Fireman's Fund CALENDAR Lot, 1901-30 complete, S.F. Bay Area History Santa Clara

Description: Annotated FIREMAN'S FUND Calendars - Complete Run from 1901-1930. This listing is for an unequaled set of historical documents pertaining to daily life in the Santa Clara Valley of California - A full and complete run of thirty years, with annotated days' activities and rare daily notes on the weather, farming activities and chores, comings and goings of the neighbors, and local events of note that took place on a farm south of San Jose in the earliest days of the Twentieth Century, beginning 1/1/1901 and continuing for thirty years until 12/31/1930. Almost every single day has annotations by someone who lived on this ranch. There are references to people from the family or friends and neighbors going about their normal activities and work, sometimes traveling to Hollister, Gilroy, Santa Cruze [sic] and other towns thereabout. There are a few rare mentions of famous events, such as the end of World War One on November 11, 1918: "Peace Signed". Life on this remote land was somewhat isolated at the time - no TV, no radio until the Twenties, possibly newspapers, and gossip with passers-by alone to bring outside news for the people here whose history is delineated in these thirty long documents of fifty-two weeks each, The note-taker's spelling is questionable, and their printing style is difficult to decipher, but the flow and focus of their daily notations are compelling and to the point. What mattered most in these people's live was the things they grew, and the most powerful force in variable events they faced was: The Weather. Specific and pointed descriptions of the weather for each passing day are spelled out - by the day, the weeks, the months, and ultimately the years, of life are visible here more than 100 years later. The weather meant so much, and by noting it down each day, there was probably the hope for pattern recognition, or for a way to discover trends of occurrences which might help predict weather events to come.... Having an almanac of the weather forecasts and predictions from a newspaper is an easy thing to research, but newspapers choose not to print the results of the weather, since it has already happened, and is considered old news. Here is a collection of what the weather events really were - the record of what did occur day by day - written by an interested observer, for whom the weather was one of the most important factors in their everyday lives. The rainfall was noted, and on the front cover of many later years, the rain total in inches for that year was noted. However, to a researcher in the modern day, it may be of substantial value to have the real weather events specified in this manner, along with seismic happenings, from 1904 precursors to the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, to the aftershocks taking place at least a year after the big event. Some localities and families mentioned: Mt. Hamilton Steve Berona Coyote Laton Arnold Chase Pine Ridge Oneal Sycamore Canyon George Frost Madrone Mr. Stiffler Alice Roosevelt Mrs. Ghiglione Morgan Hill Mr. Cunningham Mr. Castro Irene & Frank Adeline Mr. Wheeland Joe Morton Mr. & Mrs. Switzgable Details of the items: The earlier ones have pink covers, after 1916 they are blue/green. The image of their office building, and eventually their address changes through time and necessity.The building, of which the address was always given as "Corner of California and Sansome Streets", was destroyed during the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906, and there is no building image on the calendar fronts until their new one was finished at 401 California Street in 1916. The calendars are each formed from 60 printed paper sheets folded over an iron metal hanger and stapled below the bar to secure all. Size is approx. 7" width x 11" height. Condition varies noticeably from year to year -Some calendars are fairly rough, for instance 1906 is missing the cover sheet, and 1915, '16, '22, '23, and '29 look poor, [we did not count every single page] but most all of the others appear to be in average good [or better] used condition, considering all the handling they experienced over their initial time of use plus various factors of storage for nine or more decades thereafter.Please evaluate buyer expectations with those specifics in mind. SAMPLE NOTATIONS FROM 1904 --- Monday 4/4/1904 - Cherries in full bloom. Some light clouds and cool wind. Planting garden. B. to town with honey. To San Martien [San Martin] to look at a place. Men plowing. Tuesday 4/5 - Some light clouds and very warm. Put in garden and fixed some in yard. D. plowing in A.M. Wednesday 4/6 - Foggie till about eleven. Clear and very warm. D & E. gone to cabin fishing. G. cultivating. B. to box. Thursday 4/7 - Clear and hot. G. & B. to Flour Festival. Friday 4/8 - Clear and hot - 90. Bees swarmed four times. B. to box. Saturday 4/9 - Clear and hot - 83. Bees swarmed four times and left. Boys home about ten with 114 fish caught. Sunday 4/10 - Clear and hot - 88. Orrie up with team. To ranch for light clothes. [double underlined!] Thursday 4/21 - Earthquake ten to four in morn. Mostly cloudy and warm. B. taking school sences. Started to plow, to wet. Pruning. AND THEN TWO YEARS LATER --- Wednesday 4/18/1906 - Earthquake did lots of damage every where. 10 by 7 o'clock. one at one, one at three. Light frost and fog, clear in AM, light clouds PM. Heaviest earthe ever at 5:15 AM the 9 light ones. One at one, one at three pretty heavy. [mentions aftershocks for the next eight days, then April 29th, then May 17th, etc.] ================================================= Please view carefully all photographic scans included, which are of the actual item(s) in the listing - These are an important part of the description. Please ask any questions prior to purchase. No foreign sales. Thank You.

Price: 155 USD

Location: Standard, California

End Time: 2025-01-10T00:21:48.000Z

Shipping Cost: 20 USD