Link to Family Tree to understand family relationships.
In my 2021 blog, we met Hilda Firestone, Helene’s first cousin once removed. This year, I will post entries from the diary she kept in 1912, when she was 8 years old. We will see life in San Francisco through her eyes.
Unfortunately I have not seen the original, only having a copy which was typed up decades later and given to my mother:
Hilda was born in Manhattan on January 12, 1904 and was named Claire. Her parents were Hilda (Helene’s first cousin) and Solomon Goldberg. A few weeks after her birth, her mother died and in her mother’s honor she was called Hilda for the rest of her life. She soon moved to San Francisco to be raised by her maternal grandparents, Jacob (Helene’s uncle) and Sarah Levy, and by their daughter Tillie. According to the 1910 census, Hilda lived with her grandparents at 1328 Pierce Street in San Francisco. The house no longer exists.
The undated photo below is the only one I have of young Hilda:
Here is the first entry in Hilda’s diary:
January 1, 1912
We had spinach, carrots and Tante Esther for lunch today and I hate all of them. Alma said it is wicked to hate anyone on New Year’s Day, so I asked her if I may hate them tomorrow. She said certainly not, and that made me sad. Alma told me that when I am more grown-up, perhaps I may be allowed to dislike spinach and carrots, but I may never even then, dislike Tante Esther. Maybe when I am grown-up she will be dead. She is a very old lady. Grandmother and Grandfather are polite to her, because she is blind, but I don’t think they would be if she could see. She is very mean, and ugly, very little, and fat, and has short hair like a wire-haired terrier, only a wire-haired terrier is prettier and nicer, well-trimmed or well-groomed as Uncle Milton says about his dogs and horses. When Tante Esther comes into a room, she rubs two fingers on all the furniture, then, she rubs her thumb on the two fingers to see if she can feel any dust. That is all I have to write today. Grandmother gave me this little pink book this morning, and told me that every day I must write something in it. I asked her why, and she said, “because.” I hate people who say “because.” Grandfather never says it.
I don’t know how much editing was done by an adult Hilda or other relative. Sometimes, she sounds far to knowing for her years. Perhaps she was mature for her age, living in a houseful of adults.
Trying to decipher the family tree created in 1997, it appears that Tante Esther may have been Esther Robeck, half-sister to Hilda’s grandmother who was born in the 1850s.