November 28, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

This is Thanksgiving Day. It is always the last Thursday in November because that is when the Pilgrims ate their first Thanksgiving dinner in America…

The pilgrims were people who ran away from England because in England they weren’t allowed to go to their own church. They landed on a rock. The name of the rock was Plymouth Rock because it was in a place called Plymouth, Massachusetts. The boat they came over in was called “The Mayflower.” They were all very happy to be here in America. At first it was hard for them because America was brand new then and it didn’t have any pretty little cottages and gardens that they were accustomed to have in England. The women were very lonely. They couldn’t take their baskets to market and talk to other women who shopped because there weren’t any markets. And of course not everyone in their family could come over on the “Mayflower.” Grandfather said that if they brought everyone in their whole family with them the “Mayflower” would have sunk. The men were busy all day long. They had to chop down trees and build houses and a church and barns and pens and horse troughs and a school and dog houses and a store and all kinds of things. They didn’t have to build a theater because they didn’t like theaters. The Indians that were here liked the Pilgrims and helped them plant corn and other vegetables. The first November that the Pilgrims were here they harvested their crops. They thought they should thank God for everything, especially for the friendly Indians. So they did celebrate and had a great big picnic and invited the Indians too. All the women were happy and cooked weeks in advance. They had such good things to eat, and everything grew right outside their new houses, like cranberry jelly and applesauce and all kinds of pies. They loved pumpkin pies. They had never seen pumpkins in England. And they had beautiful roasted turkeys and wild geese and wild rice and feasted and they said their prayers too.

Our Thanksgiving was almost like that, only we didn’t have any prayers or Indians but we did have Tante Esther and Uncle Felix. We had turkey, no geese, and only one kind of pie, mince. We also had four other people, but I don’t remember their names. They are from New York and someone wrote Grandmother that they were coming, and so Grandmother said, “We must remember the strangers within our gates.” But they aren’t within our gates, they are staying at the St. Francis Hotel. I asked Grandmother if we shouldn’t have some strange dogs for dinner as there were some outside on the street. I didn’t mean that we should invite them to our table, just in the backyard with Brownie. Grandmother said that I should stop driving her crazy. So we didn’t have them.

November 27, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

This was another day that I had to call on Tante Esther. Grandmother sent me there with Alma while she went downtown shopping. But Alma couldn’t wait because she promised to call on Lizzie and so she left me there all alone with Tante Esther and her maid and I had to wait until Grandmother came later. Tante Esther wanted to be very polite and entertain me, but she said that she had nothing for a little girl to play with but would I like to see her shroud? I didn’t know what a shroud was but I said yes of course, I’d love to see it. So she told the maid to open the bottom drawer of her wardrobe and bring it out so that I could see it. It looked just like a very ugly nightgown with a high neck and long sleeves and I didn’t know why she would call it by another name. I didn’t know what to say so I just asked her for another gumdrop. She said I could have the gumdrop but first she wanted to tell me something solemn. She said she supposed that I thought that I was looking at a nightgown but it wasn’t. It was a dress that she was going to be buried in some day. I asked when did she think that was going to be. She said that she didn’t know and she seemed a little angry, and she said that it would be a long while yet, at least she hoped so, but whenever God was ready for her, she was ready to go to Him. I thought that if I were God I would be very anxious for Tante Esther to be there in heaven, just to be certain that everything was clean and there was not a speck of dust anywhere, but I didn’t say anything. I did ask her if Uncle Samuel wore something like a shroud when he died and she said that he did, that he wore exactly the same thing. I said that it must be odd for him to be in a dress and I would have thought he would have a shroud that had pants. Then she got mad at me and said, “Child! You should speak more respectfully of the dead.” I didn’t know that I didn’t and I don’t think it’s disrespectful for a man to wear pants. I didn’t answer her and she fished around the table and found the bowl of gumdrops and gave me two and then Grandmother came and we had tea and Grandmother talked about her shopping and was excited about tomorrow because it is a big feast day and reminded Tante Esther to come early for dinner.

November 26, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Something so nice happened. That horrible Mr. Kirby that I always hated so much has been sent to prison. Alma and Gladys were talking about him in the kitchen this morning. They had just read it in the morning paper. The paper said that he had hidden something in automobile tires and sneaked it into San Francisco from Honolulu. I am so happy that he is in prison and I hope he stays there a very long time so he can’t come here for dinner. Alma says that now he will have to live in a dreadful stone cell and eat bread and water and wear a horrible red and white striped suit and he can only see Mrs. Kirby once a month. Of course I don’t think he will mind it so much, I mean not seeing Mrs. Kirby.

November 25, 1912

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.

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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

November 24, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Uncle Milton and Brownie came home so late last night that I wasn’t allowed to wait up for them. When I came downstairs this morning Uncle Milton said that he had something very sad to tell me. I was so frightened, I thought something happened to Brownie but it wasn’t sad at all, it was just that he didn’t win the silver cup or a blue ribbon. He got a yellow ribbon and Uncle Milton said that it meant that he got the third prize and it is a disgrace. I said that I didn’t think it was a disgrace at all and besides a yellow ribbon is much prettier on a dark brown dog than a blue one and after all he didn’t come in fourth or fifth or sixth and third prize is something important too. Then I called Brownie to come upstairs with me and I think I love him more because he didn’t get an important first prize and I told him so. Then I went to Sunday school and learned the tenth commandment. It is “Thou Shalt Not Covet.” To Covet is to want things other people have. God says you shouldn’t want your neighbor’s ox or his wife or his ass or his children or anything at all.

November 23, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

This is the day of the Dog Show but I have a bad cold so I couldn’t go. Early this morning, Uncle Milton gave Brownie a bath and combed and brushed him ‘till he was fluffy and beautiful Then he surprised him with a nice new green collar and leash. He promised to bring him home as soon as he got his prize. I can hardly wait.

November 22, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Miss Cashen said today we would go to England but first had any of us remembered to find out about Rembrandt? None of us had and she said that we were very. Lazy children and she was disappointed because she wanted to hear about him. I wanted to say that if she wanted to hear about him why didn’t she find out about him herself, but I am trying to be good so I didn’t say anything. Then she said that she thought that maybe she would find a book about him down in the library and if we would excuse her for a minute she might find it. She did find one…

It was a story called “Night Watch” and that is the name of Rembrandt’s most famous painting. Rembrandt lived in Amsterdam. It was a very beautiful and rich city and full of beautiful things to paint but Rembrandt didn’t like to paint beautiful things, he liked to paint ordinary ones that nobody else looked at and tried to avoid, like poor people in ugly torn clothes and once he even painted a horrid bloody piece of meat hanging in a butcher shop. Of course he didn’t sell many paintings because no one wants pictures of poor people or bloody meat. But one day some very rich men came to see him. They wanted their portraits painted, but not singly, they wanted a group picture because they thought it would be cheaper that way. Rembrandt said that he would do it. They thought it would be nice if he would paint them sitting around a beautiful dinner table or all in a row on a marble bench in the park with tulips around them. But Rembrandt said that he wanted to paint them at their work when it was their turn to stay up all night and see to it that the fires in the city were controlled and that it was kept safe from burning. There were no fire engines in those days. So they said all right and every day for a long time they came and posed for him. He worked hard on the picture and he was very pleased and told them it was going to be a fine one but he wouldn’t let them see it until it was finished because he wanted it to be a surprise. Well one day it was finished. He thought he would give a party and he invited all of them to his house. There was a big curtain hanging in front of the picture, just like at the Orpheum, I guess. Rembrandt gave them all front seats. Then he pulled the curtain aside. He thought they would all jump up and clap their hands and hug his shoulders and tell him just how much they all liked the picture and their special portraits but they didn’t. They just sat there and made faces at it. They were really as mad as hornets and they began to make noises. The picture was very dark, just as dark as it really is at night. There was a light in just one tiny part of it so some of the men’s faces were clear and shiny but the others were sort of brownish and shadowy and some of them couldn’t even find themselves. They began to fight with each other because the ones in the dark part of the picture thought they shouldn’t pay as much as the ones in the light part. And all of them were furious at Rembrandt for not painting them the way they had told him to do it in the first place. Then Rembrandt lost his temper. He screamed and shouted and he shook his fist in their faces and he called them pigs and idiots and all kinds of other things and he threw them out of his house and told them never to come back. So they didn’t but Rembrandt became famous without them.

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You can take a “tour” of the Night Watch painting at this link to the Rijksmuseum.

November 21, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Last night I told Grandfather that I had been a very good girl for a long time, over a week, and I thought he should tell me some more of that story. He asked Alma if that was true, had I really behaved nicely all week long and not yelled or stamped my feet and Alma said yes it was true, that not once had she had to bring me the little glass bowl. Every time I lose my temper and cry, Alma brings me a little glass bowl for my tears. She always says that if I can fill it she will buy me a pretty goldfish to swim around in it. That would be lovely but so far I have never been able to cry enough to fill even half. Really, I can’t even get it hardly wet because the tears run down my face and not into the bowl. So because I was good, Grandfather told me more of the story.

He asked me where he left off and I said in the kitchen with the cow. So he went on…

And he told me that he was the eldest of those boys, his brothers, but of course I knew that already. He said that they were so poor that he has trouble even now thinking that he isn’t poor anymore. They had meant to eat only once a week. Not nice lamb chops and steaks and veal cutlets like we have but stringy boiled beef just out of the water and it didn’t come to the table all trimmed with pretty parsley. His mother always cut it in half right away and gave half to his father and then she divided the rest evenly amongst the rest of the children. She never kept even a tiny piece for herself, she just always said that she wasn’t hungry or that meat isn’t good for her. Grandfather now thinks that she must have been terribly hungry but she wanted to feed her children but he didn’t know it then. He said that she was like that. She just wanted everything for everyone else and nothing for herself.

Then he said that if his mother had gone to visit Tante Esther, she would have been glad to take the money out of her bank and buy her some roses. Then he said that a present isn’t a present unless you have to go without something yourself so that you can buy it. Then he talked a long time about how much fun it is to give things away and how good it makes you feel inside yourself. But buying the roses for Tante Esther didn’t make me feel good inside. It just made me feel mad. I didn’t tell him that and I didn’t like that part of the story. Grandfather said that he was sleepy and he guessed I was too and he would tell me more some other time.

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I was very interested to read this entry because it tells part of my own family’s story. Hilda’s grandfather Jacob was my grandmother’s father Adolf’s brother. According to my grandmother’s story about her family history, her father was the eldest son, while Grandfather says he was. Both stories agree about the poverty they were born into. My grandmother wrote: “One fine day, the oldest son Adolf, then 10 years old, packed his bundle to be off. He had neither money nor any idea where to go but for the fixed plan to go to school wherever he would have an opportunity.” Adolf was about 10 years older than Jacob. Regardless of exact timing, perhaps my great-grand-father left home as the house filled with more mouths to feed, leaving Jacob as the eldest brother living with their parents.

November 20, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

After school today I went to the beach with Grandmother and Grandma Uri. We sat on a bench on the sand but I wasn’t allowed to play in it because Grandmother never allows me to get my clothes dirty. So I didn’t have any fun. Grandma Uri had brought her ear trumpet along and I had to nearly scream into it because it was so windy and the wind seemed to blow the sound away and I could hardly hear what she said to me. The conversation wasn’t very interesting but I had an idea how hard it was for her not to be able to hear what everyone is talking about.

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Photo (circa 1910) courtesy of SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY

November 19, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Aunt Dora has moved into a beautiful new house. It is just like a house in a story book. It is of dark brown wood and it sits in the middle of a lovely garden and it is full of tiny windows that open out and they all have window boxes of red geraniums. Inside, all the rooms have big fireplaces and all the windows have window seats with cushions, so you may either curl up and go to sleep in them or read. And the rooms have one or two steps going from one to another. Grandmother says the steps are just crazy, that they are only good for people to break their necks on. I love them, I don’t know why but it seems exciting to go up a few steps and then come down a few steps into another room. I love sitting on them and just sit and pretend about the rooms and imagine having parties in each one. The kitchen is all blue and white, like a picture in a story book I have about a little boy and girl who live in Holland. And there are so many books on both sides of the fireplace. The books are not for children but I found a long poem called “Hiawatha.” It is about an Indian boy who is very brave and strong and he knows all the animals in the forest and loves them. Reading it is a little like listening to music. Sometimes it sounds like a bar in four-four time. When I came home and told Aunt Tillie about it, she was angry because I was supposed to be punished for not keeping my room neat and Aunt Tillie told me that I wasn’t to read for a whole day and I forgot. I didn’t mean to break my word but now I may not read for two whole days.

November 18, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

This afternoon after school I had to stand up for hours and hours and hours while Miss Sarah lengthened all my dresses. I don’t know Miss Sarah’s last name because that is all anyone ever calls her. She is a very little lady who always has her teeth full of pins and it looks as if they are sticking in her tongue. She never laughs or smiles, she just always sews and sews except sometimes when the pins aren’t in her mouth she does talk a little and nearly always about funerals. Sometimes she talks about what she had to eat in other people’s homes but she really loves funerals and tells us what they wore, the dead people, and how they looked and if they looked really dead or if they looked like they did in life and if they received a lot of flowers and if their families cried or looked glad.

November 17, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Sunday school. The ninth commandment. “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Neighbor.” That means that you shouldn’t tell lies about your neighbors. I asked if that meant people on the next block too and she said of course and it means that you shouldn’t tell lies about anyone in the whole world. I guess that is what Grandmother did when she told Grandma Uri that Mrs. Bohn starves her poor husband. Once when I was on my way to school and Mrs. Bohn was in her front garden, she stopped me and asked how my Grandmother was. I said, “Grandmother is very well thank you, but she is very worried about Mr. Bohn and do you really starve your husband?” Mrs. Bohn became very angry and said for me to tell my Grandmother that she should mind her own business and that Mr. Bohn was sick with something that sounded like “Beets,” I couldn’t understand the name of it but she told me to tell my Grandmother that she shouldn’t make any judgments out of ignorance and that she should take good care of her own husband because Mrs. Bohn was sure that she would never get another one.

November 16, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Tante Esther was here for lunch today. I had a pretty new lace dress for dancing school. She felt all over it and said, “It is very lovely but is your underwear also nice and clean?” I was awfully mad. I yelled at her, “Of course it is, I put on clean underwear every day, sometimes twice a day if I change my dress when company comes to the house.” Then she said that I am right to be so clean and she said it is very important to have clean underwear because you never know when you are going to be run over in the street and then how shameful it would be to be taken to the hospital and have all the doctors and nurses see us in soiled underwear.

November 15, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

This was one of the game days again at school. We started with Holland. We all knew all about Holland because we have two beautiful Dutch Windmills in Golden Gate Park. Holland is a lovely country. It is so tiny that you can walk almost all over it in a few hours or maybe it’s a few days, I forget what Miss Cashen told us. The people are very clean. The women spend all their time scrubbing their sidewalks and doorsteps. They wash their cows every day too. They can’t bathe themselves every day because they have no bathrooms, but it seems to me that if they are so clean about everything else they must find a way to wash themselves only I don’t know how they do it. There is one little village called Edam and it is full of cows too and they use the milk to make a special cheese and send it all over the world wrapped in red wax and pretty red paper like a Christmas package. Many great people lived in Holland once. One of them was Rembrandt. Miss Cashen said that we should find out about him for next week and tell her all about him because she doesn’t know anything except that he is famous, and that we would be doing her a big favor to help her find out.

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When I was a child, the windmills in Golden Gate Park were not much to see — they were in disrepair and looked nothing like they did when Hilda visited them. Happily, they have been restored and today they look wonderful.

The windmills as Hilda would have seen them, circa 1912. Photo courtesy OpenSFHistory.

The windmills as I remember them when I was Hilda’s age. Photo courtesy OpenSFHistory.

The windmills today

November 14, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I love spelling lessons because there are always new words in them. Today one of the new ones was “ancestors.” I was the only one in class who knew what it meant. That is not because I am smart but because I saw it in “Little Lord Fauntleroy.” Alma explained it to me then. When Cedric was in the art gallery of his grandfather’s castle, the Earl of Dorincourt showed him the pictures of his ancestors and Cedric thought they were his aunt’s sisters. Our ancestors are all our great, great grandparents, and all their great, great grandparents forever and ever back in time to Adam and Eve, I guess.

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Today Hilda gives us an example of a “mondegreen.” Former San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll wrote about them often and his columns always made me smile. One of my few claims to local fame was when he included in one of his columns a mondegreen I had sent him.

November 13, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Uncle Otto phoned this morning and spoke to Grandfather and told him that he wanted to buy a horse and wanted him to look at it first because my Grandfather knows a lot about horses. The horse was in the country, so Grandfather said he would be glad to go and said that he would bring the child along. I was so happy to go and it really wasn’t far out of San Francisco but the street became a road and there were just fields and barns and white houses with porches so it was almost like the country. We went to one of the little houses and there was a very nice lady and gentleman and lots of darling dogs and cats, all kinds. They invited us to sit on the porch and the lady brought us lemonade with chocolate cookies and we sat and visited until we finished the lemonade and ate most of the cookies. Then we went out to the barn to look at the horse Uncle Otto wanted to buy. Grandfather opened the horse’s mouth and looked very carefully at all his teeth and then the man walked the horse around. I thought he was a sweet brown horse but Grandfather told Uncle Otto the horse was old enough to vote and he didn’t buy the horse, and told the man that he would think it over and perhaps come back some other time. I don’t see what being old enough to vote has to do with it. I love the smell of horses and I wouldn’t mind if Grandfather smelled like one.

November 12, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Uncle Milton told me that there is going to be a dog show in San Rafael on the twenty-third of this month and he would like to put Brownie into it and maybe Brownie would win a prize. I asked him what he would win. He said that it might be a silver cup or a blue ribbon or even both. I said that was just plain mean, why didn’t they give him a nice steak or a roast beef bone or a new ball? Uncle Milton said that I shouldn’t worry so much about it because Brownie would be in competition with many other dogs and probably wouldn’t get anything at all as he isn’t so perfect or so beautiful. Then I got mad and said that he too is beautiful, he is the most beautiful dog in the whole world and I stamped my feet and yelled and I said that they don’t have to give him a prize at all because I would buy him a blue ribbon myself and a pink one or whatever color I thought Brownie would like if I had enough money. I said that I would give him my silver egg cup that my grandparents in Germany sent to me, the one with little chickens on it and that’s all gold inside. Uncle Milton said that I should and it was fine with him and that as a matter of fact, I should wrap it up right now with pink and blue ribbons because he knows that Brownie won’t win a prize. Why are grown-ups so mean, even Uncle Milton?

November 11, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Even Grandfather is angry at me and wants to punish me today, just because I didn’t want to use any of the money I earned to buy Tante Esther some flowers. This afternoon he took me to call on her. I had a dollar and ten cents and he said that now I must learn what money is for, it is to make people happy with and I must take fifty cents and buy Tante Esther some roses. I said that I thought Tante Esther was happy enough without any roses and besides she isn’t sick in bed. Grandfather got awfully angry and he took fifty cents out of his own pocket and when we passed a flower shop, he dragged me in and made me tell the man myself that I wanted twelve pink roses. I did get the roses but I didn’t tell Tante Esther anything and Grandfather is still angry.

November 10, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

The eighth commandment is a very important one. “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” I suppose it is still important, at least when I was a little girl, I was told not to. Miss Meadows said that it was especially important when Moses was taking the Jews out of Egypt and through the wilderness because it kept them from stealing out of each other’s tents. I asked her what was in the tents to steal because I know when my uncles go camping they leave all their nice things at home. She said that it was quite different because my uncles know that they are coming home again but the Jews knew that they were never going back to Egypt and they took all their nice things with them, like rings and bracelets and maybe beautiful pieces of embroidery. So then I remembered and said, like Moses’ pomegranates. She said, “Yes.”

November 9, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

At dancing school today Mrs. Hinman chose who will dance in the Christmas Pageant. I am just going to stand up next to the manger.