Jacomena Maybeck

Dutch/American, (1901–1996)

Born in Surabaya, Java, Jacomena van Huizen moved with her family to Holland, and later to California when was seven. She grew up west of Ukiah, California, in a family of Dutch immigrants, where as a child she met her future husband, Wallen. He was the son of the renowned Bay Area architect, Bernard Maybeck, who designed the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. After high school, Jackie taught in a one-room school, then at UC Berkeley in 1923. After sixteen years of courtship, Wallen and Jackie married in 1927. She raised twin daughters, did a lot of writing and drawing, created award-winning pottery, and taught, while building and preserving an assortment of houses, tarring roofs and splitting logs into her eighties. In the end, she saved many Maybeck homes from destruction, and became very influential in the San Francisco art and architecture community.