Audio
Louise Cook and Josephine Hettel
Transcript
Drayton: So ...I’m wondering, first of all, if I may get your dad's full name and birthdate.
Cook: Leslie George McKay.
Drayton: And M-C-K-A-Y?
Cook: Yes. And he was born in 188-
Hettel: No, that was probably a mistake ....
Cook: There was ten years difference; Mama was born in 1893 and he was born in 1883, is I remember.
Drayton: ... where did he come from. The name sounds Scottish. Was he indeed Scottish?
Cook: They came from, their grandparents came from Scotland and settled in Nova Scotia.
Hettel: Oh, when they first came over? It was Newfoundland.
Cook: In Newfoundland, yeah. And they settled over some place by Sutter’s Mill or somewhere where … they had a [lumber business, she’s not certain]. And then they moved to San Francisco.
Drayton: Now who's 'they.'? This is the grandparents?
Cook: This is the grandparents, my father's mother and father.
Drayton: Ok. So they were Scottish-born, the grandparents? [There is considerable distraction from the other room and thus ‘echo’ questions are often used for clarification.]
Cook: Yeah.
Drayton: And came to Newfoundland then to California, post-Gold Rush –
Cook: I think that the grandmother was English.
Drayton: Ok. And then your mother's name.
Cook: Mary Louise Pucheu.
Drayton: Pucheu? So, she's French.
Cook: Yeah. She's pure French.
Drayton: And spelling?
Cook: P-U-C-H-E-U. And her father’s name was John Baptiste Pucheu. The mother’s name was Helene Marie –
Hettel: I think it was Marie Louise, cause that's where you guys got your names.
Cook: Well maybe. But I don't know what the maiden name was.
Drayton: And was she, your mother, was she born in France or was she—
Cook: No. She was born here in San Francisco, from what I remember.
Drayton: And then just real quickly: the names and ages of the siblings. I mean I know Richard, because I've talked to him. Are you the oldest?
Cook: Well, I was born in 1915, I'm the oldest. And you [to Mrs. Hettel] were born in 1917, Josephine. And Buck was born in [Mrs. Hettel: "1919”] 1919.
Drayton: And Buck is his first name?
Cook: No, Leslie George, Jr. And then Arthur Blondell McKay. He is deceased, and he was born in 1921. And Richard Garrison McKay, he was born on Angel Island and he is what-"
Hettel: 71.
Cook: And Mary Louise is the youngest and she was born in San Francisco.
Drayton: I think I've lost track: is that seven children then?
Cook: Six.
Drayton: Six. Six brothers and sisters.
Cook: But one is deceased.
Drayton: Now how is it that your dad came to work for ... the Lighthouse Service.
Cook: Well ... first he was in the Spanish American War. And then he was a guard in the prison in the Philippine Islands. And then, I don't know how he got into the Lighthouse Service, but he was stationed at Mile Rock, which has been decapitated .... And then he met my mother in San Francisco and they were married, and she lived on Steiner Street and he lived there, and he was only able to go maybe, what, every three weeks come to the city.
Drayton: Oh, after they were married even. Oh.
Cook: Yea. Then, I don't know how long that transpired but we moved to Trinidad, and that's where she was born.
Drayton: Trinidad? Up north? And what’s the name of the lighthouse there?
Cook: I can't remember the name of that lighthouse.
Hettel: It's Trinidad, isn't it?
Cook: Trinidad Head, I think, yeah.
Hettel: And I was born in Arcata. That's probably nearby.
Drayton: [Turns off the tape recorder to check to see whether conversation of Mr. Cook and Mr. Hettel from living room is overwhelming the interviewee's voices on the tape. We listen to tape for a minute or so; the ambient noise level is acceptable, and the taped interview is resumed.]
Drayton: So Trinidad, so he started at Mile Rock, was that his first job—
Cook: In the Lighthouse Service, yes.
Drayton: And he was an Assistant Lighthouse Keeper?
Cook: Yes, there, uh-hmm.
Drayton: And at Trinidad he was also an Assistant, I guess?
Cook: Yes. And then … we moved to Angel Island.
Drayton: And do you know what year that was by any chance?
Cook: We moved to Angel Island, Oh God, let me see. We were there five years.
Hettel: And I know I was a baby because I see pictures of me in diapers.
Cook: ... we probably came there in 1918, because we were there five years and we left in 1923. So that's five years.
Drayton: What precedented movement? Was going to Fort Point better for the family?
Cook: Yes.
Drayton: Was it an increase in [pay]?
Cook: No. Because he actually took a demotion because he was then only 2nd Assistant when we went to Fort Point because there was another [Mrs. Hettel: "Assistant"]. Well Mr. Jordan. He ... decided that we should move because the family was increasing and the quarters were small. And then we had to go to school in the boat and you had to walk about a mile and a half to get to the boat to get to school. And then you had to walk another ten blocks to 'school.
Drayton: And that was on Angel Island?
Cook: Yes.
Drayton: What school did you go to?
Cook: Sherman.
Drayton: In Sausalito? Tiburon?
Cook: No, no. no.
Hettel: San Francisco. Sherman School … has been there 99 years. It’s on Union Street and a block below Van Ness.
Drayton: How funny. Why would you go from Angel Island to San Francisco. Isn't it closer to Marin?
Hettel: We don’t know …
Drayton: … maybe the Lighthouse Service had an arrangement with—
Cook: No, we went on their regular boat that serviced the island.
Hettel: All the kids went.
Cook: … we never even stopped at Marin. They only stopped [in San Francisco].
Hettel: They didn't go that way, they all went that way.
Cook: Yeah. And that was the nearest school as far as I know. Spring Valley was up a little ways but nobody that I knew went there. But anyway we were there for five years, on Angel Island, and then we moved to the Point [Fort Point].
Drayton: Before we get to the Point, which is really why I’m here, I can’t resist asking you about Angel Island and what both of you may remember about that experience. Maybe the State Park should sit down with you.
Hettel: [Apparently, they were at the beginning of an informal interview with a ranger when the proceedings were interrupted by a medical emergency on the island. They are concerned that the lighthouse story is neglected in the State Park's interpretive efforts. The lighthouse and keepers' housing has been torn down.]
Cook: Well they all made the mistake of tearing down these lighthouses because well you can see [from picture on wall] how many stairs it was to go down to the lighthouse. Oh, I don't know, there was how many stairs. About a hundred and something stairs. And they were wood, so you know with the deterioration from the salt." [Mrs. Hettel wonders if it is too warm in the kitchen.]
Drayton: But your memories of Angel Island were positive, negative, mixed?
Hettel: [Quickly] Oh, wonderful.
Cook: We liked it there.
Hettel: We remember things. Yeah, we had a good time there.
Cook: At the time that we were there … we got our bread from the commissary which was brought over by a soldier in fatigues, you know, blue. And the bread was wrapped in brown paper. And I don't remember what the price of the bread was then, but probably a penny a loaf.
Hettel: They delivered the milk on the top of the stairs.
Cook: Yes. Everything was on the top of the stairs.
Hettel: So many times we dropped the milk on the way down [chuckles].
Drayton: Because you lived at the bottom of these stairs, is that what you’re saying?
Cook: [Walks over to point to picture of Angel Island Lighthouse on wall] Yeah. We lived up on this top – the keeper lived here, Mr. Reed, and we lived up here. And the stairs go all the way up.
Drayton: Oh I can see it now … Got it. I wouldn’t deliver milk to your door either! [Laughter]
Hettel: But these little kids going up and getting the milk. Somebody's naturally drop it.
Drayton: So Fort Point, you moved there in '23.
Cook: Yeah.
Drayton: And your dad had to take a demotion because –
Cook: I'd say it was a demotion, I don't know if he considered, I guess it was because it was a bigger place. I mean, there was more to maintain at that time than there was on Angel Island. Everything there was just, compact.
Drayton: And what ... were his duties, as Assistant, Assistant Lighthouse Keeper?"
Cook: They were on, how many hours were they?
Hettel: They were on shifts.
Cook: Shifts. Yeah. Eight hour shifts.
Hettel: Three of them.
Cook: Yeah.
Drayton: So there would be a swing –
Cook: And they would rotate around. The Keeper did the same as the other two men did. He didn't show any favoritism to himself."
Drayton: Was that the Keeper's perogative? Was he in control of that or was that a Lighthouse Service rule?
Cook: I don't know if that was ruling or not. But I imagine it was, it would have to be because a lot them were only two men stations so one man couldn't do everything himself.
Drayton: Well no, but I mean, just rotating, swing [graveyard etc.]
Hettel: They had to take care of the light—
Cook: Polish it.
Hettel: And then the foghorn, they had to keep on watch for the fog. The minute the fog came in they had to get the motors going for the foghorn. And when that wasn’t going they had to ring a bell when something went wrong there. I remember that.
Drayton: And where was the bell?
Hettel: On the top of the fort … on the right-hand side of the signal house. [Discussion about this between the two sisters. Mrs. Cook goes to get some historic postcards of Fort Point.] It was there, a little part of the fort jetted out. And they built these motors to run the foghorn. There were two motors there in the little office. And then, right across the way, was the lighthouse.
Drayton: Which is really quite small, as I remember it … I assume you went up there, right?
Hettel: Oh yeah. A lot of times.
Drayton: Did you ever help out in any way?
Hettel: No, no.
Drayton: There were no heroic incidents of the lighthouse keeper’s daughter?
Hettel: None. None that I remember.
Drayton: You didn’t save any ships?
Hettel: Nothing like that.
Drayton: No, I really didn’t think so. So basically what he was doing … was keeping records –
Hettel: Keeping the log.
[Mrs. Cook has returned with historic photos, as seen in Fort Point and/or Presidio collections. Informal discussion as we look through pictures.)
Hettel: See over in here is where they built this house that housed the engines. Then over here in this little [building], that’s there now but it was a little restroom. They had a desk in there and a stove.
Drayton: Ok, we're talking about ... the southeast end of the fort. Got it.
Hettel: That’s where they went to rest and do their log. They also had a little office in the signal building where the foghorn was.
Drayton: So basically there's three separate structures that they were using.
Hettel: Yeah, and there was another, a little tool shed here.
Drayton: Ok, on the top. [Discussion of postcards.] What is this right here [referring to small building on the exterior south wall of fort. Mrs. Hettel cannot identify it.]
Cook: That was built there when I think they started the bridge, just before they started the bridge. They started putting up little [sheds for equipment and tools.] Let's see, they started surveying the bridge in 1928 when I was graduating from grammar school.
Drayton: This is a great picture.
Cook: Now that came from the Presidio archives … [The 19th century photo shows a swimming or boat race of some kind which culminates at the fort.] This was a little---they tore that down---she jumped from there into the sand.
Drayton: Who’s she?
Cook: Me! Stupid!
Drayton: Ok, so now we're talking about this photograph that shows the oceanside. And what is that; what is this building?
Hettel: It’s built out of the same material as the for was. And it looked like a dungeon. Maybe it was a storeroom.
Cook: I think it was storage for ammunition or something like that. We used to call it the Dunkin House, but I don't know why.
Drayton: Uh-huh. And you jumped off the top of that, you rascal you? [Mrs. Cook laughs]
Hettel: You know, that was so stupid. It was. Somebody said, “I dare you to do it.” And so stupid me. You know, I look back, I could have gotten killed. But it was sand.
Drayton: What was this used for when you folks were there?
Hettel: Nothing. It was vacant.
[Karana comments on structure and design of the footbridge from housing to the fort. Women think that the bridge may have been altered over the years.]
Drayton: Now there are three houses in this picture. Which one did you live in?
Hettel: We lived in this one [closest to the fort]. The Jordans lived there and we lived there and then the Cobbs [Mrs. Hettel: "The keeper lived in the one below."] lived in the one below."
Hettel: That was built later –
Cook: It was a nice home.
Drayton: It’s kind of a Tudor Revival?
Cook: Oh yeah. It was a nice house . ... and they tore all those down and threw the wood right into the Bay.
Drayton: Threw it into the Bay?
Cook: The army did that.
Hettel: Now see this coming down here?
Drayton: It seems like a pipe?
Hettel: No, it’s not pipe. It’s tracks. Now the ship would come in with the coal or the wood or the supplies that they needed for the station, and then somehow, where was the dock, the mine dock? However they got it into here –
Cook: They anchored out and rowed it in.
Hettel: Ok, and they had a chute, a little cart that brought the supplies up to here, the coal and the wood.
Cook: Five tons of coal we were allowed each year.
Drayton: For the light, or for heating?
Cook: No, for our own use.
Hettel: For our own residences and they delivered that.
Cook: We didn't get electricity until 1927 either.
Drayton: Yes. Your brother said that he remembered that he had coal oil.
Both: Yes. We had coal oil, the lamps, (etc.).
Drayton: And were you even on a sewer system out there?
Both: Oh yes …
Drayton: Oh, well that’s a blessing.
Cook: The only thing that we didn't have was garbage. They used to toss the garbage. Course in those days there wasn't too much garbage. You used to bury a lot of it.
Hettel: That's what they did. Bury it.
Drayton: Uh-hmm. Interesting. Now Cobb, let's go back … Now what was the name of the Lighthouse Keeper?"
Cook: George Douglas Cobb
Drayton: Did he have a family there?
Cook: Oh yeah. He had four children. Foster, Raymond, Roy and Doris. She was a –
Hettel: Came along later.
Cook: Yea. She came later in her mother's life.
Drayton: Surprise? [Laughter] And then I’m sorry, you had Mr. Jordan, what was his first name, not Ralph?
Cook: Yes, uh-huh. And the Jordans were there. They had Mr. Jordan, what was his first name, not Ralph?
Hettel: I don’t know.
Cook: And then there was, the oldest girl was Edith, and then her brother Ralph and then Lydia was the youngest. And Lydia also had won some kind of a contest for the map of the United states. She won a car.
Drayton: A car!
Cook: Yeah, in those days. Remember that? [Laughs] That was really an achievement.
Drayton: Were people still using horses in and around your area at all or by then, probably not. I wouldn't think [so].
Hettel: The Cobbs and the Jordans had a car. We didn’t.
Cook: Yeah. We had to take the busses. […]
Drayton: Well with all those kids there, were you kind of isolated from the rest of the Presidio or did you feel connected?
Hettel: No, connected, because we, we made friends. It wasn't that far from them. There were residents –
Drayton: Well that’s true –
Hettel: Well no you don’t know where they are because they’re gone! But they were close, they were just five minutes, eight minutes away.
Cook: A lot of the kids on the Post never even used to come out and play. I don’t know where they were. Once in a while we’d have a ball game or something but –
Hettel: We made friends with some of the girls. There were two girls that were down at the end of this highway.
Cook: The Chases. Maybe you’ve heard of Madeline Chase?
Drayton: It sounds really familiar.
Cook: She’s much into the Presidio deal. Her father was an engineer.
Hettel: There were two girls and we were friends with them …
Drayton: And just amongst the three households, of course you might have all been different ages –
Cook: They were all grown, except the Cobb's little girl. She [Mrs. Hettel] played with her but they were all out of school workin'.
Hettel: But we never lacked for friends –
Cook: Oh no.
Hettel: And entertainment, we'd fish and we went swimming and we went –
Cook: We hiked the hills.
Hettel: There were tons of wildflowers. The hills were covered!
Cook: Yeah. Irises, violets, wild strawberries –
Hettel: Indian paintbrush.
Cook: We used to make strawberry tarts.
Drayton: Oh, out of wild strawberries?
Cook: Yeah. They were good.
Hettel: They were beautiful. And then there was the service club right over the hill where we went.
Drayton: Oh, it was like a recreation hall?
Hettel: They had the library.
Cook: We went to church there.
Hettel: We went to Sunday School there. And then we had club meetings and socials and Christmas parties and plays. And that was like the community center they call it now. It was lovely.
Cook: The hostess ... I think she was from a wealthy family because she had a lot of books donated. And they had a library and the library was all donated books through her friends.
Drayton: And her name was?
Cook: Florence, Florence Hyde. She was from an old San Francisco family. She was a hostess.
Drayton: Oh, like Hyde Street.
Cook: Oh she could have been. I know she was a very –
Drayton: Was she an army wife?
Cook: No, she was never married to my knowledge. But she was the head of the Sunday School group –
Hettel: She was the hostess –
Cook: She was the hostess of the Fort Scott Post. They don't have them anymore. They had them like to welcome the new people in, get the Christmas parties together.
Hettel: She organized, all those social affairs.
Drayton: But was that an official title, an unofficial title, paid, volunteer?
Cook: Civilian. She had some quarters there in the service club, which was all furnished real nice with that china and everything. [Mrs. Hettel: "It was lovely, very comfortable."] And sometimes if it was too late she'd stay overnight because she did not have a car. And she was a very nice person. I mean she was really good at her job.
Hettel: It was pleasant to be there. There was lots to do. You know, it was just a great place to grow up.
Drayton: So you didn't feel isolated at all it sounds like.
Both: No.
Hettel: Never. Never lonely, never any of those things. We had the trees and the hills and we were always [Mrs. Cook: "Flowers."] outgoing and outdoors and doing something.
Cook: Very active.
Drayton: And as girls you didn't feel that restricted; that boys got to run around more than girls did?
Cook: No.
Hettel: No. Because we did as much. [Laughter]
Cook: But we weren't allowed to talk to any soldiers, either. Because at that time, the soldiers had a very bad reputation. They did. [Drayton: "Oh interesting"] A long time ago when it was hard times, many people went into the service. See they didn't have [good] backgrounds so we weren't ever allowed to, course the ones that were married with families, that was all right.
Drayton: And the officers –
Hettel: Then when we went to school we rode in an army truck, that was the bus. Picked up all the kids on the Post.
Drayton: And you went where to school?
Hettel: Well, we went to Fort Winfield Scott, which was right outside the gate.
Drayton: Which gate?
Cook: It’s not there now.
Hettel: Well the Presidio Gate. It was on Lombard. …and later on we went to Grant School which was on Pacific. Then from there we went to Galileo High.
Drayton: Now, because you weren't really army per se did you ever feel that there was a division between lighthouse keepers and the army or did that dissolve?
Cook: No.
Hettel: We had access to everything, almost.
Cook: You see, it would be up to your mother to tell you that you could sit or whatever in the officer's section, because we were civilians. But our mother wasn't like that. However, some people that lived on Alcatraz they were civilians and her mother made her go in the officer's [cabin] on the boat when they picked the kids up ....
Hettel: Then the officer's parents probably told them don't associate with anyone unless – that's what we think now. [All three women talk at once] But we didn't feel that, we didn't give that a thought!
Cook: There was a lot of that, I think it was so. We weren't army, we didn't give a hoot about anything.
Drayton: But you knew, or at least in retrospect that life for the Post kids was stratified?
Cook: Oh yeah…
Hettel: When you look back at the time. Because we had access to the Px. the commissary, the dispensary, we could come and go, do anything we wanted.
Drayton: And you could play with officer's kids or noncommissioned—
Cook: Yeah, but we never ever did. They never ever came around, officer's kids. In fact they hardly ever came outside .... you hardly ever saw them outside.
Hettel: That’s true.
Drayton: But enlisted people did, enlisted children –
Cook: Yeah. Some of them. Some of them were very, I don't know, they just were homebodies, I guess.
Hettel: They weren't as outgoing, outdoorish as we were. As kids were very very active, and out all the time hiking, and fishing, and swimming.
Cook: Helped us in our old age.
Hettel: Hop on a boat to go across the bay. We used to hop on a boat from the mine dock. Do you know where that is?
Drayton: No, I don't. Well you pointed it out, basically.
Hettel: ... it's the dock that right there before you go around to –
Cook: When you come down to the Point. There's that dock that goes out.
Drayton: Oh all right. It's the same one ....
Cook: They call it Fort Point dock now. But it used to be the mine dock ....
Hettel: Well they had a little boat there that we could hop on and go over to [Mrs. Cook: "Fort Baker"] Marin County, Sausalito, Fort Baker.
Cook: And then walk all the way out, up through the tunnel. You've been over in there?
Drayton: Oh yeah.
Cook: Is that tunnel open yet?
Drayton: No .... [Discussion about this and reasons for the closure]. And I was asking Josephine when you were getting the pictures, whether she had been into the lighthouse and she said, many a time. But I'm trying to think if there were unspoken or spoken rules about things that you could or couldn't do when you went into the lighthouse. You did touch this, you didn’t touch that …
Cook: Yeah, because it always had to be polished. And your fingerprints would be left on the brass. Um, one time, the light stopped and my mother saw it. And she went out and she fell down the spiral staircase under the light. Remember? She had a miscarriage. She didn't even know she was pregnant. That would have been the seventh kid.
Drayton: Ah. She went up to the light you mean?
Cook: Yeah. She thought my father might have fallen asleep or something [chuckles]. I don't know. The light had stopped.
Drayton: She couldn't see it.
Cook: ... because it was supposed to revolve. And she went out there, because it was wet and slippery. Well you know how it is out there.
Drayton: Oh, I do. And she fell down the spiral stairs from the lighthouse?
Cook: Well, from the bottom of the spiral [Mrs. Hettel: The cement stairs, was it cement? Oh, the spiral she fell down?]
Drayton: Oh. After she had been up to the lighthouse?
Cook: No ... she didn't get into it. She fell down the stairs before she got into it. And I think Daddy found her.
Drayton: Oh how sad. But she was Ok after that?
Cook: Oh yes … our aunt came out-
Hettel: And believe it, we had so much company.
Cook: [Laughs] All our relatives –
Drayton: Well you had a big house.
Hettel: All the people. They always motored out there on Sundays. There was not a Sunday that passed that we didn't have a houseful.
Drayton: [Laughing] Whether you wanted it or not, huh?
Hettel: But we expected it, it was just something to do…
Drayton: Because you were kind of a place to be on a Sunday drive? A place to stop?
Hettel: Yeah. Even when we lived on Angel Island we always had a lot of company, all the relatives.
Cook: Yeah, you had to get permission to come over there. They were strict ...
Drayton: Now tell me a little bit about your house. It looks like a very pleasant building. Yet you said it was three bedrooms?
Cook: Had three bedrooms upstairs. But no bathroom. Later, we understood, that the back of the house, it was like an alcove, they took the wall out and made a bathroom.
Hettel: That was upstairs, but there was one downstairs.
Cook: Oh yeah, there was one lavatory downstairs, and the bathroom was on a room at the far end of the house and then there was a washroom, and there was a dining room, a kitchen and a parlor, front room.
Hettel: Then there was this –
Cook: Big porch.
Hettel: No, that. But also there was a room that had the rafters and before they built the sheds in the back daddy kept the coal in there ....
Drayton: … a one-story ell added on in the back, is that what you mean?
Cook: Well, the bathroom was attached to that. Where was the bathroom before then? Before we moved there? [to interviewer] Did you ever hear the name of 'Rankin?' [Drayton: "Yeah."] Now we got the house that they lived in and they, from what we understood, we heard that their daughter had rheumatism or something that the climate wasn't conducive for her to live there, so they moved, I believe, to Marin County, somewhere. I don't remember. Then there was a Neagle [check spelling] …
Drayton: [Looking at historic postcard] I'm sorry, this little ell that sticks out the back, is that a kitchen, is that your coal [room]?
Cook: No, I think it was added on after, wasn't it?
Hettel: That came later because that was the shed, they called that. Where they stored the coal and everything.
Cook: Wasn't that where the wash tubs were?
Drayton: This little building, it looks like its got a fireplace which almost implies that maybe long ago it was a kitchen, or that you could heat water in there or something. I’m just guessing … So this coal place or shed, you’re saying is this other little [building] right there?
Cook: No. this would be part of the house.
Hettel: And it was a great big room! It was a huge room!
Drayton: But it wasn't the kitchen?
Cook: No, the kitchen was inside of the house.
Drayton: And this is a bedroom window here, this dormer on the back?
Cook: That's an attic, or was it part of the bedroom? Yeah, the two back bedrooms.
Drayton: Ohhh. I bet that must have been a great room to have, look out on the ocean?
Hettel: Not only that but we used to crawl out and sit on the roof ...
Drayton: [Laughing] You sound like feisty young ladies.
Hettel: We were right there when it came to daredevils.
Drayton: Now, what color was your house? It looks like it’s white?
Cook: It was white, trimmed with red.
Hettel: It's the way my house is today. Kind of a brick color.
Cook: Brick red.
Drayton: All of them were the same color?
Hettel: … no both houses were the same but the Cobb's house was beige, wasn't it?
Cook: Beige, trimmed with red, Cobb's house, yeah.
Drayton: And ... let's say something needed to be fixed. Did the lighthouse service fix it? Do you guys fix it?
Cook: No. They had to do it themselves.
Drayton: The keepers?
Cook: The men that, yeah. If the window broke they had to get the glass and re-putty it and put it in. I think they had to do the painting too –
Hettel: Well, they were forever doing something. Whitewashing the fence all the time. They had to maintain everything because they had inspection every so often. And the inspector would come in.
Drayton: And the inspection included your whole house?
Hettel: The whole station, inside and out, yeah.
Cook: They would just come in and look around and, you know. They didn't go into your drawers.
Drayton: No, of course not.
Cook: But you never know in those days [Laughing].
Drayton: But the point of the inspection included aesthetics. Included looking sharp, nice, clean, whatever.
Cook: Yeah.
Drayton: You know, it almost looks like there's something written above this gate. Is there a little sign there? As you walk through the front gate into the two [upper] houses, was there a sign over the gate?
Cook: There used to be a sign on the bridge, 'No trespassing. Prosecuted by federal law.’
Hettel: Maybe that's what it is?
Cook: No, I don't think so .... that bridge didn't have that top on it when we were there.
Hettel: I think that is different because there was something underneath that bridge where Roy used to hang. And I don't see it here. Remember, he used to get down underneath there and hang on the bars? [Drayton laughs] The keeper's son."
Drayton: So, you had to do all of the upkeep. And I assume that the housing was free though ...
Cook: It was like, taken out of your salary.
Drayton: You mean they actually charged you for the house?
Cook: Well I think it was included in your salary but it was considered like twenty dollars if I remember right. My father made $105 a month.
Drayton: For the whole time he was there?
Cook: Uh, yeah. But then I don't know if he got a little raise or not, I can't remember. But he was a Spanish-American veteran and he had ear [damage] from being too close to a canon so he used to get what, fifty dollars a month –
Hettel: Got a pension.
Cook: As a pension, disabled or whatever you want to call it, disability.
Drayton: Did he get any benefits from the lighthouse service like, this is probably before health insurance and those sorts of good things.
Cook: No, nothing.
Hettel: But our mother did later. After he passed away, they gave it to her.
Drayton: So basically it was the old-fashioned system of the straight salary but the house was thrown in minus twenty dollars –
Hettel: And the fuel.
Cook: And you got fuel, like you say. And then we got the electricity that was included.
Drayton: Oh, you didn't have to pay for electricity. But you had a flush toilet?
Cook: Yes.
Drayton: Oh that's nice. That makes a difference. What was it like living with coal oil? You had –
Cook: You had to fill the lamps, these big lamps and then little smaller lamps when you read or did your homework in your bed. But you had to be careful. Never a fire [She knocks on the table].
Hettel: We had fireplaces.
Drayton: You did or did not?
Hettel: Did. There were two fireplaces.
Cook: Yeah. They were working fireplaces too.
Hettel: Three fireplaces. There’s one in the parlor, dining room, and upstairs.
Cook: Upstairs. And then Christmas we had candles on the tree. But you had to be careful.
Hettel: I know, but that's dangerous.
Cook: But Daddy used to put the tree in a bucket of dirt and water it every night. It never dried out …
Hettel: But living there, none of us ever really got in any serious accidents. No broken bones, nothing. We got sick. … but there was all those dangerous things, the cliffs and the rocks and there were little minor cuts and slivers …
Drayton: Did any other kids out there get hurt?
Hettel: Not that I know of –
Drayton: Just bounced off the rocks, huh?
Hettel: We never ever saw anybody walking around.
Drayton: That's what I was going to say: did you ever feel [threatened]? Did you have vagrants and transients out there hanging out?
Cook: There used to be an old man. Not old, I guess he was old to us. He was about fifty. And the Coast Guard house was on this hill and there used to be a path down, and there was a one-room---we used to call him 'the Shack Man.' Remember? And –
Hettel: Yeah, but who was he?
Cook: We don't ever know. He used to come there every day. And then there was another man that used to walk, with his handkerchief he used to bathe his eyes with the salt water and dry his hankie as he walked. The 'Hankie Man.' We had names for everyone. [Laughter]
Drayton: But you didn't feel threatened by these guys?
Cook: No.
Drayton: They were just curiosities?
Cook: Well I suppose---they didn't have a lot of military police either in those days –
Hettel: If we saw anything out-of-the-way we'd run home and scream …
Cook: I don’t know. There wasn’t any crime or anything.
Hettel: We were pretty safe.
Cook: Nobody ever got murdered that we know of ...
Hettel: We played on those canons –
Cook: On the batteries.
Hettel: The bunkers. The guns were still there.
Drayton: Now which battery? At what you call East Battery or what bunker ...? Or up on top of the hill?
Cook: The one that's right by the Golden Gate Bridge entrance. There was all these batteries, big canons that you could get in there and twirl them around.
Hettel: … turn the wheel. Elevate it. And make it come down, and turn it around.
Drayton: Uh-huh. And they were there the whole time that you were there?
Cook: Oh yeah.
Drayton: I think that's probably what you call 'East Battery’.
Cook: The batteries were up the hill, they were more in to Fort Scott.
Drayton: Ok. Well there's a battery that they call East Battery and one question that the park ranger at the Fort wanted me to ask you about whether or not they were still canons –
Cook: There were still canons, yes. I would say there were four or five of them.
Hettel: Great big ones. And we walked down on an iron ladder to get down to the –
Cook: Inside.
Hettel: Because there were down, below. And we'd turn different wheels and go around.
Drayton: Ohhh. It's amazing that you were able to activate them, isn’t it?
Hettel: Yeah.
Drayton: But were you supposed to do this? Wasn't this off-limits?
Hettel: Nobody said anything! [….] There was no restrictions. No one ever told us, don’t play on it …
Cook: [Facetiously] And what could girls do? [Laughter]
Drayton: Right!
Hettel: Plenty!
Drayton: Evil laughter! Oh gosh, before I forget: At your house, did anyone ... garden? Or was it just too cold?
Hettel: No, they did. We had a vegetable garden.
Cook: Off and on ... the Cobbs had a vegetable garden. The Jordans didn't have.
Hettel: And the keeper had one. They had one down [there]. They had a nice vegetable garden and she had all kinds of pretty flowers. It was more sheltered. Off to this side here was a vegetable garden but you can't see it. It had all lawn there and all flowers. She had roses and lobelias.
Drayton: [….]
Hettel: There was a fountain there, a water fountain and there was a sundial. You know that path that goes up? [Drayton: Yeah] They blocked that off now … There was a water fountain on one side and a sundial.
Drayton: Had they put that in?
Cook: No.
Hettel: It was there, it was there.
Drayton: Oh interesting because that's pretty fancy –
Hettel: It was nice. [….]
Drayton: That was part of their yard or was that more public?
Hettel: No, no. It was not theirs. Because there was a hedge coming down on that path. See they were all hedged off there .... It was all fenced and cemented there.
Cook: Every house had three entrances . ... the front door, the back door and a door in the side, remember? And the Cobbs also had one in the front, one where she had the washroom and the kitchen.
Drayton: How many bedrooms did the Cobb house have?
Cook: Three. They all had three.
Drayton: Three. So it wasn’t any bigger than yours?
Cook: Oh, it was a nicer house though. The dining room was all white panelled. Then they had a nice living room, and then there was an office; the entrance hall he made into an office. And there was like a hallway like above, behind the front room there where it went upstairs. They had an entrance in the kitchen that went upstairs. It was a real nice house. But they shouldn't have torn those down.
Drayton: I know. It always breaks your heart. It could have been leased or used.
Cook: Oh, they could have used it for one of those bed and breakfast like they did at –
Hettel: Even for the ranger station.
Drayton: Now when did the army tear them down, do you know?
Hettel: I don’t know.
Cook: Geez, I can’t remember.
Drayton: But it was long of course, long after you were gone?
Cook: Oh yeah, yeah ... see Richard [their youngest brother] now he went out there and ... some man we knew that drove the bus he was stationed in one of them. However the other man who was in the house that we lived in, he was a black man, and Richard wanted to see the house that we lived in so he knocked at the door and asked and he let him go through the house. I guess it was kept up nice.
Drayton: Uh-hmm. Maybe through the forties or something?
Cook: I think it was later than that. I think it was. But then all that wood was good. It's like the houses on Angel Island. Some of those old houses are 100 years old and when you get under them the wood is just as good as it was when they built it.
Hettel: And the tile is just perfect.
Cook: In fact we were over on Angel Island walking one day and they were tearing down the Officer's Club on the East side. And it was a beautiful club. And the lumber was so good they [were going to reuse it].
End of Tape 1, Side 1
Tape 1, Side 2
Drayton: … did your house have a cellar?
Cook: Yeah.
Drayton: Oh it did. Did all houses have cellars?
Cook: Yeah. It wasn’t –
Hettel: Much.
Cook: No, it was a very …
Hettel: Crawl space.
Cook: Yeah. And it was a mud floor, dirt floor. couldn't go too far in it, however, there was like a lattice by the front porch where the air circulate. Keep the house from being damp.
Drayton: Oh I see. Yeah. So you didn't really use it as a root cellar or anything.
Cook: No. We never used it for anything.
Drayton: And I know that the park probably knows this, I just don't happen to know, what the years that these houses were built?
Cook: Does it say.
Drayton: It doesn't say. It says 'a bridge constructed in 1876 provided access for the keepers for the lighthouse.' But it doesn't say what years the houses [were built. There is a slight interruption as a health care worker comes to the house to check on Mr. Cook.] And did your house have an attic, it looks like it did.
Cook: Yeah, but it was just a [Drayton: Another little crawl space?] very, yeah, you couldn't stand up in it. And you better not put your foot through the plaster either. [Laughter]
Drayton: In some professions you have a feeling of separateness, having your own culture, like coal miners, or ranchers even. As lighthouse keeper families, did you feel that you had any traditions or anything that made you feel special, different?
Cook: No.
Hettel: We felt like we were the king of the road.
Cook: Oh, I don't think so. [Mrs. Hettel: Oh I do.] You might have thought that [Drayton laughs] but I never ever did.
Hettel: We wouldn’t let anyone get near that bridge. Any of the kids from school came out. They were not allowed to go on that bridge, that was ours. I think that we felt like we were the owners. That’s what my impression …
Drayton: But technically, could other kids walk across that? That was probably off-limits, wasn't it?
Cook: Well, you weren't supposed to because there was a sign, like I mentioned before; you weren't supposed to go over there. And they weren't even supposed to come up where we lived, either. That was private property.
Hettel: But we did take possession. [Laughter]
Drayton: How much of the fort could you get into …?
Hettel: [Broadly] All of it!
Cook: Yes. It was completely ours.
Hettel: That was our playground. We had mats in here where we did exercises and acrobats. And we skated in there.
Drayton: [Surprised] Skated! Roller skated? Like in the courtyard?
Hettel: Yeah.
Both: And played baseball –
Drayton: Now somehow I had the impression that it was offlimits, it was closed.
Both: Not to us. Not then. No.
Drayton: Well what do you remember; what did it look like at the time? Did it look pretty much like it did now ...?
Hettel: No, there's some changes. There was a ramp from the second floor that came down.
Cook: Wood. [Mrs. Hettel wonders where the rest of Mrs. Cook's pictures are.]
Hettel: Anyway, there was this wooden ramp. Things were more enclosed than they are now. Now they broke out all that.
Drayton: … oh where the galleries are, the walkways with that pretty open ironwork, that was closed?
Hettel: Yeah.
Cook: They did, they did all of that.
Drayton: They [the Army] had probably closed things in and then they restored it, is that what you're thinking?
Hettel: There was this wooden ramp that came down from the second floor on the side of the fort where the tower is. On that side. And they probably used that and there was a couple of buggies –
Cook: There was an old carriage there.
Drayton: Yeah. That was what your brother was saying. And I think he said some coffins, does that ring a bell? Old coffins.
Cook: There was some, yeah. Yeah .... the army stored a lot of stuff in the part of the fort that … faced the bay. And then there was some people that lived in there. Their name was the Cartwrights. [Chuckles]
Drayton: Cartwrights?
Cook: Yeah.
Hettel: There was also before the bridge was built ... they had a scale model of the bridge –
Drayton: Oh Golden Gate, in there –
Hettel: In the fort, at one time.
Drayton: Oh, just stored. Because it wasn't publicly accessible. You couldn't go in the fort, other than, could you?
Hettel: Well they did. They had this in there. And I don’t know who all went in there.
Cook: Yeah! It was always open.
Drayton: Oh, was it?
Cook: Well I don't know –
Drayton: ... you could walk right through the sally port like you can today and 'go look at the fort'?
Hettel: Wasn't it chained up?
Cook: Maybe for a while but while we were there it was always open. And once in a while somebody would come and close a door or put a lock on it, but it was just a momentary thing ...
Drayton: Oh. I had the impression that it was closed basically but see –
Cook: Maybe it was for a while. But while we were there, it wasn’t. Because the people used to wander in there all the time.
Drayton: So the army just kept things stored in some of the side bays?
Cook: They had a still in there and it blew up or something.
Drayton: A still?
Cook: Yeah, but they had known about that [laughter] because, and I think it was the cartwrights, or the Cartwrights, whatever their names were. And I don't know if it was theirs or somebody else had it and I think it got a lot of that storage [on fire?] the things they had in storage, so they threw all that into the bay. They threw everything into the bay.
Drayton: It was Prohibition when you were there, right?
Cook: Oh yeah.
Drayton: And the Depression. And you guys are running a still! [Laughter]
Cook: Not us, [Laughing) we didn't know anything about it.
Drayton: … when they started to build the bridge, I guess they made lots of changes or there were people staying [at the fort] –
Cook: Yes. The surveyors started coming out in 1928 . …because there was always a controversy that they could never put a bridge there because of the shale, whatever kind of ground was there. But then I guess they won their argument because they built the bridge and it's still standing. But it took a long time. We ... had already left when it was not completed. We left in 1933, May I think it was. May or June.
Hettel: And then gradually the rest of them left too because it –
Cook: They all left almost the same year as we did.
Drayton: The other families?
Cook: The Cobbs and the Jordans.
Hettel: They all left, one after another, because they did away with the station.
Drayton: Oh, they did away with the station then?
Cook: Yeah.
Hettel: See, they put everything on the bridge.
Drayton: Oh I see. So you guys were the last lighthouse families there.
Cook: No, the Cobbs and the Jordans.
Drayton: But I mean, the three of you.
Cook: Yeah. Uh-humm.
Drayton: So then your father was not replaced when he left.
Cook: No he died while we were there.
Hettel: Nobody took his place.
Drayton: [Gasps] Your father died?
Cook: Yeah.
Drayton: Natural causes I assume…?
Cook: He had cancer of the stomach or something… That’s why we had to move and we would have had to move anyway because they were going to phase the station out but we didn’t know that at the time.
Cook: Also, the Chases left at the same year that we did to which I didn't know until we were talking one time.
Drayton: Now your brother was saying that there was a decompression chamber…
Hettel: Yeah, I don't remember that.
Drayton: Well everybody remembers different things .... So neither of you remember that, I guess.
Cook: Where was it?
Drayton: Well I don't know .... (Referring to notes from telephone conversation of 1988], oh he also said there was a cafeteria for workers on the bridge?
Cook: Oh, there was, yeah.
Drayton: Inside the fort?
Cook: Inside the fort. I think it was up on the second floor, some woman ran it. I can't remember her name.
Drayton: Now this sounds like a beehive of activity ...
Cook: …I forget how long she [ran it]; well we moved, I guess it was still there. But she sold like sandwiches; it was awful cold in there.
Hettel: Always cold, always cold.
Drayton: Oooh, I bet.
Cook: Always that wind was always blowing.
Drayton: That's what your brother said. That you were always wet. That your clothes were always clammy ...
Hettel: And yet, we did have a lot of sunny days. I remember, lots of sunny days. But the fort, was I don't know, cold.
Cook: The way our house was situated we were like on the top of the hill with three sides, exposed.
Hettel: We were wide open, ocean breezes.
Drayton: I've been up there and almost gotten blown off. He said there was a decompression chamber in the middle of the fort and the divers would have to come up and then go in there for hours…
Cook: I don’t remember that.
Hettel: In the middle of the fort?
Cook: There were those wells, what do they call them, cisterns. They were very dangerous.
Drayton: In the fort.
Cook: In the fort. Yeah there's one right when you come in on the right hand side ...
Hettel: And they always said there was a secret passage from the fort to the batteries.
Cook: From the first spiral staircase under it? No. Under this place that went up into the batteries but nobody could ever find it. And we used to tap along the thing [Drayton laughs] and we couldn't find it either ....
Drayton: Did you have much of the sense of the history [of the fort]? Or this was just ‘a neat old place’?
Cook: No. I had no idea. I only learned later –
Hettel: Well there's a plaque on the fort that gives some information.
Cook: Yeah. But not when we were there.
Hettel: No, but evidently someone has [put that up].
Drayton: The point is, what do you know as kids?
Cook: We didn't know nothing [Laughs].
Drayton: Sometimes there's history and stories that come down.
Cook: It was just a place that we lived. Like on Angel Island, now when we lived there, they had the immigration station and the Chinese people were there at that time. And many times when we got out of school early and the boat from the island and the immigration station was going to go to Angel Island from San Francisco, we could get a ride over, but we would have to walk from that station to where we lived. But it was all right, because we got out, maybe about 1 o'clock or something. But I never saw one Chinese person there.
Drayton: Because they kept you segregated?
Cook: Yeah but we walked right through the place. But we never saw one Chinese person.
Hettel: I don't remember seeing them.
Cook: Now the Chinese have taken over that whole area over there, you know, with all their history and all that. But they're all coming out of the woodwork.
[Mrs. Hettel asks about why the display of the lighthouse at Fort Point has been dismantled. We also discuss the panel discussion which was held in 1988 as part of the “You’re History” 15th Anniversary Celebration of GGNRA.]
Drayton: Now the Cartwrights; they were living in the fort?
Cook: Yeah. He had charge of something. But I don't know what.
Drayton: He wasn't a squatter or anything?
Cook: 0h no, no. He was a soldier.
Drayton: And he had his family there?
Cook: They had a little girl.
Hettel: The army must have had some part in it because they had this, they occupied this –
Cook: Oh yeah they did, this searchlight.
[There was a red tin building next to the spiral staircase on the top of the fort. It housed a searchlight which was in use during their years at the lighthouse.]
Drayton: You are there during the Crash and the Depression. Did those incredible events ... impact you?
Hettel: We didn't feel it. No, because we got the same money that we had, the same house –
Cook: We didn't know anything about it until later.
Hettel: That's probably why we had so many relatives comin' out [Mrs. Cook chuckles].
Drayton: Maybe so.
Cook: Get a big meal.
Drayton: What was life like for your mom out there do you think?
Both: Hard. Washing by hand, hanging the clothes out –
Drayton: Hanging the clothes out in wet cool winds?
Cook: Yeah. And put the big boiler on the stove to boil the sheets.
Hettel: And you had to heat the water and then –
Cook: Cooked on a coal stove.
Hettel: Wood and coal stove.
Cook: Chopped the wood.
Drayton: Wood and coal stove?
Cook: Yeah.
Hettel: Yeah, you used both in it. Wood and coal both. Yeah, it must have been hard. Course Mama was young and the other women were older. And she had no friends.
Cook: Well, Mrs. Cobbs. She was always busy painting anyhow.
Hettel: Yeah, but I mean they were older.
Cook: They didn't socialize.
Hettel: None of them socialized. Mama was so young and she would have to seek company; she'd go to town. She had friends and relatives in town.
Drayton: In San Francisco?
Hettel: Yeah.
Drayton: So she wasn't totally isolated?
Both: No.
Drayton: But with six kids, it's pretty hard to get away.
Hettel: She'd get away but when she got away, she forgot where home was.
Cook: [Laughs] Like me.
Hettel: She’d stay out and I remember coming home and it was dark and oh I was scared and Mama, I said, ‘Oh I wish we were home.’
Drayton: I bet you appreciated her then! [Group laughter]
Hettel: And then Daddy would get so many days off a month and Morn and Daddy'd go downtown, go to a show and dinner and that. Get off the station. But it must have been awful hard for her. As you look back now –
Cook: If you don't know any other way of life, I mean, that's the way it is.
Hettel: But she was strong. We helped, you know.
Cook: We had to do different chores. On Saturday we had to help with the wash –
Hettel: Dishes. We tried to get out of them all the time.
Drayton: Hmmm. A lot of dishes for that many kids too and no dishwasher or microwave and all of the things we think of now.
Hettel: No, none of that.
Drayton: Now she's French-American. Did she retain any of the French customs of her heritage?
Cook: She spoke French fluently.
Drayton: Oh did she.
Cook: It used to burn my father up when her relatives came out, only spoke in French [Laughs]. He didn’t want us to, which was wrong, [to speak French]. Because when I took French in school I had a terrible time, because all they taught you at that time was verbs … But when our nephew went to school, they taught conversational French…
Drayton: Yeah, you would have had your own private tutor at home. But that’s a pattern that’s so typical and so unfortunate… There were no parties or social events that were just for the lighthouse families?
Cook: No.
Drayton: You wouldn't have, like at Christmas –
Cook: They had the Christmas up at the service club. That’s the only social, except evening services at the service club. They had a Protestant chaplain that gave the services. And they used to serve tea and cakes and we used to have to set the table for the people.
Drayton: You did? Now why did you have to do it. Just because the kid –
Cook: I volunteered.
Drayton: Oh I see.
Cook: Then my father would meet us with a lantern to take us home, because it was dark. It would be maybe about 9:30 or something. But I wonder why he didn't use a flashlight?
Hettel: Probably didn't have one.
Cook: [Laughing) I'm sure they did.
Hettel: No batteries.
Drayton: Where did your mom go to shop? That must have been a trial, especially if you didn't have a car.
Cook: Uh, we had it delivered.
Hettel: And we could shop at the PX and the commissary.
Drayton: Who delivered?
Cook: Morganrauth. He was a little, little grocery store that was across the street from Winfield Scott school. And they used to have sandwiches and penny candy. Then later on, on the corner, I think it's a bar now ... Baker and Lombard, there was an Italian family, San Harpo [?]
Hettel: Yeah, Harper Market.
Cook: Yeah, and they had a fish stand, the father ran the fish stand with the shrimp and the crab and all that. He was also selling bootleg [Laughs].
Hettel: But we went to the PX and we'd go over to the commissary to get the bread. Penny a loaf.
Cook: Yeah. Imagine.
Hettel: Five loaves, six loaves.
Cook: They baked it on the Post.
Drayton: Wow!
Hettel: So we’d get that and then Mama ordered … things from wholesale houses, like big creates … of tea garden jellies and things.
Cook: Snows.
Hettel: And they ordered from Schaubacker Freis.
Cook: What was from there? It was Snows. Schaubacker Frei was the paper. [etc.]
Drayton: But the grocer ... delivered what?
Cook: Our groceries.
Drayton: But what kind of groceries. She said they only sold sandwiches and penny candy.
Cook: Oh no, well he also had other things too, like tea, coffee.
Hettel: But then when that market, that big market, was a forerunner of a supermarket; they had everything. But did they deliver?
Cook: Yeah.
Hettel: They must have delivered.
Drayton: Delivered in a truck?
Cook: Yeah. Uh-huh. We used to sit in back of the truck. [Laughs]
Drayton: They came around once a week or something?
Cook: Oh I guess they always delivered; even if you had five dollars worth of stuff.
Drayton: Well five dollars would have been a lot of money.
Cook: Oh it was. It got a lot of food too.
Drayton: Did you have a telephone?
Cook: Only inter-house.
Drayton: Oh interesting.
Hettel: The people next door had the phone and then we'd go over there if Mama wanted to make calls.
Drayton: And was that the phone that was provided by the [Lighthouse Service] or did they have to pay for it –
Cook: No, I guess they paid for it.
Hettel: But Mama would write down her calls and then at the end of the month well then she'd pay for her, whatever calls she made.
Drayton: So then she could go over and use it, pretty easily?
Both: Yeah.
Cook: They were very nice.
Drayton: … now you had phone inter-houses?
Cook: Yeah, ... there was like a little holes, and there was a plug and one was for the Cobbs and one was for the Jordan and one for us –
Drayton: Almost like a little switchboard?
Cook: No, I don't know –
Hettel: It was a big phone on the wall.
Cook: Yeah. And you cranked it and whatever plug that was set for you'd get that person.
Drayton: Oh interesting.
Cook: But I don't know where that phone went. They tossed it in the bay, that would have been a nice antique!
Hettel: Oh I'm sure it's all in the bay, everything's in the bay.
Cook: Yeah. It’s a shame.
Drayton: And those had been set up maybe for security?
Hettel: Communication?
Cook: Geez I don't know.
Drayton: … and the house came furnished or not?
Cook: No. They were not furnished. Everybody had their own furniture. Yes.
Drayton: ... this doesn't have much to do with lighthouse culture, this just has to do with family history and ethnic history: what holidays were the big ones for you when you were a kid?
Hettel: Christmas.
Cook: And Easter.
Hettel: Christmas mostly.
Cook: And Thanksgiving.
Hettel: Yeah, but I think that Christmas was the most important because we got home and then we got to go to the service club and they had the carols and the big Christmas tree and everybody got a present.
Drayton: On Christmas Eve ... ?
Cook: Christmas Eve.
Hettel: It was Christmas Eve.
Drayton: [Surprised] You went to the service club on Christmas Eve? [Mrs. Cook: Yeah.] Oh that’s interesting. And they handed out presents there?
Cook: Yeah. Everybody got a present. And all the soldiers kids and I guess the officer's kids too, I don't remember.
Hettel: They had a tree that hit the roof. They had Santa Claus ...
Drayton: Oh my goodness. It's the idea of the community Christmas.
Hettel: Everybody together.
Drayton: And you sang.
Hettel: Yeah. The hymns and the carols.
Cook: And I think a lot of the donations Miss Hyde got from her rich friends.
Hettel: Probably.
Drayton: ... let me understand this here. Your parents didn't bring a present for you?
Cook: No.
Drayton: Sometimes people do that. But it was just like every kid got kind of the same thing?
Cook: Something. Like a doll, or a train or a truck or –
Hettel: You got a toy and then you got a stocking with –
Cook: Yeah, candy and nuts –
Hettel: The orange and the apple and the nuts and the candy in it.
Drayton: And was that a stocking or –
Both: That mesh type of stuff.
Drayton: What you call ‘Mosquito Bar’?
Cook: Yeah, I think so, yeah.
Drayton: Because see they used to do those same sorts of things in mining towns. It’s the idea of the community coming together and celebrating. That’s interesting. So it was at night? Rather than Christmas Day. Was there the assumption that people did their own things on Christmas Day?
Cook: Oh, I imagine so, yeah.
Drayton: … did they have dancing or anything that night?
Hettel: There was a program because they had a stage there –
Cook: They had dances in the Presidio with the YMCA but we never went.
Hettel: But wasn1t there a program on the stage?
Cook: Yeah. Singing. [Laughs]
Drayton: I don’t know what building that is. Is that still there?
Hettel: That’s where they have the Catholic Chapel now. But they chopped all those rooms off. Now it's just a little building. It was huge! It was one building off to that side and that way, and that way.
Drayton: Oh, that's what you're saying was the social hall.
Cook: And they also ... set chairs up for the people to sit for the program and that was also where they showed the movies, with one reel at a time.
Hettel: And right next to that was the shooting range, where they shot the clay pigeons. Along that same strip. Don’t you remember that?
Drayton: Outside or inside?
Cook: No, that was over by Lancaster ... Well they might have had another one over there but they used those clay pigeons.
Hettel: Yeah. To me it was right next to the Service Club, right along that same strip. It’s where they had the Easter egg hunt. They had Easter egg hunts there.
Drayton: And so the Army also sponsored this?
Both: I guess.
Drayton: [….]
Hettel: They provided a truck for us to go to school in. It was, you know, the army truck with the –
Cook: They put a seat in the middle …
Drayton: It was kind of like one of those open –
Hettel: It was covered with canvass. And a soldier would stand on the back ...
Drayton: Make sure you weren't jumping out.
Hettel: Misbehaved you got kicked off.
Cook: And you weren’t ever supposed to do that!
Drayton: You wouldn't really get kicked off?
Cook: Yes, they did.
Hettel: Kicked me off once.
Drayton: You're kidding! In the middle of San Francisco?
Cook: No, right in Fort Scott.
Hettel: You see, we went to school right outside the gate.
Drayton: Oh that’s right …
Hettel: We were right close.
Cook: But she and this Dorothy Chase picked up this piece of ice and held it through the canvass and this 'Pumpkin Face' they called him, little guy but he had all these stripes and everything, he was regular army, and he was real strict. And he didn't care who you were. He made them get off.
Hettel: Why? Well we didn't do anything!
Cook: Because you had the ice. I don't know ...
Drayton: Where did they get the ice ...?
[Was it ice from the ground? or possibly some other form of contraband?]
Drayton: ... but good behavior was strictly enforced on the Post in general?
Cook: Oh yeah.
Hettel: And most of the time we were, you know, in line.
Cook: Because if you got in trouble in school or anything that you got in trouble at home. It's not like it is now. Get in trouble in school, your mother and father are there punching out the teacher or something [Chuckles].
Drayton: But was it also a double jeopardy because you were also army; you were representing the army ... ?
Cook: No. I never felt like that.
Drayton: ... were there ever any memorable storms or wrecks that come to mind ... where your dad had to race out to – ?
Both: No.
Cook: That would be the Coast Guard, would have to do that . ... they would have no, any type of a boat or anything to rescue. Coast Guard station was, you know, down [next to Crissy Field]; because now they've moved it to Fort Baker which I don't know why, but they did. And they would have no way of even rescuing someone, unless they threw a rope out.
Hettel: Which has been known to happen.
Cook: Yeah.
Drayton: So there were never any … calamities? [….]
Cook: No. They did have –
Hettel: We remember the fleet coming in. I remember the swims, they used to have these swim meets. [We refer to post card which may show such an event.] Had those all the time.
Cook: See that would be awful rough there to swim.
Hettel: Well, they did swim across there.
Cook: Yeah, I know! But that's kind of far out!
Drayton: Or any ships that came in that were particularly memorable.
Cook: Oh yeah. We used to have the Yale and Harvard. They used to go ply their trade to L.A. then there was the Alexander, they were passenger ships .... oh we had a lot of ship traffic in those days ... oh those were rather large ships; they just went to L.A. though. Oh yeah, then there was some that went to the Hawaiian Islands ...
Drayton: Oh sure. The Matson Lines. You would see a lot of traffic.
Cook: Yeah but now, ... once in a while you see a freighter come in. And, the shipping’s really gone.
Drayton: Yep. I guess so. And sharks, you don’t ever remember any incidents with sharks?
Cook: No.
Drayton: Or unusual flora and fauna, I guess that’s the question.
Cook: We used to go get cockles down on the Crissy Field beach.
Drayton: Cockles? Cockleshells?
Cook: Yeah. They’re like clams. You had to dig for them.
Drayton: I haven’t even heard that word out here. Cockles.
Cook: Cockles. Yeah, they’re like a little clam. They’re shorter though and more sturdier.
Hettel: And there was a little hole in the sane where you could see where they were.
Cook: You get you shovel, start digging.
Drayton: And you used them for what?
Both: Eat them! They’re like clams.
Drayton: Were they still using Crissy as an airfield then? Do you remember planes coming in?
Cook: Oh yes. Army had it .... See all those houses that are kind of beige/white, by the bridge there. They were all officer's quarters for the flyers that were stationed at Crissy Field. And there was a family by the name of [tries to think] a Mrs., she was our Sunday School teacher –
Hettel: …oh Emmons.
Cook: Mrs. Emmons. Now her husband was a major at that time but later they were transferred to Hawaii and he [became a high "mucky muck" in the army]. And she was our Sunday School teacher and she was related to some people in society. There were two sisters … and they were beautiful women, I mean, like the old pretty skin, black hair, big eyes. She was very nice for being a wealthy woman in her own right.
Drayton: … any other memories or anything you want to share now, or mention? Anything we haven’t talked about …?
Hettel: [After a long pause] Can't think of anything.
Drayton: [Notes that it would be valuable to reinterview them again. Ms. Drayton will send them a copy of the transcription for their editorial review. She asks about other people, from the Post, who might be possible interviewees. They mention Madeline Chase whose father was an engineer.]
End of formal interview
Description
Interview With Louise and Josephine about their time living at Fort Point between 1923 and 1933 when their father was a lighthouse keeper there.
Copyright and Usage Info