Melissa shared this amazing picture on her Tumblr last week.
This is my great-great-grandfather Elijah with his family, in front of their house in the Mission district, a house I walk by all the time. Why is there a tea kettle and miniature stove on the sidewalk, you ask? Well, on this particularly portentous day, an enormous earthquake had struck San Francisco, and many families moved their kitchens into the street so as to prevent fires (83 years later, I have a distinct childhood memory of all the families on our block barbecuing the night after the ‘89 earthquake struck for the same reason).
Read on here.
What a great photo. I’m now digging around in my parent’s stuff for a similar photo of my great-grandparents standing in front of their brand spankin new house built in 1908 on Larkin @ Union in Russian Hill.
Where is this house in the Mission? I know I’ve seen it, and it looks like a house you’d find on Shotwell. Anyone know?
Its the corner of 20th and lexington….looks the same with a bit more overgrown plants!!
Ooh, early Mission hipster style center-left. Sleek turtleneck, dark denim, thigh high boots, very 2006!
I bet he knows all the fiddle players in The Barbary Coast dancehalls!
Wow! What an amazing photo and story. Your family is the coolest.