Last week, I started my survey of Edgewood’s gym storage, looking for hidden archival records.
The gym is in the main administration building, and is the whole left side of the building (the side behind the power pole). I’m sorry that the photo isn’t that great.
The storage area is a loft above the gym, and as you can see, it’s under a set of five windows. It’s also very hot and dusty up there. The gym is used daily by kids and basketballs and volleyballs end up there pretty often, landing on (and knocking over) boxes and bags.
The gym, like the entire Edgewood campus, was built in 1924. It was named after a man named C. Frederick Kohl, who has an interesting history that I plan to write about in a separate post. But first, I need to figure out his ties to Edgewood and why they named the gym after him.
And, here’s what the storage looked like when I got started. I counted over 110 boxes, as well as a few empty boxes. Like many other out of sight storage areas, this loft has been the dumping ground for anything and everything that people wanted to get out of the way and think about later, including historical items.
I decided to start in this corner, which is the farthest section back, because I had been told that it was a likely place to have older things. Everything was also completely coated in dust and right in the sunlight, so I wanted to look through these things first and then start on a more formal inventory of the boxes.
After I moved the large trash bag – which, I kid you not, was filled for some reason with Styrofoam peanuts – and the folded up banner, I came across a box of photo albums.
The photos, which are all unlabeled and don’t have photo release forms, are all from events from the 1990s and early 2000s. Interesting, but not exactly what I was looking for. I set them aside and asked the Communications department to go through them. If they decide to keep any, I’ll rehouse them in more appropriate storage.
There were critters at the bottom of the box.
Next, I turned to the stack of items on top of a little table. I thought these albums at the bottom looked promising.
And I was right! These two albums, which are quite large at 20” x 25” each, are filled with old newspaper clippings from the 1920s through early 1950s, as well as other ephemera. As you can see, both albums, but particularly the one on the right, have damage to their covers. Part of the binding is also missing from the one on the left.
This album did have several news clippings loose inside, but was mostly used as a scrapbook for clippings related to Edgewood’s 100th anniversary celebration and other events happening around that time, including new Board of Directors and Auxiliary members, Christmas parties for the children, and the opening of a new recreation building on the campus, which is now used as a school.
It also had pictures and names for some of the children, which may be a help to people doing genealogical research. Edgewood often gets calls from people asking about their parents and grandparents who lived there during its orphanage period. If I can help connect even just one person to a picture or article on an ancestor, I would be very happy. I’m going to take more detailed notes when I make my inventory and maybe make some sort of index of the children’s names and ages.
Unfortunately, the clippings are glued into the albums, and all of the opposing pages are yellowed. The clippings themselves are in varying conditions. Being in a hot, humid, sunny environment like the gym loft for at least the past few years has not been helping.
This page was a total mess, but it looks as though it’s many clippings of the same article, so it may not be as bad as it looks.
I was surprised to find a telegram from Richard Nixon in the album. It was the only record from a politician. It sounds as though as they invited him to the 150th anniversary event, as he was a newly elected California senator at the time.
And this telegram was from Lurline Matson Roth regarding the opening of a new building, Matson, named after her mother. Lurline was the daughter of William and Lillie Matson, owners of the Matson Navigation Company, which offered cruises to Hawaii. Lillie and Lurline volunteered at Edgewood. The Matson home in Redwood City (about half an hour south of San Francisco), named Filoli, is now a California State Historic Landmark and open to the public. What is very interesting is that the street that leads to Filoli is called Edgewood Avenue. My colleagues and I suspect that Lillie and Lurline’s connection to Edgewood led to the name of this street, but we haven’t been able to find any proof yet.
This is a script for an NBC show on the Edgewood centennial.
This album looks like it has either mildew or water damage. I unfortunately think it’s mildew. I need to figure out where to store it away from other items until I know for sure.
It was not nearly as complete as the first album and about half of it was duplicates of news clippings from the first album. Many of the items were just sitting unattached inside.
However, it did contain some interesting items, such as photos of the previous buildings.
The building in the background on the right was the Haight Street building, the second to last one used before the current campus.
All in all, I’m happy with the first day of searching. These albums were a great find and the news clippings give a nice snapshot into Edgewood’s history and the celebration of its first 100 years, along with regular administrative activities, like new Board of Directors and daily life in the residential cottages.
I was also pleased to find the ephemera like the telegram from Richard Nixon and the NBC script. Although they don’t lend any insight into Edgewood per se, they are fun items that round out the records related to the centennial celebrations.
These albums were not all that I found that day. More coming soon!
References
Filoli. (2014). History. Retrieved from http://www.filoli.org/explore-filoli/history/
Edgewood Tales 