heard of” by J.Macon King

California, Family, Happiness and Tragedy

Lucretia on Bermuda honeymoon using cell phone before invented. : ) Paparazzi photo before the term was used by Fellini.

Relocated to Monterey with her husband’s appointment to Fort Ord, the young couple would post-war move to San Francisco. William McKleroy used his family banking savvy to purchase the city’s real estate for the baby boom. Despite his size, William was an agile and graceful skier and ice skater.

Always dapper William McKleroy skating at SF Legs arena. He enjoyed skating so much he became president of the Ice Skating Association. Other SF skate venues include Ice Arena on 48th Ave., pre-Bill-Graham Winterland and Sutro Bath rink.

Lucretia Perry Osborn vintage crystal cocktail shakers monogramed with LOP accenting Osborn. Original LPO on right, newer Lucretia on left. Courtesy McKleroy estate.

In the fifties, the charming couple held, and were invited to, the increasingly popular social cocktail parties. A bizarre kidnapping thrust their group in to the limelight. Friends with Fred Cox, Frog Lake owner Lawrence Smith, the McKleroys spent several weekends at parties at the Frog Lake stone cabin. (Near Truckee, it is now part of Truckee Donner Land Trust, site of the 2026 deadly avalanche at Perry Peak, Castle Peak,) Frog Lake would make three SF Chronicle headlines. In a Wild-West-type tale, their friend Fred Cox, Smith and caretaker Walter Taylor were held at shotgun point and kidnapped to a neighboring ranch, over a property dispute. Despite shots fired, no one was injured and the captives were eventually released. The McKleroys and friends would later make a satire short film of the event on site at Frog Lake, called “The Ballad of Frog Lake.” The MillValleyLit editors were able to view this film and the Chronicle newspapers. See link to Tahoe Quarterly below.***

“Ballad of Frog Lake” starring “Lu” and “Bill” McKleroy, Merritt and Betty Cutten, Fred Cox and others. Rare surviving VHS tape from 8mm film courtesy of Merritt Cutten. JMK

The early sixties found the McKleroys becoming key supporters and public relations ambassadors for the development of Lake Tahoe area Alpine Meadows ski resort (now with Squaw Valley known as Palisades). The McKleroy five children were also avid skiers and often local Ski Club and NASTAR race winners. The cabin they built in 1962 of incense pecky cedar and knotty pine (from a kit!) still stands, among the modern million dollar mansions, as the oldest cabin in Alpine Meadows estates.

The Haight Ashbury hippies and burgeoning music scene had its effect on San Francisco locals and their children. Their only daughter, Lucretia VIII turned into a teen in the early 70’s and temptations were aplenty. The Haight, Winterland and The Fillmore beckoned. Older siblings of her and friends in this heady environment made growing up easier but quicker. Despite William’s military background and Lucretia’s societal upbringing they were open to change. William would sometimes sport a Nehru shirt, love beads and a long wig over his bald head to shock his son’s dates. Lucretia expressed her sympathies for the peace, love and politics cause in her song\poem, “The Angry Young Man” viewable at her poetry link below, and others.

In 1969 the couple traveled to Russia (Soviet Union) with eleven-year-old daughter, Lucretia IX. The daughter showed a young Red Army soldier on the train her history book with a section on Russia with photos of the Kremlin. He was incredulous that Americans would study them and have such photos. The girl became quite ill there and was hospitalized. Despite the Russian advances with Sputnik and the space race, their medical system, including “cupping” almost lost the girl.

Lucretia and her husband were well-known for their large Christmas parties at their long-time Bermuda pink Pacific Heights home. Their activities were mentioned in Chronicle Herb Caen columns and Social Scene pages, and friends included actor Vincent Price. Yet, were as approachable and friendly in Trader Vic’s as well as Hippo Burger. All seemed a perfect life.

Lucretia O. McKleroy with horror screen star and art collector, Vincent Price. 1958. Photo: probably SF Chronicle.

McKleroy family before daughter’s birth at Alpine Meadow Lodge. Photo used in “Olympic Valley & Alpine Meadows Tales from Two Valleys” by Eddy Star Ancinas. Photo credit unknown.

Double tragedies would befall the happy family. First, the sudden death of their charismatic second son, Harry, on Christmas night,1968. Harry driving, with two of his three brothers attempted to beat the storm for fresh powder up treacherous old Highway 80 to Alpine Meadows. The Rambler wagon was filled with new Christmas-present skis. The car slid off the road near Colfax, the roll-over down the bank pinning and crushing Harry, yet miraculously sparing the other brothers, despite one through the windshield and the other somehow flew through the sunroof. In a reoccurred theme, Harry died in brother Bruce’s arms, and sister Lucretia was ten years old. This accident scarred the family for years in more than one way, especially as they had to drive past the crash site every time on the drive to Tahoe. In the following days, Harry’s spirit appeared to the family in a number of ways, and his green eyes appeared in a secret seance held by his little sister and her friends.

A few years later in 1974, husband and father William had a fatal heart attack while playing tennis. Young Lucretia IX (age sixteen), like her mother before her, was suddenly with one parent. Lucretia VIII became the matriarch of the well-known McKleroy family while maintaining her family’s prominent standing within New York and California high society.

Lucretia VIII, left, cameling with her daughter, Lucretia IX, at the Great pyramid, 1978, Egypt.

She passed on 12 March 1994 at her home at the age of 77 with a memorial held at Grace Cathedral. She is at rest alongside her beloved husband and son at Trail’s End cemetery in Tahoe City, CA.