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"Woman Born in 1878 Talks About Her Childhood in Los Angeles, California in the 1880s"
Transcript: "(00:00) 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. (00:22) 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 (00:54) 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 Mr Collins to make this (01:25) remarkable recording in the first place so we definitely have her to thank for that the date of the audio is November 26 1964. [Music] sell 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 (02:07) in Virginia where he was born in 1824 my grandchildren who would never know any of these things without you 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 received every day of my life ever since I was born I've been bullied by my dear wonderful niece Rowena to try and tell you something about my memories as a little (02:53) 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 (03:48) 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 more than five or six years old when the loss in 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 because there were no roads came in buckboards and they tied their horses along the hitching posts all along the front of Main Street and I (04:28) can remember walking to the 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 a little side mutton chop whiskers and his name was Henry vanderlik 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 room if you needed a broom which I expect we did and inside he sold the things that we had to buy and everything in those days (05:08) 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 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 vandalik family whom I think married (05:48) was one of the oldest Castilian families here are the the 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 one of 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 (06:39) there was afar there were very few of them because there were very few houses and very few shops to burn down well when the far 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 Maine and spring and it was owned by a man great big German called (07:23) Schwartz and my great excitement was to walk up Third Street with my father Mr Schwartz with leather or I suppose rubber boots up to his hips would be sloshing 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 (08:05) 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 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 17 everybody thought that was (08:47) tremendous well anyhow she used to admit 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 sent 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 (09:29) 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 plant with a ribbon on the end but on some days that was wild just hanging all over the place and that was that now 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 (10:04) 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 Pembroke and I went to a kindergarten and we were not more Pembroke was not more than five or six and I was a year older and we had to go on a little one horse 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 (10:45) Street in Maine 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 Hoyt she dressed in the most old-fashioned clothes even for them 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 (11:27) 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're taught to spell and all of these little Sons and Daughters of the them the well 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 Pembroke was old enough to go to (12:08) public school I think they 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 Hoyts 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 made had the most beautiful garden in Los Angeles he brought from all over the place many (12:44) beautiful semi-tropical 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 arakaria bitwilly eye but the treasured tree was an enormous rubber tree I think 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 (13:25) climb that tree because if you bruise a rubber tree it bleeds well my darling Pembroke loved to climb trees so one day 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 a stick when he walked just I don't know how he ever got in the habit but he did (14:06) he looked up and he saw Pembroke clamoring down the tree so he shook the stick at him and he said Pembroke didn't I tell you that if I ever caught you going up that tree I'd Wallop you yes there's my little brother he never caught me going up the tree you caught me coming down but 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 (14:43) 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 seeing the dear old church the dear old Plaza Church opposite which is still standing is greater quite a landmark here and I hope it will never be pulled down because 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 the day to come around he was a Mexican that we'd all known all our lives we were (15:25) quite little children then and he carried on his head a small barrel and in it wrapped up in clean white claws were these ice cream well they weren't cones because they didn't have them then and we loved them we paid five cents and we had a saucer 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 white Pure White always and clean (16:00) clean as a whistle those Mexicans used to be and when he came around in the winter it was tamales and he pedal these tamales and you get a real Mexican tamale 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 many years and um Gardens and on the south side then there weren't more I would say than 12 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 (16:41) 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 know 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'd 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 (17:14) old so of course I wasn't in swimming I hope I don't like it now even so anyhow the bar the everyday uh the scene would go out two boats would go with what you call the net but we called it the sane in between and they'd drag this thing in and then the Chinese cook and my father where was would go down on the beach and they caught hundreds of fish the salt that you've never seen on the market and they'd stand there and they'd they'd say well they'd have that one they'd have a (17:47) 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 were 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 pembroke's dog and he never left Pembroke but Pembroke was quite a little boy when we first started going down there and he liked paddling in the ocean (18:19) 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 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 (19:01) 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 Pembroke was not more than six or seven then he'd be playing down by the Sankey and my mother would go to a back window upstairs and called Pembroke and he'd (19:36) say yes ma'am I must tell you that on 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 black he would sit in the top of the tree out there and call Pam broke and he'd come running up the hill yes ma'am until they found out it was the parrot and he was madder than a Hatter no oh I always had a kind of a I guess motherly feeling towards him and when we went to miss hard School (20:13) 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 Hoyt promptly said she'd want to know if any of the children could recite little poems and of course Mr show off was the first one oh he knew a poem I must tell you he listed very much in those days because he'd have several falls downstairs and things and his front teeth had been knocked out oh he knew (20:50) nice little poem a nice little poem so Miss Howard 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 as I was going to the lake I made 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 (21:28) home so I took him home and formed my mother I would never go back to that school again I was disgraced he said Billy in front of everybody barely 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 (22:01) 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 because we of course we had the Mansion you know and somebody was going to make a speech and at the right moment I was going to be pushed out to the hand a beautiful great big bouquet well the bouquet was all got ready and I (22:43) was dressed up in numerous petticoats and whatnotes and things and somebody was in the middle of making a speech and I disappeared and nobody could find me know me no bouquet no curtsies no anything so the parade went on everybody looked for me and I was offered I was found hiding under the Hedge with a very wielded 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 (23:25) practically brought us up because 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 4th 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 (24:10) after his mother Abigail mail Tom and in that land was an old adobe house which was at least the walls or at least three feet 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 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 (24:59) dressing room and her bedroom and in that bedroom we were all born there were four of us my two eldest Brothers Cameron and Kate SP 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 Pembroke 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 (25:39) 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 Sankey and that was 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 but from the time we were born with by three Mexican girls (26:25) and afterwards when they left and the Chinese started filtering in my mother always had Chinese we had for years a Chinese Gardener chikai who had been a doctor in China and it was always doing things with people particularly Pembroke who was always getting hurt
Bell Buford Tom Collins reminisces about growing up in Los Angeles in the 1880s, describing it as a small, quiet town with green hills, orchards, and a population of about 11,000 residents. She contrasts this with the large, noisy, and polluted city it later became. (00:00-02:53)
