By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society
PHOTO FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The portals of the Nook.
Recently we brought you excerpts from Frances Reed Rideout’s memoirs of Sausalito in the 19th century. Here are some later recollections from the 1890s, lightly edited for continuity. By the time Frances was growing up, the village of Sausalito had grown. She recalled:
The whole waterfront burned down once (in 1893), and fire has often played havoc in Sausalito.
Every day the Chinese vegetable man went staggering up the hill, a piculan (pole) across his blue denim shoulders, with a deep basket swung at each end. Gladly enough he set the baskets down by your kitchen door, eased his shoulders out and gave a falsetto cry if you had no bell. The vegetables lay temptingly in the top trays of each basket, with potatoes and fruits underneath, and for every child who hung round to watch, he had a grin and the gift of an orange or banana.
In the village, too, was a Chinese laundry, of course, which was club to the vegetable man and every Chinese cook. A steamy breath wafted from its door and inside, you could see the Orientals in their undershirts, and loose cotton trousers doubled over at the waist, in loose slippers with their queues coiled round their heads and hear them as they plunked their sadirons from stove to board or wafted a fine spray over the ironing from nature's own sprinkler.
Baraty kept the butcher shop, a fat swarthy little Creole from New Orleans who spoke French with Grandma. The Fiedlers had opened a grocery store to keep Fred busy after he had taken the Keely Cure (injections of biochloride of gold to treat alcohol and drug habits). Old Constantine, the Greek, sold fish or kept a restaurant—a real old character with a white beard. Old Consy, we called him. There was Dan Slinkey (owner of the El Monte Hotel) whose name always made me feel it described him and probably I was right. There were the Wossers—old Mr. Wosser was engineer on the Princess and subsequent ferries and the Wosser boys have carried on the tradition.
There was Captain Brooks, who captained a ferry boat down to the time I went to school and who stood at the ferry gate and collected tickets with a watch in one hand. He knew who his passengers would be and held the boat for the last galloping latecomer. Though there was no excuse for missing the ferry in those days. It always blew a five-minute whistle at which signal every paterfamilias rose from his breakfast chair, wiped his mustache, kissed his wife on his way to the door as she handed him the market basket and, according to whether he lived on Bulkley or Santa Rosa Avenues, sauntered or galloped down the alleys. Market baskets! All the married men carried them at least several times a week, for Baraty's beef was fiercely tough and Fiedler's stocked only the plainest necessities. They were brown wicker suitcases the size of a champagne basket. Every morning in San Francisco and at 5 every afternoon, you could spot the suburbanites by their baskets.
How I longed to go on a Sunday “excursion.” We in Sausalito could see our familiar ferries cutting unfamiliar capers on Sundays and holidays. Decked with flags, brass band playing, and crowded to the rail, the San Rafael would sweep by on her circle of the Bay. Societies and lodges spent their annual picnic day in that fashion, besides which, in the ‘80s, there were regular excursions to California City picnic grounds. Market Street toughs — the south-of-the-slot-boys — and a great deal of liquor made these diversions wind up in a lower deck free-for-all fight. Hence the special constables and the policemen’s stock.
In 1892 Frances’ family moved into their new mansion, the Nook, at the head of Princess Street. Noted architect Willis Polk designed the structure. Frances recalls:
On its old lot, Grandma and Willis Polk and Contractor Traxler built the new Nook as my children knew it. Willis Polk was fresh back from studies in Paris and trying to break away from all the hideous monstrosities of architecture which had plagued California. Grandma did not build all that she planned, and in those days, one bath was thought enough for one family.
But the house was much admired; the gate surely was a work of art, and there were many lovely touches in woodwork which we loved. It was built on solid rock high above the road, in a backdrop of hillside garden and trees. Later, it seemed too near the village and too noisy with passing cars because it stood above the first crossroads, where everything clattered by. But in 1890 there was little traffic, the town was small, and it was convenient to live so short a way from the Ferry Depot.
The Nook was demolished in 1961 to make way for an apartment complex.