SMILE for Grandma

Eventually kids figure out what they're supposed to do when a camera is pointed at them. At least the way it used to be. These days everyone is pointing cameras at each other whether or not they know the person. And then the moments of your life end up online with others ridiculing something you did only hours before. We all risk being bullied these days simply by leaving the house. A photograph is no longer just for grandma.


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Loving the kids sweater. So when did the whole coal miner theme stop appearing on apparel?

SIT STILL and SMILE!

Choosing to have a family photo taken with a child can lead to all sorts of interesting outcomes. Generally the child is going to be the most alive and interesting person in the photo because they still aren't sure what it's all about. These are basically "smile for grandma" shots.

The Sepia Saturday prompt this week is a family portrait of three people. So I give you three portraits, each containing three people. All of these photos were given to me by my friend Bert and one of the photos was originally posted on November 16, 2010. The first two shots are from the George Kallman estate.

I have no information on any of these people.

Click on any image to see it larger.

A CARD FROM MARGARITE ANDERSON in 1936

I'm sure the kids,  Janice and Wendall Anderson, had a lot to say too.

Click on either image to see them larger.

Coming or GOING?

All I can tell you about this vintage snapshot is that it's from the George Kallman collection, specifically from his mother, Lorena Aina Beck's, photo album.

I have no idea what is going on here, but I can speculate. It's an odd photo.


Click on image to see it larger.

This is my submission for this weeks Sepia Saturday. From the prompt image I went with groups of people doing things that make no sense to me, but for which I know there is a story.

GEORGE KALLMAN with his dogs

This is my submission to this weeks Sepia Saturday. I'm sorry that I won't be able to fully participate, but I had these photos of George Kallman sitting on my computer for several months and felt he needed to be part of the celebration of men with their dogs.

For those who have read some of my posts from the past you might be familiar with the Kallman name. George Kallman was a schoolteacher who died and nobody wanted his family photos so they were given to me. Click on the tag below, George Kallman, to see some of my previous posts about him, his sister Gladys, and their parents.

SUMMERTIME: Part 14

Summertime is nearly over. Months of anticipation down to weeks. Fall will soon be here. Some leaves have already started to turn. Soon the abundance of color will be upon us.

So let's end this summertime series with three "familiar" people, the Kallman family.

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Little George Kallman has his back to us. Lorena Aina Beck Kallman stares at the camera, her daughter Gladys by her side. There's no indication as to where on when this shot was taken. I imagine it was taken by Alfred Kallman, the patriarch of the family.

Water is a big part of summer. We play in it, we refresh ourselves on a hot day with it, we long for it when the ground is parched in the summer sun. And we create memories with it.

A warm summer afternoon playing in a stream. Good times. Good times.

Alfred Kallman on CLIFF HOUSE TOUR

Only a single photo from my collection this week.

If you've seen past posts about the Kallman family you will probably recognize Alfred, patriarch of the family.

This is Alfred aboard a touring car in San Francisco, probably around 1919. He was on his way to see the Cliff House restaurant and Sutro Baths. The Cliff House still exists, the Sutro Baths not so much. And when I say the Cliff House still exists, it's not the Cliff House Alfred would have seen.

Click on image to see it larger.

The Cliff House has burned down several times. The photo below shows it at its most gorgeous, but it too burned down over 100 years ago.

I'll let good old Wikipedia fill-in some details about this San Francisco landmark.

The Cliff House is a restaurant perched on the headlands on the cliffs just north of Ocean Beach on the western side of San Francisco, California. It overlooks the site of the former Sutro Baths and a room-sized camera obscura and is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, operated by the National Park Service.

Cliff House has had five major incarnations since its beginnings in 1858. That year, Samuel Brannan, a prosperous ex-Mormon elder from Maine, bought for $1,500 the lumber salvaged from a ship that foundered on the basalt cliffs below. With this material he built the first Cliff House. The second Cliff house was built for Captain Junius G. Foster, but it was a long trek from the city and hosted mostly horseback riders, small game hunters or picnickers on day outings. With the opening of the Point Lobos toll road a year later, the Cliff House became successful with the Carriage trade for Sunday travel. The builders of the toll road constructed a two mile speedway beside it where well-to-do San Franciscans raced their horses along the way. On weekends, there was little room at the Cliff House hitching racks for tethering the horses for the thousands of rigs. Soon, omnibus railways and streetcar lines made it to near Lone Mountain where passengers transferred to stagecoach lines to the beach. The growth of Golden Gate Park attracted beach travelers in search of meals and a look at the Sea Lions sunning themselves on Seal Rocks, just off the cliffs to visit the area.

In 1877, the toll road, now Geary Boulevard, was purchased by the City for around $25,000. In 1883, after a few years of downturn, the Cliff House was bought by Adolph Sutro who had solved the problems of ventilating and draining the mines of the Comstock Lode and become a multimillionaire. After a few years of quiet management by J.M. Wilkens, the Cliff House was severely damaged by a dynamite explosion when the schooner, Parallel, ran aground. The blast was heard a hundred miles away and demolished the entire north wing of the tavern. The building was repaired, but was later completely destroyed on Christmas night 1894 due to a defective flue. Wilkens was unable to save the guest register, which included the signatures of three Presidents and dozens of illustrious world-famous visitors.

In 1896, Adolph Sutro built a new Cliff House, a seven story Victorian Chateau, called by some "the Gingerbread Palace", below his estate on the bluffs of Sutro Heights. This was the same year work began on the famous Sutro Baths, which included six of the largest indoor swimming pools north of the Restaurant that included a museum, skating rink and other pleasure grounds. Great throngs of San Franciscans arrived on steam trains, bicycles, carts and horse wagons on Sunday excursions.

The Cliff House and Sutro Baths survived the 1906 earthquake with little damage but burned to the ground on the evening of September 7, 1907. Dr. Emma Merritt, Sutro's daughter, commissioned a rebuilding of the restaurant in a neo-classical style that was completed within two years and is the basis of the structure seen today. In 1937, George and Leo Whitney purchased the Cliff House, complementing their Playland-at-the-Beach attraction nearby and extensively remodeling it into an American roadhouse. The building was acquired by the National Park Service in 1977 and became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Many of Whitney's additions were removed and the building was restored to its 1909 appearance. In 2003, an extensive further renovation added a new two-story wing overlooking the Sutro Bath ruins.

The site overlooks Seal Rocks and the former site of the Sutro Baths. More than thirty ships have been pounded to pieces on the southern shore of the Golden Gate below the Cliff House.

The area immediately around Cliff House is part of the setting of Jack London's novel The Scarlet Plague (1912). (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

To get a nice overall feeling about the Cliff House through the years click here to go to the official site and stay for the opening historical slideshow, including the Sutro Baths.

To see more images of these tour cars, including this very same No. 20, click here to enter the Cliff House project. And spend a bit more time clicking around the site to see other wonderful images.

There are so many interesting people in the car with Alfred; let's just be thankful he wasn't sitting next to this happy go lucky soul. Actually, I can remember touring Europe with a person with this same joie de vivre.

This is my submission to this weeks Sepia Saturday. Another photo from the George Kallman estate.

And for those who like old photos, but don't visit me during the week, I think you might enjoy the lovely lady I've been posting this week. An unknown woman from the San Francisco/Bay Area. I will resume posting more images of her tomorrow.

CHARLES LINDBERGH and the old letter

When I first went through the boxes of photos from the George Kallman estate I certainly wasn't expecting to find a photo like this. It was in an old paper bag that had "other friends" written on the outside. Inside the bag were a jumble of photos of different people. When I saw this one I'm sure my eyes bugged out a little bit as I recognized the face. Charles Lindbergh. I was holding a photo of Charles Lindbergh. How did it end up in the "other friends" bag? I'll never know.

The back of the photo is shown below.

From this information I'm gathering the photo was taken in Glendale, California by R. C. Talbot. You can see another photo taken by Talbot of the terminal here from the Smithsonian collection. Click here to go to a page showing a photo Talbot took of Amelia Earhart (go approximately half way down the page) at the terminal. And click here to see a photo of Talbot with the Wilson Aero Service troupe from a book about the old airport.

The Grand Central Air Terminal is still standing according to Wikipedia and is owned by the Walt Disney Company. Alas, who knows what currently resides on the ground where Lindbergh once stood.

Grand Central Airport, Glendale, California, also known as Grand Central Air Terminal (GCAT), was an important facility for the growing Los Angeles suburb of Glendale in the 1920s. It was also a key element in the development of United States aviation. The terminal, located at 1310 Air Way, was built in 1928 and is still there. Owned since 1997 by the Walt Disney Company, it remains the last standing structure, and sole surviving witness, to the area's historic significance, and is in urgent need of restoration and repair. The single concrete 3,800-foot (1,200 m) runway still exists, but it was dug up and converted into Grand Central Avenue, serving cars, not airplanes. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

Below is my next Lindbergh "souvenir" purchased years ago at an antique store. Just a little letter in a little envelope. The envelope measure 3.5" x 3" and was sent from San Francisco to Los Angeles on September 17, 1927. On May 20 of the same year Lindbergh set out on his historic flight in the Spirit of St. Louis, landing in France on May 21st to a crowd estimated to be 150,000.

This little letter surprised me when I stood in the cluttered antique store reading it. I think you'll be surprised too.

I doubt today's children even know who Lindbergh was. Compared to their fast paced world he's low tech and nothing but history. But this photo and letter bring back a little bit of the mystery about a person who was famous for doing something, not for just promoting themselves as a spectacle.

This is my Sepia Saturday post and for a change I'm actually following the suggested theme.

Two Sides of WHIGHAM PHOTO in San Francisco

105 years ago today the earth shook and fire raised the city of San Francisco. This is the anniversary of the 1906 earthquake.

Today I have chosen to feature this photo from the George Kallman estate. I have no information about the children in the photo, but the photographer took some memorable photos of the aftermath of the earthquake.

I have not found any biographical information about Whigham. I'm hoping eventually someone steps forward and offers some.

The following three images showing the aftermath of the quake are from the Central Washington University Brooks Library Digital Collection, all taken by Whigham Photo. Click on the links to go to their site and see the images larger along with reference data.

The Mission at San Francisco, California; CWU Brooks Library

At home on the street at San Francisco, California;

CWU Brooks Library

Retrieving bodies at the Brunswick Hotel at San Francisco, California; CWU Brooks Library

Then there's the following little item from the January 5, 1908 newspaper The San Francisco Call from the Library of Congress archives. Click on the link to see the full page of the paper.

Apparently Whigham Photo was in the "Rooms to Let" business.

As with all old photos, you have to wonder what became of the people. Most assuredly, what became of these two children?

UPDATE: Thanks to an anonymous reader we now have a little bit of information about the Whigham Studio:

Whighams Studio was owned by Minnie Seavy of San Francisco. She had two studios one on Mission and the other on Market. One of the newspapers had a baby photo contest which she won with two photos that were titled A Breath of Heaven Day/Night. I know she also owned a few flats as well.

UPDATE: Thanks to Kevin Shiley for the following information.

Richard P Whigham, the photographer, was the older brother of my great grandmother, Matilda Whigham McCaslin. He was born in Belfast, Ireland (now Northern Ireland) and his family emigrated to Calgary, Alberta in 1872. He made his way to San Francisco sometime in the 1890’s and in the 1900 census is listed as a photographer. Minnie Seavy was his 2nd wife, he married her in 1910. He passed away in 1932, and she survived him. In the census data he was always listed as photographer. Minnie is first shown as a photographer in the 1930 census, before that under occupation it said none.