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 Locust Station in the early 20th century. |
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For a complete index of articles about the History of Homestead Valley, click here.  Helen's Oral History
"My father had a client in the San Quentin Prison. Well, it took all morning to get there and all afternoon to get home. So the servants would get everything ready in the surrey. My sister would get her pony all harnessed. My mother would scout around and fuss and what-have-you to get blankets and all the comforts. And then the luncheon was brought out to us: beautiful, gorgeous fried chicken; and olive and hard-boiled egg and sardine sandwiches, which I still adore. And when we got about halfway there in the surrey, my father would say, 'Now it's time to stop and have our picnic.' And so my mother would spread out the blanket. And we would all sit down and have these wonderful things to eat. And then we could play around in the trees for a little while, until my mother and father felt it was time to leave. And everybody was told to do pee-pee behind the bushes, and be sure to get a drink of water. And my sister got back on her pony, horseback. And we all got in the surrey, and we started off for San Quentin Prison.Chapter 6 A Trip to San Quentin Prison Published December, 2010 "My father's client was an old, old man, who had killed someone, I can't remember why. But he had loads of money and my father had to take care of his estate. So he had to go there at least once every two months and sometimes once a month, so this was a terribly exciting thing. When we got back on the road—this was the time when horseless carriages, in other words, the automobile, was just coming into its own. And over the really winding roads in those days (and very narrow at that, and all dirty as I told you, with no macadam) we would start. And my big sister would run ahead in her pony. And she would hear the putt-putt of a car, way far away, and she'd come dashing back, laughing with joy, and she'd say, 'An automobile is coming, Papa.' "Well, my father would get red in the face, and he would rein in the horses, against the bank. And my mother would hold tight to the baby. And I would hold tight to her. And my mother would start to say, 'Oh, Alec, be careful!' And my father would get red and mad. And he'd say, 'Oh, Carrie, keep still! We'll be all right.' And when the automobile got near us, he would shout, and he would scream at them, 'How can you have such a dreadful thing with that awful odor? You just be careful! Don't you get us off the road!' "And sometimes the horses would raise their whole bodies into the air. And they would whinny. And they would act up so badly that once in a while, one of the horses would get its foot on the shaft! And my father would get out. And he'd be swearing at the top of his lungs, and trying to get that horse off the shaft. Sometimes he had to take all the harness off. And he was yelling and screaming with fury at the modern age. And my mother was saying, 'Alec, don't let the children hear you speak like that!' And so we would go." Helen's Oral History
"Well, I think I'll start with my poor Uncle Hobart. He was my father's brother. He was younger than my father. He was very, very bright. My father put him through law school as soon as he graduated. [Both attended Hastings College of Law which was attached to the University of California.] He came to the city, lived with my mother and father, went into the same office as my father, when he went in with Mr. Cooper in the Crocker building. He ran all my father's errands. And I'm pretty sure that's why my father could accomplish so much, as he did, before he died. Because Uncle Hobe couldn't bear to go to court. He didn't get along with clients. And so he simply did my father's work. My mother put up with him. That's about all you could say for her. She wouldn't be unkind, and she did personal things for him. But she never could really enjoy him.Chapter 5 Uncle Hobart Published November, 2010 "Now Uncle Hobe was as good around the garden and the house and running errands for my mother as he was for my father. I'm sure my father loved him very deeply. And he worshiped my father. So they got along well. He loved bees, and he had a beehive. And he had a terrible temper. And when he'd go out to take care of the bees, if one got underneath the crazy things that they have to wear, you heard him screaming with terrible swear words, all the way home. He got bitten by my sister's pony, whose name was Chipmunk. And he beat the pony up, with his face running blood. My mother rushed out and said, 'Hobart, Hobart, what has happened?' She did him up and he wouldn't go to the doctor. All kinds of things like that happened. "He used to stop at The Brown Jug [now the 2 AM Club], which was kind of a little bar, on the way home. They called it a saloon in those days. And while my father was a teetotaler, my uncle used to have a little drink. And he'd come home a little bit tipsy, and my mother was very ashamed of that. One night, he came home so tipsy, that when he saw a skunk at the back door, he thought it was the cat. And he picked it up. And of course, it let fly all over him and the back door. He had to have his clothes buried. You could hear him screaming with fury for miles away. "Well that was one of the things that went on in this little place in Mill Valley that, you know, just was too much. It was so different from other people. And my mother, you know, just suffering the whole scene in her little, silent way. Don't think that she didn't get her way though. In her little, feminine way, she got those men to wait on her hand and foot. She got the servants to help her. She really knew her way around. It was just that she was so passive in her behavior and her style." Helen's Oral History
"Do you know that the Emporium, even in those days, used to deliver? Right to your door in Mill Valley? And we were out of the way too! My mother would go to the city, once a week, and she would buy countless things there. I think they were even groceries. I don't remember. But then the delivery hack would come in. Chapter 4 A Trip to the City Published October, 2010  And, oh, that was a great day, too. When all the things she'd bought were taken out and looked at."My mother was good about taking us to the city, occasionally. She would say, 'We'll go over to see my mother, your grandmother, and aunts.' And she would get us all dressed up. And of course, the man would take us down in the surrey to the train. And then we stood on the platform, so excitedly. And then we got into the train, and got off at the ferryboat landing, and got on the ferryboat. And you can't imagine what fun that was! All the seagulls, flying around outside! And we had peanuts to feed them. And we rushed up the stairs, ahead of my mother, to run around inside the ferryboat. There weren't too many people there, and there was a place to get ice cream. And you could even have your luncheon there if you wanted to! But my mother was very, very strict about such things. "Then we got off in San Francisco, she would walk two blocks, up to California Street. And guess what was there? A darling little streetcar looking just like the cable cars. But it was drawn by horses! And I think it only went up to Chinatown, if I remember correctly. And my mother wouldn't let us get out, because of course right there were the heathen Chinese. And they would kidnap us, and take us off into boats, and do countless other terrible things that she thought were their habit.. "Well then we would take the little horse-drawn streetcar back down to the ferry. And then look for the No. 6 car, which wound its way all through, and up, and up, and up, until it got to Willard Street, right near the U.C. hospital, which was called then 'The Affiliated Colleges.' And one was the dental, and one was the medical college, and in the center was a museum, and Phoebe Hearst owned it. And let Ishi, the last wild American Indian, that had lived in the wilds for years, live there. And she would give lectures, until he got TB, poor thing. And [much later] we would go down and listen to those lectures. "Well! Anyway, what I started to say was, we'd get off the No. 6 little car, and we would have that great, big Willard St. hill to walk up. Or else you could choose to walk up 135 steps, to get to that darling, darling two-block street, called Edgewood Avenue, where my grandmother and aunts lived, in a beautiful, beautiful home." Helen's Oral History
"My father was home very little of the time during the weekdays, but he always came home for the weekend. Now I can hardly remember my father, because he died on October 12, 1911 when I was not quite seven. And until he died, I, as I say, hardly ever saw him except on the weekend. And then he was involved deeply with the Portuguese workers and the dams and people coming and going. The most I remember of pride in him, was that on Saturday nights he'd come home with a wallet that had little pockets in it. And he'd pull that out, and in every little pocket there was a five dollar gold piece. And he lined up the men who were working for him. They were very small, I remember. And they all took their caps off and said, 'Good evening, Mr. Eells.' And he said, 'This is your wage' and handed them all a five dollar gold piece. I guess it was for the whole week's work; I don't know. And I'd stand by his knee and think, 'What a great man!'Chapter 3 A Gentleman's Farm Published September, 2010 "But now I should tell you some of the lovely things that happened in Mill Valley. My father was a great walker. And he put a boardwalk all the way from our place, which was a mile-and-a-half, down to The Brown Jug [now the 2 AM Club] on Miller where the trains stopped. And he walked down there every day, unless he was late, and then the hired man would hitch up the surrey and take him. And he was met at the station when he came home on Friday nights, because he was tired. You know he really was a great person, and was a very great influence in every kind of situation he ever involved himself. "Well, the place grew, and it looked like a little gentleman's farm. We had a cow. And the lake grew big. And he put a little summer house over on the other side, because our side, where the house had to be built, was very dark. In fact, from November to February, that house didn't have one drop of sun on it all winter. So my mother would traipse over there, across the bridge, and go to the little summer house with her sewing, and her little things that she wanted to do — write letters, or whatever. And she would take us. And we'd play on the bridge, and around her. "Well, the lovely part of living on a place like that for a little child, is the solitude and the communing with nature. I would go down to the streambed, and I'd make little boats out of wood. And I'd play for hours and hours, until my mother rang a big cowbell. And that meant we had to come in. And I would have had this wonderful two or three hours, all by myself, while my baby sister was taking a nap. Or I'd walk over the place, all around. It never entered my head to be afraid. Grey squirrels were prevalent in those days. And they'd jump from tree to tree, chattering and screaming at you. The birds were singing. The animals were all down in the barn, doing their thing. You know, that's the kind of life that a child should lead: wonderful, wonderful hours of fun, together with your sister." Helen's Oral History
"My mother was the craziest woman about comfort. And she was pregnant on top of that. And she was supposed to just be quiet and taken care of, the way she was when I was coming. But she had to put up with it. And the tales that my father told, and my grandmother and aunts, about this terrible little shack, and how they'd pitched tents outside for us to sleep in and, thank goodness, it wasn't the winter, although it hadn't become summer yet, either. And Mill Valley is cold in the spring.Chapter 2 The Family Settles In Published August, 2010 "Well, they got all kinds of coal-oil lamps and coal-oil stoves and a wood & coal stove quickly in. And then my father went to Mill Valley, and he himself chose beautiful redwood panels, that he meant to put in the living room of a house he had to build around us. So, that house, while it was very handsome as far as the living room and dining room are concerned, because he had had red rock rolled down from the sides and built a great big beautiful chimney, and fireplace with a hook in it with a big black pot hanging over it. As I say, it was a very charming living room and dining room. But the kitchen had to be built around that little shack. And then they began putting bedrooms on, which didn't seem to attach themselves in very architecturally beautiful ways. "So, the house was always a rambling, funny place. But it was built in no time flat, because there were many, many Portuguese living around, who had come from the Azores. And my father hired dozens of them, both to make this house a really pleasant place, and a possible place, I should say, and start landscaping the flat part of the acreage, so that he could put in every kind of tree that ever man has known of, a barn and carriage house. We had chickens, ducks, turkeys, and two dappled gray, beautiful horses to pull the surrey, which had all this cute little fringe hanging down that you've seen in the pictures. And we had an old horse that was the work horse, to plow and so on. And she would pull a little butcher wagon sort of thing that my mother, once in a great while, if she couldn't get the hired man to take her in the surrey, would drive to Mill Valley to do a little shopping. "Then my father bought a Shetland pony for my big sister, and one of those darling basket carts he had sent over from England. The kind you come in at the back and sit on the sides, and the driver has to sit sideways, too. The place began to develop very well. And since there were two streams on it, my father put in dams and he had a lake that was beginning to form. And it was my job to go down to the lake and take care of the ducks, get them in every night so the skunks wouldn't bleed them. And we all grew along very well and had a very comfortable and pleasant life." Helen's Oral History
Helen Eells was born on October 23, 1904 in San Francisco. Earlier In 1904, her father, a successful attorney, had bought several acres of raw land In Homestead Valley. He then spent many weekends constructing buildings and planting crops with the help of his brother and local workers. In 1906 when their house was damaged by the earthquake, the family moved to this gentleman's farm.Chapter 1 Helen Arrives in Homestead Valley Published July, 2010 Between 1979 and 1987, she recorded more than thirty hours of cassette tapes with stories of the first 83 years of her life. Not much of her oral history has been transcribed, but I was fortunate to obtain the part that includes tales of her childhood in Homestead Valley. In 1986, her granddaughter, who undertook the job of transcribing Helen's oral history, asked her if she minded sharing these intimate family tales with others. Helen said: 'I want the world to know.' Excerpts from her oral history form the basis of this serial. "I was born on Haight Street, in the home that my father bought, after he was married and came up from Santa Barbara. It was a nice Victorian across the street from Buena Vista Park. When I was not quite 16 months old, the city was shocked by the earthquake that is so famous. So my father was shocked and frightened. Since my mother was having another baby he was able to get the Red Cross to bring a hack up to our house and move us to a little shack that he and his brother had built in Homestead Valley. "When the hack driver reached our home, he saw that my mother had packed many things. She had placed two baskets out near the door. He said, 'Mrs. Eells, you can't take both baskets.' My mother had the most insane desire to have blue dishes around her, and she was crazy over gloves. So she had put blue dishes and gloves in one basket, and all the things my sister and I needed (I was a baby and needed bottles and diapers) in the other basket that was near the door. So, when she had to choose…you know what she did! She chose the basket with the blue dishes and the gloves. And over she went to Mill Valley in a Red Cross hack with that kind of guilt on her mind. "Well! When they arrived, and my father found out what she had done, he just about blew the stack! He had a very violent temper. So he had to rush into Mill Valley to get baskets of bottles and diapers for me and clothes for my sister and food and what-have-you, so that we could exist overnight." Reflection - March, 2010  Chuck Oldenburg reflects on his life in Homestead Valley. Click on the image to see a larger version. My first monthly history article appeared in April, 2000. After ten years, and 120 articles, I guess I should explain how I got started. On Feb. 3, 1999, a professional historian gave an illustrated presentation at the Mill Valley Historical Society's First Wednesday Program entitled, "The Mountain's Southern Shore: History of Tamalpais Valley." A few months later, Don Seitas, the impresario of the First Wednesday Program, asked me to make a presentation on Homestead's history. This required reflection. In 1963, Christina and I purchased the historic Stolte house from Kurt and Jo Schlesinger. Jo, who was president of the Homestead Valley Improvement Club, made it clear that the Schlesingers would sell us the house only if we agreed to be active in the community. A few months after moving in I was asked to report to Brown's Hall and set up tables and chairs for the Candlelight Concert. Thus began 47 years of community service. Christina and I became board members of the Homestead Valley Community Association, the Homestead Valley Land Trust and County Services Area #14. We also served on various committees and continue to work on special projects. After reflection, I responded to Don, "Why not?" After all, Christina and I were part of Homestead's history. I prepared for the talk by spending a great deal of time doing research in the History Room of the Mill Valley Public Library. I put together a presentation with several photos and maps. It was suggested that I write a book on the subject. Sounded like too much work — writing a monthly article for the Homestead Headlines turned out to be fun. Veale House - February, 2010    From left, Veale House around 1910, in the 1920s, and around 1940. Click on each image to see a larger version. Hawthorne Ave., a one-block long street with 10 houses, had no name in 1903 when Homestead Valley was subdivided. In 1904, John C. Bone bought the block of land on the west side of the street from Evergreen to LaVerne. In 1905, he constructed a house on the Evergreen end. He later subdivided the rest of the property into four lots. By 1913, all five lots had houses. By 1916, the street had acquired the name Hawthorne Ave. The lot on the LaVerne end was purchased by William Veale. In 1909 he built a small house close to the north property line on the flat part of the lot. The photo on the left was taken in about 1910. Note Mt. Tam in the distance and the water tank on the hill that is today circumscribed by Sunrise, Molino and Janes Avenues. The white house on the right was built in 1906. It has a privy behind it. The 1910 census lists William Veale, age 39, a stationary engineer, his wife Mamie, 31, and four children: Mervyn, 9, Helen, 8, Rachel, 3, and Margaret, 3 months. Both Mervyn and Helen entered Homestead School on August 1, 1910 having transferred from another school. The photo in the middle was taken from LaVerne in the 1920s. Note the brown house between the Veale house and the white house. It was built in 1913. In the early 1930s, the Veale house was moved closer to LaVerne and a larger house was built around it. The photo on the right was taken from LaVerne in about 1940. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Mervyn's sons, Leonard and Wally Veale, spent summers at their grandparents house. Homestead Valley was much cooler than where they lived in eastern Contra Costa County. Homestead School - a Chaotic Start - January, 2010  Homestead School in 1908. Click on the image to see a larger version. In 1905, the Tamalpais Land & Water Company donated a half-acre parcel on the corner of Janes and Montford as the site of the first school in Homestead Valley. In 1907, the new building was described as, "a well built frame structure containing two large, well ventilated class rooms, ante rooms, and a big basement." William Mahoney was the architect. There was only one other school in the Mill Valley School District. Homestead School opened on January 13, 1908, with 50 first and second graders who had been attending the school on Summit Ave. Only 19 pupils lived in Homestead Valley; the rest came from Mill Valley, Millwood and Alto. Enrollment averaged 46 for the semester, 28 boys and 18 girls aged 6 to 14. They were categorized into five groups independent of age. The teacher was Coral Coats. She earned $50/month, and is to be commended for her efforts during Homestead School's first semester. School ended on June 14, 1908. The second class began on August 3, 1908 with 78 first and second graders, 46 boys and 32 girls. Only 36 lived in Homestead Valley. They were categorized into seven groups. Coral Coats' salary had been increased to $75/month. School hours were 9 am to 2 pm, with a 20-minute recess in the morning. Lunch was noon to 1 pm. The daily program started out with opening exercises and music for 20 minutes, followed by phonics, number work, marching, reading, spelling, writing and drawing. In April, 1909, 25 pupils transferred to a new school in Tamalpais Park, surely a welcomed change. School ended on June 9, 1909. The third class began on August 2, 1909 with 29 first and second graders, 18 boys and 11 girls categorized in 4 groups. All lived in Homestead Valley except for two who lived one block from the border. Miss Kelly was the teacher. School ended on June 3, 1910. At last, a more normal school year. Back to index The History of Sunnyside Tract The History of Early Mill Valley The History of Homestead Valley, 2012 Articles The History of Homestead Valley, 2011 Articles The History of Homestead Valley, 2009 Articles The History of Homestead Valley, 2008 Articles The History of Homestead Valley, 2007 Articles The History of Homestead Valley, 2006 Articles The History of Homestead Valley, 2005 Articles The History of Homestead Valley, 2004 Articles The History of Homestead Valley, 2003 Articles The History of Homestead Valley, 2002 Articles The History of Homestead Valley, 2000-2001 Articles |