September 11, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

We are back in San Francisco. I forgot to say that we had to take another Ferry to get to Ross and it was fun coming back because I saw the Golden Gate and the city looked so important from the boat. We came back because tomorrow is Grandfather’s birthday, and I like celebrating it better than California’s. There is going to be a party at our house. A telegram came from my father. I don’t understand telegrams. I keep looking up at the telegraph poles, but I never see anything like telegrams flying across the wires. I made Grandfather a pen wiper nearly like the one I made for my father, but it’s dark blue and green to match his house jacket.

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Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory

Hilda took the ferry long before the Golden Gate Bridge or Bay Bridges were built. Click here for photos by Ansel Adams of before and after the Golden Gate Bridge was built.

September 10, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

This morning Mr. Atkins came over in his automobile. It is the only one in Ross, and he is awfully proud of it. He asked Aunt Hermine if she and the child, that’s me, would like to go for a little ride. Aunt Hermine said, “Yes, with the greatest pleasure.” That’s what grown-ups always say when you invite them someplace, even if they don’t want to go. So she went into the house and came out all wrapped up in a warm coat, even though it was a hot day, and she tied a veil around her hat, and then she bundled me up just like she did herself, and off we went. It was very nice, but I prefer to get around Ross with the little surrey that has fringe all around it and the little brown horse that pulls it. It doesn’t go so fast, but you have more time to look around and smell the good smells of the country and dream about them.

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Ross is a few miles north of Mill Valley. This is similar to what Hilda would have seen on her ride:

Photo courtesy of OpenSFHistory

September 9, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

This is California’s birthday but we are not having a special birthday, just chicken fricassee as we always have on Sundays anyhow. California is 62 years old.

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When I was growing up, California Admission Day was a school holiday in San Francisco. It was difficult to get into the daily routine of school because within days of the beginning of the academic year, we had two holidays — Labor Day and Admission Day.

September 8, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

When I came to breakfast this morning I kissed Tante Esther first. I don’t know why I did that either, because I don’t love her anymore than I did yesterday, and I still won’t miss her if she dies.

September 7, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Something so awful happened last night. It was my fault and it wasn’t my fault. I did it on purpose but I didn’t do it on purpose. I don’t know how it happened. I was watering the garden and Tante Esther was standing only a little bit away by the porch, and all of a sudden I turned the hose on her. Something inside me made me. She is hardly ever by herself but this time she was. She screamed and tried to run away, but I kept pouring the water on her and she couldn’t see where to go. Everyone came running. Alma ran the fastest. She grabbed me and shook me and threw me into my room. Then she left me there and locked the door. I was so scared. I began to think of what would happen to me if Tante Esther died. Of course I wouldn’t miss her, but everyone would know I killed her. I’d be so ashamed to go to school or any place. I could hear everyone going to dinner but no one called me, and I was so hungry. After a million hours, Aunt Delphine came in and asked me if I was ready to go in and apologize to Tante Esther. I said, “Yes, I guess so.” I was afraid if I said no, I would be sent home and then I couldn’t see my baby horse again. Tante Esther was sitting in a chair, and she had dry clothes on. She put out her hand and said, “Come here, child.” She always calls me child because Hilda was my mother’s name and when she says Hilda, and I’m there instead it makes her feel sad. She explained this to me once. So I went over and took her hand, even if I was afraid to, I just did it. She said, “Child, I know you didn’t mean to harm me. You wouldn’t have done such a wicked thing on purpose, would you? I think the hose just slipped.” I started to cry a little, but I said no, no, I didn’t do it on purpose, and that I was sorry, and she said that she knew it was that way. Then she kissed me and Aunt Delphine kissed me, and I was sent back to my room. Alma brought me a cup of hot milk and said that was all I could have because I was being punished. When I went to bed, I felt awful because I lied. At least, I think I lied. I think I really wanted to hurt her.

September 6, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

This morning I am visiting the Bauers again and Ernestine and I had a lovely time together. We climbed the hayloft and jumped from one stack of hay to the other. Then we went outside and made lots of mud pies and then we went to see the new foal. It is so darling and it is so smart. It can stand and walk already. It stands right under its mother and drinks milk from her. My cousin Helen Violet can’t even stand up and she is over six months old. Mr. Bauer said that I could name the foal, it’s a girl. It was really hard to decide, there are so many lovely names that I wish I could have just for myself, like Allegra or Mimi or Elaine. Elaine was a very beautiful lady with golden hair who floated down a river on a barge with a lily in her hand, only it is a sad story and she is holding the lily because she is dead. Then I thought of Belinda. Belinda is a yellow hen in one of my books. Of course a little hen doesn’t remind me of a horse, but it doesn’t make any difference, I like the name. I told Mr. Bauer that I want to call the foal Belinda and he said fine, we would have a christening. He told Ernestine to go back to the house to fetch a pitcher of milk and some cookies and Mrs. Bauer, too. When they arrived, he began the ceremony and dipped his fingers in a watering pot and sprinkled a few drops of water on the baby horse and he said, “I christen thee Belinda in the name of The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.” I know all about the Father and The Son but I don’t know about the Holy Ghost or what he has to do with it, I guess I will find out. Then we ate the cookies and drank the milk. I wanted to give Belinda a cookie, but Mr. Bauer said that she is too young yet.

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Hilda recalls the story of Elaine’s unrequited love for Lancelot. Perhaps she had read Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Lancelot and Elaine” from Idylls of the King, 1859-1885 or “The Lady Lady of Shallott,” 1832.

I could not find a reference to a children’s book about a yellow hen named Belinda -- perhaps Hilda was recalling Billina the chicken in the Oz books. She was introduced in Ozma of Oz in 1907. For me, it’s an odd coincidence that the hen’s name is so close to my grandmother’s birthplace in Bohemia – Bilin, called Bílina in Czech.

September 5, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

There is a new baby horse at the Bauers. When Mr. Bauer came with the milk this morning, I heard him tell Aunt Hermine that the mother had dropped it. I was so afraid that it was hurt. I asked him how a mother could be so careless as to drop her own baby, but he said that he didn’t mean that she really let it fall, that it is just an expression that we use for horses when their babies are born. They say the mare, that’s the mother, has dropped her foal. A foal is the baby, and it doesn’t mean that she dropped it on the floor.

September 4, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Today I had a really nice time. Mr. Bauer, he that is the man who brings the milk every day, took me to his house to play with his little girl. Her name is Ernestine, she is named after a beautiful singer, who is Ernestine Schumann-Heink. The Bauers are German and know many lovely German songs and they sing them at their table. The one I love most is called “Der Lindenbaum” and it is about a tree. I wish we could sing at our dinner table. Aunt Tillie says that it is impolite to sing at the table but I don’t think it is as impolite as yelling about presidents and other things the way Grandfather and his friends do. Mr. Bauer has lots of cows besides having his wife and Ernestine. Mrs. Bauer is big and soft and fat, and she always smells so clean and fresh, like bread that has just come out of the oven. I think it is just as nice as perfume but I suppose that when a lady goes to a ball, it is better for her to smell of perfume than bread. I love being with the Bauers.

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I love it when Hilda’s entries hark back to the experiences of my close relatives. I found a link to Ernestine Schumann-Heink singing “Der Erlkönig”, a song that my grandmother and uncle each wrote about in their World War II letters, reminding each of them of happy times when the family was together. In a story about her life in Bohemia in 1902, my grandmother wrote about the school choir singing several songs including Schubert’s Der Lindenbaum. 

September 1, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Alma and I are in Ross. We are at Aunt Hermine’s house. Aunt Hermine invited me because she thought it would be good for my tonsils, even if I haven’t them any more. This is because Ross is warmer than San Francisco.

Aunt Hermine is a sweet lady even if she is Tante Esther’s daughter, and everything here smells so lovely, like perfume and honey mixed. Tante Esther is also here but I don’t have to see her much. Her maid is always taking her on little walks or reading to her in her own room.

It is so warm and lazy and quiet here and there are so many lovely places to take walks. There is one road named Shady Lane with a gray stone church, just like the one in “Little Lord Fauntleroy.” All afternoon, I can lie in a hammock and read. Aunt Josie sent me a wonderful book while I was in the hospital. It is called “Girls Who Became Famous.” Florence Nightingale is in it, also a girl named Rosa Bonheur who was French and painted horses and cows and loved to travel around France from one country fair to another and a girl named Louisa May Alcott. She was an American and her father was a very famous teacher and she was terribly smart too and she wrote books. Her first book is called “Little Women.” And there was another girl called Margaret Fuller Ossoli and she wrote poems. She went to Italy and married Mr. Ossoli, only he wasn’t really her husband, she just said he was, and that is the only thing she did that wasn’t quite nice. They were both drowned on a ship that sank while they were returning to America. I think George Eliot did the same thing, not drown but say she was married when she wasn’t. 

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“Lives of Girls Who Became Famous” by Sarah Knowles Bolton was first published in 1886 and can be read online through Project Gutenberg.

Hilda is enjoying herself at Aunt Hermine’s and will return on September 4.

August 31, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I have decided. If I ever have a lover in the arena, and he has to choose between those two doors, I know that I would signal him to choose the one with the beautiful lady. When I told Grandfather that, he said, “Thank God! That’s settled.”

August 30, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I couldn’t sleep last night thinking about the doors. I think that I would choose the door with the beautiful lady because I should hate to see my lover torn to pieces in front of me but maybe it would be awful to see how happy he looked when he saw the other pretty lady. Grandfather says I have plenty of time to make up my mind.

August 29, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I stopped yesterday because I was tired. Now I can go on…

Her father explained to her that there were two doors opening into the arena. She knew that already as she had always gone to see the Christians being eaten, only it is very different when you go to see a Christian that you know. The he said, “Your lover can choose either door. Behind one will be a hungry tiger and behind the other will be a very beautiful lady. If he chooses the one with the beautiful lady, he will be married to her right away and get a beautiful house and garden for a wedding present. Of course, if he chooses the other with the tiger we know what will happen, he will be eaten.” Now, the princess had a big secret that no one knew, not even her father the king. She knew which door was which. Someone told her. So on that day, the page boys blew on their trumpets and the band played, and the poor lover was brought into the arena, and he looked at the princess just to make himself happy with seeing her beauty before he died, and she gave him a signal.

Then Alma stopped. She said that was the end of the story. That Mr. Stockton, the author, wanted everyone to make up their own ending, to end it any way he pleased. Alma asked me which door I would choose. I said I wasn’t sure. She said it was very naughty of me, that every nice young lady would choose the door with the beautiful lady so she would know that her lover would be happy and secure the rest of his life. I guess so, but it is interesting to suppose how she might feel not being able to have him no matter what.

August 28, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Last night I didn’t want to go to bed early so Alma said that if I would, she would tell me a wonderful story. The name of it is “The Lady and the Tiger” and it isn’t a story at all, it is a riddle. I shall write it in this book so when I am eighty years old I can read it to myself…

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess who was in love with a common man. He was a very good man, but he wasn’t rich, and so he couldn’t buy the princess any rings or bracelets or necklaces. Of course, the princess didn’t want all those things, but her mother and father wanted her to have them all. Mothers and fathers always want their children to have everything that they want for them. So the poor princess had to go on wanting the poor young man and when her mother and father kept on telling her how ugly he looked in his raggedy old clothes and pointed instead to other young men wearing purple velvet trimmed in ermine tails, she loved him even more. And when they said, wasn’t she ashamed of him walking around on his own feet instead of riding around on a beautiful white horse with golden tassels, she loved him still more. So one day her father the king got very impatient. He said, “Enough is enough! Tomorrow at two in the afternoon, your lover must go into the arena.” The arena was a big yard where wild animals were turned loose to eat the Christians. Whenever there was one to be eaten, there was then a big holiday in the town, and everybody got all dressed up in silver and gold and wore flowers and feathers and they came to the arena, and the band played music and the flags waved, and people went around selling lemonade and candy and all sorts of good things to eat, and everyone was merry, except the poor Christian who was going to be eaten, and maybe his wife. Well, the princess heard what her father was going to do, and she was quite worried, and couldn’t eat her dinner that night. So her father, who really loved her, said “Look, I don’t’ want to be too mean. I am going to give your lover a chance.”

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The actual title of the story is “The Lady, or the Tiger?,” a short story by Frank R. Stockton, published in 1882.

August 26, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

This is the first day of school but I can’t go back yet. Grandmother says not to mind, when I start again she will get Miss Jackson to come here every afternoon to help me so I won’t have to be frightened at the blackboard when I do my numbers. Miss Comagy went away today and I am all better, but I can’t go back to school for two weeks.

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Hilda does not write on August 27 and will return on August 28.

August 25, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Tante Esther came to see me and brought me a little squab, but when I found out what a squab was I couldn’t eat it. It’s a little pigeon just like the ones we feed in front of City Hall.

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Pulitzer Prize Award winning San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen would have been appalled by people feeding pigeons at City Hall. Hilda would not have agreed with his repeated complaints about the pigeon population here. She would have liked Julie Andrews’ rendition of “Feed the Birds” in the film “Mary Poppins” much more.

August 24, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Miss Comagy came home with me from the hospital. She and Alma like each other very much and they go to church together every morning. While they are gone, Brownie comes up and lies on my bed. Everyone has stopped sending presents. Grandfather says it shows that I am better, but it was a nice experience, and maybe one day I’ll have something else taken out of myself.

August 23, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I am home again. I had a lovely time in the hospital. I had a nice nurse called Miss Comagy. She was so very clever. She took a piece of paper and cut carefully like a pattern and when she was finished there was a whole line of children holding each other’s hands. She let me color them in with crayons and I turned them into boys and girls. Mrs. Adler, who owns the hospital, it really isn’t like a hospital more like a pretty house. Well! She made wonderful ice cream of different flavors that tasted so good, and I could eat as much as I wanted because it cooled my throat.

The operation wasn’t so bad. Dr. Otto stood right next to me and he was dressed in funny white clothes. I didn’t see Dr. Selton at all, but I didn’t want to because I hate him. They put me on a table and held something next to my face, and some very sweet nurse told me to think of sheep in a meadow, and to see if I could count to ten and imagine the ten sheep jumping over a fence. I can’t remember how many I counted. I guess I fell off to sleep, and when I woke up there were a lot of people standing around me telling me what a brave girl I was. After that, every day I got presents. Flowers, books, paper dolls. Only Dr. Otto forgot to send me a present, so I asked him why, and Grandmother said that I had no manners, but he laughed and said I was right to remind him that it was naughty of him to forget and he asked me what I wanted. I said, “A book,” and the next day he brought me a beautiful book called “Black Beauty.” I have not read it yet but I know that it is about a horse.

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It is amazing how similar some of Hilda’s childhood experiences were. Black Beauty was hugely popular when I was a child and is still published today, almost 150 years after it was first published in 1877. Making paper dolls never goes out of fashion.

August 16, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

I am in the hospital and tomorrow morning Dr. Selton is going to take my tonsils out. Dr. Otto came to see me a little while ago, and he told me that I am going to have a lovely time here and he would be right in the room with me while my tonsils are coming out. He said that Dr. Selton is a good kind man and he wouldn’t dream of hurting a little girl, and if I am brave and don’t yell he will give me a present when I am better. He will, not Dr. Selton.

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There are no more diary entries while Hilda recovers from her operation. We will hear from her again on August 23.

August 15, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

This afternoon Grandmother took me to see a doctor because she said I was getting too many colds. This is not my darling Dr. Otto, this is a man I just hate, and I don’t think that he is a real doctor either, he just takes out people’s tonsils. His name is Dr. Selton, and when he put a lot of mirrors down my throat, he told me to stop squirming like an eel. An eel is a fish that looks just like a snake.

August 14, 1912

From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:

Today Aunt Tillie bought me a pretty scrap book and a bottle of paste, and this afternoon I started to paste pictures in it. I have some very pretty ones that the nuns gave me and some beautiful ones sent to me from my Grandparents who live in Germany that have beautiful colors with gold and silver too. I have cut some of the pictures out of magazines and there are some of brides and bride’s maids and pigs and cows and horses and windmills. I put Jesus Christ in the middle of the first page with bride’s maids all around him, then I put cows and pigs in each corner. Aunt Tillie came in and was angry. She said I shouldn’t have put Jesus together with cows and pigs and that I hadn’t pasted the pictures straight. So she did the next page. Little children, walking in a straight row between rows of flowers and it was very pretty and neat, but it wasn’t any fun.