ORAL HISTORY PROJECT OF THE MARIN COUNTY FREE LIBRARY Anne T. Kent California Room Original recording available at the Anne T. Kent California Room © All materials copyright Marin County Free Library. Transcript made available for research purposes only. All rights are reserved to the Marin County Free Library. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the: Anne T. Kent California Room Marin County Free Library 3501 Civic Center Dr. #427 San Rafael, California, 94903

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INTERVIEW WITH EUGENIE WATSON GRADY
by Carla Ehat & Anne Kent
March 7, 1979

INTERVIEWEE: Eugenie Watson Grady (EG)
INTERVIEWERS: Carla Ehat (CE) and Anne Kent (AK)
DATE OF INTERVIEW: March 7, 1979
TRANSCRIBER: Marjorie Hoffman



CE: Today is Wednesday March 7, 1979. Continuing the Oral History Project for the California Room at the Marin County Library, this is Carla Ehat and joining me today is Mrs. Thomas Kent. We are at the residence of Mrs. Earl Grady at #1 Marina Court Drive in San Rafael. Eugenie Watson Grady very graciously has agreed to share with us today her reminiscences of her family. I met Eugenie as a member of the Board of Directors of the Marin County Historical Society and she has a fascinating story to tell us. First, she is going to share her parental grandfather and grandmother story. Good afternoon, Genie.

EG: Good afternoon Carla.

CE: It's just great to be here today. Now, we've read in Marin People Book II about your paternal great grandfather and kind of give us a little background of how, on your paternal side, your family came into California. It's a fascinating story.

EG: Well, on March 10, 1776 the first group of white settlers arrived in Monterey, Alta California. They were led by Juan Bautista DeAnza, Lieutenant Colonel of Calgary and Captain of the Royal Presidio of Tubac. There were two hundred and forty men, women and children in this group and of this amount only ten were veteran soldiers, guard and escort. One of these soldiers was Jose Ramon Bojorquez age 39, and his wife, Francisca Romero, and three daughters, Maria Antonia, age 15, Maria Gertrudis age 12, and Maria Micaela, age 13. This group of people were considered the first families of Monterey. Maria Gertrudes Bojorquez was only 13; she married Jose Francisco Sinova in San Francisco. He had come to California in 1769 and was a resident of the San Francisco Presidio in 1779. Ten years later he became the Alcalde of Los Angeles where their daughter Maria Sefarina Sinova was born. When Maria Sefarina Sinova was sixteen she married Jose Castillo at Mission Santa Barbara. Jose was the Master Bloodletter of the Monterey Presidio. They had many children, one of which was Maria Guadalupe Antonia Jacoba y Dolores Castillo. She was born on December 15, 1814 at Monterey and on October 1835 married Edward Watson, at the Royal Chapel, San Carlos Mission in Monterey. He was from London, England and arrived in Monterey in 1828. He was a carpenter by trade and while living in Monterey established a whipsaw pit in the Santa Cruz Mountains and another not far from Pacific Grove. Pioneer Register in the History of the Pacific States by Bancroft shows Edward Watson to have joined the Compania Estranjero in Monterey in 1832 and in 1835 was baptized as Jose Maria Eduardo Watson. His name appears in various records from 1834. In 1841 he was naturalized as a Mexican citizen. Foreigners had to become Mexican citizens in order to own land and marry Spanish women. He had three children with Guadalupe, Maria Filipa Olena born May 1st, 1838, Santiago Jose born March 30, 1840 and Maria Elena born June 28, 1841. Both these girls died about the same year. They were all born in Monterey. Santiago Jose James Joseph Watson was my grandfather.

CE: Tell me, did you ever have the pleasure of meeting him? Did you ever see him?

EG: Well I was three years old when he died, so I don't remember him.

CE: Well you never saw him, but probably had been at family gathering perhaps --

EG: Oh I'm sure we were. I can remember my mother used to say that we lived way out on the west end part of town up on a hill, it's back of where McDonalds is now on Alexandria Avenue and I had my first birthday party in that home and he came and walked all the way out from San Rafael, out there, with a wicker child's rocking chair. I was about two and a half years of age or two years old, about that time you know, and he put it down and I being a very stubborn little girl would not sit in it. My mother was so embarrassed; Grandpa had brought the little rocking chair, and it was beautiful from what I gathered. But he said, never mind she'll sit in it, give her time, give her time.

CE: Now, he was born March 30, 1840.

EG: Yes.

CE: I don't know if that was there in that annotation. Now, whom did he married and when? Your grandmother now is Mary O'Connor? 1875?

EG: Yes. Trying to find my roots and all that on some of these old time things, I finally went out to the Civic Center and found that my grandfather unbeknownst to any of us, had been married in Bolinas by a Justice of Peace in August of 1861. The lady's name was Mary Ann Foley. And then I did not know whether or not my grandmother ever knew that, my father I know -- As soon as I heard about it I hit the phone and called my cousins up and they were dumbfounded.

CE: Nobody knew about it?

EG: Nobody seemed to know it. But when I went to find the pension papers of my grandfather, the government had it. But they had no children. Then he married my grandmother.

CE: What was her name? DE: Mary O'Connor.

CE: Now was she a local.

EG: She was from San Francisco. Her mother's name was Margaret O'Connor and her father's name was John O'Connor.

CE: Now, before we continue chronologically, can we backtrack a minute Genie, and bring the Watson family out of Monterey to San Francisco. According to an article I read in Marin People, they left Monterey in 1848 and moved to San Francisco that year.

EG: Yes. Edward Watson, James father, went to the gold fields in 1848, like everybody thought he was going to get rich quick, and he died up there in Dry Creek near the Consumnes River.

CE: Have you visited that site?

EG: No I haven't. Then Mrs. Watson, Guadalupe, decided she'd come and live with relatives in San Francisco at the Presidio, so she stayed from 1848 to about 1850 in San Francisco and then from there she moved to Bolinas.

CE: As a widow?

EG: As a widow. I had heard that she came with my grandfather and his sister where they went to school in Bolinas. Now which sister that would be, I don't know. She had many children from -- in Monterey. In fact, I heard that she had twenty-five children and I can account for eighteen of them.

CE: Well she must have re-married?

EG: She re-married.

CE: And what was that man's name?

EG: That man was James Crane from Massachusetts.

CE: And there are descendants, I presume, from that issue in this area?

EG: Yes there are, in this area.

CE: Well let's go back a little farther now, with your grandfather James Watson. What reminiscences would you share with us that you have learned from your family about life in Monterey? Was he there when California was admitted to the Union or when we raised the stars and stripes in 1846?

EG: Was spent in Monterey and when a child of six years he witnessed the raising of the stars and stripes over the Custom House in that city by Commodore Sloat. The instinct of a true patriot, which later was to assert itself in more material ways was then in the child. He often told of how he threw his cap high in the air and shouted with glee, as old glory was unfurled on high.

CE: Well he was then about six years old, right?

EG: Yes he was. Later on he use to tell stories of the early days when the Indians would raid the country, when the grizzly bear was king of all he surveyed and the people were free to roam the state and all were as free as the air they breathed. Then he would tell of the arrival of the Murphy Immigrant Train, which he saw as a child of the gold rush, which brought his death to his father in Dry Creek near the Consumnes River and the Vigilante Committee in San Francisco.

CE: All right, he is out in Bolinas with his widowed mother and then he gets restless or something, doesn't he, he wants to -- What's brewing?

EG: Well he was a very patriotic person and he watched the arrival of sailing schooners from San Francisco and he wanted to hear about the latest war news.

CE: The Civil War.

EG: The Civil War. So with the memory of the raising of the flag in Monterey he was filled with the wildest enthusiasm of a true patriot and bidding goodbye to his family and friends, mounted his horse and went over the Bolinas trail. He traveled down to Sausalito and he hired a rowboat to take him to San Francisco. It seems that a lot of people think that nobody could row across the San Francisco Bay in a rowboat but he -- I guess they did that in those days.

CE: Interrupting you for a moment, Genie, was he married by that time?

EG: No he was not married. Well, he had been married to this Mary Ann Foley who he married -- then divorced, he was divorced from her.

CE: It was an unusual thing in those days, wasn't it?

EG: Yes.

CE: All right, so he gets to the city and how does he get back to the East Coast? Well, first of all he has to join the company.

EG: That's right. He arrived at the Recruiting Office at the old Assembly Hall at Post and Kearney Streets and in all this crazy patriotism that he had, a youth of twenty one, he enlisted in the famous California 100. The Recruiting Officer reported that the company roster was complete, but he would not listen to that at all and youth and patriotism would not be conquered and in the record of California Men in the War of the Rebellion we find the name of James Watson enlisted in the California 100, the one hundred and first man. Now I have the paper about that.

CE: Is it true, while you're looking for that, that he was the only native born Californian who saw service in the Civil War?

EG: That's right, actual. That is true. And all these other men that belonged to the California 100, and they also had a California Battalion, they were about three or four hundred men there, but all those men, they all came from another state. They were living in California but none of them had been born there.

CE: Very good. GE: It's the record of the California troops that served in the Civil War in 1862. This is a list of the California 100. They went over to Massachusetts.

CE: How did they get to Massachusetts?

EG: They went on a steamer, the Golden Age it was called, from here I imaging either around the Horn or they went to Panama and then over with donkeys, but I don't think -- I think they must have gone all the way around the Horn.

CE: Then your grandfather is --

EG: He's listed here, number 101, James Watson. Although I have heard there really was 100 because they had found out that one person of this 101 was an ex-convict and they wouldn't take him so they --

CE: Surveyed him out.

EG: They did. It says here, James Watson, 101, promoted Corporal on November 1, 1861 and then promoted Sergeant, July 18, 1865.

CE: Well that's a fascinating story. Now did he leave any stories behind that are in your parent's memory or yours about his involvement in the Civil War?

EG: No he didn't. Of course I have all this information about --

CE: Well would you read a little of that into the record. I think there are some famous Generals that he mentions.

EG: Yes. In December of 1862 he sailed with his company on the Steamer "Golden Age" for the East, arriving in Reedville, Massachusetts in January of 1863. The 100 was made Company A and attached to the Second Massachusetts cavalry. It was not long until the Company was mounted and ready for service and for nearly three years Jim fought in the flank he loved so well. Being in 52 battles and engagements and serving under Generals Grant, Halleck, Hooker, Merit and Sheridan. How vividly he portrayed to his family and friends the many skirmishes he was in against Mosby's Guerrillas, at the battle of the Wilderness where the dead and the wounded lay in lines scattered through the woods, of the battles of Cedar Creek and Winchester where his beloved Commander Bill Sheridan made his famous ride of Winchester twenty miles away. And then, of course when the war was settled, more or less, he always boasted that he was one of the picked twenty-five that formed President Lincoln's personal escort on his visit to Richmond Virginia. Proud too of being in the first set of fours in the grand review of the union troops in Washington in May of 1865, And proudest of all of course was his boast that he was the only native born Californian that saw actual service in the Civil War.

CE: That's great. Well then, the war was over, he must have mustered out. What happened then? What did he do?

EG: Well he was promoted to sergeant in July and then in August he was mustered out.

CE: August 1865?

EG: 1865. He returned to Bolinas in Marin County where he engaged in farming.

CE: Did you ever trace where that property was?

EG: Yes I know where the property was.

CE: Where was it, can you tell us?

EG: Well checking back, his mother had passed away in -- According to Marin newspaper --I was up at the Marin County Historical Society and I had never been able to find out when Maria Guadalupe had passed away and somebody said, “Why don't you look in the newspaper?” So I went through and I had been given the date of 1869. So I started in January of 1869.

CE: And you went through issue after issue.

EG: Yes.

CE: Did you find it?

EG: I found it. She died in February 6, 1869 and there was a piece in the newspaper, a little article.

CE: Obituary?

EG: No it was not the obituary, it was there but it was a little article too, saying that she was the daughter of the Briones out there.

CE: Really? Gregorio Briones?

EG: Gregorio Briones. I know that that is a fallacy. And it said that she was 48 years of age. Well she wasn't she was 55.

CE: They make mistakes.

EG: They make mistakes. She was -- I think they were some relation, because when she left San Francisco and came to live out there Gregorio Briones gave her 40. I think varas of land, which is just a good size lot.

CE: And where was that?

EG: Well it was right near his home, his adobe place.

CE: Which is kitty corner from the Catholic Church out there today.

EG: Yes. And when we would take a ride out there, we would always stop and see Rose Briones at Dog Town and then my father used to say, there's where my father lived all his life, He lived in that big double story house, that two story house there at the intersection.

CE: Well anyway, James came back from the Civil War in 1865, and his mother died in 1869, then that activated his looking around for a wife I presume or --

EG: Yes I imagine so.

CE: How did he find Mary O'Connor?

EG: That I do not know, I have never known that.

CE: He must have made some trips to the city.

EG: He must have, because she didn't live here at that time, because they were married in Guadalupe Church in San Francisco. That was his mother's church. She always liked to go to that church. A lot of Spanish speaking people live in that neighborhood, I guess.

CE: That would be an interesting search for you to find out. Well, he married Mary O'Connor and did they return to Bolinas.

EG: Oh no, by now he was in business in San Rafael.

CE: What year did they marry?

EG: They married in 1875. He married Mary O'Connor and it was then that San Rafael became his home.

CE: I see. So let's get him from Bolinas to San Rafael. What did he do when he first came to San Rafael? He had many interests. I know at one time that he owned a saloon from 1877 to the early 1900s.

EG: Well this cover of the San Rafael Centennial Souvenir Program in 1974 shows a picture of my grandfather, my father and his brother. This is the saloon. This was the corner of Fourth and C Street and it was called Jim McAllister’s Saloon. And then Mr. Peters, from way back, said that Jim Watson ran it then. And it stood on the corner and upstairs was the justice court and later it was the office of the Herald that was the newspaper that was conducted by Johnny Wood, which Jim Wilkins afterward acquired. But in this justice court, from my father's stories, this was the only justice court in Marin County and if a deer was killed out of season they would put the bad boys behind bars and when it came time for evidence they would always be sure the deer was hung in my grandfather ice box and when it was time to be eaten there was no, evidence so they had to let the poor man go. My father used to cook it up and the judges and the lawyers, everybody in town that was of any importance had wonderful venison feed. My grandfather of course was a very well known cook.

CE: Well, that's what I noticed. He really was interested in having friends in for elaborate dinners.

EG: Oh yes. In 1903 I found an article in the Tocsin. "In celebration of San Rafael Day, James Watson invited a number of friends for a bull's head breakfast last Sunday." Then another one the following year in August 1904, Ford said, "The Bulls Head breakfast given by Jim Watson last Sunday was great. Quite a number of San Francisco and San Rafael people enjoyed the feed. There are few if any, who can equal Jim in getting up a bulls head breakfast." Now my grandfather used to cook these bulls head Spanish style. He'd make a big pit in the ground and line it up with all kinds of wet burlap and coals and the wrap this bull's head. CE Like luau sort of.

EG: Like a luau, skin and all, I guess.

CE: Well where was their home, that was his business.

EG: Yes that was his business at the time. I have a little ad in the paper of 1877, December. This is an ad in the Marin County Journal of December 20, 1877. That is the month and the year that my father was born and I guess he was so proud that he decided to take an ad out and it said, "Watson's Saloon, McAllister’s old corner, Fourth and C Street, San Rafael. Wines, liquors cigars. A billiard saloon is attached with two fine tables. James Watson, Proprietor."

CE: Great. Well did they serve food there or was the food at his home?

EG: All saloons had a free lunch counter. But after my grandfather moved his business down to the Wilkins building, that's on Fourth Street near B. It would be just about where Johnson’s Hardware store is now. Johnson was on one side and on the other side of my grandfather's saloon was a butcher shop called Fred Mehl’s Butcher Shop. Then on the other side of Fred Mehl’s Butcher Shop was a little Toy Shop with these little imported toys. That was the Wilkins Building, all the bottom stores.

CE: Is it a fair question to ask you, where there other saloons in town?

EG: There were millions of them, I think.

CE: Like they say, San Francisco today is three thousand bars. I just wondered, men didn't drink at home so much, did they, they would go out?

EG: There were a few bars that catered to ladies. My grandfather never catered to ladies. I mean there were no ladies ever allowed in that bar. All bars at that time were closed tight at eleven at night, that was the latest they ever stayed open.

CE: Well he must have earned a good living there?

EG: No I don't think so. Maybe my grandfather did, but when my grandfather passed away and my father took over the business and then the prohibition came in, my father --

CE: No, I meant your grandfather. I understand also he was appointed San Rafael Town Marshall?

EG: Oh yes.

CE: And in 1889 --

EG: He was appointed in 1885 as a constable and then he was elected constable in 1889 for the City of San Rafael. Then in 1890 and ‘91 he was the Town Marshall. Now I don't understand what their difference was because I have a little paper here and it says, "A Dog Notice. Notice is hereby given to all owners of dogs in the town of San Rafael that license tags are now ready and can be procured at my office in the Town Hall. They are now due and payable and must be taken out within fifteen days after the publication of this notice or the Pound Master will take the dogs in. James Watson, License Collector."

CE: Well he probably had many duties.

EG: Most likely he had many duties.

CE: You see it was smaller then, the community was smaller, and probably he wore many hats.

EG: I imagine there were maybe only a thousand people in town at that time or maybe not even that many.

CE: Do you remember him?

EG: No I don't remember him because I was only three years old when he passed away.

CE: That’s right, you said that. Now, let's get back just a moment to James Watson and Mary O'Connor. You told me earlier they had five children, four sons and a daughter. And your father was the eldest?

EG: My father was the oldest.

CE: And his name was Edward?

EG: Edward Watson. He was named after his grandfather.

CE: Was he also born in San Rafael?

EG: Yes He was born on December 17, 1877. Then he had a brother, James that was born in 1879 and a sister born in 1881 and another brother in 1889 and the last brother, the youngest brother Eugene, was born in 1891.

CE: Well now, your grandfather lived to be a good old age, didn't he?

EG: Yes.

CE: What year did he die?

EG: He died in June of 1910.

CE: Did he die at home?

EG: Yes he did.

CE: And where was the family home?

EG: Well the family home at the time he died is still in existence. It's on Fifth Street and here is a picture of it. It was a house built about 1898 or 1899.

CE: That's right, right next to Bell Saving and Loan.

EG: That's right, right next door.

CE: Next to the San Rafael Public Parking Lot.

EG: That's right. And Herzog was on the west side.

CE: The corner.

EG: Yes, he was on the corner and then there was another house which Herzog owned and they tore down and Herzog built a, like a guesthouse there and a party place. Then was my grandmother's house and then on this side where the parking lot is was M. T. Freitas home.

CE: There's still a house on this side. Do you know what that one is. That's a Rooming House today.

EG: That’s a Rooming House now. I can't remember that one, no.

CE: No, did your grandmother survive him?

EG: Yes she did. She died about I believe 1923.

CE: Would you describe your grandparents’ home there on 918 Fifth Avenue?

EG: I'd be glad to, Carla. First the garden. I have passed by the garden several times, you know parking in the parking lot and going up the street, and the orange tree which is on the left side of the walkway, was planted by my grandparents. And they have a beautiful bougainvillea there; it's not the new hybrid kind, you know with the beautiful blossoms; it's the old fashion kind but has been growing like made there.

CE: Ever since?

EG: Ever since. And the old barn in the back, they've never torn down, it's really an old barn and my grandparents used to keep a horse and buggy back there. Well I don’t know about the horse but the wagon was always there and I don't know, maybe he used to get the horses from the livery stable. I always remember the garden because my grandmother just loved it. Of course some of the other stuff, you know, is gone now. But you go into the front door and it was a large size hall and she had two very fancy, velvet colored, kind of gold colored velvet, chairs. Very ornate. And a little settee. And there were stairs going up to the top floor and the top floor was rectangular sort of, more or less octagon I guess you'd called it, and there were three bedrooms upstairs and one bath. But it was all in a sort of octangonal shape. Downstairs was a living room.

CE: Did you have a parlor?

EG: It was a parlor, rather; excuse me for calling it a living room, a parlor. It had a beautiful green rug with cabbage roses on it rows all over the thing and that use to intrigue me when I was a little girl. All those roses on that carpet. And it was wall to wall. And the bay window, my grandmother had an ebony table at the window with a marble top and on that was a Boston fern. And every day -- Not every day; everyday was teatime, you know. With my grandmother a day wouldn't pass without tea.

CE: Is that because she was Mary O'Connor?

EG: I think so. And on that table was this beautiful Boston fern and once a week she's give that Boston fern a cup of tea and she'd always say well that's what made it so beautiful. It was beautiful, it was that big, it was huge. And of course on the right side of the street it was great. And she had a black ebony piano, upright, and a couch and a bookcase and all that kind of stuff and a big sliding door that went into the dining room.

CE: Double door?

EG: Double door thing that slid into the walls. Now I never knew that they -- The old houses did that, but I guess they did. And very high ceilings you know and the big old fashion, and all lace curtains, which were absolutely beautiful, I thought.

CE: Describe your grandmother to us, her personality, her physique.

EG: Well my grandmother was a little tiny slim person, not buxom at all. She wasn't too short but she was always thin and she always wore very dark clothes. I don't ever remember ever seeing my grandmother in any light colored clothes. With a high collar and hair pulled back. Never missed mass, you know, always went to church, very holy.

CE: Raised as a Catholic, I presume.

EG: Oh yes, yes.

CE: Was she affectionate with you children.

EG: I wouldn't think so. I had a cousin that lived with my grandmother because her mother had to work, the daughter of the Watson family, and she'd come to me and say, "You know one thing about Grandma, she never used to put her arms around me and hug me and I couldn't understand that,” and I said, "I never knew that about grandma, she always treated me great." She said, "Well maybe she treated you great, but she never treated me great."

CE: Maybe she was partial to boys.

EG: No, this was another girl.

CE: Oh, but she did have four sons.

EG: She was very strict with my cousins.

CE: Your father was raised, of course, in this home, or did this come later?

CE: Yes, later.

EG: Where was the first home that your father was raised in?

EG: Well my father was born on Welch Street and I believe the house is still standing.

CE: Where is Welch Street?

EG: Welch Street is in the southern part of the West End District. It's down near Marin Avenue. Do you know where Marin Avenue is?

CE: Yes.

EG: First and Marin, about right there, and it runs due north and south, Welch Street. I don't know how many children in the family were born there but that was where my father was born.

CE: Is that house still standing?

EG: Yes.

CE: What's the address, do you know? GE: No, I don't.

CE: Well we can find out. Where did he go to school?

EG: My father went to public school.

CE: Where was it then? The B Street School?

EG: Yes, I think it was the B Street School because -- Then I know he went to the Fourth Street Grammar School --

CE: I see you have a photograph there of a whole class of children back in 1890. Is your father in that photograph?

EG: Yes he is, he's right over here, Edward Watson.

CE: Who were some of his contemporaries whose name we might remember?

EG: Well, Edward McCarthy, Ralston Curtis, Ed Davenport, Beatrice Clifford, Margaret McDonald, I believe she was the librarian, Margaret McDonald at San Rafael Library. Lena Nichols, Edna Healy, Maggie Curry.

CE: We'll have to explore some of those other names.

EG: I think so.

CE: When he got out of high school what did your father decide to do? Did he help your grandfather in his enterprise?

EG: No. My father worked for Grosjean and Company, in the grocery store, and it wasn't until he had been older that he took over the saloon business of my grandfather. I have a picture here of my grandfather's saloon in the back room.

CE: Looks like a special party going on there.

EG: This is a special party. This is dated October 24, 1901 and they are celebrating San Rafael Day.

CE: Good, good. Where is your grandfather?

EG: My grandfather is sitting on a stool back here and here is father. So my father, I know, was working as a bartender for my grandfather. And it was not until my grandfather died that my father was able to take over, that was one of those things where the son, of course, inherits --

CE: Well tell me, how did he meet your mother, Bertha Eugenie Hammerich. Is that a Dutch name?

EG: Danish.

CE: She was a San Francisco girl?

EG: She was from San Francisco and a very good looking young lady, I know.

CE: How did they meet, do you know?

EG: Well in 1906 when the earthquake and fire hit their home in San Francisco they were burned out. And I have some replicas of her bank; it was all burnt to pieces, and a piece of the tile from her fireplace.

CE: Where was the family home do you know? In what section?

EG: No I don't know. But I think it was on Greenwich Street because as children they always played with the Ghirardelli's, the chocolate people, all the kids played together.

CE: Right down near Ghirardelli Square?

CE: Well like so many people they came away --

EG: They came over here because her sister, the middle sister, my mother was the youngest, was married and lived where the West End Villa used to be; it's now the Monk's Inn.

CE: That is where the old West End Station nearby --

EG: And she lived upstairs and her husband was connected with the railroad so my mother stayed there and so did my grandmother. My grandfather stayed in the city to help with the cleanup. My mother was a ladies' tailoress by trade. She made nothing but tailored suites for this tailor, a very high-class establishment. So when she came over here she decided she'd go into dressmaking. So she had a little card printed and she and another lady who had made hats for I. Magin. I think it was I. Magin. They got together and opened a little shop. Then she moved up to G Street someplace with her mother and they had this little shop going. So this lady knew San Rafael quite well so she said to her one day, "Come on downtown and I'll introduce you to some people on Fourth Street." So as they were walking down Fourth Street here was my father standing outside of the saloon, so this young gal stops and I guess -- You know, she was quite the well-known gal about town and she said, "Oh, Ed, I want to introduce you to my friend, Miss Hammerich." So I guess my father took one look at her because in three months he took her down to Mill Valley and gave her a diamond ring and there they were engaged and married right away.

CE: That's wonderful.

EG: And my mother of course was scared to tell her mother that she had fallen in love with a saloon man. That was, you know, not a very nice thing to do.

CE: What did she say?

EG: My grandmother said, "What religion is he?" She didn't care about whether he was a saloon man but what religion was he. They were very strict Lutherans. And so my mother said, "Oh, he's a Catholic I think," and my grandmother said she didn't care if he was a saloon man but promised her that she'd never turn to be a Catholic. So my mother promised her she'd never turn to be a Catholic.

CE: Isn't it interesting. Well, then they were married in what year?

EG: The same year as the earthquake. My mother and father were married August 12, 1906.

CE: And where did they set up housekeeping?

EG: Out on Lizzie and Ceder Street, now it's called Pine Street, it's now Pine Street. It's past the Improvement Club, up two blocks, in that neighborhood.

CE: Is that house still there?

EG: The house is still there although it's been remodeled so much that it doesn't look like the original. Although one day I said to my mother, "You know I met the lady and the man who lives in that house that I was born in," and I said, " They told me to come and see it sometime." So I went home to my mother, of course I was married then, and I went to see my mother and said, "I saw the room I was born in." You know you never went to a hospital then, you were born at home. She said, "Did you go up a little winding spiral, iron staircase?" and I said, "Yes I did. Was that there then?" She said, "Yes."

CE: Well that's very close then to the entrance to the Forbes estate?

EG: Yes, that's right. Now where they got the name of Lizzie for a street I don't know, but that all was the Forbes tract. Then my father bought some property at Alexander Avenue that was still considered Forbes tract and Alexander Avenue was named after Alexander Forbes.

CE: Did you ever know the Sharp sisters?

EG: Yes.

CE: Harry Renebome?

EG: Oh yes. Harry Renebome was married to a very good friend of mine and my mother's. Olga Eckstrom, and they lived out there too.

CE: Christianson family around in that -- Mary Christianson? Well there's a little difference in your ages. You're a little younger than -

EG: But Harry Renebome, yes I knew him quite well. He used to ride a motorcycle.

CE: Well now where did you go to school the first time when you were ready?

EG: Well I went to B Street School.

CE: That's down on B near Third?

EG: No, B and Fifth. Where the Bank of America moved out of that building, I think it's now Fidelity Savings, that corner was the B Street School. And I went to the first grade and my teacher's name was Miss Smyth and in the yard in the back where the kids played there was two immense fig trees and all we ever did was eat figs.

CE: Do you've any friends that you still have from those days, your school chums? Tell us a couple of names.

EG: Well Helen Lewis. Do you know Helen Lewis that works up at the museum?

CE: Oh yes.

EG: Helen Lewis was in the first grade. I can show you a picture of the first grade; I can point them all out.

CE: That's a wonderful thing. Do you have a photograph of that first grade?

EG: Yes, I have.

CE: Have you done that in the back, labeled everything?

EG: Well I tried, you know.

CE: Do what you can, because Dolly Jenkins did that for us and it is so helpful. So you went to school. How did you spend your free time? Were you --

EG: Well to go to school from Alexander Avenue --

CE: When did you move to Alexander?

EG: When I was one year old.

CE: Oh, you left Lizzie?

EG: Yes.

CE: And where is Alexander?

EG: That's back of McDonald's, on the San Anselmo line.

CE: Oh yes. So did you walk to school?

EG: I walked all the way and there was a little boy that lived next door that was a year older and my mother would say, "Now you go with him and he will take you to school."

CE: What was his name?

EG: His name was Clarence Brill.

CE: Did you and Clarence get along all right?

EG: Oh yes. When I was sixteen he thought he was my real -- He was my boyfriend or something.

CE: Did you enjoy school, Genie?

EG: I hated it.

CE: Why? You didn't like the restrictiveness of it?

EG: I didn't like history and I didn't like English. All through school I just hated those things. Now I can sit in front of Channel 9, you know, and look at all those things and I eat it up. I was always a great one for science, I loved science, any kind of thing, like zoology.

CE: Prove things in the scientific approach.

EG: No, I just loved botany and zoology and all that kind of stuff you know.

CE: Were you an outdoor girl?

EG: Oh yes, definitely. I'd go steelhead fishing with my father out at Paper Mill Creek. Of course I never caught any fish but I'd come home with poison oak.

CE: But you liked to be out of doors, hike around, go up Tam?

EG: Oh yes. That was our vacation, we went camping, in a horse and rig and we would go camping and once it took us at least a week to get from San Rafael in a horse and wagon, all loaded down, my mother and father and I, probably the dog too. We always had a dog. And it took us a week to get up to the mouth of the Jenner River.

CE: That's only seventy miles.

EG: Yes; only seventy miles and it would take us a week to get there.

CE: What would you do camp along the way?

EG: We camp in a tent and never had any cots or anything. My father would make a bed of hay if it were dry, or ferns and boughs and things like that. And once we were up at Jenner, there on the river side, the wild boar came through the camp, and oh was it terrible. It was a terrible scare.

CE: How would you go, along the ocean or, do you remember?

EG: Well we went up by Camp Taylor Creek, up Tomales along the coast.

CE: Did you have trouble camping on peoples land?

EG: No, no. My mother nearly set one of the big grassy hills on fire cooking bacon and eggs once.

CE: Life was easier then, wasn't it?

EG: Yes, and she'd come home with all these dirty dish pans, I mean dish rags and dish towels, just loaded with black from camping out and that's why I have never camped out since because I couldn't stand it, I'd have to go to a hotel or motel or something, no more camping for me.

CE: Did she enjoy it or endure for your father?

EG: She really enjoyed it, and she was a city girl. My father was a strange person where he --

CE: Describe him for us.

EG: Well he was the greatest guy on earth. I swear he was the greatest guy on earth. The only thing is he was very strict about certain things. He didn't believe in dancing, dancing was immoral. Dancing was immoral.

CE: A man who ran and owned a saloon?

EG: That's right, dancing was immoral; he never would learn to dance. And when the crowd would get together in my mother's house, in their home, the place on Alexander Avenue. We had a most beautiful fireplace and he’d get up there in front of the hearth and he could do a regular Irish Jig. He was very light on his feet. He was wonderful.

CE: But he didn't believe in embracing a woman?

EG: Oh yes. No, I don't know why he said that, and my mother was a great one, she loved to dance and when she married him, she gave up dancing. And she’d come over with all her friends, they come from San Francisco on the ferryboat and the train and everything, they'd hike Mount Tamalpais in the middle of the night and everything. They did all those crazy things. And then over here at Scheutzen Park, you know where Scheutzen Park was, they had a regular race going on and she'd come over and her nickname with all her friends was "Greyhound." She'd win a lot of these races. And you know a woman with high shoes and long skirts, she'd lift up her skirts and run and she'd win cases of champagne and all kind of things.

CE: Well she came over and made this her home, but she was sort of a San Francisco lady.

EG: She was a San Francisco lady until she came to San Rafael and met my father and she settled down and I don't think my mother took time out for anything but to put up peaches and pears and pickles and goodness know what. And I want to tell you something my father would go out in the fields and get mushrooms and my mother would put those up in Mason jars and she'd put a fifty cents piece or a dollar piece in the jar, with some parsley and garlic, and when she was short of money we would have mushrooms for dinner. Mrs. Kent, remember how they used to take chicken eggs in water glass?

AK: Yes.

EG: She'd do that, she'd always have a big -- There's a big crock right there, see in my kitchen that big crock, on the floor, right there. That's where she used to --

CE: Well where did she learn these things? From her mother, evidently?

EG: I don’t know. Maybe so. She couldn't even cook when she got married. I couldn’t cook when I was married either.

CE: Well now it's interesting to me, you are on the board of the Marin County Historical Society. I've seen the evidence of your research in the history of your family; you're interested in history.

EG: I love it.

CE: Has the science taken a back seat for history now?

EG: I don't know. My children are scientists. My daughter, the chemist, you know at North Marin Water Company, and my son is a physicist down in San Diego.

CE: We've got to get you married to Earl and we've got to talk about the children. Tell me, during school did you help your mother, were you a help around the house as most children were? Did you have certain chores?

EG: Oh I had certain chores.

CE: What were your chores?

EG: I had to clean my room up and I had to wash my own clothes or iron them, you know. Well little things, not like sheets, not big things. But my big chore was to clean the chicken house and to make a garden.-

CE: Well I notice in your home, where we are this afternoon, you have a beautiful home and a lovely garden.

EG: Well it was better before the drought.

CE: Well all ours were. But you have a flair, a very artistic flair in your home and a very green thumb and an artistic one in your garden. Don't you agree, Mrs. Kent?

AK: Oh indeed, I think so.

EG: Thank you.

CE: Well what interested you? Were you anxious to get married and settle in a home?

EG: No. I didn't get married until I was thirty years of age.

CE: What did you do then, go to work?

EG: I worked for PG&E for fifteen years.

CE: Where did you do that?

EG: In San Rafael, San Francisco and Mill Valley.

CE: You were a working gal.

EG: Yes, for fifteen years.

CE: What was your first salary?

EG: Ninety dollars a month. It was very good.

CE: That was good. My first job in 1938 I think was seventy-five dollars.

EG: This was in 1926.

CE: Well you must have been good.

EG: Well, I was good in shorthand, let's face it, of course now -- And I was good playing a piano, but I don't do that anymore. I don't do shorthand, I can't play piano.

CE: You've got to keep practicing.

EG: But you do other things, you know you drop some things and you do other things.

CE: That's what makes variety in life. Well tell us how did you meet Earl Grady? How did that come about?

EG: Oh that came about rather strangely. I was the Captain of the Marinita Parlor Native Daughters of the Golden West Drill Team.

CE: Interrupting you, was it your father or grandfather that was in the Native Sons of the Golden West?

EG: Yes, my grandfather was past president.

CE: Then your father after him?

EG: No, my father never joined the Native Sons.

CE: Oh he skipped a generation and you carried on with the Native Daughters.

EG: My mother was very active in the Native Daughters and so was I, we're both past presidents in Native Daughters. But, I was Captain of the Drill Team and we go all over the state you know with the Drill Team.

CE: What were your duties in the Drill Team?

EG: I was the Captain, forward march stuff.

CE: How many were in your team?

EG: Oh there was, let's see, say, about twenty, I guess.

CE: Alright, so you're touring around and --

EG: Yes, touring around and I was going through the chairs at the time and my mother was going to the installation meeting, I was going to go in as Outside Sentinel, and my mother was going to the meeting and she said to me, "Don't wait for me because your father is bad tonight and I won't go to the meeting" and she said " You go though because you're going to be installed and it would be nice for you to go." So I went and I thought to myself --The Native Sons and the Native Daughters used to have a joint installation, they never had joint meeting but they had joint installations, and I thought to myself, “I'm going to have some old fogey dogey to march in with, you know, some old gray haired man.” So I said to one of the man that was in charge, I said, "Who is my partner?" and he said "Grady." And I said, "Who's Grady?" He said, "Don't you know Grady?" I said, "No, I don't know Grady." "Well," he said, "he's around some place, I'll introduce you" and I wondered who this Grady is. Well here I had known the Grady family for years. The Grady family that now has the Lucas Valley Dairy and all that but they had the Hay and Feed and Ice Company before.

CE: Where?

EG: Out at West End.

CE: But you hadn't gone to school with Earl?

EG: No, I hadn't gone to school with Earl. Never even knew he existed. Never knew there was a Grady family. The only Grady's I knew were the other Grady's, you know, Bob Grady's parents and sisters. In fact I used to go and play with those kids all the time.

CE: So, in comes Earl.

EG: So he introduced me to Earl Grady, and here was this gorgeous looking man, blond curly hair. So that's how I met Earl.

CE: You were how old then?

EG: I was thirty of age when I got married. I met him when I was 29 and we were -- I met him in -- Let's see, it was July I met him and we were going to be married the next year in 1937, so in '36 I met him and '37 we were going to be married on Valentine's Day but my father became sick and passed away in April of that year, so we got married in August, 1937.

CE: You were married here in San Rafael?

EG: Yes, at St. Rafael’s Church.

CE: And you mentioned earlier, would you tell us the names of your children and their birth dates? Your oldest is?

EG: Gayle.-

CE: Gayle.

EG: And she is married to a man named Smalley now, and she has a daughter, Christine Rojas, by her first marriage, and Christine is eleven. That's my only grandchild.

CE: Is this the daughter that comes in the car when you go in the parade for the Historical Society?

EG: Yes, she's a member of the society.

CE: All right then you have a son?

EG: Yes, Michael Watson Grady.

CE: No, you mentioned earlier, what interests them?

EG: Well my daughter is 35 years of age and she works for the North Marin Water Company, she's the chemist there.

CE: So she continued your interest in science?

EG: Yes. She went to Dominican, from kindergarten all the way to college and from college she went on to St. Joseph's Hospital where she became a lab technician and worked in the Franklin Hospital. But after her divorce from Christine’s father, she couldn't go back --She said I can't take blood out of people anymore. She was just shattered. She just couldn't do anything like that, so she got this job with the water company and she just loves it. End, Tape 1, Side B

CE: This is tape two on the interview of Eugenie Watson Grady. Now can we continue about your daughter Gayle? After that experience, what happened to her?

EG: Well she worked down at the little science museum here on B Street. What was it called? Marin Science Museum. And she worked there part time and then after that -- You know, there wasn't enough money coming in to her, so she got this job with the water company and she is now the head chemist there; she has one girl underneath her.

CE: Well she's settled in, then. You're happy about all of that.

EG: She's settled in. She has bought a home and lives in Petaluma.

CE: And Christine, I know, is the apple of your eye.

EG: She is.

CE: Well tell us a little bit about Michael Watson Grady.

EG: Well Michael Watson Grady is a bachelor. He's 33 years of age.

CE: Where does he live?

EG: He lives in San Diego.

CE: Oh, you don't get to see him too often then?

EG: No I don't. He went to St Rafael School and Marin Catholic High School and then from there he said, "Mom, I'm not going to any more Catholic schools, to college or anything, so don't ask me to go to St. Mary's.”

CE: So he didn't, huh?

EG: Oh no. So he looked around and he decided he’d go to U.C. Davis and at that time he was just intrigued with running a cyclotron up there at Davis. He was into physics. And it seems that they would never take a lower grade student, not a lower grade but a lower student, except that you had to be a junior or a senior. They would never consider even a sophomore as giving them a job running the cyclotron in the Science Department. I don't know whether he got the job because he pestered them so much, but I guess he was the only one they ever had that was a sophomore.

CE: They made an exception for him?

EG: Yes. And he just loved it. He was so good in everything.

CE: Must have been good in math too?

EG: Oh yes, he was a crackerjack at math. He just loves that. So now he is working on the technical staff of a computer firm called Logicon.

CE: Where is that?

EG: In San Diego. And they send him all over the United States for these airfields and Navy and Army fields. They do all the simulation work with, you know, what button to press or what to say or anything and now he's in this speech bit with computers.

CE: That's the synthesizers that emulate the human voice.

EG: Yes, that's it.

CE: Do either of your children, or both, have an interest in history of their heritage?

EG: They both do.

CE: How about your husband Earl? We haven't talked too much about Earl. What interests Earl? First of all, what does he do for a living, or is he retired?

EG: Well, Earl has been retired twice now. When I first met Earl he worked for the North Bay Electric Company and he quit after we were married about one year and we went into business for ourselves. He had a Frigidaire appliance store at the corner of Fourth and E Street, where the Melody TV is now, that was our place. We were there for many, many years. Then later on, the business got better so we moved down the next bock, on the same side of the street. I believe it was 1344 Fourth Street, That's where the Redwood Travel Bureau is now. You know where that is?

CE: Yes.

EG: Well we remodeled that building. It was owned by Otto Smith an old, old time businessman and he used to have a butcher shop in there, and when we took over the building he was running a secondhand store in it and he had all those old chairs hanging up on these meat hooks and the whole place was tongue and groove, painted brown, and the animal fat was dripping off. I mean it was just caked on there and he had all this junk in there, it was a mess. So we completely cleaned out the whole thing and remodeled it, it was really something. It was a beautiful building after. We put in the plate glass window, it was the largest piece of plate glass window in San Rafael at the time.

CE: What was the name of your establishment?

EG: Earl Grady's

CE: Did you help him, work in the office?

EG: I worked in the office. I decorated the windows for him and I won many prizes from the Gas Association of California, the Electric Association.

CE: Well good for you. In your collection do you have some photographs of that business?

EG: Yes.

CE: Maybe we could see them later.

EG: Yes.

CE: How was it, comparing today with young people in their enterprises? How was it to be married, going to the office every day with your husband and coming home? Was that proximity, always being so close, difficult?

EG: I can't understand some of these younger people now especially my daughter where she will go and do her shopping after work. Of course you have to stand in line at supermarkets. But when I worked and had to come home and fix dinner, I used to go to the market at lunchtime. I might grab a cup of tea or a sandwich, you know, and bring it with me and just grab it and then do my shopping down -- Well Mill Valley is where I worked. And then I was married, let's see, close to seven years before I had Gayle.

CE: Then you continued working for the PG&E for a while after your marriage?

EG: Yes. Until 1941. I quit after the war started.

CE: Well then with this business with your husband, did he do any servicing outside of equipment that he would sell or was that necessary?

EG: We did a lot of service, in fact, he was deferred from the war because he was handling all the refrigeration for Hamilton Field. And you know they had big loads of meat and all that kind of stuff, and food, that would be coming in there and he would do that.

CE: That was good. You were fortunate.

EG: Wasn't I?

CE: You know when we talk to some people who have been in the business -- We interviewed a man the other day in Tiburon who had the first Butcher Shop there, his father before him. I was astounded when he told me how much was on the books and how much they didn't collect. How was doing business during those years? Like during the depression, was it hard?

EG: We didn't have a depression when we were in business. I was working for the PG&E during the depression. EC: I beg your pardon. But you must have run the accounts receivable?

EG: Yes we did.

CE: How did it work out?

EG: It worked out fine. We didn't have very much problems. In fact, all the years we were in business we only had one shop lift and that was an electric razor. We never had small appliances, only around Christmastime, and an electric razor or a radio, I can't remember which now, was the only one shoplifting thing that ever occurred. Now that was pretty good I thought.

CE: Well that's an indication of the times, too, compared with today.

EG: But the thing is, Earl was always first with service. I mean he stressed that because he wouldn't be happy unless he had a screwdriver in his hand. And you'd go into this beautiful building and this beautiful place, it was really terrific, it was all done in chartreuse, coral and gray with the white refrigerators and all that around. It was absolutely beautiful. And where was Earl? He was out in the back with the servicemen. He had thirteen employees.

CE: Thirteen employees. What line would you carry, more than one?

EG: Oh yes. We carried Frigidaire and we carried Westinghouse later. There was a Westinghouse dealer, his name was Mr. Snyder, and he was in the Cheda Building where the Modern Eve is now. Well the part of Modern Eve, I mean they've enlarged. Well, he was there and passed away on New Year's Eve and he had a pretty good place of business, he was one of our worst competitors, Of course that was before Montgomery Ward moved into Fourth Street in San Rafael, that was a big competitor too.

CE: How about McPhails?

EG: McPhails was after we --

CE: That's a later story, huh?

EG: Yes.

CE: What happened when this man died?

EG: This man died and his widow wanted to sell and all he had left in this place. He hadn't done too good a business in his later years.

CE: Did you buy up the inventory?

EG: We bought up everything, including everything that was in that basement in the Cheda Building and he had, practically half of that building was his junk. And it was refrigerators and washing machines that were in need of repair and that's what kept us going all through the war. Earl fixed all those up because everything was frozen, it was frozen.

CE: You couldn't get any gear.

EG: That's right.

CE: That's interesting.

EG: And so we got all that and put that up there, we fixed those things up.

CE: Well a pretty enterprising fellow.

EG: Yes.

CE: Would you say that it was easier to do business in those days than it is today? GE: It was. Then he got interested in the Chamber of Commerce; he was President of Chamber of Commerce.

CE: Well tell us about that. GE: Well I can't remember the date now but he got so involved in the Chamber of Commerce after saying he'd never belong to the Chamber of Commerce, you know, oh, no he wasn't going to do that. But I think that he got so involved in that. And this bridge, Richmond Bridge, he'd go to Sacramento and speak about the Richmond Bridge and when he was through, when he was president that that bridge got --

CE: Sounds to me like the community is in your family's debt.

EG: Yes.

CE: Well you mentioned another career, what happened then, he sold the business?

EG: Well no, we wanted to sell the business but nobody wanted to buy at that time. It was very hard times.

CE: What are we talking about now, what year? After the war?

EG: Yes, after the war. When the war was over for a while, it was about 1950 somewhere around there. 1954, somewhere around there. And nobody seemed to want to buy it and so he said oh well. So he had little sales and he had -- He just decided not to do it.

CE: What did he do, just reduce his inventory?

EG: He reduced the inventory and would sell off things. By that time he had moved down where the freeway is now on Fourth Street, my father in law owned that building, it was next to Rossi's Garage.

CE: Isn't that where you get your Packard done Mrs. Kent or not? Whereabouts are we talking about now?

EG: Down here with the overpass.

CE: Oh, right down here.

EG: You know where the busses pull in, right there.

CE: What was down there?

EG: My father-in-law had a big garage there that he leased to Rossi Bros. And it was an automobile place, you see. They fixed the cars there. Well then they moved out and they built their own building right next to it. My father in law owned from Fourth Street all the way to Fifth and he had two old houses in the back that they used to rent and he lived. He didn't live in one at the time. I guess he did. But, by then we moved our shop down there you see, we had the other place on Fourth Street and we moved the shop down there and then all of a sudden what made it bad was that the highway wanted to buy it for the overpass and they kept stalling, stalling and stalling. Finally they bought it from us. But then Earl retired; he wasn't going to work anymore. Well he got really -- He didn't like that, you know.

CE: Too active a man.

EG: And then of course he bought a home in Lake County, a summer home.

CE: Probably fixed that all up and --

EG: No, he didn't. We'd just go up there for half of the week and then the kids were in school and -- so we'd go up there and then that got to be so that we didn't like that anymore, so he went to work for a place called Market Engineering. It was commercial refrigeration. Part time. He only wanted part time work.

CE: Is that in --

EG: San Rafael. But their territory was all the way to Eureka and all the way down to, oh, lower than San Jose.

CE: So he's away?

EG: Well it wasn't that, he just didn't want it because it got to the point were that they were calling him on Saturday and Sunday and he'd go in all hours.

CE: Trouble shooting?

EG: So he quit. Then he was retired again for a little while. By then we had -- We had taken this building that we had in the shop and we remodeled it for the County of Marin and they had their Welfare Department down there. Now this was remodeled.

CE: Now what building are we talking about?

EG: The one down here on Fourth Street where the overpass is now.

CE: Oh, before the state bought it, you remodeled it for the County.

EG: We bought it from my father in law, you see, and then we remodeled it with the state specifications for the welfare department. The welfare department was in there for eight or ten years while they were building the Civic Center. So everything was fine, we were getting a good income coming in from there so he didn't have to work. Then the state took it over and of course they tore the whole thing down when the county moved everything together out of at the Civic Center. So one day I was here by myself and he and he was up at Lake County and all of a sudden I get a phone call from the Civic Center and it was one of the head men in the Public Works Department wanting to know if he could talk to Earl. I said, "He isn't here," and he said, "Oh, Mrs. Grady, I just wanted to ask him who would be a good man to get for, to come and work out here at the Civic Center on refrigeration and air-conditioning." I said, "I have just the person for you, Earl Grady" I said, "I'll have him call you." So I called up Lake County and I said, "I have a job for you." And he said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Mr. Wilder wants you to call him." And I told him what it was.

CE: Was he delighted?

EG: He was delighted. Well, I guess Earl was delighted because he stayed for ten years and now he's retired, he couldn’t work anymore because he just turned 65, you know.

CE: He had too much energy to give up.

EG: That's right. He just loved it; you know air-conditioning is just right down his field. He just loved it. Everybody liked Earl out there. So that's when he retired again.

CE: Where is Mr. Grady this afternoon?

EG: He's down at the Civil Center Library. Now three days a week he goes to the College of Marin at night.

CE: What's he taking?

EG: He's taking electronics and computers and he bought himself a computer, so I mean he's having a ball.

CE: That's wonderful.

EG: And when I mentioned the gate being broken and the fence needing fixing.

CE: That doesn't get fixed right away?

EG: No. We wait.

CE: Maybe if you tell him you would like to have it wired with photoelectric cell, so it opens when you approach it, maybe that will --

EG: Yes, maybe a Genie.

CE: Well tell us Genie a little bit about you. I know your interests and efforts for the Marin County Historical Society; are you still active in the Native Daughters?

EG: No, I'm a member. But I don't like to go out at night.

CE: Who does? And those meetings are always at night.

EG: That's right. I mean I've done my share working very hard on fiestas and all that, so I feel that I've done my share.

CE: Do you travel, you and your husband?

EG: We used to a lot, but no more.

CE: Do you still spend time down at the Museum?

EG: No. But I'm a charter member and when I go to the museum I think Elsie would expect me to work, that's why I don't. But you see when I go there I want to look up all these old newspapers and when I touch the newspapers I come home and I have itchy skin and everything. I guess it's the dirty newspapers; it's just an allergy like. But I love it.

CE: Sure. I imagine your garden absorbs a lot of your time?

EG: That, my dog, and I belong to a genealogical society, that's why I have all this.

CE: Your dog, Beau. Well, you belong to the one that was started a couple of years ago.

EG: That's right.

CE: Have you found that to be very helpful to you?

EG: No. Because they cannot find anything about Edward Watson. I've done everything on my own.

CE: You really have to dig into it yourself

EG: That's right

CE: Where have you looked, may I ask? What archives have you used, Genie?

EG: For Edward Watson?

CE: For any of your history.

EG: I haven't really gone into that because I've written to the Latter Day Saints.

CE: Yes, the Mormons, because they have the archives.

EG: But they don't seem to have anything

CE: Have you been to the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley?

EG: No, I haven't.

CE: I think you'd find something there.

EG: I've written there and they've sent me things.

CE: But what you have to date, how did you accumulate it, just nosing around the Recorder’s Office?

EG: Writing letters.

CE: Would you say that most people were helpful and courteous?

EG: Very much so, very much so. I'm writing continually now to this doctor, this lady --

CE: What doctor?

EG: She's a lady in Germany. Her name is Doctor Siebert

CE: What do you hope to gain from her?

EG: Well this is what I gained from her on my mother's side of the family. I never knew about my grandfather; he arrived in San Francisco when he was very young, about 21 years of age.

CE: All right, now we haven't talked about your maternal side and let's do it right now. What was his name?

EG: Ernest Christian Hammerich.

CE: And when did he come? GE: I don't know when he came to San Francisco but he was 21 years of age. I'm not prepared --

CE: That's all right. From where did he come from, do you know?

EG: He came -- He left home, Kiel in Denmark, of course now Kiel is West Germany.

CE: But it was Danish then.

EG: And he arrived –Well, he went to London and he joined, let's say something like the merchant marines here, I don't know what they call it over in London, but anyway he went around the world three or four times and finally he settled in his favorite port. He always used to say, "Settled in my favorite port, San Francisco." And he was 21 and he was going with a girl over there and he had left Kiel and he had never talked about his mother or father or anything, but my cousin has always said, "Grandpa always carried a Bible with him and he always knew the date that his mother had died when he was at sea." He just had the feeling that his mother had died.

CE: And he was correct?

EG: He was correct. They were Lutherans, I presume?

EG: Yes, strict Lutherans. So anyway after Roots and all this stuff, I figured I'm going to check up on him. I got nowhere, I really got nowhere because all the stuff is supposed to be burned up in San Francisco when you try to find anything and he wasn't in Bancroft like Edward Watson is in Bancroft.

CE: Yes, because he wasn't a native Californian.

EG: That's right. So I though, I'll call the German Consulate up in San Francisco and they will maybe tell me where to write. Well I did. Well I didn't phone I wrote to them and they told me where to write in Kiel and gave me the address and so I wrote. I told them what I wanted and I enclosed a couple of the postal coupons so that they would have --

CE: Yes, because you wanted them to prepare copies for you, xerox or something too, I guess.

EG: No it was just for the mail to save what they check up on it. So I didn't hear and about a month later I get this big envelope back, here's his whole history in short form. His mother and his father and his grandfather, and his grandmother and all his sisters and brothers and everything all listed.

CE: Wonderful.

EG: And this lady, I thought it was a man because her name was Hedwig and I didn't know whether that was a man's name or a ladies' name. Dr. Hedwig Siebert. And she's the same age as I am. And now she's retired. This was three years ago and we have been writing back and forth and she writes in German and then I have it translated. Although this last time, at Christmastime, she sent me a letter which I haven't answered yet, and it was in English and she said this was because it was Christmastime and she knew that I might not be able to have her letter translated so fast.

CE: You have a binder there on your paternal family. Are you going to comprise something similar for your mother's --

EG: I have it.

CE: Oh, you have it. Okay. Well what else do you want to tell us about Ernest Christian Hammerich?

EG: Well he of course was living in San Francisco and by then he had given up the merchant seamanship and he was working on the boats out at the harbor there. In fact, he used to come up the slough here on a schooner and he brought the flagpole that was on the old courthouse up here, on his schooner.

CE: He did?

EG: Yes. You know the picture of the old time courthouse and it shows the flagpole? That was the flagpole he brought from San Francisco in his schooner.

CE: Did you ever know him?

EG: Oh, yes, he came to live with us after my grandmother died in San Rafael and he died here in San Rafael.

CE: Was he full of stories and -- of his travels?

EG: Being a sailor and Danish, he was immaculate. My mother never had to sew a button on his clothes, he did that all himself. Of course she did his washing every day and my father was very careless about the woodpiles. My grandfather couldn't understand why the wood isn't just right and just so and so he took over the basement. And when my grandfather was alive --

CE: Everything was ship shape huh?

EG: I was about sixteen, seventeen.

CE: And everything was in order?

EG: Everything in order, every piece of wood and the coal bin and all that.

CE: Well when he married Bertha. What was Bertha's maiden name?

EG: No that's my mother.

CE: I beg your pardon.

EG: He married -- In fact he met some girl in San Francisco and was engaged to her. And so this friend of his said to him, "Come down to the docks." They called it the docks, "Come down to the docks. My mother and my sister are coming from Germany." So my grandfather went and took a look at this beautiful blond and blue eyes girl.

CE: What was her name?

EG: Adolphine Hübsch.

CE: Hübsch means beautiful in German.

EG: Yes it does.

CE: Well then he saw her and that was it.

EG: That was that, and they were married in one month. Lived together for forty-five years, fifty years.

CE: And your mother Bertha was --

EG: The oldest girl was Anna and then there was Sophie and then there was Bertha. They are all very German names.

CE: Oh, I say. And you related to us how your mother married Edward Watson in 1906. Now, this woman you have been corresponding with in Germany, is she still providing you with data?

EG: No more. EC: Just friendship.

EG: She just talks about gardens and everything. Oh, she's had several big cancer operations. But she travels a lot; she goes to Switzerland and everything and tells me about it. And then she sends me all kinds of wonderful cards.

CE: Now tell me, you have some photographs in here I notice. This was -- What is that?

EG: This is from East Germany. She got through to East Germany. See my grandmother was from the Isle of Rugen. That's a little isle that's just south on the Baltic Sea, south of Finland and Sweden.

CE: So that would be on the other part of Germany.

EG: Here it is here, here's Rugen, this thing, this is water.

CE: And who was born there?

EG: My grandmother Adolphine. Isle of Rugen.

CE: Rugen. So she found that out for you?

EG: Well see, I couldn't get through to East Germany, so she did, and this is what I get from her. Then what I did was - She wrote to me and she's very nice so I thought I would do something for her, so I sent her a package of California Wildflowers, poppies, California poppies. And she writes here, "It was a very nice idea from you to send me a package of California poppies, I thank you especially for it. Indeed I am a gardener of heart, and I have a little garden behind my house where I will sow the poppies. There are so many that I will give some to my friend who lives near me. With lively curiosity we will wait them. I am sure the flowers will prosper in our country." End of Tape 2, Side A

CE: Genie have you ever thought of visiting her? Have you and your husband thought of traveling there?

EG: No, no. Although she has given me an invitation to come and stay in her house with her. She says she has a big house and she would be glad to have us.

CE: Well tell me, you have some photographs there, would you share them with us about your maternal side. There was one I saw of a double wedding. Are these your grandparents?

EG: This is my grandfather and my grandmother in front of my house here in San Rafael and this is their double wedding.

CE: And who were the other couple, did you ever find out?

EG: Yes I have.

CE: Is it your intention to collect all this and somehow write a story about it for your children and your grandchildren?

EG: No, no. I'm going to a writing class at the Goldenaires, you know, the San Rafael Recreation and Dave Beardsley. Do you know him?

CE: Know who he is.

EG: Know of him. He's giving the course and I've been going since December, every Friday, and I'm going to miss of course this next Friday on account of a historical meeting. But, I expect to write a book on a phase of San Rafael history and I'm going to start it out with, rummaging in my box of junk I came across a little tiny diary, yea big, and in it was 1923. I was fifteen, sixteen years old, 1922 I guess it was. In there is this little notation, "Going down to Albert's to buy a pair of black silk stockings and watch the parade." So that stirred me up because I am very interested in parades. I have been involved in so many parades and fiesta's practically all my life.

CE: We didn't discuss either, you were musical? You studied piano?

EG: Yes. That will be on book three of Elsie’s book.

CE: Well let's put it in here right now. You were always musically inclined, weren't you?

EG: Yes, more or less. I took lessons for about sixteen years, but I can't play a bit now and I never played jazz, it was all classical music.

CE: Well, let's get back to the parades; you liked that.

EG: Well anyway, and then I went up to -- I thought, “What in the world was a child of fifteen doing with black silk stocking on?” I can't understand, I can't remember back that far. So I went up to the Historical Society and I looked at the newspaper to see what parade I was going to go to look at.

CE: What was it?

EG: It was the Shriners marching up Fourth Street, they were going to have a big initiation and one of those people in the parade that were being initiated was Captain Robert Dollar. So that is how I'm going to start my book, you see. Then I'm going to jump from there and go backwards to where my grandfather used to be involved in the fiesta's and parade's in San Rafael when they'd have the bear and bull fights down by Albert's Field, down there at the end of B Street.

CE: You're going to recreate the flavor of those early days through your grandfather time and bring it forward and back into time.

EG: Yes and in 1934, this was before I knew Earl, before I was married to Earl, my mother was a delegate to one of the conventions in San Jose or Santa Monica, someplace south, and she came back with the thing that the Native Daughters were going to have celebrations in every town in California that had a Mission in it for the sesquicentennial of Father Serra's death. So she came home and told me and I was great for all this kind of stuff anyway and being very involved with the Drum Corps and the Drill Team and all that kind of stuff, so I said, "Oh, that would be great to have a nice parade in San Rafael, we haven't had a parade in San Rafael since I guess before the war." You know that was World War I. Oh there'd be maybe the veterans would be marching but there never would be any big parade and there used to be parades in San Rafael all the time. San Rafael was always known for its parades.

CE: Well don't you think a great deal of this changed with the advent of the automobile and people going farther and farther away and there wasn't that close community spirit?

EG: Well that could be, but then in 1934 I was chairman of that. They put me as chairman of it, and there were only four girls, I, one lady and two other girls. The lady was older than we were. But we put on a wonderful parade in San Rafael; it was for Father Serra's death. We had it on, near October 24th like San Rafael Day. So, it was so successful. We went in the hole about twenty-one cents, I can remember that.

CE: That was the day when you paid for everything.

EG: We had a parade and each section of the parade was the Indians, Spanish, Mexicans and --

CE: How did you coordinate such a thing?

EG: Well we just did, we knew how to do it, and it just grew and grew and grew.

CE: Well the reason I am asking you is today they have committee's made up of two dozen people and they don't accomplish anything.

EG: They don't accomplish anything.

CE: But you, with just a few, you just went out and did it.

EG: We went out and did it. And we got involved with the Chamber of Commerce and we went --George Kaenel, do you know George Kaenel? He's passed away now; ninety-two I think he was. He was selling Buicks and the Chamber of Commerce was right next door to him or in the same office next to the Water Company Building on Fourth Street down here, and he said, "Oh that would be great, we need something like that." He said to pep up the town. So he brought me and these three girls to meet the fellow in charge at the Chamber of Commerce, this secretary, his name was Mr. Bidleman. And Mr. Bidleman had a wonderful idea. He said the Native Daughters can get a horse and furnish the costumes for all the businessmen in San Rafael and we'd have a wonderful parade. We took a look at him as to say, “Where are we going to get all of this money?” Thought the kind of parade we wanted. You know, big time stuff. We didn't want that. We wanted something that -- Well we told him in no uncertain terms that we would not do that and that we didn't have any money for expenses or anything and we weren't going for it. So we turned around and we did it ourselves. And I can remember my father, he hadn't got a horse and buggy, riding horse and buggy, for years and years before and so he heard that Silveira's ranch out there had some old horse and buggies, I mean some buggies, and he could get a horse out there at the ranch and of course he knew everybody in town anyway, so he went out there the day before the parade and here was this buggy in the barn. It was just thick like this with chicken mess and he scraped it, he cleaned that thing up. My mother got into her costume and he got into his stove pipe hat and the costume and everything and you know they rode in the parade and what really worries me, I have never been able to find a picture of it. I have other pictures. And here there was one --

CE: Have you tried the California Historical Society in San Francisco?

EG: No.

CE: You might do that, they have a lot of Marin pictures that Tompkins Family had of early, early days here.

EG: But I mean to get back to the parades, I can put all this in you know, of how the buggy, what shape it was in and he was driving along the Highway, 101, you know, that was when it came down Petaluma Avenue, and on the side of the road and everybody turning around looking at him. But the thing is that I have one picture that shows the buggy with the fringe on the top, surrey with the fringe on top, and in it is Margaret Caton and Mrs. Zappetini and all that older bunch and everything. And when they got going up Fourth Street, near E, the horse got scared and nearly went through a plate glass window up there. That scared them all to death. They all jumped out until they got the horse calmed down. But I mean all those things. Then in later years I was working with Earl too on the St Rafael’s Fiesta Parades. We got the Oregon Cavemen to come down here. You know, they came all the way from Grant's Pass. It was a marvelous parade.

CE: What would you do after a parade? Would there be a party?

EG: Well no. In the parade here these Cavemen they had a real bull's head, like my grandfather's bull head, and they dragged it up Fourth Street with a big rope and here’s this blood leaking out of it, you know. And you know what they did? They had a little fiesta in the back of the church after the parade was over and all that with games of chance and stuff, they put that bull's head back of the church, back of the Priest's garage. I went around there and here was Mike, Father O'Meara's Irish setter, licking that –Oh, he just loved it. Those kind of things in this parade book --

CE: What are you going to call your book, do you know yet?

EG: I don't know yet.

CE: You're going to talk about that wonderful saloon, I hope?

EG: It'll come with the pictures like this, the Old San Rafael Day. Now it says here, the original thing here says, "San Rafael Day, October 1901". Who had a copy of this was the Fallon boy, not Jill Fallon. Oh, what's his name? He works for PG&E, his brother. This one here says, "One of Martinelli's crabs” on it, to be funny, and they had all this big crab feed here, and these are all well known people. There's Mr. Eden.

CE: Is he the mortician?

EG: Yes, he was the mortician.

CE: We should interview the Eden some day.

EG: And Judge Taylor's in here and all the Martinellis. Here's Eden, here.

CE: Is that Judge Martinelli's father?

EG: Yes, or his grandfather. No, his father.

CE: You would not be Mrs. Martinelli's age? Genevieve is a little older than you.

EG: Yes she's a little older than I am but I can remember her and Jordan when they first got married. I was a teenager, I'd say about seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, somewhere around there and they walked down together at St. Rafael's you know, in the main aisle, and everybody -- Oh how handsome that couple was. She used to wear the most gorgeous big hats with big roses on them, and beautiful white dresses and she was just so beautiful and she was just so slim and just -- You'd think it was a queen walking down.

CE: She's a lovely woman.

EG: Yes. And he was so handsome.

CE: Did you have any dealings or knowledge of some of those early families, like the Abbots up there at Fairhills or --

EG: There was no such thing as Fairhills when I was young.

CE: That was gone. The Foster I mean. That was gone.

EG: No, no, it was gone, it was just a hill then.

CE: How about Robert Dollar's place?

EG: No.

CE: And Cushings and the Eldridge that would be before your time, wouldn't it?

EG: Yes long before.

CE: Well I think this idea of a book is excellent. You're going to work on it and you're really going to do it aren't you?

EG: I'm trying. I've got all this -- Before Earl retired this last time, I was really going great guns. I'd be going up to the museum and checking in a lot of old newspapers and everything and I've got a lot of stuff to write up now, but you know --

CE: You know, somebody told me once when you get an idea put it on a five by eight card and write it down and kind of file these by subjects. Have you ever heard of this idea?

EG: Yes. Another thing I'd like to talk to you about if possible --

CE: Please. We're going to come back with a little memento here that she wants to share with us and it concerns her grandfather, James Watson.

EG: James Watson before he connected with the saloon business I presume, used to do road work or he was in charge of road work for the county I imagine.

CE: Probably foreman of the construction.

EG: Foreman. And he had nothing but Chinese help and he was working on a road at the Presbyterian Cemetery which is now the Tamalpais Cemetery and this was about 1887, I guess, because my father was ten years old. So he came home and said, "Here I have a nice bullet for you. It was dug out of the bank off the road." So my father was really thrilled about it you know and later on he used to tell me the story of this bullet. We always called it a bullet but it's really a -- I always thought it was a musket ball, but I have since been told that's from a small cannon.

CE: It's about an inch in diameter, it's very heavy and it's brass.

EG: It's brass. So anyhow, he said at that time they had written to the Smithsonian Institute about this and they wrote back and said it's probably from Drake. Well you know, I think there is a conspiracy on about this Drake bit because when I first joined the Marin County Historical Society they asked at one of the meeting of the Improvement Club there, if anybody had any little mementos that they’d like to bring and discuss. And Florence Donnelly was in charge then. So I brought my bullet and I told about my father saying it was from Drake. She completely ignored me. She didn’t want to know nothing about that you see. Because when I mentioned that it was found in San Rafael, blank that. Because the only place that Drake’s is gonna be found is out there on Drake’s Bay.

CE: Yes but in 1937 they found the plate of brass near Greenbrae, and two years ago they found an Elizabethan sixpence up at Olompali.

EG: So I mean this was found in 1877. And I have never been able to do anything about it. Now I have written to the Smithsonian, I have written to Bancroft, I have written all over. And they’ve been very nice to me. One man said it’s most likely one of these brass balls from an agricultural machine. This is what I get. Well there was no agriculture out there.

CE: You know the answer for you if I may speak quite frankly because I’m a member of the Drake Navigators Guild. There are these three organizations. The Drake Navigator’s Guild, which was headed by Admiral Nimitz at one time, and then substantiate by the great maritime historian Admiral Samuel Elliot Morrison. They feel that Drake careened the Golden Hind in Drake’s Estero. Then you have another man Robert Power who owned the Nut Tree He feels it was done down at Whalers’ Cove at San Quentin. Then there’s a third man Dr Neasham who things it was Bolinas Lagoon. And these men have been doing research for years. And you got to a meeting and it’s like a fight! But, 1977 Dr James Hart, who is head of the Bancroft Library had the plate of brass reexamined did you know. They didn’t say yes, they didn’t say no. But most scholars read it as the plate of brass is fake. Now when Slaymaker the anthropologist found the Elizabethan coin he sent it directly to the British Museum and they authenticated it. But a coin can be moved from anyplace. And the plate of brass was originally was supposed to have been found over at the ranch over there near Limantour, so --

EG: But this is the pick marks that were from the pick marks and it was way in the dirt.

CE: You know from the journal of the chaplain aboard the Golden Hinde, they made an inland sortie, you know and they could have gotten as far as San Rafael.

EG: This is the way I feel.

CE: What are your feelings about it?

EG: Well I have been inquiring about it and the last thing I find out is that I should take it to one of these metal men over in San Francisco.

CE: Yes, I should have said that. Finally, Doctor Hart had the plate of brass reexamined by the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory.

EG: Yes, but they won't touch anything like this.

CE: Why?

EG: Because they won't take off a sample of it.

CE: Well wouldn't you think it would be worth -- You see, one reason they felt the plate of brass was fake is that it has too high a quantity of zinc in it. Now they could analyze that and find that out. That's an adventure in itself. And your feeling is possibly that if that is from the Drake’s visit is --

EG: Oh that would really blow the sky to the limit, wouldn't it?

CE: It would just compound the problem more but it would be kind of interesting. I think you ought to pursue that, Genie.

EG: Oh sure I know.

CE: I think I should arrange an audience with Doctor Hart at Bancroft Library, bring your little brass ball and say I'd like to see if this couldn’t be tested at the Lawrence Radiation.

EG: I went out at the Civic Center and they weighed it for me.

CE: How much did it weigh?

EG: I forget now. I have it.

CE: It's pretty heavy, quarter of a pound, maybe?

EG: So many grams, 113 grams or something. And they measured it and weighed it and everything.

CE: Wouldn't that be fascinating, Anne?

EG: I talked to an Army Colonel and he is the collector of millions of beautiful guns.

CE: What did he think? Could it have been fired?

EG: He said it's from a small cannon, a little small cannon, they take it and mount it someplace and shoot it. Then I thought, I wonder if it was from the Mount Tamalpais Military Academy but then I found out the Military Academy didn't exist when this bullet was found.

CE: When was this found?

EG: 1887.

CE: Brass.

EG: I've always called it a musket ball but --

CE: This brass musket ball that you have is a fascinating story and we are going to pursue that a little but you were telling us a little bit about -- Something must have been relative to it because you talked about the canal going up farther.

EG: Well the way I feel, boats, big barges, went as far as Ida and Fourth Street.

CE: Way up there?

EG: Way up there. When my father was a boy, a little boy, he used to go duck shooting up in Highlands. Do you know where Highlands is? Well Highlands was the station, they called it the Highland Station.

CE: Where was that in relation to the West End Station?

EG: Well West End was here and then there was Billy Shannon's Saloon and then where the two Miracle Miles go along, up as far as the San Anselmo line. right in that section was a big lake. When he was a little boy. And it was all marshy and lake.

CE: Are we talking about your father now?

EG: My father went duck hunting. My father would go duck hunting there.

CE: Well wasn't the railroad going at that time, 1870s?

AK: Seventy two. No, it didn't come into San Rafael

CE: Not until later. EG Later, yes. And even now, when I was a little girl it was always marshy there because where Westland Park comes down there used to be big gully's as deep as this room or even more so, coming all the way down from those hills and it would come down and be all marshy in there. Then Fourth Street went all the way out you know and here was the fence and then this third rail going and then on this side was nothing but marsh.

CE: On what side, the south side going towards San Anselmo?

EG: On the south side.

CE: Where Braverman's is today and some of those stores?

EG: Well no, that's San Anselmo. See the Highlands was just about where the churches are now, you see, and it was all on this side of San Rafael. So all the water came down and finally emptied into the canal there.

CE: I see.

EG: I used to go after pollywogs and everything, that was a big deal with me, going after pollywogs and then watching them hatch and taking them home, all that kind of stuff.

CE: I'd like you to tell me something, when did they change the name of Fourth Street to the Miracle Mile? Who though of that idea?

EG: When they put those two roads into there, before it was just one Fourth Street.

CE: After the railroad went out.

EG: Yes.

CE: What's the symbolism of the Miracle Mile?

EG: It's a miracle that they stayed alive.

CE: But the town never really grew out there, the commercial part of town never got that far did they

EG: Well it's gone a little bit commercial out that way.

CE: You mentioned Billy Shannon's Saloon.

EG: Yes, I can remember Billy Shannon's Saloon.

CE: Tell us about it.

EG: He had a ladies section where you could go to the ladies section and then

CE: Because you mentioned earlier, your grandfather didn't have a saloon that welcomed ladies, but this Billy Shannon's did?

EG: Oh yes. And Billy Shannon used to have all the prizefighters. He had a regular room there where the prizefighters used to work out. And my mother used to say to me, "Now when you get down to Billy Shannon's, look straight ahead and don't talk to any of those men. If they say anything to you, you just don't say anything, you just look straight ahead." So I walk like this -- all these men and they never said a word. They were all on these captain chairs facing Fourth Street and right across the street was Coppa’s Restaurant, on the corner. It was a very fancy French restaurant where the Telephone Building is now, with all little lathe buildings and little individual things in the garden.

CE: Wasn't that sort of near Grosjeans?

EG: No that was down on Fourth Street where the jewelry store is.

CE: Okay.

EG: And then the whole side was planted in almonds and peaches; it was beautiful.

CE: That old hill?

EG: That old hill. Where that furniture place is now, that was all just straight down; it was all mass of beautiful flowers.

CE: I think it must have been much more attractive than it is today.

EG: Oh it was beautiful. And the only thing I was scared of with Billy Shannon's really was, he had an English bull dog, well, pug dog, English, you know, one that represents England.

CE: The one they always used for Churchill

EG: Like that. And Mr. Shannon lived about four doors down from the saloon in a nice little white house and there was the dog always outside and I was more scared of that dog, and I love dogs.

CE: I noticed that.

EG: Oh I'm crazy about dogs.

CE: Do you know Jim Leach by any chance?

EG: No.

CE: Well he tells a funny story about buying a horse from Billy Shannon and he wanted to take his family the first Sunday to church and the horse. They went up Fourth Street and the horse won't go past Billy Shannon's, so they can't go to church that first Sunday. He finally had to seek a new route to go to church because that horse wouldn't go any farther.

CE: He must have stopped off there all the time.

AK: That's right.

CE: What can you tell us about Mr. Albert?

EG: I don't know too much about Mr. Albert, but Earl could tell you about Mr. Albert.

CE: Do you know about his miracle store, the Wonder Store?

EG: The Wonder Store, but I can't remember that. I can remember Peter 's store because my mother used to buy yardage in there. And then, across the street was, where the old Bank of America Building was, was --What was it, TransAmerican originally? The north west corner of Fourth and C Street. There was a little store there that had millinery stuff in it, laces and things, and my mother would always go in there. And the ladies’ names -- We always called her Aunt Em, and Aunt Em had the most beautiful flowers and hats and veils and you know, everything, feather stuff and --

CE: It was a time of softer living, wasn't it? There were mandolins and there were ice cream sodas and there were ice cream soda parlors.

EG: That's right.

CE: Well you know Hill's? That was Mrs. Garotti's. She was a baby in arms when my mother used to go and take me down there and that's why she didn't like the idea of saying that her grandmother used to let the dog lick the plate.

AK: My dogs did too.

CE: During those times --

EG: My mother used to make a hot milk cake, I have the pan yet, a little aluminum pan, and she had a friend that used to come up and one day she had -- My mother was a great one for serving coffee and my grandmother, the German Grandmother, we always had coffee and a little danish, coffee klatch, and the other grandmother always had tea and cookies; she had afternoon tea.

CE: You had quite a mix there.

EG: Yes. My mother and this friend who would always come and visit her and she'd serve coffee and this cake, so my mother put the pan down to let her Cocker Spaniel dog lick it. This lady said, "Bertha, you do that? Why, I will never eat at your house again." And nobody ever thought anything about it.

CE: Tell me this, as long as Mrs. Kent is with us, did you ever go as part of your school over to the May Day Fair over at the Tamalpais Center?

EG: Oh always. I can remember one of the costumes that we -- All the ones in my class, we were Italians and we had these flat top hats and red or green skirts and white blouse and a black --

CE: Sash?

EG: Not sash. What was it? What were those things like? It was lace in the front? Bodices, no. And --

CE: Quickly Genie we must conclude this afternoon but it's been a most enjoyable experience to be with you today and to hear your wonderful story. We'd like to come again.

EG: Thank you Carla and Mrs. Kent. I enjoyed having your company.

CE: Thank you.