THE VICTORIAN ERA
Helen Stanford wrote this summary of an era as an introduction to the next chapters in which she tells us of her childhood with first memories beginning in 1900. Much of the next seven chapters i taken from Helen’s writings. To make it clear to the reader, all that Helen writes is in quotation marks. What is not so punctuated, I have written. This chapter is the exception. Since Helen wrote all of it, quotation marks are not used. ************* 1 So that you who read this, maybe in the 21st century, may better understand these ancest rs of yours, it would help to know something of the era in which we lived. The V ctorian era persisted on two continents through the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901. It was a cult of ethics that established a way of life for a wide swath of society, in both England and America. The ethics of that era were notable, among other things, for their 7 contradictions. The society was steeped in the practice of restraint and propriety, yet ostentation and arrogance abounded. Restraint and propriety were the guiding lines in family life and did much to produce snobs and increase class consciousness. In those days, no matter what one’s financial status, one didn’t spend money casually. People 7 didn’t buy things without proven durability. And children were not encouraged to desire amusements for which one must pay. “No, by George,” Papa said, “children had young bodies and strong legs to run and romp with.” 7 Queen Victoria’s death in 1901 did not end the Vic torian era. Sixty years of a way of life is not snuffed 7 out like a candle flame. It sticks to you like wet paint from a park bench. You still judged your neighbor by the servants she had and if she had a day “at home.” Calling cards, engraved ones of course, opened the portals to “Who’s Who.” Now Mr. Romaine, acro s the street, had been seen more than once, walking down the block to the mail box in his shirt sleeves and suspenders (heaven forbid). You greeted him if you met him anywhere, Mrs. Romaine too, but you didn’t leave your calling card at their home. To raise Emma’s (our cook) wages from twenty dollars a month was unthinkable, but you bought an expensive bronze bust of Franz Liszt for one end of the piano be cause someone you knew had one of Mendelssohn, and it was ‘being done.’ -J The correct male didn’t step out on Sundays without his gold topped cane and his gloves. If he were taking his family to the band concert in the Golden Gate Park, he wore his ‘Prnce Albert’, a square cut black coat with wide satin faced lapels down the front. This topped a pair of dark grey, pin striped trousers. And of course he always rJ wore a hat when outside.
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The amusement parks were crowded on Sunday, but you’d as soon have been caught dancing the two-step down the church aisle, as to be seen in one, at least on Sunday. The playground at the park was a sanctuary by comparison.
-J “‘Common!’ was the word, with raised eyebrows, used
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for such places as the Chutes, with its thrilling roller coaster dips and drops on the one hundred foot high tracks, the Fun House, the Merry-Go-Round, the Penny Arcade, the Shooting Gallery and much else ent cing to the young in heart. With a sniff of disdain Mama would say, “Only common people go to such places on Sunday!” Secretly I envied the common peple, i.e. those who lived on streets always referred to with a “you know where I mean” expression. Filmore was one of those streets. Lombard, Union and Bay also were tainted. The latter ran through what was once known as Cow Hollow. This section was extended into the marshlands by an enormous land filling operation and became the site of the 1915 World’s Fair. It later developed into the rather attractive neighborhood called.the Marina. Despite the shady reputation that hung over the Chutes, we were taken there on numerous unforgettable occasions, but never on Sunday. On someone’s birthday, even George Washington’s, perhaps two or three mothers would take seven or eight of us children to the Chutes. A picnic lunch would be brought along and there were tables and benches under striped awnings. These excursions were not until after my seventh birthday. Some time before 1910 the Chutes on Fulton beyond Tenth Avenue somewhere was completely destroyed by fire. It was rebuilt in 1910 on Filmore and Turk Streets, but without the zoo the old one had. Eventually all of those amusements were in full swing along the beach not far from the famous Cliff House. The entire lives of countless people have been vividly
, under which issued the rowdy noises from inside the unmen tionable saloon, you picked your hazardous way among the horse-drawn vehicles to the other side of the street. It was one of the unforgettable moments of a child’s life to be spotted by the revered policeman on horseback, and in Mama’s clutching grasp, be led to safety beside his very splendid horse. 1 Eras come and eras go and one isn’t especially con , scious of the one in which one is living. It is for his torians and those with nostalgic hearts to record.