Front Cover image: There is in the pastoral Grotto an air of tranquility. Patterns of sunshine and shadows, sifted through the lacy leaves of the pepper trees, speckle a bowed figure. The meditating priest stands almost at the spot on Presidio Hill where Father Junipero Serra raised the Cross on July 16, 1769.
The "Father Serra Statue" was commissioned by newspapermen and philanthropist E. W. Scripp, to Arthur Putnam as part of a series of statues which were to depict the spirit of the history of California. The first was to be of an Indian, the second, of a Spanish priest. Both statues now are in Presidio Park, having been placed there on loan in 1933.
Arthur Putnam was born in 1873 and came to San Diego as a child in 1891. His mother, a widow, owned a lemon ranch in La Mesa. As a child he attracted attention through his artistry. Too soon the creative hands, which bad made him famous as a California sculptor, were rendered motionless by the fatal effects of a malignant brain tumor.
Small brown birds with bright eyes bustle about the Grotto, hopping without fear around the statue and over the feet of the priest. Little girls, on tours from school, blow kisses to the furrowed face. A photographer, wearing a brown beret, smiles at the children as he checks his light meter. The message, of successful effort, spoken through their capable hands by two dedicated men, fills the glade.
