Histories

Olive Louisa Fernald left Boston in the Fall of 1863 by steamer for California, via the Isthmus. She accompanied her sister, Mrs. Amasa Pray, and family. She dropped the name Olive and was known as Louisa Fernald. She lived first in Santa Barbara but went to Santa Cruz in 1864. On April 12, 1864 she was granted a Grammer Grade certificate for teaching – the first one in the county granted to a woman. She taught for three or four years and was married May 28, 1868 to Samuel Drennan at the Pacific Ocean House which was the first brick hotel of the town and built by Amasa Pray, her brother-in-law.

She was always identified with all the best activities of the community – the early Conversation Club for discussion of pertinent topics, lyceum and chataqua courses; the Santa Cruz Improvement Society which furnished the first public library and later put furnishings in the Carnegie library, beautified parks, and built a beach esplanade; the Woman’s Aid, organized to relieve the need following the panic of 1893; the Decorative Art and Woman’s Exchange, which held free as well as paid instruction in sewing for girls and sponsored needlework in the public schools; was prominent in the first Red Cross organized at the time of the Spanish American War. She served in an official capacity in all these organizations. She was closely identified with all the activities of the Congregational Church. She lived all her married life, from 1868 until her death in 1921, in one home prepared before their marriage by her husband, Samuel Drennan.