Read The LeBaron Secret for Free Online Page B

airs, Papa Julius LeBaron married down. Mama LeBaron was the former Constance O’Brien, and Julius always tried to pretend that his wife was some sort of kin to the legendary William S. O’Brien, one of the “Irish Big Four Silver Kings” of the 1850s and 1860s. Not so. Constance’s O’Briens were the Irish chambermaid O’Briens, and her mother scrubbed toilets at the Palace Hotel—though that is an unkind thing to say, for Constance was a good and pious woman, and her parents were honest and hardworking people. It is also said that Peter LeBaron married down when he married Sari, and it is pointed out that Sari LeBaron’s own origins are shrouded in a certain amount of mystery. This is simply because there are some areas of her past that Sari LeBaron does not wish to discuss. And, given hindsight, in light of everything Sari has done, would you say that Peter married down? He married a woman of far greater intelligence and spirit and courage than he—for all his famous charm. Have you heard about the time, in the late summer of 1946 during the Teamsters’ strike, when Sari herself drove truckloads of freshly harvested grapes from the Sonoma vineyards to the crushing sheds—where the grapes must go as fast as possible after harvesting—and, warned of trouble from the Teamsters, drove with her husband’s loaded pistol beside her in the cab of the truck? On the road one morning, a striking Teamster saw her, recognized her, and tried to force her off the highway with his rig. She grabbed the pistol, aimed, and shot out two of his tires. For that, Peter married “ down ”?
    Much of the idle gossip and speculation you may have heard about the family is untrue, if not downright absurd. Someone just the other day said, “Where did Peter Powell LeBaron get his middle name from , anyway?” (Powell is an old and respected San Francisco name.) To which someone else at the party, fancying himself a wit, said, “I think it’s from the Powell Street cable car—I gather that’s where he was conceived, somewhere between Post and California.” Gossip. Actually, he was named in honor of Archbishop Terence Powell—as I’ve mentioned, Constance was very pious. And you will hear speculation about how Peter P. and Sari met, and there is a story that they met under scandalous circumstances in one of the notorious private rooms over the Old Poodle Dog. Nonsense. Sari was introduced to the LeBarons in a very ordinary way by Peter’s sister, Joanna, who was her best friend. You will also hear that Sari “had” to marry Peter because he had put her in a family way. This is also untrue. In fact, when the whole proposition of marriage was made to her, she was quite startled, even though she was—or let us say she thought she was—in love with him. At the time, yes. At the time, another man she thought she really loved had turned her down. Was her marriage, then, on the rebound from this other love? Not really. Remember that Peter was a very handsome man, a very glamorous figure.
    She loved him. She told me so. And he loved her. Or said he did.
    Much of the gossip is fueled by jealousy. One area of the city that admires Sari is the gay community, not that she gives a fig for them. No, that’s not quite true. She simply can’t quite understand the gay community, can’t quite comprehend what it’s all about, and prefers not to think about it all that much. But the reason why the gays admire her is because of her interest in renovating that still rather sleazy area south of Market Street—“south of the Slot,” as they say here—Howard Street, the Fillmore District. Her restoration of the Odeon Theatre was a part of that ongoing project. The Fillmore District is still pretty run-down, and there are plenty of winos there—“Sometimes I think I’m responsible for the winos,” Sari has