The final donation of items

Hello!  It has been a long, long time since I’ve shared an update on the status of my Edgewood project.  Even though I’ve been neglecting this poor little blog, much has been happening.

I’m still working on finalizing the transcripts for two oral history interviewees.  One keeps requesting small changes every time I sent what I think is a final draft and there is a communication issue with another.  But hopefully I can wrap that up soon.

I also finished digitizing all of the important records, which was essentially everything between 1851-1951.  This included old photos, a scrapbook from 1936 (which I originally thought was a photo album until I took it out of its display case), lots of old annual reports, correspondence and ephemera.

But most importantly – I completed the donation of archival items to the San Francisco History Center, which was my ultimate goal!  Yes, it is finally true.  It took much longer than expected thanks to a crazy school and work and life schedule, but at least I made it happen.  Part of the delay was in me digitizing everything I wanted to before the transfer.  That was way more time consuming than I had planned for.

At the end of July (yes, sorry, I am very slow in posting this), three wonderful archivists from the SFHC came out to Edgewood and picked up about 12 boxes of assorted papers and artifacts and 14 or so boxes of orphan records from the 1850s to 1940s-ish.

What the vault holding most of the boxes looked like before:

and after:

You can see how much was cleaned out!

Here are some boxes waiting for the assembly line of getting moved to the van.  You can see the vault they were stored in in the background (black door).  These were orphan records from about the 1910s, I believe.

And a few more boxes in my office

And then it was all about playing tetris with the boxes and getting them into the van.

It was a very close call in being able to fit everything in the car.  I have to credit the SFHC archivists with doing an amazing job of fitting 25+ boxes of different sizes, some without lids, some with fragile items, into this minivan and maintaining their sanity.

It feels so good to have completed my main goal of this project.  All of the most valuable papers and items are now safely in the hands of the professionals, where they will last another 160 years of Edgewood history.

Someday the staff will process the collection (I’m dying for this to happen, but trying to not pressure them) and I’ve already begun referring people making genealogy requests to Edgewood over to the History Center for information.

In 2016, Edgewood celebrates its 165th anniversary!  It is my hope that the collection can be at least partially processed as part of the anniversary celebration.

What started as a class project requiring 135 hours over a semester turned into a year-long project totaling somewhere around 400 hours.  I am so happy and proud that it’s done and it was worth all of the time and stress.

I have some more to share and will hopefully get that posted soon.

Found more items from the 1800s

My search of the vault uncovered many other items from the 1800s through the 1930s, not just orphan records.

This box marked “Morris” was stored in between boxes of medical files.  Morris Kilgore was a former CEO of the organization, so it caught my eye.

To my surprise, the box contained copies of nearly every single annual report for the San Francisco Protestant Orphan Asylum and Edgewood from 1856 through 1931.   Even more surprising is that despite covering such a span of time, only a handful of years are missing.  I was very excited to have found these as they have a lot of great information about the early administration and donors to the orphanage.

Here they are, piled up by decade.  Most years they used very neutral colors, but as you can see, there is a bright red edition.  What is fun is that some years, there are annual reports printed in more than one color for some reason.

These are pretty short, so I’m going to try to digitize all of these.

I found two more engraved copper plates.  The one of the left is the front door of the administration building and the one on the right is a side door.

And I found piles of land records, deeds, and other property-related documents.  These were much older than the deeds I previously found in the balcony.

The oldest record was a deed from 1853 and describes the location as being from the Yerba Buena Cemetery to Larkin Stret to McAllister Street. I’m somewhat confused by what this property describes, because that’s across the street from the current City Hall and from what I can tell, the orphanage was never located there.  In 1853, they were supposedly located in Pleasant Valley, a neighborhood that no longer exists but was about 2 miles to the east.  But, there isn’t a lot of information about where exactly Pleasant Valley was, so maybe it was the current Civic Center area and not the current South of Market area, which is what I had thought.  Another thing to add to the research list!

Here’s a map drawn in 1853 of the Haight Street location, where the orphanage moved in 1854.  I don’t think the 1853 deed is for this location since they were created in the same year and the street names are radically different (and the deed names streets that are a mile to the east of the ones on this map).

Here’s another map of the Haight Street location. Kate Street (on the left) is now Hermann Street, but the others are the same.

And this is a map of the current location, on Vicente Street in the Parkside neighborhood.  The lot was about two acres larger than it is today.

I was happy to find this letter.  Even though it’s just a list of construction bids, it’s the only record I’ve found from the architects of the current location.  It’s also addressed to Mrs. Dimond, a prominent figure at the organization at the time.

I also found this note from longtime Edgewood secretary Nellie Stow to Mrs. Dimond.  Two of Edgewood’s residential cottages were named after these ladies because the children adored them so much.  I have found a couple of other items signed by Miss Stow, but haven’t found any other correspondence between herself and other managers of the institution.

I was thankfully able to finish searching the vault in just a day and will now move on to looking around the rest of the building and organizing the items into series so I can start to build an inventory.

Finally found the orphan records

This week I searched the vault, another storage unit that I had been told had archival items.  As you can see, the vault is in the cafeteria, behind the food line.

It’s not a large space, but there is a lot stuffed inside.  67 boxes, 7 ledgers, and a few odds and ends, to be exact.

About half of the boxes were obviously medical records from the 1930s through 1980s and I didn’t touch those.  But then I saw this enormous box, which turned out to be filled with orphanage admission and discharge papers from 1853 to 1896.  Almost from the very beginning of the orphanage’s establishment!  Sadly, it looks like the first two years of records are lost, but it’s hard to complain when there’s still so much history that was saved.

The papers were all bundled up in envelopes by year.

And inside they were all folded in half and sweetly bound with ribbons.  The names of the orphans and admit/discharge dates were all written on the outside of each note.  The envelopes are falling apart, but the papers themselves look like they’re still in good condition, apart from being folded.  Some of the writing has faded considerably, though.

I did lose track of time for a while going through just a few of the files.  It was so fascinating to read about why children were brought to the orphanage.  Later records had much more information, such as formal admission forms and correspondence.

This orphan’s file contained an update on the orphan’s mother, who remarried, moved away, and had another child.  What really struck me was the comment that the mother had been a victim of a bomb attack in San Francisco.  I had never heard of the Preparedness Day bombing before.  It happened at a huge parade in July 1916 , with 10 people killed and 40 hurt.  It is the worst terrorist attack to happen here, and it’s really interesting to find a connection between it and Edgewood.

In another file of a half-orphan (the organization differentiated between full and half) taken to Edgewood at 2-years-old, I found a photo of the boy’s father and two versions of his parents’ marriage certificates.  The official, regular certificate…

And a beautiful, ornate version where pictures could be inserted.  These all have some foxing or mildew.

Here’s an admissions form from 1885 for a 10-year-old girl named Hattie.  Her mother died of bronchitis, and her father had to bring her to the orphanage.

But there were happy stories.  This family of four siblings was taken to the orphanage after their mother died in the early 1900s.  Their file had their baptism certificates and report cards.  It even had a letter two decades later from another former orphan looking for the eldest sister of the family because he wanted to reconnect with her.  A copy of the response tells that the girl had gotten married and the last place they knew of her working.  I wonder if he ever found her!  But best of all, the discharge papers showed that all four went back home to their father several years later.

This is an admission record from 1875.  As you can see, it was pretty simple compared to later years.

It was so exciting to have found these papers.  I could spend all day reading everything!  Because of their wealth of genealogical information, I hope that the San Francisco History Center will be interested in adding all of these to the existing Edgewood collection.  However, if not, I’ll do my very best to put these records into more proper storage so they can be saved for the future.

More soon!

Last day of searching the gym

I’m happy to report that this week I was able to finish my search of the gym storage, going through the last 17 boxes and 6 large shelving systems that had a mix of random items and small boxes.

This box was filled primarily with news clippings from the 1960s through 1994.

I also found a few more newsletters from the 1960s and 1970s, and two photos of children living at Edgewood in the 1960s.

I also found the architectural plans for the current campus in this box, but forgot to take a picture!  Finding this box about two years ago is what prompted my idea to do this special studies project.  I was worried that it had gone missing since then, so I’m glad I came across it again.

This news article mentions yet another name for Edgewood – Edgewood Children’s Home.  This may have been an unofficial name.  I’ll add it to my list of things to research.  There have been around five variations of the organization’s names between 1924 and now and I’d like to find a more concrete timeline for the name changes.

In this box, someone thoughtfully organized photos by topic and decade.  The box was labeled as “Photos 1980-1986”, but they actually span from the 1960s through the 1990s, with most on the earlier side of the range.  I hope to be able to identify some of the children in the photos through the oral history project.

At the back of this same box, I found this folder, which was filled with deeds and other correspondence from the 1910s.

A list of donations to a memorial fund, from 1886 to 1914.  What I love about this document is that it mentions Ann Swain, the wife of the couple that purchased Camp Swain in 1874 as a summer camp for Edgewood’s orphans.  It also mentions James L. Flood, son of James C. Flood, a prominent local man who started his fortune in the San Francisco Gold Rush.  James C.’s legacy lives on through the Flood Mansion, perched atop Nob Hill.  The Flood Mansion is a registered historic landmark and one of the few Nob Hill mansions that didn’t burn down in the 1906 fire.  It’s now a private club.

This deed was signed by George W. Haight, the lawyer for Edgewood (at the time called the San Francisco Protestant Orphan Asylum) until his death in 1913.  Yes, George was a member of the Haight family, of the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco.  I don’t know the exact relationship, but George’s relative Henry Haight donated the land for the orphanage’s previous location, at Haight Street and Laguna Street (1854-1919).  What is fun about it is that a descendant of this family just the other day got in touch with Edgewood, wanting to reconnect and possibly volunteer.  The Haight family partnership is reignited, 100 years later!

I thought this invoice to “ruin” watermelon patches and trample them was a fun find.  This company still exists, by the way.

This letter is great because it references the sale of Camp Swain, helping to give more documentation of the time the camp was used by Edgewood’s orphans, as well as referring to a significant change in Edgewood’s property ownership and programs for the children.  I also like how their prorated bill was only 60 cents!

And the last find to share with you today is this envelope, which was in the folder with the correspondence and deeds.  Inside were about 15 or so images and their negatives.  I suspect these were donated by a former resident (or staff member) of Edgewood.  I’ll try to verify the sender was a resident and see if I can obtain copyright or usage permissions.  Either way, I will digitize the photos for preservation.

The photos are not labeled, but most were likely taken at Camp Swain.  The image on the top left of the children in clown costumes may have been taken at Edgewood, and the bottom right picture shows Edgewood’s current location, most likely in the mid- to late 1920s before the neighborhood started to get developed.

More coming tomorrow!