Charles C. Crawford •

,. • Oral H1storv Comm1ttee Mill Valley Public L1brary I•IJ.ll V.:d lev Hi!;;torlc:al Soc:ie1:y Mill Valley. Cal1fornia CHARLES C. CRAWFORD An Interv1ew Conducted By T i m Amyl: -c 1995 by the M1ll Vallev Publ1c Library • 1 .- .. INDEX FOR CHUCK CRAWFORD ORAL lllSTORY Page Alexander, Bob 8 Allison, Harold 5 Benefield, Glidden 5 ' . Birth 1 Brown's Furniture Store 12 Canteen, The 8, 9 Chourre, Jules 6 Esposti's 8, 9 Ethel Ave. #33 2 Father 3 Field & Track 6, 7 George, John 5, 6 Goheen Tract 10 Golden Gate Bridge 2,3 Gomez Lane 8 Gustafson, George 5 Hambys (restaurant) 11 Highway 101 10 Huber (grandfather) 2 \ Luisa (grandmother) k~.~-9fAt:<- 611 ~ f)!lS~ber, 1 o. r 1 MID Valley Parks &Recreation Dept. 13 Momingsun Ave. #15 7 Mother 4 O'Neill, Mike 4 Prather, Bob 5 Purity Store 11 Richardson Bay Bridge 9 Roth, Ullian 6 School buses 6, 7 Sycamore Ave. #156 1 Tamalpais High School 1, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12 Teen hangouts 8 Varney Brothers 3 Varney's Hardware 3, 12 Wasserman, Lou 5 Wood, Ernest E. 5, 6, 12 - World Warn 4, 5, 7 . " lhe date todav 1s. as you can see on the monitor, you can't see 1t l'lr. Cra~Jford. but it's on the sc,~een, 1t 1s Apr1l 2, 1993. We are s1tting at ••• What's the address here? LCG: [: We're at 15 Morningsun 1n Mtll Valley and I'm Tim Amvx and I ' m qoing to 1ntroduce Mr. Charles Crawford. We will have some questions so you can see and hear who he was and what his r elat1onsh1p to Mill Valley has been. So, we are rolling here. I have a few questions which I talked to you about before and those w1ll be the primary ones that we wtll try to get started ~1th. F1rst of all. go ahead and let us know exactly what your +ull name 1s and when you were born. CCG: Well , 1t"s Charles C. Crawford, I go by Chuck. and I was born June the si x teenth. 1928. at the Presidio 1n San Franc1sco. I: You grew up in San Franc1sco until you were about how old? 12? CCG: L~ actually. Then my parents decided to move to M1ll Valley so they bought a little house down on Sycamore Avenue 1n February of 1942 and I started at Tam High as a High Freshman at that p o 1 n t . I \·J as 13 • I: When you were growing up in the city, I guess those would be the depression years. CCG: E;:actly , y·es. 1: l•Jhat l·Jere yoUJ·- impressions, youc~ vie~<~~s, of lvlill Valley and 1-l.:u-in County ? Did it seem like the other side of the l·Jorld, was 1t the country, or wa s it something you didn't even think about? CCG: It was the country . It was much more rural. I was kind of raise d out in the outer Mission which was kind of a hectic place, busy . blue collar, streetcars and Jitneys, lots of action. Mill Vall ~ v wa~ a s leep y place c ompared to that. I think there was somewhen;: bet~.<Jeeen -Five and si ;: thousand people as I t~ecall 1 n Mill Valley at that point, within the city limits, and it was rather delightful. I: Growing up, I gues s y ou were 13. so 1t might be hard to vi s ualize what a 7 ,8,9, or 10 yea r old boy would th1nk, but did vou ever come here w1th the family or by yourself for any act1vit1es •.. h1king, bile r1d1ng, .•• CCG : My g randmother l1ved 1n M1ll Valley pract1cally from the t 1me I wa s born. We used to come over a lot on the ferry and~ to Saus alito, and then we"d ta~e the train into Mill Valley and we~d spend, a lot of times on Sunday we "d come and have a family get t oge ther. My mother ' s brother would come also. Those were good t1 mes. I knew M1ll Valley really when I was qu1te young. 1 • 1: Who was vou~ mothe~? What name did she go by and how long was she in M1ll Valley? CCG: My mother or mv grandmother? I: Was thts your mother or your grandmother? CCG: That was my grandmother who lived at 33 Ethel Street. My grandfather was the manager of a hotel in San Francisco and it was necessary for him to live at the hotel. It was not one of the plush ones, it was south of Market, and so he stayed there durtng the week and then he would come home to Mill Valley on the week-ends. So my grandmother lived there full time and we would come on the week-ends~ also. Not every week-end but lots of them and I recall because she lived on Ethel~ it was right near the begtnning of Throckmorton, and the people would get off the trajns and start htktng up Throckmorton toward the Dtpsea Trail and some of the other trails 1n ~heir Lederhosen and their outfits. 1: What was her name? CCG: Her name was Huber. Lutsa Huber. A very great old German lady. I: That would be on your mother ' s stde? CCG: l'lv mothet~' s mothet~. I: Did your mother grow up tn Mtll Valley as well then? CCG: No~ she was ratsed in New York and came to California, I'm not sure what year. She was probably in her teens when she came out here. I: Well. besides visiting your grandmother when you came to Mill Valley, what other activities do you recall? What did you do on the week-end when you came over on the tra1n? CCG: l•lell, thet~e ~·Jas a large creel':. there 1 s a l at~ge creek that r uns rtght behtnd those houses on Ethel Avenue~ and so I spent many hours down there play1ng in the creek~ that was part of it. Down around the corner, when they let me wander~ sometimes when I got a l1ttle bit older, there was a bicycle rental operation which is now one of the savings and loans, r1ght across from La Ginestra, so I was"able to go down and rent a bike as I got up - there 10. 11. and 12 years old. f: Do you have any specific memories or recollections of when the bridge was being built? CCG: Not r e ally. I recall my par ents talked about 1t and I remember driving across it the ftrst time because that was a big deal. I assume that was sometime in 1937 or whenever it opened. 2 • I: Dtd you go to the open1ng day? CCb: No. they may have~ but I don~t recall it. I kind of doubt ·tha·t thev d1 d. I : Dtd 1t seem when it was be1ng built or shortly after did you e v er 1mag1ne it would become the bridge that people all over the world would identify San Francisco with? CCG: I ~·Jas too young to be tfn nk i ng 1 n those terms at that time. And I loved the ferryboat ride so. in a way I imagine I kind of missed the old tc~lp that \I'Jas ·fun, ancl the fen~ies ~·Jel~e a lot of f LUl. I : When your family moved to Mill Valley, that would be 1941 did y r.lu say? CCG: 1942. I: .Just after the war st3rted. There must have been a lot of :rtc·t 1 v1 t y on the far West Coast at that time. CCG: Yes, Marinsh1p was just starting and some people ..• I: D1d that play 1n the decision to move for any reason? CCG: No~, actually t·Jhere ~-liE lived ].n the outer t'lission l·Jas quite a long drive. My dad worked at the Presidio, which is why I was born there, and so he had to drive clear across San Francisco to go to l'IJOd::. Then ~-Je had developed kind of a love o·f f'lill Valley because of the connection with my grandmother. It was obvious once the bridge was built that my dad could get to work just as fast buzzing across the bridge to the Presidio as he could driving across town and so ... I: It t·Jas the b1~ i dge as much as .:tny·thi ng. CCG: Yes, and then, they always said getting me out of the city~ but I don't know. maybe there was a little bit of that which at the timG wasn't very popular with me. I remember crying. I didn't want to leave my friends. Here I was firmly entrenched and just starting Balboa High School and thought this rural hick s:chool in t•lill Valley ~·Jas, didn't havl? much to o-f-fer~ but it didn't tal~e me 1 ong to cha.ntJe my mind. 1" Where did your family move to? Did they move into a new house? C:CG: No. they boLtght the house at 156 Sycamore from the Val-ney brothers who ran the hardware store up town. That was 1nteresting because about two years later I went to work for the Varney brothers and spent about a year delivering ice and coal and going out with Tony Varney~ one of the brothers~ doing plumbing work and things like that.

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