March 8, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Everyone is angry at me today except Grandfather. Just because I said that cats and dogs are better than babies. But it is true to me. Why are grown-ups always telling you to be truthful and when you are, they get mad at you? Aunt Minnie was here this afternoon. She is the daughter that Tante Esther is living with and she has a darling Collie named Bonnie. They both came here for tea and while we were having it, I held out my piece of buttered toast so that Bonnie could take a bite and she did take a big bite and then I took a bite and everyone yelled at me not to ever do that. They said it was dirty but I said that Bonnie’s mouth was much cleaner than Uncle Felix’s pockets, and I had to eat dirty old peppermints out of those and then I got very mad and said all the animals I know are much nicer than the people I know and that Bonnie and Sherry are much nicer than all the babies in the world, even Helen Violet. So then I was sent from the table but I took Bonnie with me, so I didn’t care.

March 7, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I had a lovely time this afternoon. I went around the corner to visit Grandma Uri. She is Grandmother’s best friend. She is very old and she always wears a bonnet in the house. She can’t hear very well so she holds a funny trumpet to her ear and when you talk to her you sort of blow into it. She always sits in a big chair by the window in her bedroom and tells us stories about the people she sees through it who are walking on the street. She has a basket of sewing next to her. The basket is made of little pockets and the pockets are full of lovely things she has sewn and other surprises. Sometimes little cookies shaped like hearts or little jelly beans or cinnamon candies that burn just a bit. Grandma Uri always asks, “Were you a good girl this week, Hilda?”, and when I blow “Yes” into her horn, she says, “I know you were. Look into the pockets of my basket and maybe you will find a surprise.” On Christmas and birthdays there are wonderful surprises. Once I found a pearl bracelet and once there was a five dollar gold piece and once the lovelies pink and gold thimble. This afternoon she let me go downstairs and help Louie bake cookies. He gave me a piece of dough all for myself and showed me how to cut out a man and make him handsome with little raisins for eyes and tiny pieces of walnuts for buttons on his coat. I love Louie. I don’t know why I am so frightened of the picture of the Chinese men as Louis is Chinese. I have always known him and loved him. Grandfather says that I must learn that all people are the same inside their skin. That all people love their own children and their own friends and all they want is to be happy and peaceful in their own homes. And then he said that all people are very unhappy when their children lose their tempers and stamp their feet and yell.

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Reading of Hilda’s grandfather reminds me of my grandmother’s stories about her own father who was Hilda’s grandfather’s brother. Both men sound incredibly kind and believed in the best in people. They taught their children tolerance and respect for others. Helene’s father published a newspaper in their small town in order to expose corruption and give voice to the voiceless, teaching his daughter values that she carried with her throughout her life.

If only the world had progressed further in the last 110 years!

March 6, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

When Sancha called for me after school today, we didn’t go to the park or the beach, we went to a butcher shop. I thought that perhaps Grandmother had sent us there to buy something but we didn’t buy anything at all. There was a young man there who talked to her for a long time and then he asked me if I wouldn’t like to go out and have some ice cream. I didn’t like this man’s face but I thought that while I was eating the ice cream I wouldn’t have to look at it so I said, “Yes thank you.” So then we went to a little ice cream shop on the corner and the man let me order any flavor I wanted. I took strawberry, because I’m not supposed to eat strawberries and things always taste much better when you aren’t supposed to have them. When we left the place we could see a park just a block away and Sancha said, “Now we are going to the park for a little while, and when your Grandmother asks you if you have been to the park, you can say yes! You must not tell her about the butcher shop, or the ice cream.” When we got home, Grandmother did ask me if we had been to the park and I said yes but I didn’t tell her anything else but I felt funny, as if I should have.

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In the stories my grandmother wrote about her childhood in a small town in Bohemia in the 1890’s, she told of similar experiences to those of Hilda. The family maid took Helene out for errands and excursions, which often included their running into her boyfriend. Taking the child under your care for an outing was always a good cover for romantic liaisons!

It was far more obvious where one’s meat came from in Hilda’s day. Below is a photo of Palace Market from around 1900. The source of one’s food was direct and obvious into at least the early 1960s: when I was very young, there was a poultry shop across the street from our house (and from the Surf Theatre) in the Sunset district — the only distinct memory I have of it was the feathers all over the floor. After the shop closed, the space was used for a nursery school.

OpenSFHistory / wnp37.00180

March 5, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Sancha took me to Alma. She is in a big hospital full of nurses, only the nurses are nuns too. She was sitting up in a little white bed with a cross hanging over it and she was so happy when I came in. She made a fuss over the daisies I brought her. She said we would have a party right there in the hospital and she called one of the nurses and ordered ice cream. The nurse brought us ice cream right away. Alma forgot to ask me if I did anything nice. I am glad she forgot to ask because I can’t think of anything that I did that was especially nice.

March 3, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Sunday again, and all the relatives that I have to be polite to are visiting. It is really Grandfather’s fault because he sent them all tickets to come to America, except Aunt Esther’s ticket, as she was here already.

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Reading this post makes me think about what might have been. Hilda’s grandfather was my grandmother’s uncle (see family tree) - was she offered a chance to come to America long before she was married and had children?

March 2, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Suzanne was here again and stayed for lunch but she left right afterwards. She said that she had to hurry to a rehearsal. She is dancing in the real performance on the ninth of this month, just a week from tonight. The family is going and Grandmother says that if I am good they will take me too. I told Suzanne that she shouldn’t have to hurry away because Aunt Tillie says that she is “fast,” and why was she in such a hurry. Whatever I said, I somehow made Suzanne cry and Grandmother told me to leave the room and told me I was very rude. Why? Was I rude? I just didn’t want her to feel that she had to hurry or be fast and stay here as I love having her here. Grandmother said the “little pitchers have big ears,” and I wasn’t supposed to repeat everything I heard.

March 1, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Suzanne came to see us this morning and stayed for coffee and ate lots of coffee cake. She was so happy. It seems the principal dancer in her ballet company died last night and now she is going to have her part in the new ballet and be the “Prima Ballerina.”

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So far I have been unable to find information about Suzanne or the ballet company she was in. Perhaps someday the answer will make itself known!

February 28 and 29, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

February 28, 1912:

Sancha is here. She looks like a mouse, all mousy brown hair, furry, with spindly legs. When Grandmother brought her into my room, I put my hand out politely, the way Alma taught me to do, and said, “I am very glad to know you.” She said “Ich verstehen kein Englisch.” I was so mad because I knew that it was a lie so I said “Leide, ich vestehe kein Deutsch.” Grandmother screeched, the way she always does, “Why! Hilda, how can you say such things?” Of course, I suppose I told a lie too. Then she said that Sancha and I would have dinner in my room so the two of us could get to know each other and I should show her all my books and toys and do everything she told me to or I would be severely punished. Of course I am not afraid of being punished because Grandfather never lets anyone really punish me. So Sancha and I had dinner together in German.

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February 29, 1912:

Sancha doesn’t know how to play make believe like Alma does. This afternoon it was raining, so she brought out a big basket of stockings and said that I was old enough to learn to darn my own. So I said, “Let’s pretend I’m a princess locked up in a tower and I have to have all these stockings darned by five o’clock or I’ll be put in a dark dungeon.” She said that I was silly, that I wasn’t a princess and I wasn’t in a tower and there is no dungeon and I didn’t have to finish the stockings by any time at all. So then the fun was gone, like magic, and only the stockings stayed.

February 27, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

When I went to bed last night, Alma came to kiss me good-bye. She said that I must love Snacha even if I think I won’t, and always be a good girl, or else Sancha would think that Alma had not taught me pretty manners. She said that Sancha would bring me to see her sometimes, and every time I would come she wanted to hear about the nice things I had done.

February 26, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I am frightened. Alma is sick and must go to the hospital tomorrow, and after that she must rest a long time and she will stay with Lizzie. I am to have a German nurse called Sancha, and she will speak German to me. I know I won’t like her.

February 25, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Sunday School this morning. Our teacher told us the story of Abraham and Isaac. It is not a very nice story, and it seems that most of the people in the Bible are not very nice. Sometimes, even God isn’t nice. For instance, I don’t’ think it was very nice of Him to ask Abraham to kill his own son, even if He didn’t really mean him to do it. After all, there could have been an accident. Suppose that when Isaac was tied to the bundle of wood, God could have been delayed somewhere, and couldn’t get there in time to point out that He really had a ram in mind for sacrifice or suppose that the ram ran right out of sight. When I came home from lunch, I was still thinking about what would have happened “if.” Grandfather asked me why I was so quiet and thoughtful and not eating. So I asked him if he would kill his own son if God asked him to do it, and he said, “That depends on which one of them he chose.” I think he was thinking of Uncle Harold.

February 24, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Today we called on some friends of Aunt Tillie’s who have only Chinese furniture in their house and Chinese art too. It scares me a bit. All the chairs are hard and uncomfortable, and sometimes you sit on dragons teeth and when you lean back the tassels tickle your neck. I don’t like this furniture and I don’t like the people who live in this house.

February 23, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

When I came down to breakfast this morning, I found I had a very large chocolate hatchet by my cereal dish and it was from Gladys. She said she forgot to give it to me yesterday but I said it would taste just as good today and anyhow I don’t like George Washington and it’s not a very important holiday like the Fourth of July or Christmas.

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Like my grandmother, Hilda’s family appears to have been secular Jews. Although she attended Sunday school where she learned Jewish customs and traditions, the family enjoyed celebrating Christmas.

February 22, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Today is Washington’s birthday so there is no school. Yesterday, Miss Hare went up and down every row and asked each of us to tell a story about what we knew of George Washington. William said that he was the only man in the world who couldn’t tell a lie. Wesley said that he chopped down all of his father’s cherry trees and when his father asked him who did it, he said “I did it, father, with my little hatchet.” Robert said he was a fine General and Antoinette said he was a fine horseback rider and Leonard said he was good to his men at Valley Forge, he froze along with them. When she got to me, there was nothing more to say about him but to tell about his false teeth and I said that they were the first false teeth that could chew corn. I am not sure that the part about the corn was true. I guess I made it up because Grandfather always tells everyone that his false teeth are so perfect and that he can even eat corn on the cob. I couldn’t think of anything else. Miss Hare said that I made a nice contribution and told me to sit down.

As I read Hilda’s explanation of George Washington, I realized that I had the same history lessons over 50 years later when I was in elementary school in San Francisco.

February 21, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Today Aunt Tillie took me shopping in Chinatown. I am not afraid of it anymore because the Chinese men don’t wear pigtails like they used to or those funny little hats with a sort of cherry on top. But just the same, I am always glad when we get to the top of the hill on Grant Avenue and I can see the flags waving from the top of the White House department store.

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Here are some photos from OpenSFHistory of Chinatown as it looked in 1910:

Photos: OpenSFHistory / wnp15.599, OpenSFHistory / wnp15.1154, OpenSFHistory / wnp14.1154

Photos: OpenSFHistory / wnp15.704, OpenSFHistory / wnp37.00149, OpenSFHistory / wnp26.481, OpenSFHistory / wnp59.00111

Below is a photograph of opening day of the White House in 1907, flags waving:

Photo courtesy of SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY

I recall going with my mother when I was a child to the White House department store before it closed in 1965 — at that point it had moved from its original location at Post and Grant to Sutter and Grant:

Photo courtesy of SAN FRANCISCO HISTORY CENTER, SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY

February 20, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

A lot of ladies were here when I got home from school today. Older ladies! So I took my sewing to the parlor and sat on my little stool behind the piano. I love to hear the ladies talk when they forget that I am in the room. It is so different than when they remember. Mrs. Leon said that her husband doesn’t give her any peace at night and Mrs. Fox said she was lucky that it was only at night. Then after a while they all went into the dining room for a Kafe Klatch and then we had some homemade tarts and strudel from the bakery and lots of cookies That’s when they noticed me and made a fuss about nothing. I have always to promise Aunt Tillie or Grandmother that I won’t spoil my appetite for dinner and then I eat just what I like anyhow, as they are so busy with their friends they don’t really watch me and if I have a dress on with a pocket in it, I can slip in a few cookies and have a party with Sherry in my room after dinner.

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In Hilda’s entry today, we again see how she devoloped a voice that at times seems very advanced for her age. In a house full of adults, she was often in the background soaking up every word being said. She may not have understood everything, but sensed when things being said (or unsaid) were important.

Her comments remind me of a summer I worked at a pre-school. One very confident 3-year old stood with her hands on her hips and responded to something she didn’t like by asserting: “That’s a bunch of baloney!” Even in 1978, that was an out-dated phrase, but it flowed easily from her mouth, obviously something she heard in her house on a regular basis. I am currently reading Vivian Gornick’s “Fierce Attachments, a memoir about her complicated relationship with her mother. She says: “Sometimes I think I was born saying, ‘That’s ridiculous.’ Gornick says it in response to just about any situation. As a mature adult, she runs into an old friend who hadn’t seen her since she was 13 who asks if she still says it. She does.

February 19, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Why do we have to ask permission to go to the bathroom at school? We don’t at home. When you wave your hand around in the air, everyone knows what’s the matter with you. If you are standing at the blackboard doing arithmetic examples, it is an awful felling because it is hard enough to do arithmetic without having to go to the bathroom at the same time.

February 18, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Sunday is a difficult day, first Sunday School, then all the people I don’t like call on us. I don’t know why, but they do.

February 17, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Suzanne was here for lunch today but didn’t stay very long, because she had to go to a ballet rehearsal and all she could eat was a little sandwich with a cup of tea. She said it was because she had to dance right afterwards. I can always eat a big lunch before I go to my dancing school class.

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Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any newspaper articles about the ballet in which Suzanne performed in San Francisco in March 1912.

February 16, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Last night Uncle Felix came to have dinner with us. He was married to my Grandfather’s sister Lena. Grandmother says that he killed her but she didn’t tell me how. It would have been better if she had killed him instead. He is an ugly man with three beards on his face. One on each cheek, and one on his chin. He walks with a cane that has a crook in it and he likes to catch children’s legs with it when they are running and make them fall down. Then he laughs and laughs. I hate him. He carries peppermints in his pocket, just loose not in a paper bag, and they always look used and they are really peppery and burn. When he gives you one he insists that you eat it to be polite. Sometimes, I can’t find a place to spit it out without his noticing, but most times I can. Uncle Felix lives with all his children but really, only one of them at a time. I don’t know why, but I guess they don’t like him either and don’t want him to stay for very long. He loves to play cards and eat herring. Whenever he eats here, we have a big platter of herring right next to him at the table. It has an ugly gray sauce with raw onions floating in it and it smells nasty. After dinner, my Grandfather has to play pinochle with him until Uncle Felix wins some money.

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I believe that Lena was Minna/Wilhemina, the sister of Jacob and my grandmother’s father. If so, they were the parents of Bertha Schiller. See the link to the Family Tree to understand family relationships. My mother lived with Bertha and her husband when she came to the U.S. in 1939.