As an ingenue, she posed for the statue which tops the soaring column of the Dewey monument in Union Square. Later in life she married a 50-year old multimillionaire Adolph Spreckels. In 1924, the two of them donated the Palace of the Legion of Honor art museum to the City of San Francisco.
Adolph and wife Alma hired Ecole de beaux arts-trained architect George Appelgarth to design this impressive urban estate on Washington Street in Pacific Heights, completed in 1912.