Transcription
[Music] Hello, friends. In the following recording, you'll hear a woman born in 1878 tell you about her experiences growing up in Los Angeles during the 1880s. Her name was Bella Buford Tom Collins, and there is very little known about her except that her father, Cameron E. Tom, who is pictured here, was the mayor of Los Angeles between 1882 and 1884.
To give you a little background, in the 1880s the small town of Los Angeles had a population of 11,000 residents, which was actually a significant increase from the previous decade. A major component of all this was the arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1876, which connected the town to the national rail network. And by the 1890s, the discovery of oil led to the development of the petroleum industry in the area.
Now, Los Angeles was not known to be a typical Wild West frontier town in those days, but it still had elements of the Wild West legacy during the time. For example, vigilante justice was sometimes employed by the local authorities as their law enforcement was still in development. And, as one might expect, there were plenty of saloons and gambling establishments in the area, which often attracted cowboys, prospectors, and other wild west figures passing through the city.
So, without further delay, let us dive into this amazing recording of Mrs. Collins. Now, the first woman you'll hear speaking is not Mrs. Collins, but her niece, Rowena, who persuaded Mrs. Collins to make this remarkable recording in the first place. So we definitely have her to thank for that. The date of the audio is November 26th, 1964.
"No, I want you to tell the machine all of the kinds of things that you can remember about your childhood and my father's childhood from the time that you were born here in Los Angeles in 1878 and all the way—the city was in those days—The Village was in those days—and the kinds of things that you can recall that your father may have told you from the time he came out here on a horse in 1849 after having grown up in Virginia, where he was born in 1824. My grandchildren, who would never know any of these things without your doing this, will be interested, and so will all of their children, I'm sure. And therefore, just tell it as it—as you recall it. It's the only record at all that we have. November the 26th, 1964, and I am truly grateful to my heavenly father for all the blessings I have receiv—received every day of my life. Ever since I was born, I've been bullied by my dear wonderful niece, Rena, to try and tell you something about my memories as a little child and about Los Angeles when it was a charming, beautiful little city; quiet, green hills, beautiful orchards of walnuts, oranges, olives—not the great big, sprawling, dirty, noisy, smelly, smoggy town that it is now.
Amongst my earliest memories was going to the little stores with my mother. Main Street, from Mayo Street on to the plaza, had mostly little shops on each side of the street. On the other side of the street, as about Fourth Street, there were the residences of the people who were then the leading people in Los Angeles. And I think there were not more than 1500 white people here then; Spanish Americans—oh, all sorts—and um, my mother—I can remember—I couldn't have been—before I was six years old—when the Lost Main Street had a sidewalk, which was wooden; it was just wooden planks laid down, and it was all unpaved and dusty in the summer and frightfully muddy in the winter. And the people that came in from outside places—heaven knows where, cuz there were no roads—came in buckboards, and they tied their horses along the hitching post all along the front of Main Street. And I can remember walking to the mar—market—the—the only little grocery shop in Los Angeles—with my mother, and I couldn't have been more than five years old. It was owned by a little old Dutchman with little side mutton-chop whiskers, and his name was Henry Vandel. I can remember as if it was yesterday—on the outside of the shop was a kind of a thing where the brooms stood upside down so you could select your own broom if you needed a broom. I expect we did. And inside he sold the things that we had to buy, and everything in those days came out of barrels. My mother would buy cucumber pickles; they were fished out of a barrel with what they called a dipper. She'd buy so much sugar and so much flour, and that came out of the barrel and was shoved in a paper bag. And the cheese—he always gave me a little tiny piece of cheese to taste—everybody could taste the cheese—and whatever he had—he had one boy in the shop to help him—came out of these barrels and things, and he was a nice old Dutchman, and he built himself up such a good business that now the Vandel family, whom I think married with one of the oldest Castilian families here, are the well-to-do people. So anyhow, that was that. And further along there was a little shop which was run by a man called Mesmer; that is where we bought our shoes. I wore little shoes with what they call spring heels, but my Sunday shoes were soft kid, buttoned high; on each top of each shoe was a large black silk tassel. Oh, I tell you, I was something to behold in those days.
Well, the first fire station in Los Angeles was in Main Street between First and Second Street, and it was a tremendous excitement when there was a fire. There were very few of them because there were very few houses and very few shops to burn down. Well, when the fire alarm sounded, the great big engine would dash out, always with magnificent white horses, and the um, hook and ladder, and all the inhabitants would run after it to see where the fire was. They jangled bells and whistled whistles, but no sirens, thank goodness, in those days. And then the next well-known thing was the brewery that was in Third Street between Main and Spring, and it was owned by a man—a great big German—called Schwartz. And my great excitement was to walk up Third Street with—with my father. Mr. Schwartz, with leather—or I suppose rubber—boots up to his hips would be slashing down the suds and the water from the inside of the place across the sidewalk and into the gutter to go down the main drain, and he always addressed my father as Mr. Mayor: ‘Good morning, Mr. Mayor.’ And once or twice I was taken into the brewery to see how everything worked, and it was so cool and lovely, and I just loved the smell of the hops. And we used to often walk up there because later on, when we got a little bit older, we had to walk up Third Street to get on a cable car to take us to school.
Now then, you want to know how I was dressed as a little girl? I wore some kind of a little bodice—I can't remember what it was—which had buttons all around it, and on those buttons hung my—my drawers. And on top of that I wore a knitted petticoat, hand-knitted by my dear grandmother who practically brought us up—a beautiful, beautiful old lady she was. Well, she wasn't old for now; she died at 70, and everybody thought that was tremendous. Well, anyhow, she used to knit these little uh, petticoats for me, and they were either pink and white—mostly blue and white—and those tied around my waist on top of my drawers. Then on top of that I wore a white petticoat, which hung onto some kind of a bodice, and that always was trimmed with white embroidery, which my grandmother spent hours and years embroidering for me. That was on those. Then on top of that I wore some kind of a little dress. I must have been a sight; I must—I must have looked like a Christmas tree, and I think I must have been very uncomfortable, but I didn't know it. That was the way we dressed in those days. Then my hair, which was very long and very thick, was tied with a ribbon on—no—when I went to school—when I was about six years old and went to school—that was in a nice thick plait with a ribbon on the end. But on Sundays, that was wild—just hanging all over the place. And that was that. And I can remember my mother, on one of her trips to New York—she was very delicate—bringing back a little beaver bonnet and a little—little coat trimmed with beaver. Can you imagine, in Southern California? I must have died of heat, but nobody seemed to know it. Well, that's that. So let me think what else.
Well, Pemro and I went to a kindergarten, and we were not more—Pemro was not more than five or six, and I was a year older, and we had to go on a little on—or car—car which started at the plaza and ran down Main Street with a bell on the horse—tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle—and we knew all the drivers until we got to our little kindergarten, which was near 7th Street and Main. We were taught by a little old maid who couldn't exist any place in the world now except between the covers of a Dickens novel. Her name was Miss Mary Hoy. She dressed in the most old-fashioned clothes, even for then—dragging in the dust—a little bonnet tied under her chin, and she carried her lunch every day in a little Chinese basket to school. Well, we sat in little—little benches and little desks and things, and the way we were taught—we stood up for class—and on the wall was a chart—a big chart—and it had all the little three-letter words that you can think of: shy and cat and dog and oh, everything. We stood up; she had a long ruler, and she'd call our names: ‘Now, Jet Tom, what's that?’ And I'd spell c-o-t, cat. And that is the way we were taught to spell, and all of the little sons and daughters of the—then the—I suppose you'd call them Los Angeles society leaders or whatever they were—all had their education started at this little school. Well, we stayed there until Pemro was old enough to go to uh, public school. I think there were one or two—well, one—I think—here then. I don't—I don't remember. I was never allowed to go to public school; I was too precious to mix with a lot of boys and things, so I was at home and going to Miss Hoy's and then on to another school later on. Well, that was that. So I can't think what to tell you about the rest of the family. Um, my father used to come home every day to lunch. Oh yes, and he had—he made—the most beautiful garden in Los Angeles. He brought from all over the place many beautiful semitropical trees which had not been seen here then. He had the first avocado tree ever in Los Angeles or California, but in those days they called an alligator pear tree. I don't know why, but they did. And he had the—orar—a bid Willy ey—but the treasure tree was an enormous rubber tree. I think it was always the largest one here in Los Angeles, and it had four massive trunks that grew out of the original trunk. And as we children were born, my mother would carve our initials on each trunk. And so the boys were never allowed to climb that tree because if you bruise a rubber tree it bleeds. Well, my darling Pemro loved to climb trees, so one day he—he was very quick, I must tell you—on the retorts that he made—one day he was at the top of this rubber tree when he saw my father approaching rather unexpectedly home from the office, and he tried to scramble down. And as he was scrambling down, my father stopped under the tree, and he looked up, and my father always used a little—a little uh, stick when he walked—just—I don't know how he ever gotten the habit, but he did—he looked up and he saw Pemro clambering down the tree, so he shook the stick at him, and he said—Pemro—didn't I tell you that if I ever caught you going up that tree I'd wallop you? ‘Yes,’ says my little brother, ‘you never caught me going up the tree; you caught me coming down.’ Well, of course he never was walloped, and he did all these wonderful and sweet things; he was the most generous, loving, gentle human being that ever walked, I think.
Now let me see what else can I think of when I was little. Well, maybe that's enough for today; maybe we'll start again tomorrow when I can think of a few more things. Except my father's office was up—for the plaza—and I expect all of you seen the dear old church—the dear old Plaza Church—opposite, which is still standing, is great—quite a landmark here—and I hope it will never be pulled down, cuz it's the one thing we have really left. I think they pull down everything here that's worth looking at. And so I think that'll do for today. Used to come around; he was a Mexican that we'd all known all our lives; we were quite little children then, and he carried on his head a small barrel, and in it, wrapped up in clean white cloths, were these ice cream—well, they weren't cones, cuz they didn't have them then—and we loved them. We paid five cents, and we had a—a saucer of this stuff, and of course it was only frozen custard, and I hate to think nowadays where it could have been kept in the meantime when he wasn't peddling it. That was in the summer, and in the winter he came—always dressed in pure white—always—and clean—clean as a whistle—those Mexicans used to be—and when he came around in the winter it was tamales, and he peddled these tamales, and you got a real Mexican deal, heavens, when you think—for five cents—and we just were crazy for them and for him, and he was here for many, many, many years. And um, gardens, and on the south side then there weren't more—I would say—than twelve houses, and the beach was just one wide, beautiful, white sand beach; not a house, not a tent; nothing was allowed to be built on the sand in those days. And we used to go down there as soon as school was out; the exodus was marvelous. A great big wagon would come in from the ranch with the horses and bedding and oh, everything you can think of was piled in there, and the Chinese cook went down, and we went down in the—in the carriage with the horses, and we get down there, and then everybody—the—the boys would go wild from then on; they never had shoes or stockings on; they were in their bathing suits; they were good swimmers, and they were quite little. We went—I went down there when I was eight weeks old, so of course I wasn't in swimming. I hope I don't like it now, even so. Anyhow, the bo—the everyday uh, the San—would go out; two boats would go with what you call the net, but we called it the San in between, and they dragged this thing in, and then the Chinese cook and my father—whoever was—go down on the beach, and they caught hundreds of fish—the sort that you never see now in the market—and they'd stand there, and they—they'd say—well, they'd have that one; they'd have a red, yellow tail; they'd have a croaker; they'd—oh, I can't tell you what they'd have—and they'd pay practically nothing for them—five cents for a big fish—and the fish were all flapping and fresh, and occasionally there was a lobster—not too often—and then we had a dog, and the dog's name was Jack. He was black; he was a mongrel, but he was loving; he was Pemro's dog, and he never left Pemro. Well, Pemro was quite a little boy when we first started going down there, and he liked paddling in the ocean and going and swimming, and every time he'd go down to the beach with the dog following and start going in, this dog would bark and rush in and grab—grab him by the seat of his pants and pull him out. Well, that didn't please him very much, but he had to put up with it. And we—every year from the time I was born—the first summer I was born—and I was born on the 3rd of July—until I went away East—was I there for three months—and we had the best times, I think, of our entire lives in that place at Santa Monica.
Now the—oh, I forgot to tell you that in the old house in Los Angeles—well, it wasn't old then—we had four parrots, and they were loose in the trees. My mother cut their wings—one of their wings—to keep them from flying away, and they'd come down when they wanted their meals, but they all talked and chattered, but one of them could imitate my mother's voice. And as a little—little—well, Pemro was not more than six or seven then—he'd be playing down by the sanki, and my mother would go to a back window upstairs and call, ‘Pemro.’ And he'd say, ‘Yes, ma'am.’ I must tell you that in those days we said, ‘Yes, ma'am’ and ‘No, sir.’ ‘Yes, ma'am.’ And he'd come running up; my mother would tell him what she wanted him to do, but the parrot learned to call him, and this parrot, Blacky, would sit in the top of the tree out there and called, ‘Pemro,’ and he'd come running up the hill, ‘Yes, ma'am,’ until he found out it was the uh, parrot, and he was madder than a hatter.
Now, oh, I always had a kind of a—I guess motherly—feeling towards him, and when we went to Miss Hoy's school at the ages of—oh, I guess five and six, maybe less—I always felt I had to look after him; I was responsible. And believe it or not, I was a very shy child; I was frightened of everything. Well, this one day at school, Miss Hoy promptly said she'd want to know if any of the children could recite little poems, and of course Mr. Showoff was the first one—oh, he knew a poem. I must tell you, he listed very much in those days cuz he—he'd had several falls downstairs and things, and his front teeth had been knocked out. Oh, he knew a nice little poem—a nice little poem. So Miss Hoy said what he recited, and he stood up, and I must tell you all of these people with that kindergarten—now many of them are still alive, although we're all pretty old and decrepit, but we're still alive—and we've always been friends all these—all these many years. But he stood up, and this is the poem: ‘If I, with going to the lake, I met a little rattlesnake; he ate so much jelly cake, it made his little belly ache.’ Now that was too much for me; I burst into tears, and I was told to go home, so I took him home and informed my mother I would never go back to that school again; I was disgraced. He said ‘belly’ in front of everybody—‘belly’—fancy saying that. Well, I guess we were different in those days; I don't know; I expect we were nowadays. Not only would you say it, but you'd show it if you wanted to. And um, well, I can't think of the little things that happened—so many little funny things used to happen to us when we were children. Oh, now one of my very earliest recollections—I couldn't have been more than four or five years old—and it was on the 4th of July, and there's—there was a procession—always a procession—always—and it always came down Main Street, naturally; that was the street. And my father was riding in it on a horse, and they were going to stop just in front of our big gates—just there—cuz we—of course we had the—mention you know—and somebody was going to make a speech, and at the right moment I was going to be pushed out to hand a beautiful, great big bouquet. Well, the bouquet was all got ready, and I was dressed up in numerous petticoats and whatnot and things, and somebody was in the middle of making a speech, and I disappeared, and nobody could find me—no me, no bouquet, no curtsies, no anything. So the parade went on; everybody looked for me, and hours after I was found hiding under the hedge with a very wilted little bouquet in my hot hands. Well, what else can I tell you? I don't know; I think I was a funny little girl. I know I was very chic and dressy, I think more so than most of my little friends. I think that my grandmother, who practically brought us up cuz my mother was so delicate, as I said before, I think she kind of thought of me as a funny little doll. Well, perhaps so.
Now, I will close until I can think of something else.
When my father first came to Los Angeles, after a very exciting and eventful life, he bought a large portion of land which ran from Third Street—it was a half a block between Third Street and Fourth Street—fronting on Main Street, and extending to Los Angeles Street at the back. Third Street was only a little unpaved alley, but my father named it Mayo Street, after his mother, Abigail Mayo Tom. In that land was an old adobe house, which was—at least the walls were—at least 3 ft thick, and my mother used that always as a sort of a storage room. My father then built this beautiful old house, which even nowadays would have been a lovely home. It was called the Tom Mansion, no less. It had large, beautiful rooms, well proportioned; the library was paneled, so was the dining room. It had seven bedrooms, and my mother had her own suite, with her sitting room upstairs, her little dressing room, and her bedroom. And in that bedroom we were all born—there were four of us. My two eldest brothers, Cameron and Kesby, who were born within a very short time of each other; then there was quite a little break, and then I was born, the first girl in the Tom family for a generation. And my darling, darling brother, Pemro, was born I think 15 months after I was. We were like twins all of our lives. I never loved anybody as much or more. My two elder brothers hung together; I don't think they thought much of the two younger ones.
Now, in this large place there was an old wooden flume which ran through half of it. It was called by the Mexicans the zanka; we kids called it the sanki. And that was only—only—used for irrigation purposes, never for the house or anything like that. I was never allowed to go near it; I was too precious; I might have got my feet wet. But the boys went, and they picked up all sorts of little frogs and all sorts of little fish and whatnots. And we were looked after, from the time we were born, by three Mexican girls; and afterwards, when they left and the Chinese started filtering in, my mother always had Chinese. We had, for years, a Chinese gardener, Chai, who had been a doctor in China, and was always doing things with people, particularly Pemro, who was always getting hurt.