June 27, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I wonder if my father still has that same funny mustache with a curl at each end of it. Every morning when he gets up, he wraps the curls in a paper and he sits and practices the flute. The last time he was here he took me to the house of a very nice lady and she played the piano and together they played duets. Afterwards they had a tea party and she gave me a big piece of cake made of different colors. She called it a marble cake because the colors swirl and look like marble and then my father said that in Italy many beautiful churches are made out of colorful marble like the cake.

June 26, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I wonder if my father will take me to the Orpheum again and to the same beautiful restaurant he took me to the last time he was here. My father is very nice. Last time he let me order just what I wanted for lunch. It was French fried potatoes and ice cream together. I can never have that at home. My father plays the flute. Once he let me blow into it but I couldn’t, I could only spit in it.

June 25, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

A telegram came from my father this morning. He is coming to see me next week, Sunday, June thirtieth. Aunt Tillie says that now I must stop biting my nails so they will be pretty by the time he arrives here. Grandmother says that I must learn a new piece on the piano so that I can play for him, and Alma wants me to learn a poem to recite. Grandfather says, “Let the child alone.”

Hilda was born in New York to Solomon and Hilda Goldberg. She originally was to be named Claire (her mother’s middle name), but after her mother died a few days after she was born, she was named Hilda Claire Goldberg. It was decided that Hilda would be raised by her maternal grandparents Jacob and Sarah Levy in San Francisco. I don’t know how often she saw her father. He appears as a member of the Levy household in the 1910 census — he and 6-year old Hilda are listed as “lodgers.”

Hilda became quite an accomplished pianist.

June 24, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

This afternoon Mrs. Braun visited us with her two daughters. One is eight like me and the other is much older, at least twelve and they go to Sunday School during the Summer too, only theirs is a Catholic school.

June 23, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Today some horrible friends of Aunt Tillie came to dinner and I sat at the dining table with the grown-ups but I wish I could have had dinner upstairs at my own table. Aunt Tillie made most of the conversation and Mr. and Mrs. Kirby mostly nodded and seemed to agree with all the things that Grandfather said too. After they left I heard even Aunt Tillie say they were not very interesting. I was polite and didn’t say anything.

June 22, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I still think of Suzanne and heaven. I don’t want to go to Heaven even if all the people who I know and love are supposed to be there. I want them to be here. I want to have them to tea with me and I want to tell them how I feel and that I miss them so and all the good times we had and how I liked them and knew they liked me. That is what I would like.

June 21, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I can’t forget Suzanne. I don’t think I want to. Aunt Tillie says she is in heaven but I don’t think heaven sounds so wonderful. All the people play harps and I don’t like harps. I once heard a lady play one at the Orpheum. It was tinkly-winkly and blurry. I prefer the piano and I like violins too. Anyhow I don’t think I want to go there. Alma says shame on me, don’t I want to see all the people I used to love like Uncle Harold’s friend, he always took me to the park and to the beach too until he got killed riding a horse. That is, he was killed because the horse threw him and he died on the ground. I said that of course I would like to see the people I loved but what about the ones that I didn’t love. Like Brigitte, a maid we used to have who always slapped me when she thought no one was looking. When Brigitte was sick, I prayed that she would die and she did, and I wouldn’t want to see her in heaven.

June 20, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

This afternoon Alma took me to the park and while we were there feeding the ducks, I asked her why grandmother sleeps with grandfather, if good women are not supposed to sleep with men. Alma got very excited and asked me who had been filling my head with such naughty ideas. I told her that Gladys said that about Suzanne and she said that Gladys had no right to talk to me of such things. She said that Grandmother was a wonderful woman and has a right to sleep with Grandfather because he is her husband and she said that I mustn’t thing of such things again, that real ladies don’t think of such things.

June 19, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Today I received a lovely present from my father. A great big box of writing paper in every color of the rainbow and it is arranged in a box just like a rainbow. Pink and blue and yellow and lavender and pale green and there is also a metal block that has the letter “G” on it. This is called a monogram and I can have the initials of my last name stamped on each piece of paper just like a queen, only my “G” is for Goldberg. I am going to have the “G” placed right in the middle on top of each sheet of paper. I feel very important and more grown up.

June 18, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Aunt Tillie does nothing but talk on the telephone all day long to all her friends and it is always about Suzanne. Sometimes I think they are all glad that the man shot her just because it gives them so much to say. When they talk about it their voices sound just the same as when they are telling funny stories.

June 17, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I was waking up this morning, and there stood Alma with my breakfast on a tray. She said that she came last night but she didn’t want to wake me up. Now everything is so wonderful and beautiful again and she says she is going to stay with me forever and ever and she has had all the rest she will ever need and is all well again.

June 16, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I thought of arithmetic. I know how to add and subtract now, I still don’t know everything about arithmetic. Miss Jackson is a very nice teacher and says that I am not stupid, and she doesn’t scold me when I can’t give the right answers. Next term, I won’t be afraid of Miss Hare when I am at the blackboard and besides it won’t be Miss Hare. Miss Cashen is my new teacher. I found out that Sunday School doesn’t have vacations. Grandfather said that it wasn’t nice of me to want a vacation from Sunday School because I should not want to have a vacation from learning and worshiping God. He said that we must do it every day.

June 15, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I forgot to say that yesterday was the last day of school until August. I am promoted to the high third grade and I got a pink certificate instead of a plain white one. That means that I was a very good pupil not an ordinary one. Grandfather said that even though I was a special star in my class, I still don’t know everything. Tonight when I go to bed I’ll try to think of just how many things I don’t know.

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When I attended in elementary school in San Francisco in the 1960’s, we had low and high grades like Hilda. I don’t know if such a system existed in other places. Instead of all children beginning the school year in the fall, a child might start in spring instead, based on one’s birthday. Hilda’s birthday in January and mine in March meant that we started school at the beginning of the calendar year.

June 14, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Tante Esther was here all day today. I think she just wanted to say nasty things about Suzanne. I didn’t hear all she said because Grandmother kept sending me out of the room to get things for her. Once it was for her needlework and then her glasses but she had her glasses all the time. I thought she had but I knew that she didn’t want me to hear all the things Tante Esther was saying. I did hear her say some of the same words that Gladys used. I wish Tante Esther died instead.

June 13, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Grandmother is right. The thirteenth is an unlucky day. Some ladies came for tea, only it was coffee and I was also at the table. That was because they were not talking about anything interesting. If they do talk about anything interesting Grandmother always says, “Hilda Dear, I know you would rather take your tea upstairs at your own little tea table.” Sometimes I just hate grown-ups but I must tell what happened. One of the ladies spilled some marmalade on the table. I looked over at Grandmother to see if she would spill some of hers too but I guess she hadn’t noticed. So, I took a big spoonful of mine and put it on the table. Grandmother yelled the way she always does so of course I had to explain. I told just what I had learned in school, that Miss Hare taught us that when our guests have bad manners we must have bad manners too, just to make the guest feel comfortable. I said that Miss Hare learned that from Queen Victoria and I started to tell what a good woman Queen Victoria was and how much she loved Prince Albert but I couldn’t finish it because Grandmother sent me from the table. Later I had to come downstairs to apologize to the lady but I still don’t know why? Miss Hare really did tell us that story and Queen Victoria did pour her tea into the saucer. Maybe you should only copy the guests that pour their tea into the saucers, not the ones that spill marmalade.

June 12, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Today was Suzanne’s funeral. I wanted to go and say good-bye to her, but I wasn’t allowed to but just before the family left Grandfather said to me, “Look, darling, I’ll tell you what you may do. You may pick a beautiful rose from the garden and I will put it in Suzanne’s hand and tell it is from you.” So I did. Ito cut if for me, a pink rose, and I gave it to Grandfather and then I felt better.

June 11, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Just when I opened my book to write, everyone came home so I had to stop. No one must know that I know. Gladys told me that Suzanne was in bed with a man and that in the middle of the night he shot her and she died right away. She said the man was not Mr. Leonard. Then she said that it served Suzanne right because no good woman ever sleeps with a man. I said that Grandmother sleeps with Grandfather every single night, and she is a good woman and she is always telling everyone how good she is. Gladys says that is different but I don’t see why? Anyhow Gladys is lying because Suzanne was better than just plain good. She was dear and sweet and pretty and kind and gentle and I told Gladys so and she got mad and she called Suzanne by words that I never heard before and I don’t know how to spell. “Slut” was one of them. I can remember that one because it is short. When I asked her what it meant she said if I ever repeated it that she would wash my mouth out with kitchen soap so it must mean something ugly and I know that “slut” was something that Suzanne wasn’t.

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I have not been able to find any information about Suzanne. In my newspaper searches, there were very few mentions of the name, so it apparently was not popular at the time. I wondered whether it was not her given name or perhaps a nickname.

In previous searches when I tried to find mention of her as a dancer, I searched for “dance",” “Scheherazade,” and “ballet.” None of those words yielded success in the San Francisco papers available online through 1912 and 1913. After reading about Suzanne’s death, I looked through a few week’s worth of papers, searching the obituaries and for articles about a woman’s violent death. No reports of anyone being shot, although there were articles about someone named Shirley who had been stabbed to death in Half Moon Bay. Could Suzanne’s given name have been Shirley? After searching further, I discovered that Shirley was the last name of a man who was killed in a fight at a bar.

So Suzanne remains a mystery. Suzanne was one of the few adults Hilda loved and felt accepted by, perhaps the first person she cared about who died when she was old enough to understand the concept.

June 10, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Suzanne is dead. When I came downstairs for breakfast this morning, Grandmother was crying and Aunt Tillie was crying and Grandfather was trying not to cry. I can’t remember which one of them told me that Suzanne had died. Grandfather had a newspaper in his hand but he hid it. That is all that happened. Then they all got dressed and went out. They said they had to go and see Suzanne’s father and mother and I should be good while they were gone. Then Grandmother whispered to Gladys, “Not a word to the child.” The moment they were out of the house I made Gladys tell me because I knew that Suzanne didn’t just die.

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What a shock! Although I have found ample evidence of most of the events and activities in Hilda’s diary, I have been unable to find anything about a woman named Suzanne. Nor of the ballet “Scheherazade” in which she was an understudy. I searched through local contemporary newspapers and could not find the newspaper article her grandfather seemed to be hiding.

June 9, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

In Sunday school today our teacher told us the story of Adam and Eve. Whenever she tells us a story, at the end of it, she always asks if any of us have any questions. So I raised my hand and asked her if we were going to have a vacation from Sunday School just like we were going to have from our regular school? She said that she didn’t mean that kind of question, she meant a question about the story but I didn’t have any.

June 8, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Tonight when Grandfather put me to bed, I told him that he didn’t have to tell me a story, that I would tell him one instead. So I told him the one about Florence Nightingale and he loved it very much. He said that he had never heard it before because when he was a little boy in Austria, he didn’t have a good Grandmother who could buy him books and even if he did have a good Grandmother that had wanted to, they had no money because they were so very poor. I asked him if they were poorer than the poor family who live around the corner from us, the ones that Grandmother is always sending pots of soup to and he said, “Kindchel, we were poorer than anyone you ever heard of but we were good, all of us.”

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This is one of the few windows we have into Hilda’s grandfather Jacob’s past. He was the brother of my grandmother Adolph’s father and this corroborates my her story of how poor the family was and how miserable life was after their mother died in childbirth and their father remarried. According to my grandmother, “One fine day, the oldest son Adolph, then 10 years old, packed his bundle to be off. He had neither money nor any idea where to go but for the fixed plan to go to school wherever he would have an opportunity.” The other children went to America to seek their fortune. The simplified family tree shows two of the siblings.