Traditional S.D. Lives at Charity Ball

One Saturday night every January, the doors to a time tunnel swing open briefly at the Hotel del Coronado to admit a fair slice of Old San Diego and snippets of the new.

The occasion is the Charity Ball, which theoretically is an annual happening but, in fact, is more a single event served up in annual installments. The series began in 1909 and looks likely to continue more or less forever. Think of the Charity Ball as a space-time continuum that allows its sponsors and patrons to step back to any moment in the city’s history in the last eight decades. Most of them choose to return to the era before freeways, to a time before some San Diegans thought of their city as a shining condominium on a hill.

The theme of Saturday’s ball was “The Lady Is Eighty,” a graceful bow to an octogenarian who, on the whole, carries her age less like a matron in blue-rinse hair than like a doughty dowager intent on retaining her role as head of the family. This was the 80th anniversary of the first Charity Ball, but not the 80th installment, since it skipped a year during World War I and went on a decade-long hiatus during the Depression and World War II.

The facts of the Charity Ball are simple enough: It attracts more than 1,000 guests to the Del’s Grand Ballroom, raises considerable funds for Children’s Hospital and Health Center and, since it focuses on dancing, is the only true ball in San Diego.

But the reality is that it constitutes tradition and continuity for a city that has seen its population multiply some 50-fold since the ball was founded in 1909. About 700 guests, or 1.5% of the city’s population, attended the 1912 ball, and representatives of many of the same families turned out Saturday.

Most have been represented steadily through the decades, and among old-line names on the box-holder list at “The Lady Is Eighty” were those of the Golden, Gildred, Jessop, Starkey, Oatman, Robinson, Carter, Frost, Giddings, Porter, Fenton, Sefton and Clark. The presence of Dallas Clark and his wife, Mary, typified the continuity symbolized by the Charity Ball, since Dallas’ mother, then Lena Sefton Wakefield, managed the 1909 event, and, then as Mrs. Henry Clark, returned to chair the 1946 Charity Ball. And Mary Clark chaired the 1971 ball.

Chairwoman Yvonne Larsen and co-chairwoman Karon Luce (who reversed the roles they played in 1979) designed a very traditional ball that took a long, fond glance back through its many incarnations. The La Jolla Civic/University Chorus offered the pre-ball entertainment with “Broadway Jazz,” a medley of the Jerome Kern, George Gershwin and Irving Berlin songs that have been a staple at the Charity Ball since its early days.

After a formal welcome by Larsen, Children’s Hospital and Health Center board chairman Bob Adelizzi and its foundation chairman, Philip Blair, the ball officially opened when Larsen and her husband, Port District Commissioner Dan Larsen, took the first turns to “The Blue Danube.” The same waltz opened Lena Sefton Wakefield’s 1909 ball at the Robinson Hotel and has cued the feet of generations of Charity Ball attendees ever since.

The Murray Korda Orchestra and the Michael Sullivan Band alternated to accommodate those who wished to dance non-stop, but as is usual at Charity Balls, the action was by no means restricted to the dance floor. A favorite feature is “box hopping,” or gathering at the curious, wedge-shaped groupings of chairs that radiate from the dance floor and are populated by individuals and families who have maintained them for decades (the current record-holding individual is Mrs. John Fox, who has maintained her box since 1946). Originally designed to view the entertainment, the boxes are used for all sorts of purposes--during World War I, matrons knitted socks and sweaters for doughboys while their daughters danced.

Some of the box holders at “The Lady Is Eighty” spent part of the evening reading the brilliant program assembled by Joy Frye. The 257 pages gave a decade-by-decade history of the ball and presented many of the families who have had lengthy or recent involvement with the event. The program also focused on the beneficiary, Children’s Hospital, which as a charity seems to have a greater facility at bringing together the Establishment and newcomers than do many of the city’s cultural institutions.

Chairman Larsen stressed the seminal role of the Charity Ball in San Diego fund raising. “Many families have two or three generations here tonight, and I think that many with a history of supporting San Diego charities learned to do it by first attending the Charity Ball,” she said. “There are 80 years of significance behind this ball, but I feel 29 tonight--putting together “The Lady Is Eighty” has been a revitalizing experience.”

Adelizzi characterized the event as “one of the marvelous moments in San Diego.” “I hope the Charity Ball will always be with us,” he said. “The history is grand, and the cause is equally grand.”

Children’s Hospital president Blair Sadler said that he admired the ball’s combination of tradition and continuity, adding that “it is fresh every year, for a cause that is enduring. The Charity Ball is important not just from the standpoint of the dollars it raises, but because it reminds the community of what a unique resource CHHC is.”

But it may be that of all those who commented on the event, its true nature was summed up best by a guest who remarked, “This ball’s a survivor. It’s been around longer than almost anyone here, and it’ll be around after all of us are gone.”

The Charity Ball drew on the services of a committee far larger than that assembled by any other annual event. Among those in key positions were Susan Hoehn, Maureen Ghio, Nan Lutes, Jill Young, Marilyn Cleator, Barbara Malone, Lynn Bernard, Nora Newbern, Marie Huff, Barbara Brown, Chris Andrews, Diane Pastore, Sue Busby, Paula Landale, Dulie Ahlering, Kathryn Murphy, Fran Golden, Charlene Larsen Fravel, Virginia Monday, Dorene Whitney, Nancy Hester, Anne Evans and Tommi Adelizzi.