Leon Scharman moved from Oakland to Los Altos in 1920 with his parents and three brothers when he was a boy. His family settled on three acres on Los Altos Avenue.
Scharman said he didn't have many neighbors. One had apricot orchards, another operated a chicken ranch where his family bought chickens and eggs, and the other owned a pump company. Scharman told the following account of how he made pin money as a boy during a 1997 interview at his Palo Alto home.
My father was in business in Oakland. Then he worked for the American Can Company in San Francisco the rest of his life. There was a red train, a one-car train, that was called the Peninsular Railway Train. Most of the Los Altos people, when they wanted to go into Palo Alto or to get on the main train line, would get on that Red Train and go to the Palo Alto station. My father did that every day.
Our neighbors at that time, beginning from Edith Avenue, was a person who owned a piece of property on the corner of Edith and Los Altos avenues. The next property, of about six acres, was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Schillig. They were there in Los Altos before we came. One of their lots, about three acres, was empty, and the big redwood trees on Los Altos Avenue at that point were planted by Mr. Schillig.
Then came our property. It was three acres. Part of it was an apricot orchard. On one side of our property were two rows of olive trees. They must have been about 80 years old when we came to Los Altos. As far as we can understand, they were bordering the entrance to a large Spanish hacienda, before Los Altos became Los Altos. That's the only thing we could find out about those large olive trees.
When I was a young boy, Los Altos, except for the two streets of downtown Los Altos, was made up of acres of apricot and prune trees. What's now Los Altos Hills was, at that time, a part of Los Altos, and it was mostly walnut trees.
The fruit ranchers would hire all the young people to pick fruit and cut it and put it on trays. The youngsters made their pin money by picking apricots and prunes. I think we got 10 cents a box for a 40-pound box of prunes. I did that when I was 10 and 11 years old. I didn't like to harvest walnuts because it made your hands black, and they didn't come clean for a week.
A group of Los Altos citizens organized the Los Altos Golf & Country Club, which is still in the same spot. Some of us used to go up there and caddie and get pin money on Saturdays and Sundays. The rate at that time was $1 a bag for 18 holes of golf.
- Courtesy of Donna Shoemaker and the oral history collection at the Los Altos History House.