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From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Last night in bed, I thought about arithmetic because in two weeks school will be starting and I began to wonder why when you add two even numbers together it makes an even number and when you add two odd numbers together it makes an even number, like 2 and 2 are 4 and 3 and 3 are 6. It is very puzzling.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Last night we had company for dinner and as it is vacation, I was allowed to come to the table. These people were not relations, but I don’t like them anyhow. Why do people always ask you if you are a good little girl? Mr. Baker asked me that and then he asked me if I went to Sunday school, and I said, “Oh yes, I do because my Grandfather makes me go” and then he asked me what I learned there and I said, “Not much.” He laughed again, and said that I was a wise little girl to know that I didn’t know much but he didn’t tell me why. Then Mrs. Baker asked me to tell them something I had learned in Sunday school, so I told them the story of “Adam and Eve.” I said that…
Adam and Eve had been very stupid, and had eaten an apple that had been given to them by a very dirty old snake and anyone should know better than to eat a dirty old apple, especially from a dirty old snake and so God of course didn’t want such stupid people in the Garden of Eden, so he had them thrown out.
Mr. Baker asked me if our Sunday school teacher taught us that and I said no, but that it must have been like that.
Last weekend I attended an outdoor concert by a favorite singer, Paula West. She sang one of her signature songs — “Snake” — Hilda knew the moral of the story without having heard the song.
Paula West and her trio at the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival in San Francisco on August 6, 2022.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Aunt Tillie called for me today and brought me home. I told her all about the circus and how I didn’t like it. She was very angry and then she asked me why I couldn’t be like other children. I didn’t know I wasn’t.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, last month I was given some of Hilda’s photographs and letters. Included was this postcard of Hilda and Brownie that she wrote to her father on August 11, 1912 - the date of today’s diary entry!
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
This afternoon Uncle Bernard took Irving and me to the circus. I don’t like circuses but of course I didn’t say that. I had to pretend that I was having a beautiful time. It was so big, I was so dizzy trying to see everything. I was sorry for all the poor animals in cages and I was so afraid that the people on the trapezes were going to fall down on top of me and I didn’t think that the clowns were very funny. I didn’t even like the pretty pink candy that looked like cotton because it melted as soon as we put our tongues on it so we couldn’t taste it, or maybe it had no taste.
Hilda was ahead of her time - she would be happy with the changes in circuses in recent years– even Ringling Brothers is coming back without animal acts.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
It is such fun here! Only Irving makes fun of everything I do or anything I say. Today he asked me which I liked best, the whites, or the yolks of eggs. I said that I liked the yolks and he said that only cowards liked the yolks. I guess it is true, because everyone says that he is very bright.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
This afternoon I am going to Aunt Berta Fulda’s house and stay three or four days. She and Uncle Max live way out where there are no sidewalks, only sand all around them. They have a boy named Irving, with red hair. I love to visit there because we can play in the sand all day long, and Aunt Berta never cares how we look or what we eat.
In addition to giving us a picture of childhood in San Francisco in the early 20th Century, every once in awhile Hilda helps to flesh out my family’s story. Irving (or Erwin) was born in 1892 and would visit my grandmother and her children in Vienna in the late 1920s or early 1930s. His name was mentioned in a number of letters as a somewhat daunting figure called “Uncle Fulda.” On the photo below, my mother wrote “1929?” because she was a child when he visited and could not recall the date. My grandmother’s nephew Paul Zerzawy wrote a letter to him affirming that if my grandparents were allowed to come to the U.S. in 1941, they would not be a burden on the state, listing all of the relatives (including Uncle Fulda) who would contribute to their support. This letter must have helped my grandparents procure the resources and documents that allowed them to get tickets on a ship leaving for the U.S. in July 1941. Unfortunately, the paperwork did not align to satisfy German bureaucracy so they never made it to the ship.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Today was awful, Grandfather and I took Brownie for a walk. We left him off the leash for a minute so he could play a little and then we all saw a horrible dead rat on the sidewalk, but Brownie ran right to it and gulped it down before Grandfather could stop him. I was afraid that he would be sick and die but Grandfather said that dogs don’t die so easily, and we should take him home and give him an emetic. An emetic is something that makes you vomit, I just learned this word. I was afraid about Grandfather giving Brownie one and begged him not to because it was bad enough seeing the hideous thing go down, I didn’t want to see it come up again. Grandfather said that it was very selfish of me, because without an emetic Brownie could be very sick. He said that he would give it to him downstairs in the laundry and I wouldn’t have to see it. So he did, and I didn’t and Brownie is all right again.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
This is Grandmother’s birthday. She didn’t have a real party but everyone came to see her. She loves flowers very much, so that is what everyone brought her. The whole house is full of beautiful ones, but there are so many and the trouble is that they don’t look so beautiful anymore, they look crowded. It would be nice to take one flower, and put it in a little vase and just look at it all by itself. Aunt Tillie knows how to arrange flowers, just like they do downtown in the big department stores, but my Grandmother’s arrangements always look like the flowers are wearing corsets. I love to help arrange flowers but everyone says I make too much of a mess.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
This afternoon, Tante Hermine came over to have coffee with Grandmother and once we were alone, I asked her about Uncle Samuel’s lady friend, and explained that someone had spilled ink on her face and I thought it was done on purpose. She said that accidents do happen but that she didn’t know who the lady was. I didn’t believe her so I asked Grandfather. He said that he didn’t really want to talk about it, but that she was a nice friend of Uncle Samuel’s, and that to talk of Uncle Samuel makes both he and Grandmother sad. I only know that this uncle died when he was just twenty-one years old and I don’t know why. I don’t understand why nice people should die when they are young, and I feel sad too, because I know it would have been nice to know my mother, and Uncle Samuel too.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
In Sunday school today, I asked permission to stand up and talk. I told everyone about the spot on my favorite dress and how God didn’t take it out, and why didn’t he? Miss Coleman, our teacher, said we must never ask God for such things, it is wicked. She said that we must ask for only important things, like watching over everyone in our family and keeping all of them well and helping to forgive our enemies. She said that God had more important things to do than take the spots out of our clothes.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
It rained today so I couldn’t go out and Grandmother let me look at the family pictures. We have a big basket of them in the hall closet. I like my own the best. There is one with my nurse when I’m only a few weeks old. She is holding me in her arms and in back of us is a whole, full clothesline of my diapers. Then there is one of me when I was three years old dressed in a beautiful coat and bonnet that my father brought to me from Paris. There is a beautiful one of Aunt Tillie in a big hat with a swan on top of it. The swan is sitting on a nest of roses. Aunt Tillie is holding a parasol and a pair of gloves. There are thousands of pictures of grandmother, one in the backyard shelling peas, one on the front steps, one just sitting in the park, one holding me on a donkey and one on the Seal Rocks. I don’t think they are the real Seal Rocks because the real ones are quite far out in the ocean and grandmother can’t swim. Besides, you can see that her clothes are dry. There are two funny pictures of my father and mother posing in bathing suits. My father’s bathing suit looks just like Grandfather’s long winter underwear. My mother’s suit isn’t pretty either. The picture I wanted to look at longer, only Grandmother pulled it away from me, was one of my dead Uncle Samuel. I barely remember him. Samuel is sitting in the front seat of a buggy. There is a lady sitting next to him, but all you can see is her waist and skirt. Someone spilled ink on her face. I asked Grandmother who the lady was, and she became angry and said that I I ever asked her that again, she would send me to bed without supper.
Recently I was given a box of Hilda’s photos. Unfortunately, it did not include most of the photos Hilda mentions, but there is a photo postcard of a couple in bathing suits. I assume this is her parents:
Below is a photo probably similar to the one she mentions of Seal Rocks. This photo of Hilda and an unknown woman (Tillie? Alma?) on first glance looks like it was taken in front of the Cliff House, Ocean Beach and Seal Rocks, but upon closer inspection, it appears to be a painting. The photo would have been taken before September 1907 when this version of Cliff House was destroyed by fire.
Below is a recent photo of Seal Rocks:
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Tante Esther for lunch. Uncle Felix for dinner. Earthquake afterwards.
(It must have been a small earthquake as I could find nothing about it in the newspaper or on lists of notable quakes.)
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I couldn’t sleep all night because I couldn’t stop thinking of the little sparrow. I do wish that Tante Esther or Uncle Felix had died instead. I am sure the little sparrow was never mean to anyone. He never made anyone sit straight on the edge of a chair or eat dirty peppermints.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Today, when I was out with Alma, I saw a little dead sparrow on the sidewalk. I picked it up and carried it till we passed a house that had a lawn in front of it and then I laid it on the grass, so no one would step on it. I said, “Oh! Why couldn’t it have been Tante Esther or Uncle Felix instead of this sweet little sparrow.” Alma was so upset with me and said that it was wicked of me to wish such an awful thing.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
I showed Aunt Tillie the spot and she took it out with something she keeps in a bottle on the back porch. It came out in just a minute so it wouldn’t have taken too much of God’s time.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Last night, I wanted to see if God could really do anything that he wanted to do. It is because while I was writing in this book yesterday I got an ink spot on my new dress. The yellow and blue gingham one, my very favorite. So I hid the dress under the other dresses in my drawer and then I went into the dark closet and got down on my knees. I closed my eyes and prayed very hard and very politely I said, “Dear God, please take the spot out of my dress and please take it out before anyone sees it. If you help me this once, I will be good all the rest of my life and I do, really do, believe in you.” I said that about a billion times and God must have heard me. Then I went to bed. I woke up early and crept out of bed before Alma was up. I went straight to the dresser drawer and pulled out my dress. The spot was exactly where it was yesterday, right in the middle of the skirt. Now I don’t know whether God really wanted to get the spot out and he couldn’t, or if he just didn’t want to bother.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Grandmother told me this morning that I would have to start piano lessons again and I hate them. I hate my teacher but I have to have her, because her mother is in an insane asylum.
Although she says she hated piano lessons, in earlier diary entries, it is clear that Hilda loved music. In fact, she became quite an accomplished musician, as can be seen in this newspaper article from the San Francisco Chronicle from February 25, 1925 when Hilda was was 21 years old.
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Ever since I had that earache, I have to go to bed early. No matter what I am doing, someone always finds me and makes me stop. So last night they did too. Anyhow, there isn’t much more to tell about the Donners, but I better finish….
When they had nothing else to eat, they killed their poor horses and then their poor oxen. It was a very sad and cruel thing to do after the horses and oxen worked so hard for them. Then they saw that there was nothing, nothing, nothing left, and that there wouldn’t be anything until Spring, and that was a very long time away, and then someone said, “Well, we will have to eat one of ourselves.” No one wanted to of course, but the person who said it explained carefully that it would be better for only one or two of them to die, rather than all of them. In that way, someone would get to California. The trouble was that they couldn’t decide which one of them to eat first. Then they decided to draw lots. They put a lot of pieces of paper into a hat and each would take a piece of paper out, and the one who drew the piece of paper with a cross on it was the one to be eaten. Only the children were excused. I guess that was because they were small and there wasn’t so much to eat on them. The person who got the cross was a nice, kind Irish man that no one wanted to eat but he made them kill him, and I think they did eat him.
I don’t know exactly how the story ended, I think everyone died anyhow, but I’m not sure. Grandfather said that the story should teach me not to be a pig because if Mr. Donner hadn’t been in such a rush to get to California before all the other people, and had stayed in line with the rest of the wagons, they wouldn’t have been lost and all would have survived.
There are many places to read about the issue of cannibalism and how the story ended, including Wikipedia and a site called “Legends of America.”
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
That horrible record yesterday reminded me of the Indians and the Donner party, so I want to finish the story. I will do that now….
They traveled and traveled and traveled and pretty soon it was winter, and there was a terrible blizzard. They were in the Sierra Nevada Mountains very close to Truckee, but they didn’t know it, because in those days it wasn’t Truckee, it was just snow. Now, because it took them so much longer than they thought it would, they ran out of food and there wasn’t a single place to buy and and they couldn’t find any wild animals to hunt in the snow and they didn’t even have any bullets in their guns even if they did find any. They were shooting buffaloes before and now all they had were the hides and maybe the fur, but I am not sure about that.
I wonder if the buffalo taste like they look. I like them, but they are really ugly, even the babies. I have seen them in Golden Gate Park, they are so shaggy and huge. They are not my favorite animals, they actually could be my least favorite.
Like Hilda, I liked to visit the buffalo in Golden Gate Park. I lived near them so often walked or drove past. Although it was known as the Buffalo Paddock, the animals were bison. According to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, “‘true’ buffalo (Cape buffalo and water buffalo) are native to Africa and Asia. Bison are found in North America and Europe.”
Despite innumerable changes over the past 100+ years, if you were to visit today, you would be able to see at least this small part of the world through Hilda’s eyes.
Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory / wnp27.1840
Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory / wnp37.02719
From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Today, Grandmother took me to call on some people who have a phonograph. They have a nice cat and I got to play with her, I think it’s a her. The record they played is called “The Battle of Santiago.” It was a real battle and we could hear the drums and bugles and the wounded horses and the wounded soldiers and I began to scream the way I always do when I am scared, so they stopped the record and played another, and I stopped screaming. The other record was “Ave Maria” on the violin. What a difference a record can make. I can’t understand anyone wanting to listen to a battle like that, or any other battle.
Perhaps the links above to recordings from the Library of Congress are the very records Hilda listened to.