From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

This is a school holiday because some of the teachers have to go to school themselves, though until I found this out, I thought that they knew everything. So Aunt Tillie said that she would take me to Idora Park in Oakland, and that a friend of hers who had a little girl would come with us. All the way across the bay, I kept thinking of the Titanic and what would happen if we hit an iceberg. Aunt Tillie told me not to be so stupid as there certainly aren’t any icebergs in the middle of San Francisco Bay. It was a clear sunny day, and I could see lots of islands and we could have bumped into them. I don’t like Idora Park. We went on the Scenic Railway and I hate it. I am so afraid of those dreadful hills that it rushes up and down, but I was afraid to say I was afraid. I didn’t like their little girl either. Her name is Maxine, and she was named after her father Max.

Today Hilda introduces us to a forgotten gem — Idora Park, an amusement park in the Lake Temescal area of Oakland. For more information about it, you can watch a brief video and see a collection of vintage postcards.