“The Lion of Bilin,” revisited

In my April 22, 2021 blog post, I included a story my grandmother had written about her hometown of Bilin (Bilina in Czech), which she entitled The Lion of Bilin, after the mountain that towers over the town. In German the mountain was known as the Borschen and in Czech it is the Bořeň. It was affectionately known as the Lion of Bilin, inspired by a drawing Goethe made of the mountain in the early 19th Century.

As I mentioned in my last post, in May of this year, Czech genealogist Julius Müller took my husband and me to visit Bilina. I had written to the information office the previous year about planning to visit, but received no reply. Upon arriving in Bilina, Julius took us to the Bilina Information Center and mentioned that I was looking for information about my great-grandfather Adolf Löwy, the newspaper publisher. The woman at the desk, Lada Hubáčková, remembered my email and said she had replied but her message had been returned as undeliverable. Lada was very helpful, showering us with information, brochures, and postcards of the town.  

My grandmother’s story begins: “Borschen Mountain is located in a valley between the Erz Mountains – the natural border between the Empires of Saxony and Bohemia – and the Bohemian Uplands.  It is 538 meters above sea level.”

I repeatedly have been amazed by my grandmother’s memory – usually I have been able to corroborate something she wrote by researching in newspapers or vital records. Sometimes I have discovered that she was correct and the record was wrong! At the information center, I found this postcard:

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“Aha!,” I thought as I noticed that the postcard said that the mountain is 539 meters high, one meter higher than my grandmother had written. Finally an error - my grandmother’s memory was good but not that good. I mentioned to Lada that my grandmother had recalled learning in school that the mountain was 538 meters high. Lada said that when she was in grade school, she too had learned that it was 538 meters high! Apparently, in recent years the mountain had been measured with modern technology and found to be a meter higher than previously thought.

Yet again, my grandmother’s memory and veracity were flawless!

Julius took us to the cemetery and the spa above the town (a story for another post), where we had a wonderful view of the mountain, which indeed looks a bit like a sleeping lion. I was thrilled to be walking in my grandmother’s footsteps and seeing the places I’d been reading about over the past few years.

My husband and I with the Lion of Bilin in the background.

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In the 1980s, my mother and I went to Kauai and saw Nounou Mountain, which is known as The Sleeping Giant. I wonder whether when we saw it my mother recalled stories her mother had told her of the sleeping lion a century and world away?

My mother mimicking the mountain in Kauai

News of the Past

In May, my husband and I visited Prague and Vienna. I am still processing all I saw and learned. Over the next few months I’ll write a few posts about the experience.

We hired a Czech genealogist, Julius Müller, to take us to the area my grandmother lived as a girl in the late 19th Century, and about which she wrote when she lived in San Francisco in the 1950s. She wrote stories about the 1889 influenza epidemic, local events and festivals, and mentioned that she had written a few articles for her father Adolf Löwy’s weekly newspaper, the Biela-Zeitung.

Although I don’t speak German, over the past few years I have spent hours poring over online issues of the Biela-Zeitung. The Austrian National Library had digitized several years of the paper, and I had been able to look through the first 10 years of the paper since its first publication in 1874. My grandmother was born in 1886, and on our trip I wanted to look through issues from the years after her birth. I hoped to find information about family events and about things my grandmother had written. One morning, Julius took my husband and me to the Czech National Archives in Prague where he had reserved several volumes of the paper.

At the Czech National Library Archives in the outskirts of Prague.

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Julius showed us how to identify death notices – they looked like advertisements, but were surrounded by a plain black border. One of the first things he found in the 1902 edition of the paper was a notice of Helene’s sister Ida’s death in 1902:

From supplement to Biela-Zeitung 1 January 1902 issue. From the Czech National Library Archives

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As publisher of the paper, Adolf probably didn’t have to worry about the cost of taking out a notice other than lost advertising revenue. He printed a full-page notice, which seemed to emphasize what a tragedy it was for the family.

The notice translates:

Anyone who has suffered a similar fate in their life as we have will understand our deep and justified pain over the unexpected and unfortunately all too early passing of our beloved good wife, mother, daughter and sister, Mrs

Ida Zrzawy, née Löwy
Engineer’s wife in Brüx

and will feel and understand the pain and sorrow that comes, along with the inability to adequately thank everyone for the expressions of heartfelt sympathy from so many through verbal and written condolences and accompaniment to the grave….

Many thanks
The deeply grieving Zrzawy-Löwy family

My grandmother wrote a story called “Dandelions in May 1902” where she told the story of the upheaval Ida’s death caused the family. Everything changed from that moment. Helene’s mother Rosa moved in with Ida’s husband and their 4 children, all under the age of 8. Her sister Mathilde also moved there to help with the family, ultimately marrying the widower a year later. Helene was the only family member still home with Adolf. In addition to his grief, he was left managing the business side of his printing and publishing enterprise (which Rosa had done) as well as continuing writing and publishing of the paper. Helene wrote that her father seemed to age overnight.  

Reading Ida’s obituary, printed evidence of my family’s trauma, confirmed what I knew in an intimate, immediate, and personal way.

During our day at the Czech archive, we were not able to look through all the volumes Julius had reserved, but I knew we could do the same at the Austrian National Library in Vienna the following week. I wrote to make arrangements to visit the library and reserve the volumes I still wanted to review. To my delight, the librarian told me that more volumes of the Biela-Zeitung had been digitized up to 1898 so I only needed to look at a few later volumes, knowing I could look online at home.

I enjoy being able to look at digital editions because the technology is so good that I can search for a word or name and get results. However, there was something special about seeing and touching the paper that my great-grandfather published and my grandmother read.

The first thing I did when I got home from our trip was to download the additional volumes that had been digitized. I then searched for “Helene” in the 1886 volume, even though I didn’t recall seeing birth announcements when I had looked through the newspaper before (not that I would know what to look for). Imagine my delight when I found the following in the November 27, 1886 edition, 4 days after my grandmother was born:

From the Austrian National Library digital archives of the Biela-Zeitung.

Church News:
Born:
…Helene, daughter of Adolf Löwy, Bookseller

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And so the story begins!

Vienna

In a recent session of Barbara Krasner’s Writing Family History group, we wrote about a geographic place that is meaningful to our family. I chose Vienna, Austria:

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I am in Vienna: the one I visited in 1978-1979 with a friend over Christmas break during my junior year abroad in France and again the following summer with my mother on her first visit back to Europe since fleeing in 1939; the Vienna of my mother’s youth in the 1920s, and of her own mother’s youth at the turn of the 20th Century.

The music of Strauss fills the air. I am swaying to the strains of the “Blue Danube.” I am in line for standing room only tickets to attend a performance of Die Fledermaus on January 1, 1979, the opera played every new year at the Vienna State Opera. I wasn’t able to attend the New Year’s Eve performance, but I came close! I had one of my first “Twilight Zone” experiences that night as we waited for the streetcar to return to our pension after the performance. Out of the darkness a woman completely enveloped in a huge coat against the bitter cold appeared and said “Hello, Helen Goldsmith.” She was a friend from UC Berkeley who was studying in Edinburgh while I was in Montpellier, France. What a strange and magical experience to have someone from home suddenly appear!

Now I am in Stadtpark near the statue of Strauss. I imagine my mother and uncle playing on the grass when they were children, with my grandmother delightedly watching them. Despite the fact that everywhere I look are signs prohibiting people from walking on the grass.

Strauss statue in 1979.

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I walk to the Hotel Sacher for a cup of coffee mit schlag, and a slice of the famous Sacher Torte, a two-layer chocolate cake with apricot jam between the layers, topped with dark chocolate icing. When I was a child in San Francisco, my mother would sometimes make a Sacher Torte for special occasions. My mouth waters as I imagine licking the spoon after she finishes icing the cake.

Now, I am peering in the window of Café Centrale, around 1906, seeing my 20-year old grandmother, a young shop girl whose social life includes visiting the café most days. She lives in modest quarters and the café is her living room. She reads the latest newspapers from Vienna and around the world and meets her friends for conversation, intellectual arguments, and laughter.

Now it’s 1934, and I am on the Stubenring looking at Libansky & Co, my grandparents’ stationery shop. This is the heyday of my grandfather’s “magic shop.” He stands outside basking in the sun, leaning against the building. He chats up passers-by, once in awhile inviting one of them into the shop for him to read their palms or sell them a mandrake root for their protection.

A postcard of the Stubenring. The arrow points to my grandparents’s shop, Libansky & Co.

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Vitali at the shop window with customers in 1934.

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Again recalling my visit over Christmas break in 1978-79, I am back at the pension near St. Stephen’s Cathedral. An old widow runs it. She has a small, wheezy, unfriendly dog who roams the halls at night. At breakfast, one of the guests – an employee of the Mexican embassy – says in stilted yet lovely English, “Madam, your dog does not look at me with good eyes.” I couldn’t have said it better.

St. Stephen’s Cathedral and ticket to Die Fledermaus from 1979.

The pension is above a nightclub (perhaps a strip club) called “Casablanca.” When my mother and I stay there the following summer, I ask her to go into the club and get me a poster as a gift for the friend I had visited Vienna with several months earlier. She is too embarrassed to do so, but teaches me the German to go in and ask myself. I am successful and secure two posters, one for my friend and one for me. A few years ago, my husband and I had dinner with friends and reminisced about student travel. It turned out that they had stayed at the very same pension and were thrilled when I gave them the poster.

Final image: it is the summer of 1979. My mother has decided she needs a copy of her birth certificate in case all the other documentation she has about her existence will not be sufficient for her to apply for Social Security benefits in a few years. We go to the Jewish organization that has all of the old books of Jewish records. It is the 4th of July, which seems auspicious! Births were recorded by hand in huge tomes. The less-than-friendly employee unenthusiastically hands my mother the book for 1921, the year of her birth. She is nowhere to be found and my mother is crestfallen. My mother decides that since we are there, she might as well see whether her brother appears in the 1924 book so the visit might be worthwhile. We find him immediately. My mother listlessly continues to turn the pages without much hope and suddenly finds her own birth recorded a few years after she was born. For some reason, her father hadn’t wanted to deal with the bureaucracy to record the information (or considered it an invasion of privacy?) until after his second child, a son, was born. 

Copy of Harry’s birth certificate from 1979.

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I smell the coffee and pastry, hear the strains of Strauss waltzes, see the Vienna of my mother’s childhood, and the Vienna my grandmother loved before it became an unfriendly hellscape. What is the real Vienna – the idyllic playground or the antisemitic nightmare? Probably both.  I look forward to visiting again to see whether there is a Vienna that is mine.

Deciphering Old Photos

Link to family tree

Last year I took a class on writing about photographs from Barbara Krasner. I have hundreds of old photos of people and places I don’t know. The class helped me understand that there is a lot to be learned by looking long and carefully at a photograph.

One photo I have is this portrait of my grandmother’s family from the late 1800s. As a child, I’d glanced at it once in a while but my mother Eva never told me about the people in the picture. I don’t know whether she could identify everyone. She knew that her own mother, my grandmother Helene, was the youngest child of a large family, so she must be the girl seated front and center, wrapped in a boa. Her parents, Adolf and Rosa Löwy, are seated in the middle row and most of the rest are her siblings. By the time my mother would have seen this photo, only her uncle Max was still alive – her grandfather and aunts died before 1920 and her grandmother died before she was two years old.

Recently, I spent time studying the photo, trying to figure out everyone’s identity. I have a photo of my grandmother’s brother Max probably from around 1890 that looks like the young man on the right, but without a mustache. Since there was only one son, I realized that the man standing at left must be my grandmother’s brother-in-law, Julius Zerzawy. It had to be Julius because not only did my mother have a copy of this photo, but her cousin Paul Zerzawy did too – this was as much his family portrait as hers, showing his parents, grandparents, aunts and uncle. Looking on the back of the photo, I saw it was taken in my grandmother’s hometown – on back is stamped: "Photografisches Atelier Gustav Laube, Bilin."

Julius and Ida married in Bilin in August 1894 when my grandmother was 7 years old. I believe that this photo may have been taken to commemorate that event. Everyone is dressed in their finest clothes. My grandmother Helene and her sister Irma were schoolgirls and wear matching plaid dresses. A dog is trying to nose its way into the photo. Paul Zerzawy was born in 1895 – since he isn’t in the photo it must have been taken before that date. 

Ida died in 1902 due to complications from childbirth after having 4 children. The following year Julius married Ida’s sister Mattl, or Matilda. I am not sure which woman in the portrait is Ida and which is Mattl. If it’s a wedding portrait, perhaps Ida is in the center. The other two adult sisters are on the sides and appear to be wearing matching gowns. The woman in the center wears something a bit different. Her parents are dressed formally. Her mother appears to be wearing a black gown.

Recently, I decided to contact Sherlock Cohn, a woman who deciphers old photographs. One of my questions for her is to help me identify Ida and Mattl with more certainty, using other photos I have of these women.

As I was preparing my questions for Sherlock, I tried to provide as much information I could about the people in the photo – names, ages, dates of death, etc. As I gathered all I the details I knew about the siblings, I realized that one of them, Clara, had died in May 1894, a few months before the wedding. Perhaps this wasn’t a wedding photo at all? That’s when I realized that a sibling was missing from the photo. Until 1894, my grandmother had six siblings, one brother and five sisters.  However, in the photo there are only five sisters including my grandmother (Ida, Matilda, Flora, Irma, and Helene). That may explain Ida’s mother’s black dress. Although the photo may in fact have been taken for the happy occasion of her eldest daughter’s wedding, the loss of one child was still fresh for all of them.

I felt the loss myself when I realized that I don’t have a photo of my grandmother’s entire family. Perhaps that’s one reason they took this photo – to have a record of the entire family before anyone else died.

Despite the sense of lost history, I felt a thrill at figuring out on my own that this photo was likely taken in 1894 – the year one sister was lost and a brother-in-law gained.

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I was amazed at how much I could learn by truly looking at the photo – spending time examining every detail. Do you have photos of your own that have secrets to reveal?

December 26, 2022

When I began posting Hilda’s diary in January, I knew only what I had gleaned from a few sources: the names of her parents and grandparents on a family tree, a sense of her personality from a few letters written to her from my grandmother and uncle in the 1940s, her own words in a letter she wrote to my grandmother in 1946, and a handful of photos from the early 1940s that my mother and uncle had saved.

I read about the existence of the diary in a note on the family tree that the husband of a distant relative made in 1997. I was unable to find anyone who could show it to me, but one day I found a copy on my bookshelf! It had been given to my mother in 1991 by Hilda’s first cousin Joan Zentner who was the daughter of Hilda’s Uncle Milton. Although they were first cousins, Hilda was over 20 years older than Joan, more of an aunt than a cousin.

As far as I know, I never met Hilda. Through circumstances that merit a blog of their own, in 2019 I met Joan’s daughter, my third cousin. Although we are the same age, we probably never met until then.

In late spring Joan died and my third cousin came into possession of a trove of Hilda treasures which help us know Hilda more fully. In addition, I searched through the digital archives of the local newspapers and found a lot of articles about Hilda and her family.

From all of the above, I have a much better portrait of Hilda’s life.

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Hilda’s childhood

Today’s post will focus on Hilda’s childhood, both before and after 1912.

As we know from her diary, Hilda’s mother died just a few days after she was born. Here is a photo postcard of her parents, Hilda and Sol Goldberg. It includes a note that appears to have been written on their honeymoon.

Hilda was born in Manhattan on January 13, 1904. Because she was born on a Friday, the family celebrated her birthday on January 12th. It wasn’t until she was an adult that she learned her actual birth date. Hilda’s father worked as a buyer for Macy’s notion department in New York City. After his wife’s death, he took a leave of absence and brought Hilda to California to be raised by her maternal grandparents. Hilda’s mother was buried in the family plot at Salem Memorial Park in Colma, California:

Hilda’s father visited as often as he could and took her on trips during the summer (see July 2-16 posts).

I found a number of items about Hilda’s life published in Emanu-El, the weekly publication of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. In the 1940s, it became the local newspaper for the Jewish Community in San Francisco and is currently called J. The Jewish News of Northern California.

According to the September 1, 1911 issue of Emanu-El, “Among the early fall arrivals at Ancha Vista Hotel, San Anselmo, are:…Mrs. J. Levy [Grandmother] and Miss Hilda Goldberg.” She was in the the congregation’s May 1918 confirmation class (May 10, 1918 issue).

Hilda was very social and attended a lot of parties and events.

From the April 25, 1919 issue: “Probably one of the prettiest affairs of the season, given for the younger set, was the afternoon at which Miss Marion Glaser and her sister, Miss Helen Glaser, presided. In the center of the table was a softly shaded lamp of yellow silk, around which numerous baby roses and ferns were strewn; Dainty place cards and favors marked the places of the guests. Those invited to share the hospitality of the charming hostess were….Hilda Goldberg…”

From the June 13, 1919 issue of Emanu-El:

“Young Folk Enjoy Dancing Party
The members of the school set were delightfully entertained last Saturday night at the home of Miss Helen Harris,…when 20 boys and girls enjoyed an evening devoted to singing and dancing. The guests were:…Hilda Goldberg….”

More photos:

Various photos, unknown dates; Hilda with Brownie in bottom right photo

Class photo, unknown date

Hilda and her father, unknown date

And finally, some of Hilda’s artwork, dates unknown:

One of cross-stitch creations

Self-portrait of a lonely young girl?

December 25, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Merry Christmas!

That is what I feel like saying to the whole world even Tante Esther and Uncle Felix but I am still too sleepy. I am writing this in bed. I stayed up very late last night, till half past nine. It was such a lovely party. Everyone loved everything that everyone else gave to each other. I passed out all the gifts and it was so exciting. The tree was lit with candles and we all sang Christmas carols and we saved dessert until all the presents were opened and so we had lots of cake and cookies and candy. Uncle Felix didn’t give me presents out of his pocket, he brought me a real big box of candy. And Tante Esther didn’t bring me stockings or anything I needed. She brought me a book called “Fairy Tales of All Nations.” I think someone must have told her what to buy but she did it to please me and that was sweet.

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If you click on this link, you can see the 1910 edition of the book Tante Esther gave Hilda. If you click on the link on that page, it will take you to a page where you can see photos of each page in the book.

I am sad to say that this is the final entry in Hilda’s diary. I am grateful for this wonderful gift she left us — the story of her childhood and the world she lived in. Thank you for going on this journey with me and with her.

Over the next few days, we will learn about Hilda’s adult life.

December 24, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

“’Twas the night before Chirstmas and all through the house,
Not a Creature was stirring,
Not Even a mouse.”

Only it isn’t night yet, and everything is stirring and it is all so exciting. This morning Alma and I filled all the cookie cans and wrapped all the presents, and then we walked to the post office and sent Tom and Jerry’s dog biscuits. I wrote out the address myself:

Messieurs Tom and Jerry
c/o Mr. Thomas Nolan
P.O. Box 44
Glenn Ellen, California

I pasted Santa Clauses and wreathes and candles all over the package and I hope Mr. Nolan lets them chew it open and they will have fun tearing it up to get to the biscuits. I wrote a note for Mr. Nolan and wished him a Merry Christmas and asked him to tie the ribbons on Tom and Jerry’s collars so they will look all dressed up. I told him that Uncle Milton will bring me up soon and that I was looking forward to it. 

I skipped most of the way home. I am so excited. Uncle Milton is here now in our parlor and I am not allowed to go in, so I guess he’s trimming the tree. Everyone is coming to dinner tonight and I may stay up as long as I please. I’d like to go to church with Alma at midnight but Grandmother says that it’s too long but that I can sometime when I’m older. It is four in the afternoon now. The house smells like roast turkey and Christmas trees mixed together. Alma is allowing me to hang one of her stockings at the fireplace tonight but I will put my name on it. It holds more than mine. I have a special Christmas dress to wear at the table. Aunt Tillie made it for me. It is white with bunches of holly berries all over it and I am going to wear a red hair ribbon, and I have enough ribbon so that I am putting bows on Sherry’s and Brownie’s collars.

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Clement Clarke Moore’s poem was already almost 90 years old when Hilda wrote this – it was originally published anonymously in 1823. According to a Celadon Books essay entitled “6 Things You Didn’t Know About “The Night Before Christmas”, Moore wrote it for his children in 1822 — so we read this on the poem’s 200th anniversary.

December 23, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Alma and I had such fun today. We bought a million cookie cans. Then I bought Grandfather a bright red pencil sharpener which I know he will love because now he sharpens his pencils with a little pen knife that he carries in his pants pocket and this sharpener will be right on his desk and it is so easy to use and I can use it too. Then for Grandmother we found an embroidered apron that is pretty enough to wear in the parlor and for Aunt Tillie a beautiful handkerchief with a big “T” on it and the “T” has butterflies all around it. Then I bought Alma a handkerchief too and it has an “A” on it and the “A” is right in the middle of a bunch of roses. I bought it when she was buying some gifts for her friends, one for Lizzie especially and we agreed not to look at each other while we did our special shopping so I know she didn’t peek and she will be surprised when she opens my present. Then we went to the White House Department Store to see Santa Claus. He was up in the Toy department. He looked just like his pictures in my book of “A Night Before Christmas.” He took every child on his lap and asked each what he wanted for Christmas and all the children were whispering in his ear. When it was my turn, I whispered that I would like Sherry to have kittens, as many as possible. Santa Claus said that I should have written a letter to him a long time ago. I wasn’t giving him enough time to arrange it. Wouldn’t I like something else. So I said to him, “Yes please, just as long as it isn’t something that I need.” All the way home I wondered what to believe. I don’t believe in Santa Claus but I wish I could. It was clear to me that his beard was false and the whole story is a make believe story. Maybe I’ll just keep on pretending to myself that I believe it. It is such a pretty thing to believe in.

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Although I was unable to find a photo of Santa at the White House, the photo below, taken between 1911-1915, gives us a sense of the festivities at the time. We see Adolph B. Spreckels at a children’s Christmas party. We can imagine that Hilda is one of the children.

Photo courtesy of SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY. The library citation says the photo shows Adolph B Spreckels Jr. he was born in 1911, so if he is pictured he would be one of the smallest children at the table. The man standing second from the right looking at the photographer is his father Adolph B Spreckels.

December 22, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

As soon as we came home yesterday afternoon Grandfather called me into his room again. This time he told me to sit in the big chair at his desk and then he gave me a big sheet of paper and told me to write my name on the bottom of it. I did. Then he tore the paper up and said “Hilda you didn’t read what was on the page of paper. Never sign your name to anything that you haven’t read very, very carefully.” Then he wrote on another piece of paper and gave it to me. He asked me to tell him what was on it. I told him that it said, “I Hilda Claire Goldberg, am borrowing five dollars from my Grandfather, Jacob Levy on this day, the 22 day of December 1912 and that it is to be paid back by December 22, 1914. Interest payments of one penny a month are to be charged for this business transaction.” I didn’t know what interest meant nor the word transaction so he explained it all to me and so now I do. I will have to pay back twenty four cents for borrowing the five dollars and interest doesn’t mean that it is interesting or like our teachers are always telling us to have an interest in our work. Borrowing money is just like buying it and we must pay to borrow it and he asked me if I did agree to what he wrote on the paper. So I said that I did and signed my name and then he gave me five shiny silver dollars. Now I have enough money for presents for everybody.

This morning Alma and I baked millions of cookies, such pretty ones, all shaped like Christmas trees, and we put green frosting on them so they looked quite real. Tomorrow we are going to go downtown and buy Christmas cans to put them into and every single person who comes to see us on Christmas day will get one. Even people we didn’t invite. Tante Esther will get one too and I shall give Uncle Felix the pen wiper I was going to give Helen Violet and I will buy Helen Violet a bag of graham crackers and I can send Tom and Jerry a big bag of dog biscuits and tie it up with a red ribbon and a green ribbon so each can have a bow on his collar. Uncle Milton said that he wouldn’t be able to take them up to the ranch where they live but after Christmas we will be able to visit them and so he gave their address.

December 21, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Before dancing school today Aunt Tillie and Aunt Belle took me to the Palace Hotel for lunch. Aunt Belle is Grandmother Uri’s daughter and she is one of Aunt Tillie’s best friends. Aunt Belle has a sister and lots of brothers and I call them all Aunt and Uncle and now Belle is married and lives in Mazoola, Montana and she came with her husband Harvey to visit for the Christmas Season. We were all dressed up and I was very excited, I know they were too. The dining room was all dressed up for Christmas and decorated with Christmas trees and the room smelled so wonderful. While we were waiting for lunch, all of a sudden the lights went out and then slowly, one by one, the choir boys came in. They wore white lace gowns and each one carried a candle and they sang “Adeste Fidelis” while they were walking. It was so beautiful, so still, just the way it must have been that night in Bethlehem. Then all of a sudden, out of the wonderment, I wanted to give Tante Esther and Uncle Felix presents. I wanted to give everyone presents. I could hardly wait to tell Grandfather so. He and Grandmother came to dancing school to see me march with the shepherds. They said I did it beautifully.

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Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory

Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory

Photo from 1934 of diners at the Palace Hotel during the holiday season courtesy SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY

December 20, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I don’t know what to do? If I don’t take the money from Grandfather I can’t give away any presents except the pen wipers and the catnip. If I do take it, Alma says she will help me think of ever so many nice presents for everybody. She says that Brownie doesn’t need a rain coat, she will show me how to make him a pretty new blanket out of pink and blue wool that I have right in my sewing basket. Now it is time for bed and I still don’t know what to do about Tante Esther and Uncle Felix but I’ll think about it tomorrow after dancing school. Tomorrow is the Christmas pageant. I am going to be dressed as a shepherd only I won’t have any lambs but I’ll be carrying a crook. I love the story of Christmas. I love to think of the little Christ child born in a nice warm manger and all the darling animals coming to look at him and the Three Wise Men coming so far to see the baby and the North Star shining so brightly. I like to think about snow and singing Christmas carols and Christmas trees. Alma taught me some beautiful carols, “Adeste Fedelis”, “Deck the Hall with Myrrh and Holly”, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” Grandfather taught me “Stille Nacht.” That is a lovely German Christmas carol.

December 19, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Grandfather called me into his room last night. He said that this time he wanted to talk business with me. He said he had thought everything out very carefully and that he had decided that since I was earning money with my flea and bug business I am a good risk. A risk is someone you can lend money to because you are sure of getting it back. Grandfather explained it to me. He said he was going to lend me five dollars. He said that he wouldn’t give it to me because that wouldn’t be the right thing to do. I must learn about how business operates and I too must learn how to be giving. He said we must give of ourselves when we give presents, it’s more fun that way. I don’t think so. I told Grandfather that five dollars wouldn’t be nearly enough, that just a comb I wanted to give Grandmother would cost all that. He said that little girls that have only two dollars don’t have to give golden combs. He said that I could give her a plain comb to comb her hair with or a package of hairpins, something useful and necessary. I said that necessary things are not presents and I hoped he wasn’t going to give me anything I need. He said that he wasn’t going to give me anything but of course I didn’t believe him. He said that at Christmas time you shouldn’t think of things you wanted for yourself, only things that you wanted to give other people. He said that is the real meaning of Christmas and that is what Christ would want us to do. I asked him if Christ would give presents to Tante Esther and Uncle Felix and he said that Christ loved everybody and wanted all to be well and happy and he certainly would be very unhappy to see how sad Tante Esther and Uncle Felix would be when everyone else received a package and there were no packages for them. He said that he would think it over some more but I was to remember, that no presents for them, no loan.

December 18, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I thought it over, I still don’t want to give anything to them and besides, I just gave Tante Esther all those roses.

December 17, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Last night just after dinner I asked Grandfather if I might see him on business. He said that his business hours are in the afternoon but if it was very important he would give me a few minutes. So I went to his room and he sat at his desk and I sat in my little chair. I said that I wanted his help because I had so many presents to buy, just how could I divide the money I made so far into so many little parts. Then I told him how I looked at the stores with Alma and how we checked our list and found how much everything cost. Grandfather wanted to see the list so I brought it to him but I crossed out his name because I want him to be surprised. He read it from top to bottom and from bottom to top again. Then he said, “Hilda I don’t see Tante Esther or Uncle Felix on your list.” I said that I wasn’t giving them any presents, I hate them. He didn’t say a word, just thought to himself for a long while. Then he said that he would like to help me of course but until I put Tante Esther and Uncle Felix’s names on the list he just wouldn’t think about it. He told me to go to bed and think it over and maybe I could solve it by morning. So I did.

December 16, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Everything costs so much. I want to give Grandmother a golden comb to wear in her hair and that is five dollars. And I want to give Grandfather some bow ties and those are a dollar apiece and the six pretty handkerchiefs for Aunt Tillie are five dollars and a lace collar for Grandmother Uri costs three dollars and a rain coat for Brownie costs three dollars too. Only Sherry’s present is cheap. I can get a huge bag of catnip for twenty cents. No matter how many fleas I catch this week, I’ll never have enough money. Alma says that I should speak to Grandfather about it as he knows all about money.

December 15, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Yesterday afternoon Alma took a pencil and a piece of paper and made a new Christmas list because mine was a little dirty and mussed up. She said that we must first see how many pretty things we can make because that will save us lots of money. And first, she said, we must think of my father’s because that has to be wrapped and posted to him in New York and that takes at least a week to travel by train to get there. I thought I would send him another pen wiper but Alma said maybe he would like something different this time, maybe the sampler I made, and anyhow I would like to make a new one for myself. Alma told me that I didn’t have the right attitude about presents, especially a Christmas present. She said that what is really important is the love we give. So I said if the present isn’t important and just the love is, why not just send the love. She said, “Hilda, there are times that I would just like to shake you.” But she didn’t. So we wrapped the sampler up carefully in pretty paper and I wrote a nice note. Alma said that if I didn’t buy Christmas cards I could save at least ten cents, so I drew a picture of some holly berries on my own paper and wrote, “To Daddy • Merry Christmas • Love and Kisses • Hilda.” The postage was fifteen cents so now I have only two dollars and seventy-nine cents left. After we posted the sampler we came home and I took all my cat-tails out of the dresser drawer to see how many pen wipers I can make. There are enough for six so that there will be enough for Uncle Milton, Uncle Albert, Louie, Ito, Sing and Helen Violet. Alma said that Helen Violet didn’t need a pen wiper but I said that she will need one some day. The felt material we need to put under the cat-tails cost ten cents. Alma said that we will have to be very careful how we cut it so we don’t waste any. Tomorrow we shall go shopping. We won’t buy anything, we just want to see how much everything costs.

December 14, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I didn’t write in this book yesterday because we left very early in the morning and after we returned home Alma and I were so busy talking and telling everyone about our wonderful time that before I knew it, it was time for me to go to bed. There are just ten days before Christmas and I must think very seriously about my presents. I have just two dollars and ninety-four cents now. Of course I know I can earn more by then, but Grandfather says that I shouldn’t count fleas before they are caught. Bugs, either.

December 12, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

We are going tomorrow. So I decided to go around the whole farm and say good-bye to everyone and all the animals. I kissed little Elizabeth. It is so hard to say good-bye to people and animals and things you love.

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While travels home tomorrow, Hilda will have no time to write in her diary. She will return on December 14.

December 11, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Mrs. Martin had a few minutes to spare this afternoon so she came outside and had her lemonade with Alma and me. We talked mostly about birthdays because I wanted to know how old all the animals were. She asked me when my birthday was and I told her that it was on the twelfth of next month and that I would be nine years old. She said that her birthday was on Christmas day and that she would be forty years old. Forty is very old. I thought it was but Mrs. Martin really didn’t seem old. I asked her if she isn’t very sorry that her birthday was on Christmas because she only got one set of presents and she said no, she said that she is pleased that her birthday falls on the same day as Jesus Christ’s. It made her feel proud and happy. Then Alma told us about a little girl in Samoa…

Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived on a big island called Samoa and her birthday was on Christmas. She was very sad about it because all the other children got lots of presents on their birthdays and all over again on Christmas too and she only got presents on Christmas. She didn’t know what to do about it and then Robert Louis Stevenson came to live in Samoa and he met this little girl. They became good friends and one day this little girl told him how unhappy she was about her birthday being the same day as Christmas. And then Robert Louis Stevenson did something so unusual and lovely. He said, “Do you know what we’ll do? I shall make you a present of my birthday. It is a whole month before Christmas and it is my very own to do with as I please and if I choose to give it to a sweet little girl, no one can stop me.” Then Robert Louis Stevenson took a piece of paper and he wrote all kinds of important things on it, like the place they were in and the date and that he was doing this of his own free will and that he hereby gave his birthday to this little girl to have and hold forever. Then he dropped heaps of sealing wax all over the paper and dug his seal ring into them. That meant that he had given his birth date to the little girl and it was very official.

I asked Alma if that meant that he didn’t have his birthday for himself anymore. She said that of course he still had his own birthday, and that everything that we give of ourselves we still have and can give more and more. I don’t quite understand that and I was thinking of the time I gave Tante Esther those red roses and I didn’t have any left over for myself, but I think she means not real things but thoughts and ideas, but I am not sure.

December 10, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

It is lovely and warm here and Alma and I are out of doors all day. Mrs. Martin never comes out of the farm house except for a few minutes as she must stay in the kitchen and help cook for all the farm hands. All the men who work on the farm eat breakfast, lunch and dinner here. They eat on long tables under the trees like a real picnic, only they don’t seem to know it’s a picnic. They don’t laugh or have any fun, they just eat. Mrs. Martin is very beautiful. She is pink and white. That is, her skin is very white and her cheeks and lips are pink and her hair is golden and she came from Denmark. She is the prettiest thing on the farm. Nothing in the house is pretty. I think the house is ugly although it smells clean, like fresh baked yeast rolls and angel cake. The parlor is full of slippery black chairs and red velvet footstools and the walls are covered with pictures of terribly ugly people. All of them are relations of Mr. and Mrs. Martin. The women all look as if they had been stuffed into their dresses and the men look as if they would like to take their collars off. There are some younger people on the mantle. There are girls in fluffy shirt waists and fluffy pompadours and tiny waists and tennis racquets but they don’t look as if they know how to play tennis. There are some ornaments in the room too, not such pretty ones as Grandmother has but I think Claire would like them. There is a little baby shoe. It was a real one once but Mrs. Martin had it made into a bronze so it would never wear out so she could keep it forever. Claire couldn’t break that even if she dropped it.