Blast from the Past

When you blog--even semi-regularly-- you find that almost anything that pops into your field of vision and hooks your attention for a bit ends up as an entry. I have been in San Diego for almost two weeks and have been luxuriating in the being and nothingness entailed by a prolonged stay far away from all my duties and responsibilities. I admit it. I am a shirker of the first order. Not very often, but now and then. And furthermore, I really enjoy it.

As part of my shirker schedule, I browse through antique (read "junk" ) shops, looking for the odd item that might grab me. Browsing in San Diego is harmless. Whatever you see has to be usable here, as shipping it back east presents the twofold problem of shipping expense and where to put it. Most of my browsing therefore does not result in purchases, but I enjoy looking.

This time, in a shop on Adams Avenue, I found a notebook labeled "Datebook 1906". It was the size of a paperback book, bound in brown cloth. I picked it up and started reading. It really wasn't much. The owner was obviously no writer. Most entries were short and dealt with lists of expenses for the day. That in itself was interesting, allowing me to compare 1906 prices with today's. A three pound 'heel roast' was 30 cents. Today, even if that meant the heel of a SHOE, it would cost more than that. I paged on, and found myself reading all the entries-- and finally decided to buy the notebook. A conversation piece, I thought. Leave it on my coffee table at home. It would fit in my tote bag.

It didn't take long to get absorbed into this woman's life. There was Roy, who must be her husband, who had chronic problems with his 'wheel'..which I suppose must be 1906-ese for 'bicycle', as my diarist mentions taking hers down to her parents' house along with Roy. Poor Roy gets stuck innumerable times, taking a car (streetcar?) and squandering ten cents a day whenever his wheel fails him. One can sense the head-shaking that goes on every time his wife writes down a new repair cost in her book for that incorrigible wheel. Occasionally, Roy will take it to Ansil (who apparently has a way with wheels) and will evade the cost of repairing the wheel for another day.

There is of course, Mamma and Pappa, who appear to host dinner all too often. Our dutiful diarist spends a lot of time at their house, shopping with Mamma, washing clothes at Mamma's, making curtains and hanging them with Mamma...how old IS this woman, anyway, and doesn't she have any friends?

Then, there is Harold, who may be a brother, but at least seems to be part of the Mamma/ Pappa cast of characters, along with Uncle and (infrequently) Auntie. Jennie and Byron offer some hope, as Dutiful Daughter occasionally goes for a walk with Jennie. There is also the list of visitors, who may (or may not) live in Los Angeles. (DD always reports on receiving the Inglewood News in the mail.) They pop up in the entries as arriving on the steamer or by train. People get sick, too, and no sooner has our friend recorded their fevers than she mentions the arrival of the doctor--who visits, then stops back the next day to check on his patient. (In case you had any suspicion that the timeframe might not be accurate...I think 1906 may have been the last time a city doctor made a house call.) On at least one occasion, someone dies. On another, Mamma is suffering from La Grippe, and dutiful daughter comes over and does her work. Other times, one of them stays the night with whoever is sick, fixing meals or just helping out. Sometimes, people spend the night for no apparent reason. Maybe they missed the last car home?

On happier days, the ladies call on other ladies, leaving their cards. They make blueprint postcards, which I think must be something like the blueprint pictures we did with our kids years ago--selectively exposing light-sensitive paper to the sun to get pictures. The ladies write letters and receive them and read them to each other. They buy material and make shirts for Roy (a black one. Is he an undertaker?) and aprons for him, as well. Mamma is making a white 'waist' and a skirt for dutiful daughter. They all go to church once or twice on Sundays, and there doesn't seem to be any devotion to a particular denomination. They go to hear the sermon or to hear someone sing or play. They go as a group to Mission Cliff (more on this later) of a Sunday afternoon on the car. And once, Roy rented a three-seated gig and they all drove out together.

The picture is of a slow-moving, but work-filled life: cooking, cleaning, doing laundry (or having someone in to do it at forty cents), visiting and returning visits, walking, and writing, and attending church, as well as some theatrical productions, club meetings, and excursions to parks, all facilitated by the streetcar system.

So, what does this say to me, here in my 21st century world, with TV and car and computer and modern appliances that can deal efficiently with all of the chores that Dutiful Daughter filled her life with? It really is interesting to think of this woman's life superimposed upon my familiar modern landscape. I can associate her comings and goings with actual locations. JC and I even visited the actual site of Mission Cliff--after googling it and reading an article on it in the San Diego Historical Society Journal. Here we are, more than a hundred years later, looking out at a view that DD might have seen herself (though blessedly free of freeways and shopping centers and housing developments. But, there is the stone wall they mentioned in the article, and a street sign marked "Mission Cliff Drive"...and the neon sign over Park Boulevard that labels the neighborhood as University Heights contains a street car image, and the support poles are surmounted by ostrich statues (there was a famous ostrich farm next to the park...) You'd think that  living in Alexandria would have brought this home to me long ago, but it didn't...until now. I'm looking at San Diego with new eyes, thanks to the nameless diarist I found. Maybe I will try and do the same in Alexandria.

Later note: Further reading of the notebook produced some interesting--and poignant--notes:


"April 18: I went over to Jennie's and while there Byron telephoned and told of the San Francisco Earthquake which happened early in the morning."


and another, written and dated some years later:


"Tuesday, 12th (of July) 1911: Harold LeVerne Calkins born. Lived one hour."


I even did some research on Ancestry.com to find out what I could about the diarist--her name, her fate; did she have any children after this lost baby? how old was she when she wrote this? was there a family somewhere who might be interested in this history? 


Her name was Ruby.