From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
When Sancha called for me after school today, we didn’t go to the park or the beach, we went to a butcher shop. I thought that perhaps Grandmother had sent us there to buy something but we didn’t buy anything at all. There was a young man there who talked to her for a long time and then he asked me if I wouldn’t like to go out and have some ice cream. I didn’t like this man’s face but I thought that while I was eating the ice cream I wouldn’t have to look at it so I said, “Yes thank you.” So then we went to a little ice cream shop on the corner and the man let me order any flavor I wanted. I took strawberry, because I’m not supposed to eat strawberries and things always taste much better when you aren’t supposed to have them. When we left the place we could see a park just a block away and Sancha said, “Now we are going to the park for a little while, and when your Grandmother asks you if you have been to the park, you can say yes! You must not tell her about the butcher shop, or the ice cream.” When we got home, Grandmother did ask me if we had been to the park and I said yes but I didn’t tell her anything else but I felt funny, as if I should have.
In the stories my grandmother wrote about her childhood in a small town in Bohemia in the 1890’s, she told of similar experiences to those of Hilda. The family maid took Helene out for errands and excursions, which often included their running into her boyfriend. Taking the child under your care for an outing was always a good cover for romantic liaisons!
It was far more obvious where one’s meat came from in Hilda’s day. Below is a photo of Palace Market from around 1900. The source of one’s food was direct and obvious into at least the early 1960s: when I was very young, there was a poultry shop across the street from our house (and from the Surf Theatre) in the Sunset district — the only distinct memory I have of it was the feathers all over the floor. After the shop closed, the space was used for a nursery school.
OpenSFHistory / wnp37.00180