Downtown Long Ago

It used to be fun to go shopping in downtown San Francisco.  I remember my mother taking me when I was a little girl.  She dressed me in a matching hat and coat, shiny Mary Janes, white gloves, and a tiny leather purse.  We rode downtown in a wonderful old streetcar with a motorman in front, tapping his heel on a bell, and a conductor in back who watched us drop our nickels into the change box.  The conductor also kept an eye on the rear cowcatcher to chase away rowdy boys who tried to steal rides.

As I grew older and became an adult myself, Mother and I continued our forays into the marvelous San Francisco stores and shops.  Few of the original ones now remain, but in those days we could choose among City of Paris, the White House, the Emporium, O’Connor and Moffat, I. Magnin, Ransohoff’s, Joseph Magnin, Livingston’s,  Liebes, Maison Mendesolle, and a number of others.  A shopping expedition was a time to dress up, and we loved it.  We donned dressmaker suits, hats, heels, gloves, and sometimes a scarf of little furry creatures with glassy-eyes.  I don’t know which would have been worse—to wear pants downtown or to forget your white gloves.

Shopping itself was a joy.  In many stores, and not necessarily in designer departments, a saleslady greeted us to ask exactly what we were looking for, then invited us to sit down while she disappeared into the back to seek the desired garments.  We did not have to go through crowded racks ourselves, hoping for someone to help us.  In those halcyon days, the saleslady returned with an armload of dresses, lay each across a settee for our inspection, then carried our selection to a fitting room. 

An hour later, we emerged with a neatly tied dress cartons and moved on to a favorite shop for hats.  Here again the saleslady brought us a fascinating variety, always straw in the spring and felt in the fall, some with veils, some with flowers.

Buying gloves involved a special procedure.  Again the lady behind the counter asked for our preference and quickly found it in the cabinets nearby.  She lifted the desired pair from a tissue-lined box and smoothed them over our fingers as our elbows rested on a satin cushion.  We might try several pairs before deciding.

As for stockings, we had a wide selection of colors and deniers to look over.  Here again the saleslady demonstrated the qualities of each by pulling it over her own beautifully manicured hand.  If stockings were our only purchase that day, we asked for the box to be sent.  No charge, of course.

When lunchtime arrived, we had a favorite list of restaurants nearby, almost all of them now gone: Normandy Lane, Claridge, Blums, Townsends, El Prado, the St. Francis, the Golden Pheasant, the Poodle Dog, etc.

When it was time to go home and if we had not taken the street car, we walked to Union Square and handed the attendant our ticket.  Then we sat on red leather settees to wait while he retrieved our car from the depths of the earth.

Things are different today.  People no longer dress for downtown San Francisco.  Times have changed, as have the requirements of our lives.  I must admit that I, too, sometimes wear pants as I join the throng of shoppers.

But as I walk along the crowded streets I look about and long for the days when it was an occasion to be there and we dressed for the joy of it.

Children Had a Wonderful Time--First Appeared in the San Francisco Examiner

When we were children, our late mother often told us about that frightening time she referred to simply as “the fire.”  She was 10 years old in 1906.  Many years later, she wrote out her memories:

                         ***

April 18, 1906:  A day I shall never forget.

Sleeping peacefully, I was jolted awake at 5 a.m. by the severe shaking and swaying of our new two-story home.  Mother, Father, the boys and I ran out to the hallway where we stood together, shivering.  When we looked out the window, we saw our neighbors running from their homes as bricks from chimneys and timbers started to crumble.

Soon after, reports reached us of deaths and cave-ins in the more populated area of our once-beautiful city.  Even worse was the terrible, out-of-control fire which, because of lack of water, destroyed entire sections of the city.  People from those burned-out areas came to our home and slept on cots in the basement.

     For days after, we had a series of smaller quakes.  The fires progressed.

     We were compelled to cook in improvised shacks erected in the middle of the streets.  Many people had no water, but our supply came from a well nearby.  Telephone communications were out.  Soldiers patrolled to make sure no one used lights or disobeyed orders.

(Signed) May Poetsch Wagner

                          ***

     When Mother handed me her written account, she said, “I know it was a terrible catastrophe.”  Then she smiled.

“But we children had a wonderful time.”