Berkeley Architectural Heritage Society Oral History Project ELLA

Berkeley Architectural Heritage Society Oral History Project

ELLA (BARROWS) HAGAR

'Mediterranean~Stvle'in'fheeBerkelev Hills

245 Stonewall Road Berkeley, California 94705

Architect: WILLIAEi IURSTER Completed in 1928 in

Holabird Garber Park and other subdivisions

JOHN GARBER ESTATE

Kellersberger's Plot No. 77

Interviewer

Rosemary Levenson 261 Stonewall Road Berkeley, CA 94705

Regional Oral History Office Berkeley Architectural The Bancroft Library Heritage Society University of California P.O. Box 7066 Berkeley, California 94720 Landscape Station Berkeley, California 94707

TABLE OF CONTENTS--Ella (Barrows) Hagar Mediterranean Style in the Berkeley Hills

FRONTISPIECE

INTERVIEW HISTORY i

AGENDA iii

SAMPLE CONTRACT iv

BERKELEY ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE ASSOCIATION QUESTIONNAIRE v

Choosing a Lot

Architects and Architectural Styles

Early Houses on Upper Stonewall Road

Berkeley Address and Oakland Taxes

The Garber Family

John Garber Park and the City of Berkeley Quarry

Cars and Steep Streets

The Stonewall Community

Annual Christmas Pageant

A Closed Right of Way and Old Fish Ranch Road

The John Roosevelts on Stonewall Road

Levensons Move Next Door

INDEX

INTERVIEW HISTORY

Ella Hagar's recollections of the development of the upper part of Stone- wall Road were recorded as a pilot oral history project for the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. The impetus was the interviewer's curiosity about the history of her own neighborhood. B.A.H.A.'s encouragement led to the completion of the project. We hope that others will also be encouraged to record the reminiscences of their knowledgeable neighbors and friends and thus preserve memories of the early history of Berkeley's buildings and neighborhoods that would otherwise be lost.

The project started with the discovery in my house of a crumpled ozalid copy of the 1927 tract map of "Holabird Garber Park and other Subdivisions". It was hard to read since the black tissue paper reproduction was reversed, and all three feet of it had to be taped to a window. A photographic positive reduction was made, which is easily legible, and is reproduced as frontispiece to this volume. Wanting to find out more, I asked Ella Hagar if I could interview her. Since newly-married Gerald and Ella Hagar were the first to build in the new subdivision in 1928, she was the obvious person to turn to as memoirist. '.. Having gone so far, primarily to inform myself and my children about the history of the neighborhood where they grew up, I consulted with my Department Head in the Regional Oral History Office, Willa Baum. Mrs. Baum felt that the completion of a small-scale oral history memoir might be of value to B.A.H.A. and other local history groups with limited funds and active volunteers. Mrs. Hagar generously donated the money needed for the production of six copies of the memoir. Interviewing, editing, and final typing were volunteered. Tran- scribing, volume assembly, and other secretarial chores were done in R.O.H.O.'s office.

Ella cheerfully agreed to fit yet another interview into her busy life. Several days before our date, an informal invitation-agenda letter and copy of the tract map were delivered. Both are included in this volume. Ella found these aids valuable in alerting her to the topics to be covered and in jogging her memory on proper names. Since Ella's memoirs have already been recorded and the volume is readily available to interested readers in The Bancroft Library, the standard biographical and demographic questions were not covered.* B.A.H.A.'s oral history questionnaire which includes such questions is included in this volume.

*Ella Barrows Hagar, Continuing Memoirs: Family, Community, University, an interview by Suzanne Riess, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1974, 272 pp. It was a pleasure to walk to work on Monday, April 28, 1978. Down 96 steps, and up "Court Street" as it appears on the map, to Ella's tiled living room in the Mediterranean house built for the Hagars nearly fifty years ago. As always, Ella was well prepared with notes, and well supplied with coffee for our break.

Ella described howtheir young architect, William (Bill) Wurster persuaded the Hagars that they did not want an English Tudor house by building an enchanting little model. "He brought it up, and we said, 'We don't like it.' He said, 'Of course you don't like it. You don't put that kind of house on this kind of slope. We have to build a Mediterranean house that clings to the side.' That's how we came to build this. So, we said, 'All right, that's fine."' Mrs. Hagar also tells how some of the South Berkeley streets were named. The Garber tract consisted of forty acres, and Juliet Garber Stringham was given the job of naming the streets. "She named Stonewall Road because of her admiration for Stonewall Jackson; Belrose (Belle Rose) was part of her mother's name; Garber, of course, the family name and Tanglewood Road arose from her enthusiasm for Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales." Ella also describes the excite- ment the day that the President's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, came swirling by, in a red dress with sirens going on her car when she came to visit her youngest son, John, then a tenant at 261 Stonewall Road.

The tapes were transcribed in the Regional Oral History Office. As I mentioned the project to other friends and neighbors, more questions and anecdotes surfaced. In the editing process, these were included in the form of additional questions to which Ella wrote the answers. Ella approved the edited transcript with minor revisions and signed the release form, also reproducedin this volume. The volume was final-typed and indexed.

Our hope is that this small pilot project will be overtaken by a fleet of reminiscences recording the remembered history of our community and preserv- ing it in an inexpensive form readily available to all interested readers in both The Bancroft and the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association libraries.

Rosemary Levenson Interviewer-Editor

5 May 1979 Regional Oral History Office 486 The Bancroft Library University of California at Berkeley 261 Stonewall Road .;3erkel_.-.;r, CA q4705

------b:.,-.r*.:- G?--- .. LI :*.- ?,-:~Tl.T ?A5 C;f nnewall Road bjer';czie;y, ;.;A 347C5

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The Regional Oral History Office The Bancroft Library University of California Berkeley, Californai 94720

We, Ella Barrows Haaar and Rosemarv Levenson 9 Narrator Internrimer do hereby give to the Directors of the Berkeley Architectural Society and

The Bancroft Library for such scholarly and educational uses as they shall determine the following tape-recorded interview(s) recorded on 3-28-78 date (s) as an unrestricted gift. This gift does not preclude any use which we may want to make of the information in the recordings ourselves.

a, l3.7&& Signature of Narx#tor

Flla Barrows Haaar 245 Stonewall Road

Berkeley, California 94705 Name & Address of Narrator

Accepted for the Directors by

/- 'Signature ofVInterviewer

Rosemary Levenson

261 Stonewall Road

Berkeley, California 94705 Name and Address of Intervimer

Mav 3. 1979 Dated

Mediterranean Style in the Berkeley Hills : Development of Upper Stonewall Road Subject of Interview (s) ?ow Icsc bzve yo2 ?ircC Fn Bcrkelcy'! -

In r!tlch ncjghborhoods havc you livcd?. . % k.e3?- I Car. ::ca su??ly inf6,-zztion nbozt sny perticular 5uilllr.q~in tkcre nci~~~~o~hoods?- -- Y.'hFch buildings dc ycx consider outst&r:Sing? Xone has your nei~hbcrhocPchzs~edover the ye~rs?

-- What :;as ycur zesociaticjn urith this ir:divi~usl?- Can you rezcnbcr facts ond anecdotes about his czrcer? Can you scpply f~forzationabout eaj huildic~owith ahicb he ):as bcen escociatc~'? Cat yo.; sapply ini'orcation about thc dc:-~loyientof Eerkelcy is a city?

Do you rcmcrber anecdotes about any of the folLowing subjc~ts: - Tt.c cortstructior. of ptzklic buildings? - The grzivth of cos~etci.alarees? Thc dcvclopzcct of trar,cvortetion pztterns? Thc plascicq parks, calks,

Phc g:aJth of thc Uaiversity? Do gcu rcrrcii;bcr facts or anecdotes irtout 2r.y of the folloi-;in;: evezts?

Thc earthquake of 1906? Thc firc of 1$.23? Ecrkelcy cxpcricnee durinz World Y;ar I? Viorld Kar 117- Berkalcy ir. the Dcpresaion of.the l?jO's'? - after Korlc! \%zrII? .-.-. Fith rk.ct Serkelcy orr,cf.izationc; have you bcen associnf cd?

.*.i,ocll gou like to tic intcrricwed for thc Ordl History -t~rojcst?

INTERVIEW WITH ELLA HAGAR (STONEWALL ROAD)

Date of interview: 28 March 1978

;-Beginning Cassette 1, Side A]

Choosing a Lot

Levenson: It's very nice of you to do this, Ella, to discuss Stonewall Road where you've lived for so long and where I moved in as your neighbor over twenty years ago. For reference we have here a map of the "Holabird-Garber Park and other subdivisions of John Garber Estate," 1927, and perhaps we can start by your talking about whatever you want. *

Hagar: My husband :~erald! and I were married in 1924, November. \Je must have started looking for a lot in Berkeley about '25 or '26, and a cousin of ours, Luther Nichols, was also looking for property. He called one day and said he'd found a new area that hadn't been subdivided because the road stopped at the ( A. A.- Browns'. You know, that is that big English house straight down there. , 191 Stonewall Road ]

Levenson: Oh, yes.

Hagar: This [upper area ] had been subdivided and a map was available and they were going to soon put a road up here,

There were two lots that we were interested in, !I3 and !I4, and we said, "You choose whichever you want because you discovered this place,"

*See frontispiece. Levenson: Yes.

Hagar : And so the Nichols chose, fortunately, iI3. [ ~au~hter.?I've been so glad all these years, because I'd rather be up here than to have somebody looking down at us. We chose iI4. L 245j

The subdivision was arranged in 1927 and we, I think, were the first to start building here. The road came to here. [Points to map.] /I23 was, the last house where the Browns lived, and there were two other houses on Stonewall lower down.

Levenson: Yes.

Hagar: The road was put in, with two alleys, those two alleys. That's what we always called them--- [chuckles] . The lower one is just called "Alley," and ours is called "Court Street" on the map, which I was never aware of before.

I think we were the first to build. We started in 1927 and moved in early in '28. Then these other houses must have been started, some of them very shortly after that.

Architects and Architectural Styles: G7urster and Gutterson

Levenson: Well, excuse me. Let's just get this straight. Your architect was--

Hagar: William Wurster. Bill Wurster.

Levenson: And did he at that time still live on Stonewall, or had he moved?

Hagar : He never lived on Stonewall.

Levenson: Oh, I was misinformed then. I was told once that the Hessings' house was the house he'd built for himself. [lo ] Hagar : No, no. He may'have, but he never told me. But he nearly always lived in San Francisco, and then he bought the Gregory house, where he lived for years.*

*He bought the land but the Gregorys gave him the house because it was "worthless." See William Wilson Wurster, College of Environ- mental Design, U.C., Campus Planning, and Architectural Practice, Regional Cultural History Project, University of California, Berkeley, 1964, in The Bancroft Library pp. 252-257. Levenson: 1459 Greenwoood Terrace.

Ha gar : Yes, yes. No, he never lived here. He did build the Hessing house.

Levenson: How did you come to choose this Mediterranean style?

Hagar : Well, I said, "Bill, we want an English house with dormer windows." Not dormer, but the kind of windows that go around this way [ gestures]. What are they?

Levenson: Bay windows?

Hagar: Bay windows. Bill, who was alone in his office at that time, no partners, nobody helping him, I guess no other job at the moment ---I guess we were about the third of his clients, the third house to build---created an enchanting little model, the way architects do, with papier-mache and little trees and bushes all to scale with an English house. He brought it up, and we said, "We don't like it." He said, "Of course you don't like it. You don't put that kind of a house on this kind of a slope. You have to build a Mediterranean house that clings to the side." That's how we came to build this. So, we said, "All right, that's fine."

Levenson: IIow did you come to choose Mr. Wurster as your architect?

Hagar: Oh, well, we were talking to Mrs. [ Warren] Gregory, of whom I was very fond. We adored her and the whole Gregory family. And he had just built for her the farm. I don't know whether you know anything about that?

Levenson: No, I don't.

Hagar : It became very famous because it won a national award. They had some beautiful acreage in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and they wanted to use it as a family summer and weekend place. Bill had been in love with Beth Gregory [chuckles 1, one of her many loves, and I guess they knew him that way. But, anyway, she said, IIIf you want a young architect--" And I remember particularly her saying, "He has a universality about him, and what he'll build today will be good tomorrow and later." And this is the way I feel about him.

So we met Bill and, of course, fell for him immediately. He didn't marry until many years later, you know, and he had already built two or three things that were successful--a little water tower for the water company somewhere, a home in Sacramento that he'd built for a great friend, and he'd built for the Wrights in Oakland, and then I guess ours--and the Gregory place. Hagar. Anyway, we brought him up here, of course, and he thought it was a good lot with a view and insulated, and the liked the idea of the end of the street. And after he had built it, he said, "Now you should be happy. You're on the edge of respectability," [ laughter ] , which I always think of. The Claremont area. We're on the edge of respectability, you and I--just barely!

Of course, he was a great dear. He was fun to work with. And, evidently, you see, these two houses [ pointing to map] , your house, this house--they are all that Mediterranean style, aren't they?

Levenson : Oh yes.

Hagar : Is that what you think of your house?

Levenson: Yes.

Hagar: I said something once about an Italian house, and he said, "Well, an Italian house isn't really an Italian house unless it's in Italy." He said, "I think I'd just call it 14editerranean. That's all right with me."

Levenson: Yes. That's the way I think of them.

Hagar : Now the Henry Guttersons who bought the lot between Powell and Stanton--Mr. Gutterson was an architect, very respected. Have you ever been in their house on Avalon?

Levenson : No.

Hagar: Well, they had one of those old shingled houses on Avalon, on the south side that you walk up, a steep sort of approach. They had no children. He was a bit like John Galen Howard. He was that rather sophisticated, reserved, gallant kind of a gentlemen, you know. He and Walter btcliffe (he was an architect, you know, an old Berkeley family). I liked his wife very much. She was a member of the [~laremontj Book Club too, I remember. I loved their house because it had so much charm; you know an old house always does.

Levenson : Yes. Had he designed it?

Hagar: I don't know that. He might have. But we used to go there for the book club meetings, and I remember that their Persian rugs were very frayed. I held the Guttersons in great respect. I loved the charm of their house, and I used to think, "It doesn't make any difference if your Persian rugs are frayed." And of course, mine are all dilapidated! [Laughter.] Hagar : I remember that Bill [ William ] Wurster bought a woman to see us whom we all had great respect for, a lovely person, who built a fascinating house on Russell Street. She was a professional interior decorator. Her name was Mrs. Vernon Smith--he brought her up one day very shortly after we'd moved in, and I remember her saying, "I'm sorry, it's so new now, but in another twenty- five years it will look -much better!" [~aughter.] You know, there is something to it, isn't there, after you've lived in a house?

Levenson: Oh, yes.

Hagar : Well, that's the way the Gutterson house was. And he built several houses, which I can't think of, but maybe you know. But he did built the [ ~rederickP.! Hendersons' house. '1261'

Levenson: Which is now mine.

Hagar : Yes. Isn't it lovely? It has so much charm. I do like it.

Early Houses on Upper Stonewall Road

Hagar : Do you want me to speak about these people who originally built their houses?

Levenson: Yes please.

Hagar : /I1 and /I2 on the lower part of Stonewall at the curve, were bought by two sisters and their husbands, the Nordykes and the Granichers. The Nordykes had !fl [ 201 ] , the Granichers /I2 [ 2211 , and they built about the time we were building, They had boys, little boys, and in '29 when Julianne [ Hagar 2 was born, they must have been a little bit older. So, these two little boys and Julie were raised together. Those were the only children up here at the time.

Then I think the Blairs, who owned this property [ pointing to map 1--it hasn't any number, has it? [280 '

Levenson: No.

Hagar : They built perhaps the next year, say' 28--started building in '28. And her mother, Mrs. Campbell, bought the lot next door, which is //lo. 1250 ]

The interesting thing to me is the other day, as you know, when--I don't know the name of the people who've built Hagar: the new house, or who've bought the new house right next to the Schulzes. [ 260 1

Levenson: Oh yes. [ Tryinlg to think of name.] The Heldmans.

Hagar : Well, at any rate, Eleanor Blair (we'd grown up together in high school and college) came by to look at it out of curiosity, having sold their home to the Schulzes. She or her mother had never owned that lot. We neither of us knew who had owned that vacant lot over all these years.

So then shortly after that the Hendersons started to build on iI7 and iI8.[ 261 1

I might say that we bought' /I4 and iI5.

Levenson: Do you still own them? - Hagar: Yes. And the Vandervoorts bought i13 next to us, this lot: pointing to map 1. Our cousin did not wish to build, and so he sold it to the Vandervoorts. And a few years later the Vandervoorts and ourselves bought---the water company agreed to sell us--ten feet along the north boundaries of our lots, and we put our fences up, and then the water company, of course, owns that property . [ N of "Court Street" 1

So, the Hendersons bought 87 and iI8. And after Mr. Gutterson, their architect, started building high up with all those steps leading to it, they said to us, "We've had to buy the next lot to put in the driveway." You probably knew that.

Levenson: [Laughter.] Well, I'd heard that as a story. I was never sure it was true.

Hagar: Yes. Oh, it is true, because they found they couldn't get up there easily at all, to the house, unless they bought the other lot and put in the driveway so they could drive directly to the house, instead of putting the garage on the street.

Levenson: So, that is the reason everybody comes in through my kitchen?

[ Laughter.I

Hagar: It's lovely. Don't you think so?

Levenson: Yes.

Hagar: I often come in your front door, which I think is very imposing, but I also often come in--yes, that's the way it happened. Hagar : Now, that left #6, and chronologically I'm pushing forward, because here was this vacant lot when our children grew up together. The '~endersonchildren (there were three) and my three used that as their pathway across to each other's homes. And when they were about-- oh, I guess they had their fourth child when Carolyn, the oldest, was at Stanford, so that Jimmy came along much later, you see. And it was when he was beginning to go to school and she was facing going up and down this hill with another child after the others had become independent that I saw someone on this steep little lot here i pointing to map] .

We had already bought about five feet of this #7, so that we could control, you see, the alley.

Levenson: Yes.

Hagar : From this little spot here [ pointing at map] . It's not being very clear. I'm not making it very clear.

So, I called Mr. Henderson and said, "Look, somebody is thinking about this extremely steep lot." (And it's very small, anyway; it must be forty feet now.) I said to him, "~et'syou and me buy it and just keep ourselves protected."

And that was just when they were contemplating moving to Piedmont, because she couldn't face again the transportation for her child, her fourth child. So, he said, "IJell, we just aren't going to do anything about it." He didn't tell me at that moment that he was contemplating selling.

So, then the [ ~obertW. ] Campbells bought the lot, and, of course, extraordinary man that he is, totally blind since a child, he and David, his eighteen year-old son at that time, built that house almost completely, completely by themselves. They had to have a few inspectors. [ 2531

So, that takes care of lots 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and this lovely piece. When did you buy that? [ A section on the north part of Williams' lot ]

Levenson: In 1961, from Miss Fuller's estate. And what happened was that a realtor called up up one evening and asked us if we were aware that this piece of land was coming up for sale, and we said "No." She said, "I think it's going to go very cheaply indeed, because it has no access to the road or utilities, and the bottom price is $400, and I think you can get it for that."

Hagar: [Astonished. ] You don't mean it! Levenson : Yes. ; ~au~hter.1

Hagar : Oh, how marvelous!

Levenson: So, we asked her to act for us, and I think that the whole thing, with the fees and everything, came to less than $500.

Hagar : Think of that! And you have a piece of property that extends over here [ pointing to map] . Levenson: No, not that far. To here [ pointing to map] .

Hagar : To here.

Levenson: Yes. It's more than half an acre.

Hagar : Well, that's just marvelous! No wonder you looked a little smug. [ Laughter. ]

Levenson: Oh, no, no!

Hagar : Well, you should, you should!

Now, this Williams, you see, was a great friend, Margie - Margaret Everts 1 Williams. We grew up together. She went to 1 Anna ] Head's and I went to Berkeley High, but it was in junior high that I met them. Eleanor Blair (Eleanor Campbell) and Margie Everts and I were just very close all those years. Margie Everts married a Williams. I remember when she bought that piece.

Berkeley Address and Oakland Taxes

Levenson: Let me ask you a basic question. When you built, were you in Berkeley or Oakland?

Hagar : I didn't know this was Oakland till after we'd bought it. My husband knew, but he didn't tell me! He didn't want me to know because I wanted to live in Berkeley. So, it was Oakland. And I was trying to think when it became Oakland. You know why it did? Perhaps you want me just to say--

Levenson: Yes, I'd like you to say.

Hagar : --that when the Claremont Hotel was built--and have you that date? I don't have it. Levenson: I think it was about 1906.

Hagar : I thought '06-'07.

They wanted to sell liquor there and have a bar, and they found after they started that they couldn't within a mile of the Univer- sity. . They thought it was over a mile, I guess. So, finding that it was within a mile of the University, at least part of it, they then got the city fathers to declare--this is the story I've always been told; it sounds highly unreasonable--to declare this area Oakland, so that half the hotel would be in Oakland and half in Berkeley, and thereupon they could sell liquor. Is that the story you've heard?

Levenson: Yes. But I may have heard it from you, Ella. i Laughter.]

Hagar : You may have. But I've always understood that's why. So that this hill was made Oakland, and we're almost completely surrounded by Berkeley. They decided at the same time that they would allow us to have a Berkeley mailing address, which makes it much easier, doesn't it? We say we live in Berkeley.

Levenson: Yes.

Hagar : Well, it's easier to find us, because it's Berkeley all around us, for one thing.

Levenson: Yes. Do you know if that was part of the deal that extended Oakland to the top of Panoramic and the top of Dwight?

Hagar: No. I don't think so.

Levenson: Because if you look at the line, it goes way north.

Hagar : Yes, it does. The top--is it Alameda or Contra Costa County?

Levenson: Alameda. Just the upper'part of Dwight, where it branches off from Panoramic, and the upper part of Panoramic--those people are all Oakland.

Hagar : I don't know why. Isn't that interesting? Couldn't have anything to do with the Claremont Hotel, and my liquor story.

Levenson: And then the line runs across and bisects Alvarado Road.

Hagar: Yes.

Levenson: And there's one house on Alvarado where the house is in Oakland and the garage is in Berkeley, and a friend of mine looked at it and decided not to buy it because the firemen might fight over Levenson : whose fire it was. [ Laughter. ]

Hagar: Well, who comes to you for a fire, Oakland or Berkeley?

Levenson : Oakland.

Hagar : Yes. And police too.

Levenson: Yes.

Hagar : But I understand that at the bad fire down here at the Jobs' the other night both of them came. [ ?7 Stonewall Road]

Levenson : That's good to hear.

Hagar : Yes, I'm told that they will do that.

Of course, later--there was a time, and when was it? It must have been in the '40s that several people on the hill decided they wanted to secede from Oakland, and so they got together. I think it was mostly Henry Colby and Robert Lipman, both of them attorneys in San Francisco, who drew up a petition and had us al1,sign it, except Jerry [ Hagar ] . You know, he didn' t feel he could sign it because he made his living in Oakland and, anyway, he didn't want to; he didn't care that much, I guess. But, though we presented this to the Planning Commission and so forth, they weren't ready to honor that. They didn't want to lose us, I guess, our votes and our taxes.

Levenson: Laughter.] When you actually came to build, do you remember how many requirements you had to meet?

Hagar : No, no. I'm sorry. I was evidently very busy with a number of things, and Jerry did it all, and I don't remember. We must have dealt with Oakland and had our permits from there.

The Garber Family

Hagar : As far as Mr. Holabird is concerned, I remember him well, but don't know anything about him, and I don't remember the other name, Kellersberger.

Do you want me to say something about the Garbers?

Levenson: Oh, yes, please. Hagar: We're slipping around, aren't we? I'm being fragmented.

Levenson: That's all right.

Ha gar : The Garbers owned, evidently, this property plus the land on Tanglewood and the great, big, old house in which 1,liss Lida Garber lived when we moved here. She was the sister of Juliette, who married Prank Stringham, from an old Berkeley family, the Stringhams, and we knew many of them way back, some of them even from my father's and mother's college days in,southern California.

I've learned recently that the Garber tract was forty acres, extending down to College Avenue.

Juliette Garber who married Frank Stringham was given the job of naming the streets. The story (or it may be history) is that she named Stonewall Road because of her admiration for Stonewall Jackson; Belrose (Belle Rose) was part of her mother's name; Garber, of course, the family name and Tanglewood Road arose from her enthusiasm for Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales.

Anyway, they had this great big house in a very large garden.

Levenson : I remember it.

Hagar: You remember the house?

Levenson: It looked a little bit like a chateau.

Hagar: Yes. Like Charles Addams'--strange cartoons.

Levenson: Yes. [ Laughter. ]

Hagar: Well, Miss Garber--do you remember her?

Levenson: No. I didn' t know her.

Hagar: She lived there as a spinster for many years. Her sister Juliette married and they built the house in the southern part of the garden, which has lots of charm, a shingled, Berkeley tepee, but I don't know who the architect was. But Miss Garber lived stonily on there for years.

I happened to come in touch with her just once or twice. She was interested in nurses, and I was involved in something or other at Alta Bates Hospital, and she offered her house once a week for nurses who wanted some evening recreation. It was the nicest thing to do, and though just a few woulg go, they enjoyed it immensely. She'd serve genteel refreshments ! chuckles] , and, as I remember, Hagar : there were discussions. Maybe a subject would come up occasionally that was rather stimulating. And these cute nurses who worked, you see, all day at Alta Bates, and night too, would have this glimpse into another kind of life. [ ~au~hter.1

Miss Garber, who was shaped like a Charles Addams figure was slight and always dressed in black, and her skirt came practically to the sidewalk trailing around her. I'd seen her walking up Stonewall in the early days and now I wish I had had some conversations with her. I was shy and only waved.

But she lived there until she died, and then the area was subdivided and the house demolished. But Juliette and Prank Stringham lived there very happily in their house for many years, and that's the one the [ Adolphus E. ] Graupners Jr. have bought and redone beautifully. And, of course, there are several other houses now on that estate.

John Garber Park and the City of Berkeley quarry

Hagar : But the John Garber Park--John Garber must have been their father, wouldn't you think?

Levenson: I suppose so.

Hagar : Or their brother. I don't know. I never knew him. When we moved up here that whole hillside across the road from us had only one house on it, and now look at it!

Levenson: Oh the area that we're looking at--the whole area with Alvarado and all of its subsidiaries just had one house, did it, south of Fish Ranch Road?

Hagar : Yes. That whole hill, all the way to the top, had one house. It's still there. It's the English house with the brown boards. It belonged to Miss Wilson, who owned Xiss Head's, and its still lived in. But in the fifty years we've lived here, over fifty years, all those houses have gone up.

But for many years Garber Park, which was the wooded hillside straight across from us, was held by the City Recreation Department, I'm sure, because I was told that if Girl Scouts or anyone wanted to use it for a barbecue or an evening party, they'd have to get a permit from the city. And very often we could hear the songs and laughter and voices come wafting across. There were trails, and I only went over there once or twice, but it seems to me there were Hagar: tables and benches, so that it was a city facility--then what happens to a thing like that? Then the city gives it or sells it to developers and they put in the roads and homes.

Levenson: Here it's deeded to the City of Berkeley for a quarry, it says on the map.

Hagar: Well, I think it was a quarry. But, you see, the part we're talking about is up here [ pointing to map ] , south of Fish Ranch Road.

Levenson: Yes. North of Fish Ranch there was an area deeded for a quarry, and then south it's all called John Garber Park.

Hagar: And now developed all the way out.

Levenson:q Yes.

Hagar: The Biedenbachs' land was next to the quarry. Carl Biedenbach's father was principal of Berkeley High for many, many years, and was principal when I went to Berkeley High. I graduated in 1915, so it was the period before that. Then young Carl inherited it, or else he was the one to whom this was sold; I guess that was it. But he or his daughter, Jane Koll, developed all this. i 2626 Claremont Avenue ]

Levenson: Yes.

Hagar: Jane married Mike, and they own Carl Biedenbach's old house here, and then I guess they developed all these little cliff-hanging apartments on Claremont Avenue.

Levenson: And cottages.

Hagar: Yes. And that's where Elle i~offna~el] lives, in one of those.

Levenson: Right.

Hagar: And remind me to ask you about Elle before you go. I'm so excited k about her engagement] ,

Levenson: Sure. Yes.

Hagar: So that those were all Biedenbach property. Carl put in our little rock wall out here. After a while he ceased his developments and building and just did odd jobs for people.

So where do we come now? Levenson: Let's see. We've gone to the Guttersons. Powell is the next one. All these three lots at the top.

Hagar : The Powells, I think, lived--I didn't know them well--I think they lived in a house right there on the corner of Stonewall and Tanglewood, the one on the corner. Yes, that was the old Powell house. But I don't know much about them. And I don't know anything about the Stantons.

Levenson: Now, to go back, we were talking a little bit about the Blairs, and you said you didn't have anything to do with the permissions and so on. It came to my attention that the Blairs built their garage and half of their kitchen steps on the city right of way. [ Laughter. ]

Hagar : Oh, how frustrating. How did that happen?

Levenson: I don't know.

Hagar : What happened after that?

Levenson : Well, they're still there. [ ~aughter.]

Hagar : So, the right of way would be this. [ Gestures.. ] Oh, it would stand out.

Levenson : It's twenty feet from my property line. There's supposed to be a twenty-foot buffer between my property line and the Blairs'. [ Schulz ]

Hagar : But it's their garage.

Levenson: Yes. [Laughter.]

Hagar : And Diane Schulz knows that, probably.

Levenson: Yes. Oh, yes. I was telling her I was trying to find where my property ended and was in some confusion, and she started to laugh and showed me the surveying stakes that the city had put in in the last year, staking the city's claim to the Schulzs' garage and half of their kitchen steps. [ Laughter. 1

Hagar : Oh! So it's just a fait accompli.

Levenson: Yes.

Hagar: I have some coffee. I need some.

Levenson : Oh, fine. Hagar : Would you turn that off? [ Tape off briefly. ]

Levenson: As we're looking at the map I'd like to ask you why these lots were cut up into such funny shapes?

Hagar : They -are odd. But I think one reason that the upper ones were long is because they were so steep.

Cars and Steeu Streets

Levenson:' As the street got built up, can you tell me of any amusing things or--I remember once when we had that young girl with the car half stuck in your ivy and threatening to roll down, you told me a terrible story about a car running away and killing the mailman,

Hagar : Ah, yes. It did, and none of us ever got over that. It was parked in front of the Granichers' , /I2 [ 221 1 , you see.

Levenson: Yes.

Hagar : Obviously the brake wasn't tight and it started to.rol1 backwards. The postman ran and got in but couldn't stop it--crashed down into the Andrews' garden and was instantly killed. Now the Andrews were --he was an attorney, and she was a very brilliant mathematician, as I recall, and taught at the University. They had two children, Bill Andrews and Dale, who married the doctor and bought her mother's house?

Levenson: Oh, so that's Dale Kaiser L William F. 1 ?

Hagar : That's Dale Kaiser, and she was Dale Andrews. She and Bill were raised on the hill and for, oh, quite a number of summers Bill would come up and feed our chickens, because during the war we raised chickens out here and lots of vegetables. He would feed them when we went out of town, you see. And now he's a very successful father and husband, and they live in Sacramento. I met his wife and children the other day. It's such fun to see them growing up. So, they, you see, lived next to Nrs. Brown.

I must say that we had a similar experience with a car, but it didn't turn out so tragically. One day my sister, Nan, my wonderful older sister, came up and parked her car outside the front door and didn't put the brakes on. It was Sunday morning, Hagar : and I had guests here, and George was a little fellow of three or so. I went out and the car was gone. It had gone down the hill like this [gestures ] and into one of these houses, where fortunately the man (the one I can't remember--I think it's #l2-- who built that house) usually worked in the garden, but he wasn't in the garden that day. But the horror of seeing the car gone, and where was George? Once he had gotten into a car and had been punished for it as a little two year-old, you know, so we didn't know whether he was in it or not. But he wasn't!

14y sister always took things with great poise and eclat, and we never spoke of it again. She had it pulled out, and renovated. I guess she made her peace with the bushes. [ Soft laughter. ] But that is a potential, living on a hill.

The Stonewall Community

Hagar: I would like to say something about, let's see, these other families .

Levenson : Yes.

Hagar : Suppose I go down the line. On the south side: the. Blairs, Mrs. Campbell, and Rose Bell.

Levenson: Oh, yes.

Hagar : Did you ever know Rose Bell?

Levenson: Yes. A wonderful person.

Hagar : A beautiful person. I had known her when I was in high school, and she was in the University, I worshipping, in a way, from afar. She married the president of the student body, George Bell. They were both tall and handsome and dramatic and prominent on the campus. They married, had a boy and a girl and lived in the East.

But after some years, after quite a number of years, they separated. And she built the house on the corner, the Swift house, on that U-turn.

Levenson: The first bend.

Hagar : Yes. I think that was the first house she built, and then she built this small house. [ #11].Her daughter has never married. She went to San Francisco and was head buyer for somebody, has a wonderful job, professional, and had become so professional that Hagar : nobody, you know, could quite keep up with her. [ Chuckles.1 I've always thought that was one reason she never married. She "asn't terribly close to her mother.

But her son, Rose Bell's son, was very close. He went into the air service (a pilot), and he was lost in the Pacific in an air- plane by himself near Taiwan, as I remember. She never got over that. He was a very handsome, delightful person. \hen we were in the Philippines, we found his name on the amazing structure Gardner Daly did for the cemetery out of Manila where hundreds of American servicemen are buried and where the Bruton girls made the memorial building, which is also out of this world. But on these colonnades [ gestures] that run with pillars between them through these beautiful hills, on either side of the colonnades are printed hundreds of names of everyone in every service who died in the Pacific. We found his name and took a picture of it and brought it to Rose. But I often think of the tragedies that came into her life.

Then next came--oh, I can't remember the name of the man who built--that's where the Cooks--

Levenson: Lot #13? No, #12.

Hagar : 2 I think that 'S where the [~yle] Cooks live now. [ 230 ]

Levenson: Yes.

Hagar : And then the next one, I can't remember who built that, #13. But friends of ours lived there in 1929, because they were living there when Julie was born. So, that house must have been built, you see. These houses were built very shortly after we built.

As a matter of fact, as soon as the road was opened up, everybody bought thelots quite speedily and began to build in '27, '28, '29.

/I13 is where the [ Albert 1 Rosenblatts live now. [ 220:'

And 814. Well, the [ Henry ] Colbys. Of course, Henry came from the old Berkeley family, the Colby family,* and she was an Eastern girl, a Smith girl, and they met in the East, I guess, when he was at Harvard. They had one child when Bill Wurster built their house, and she came up. I remember one day sitting

*See William Edward Colby, Reminiscences , Regional Cultural History Project, University of California, Berkeley, 1954 in the Bancroft Library. Hagar : on the terrace. We used our outside terrace there a great deal for coffee, tea, lunches, you know, cocktails. We were sitting there, having tea and she said, "You know, when we move up--I'm not a neighborly person at all. I'm glad we know you, but I'm not neighborly." [ Laughter. ]

Well, the years went along and her four children arrived. She had a nurse for many years for her children, the only one on the hill who's ever indulged in this fashion. .But she was raised in a way so I suppose it was very natural. She would appear at the front door and say, two or three little blondes clinging to her hands, "Do you mind if we go down and sit on your lawn, go on your swing?" [ Laughter.] And I've often chided her, because she has been very, very neighborly.

And, as a matter of fact, in those early years we were all "neighbors," starting with Mrs. Brown, who called the day we moved in: we hadn't met them. She was a lovely person, deeply involved in the Presbyterian Church. I remember she called up and she said, "This is your neighbor, Mrs. A. A. Brown. Flay we come up for just a moment and greet you?", which I thought was an extraordinary and wonderful thing for her to do.

We were both grimy, the furniture was all over everywhere, and they came up, and we sat, and it was the beginning of a lovely friendship. And that was the spirit Ehat enveloped us all in the early days. We all knew each other. We had parties. Of course, one doesn't do neighborhood--well, you have. You're the beginning of another generation. But in those days there were fewer of us. We knew each other perhaps better. I think the parties that you and Elle have given here are great assets in a neighborhood; I think they're just extraordinary, in a way, in this hurried life. But in those days we weren't quite so hurried and, as I say, we knew each other better, and we would have very simple parties.

I remember one Mrs. Brown had. It seems to me she had it in a flat place in her garden. Her garden has very few flat places. But it was outside with long tables, sort of a buffet supper in the early evening.

So, they lived in #23, which is here i pointing to map! .

Levenson: Oh, yes. 1 Hagar : And evidently when this part was developed [ pointing to map : -- this is where we came in.

Levenson: The west end. Hagar : Yes. And this house was one of two houses built on the hills when we bought our lot. This was one of two houses, and the other house was built by Stringham, the nephew of Frank Stringham. Roland, his name was. And he lived there, I think, originally. It was the house that now is occupied by Endy Stark. [I60 1 Do you know the house?

Levenson: No.

Hagar : Endy Stark is the divorced wife of Fortney Stark, the congressman.

Levenson: Oh, yes, yes.

Hagar : The Nordykes and the Granichers were the daughters of a fantastic family, the Justice family, from the deep South. I can't remember which state it was, but when you spoke to them, of course, they had the lovely Southern accent, and Pauline Granicher still does. Their father was a judge and was sent to California by the United States government to try a case in San Francisco. He had six daughters, as I recall, and so he brought his wife and six daughters, and he was so crazy about California that he stayed here and died shortly. Well, he didn't die until he'd produced a son. The seventh child was a boy! And Pauline has told me that the news went all over to his friends across the United States that at last a son. [Laughter.] Much younger than his sisters, some of whom were already in college.

But anyway, the girls went to the University, several of them, and Mama stayed here and raised them, and they've married and gone places. Pauline was married to a young army officer and lived in Hawaii. He was killed getting home one night driving very fast through a storm, trying to get home to her for the weekend. He left her with Cedric, their little boy. Then later on she married Oz [Oswald] , who was from a German family, Oz Granicher from San Francisco, and Bruce was born after they moved to the hill and built /I2 on the map.

Her sister, lbrtha Justice, and her husband, Charles Nordyke, built the house that is there on-lot /I1, and the two little cousins grew up together and took Julie L Hagar 1 , tagging along. On about her third birthday all she wanted was a pair of suspenders and a new pair of jeans, just like the boys. [ Laughter. My album is filled with pictures of the little boys and their girl companion.

This dear lad, Nordyke, as he grew up, was just crazy about aeroplanes. I don't know whether he even went to college; maybe he went a year or two. And then he went into the service and was a flier and was lost over Japan in the Second World War.

Levenson: Oh, dear! Hagar : Isn't that awful. So that takes care of ;- counting! one, two, three, four.

Annual Christmas Pageant

Hagar : There is one other thing that was quite a tradition on the hill, speaking of friendliness. If you'd like to have me speak of the Christmas pageant every year that took place--

Levenson: Oh, yes.

Hagar : Started by that "unneighborly" Ruth Colby. We laughed at her for so many years. Very early she suggested that the children, and there were a lot of them on the hill then, get together for a Christmas story. It was always at her house. I'll show you before you go just a few pictures of the children. It was always a tableau, and Ruth herself got all the costumes together. The one thing every girl wanted to be every year, of course, was Mary, but she was chosen by Ruth.

What the boys did not want was to be Joseph. And I'll never forget the time tha? David Colby was Joseph. Oh, there were angels, of course. L Looking at family album.; There was Mary i 8agar] , the year she was Ilary. And I guess he was a Wise Plan or something, Oh, here are the Wise Men. These are the Lipman boys.

Oh,she got everything together. The parents would go in the afternoon, and someone would play the Christmas songs, and the three Wise Men would come in bearing cigarette boxes of frankincense and myrrh. Mary would be looking like an angel with a doll in her arms, and Joseph would be standing her [ gestures 1, and then the Wise Men and then the angels. And then we'd have carols. Then, at the end, we'd always end with "Silent Night," you see, which was rather touching. The parents were always very sentimental about this.

And the year that David Colby was Joseph--it's such a boring part; you just,-stand there. Mary can look adoringly at her baby and so forth. L Soft laughter. ] There was a silence, and we were all a little gulpy. And suddenly David started, "Three blind mice, three blind mice, see how they run.. ." L Laughter.] And then he came out and gave the football a great kick. The Christmas football was in the middle of the floor.

But it was always a lovely affair, and it went on year after Hagar : year as they grew older. Isn't that cute? [ Shows picture of children.] The Lipman boys, the Granichers, the Nordykes, the Colbys, all the Hendersons, the Hagars.

Levenson: That's lovely!

A Closed Right of Way 'and 'Old 'Fish 'Ranch 'Rdad

Levenson : Now, when I first came on the street, there was a right of way path down to Claremont Avenue, or Old Fish Ranch Road, and I saw the other day that that was sealed off: "Do Not Enter."

Hagar : Yes, yes. From the top?

Levenson: Yes. Now, can you tell me anything about that path?

Hagar : Well, it became more and more precarious, for one thing. It originally, I think, had little steps of some sort.

Levens on : Yes.

Hagar: Did you ever go down it?

Levenson: Oh, yes. Many times.

Hagar : Lots of times? Oh, really?

Levenson: Yes.

Hagar : Well, the steps were wood, it seems to me. Were they?

Levenson: Yes, that's right.

Hagar : The riser was a wood, and it became older and older. My children used to dash down there. It became a little precarious as time went on, and wet, and damp. I don't know what happened, except that I think it was Ruth Colby who told me that--let's see. Either Dale [Kaiser ] or Ruth told me that it became a sort of a bad place because all kinds of things that you couldn't put your finger on were ha~peningthere. Now whether it was between individuals or whether it was a bit criminal, I don't know. But, anyway, I think it's just as well they closed that. I don't know many of the particulars.

Levenson : We were talking off the tape about Old Fish Ranch Road. Now, can you tell me first of all why it was ever called Fish Ranch? Hagar: Well, I understand that there used to be a ranch up there that sold fish [ laughter] , but I can't believe it because the fish would be far from the good salt water. You know, you like to have fish right off the wharf, don't you? So, I really don't know. I wonder who could tell you. Why don't you make up a nice story? [ Laughter. 1 I wish I did know. And I think we should stop calling it that. I shall always call it that, but ou'd better not. you'd just better stick to Claremont. [ Laughter.

Levenson: [ Laughter. 1 That's what people understand, Claremont .

Hagar: There was an effort a while back to do something about this area, to preserve it or something. Now, what was that organization? Did you receive material from them? And they had meetings or little trips up there.

Levenson: Was that the Claremont-Elmwood Neighborhood Association?

Hagar: I guess that might have been it.

Levenson: Yes, I think CENA.

Hagar: Yes. Did you receive something from them? I don't like that organization myself.

Levenson: Oh, really?

Hagar: No. I belonged to it for a long time, and I'm sure they've done good things. But 1 think they have two or three real fanatics on the subject of the Berkeley street barriers, you see, within this, and they've used that--this is my explanation of it. They've used that organization to pressure for the barriers. But this hill idea may have been a valid and good thing. I don't know enough about it.

The John Roosevelts on Stonewall Road

Levenson: I don't know whether you want to say anything about Mrs. Sather. You knew those lovely stories!

Hagar: Oh, I didn't know her, you know, and I read over what I had said in my oral history," and I really don't know a great deal more than

*Ella (Barrows) Hagar, Continuing Memoirs: Family, Community, University. Regional Oral History Office, University of California Berkeley, 1971. In The Bancroft Library. Hagar : that. I didn't know her. Plrs. Rearst did come into our life a little bit, but not Mrs. Sather. But through the book and the parties I think I've said everything I know. [ Laughter.!

Levenson: Okay. Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you. People say to me from time to time, "I~lasn't there a Roosevelt on Stonewall Road?"

Hagar : Oh, yes. In your house! Oh, 1'd love to tell you about that!

Levenson: [ Laughter. 1 Please!

Hagar : It was John, the youngest, and the first I knew about it was Mrs. Phelps--you see, the Hendersons went to Washington during the war. You probably knew this part.

Levenson : Yes.

Hagar : And Carolyn, the oldest, and my George had a secret cave up there on the hill, and they were inseparable at that period. It must have been in the early Forties, and George was born in '33, so maybe they were eight or nine.

Anyway, the Hendersons went away. Fred had some job in Washington. After they had left, quite suddenly, Mrs. Phelps, her mother, called and said that they had rented the house to John and his wife, Anne, and they were going to move in, and she just wanted me to know.

Well, then, of course there was quite a flurry in the neighborhood! Shall we go and call, or shall we not call? And we were told, perhaps by Mrs. Phelps, that they were not about to be neighborly with the neighbors, and I don't blame them. Why should they? They were probably temporary.

The next thing, I guess, was when Mrs. Roosevelt--Anne, called me and said that she was desperate for somebody to clean. Did I know anyone who would come once a week? She said, of course, that they had a secret service man with the children (they had two little children) all the time, and they had a nurse. But she, Anne Roosevelt, said "I'm doing the cooking and the cleaning. But, oh, it would be such a help if--." Well, I said, "Let me see. They're very, very hard to find." And I said quietly to myself [chuckles], 11Even for John Roosevelt I am not going to give up my cleaning woman." But I did tell her that I knew another very nice black woman, whom I guess I had had occasionally as a substitute--but mine didn't want to make a move. I called this other one, and she said, "Oh, John Roosevelt! I will go!" And I said, "If you leave one of your employers to give Mrs. Roosevelt a day, please don't mention my name." i: Chuckles. 1 I said, "This is entirely up to you. You Hagar : can do it if you want, but I don't want to be responsible," not being particularly courageous. She did leave, and she did go to Anne, which I think worked out nicely.

Sometimes their children, younger than mine, would come up the alley with nurse and secret service man and talk and play a bit with mine. I felt sorry for their children who seemed lonely and bored. I called them one night. I said, "Jerry, I really think-- let's just go up for a minute. It seems a little nicer, as long as we've had these other connections." So I called, and John Roosevelt said, "Please come, and I'm in--" Idhat's "in mufti"? Is that without uniform? [ Laughter. 1

Levenson. [ Laughter. 1 Yes.

Hagar : But he said, "Please come." So we went up, and we sat in the little library, and we just stayed about a half an hour, forty-five minutes. A very good-looking young couple. Ile was quite handsome, tall. We talked about a lot of things, and I was speaking of th,e president [ Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1 . And he ;John Roosevelt ! was a Republican. He said, l'rell, you know, we don't always agree politically," which, of course, being a Republican myself, sort of warmed my heart. She was quiet and very pretty, as I recall.

But the most exciting thing happened when Mrs. ,I leano or:! Roosevelt was going to visit. Perhaps I told you this once. Did I?

Levenson : No.

Hagar : She was coming to Berkeley and there was a great deal of hullabaloo about it. ?lary ~a~arlmust have been about twelve, around there, twelve or thirteen, and I remember I was in the kitchen, and we heard the sirens coming up the hill. .She was coming up to see John and Anne. Mary was hanging out on the terrace. She came tearing into the kitchen and said, "She's come! She's come! And she had on a red dress!" The car went swirling by with the sirens. I couldn't have seen her if I went because they went so fast in the car. But it was quite an event on the hill to have the president's wife come. She stayed a while during the day and went on,

But John was attached to the naval supply depot. Maybe they were here a year. But we never saw them again. I understood that they had friends down on the Peninsula and that they did have some social life. I hope they did. They were an attractive young couple.

Since then, I understand--oh, did I read something in the paper some years later about one of their children who'd been at a Girl Scout Camp? Did you hear this? Levenson : No.

Hagar : And she was overcome with something on the trail. I think she died on the trail. My memory is dim on that.

Levenson: Where did the Secret Service men live?

Hagar : I don't know. Wouldn't you suppose in the downstairs apartment and the nurse with the children?

Then after they left the house was taken by a couple, though he was a doctor in the Pacific on "Hope," the hospital ship, from Seattle, but she becamevery- close to me, Dr. and Mrs. Loe, L-o-e. She came with her three children, and all the time that she was here, practically all the time, he was away.

She invited another doctor's wife and child, whose husband was also in the Pacific, to come and live with her for a year. But I first knew Marion Loe because--her daughter, Mary, was about George's age by then, a beautiful girl who came down to our house, the first afternoon they moved in. The first time I ever saw her, she had on her brother's boots. She was sitting out on the cement stairway going down into the garden talking with George, and suddenly fell off and broke her arm. I'd just finished a Red Cross course. [Laughter.] So, of course, I treated her for shock and called the doctor and an ambulance, which I shouldn't have done. : ~au~hter.1The doctor came and we called Mrs. Loe. She said to take Mary to Merritt to a doctor they knew. Well, that was quite a tale. That's the way we got acquainted. But they lived there until the end of the war.

Then you bought. No.

Levenson: No. Then the Hendersons came back.

Hagar : Then the Hendersons came back. That's right.

Levensons Move Next Door, February, 1956

Hagar : And you bought--what year?

Levenson: February of '56.

Hagar : Yes. Twenty-two years.

Levenson : Yes. Hagar : Did the time fly?

Levenson: Yes, indeed.

Hagar : Do you remember the funny story I told you the first time I ever met you?

Levenson : Oh, tell it again1

Hagar: May I? I'd love to. It should be immortalized. C~au~hter.1 I was pouring tea at Ursula Bingham's, and she brought you over, and you knelt down beside me and said that you were going to live next door. I said, "Oh, that's lovely. How many children do you have?" And you said, "Well, I have two." And I said, "Well, you'll have to import children. There are no more little children on the hill becausethey've all been raised and gone away." And you said, "Oh, the neighborhood will change," iq your lovely accent [ speaking in English accent] . C Laughter .i And I could just see myself being carried out, feet first, and I felt like saying, "No, -I'm going to fool you!" But it has changed, everybody around us.

Levenson : Well, I feel the same way that you did in 1955! [ ~au~hter4

Hagar: [ ~au~hterjAnd you are going to stay, I hope.

Levenson : Thank you. And thank you so much for telling me what you remember.

Hagar : You're very welcome. I've just chattered on and chattered on. I have enjoyed it, as you can tell. I think it's lovely that you've made such a beautiful home there and raised your four children, and the last one is about to fly the coop.

Levenson: That's right. Thank you again.

Hagar : Extraordinary, isn't he?

Levenson : Yes.

Hagar : Does he know where he's going to college?

Levenson : Shall I turn it [the tape recorder] off now?

Hagar : Well, put this in.

Levenson : All right.

Hagar : Where is h'e going?

Levenson: Well, he's only sixteen, as you know, and so he's going to take Levenson : a year off.

Hagar : That's fine. I believe in that.

Levenson : And he's going to work on the same kibbutz that Richard worked on.

Hagar : The ' same one !

Levenson: For six months. And then he wants to bicycle through Greece and Italy, because he's been studying Latin for four years.

Hagar : Good.

Levenson : And he wants to see the antiquities before he goes to England to get to know his English family. So he's only applied to one place, because he can apply again next year, and that's Harvard.

Hagar : Well, he'll probably just go right into Harvard the way Richard did.

Levenson: And Tom.

Hagar: And Tom, that's right. Oh, of course they should go there. Perfectly lovely. Well, that seems just the par for the course, then, doesn't it, because in that year he grows older, and I think it's better not to go in with seventeen and eighteen year-olds. Don 't you?

Levenson : Yes, I do. I really do. Thank you so much, Ella.

INDEX - Ella Hagar

Anna Head School, 8, 12 architect, choice of, 2-4 architects' models, 3 architectural styles Berkeley shingle, 11 chateau, 11 English, 3 Italian, 4 Mediterranean, 3-4

Bell, George and Rose, 16-17 Berkeley, city of Parks and Recreation Department, 12-13 Berkeley High School, 8, 13, 16 Biedenbach, Carl, 13 Bingham, Ursula, 26 Blair, Eleanor, 5-6, 8, 14, 16 Brown, Mr. and Mrs. A. A., 1-2, 18 building permits, 10

Campbell, Mr. and Mrs. Robert W., 7, 16 city boundaries, 8-10, 14 Claremont-Elmwood Neighborhood Association, 22 Claremont Hotel, 8-9 Colby, Henry, 10, 17-18, 20-21 Cook, Lyle, 17

East Bay Municipal Utility District, 6

Garber, John, 1-2, 12 Garber, Lida, 10-12 Garber Park, 12-13 Granicher, Oswald and Pauline, 5, 19, 21 Graupner, Mrs. and Mrs. Adolphus E., Jr., 12 Gregory, Warren and Elizabeth, 2-3 Gutterson, Henry, 2, 4-6

Hagar, Gerald, 1-4, 10, 24 Henderson, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick P., 5-7, 23, 25 Hessing, Ernest and Herta, 2-3 Hoffnagel, Elle, 13, 18 Howard, John Galen, 4 Justice family, 19

Kaiser, William F. and Dale Andrews, 15, 21 Koll, Jane and Michael, 13

Levenson family, 25-27, and passim Lipman, Robert, 10, 17, 21 lot, choice of, 1-2 neighborhood spirit, 18, 20, 23 Nichols, Luther, 1-2 Nordyke, Charles and Martha, 19-21

Oakland, city of Planning Commission, 10

Ratcliffe, Walter, 4 rights of way, 21 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 24 Roosevelt, John and Anne, 22-25 Rosenblatt, Mr. and Mrs. Albert, 17

Schulz, William and Diane, 6, 14 Stark, Endy, 19 street names, choice of, 11, 21-22 Stringham, Frank and Juliette, 10-12, 19 Stringham, Roland, 19

University of California, Berkeley, 9, 16, 19

Vandervoort, Ray, 6

Williams, Margaret Everts, 8 Wurster, William, 2-5, 17 Rosemary Levenson

Grew up in England; B.A. in History from Cambridge University, 1948. Graduate work in History and International Law at Cambridge and Radcliffe. M.A. in Sociology at the University of California Berkeley in 1969. Moved to Berkeley in 1951 and worked as free-lance editor and anthropological photographer. Volunteer service in groups related to the public schools, religion, and University of California faculty wives. Travel in Europe and the Far East. Joined the staff of the Regional Oral History Office in 1970.