Random Saturday - Isabel's diary

Funny, I was so sure I had written about Isabel's diary before. I can almost see the post before my inner eye. Maybe I always wanted to write about it and then forgot which is strange as Isabel's diary is always standing there out in the open and I always look at it when I walk by.
I was reminded of it again because of Lisa's comment about the photo album on my rose post.

Who is Isabel, you'd like to know? And why I have her diary, me nosy person, me? Well, I'd like to know, too. Who she was, I mean.
Isabel is one of those mysteries I have been slightly obsessed with, on and off.
I came upon her diary at a fantastic fleamarket in Marin County many, many years ago (the one where I also got my beloved bowler). It's amazing how clear the memory of the stand is still in my mind. I wasn't even sure if I should have made this a nostalgia instead of a random Saturday post.

I got lured in by that beautiful leather cover and gilt edging without having taken more than a little peek at what I thought was just a calendar.
Only after I had bought it - I seem to remember I didn't pay very much - I took a closer look while walking down the path and found it was actually a diary although I think it really was meant to be used as a calendar.
(And look, printed in Germany and it returned there after 66 years!)

This is what it looks like inside.
The book is sorted by days and each one of them has five segments, one for each year, not exactly big ones for a diary, but for appointments and short notes.
Isabel did her best to squeeze in what was important to her, but as it happens with diaries sometimes, she left a lot of the pages completely blank.
She started Christmas 1932, stopped April 20, 1933 (the last few days already only had "Dear Diary" written in), and ended with four entries in September and two more on November 5 and 6. Those last ones were really interesting. You'll see.

During Covid restrictions, others started baking, feeding their sourdough starters, cooking, crafting, getting themselves pets.
I spent some of my time with copying all of Isabel's entries into a text file - with all abbreviations, typos, and confusing words or names - and added information where I could find some. I even badgered a San Francisco reference librarian hoping to find out more in one case (alas, no help offered which was a little disappointing, he hinted at sources I had already listed myself, but couldn't access). I don't have an Ancestry or a Newspapers.com subscription for example, so I had to stick to what was easily available, but I still found out one or the other thing.

This is the inscription on the front page.
"Dear Diary: -

I received you from Miss Esther W****** (she wrote the full name of course), 125 Chestnut Ave., Naz. Pa. Your the first one in my life, with Esthers Love I shall conceal with you my daily happenings.

Yours truly,

Isabel"

The first entry from Christmas Day 1932 tells us that she's writing with the pen she got from Ernest for Christmas, and that they (it doesn't say "we", but I'm quite sure) had a lovely Xmas Eve going to "Baltaberin". That was actually a club in San Francisco called "Bal Tabarin" (after a Paris night club) which still operates today, just under a different name after it was sold in 1951.

On New Year's Eve we learn that Isabel is working for a couple in Palo Alto City who were in their 60s at the time (I found them listed in the 1940 census). From what she says, my guess is she was the housemaid, she also mentions a cook and a chauffeur. Often she writes how tired she is and has to go to bed early.
The house they lived at was built in 1931 and has an estimate of about $10 to 11 million at the moment. What a bargain.

A randomly chosen page

In the next few months covered, Isabel tells about Ernie visiting often and going out with her in Palo Alto, sometimes they also drive to "Frisco", though. She mentions a few shows, movies, and books, but also that she and Ernie do jig-saw puzzles at home together. Actually, Ernie's name turns up quite a lot.
On March 7, 1933 Isabel turns 24 "hoping the next twenty-four years will be better than the past, still single". I hope the permanent wave her sister (Marie? She usually calls her Sis) treated her to cheered her up a little and also the "big bouquet of Roses, carnations, + Freezias from - Ernie". The next day she writes she had a lovely birthday "considering the hard times".

I'm not going to write out the whole diary for you now although there are some interesting entries. (What did Louis need the $100 for he wanted to borrow? And was Louis her brother? I'm digressing, sorry.) There are 16 pages after all (including my notes).
Maybe you are as curious as I was, though. Did Isabel get her happy ending?
Yes, my lovelies, she did.
On September 2, 1933 Sis and Mell, her husband, drove them to Reno. "They're sure great sports. What a beautiful sunrise when we woke up in each other's arms in the back seat." Aww.
The next day they got married there at 10:30 a.m. with Sis and Mell as their witnesses, and Sis gave them a wedding breakfast at the Riverside Hotel. The building still exists, but is not a hotel and casino anymore now.
On the 10th, Sis and Mell gave them a wedding shower (glad he stepped up after all since he seemed to have left the breakfast to his wife 😋).
That was worth waiting from April to September without any news, don't you think? Still, how much courting have we missed there (which was probably for the best)?

The two last entries see them set up house in San Francisco. I found the address in an old phone book, but no matching first names that would satisfy my endless curiosity about their last name. I'm not giving up on the Reno wedding yet, though. It has been three years since I last did some research and I think I'm going to do another run sometime.
Sis and Mell were the first guests in their new apartment (and celebrated their wedding anniversary the next day).

You may wonder why I would even be that interested in Isabel.
It's as with Ida in the rose post. I have a story in my head now and a much more detailed one thanks to these few months Isabel shared with me, albeit involuntarily.
I wish I were a writer and could do something with that story, but even as a child I "wrote" stories only in my head for my own pleasure (very few exceptions), so maybe that's how it has to be.

I see the pen Ernie gave Isabel, the bouquet. I know from a real estate post what the house looks like that she worked at (although I'm sure it didn't look exactly the same as now 😉). I see those two lovers over a jigsaw puzzle. I imagine what Isabel's room at work looked like. I even see Florence and Joe, the cook and chauffeur, and have a vague idea of their employers without any reason. Shame on me, I probably put them all in drawers.
And now I wonder if they had children and grandchildren. Did Ernie have to go to war? Was life hard? Did they both work? What did Ernie do for a living, anyway? Were they happy together? They had only known each other for a year and got married after being engaged for one month.
I really hope life was good to them. In my head, they get a fulfilled life and happiness. Hopelessly romantic.

Well, and one last question of course - how did Isabel's diary end up on a fleamarket? Is anyone still out there who knew her? Okay, those were two last questions.
Of course I felt like a snoop or still do, but on the other hand there were no really intimate things in the diary, I can assure you, and I was glad about that because it probably would have made me feel very guilty to read that. I still would have done it, but not shared it so publicly.
Isabel, if you are looking down on me or whatever, I hope you forgive me for prying into your "daily happenings" you meant to "conceal".

I know it looks very symbolic that the diary is open
- oh, and by the way, the key is still in there in a tiny envelope -
but that it is mere coincidence.