From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
It rained today so I couldn’t go out and Grandmother let me look at the family pictures. We have a big basket of them in the hall closet. I like my own the best. There is one with my nurse when I’m only a few weeks old. She is holding me in her arms and in back of us is a whole, full clothesline of my diapers. Then there is one of me when I was three years old dressed in a beautiful coat and bonnet that my father brought to me from Paris. There is a beautiful one of Aunt Tillie in a big hat with a swan on top of it. The swan is sitting on a nest of roses. Aunt Tillie is holding a parasol and a pair of gloves. There are thousands of pictures of grandmother, one in the backyard shelling peas, one on the front steps, one just sitting in the park, one holding me on a donkey and one on the Seal Rocks. I don’t think they are the real Seal Rocks because the real ones are quite far out in the ocean and grandmother can’t swim. Besides, you can see that her clothes are dry. There are two funny pictures of my father and mother posing in bathing suits. My father’s bathing suit looks just like Grandfather’s long winter underwear. My mother’s suit isn’t pretty either. The picture I wanted to look at longer, only Grandmother pulled it away from me, was one of my dead Uncle Samuel. I barely remember him. Samuel is sitting in the front seat of a buggy. There is a lady sitting next to him, but all you can see is her waist and skirt. Someone spilled ink on her face. I asked Grandmother who the lady was, and she became angry and said that I I ever asked her that again, she would send me to bed without supper.
Recently I was given a box of Hilda’s photos. Unfortunately, it did not include most of the photos Hilda mentions, but there is a photo postcard of a couple in bathing suits. I assume this is her parents:
Below is a photo probably similar to the one she mentions of Seal Rocks. This photo of Hilda and an unknown woman (Tillie? Alma?) on first glance looks like it was taken in front of the Cliff House, Ocean Beach and Seal Rocks, but upon closer inspection, it appears to be a painting. The photo would have been taken before September 1907 when this version of Cliff House was destroyed by fire.
Below is a recent photo of Seal Rocks:
