From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Grandmother says that the number 13 is unlucky and the thirteenth of the month is an unlucky day so I am afraid of it. Nothing bad or good happened.
May 12, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I’d rather go out with Grandfather than anyone else in the world. He never tries to teach me anything. Today we went for a walk together. First we went to the corner grocery store and he bought me a bag of sugar cookies. He told me not to tell Grandmother. I asked him if that wasn’t a lie and he said no, not at all. He said that if she didn’t’ ask me and I said nothing, well that was nothing. If she asked me if I had something to eat without asking what it was and I said yes, without saying what I ate, well that was nothing too but of course, if she asked me if I had eaten cookies and I said no, that would be a scorching lie. Anyhow, I ate the cookies and so did Brownie and maybe Grandmother won’t ask me. I hope she doesn’t.
May 11, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
This morning I asked Grandfather what a snob was. He said that a snob is a person who thinks he is better than other people. I said, “For instance, I think I am much better than Tante Esther. Does that make me a snob?” Grandfather laughed, but he said that I mustn’t say such a dreadful thing and that I am not better than Tante Esther. I asked him if he didn’t like me better and he said, “Maybe, but don’t tell anyone I said so.”
May 10, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Today Aunt Josie came to tea and she brought me another present. It is a beautiful book and it is called “Chinese Fairy Tales.” It is full of such lovely pictures. There is one of lotus blossoms and another of little round bridges and of little Chinese children dancing in a ring, just like we do at school. While we were at the table I asked her why she was a snob and just what is a snob? Everyone got very excited and Grandmother sent me away from the parlor so I went upstairs to my room. Afterwards Grandmother came up and talked to me and asked me how I could say such a rude thing to a guest and whatever made me think of such a thing. I told her that she had said it about Aunt Josie and I just wanted to know what one was and wanted to know how you got to be one. Anyhow I love Aunt Josie. I would love anyone who brought me such wonderful books and it wouldn’t matter what they were.
The book appears to have been “Chinese Fairy Tales” by Adele M. Fielde. The second edition was published in 1912. You can see a digital copy at the Internet Archive. If you click on the “Read” button you can see the original book and its illustrations. You can see the picture of lotus blossoms on page 119 and of the bridge on page 137. I did not find the picture of children dancing.
May 9, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
This afternoon, when I came home from school, Grandmother said that I was getting be a lady, and ladies must know how to embroider. So she said that I was going to start with a sampler. It will be my first piece of needlework and when it is finished she will have it framed for me and if I want I can have it hung over my bed. She gave me a piece of linen with cross bars on top of it and taught me how to count the stitches, two stitches for every square. First I must make the whole alphabet, then I must make the numbers, after that I may do my name and then a house and a peacock and a pair of shoes and a chair with a cushion on it and all sorts of pretty things that I think of but Grandmother said to do only one thing at a time. Perhaps if I can make even stitches that maybe for my next birthday she will buy me a lovely sewing basket, just for myself and let me use the pink and gold thimble that Grandma Uri gave me.
You can read about the history of needlepoint samplers in an article from the V&A Museum and see an example of the type of sampler Hilda would be making from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
May 8, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Today I tried to be brave but I couldn’t be. Sancha told me that whenever I walk past a Chinese laundry I must shut my mouth tight or one of the owners would throw a bucket of soap suds into it. Grandmother and I passed one this afternoon and I wanted to keep my mouth wide open, even if I wasn’t talking just to show how brave I was but I just couldn’t do it. I snapped it shut right in the middle of talking. Grandmother asked me what was the matter but I was afraid to tell her.
As we have seen in earlier posts, Hilda’s grandfather tries to teach her to respect and not fear people who are different from her. This is a learning process, and unfortunately not all the people who guide her share her grandfather’s world view. Happily, Sancha is no longer in Hilda’s life.
May 7, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Today Miss Hare told us a story about Queen Victoria. She was Queen of England, once upon a time, and she was a good woman as well as a good Queen. She loved her husband very much, and so she made sort of a law that all women should love their husbands too and if they didn’t and they were mean to them or ran away from them, they couldn’t come to her parties at the palace. Queen Victoria’s husband’s name was Prince Albert. I think he was named after the kind of suits that Aunt Tillie’s and Suzanne’s friends wore to the ballet. He was German but he spoke English too. I raised my hand and asked if he could speak good English and Miss Hare said that he could, he could speak as well as we can. The story I like best is about Queen Victoria, about her beautiful manners. One day she had some ladies to tea, and one of these ladies didn’t have pretty manners and she poured the tea into her saucer and drank it that way. All the other ladies were shocked and made faces at each other but guess what Queen Victoria did? Right in front of all those ladies she poured her own tea into her saucer and drank it that way too. Miss Hare told us that the moral of that story is that we should always do everything a guest does so the guest will feel comfortable.
Hilda writes about Queen Victoria reigning “once upon a time.” Prince Albert died in 1861 and Queen Victoria in 1901 — perhaps ancient history to Hilda but actually quite recent. Although Hilda thinks that Prince Albert was named after a suit, in reality a style of frock coat was named for him.
April 22, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
There is no school this week or next and Grandmother has given me a vacation from writing in this diary too.
Apparently, Hilda is no longer as eager to write in her diary every day and happily takes a vacation from writing. We next hear from her on May 7.
April 21, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Today is Easter Sunday. Grandfather is taking me to see Alma this afternoon and we are bringing her a beautiful Easter lily. This morning we had an Easter egg hunt at home, just for me because Grandmother and Aunt Tillie forgot to ask anyone else but I had fun anyhow. I found beautiful Easter eggs all over the house and in the garden too. There was even a dark brown one in Brownies’ kennel, but of course Brownie didn’t lay it. Rabbits lay the Easter eggs but I don’t believe they really do. I like to pretend like in my fairy tales. It’s pretty to think so and I don’t believe in Santa Claus either but I am afraid if I say so I won’t get any more presents.
Uncle Milton and Aunt Retta came for lunch and brought me a sweet white rabbit. Uncle Milton said I can’t keep it very long as the rabbit will not be happy in a cage but that he will find a good home for him in the country and meanwhile I can feed him and play with him but I don’t think I will name him or else I might love him too much and then I won’t want to give him up.
April 20, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Aunt Tillie loves to work in the garden. I don’t like to work in the garden but I do like to sit in it and sun bathe but today Aunt Tillie said that she would teach me how to work in the garden and she bought me a little red watering can and a package of seeds and a box to plant the seeds in. She showed me how to make a little ditch in the soil with my finger not too deep and then we sprinkled the seeds in it and covered them with more soil to keep them warm and then watered them with a tiny bit more water, just gently. Now all we have to do is give them a drink every day and wait for pretty flowers to come up. Then Aunt Tillie said that this is how babies come but I don’t see how that could be and I am sure that the stork doesn’t bring them either.
April 19, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
This is the season for ring games at school. There is a pretty one called “Valley.” All the girls form a ring with one girl at the center. Then they walk around her singing. Then she chooses someone to stand with her and it goes on and on until all the girls get used up. I wasn’t chosen until the very end and I guess it was because there was no one left.
The game Hilda refers to was likely “Round the Valley,” which I found in the Primary Education Journal, Volume 18 1910: Mary A. Stillman Games for the School Yard. The game has been played with several different names and lyrics. When I was Hilda’s age, I learned it as Go In and Out the Window. Like her, I remember the discomfort of being chosen last or near last.
April 18, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Today each of us had to write a composition on the “Titanic.” I wrote….
The Titanic was a beautiful ship, and it was on its first voyage from Europe to America. The first voyage of a ship is called a maiden voyage, because the ship is still a maiden. All ships are ladies. The Titanic was like a real hotel. The bedrooms had real beds, not just berths and they all had their own bathrooms. And it had a swimming pool and a big gymnasium full of things to play with, like leather horses and things to swing on like monkeys do and heavy things to lift like exercise bars. And there was a library, card rooms and ballrooms, a real theater, a barber shop, and beauty salon, and even a jewelry shop, so that if people fell in love with each other they could buy each other presents right away.
I got just that far and I thought that I wouldn’t want to be on that ship. If I ever go to sea I would want to be on a little ship where I can see the sea and the sky and feel the wind on my face and smell the salty air like when we go out to the beach. Of course I couldn’t put all that into my composition. I finished this way….
All the people had a gay time all across the ocean. They danced and played cards and other games, and laughed and sang and bumped into an iceberg. The iceberg was so sharp that it cut the Titanic, just like you would cut an apple. The rooms where the engines were and the rooms where the sailors were and the rooms where the people were, that is, the poorest people who were in rooms way below the top deck where they didn’t have many bathrooms, they were drowned first. The poorest people were more frightened than anyone else, because they didn’t understand English, so they couldn’t understand the officers telling them to walk in a single line and that everything would be all right and to walk to the lifeboats. They knocked each other down and stepped on each other, and a lot of people were killed that way.
Grandfather said that when he came to America he traveled on such a ship, and he was then very poor and this class is called “Steerage,” and he was certain that he wouldn’t stay poor, because he never wanted to travel that way again. I didn’t put this part into the composition, but I did put a little more.
Upstairs in the big elegant rooms, the people were also frightened because everyone is afraid to die, even rich people. There were not enough life boats so only women and children could go in them. There was a wonderful woman, Mrs. Nathan Strauss, my father knew her and she wouldn’t go into the life boat without Mr. Strauss and so she stayed and drowned with him. There was also another woman who wouldn’t leave her Great Dane to die by himself so she stayed too and all the musicians died while they played the song “Nearer My God to Thee” to the last second so all the people about to drown would feel better. It was a very bad accident.
After we handed in our papers, Miss Hare said that we mustn’t forget that the eighteenth of April was the birthday of the big earthquake and fire in San Francisco. She didn’t say birthday, she used another word that I know means the same thing. She said it happened six years ago and that we must always remember it was not the earthquake that spoiled San Francisco, it was the fire. She said that the earthquake did damage buildings and knocked chimneys off but the broken gas mains started fires and that was really the worst of it. She said that people were very brave and hardly anyone cried or screamed. They packed all they could save of their things and they took their dogs and cats and canary birds and left their houses. Some of them went to stay in tents at Golden Gate Park or at other parks and some of them lived in other people’s houses that were in safe parts of the city. No one was allowed to light matches so they ate cold food, like at picnics and that must have been fun.
Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory / wnp27.7989
Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory / wnp37.01539
April 17, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
In School today Miss Hare talked about the “Titanic.” She told us that it was an English ship and she was very much afraid that it bumped into an iceberg because it was going much too fast. It was a brand new ship and the captain wanted it to be faster than any other ship that was sailing on the ocean. An iceberg is a big mountain of ice way down deep in the water and it is so sharp that it can cut a ship right in half, just like we cut apples. She said that the captain waited until everyone drowned and then he jumped from where he was, high up on the ship’s bridge I think and he drowned too. I asked Grandfather about it and he told me that it is polite or did Grandfather say policy? Well anyway, it seems that Captains are supposed to drown if their ship goes down. I think that is a very silly rule and if I were Captain, I would try not to drown. I should think that the captain’s wife would be happy if he didn’t drown but Grandfather said no, she would have been ashamed of him. I still think she would want him to live. Sometimes you love people more when you are ashamed of them because that’s when you need to love them. That is the way I loved Brownie and was ashamed of him at the same time, just the other day when he wet his pants in our parlor.
April 16, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
No one talks about anything except the “Titanic.” Grandfather came home late for lunch because he stands all morning in front of the Examiner building looking for news on the Blackboard. Nearly everyone on the ship was drowned. One lady refused to go into the life boat without her beautiful Great Dane and one lady refused to go without her husband and they all drowned with musicians who kept playing all the time the ship was sinking. They played “Nearer My God to Thee,” which isn’t a very pretty melody but the words have something to do with being close to God and if you are drowning you might as well think of heaven, I guess?
I was unable to find information about the San Francisco Examiner’s “blackboard” — in the days before CNN and Twitter, the board would have been a convenient way to learn about breaking news between newspaper editions. Although the wikipedia entry for “Nearer My God to Thee” says that it was probably not played on the Titanic, the Examiner’s headlines a few days after today’s entry mention the song:
April 15, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
There was a terrible accident yesterday. A big ship called the “Titanic” was sunk. It was a beautiful ship, like a hotel floating on water. Maybe it is like a palace too. It had a ballroom and a big play room for children and kennels for their dogs and the people dressed up every night in evening clothes and they had music with their dinner and wonderful things to eat and bubbly wine to drink. Every day and night is like a party when you travel on the ocean.
The front page headline from the San Francisco Examiner on April 15, 1912:
April 14, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
This is Sunday but a nice one. The only people who came were Uncle Julius and Aunt Josie and they brought me the most beautiful Japanese kimono. It has a big sash around my waist and it is called an Obi and Japanese women carry their babies in it somehow. Ito showed me how little Japanese girls bow to their parents but I can’t do it and every time I try, I fall on my face.
One of the things I enjoyed about growing up in San Francisco was being surrounded by and exposed to people of different backgrounds and cultures. Hilda grew up in a very different era, in a city less embracing of “the other.” She is sometimes afraid of people who look different from her, but she is encouraged to see everyone as equal and as fellow human beings (see February 12 and March 7 entries). Unfortunately, humanity still has a lot to learn.
April 13, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
This morning was lovely. All of a sudden there was music and right outside the parlor window was a man with a hand organ and with the darlingest monkey. The monkey was dressed in a little green suit trimmed in red and gold. All the children on the block came running and we gave the monkey nickels and pennies. He then took them in his little hands and put them in his pocket and every so often he would tip his hat, which looked like a tiny round box upside-down and it was green and gold too with a little red feather stuck in it. The man then sang a very beautiful song called “Santa Lucia” and it is an Italian song. People sing in gondolas. Gondolas are very special boats that are used in Venice and while the boatman sings the people hold hands and kiss. Venice is a city in Italy that has no streets and no streetcars and you have to ride in boats through water canals to get from place to place.
April 12, 1912
Grandfather took me and Brownie to a studio to have our pictures taken today. We are sitting in an airplane with our faces stuck out of the windows. Each of us has a window all to himself. Brownie too. The place where we had our pictures taken was fun. You could pick out anything you wanted to have your picture taken with, like you could be on a donkey or even the man in the moon or on a boat or if you wanted to you could hold a basket of flowers or a doll but of course I wouldn’t like that. You could even be sitting next to a phonograph, and listen to music.
Although Hilda doesn’t describe the photo we see at the start of each entry, it’s possible that it was taken on this very day. I’d love to see the photo of them in the “airplane.” I have similar studio portraits taken of my mother and uncle in Vienna in 1926. My mother holds her toy rather gingerly — most likely provided by the studio rather than being a treasured possession.
April 11, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Today I saw Alma again. She is at Lizzie’s house now, where the priests live. Grandfather brought me, we all sat in the garden and the nice nuns came and joined us. Grandfather asked them what they had done to make me love them so much. And then Sister Alba asked me if it was true and I said, “Oh yes! But though, I am so sorry that you have to wear those ugly black dresses.” Grandfather spoke up and said, “Why, Hilda! These lovely women are not interested in party clothes. They are too busy doing things for other people and thinking of God and His words. They can’t and don’t want to spend money on hair ribbons and fancy clothes like your Grandmother spends on you.” I said that I thought that they could be just as Holy wearing pretty dresses and maybe God would enjoy looking at them all dressed up. They all smiled and Grandfather asked them to please excuse me, that it seemed that I had left my very best manners at home today. They all said that they would.
April 10, 1912
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Uncle Milton and Aunt Retta came for dinner last night. Her real name is Henrietta but no one calls her that. I don’t think Grandmother and Retta like each other very much, but I know I do. I really like Aunt Retta, only she disappointed me at her wedding. I thought all brides wore lace, and veils and orange blossoms, but she only wore an ordinary dark blue suit and a plain white blouse and a hat with some red feathers in it and Uncle Milton wore a dark blue suit too and he had a dark blue tie and so I’m not sure they are really married.