On a Sunday in September of 1929, 15 members of San Diego’s elite gathered to carry the coffin of an old friend. Among the pallbearers were a future mayor, a founder of the city’s oldest …
May 21, 2026
Orrick, one of founding members of the Baltimore City Paper, visited San Diego in the latter 1990s to write feature stories.
Articles by Phyllis Orrick
U.S. Grant Junior's years in San Diego
In the ashes of Kate Sessions' heart
On her first trip to San Diego, Kate Sessions took the once-a-week steamer that plied the 446 miles from San Francisco. A little more than a century after her, I make my first journey on …
April 24, 2026
General Grant's heirs made mark on San Diego
San Diego's least-remembered great man – U.S. Grant Jr. On a Sunday in September of 1929, 15 members of San Diego’s elite gathered to carry the coffin of an old friend. Among the pallbearers were …
August 26, 2023
Fled my father in La Jolla
La Jolla 1962 Dressed in long trousers and boat shoes and a white Lacoste tennis shirt, I accompanied Toby across Vista del Mar and Neptune Place to the Pump House and down concrete steps to …
August 19, 2023
Marguerite Henry, another horse-crazy girl
Misty of Chincoteague author ends up in Rancho Santa Fe When Marguerite Henry died last month at the age of 95, a relationship that began for me more than 35 years ago came to a …
April 29, 2023
Local Olaf Wieghorst fans get burned
Olaf Wieghorst trusted the wrong man Almeida got his start at George Thackeray’s gallery in the late ’50s. He and his wife Grace agreed to talk to me at their house in Ocean Beach, a …
July 16, 2022
In the ashes of Kate Sessions' heart
Why the mother of Balboa Park is the mother of us all Sure, there’s a school and park named after her, and careless admirers credit her, rightly or not, with planting any large tree growing …
June 27, 2022
El Cajon Olaf Weighorst forgeries, Reader author's parents killed
Bushwhacked We look at a Wieghorst painting called Spring Rain, a dark, impressionistic work, one of about a dozen Wieghorsts on the walls. Thackeray can remember when Wieghorst painted it. “It was raining cats and …
January 22, 2022
Cave Couts, Old Town loveletters, San Diego's first school
Cave Johnson Couts Ysidora's brother-in-law, Don Abel Stearns, gave her the Guajome land grant surrounding Mission San Luis Rey. Couts resigned his commission with the Army and built a ranch on land that “had neither …
August 28, 2021