From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Grandfather and Brownie called for me at school this afternoon and we went for a long walk in Golden Gate Park. We saw swans and the bears and then we went to the Coffee House for chocolate cake. I asked Grandfather how he felt about his neighbor. Would he like his neighbor’s ox or ass or child or something. Grandfather asked me which neighbor did I have in mind. I said I didn’t think it made any difference, we weren’t supposed to want anything belonging to any neighbor. Grandfather said, “Let me see. I wouldn’t want Mrs. Bohn, not at all, because hadn’t Grandmother told us that she starves her husband. And I wouldn’t want Mrs. Lawrence because she does nothing but sit on the stairs all day with that ugly little hairless dog of hers and Grandmother says that she lets her house get very dirty. I certainly wouldn’t want any of my neighbor’s children. Who would want that cornet-playing imp of Mrs. Lawrence or that horrid boy of Mrs. Bohn, the one who is always butting people in the street and yelling ‘Baa-baa-aa-aa just like a goat.” Well Grandfather said that none of his neighbors had oxen or asses and they really didn’t have anything he would want and that for the moment he doesn’t want anything belonging to anybody.
I never knew there was once a bear in Golden Gate Park! Apparently Hilda and her Grandfather visited a grizzly bear named Monarch. An article telling Monarch’s sad story says that he died in 1911, but OpenSF includes photos dated several years later. Perhaps he was so popular that they substituted a younger bear. Now, the only evidence is an area called “Monarch Bear Grove”.
They may have had their cake at the coffee house that can be seen in a file at the Online Archive of California.
Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory
Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory