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Published on 09/08/1999 All articles from this issue

Voice of the Past

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Ruth Erichsen was interviewed by members of the History House Association in 1997. Her memories vividly recall her childhood home in her family's Los Altos Park home and the everyday lifestyle in the 1930s days of the Great Depression.

"Los Altos Park opened in 1925, I think. it didn't do too well because of the Depression troubles. When my father bought our lot on Del Monte Avenue for $800 in 1929, there were a few houses built there, but not many.

The subdivision was developed by Charles and Virginia Spinks, who later had the Spinks Water Company. My father designed and built the house on a $5,000 mortgage. It had three bedrooms and one bath. Very few homes were built after our house was finished. The Crash came in '29, and building completely stopped.

My father was an electrician before he went into the Navy in the first World War. He had a little shop in Mountain View. He was partners with Alfred Werry. Dad was the "outside man", and had electricians working for him. Werry was the "inside man." Before the Depression, they were hired to do a lot of electrical wiring for many of the builders in this area.

When the Depression came and building was stopped, Dad and his partner moved more into appliance sales and repairs. People were thrifty then, and repaired their irons and toasters. That was a good business, and we were very fortunate. There were four in our family then and we lived quite adequately on $250 a month. That was pretty good money back in the Depression days.

Before it was subdivided, Los Altos Park land was all orchards. The orchards hadn't been cared for, so they got weedy and overgrown. Every summer our volunteer fire department here in Los Altos would come down in the evening, on a certain night, and burn over the whole subdivision. Oh my, the kids had a great time! The whole place was burning. We had the fire department all watching everything. It was surely a grand night when they burned over the weeds.

They did that burning for fire protection. In those days, the streets were not paved, so it was difficult to get a fire truck out here quickly. They eliminated the risk by burning the weeds off. They did that burning up until probably into the 1950s. Then they stopped that, and they would come in and plow your lot and just send you the bill.

Even thought we were orchard people, from an orchard family, we never really grew anything on the land at the Del Monte house. We just had flowers and a vegetable garden. The few remaining fruit trees were probably 40 years old by the time we bought the property. An apricot trees life expectancy is just sixty years. So, one by one those lovely old trees fell by the way.

- Adapted by Donna Shoemaker for History House of Los Altos. For information, call 948-9427 or email: LAHistoryHouse@aol.com.