Written from my Great Grandma Katie, born in 1893 in San Francisco:
“When I was 5 1/2 years old, my father took me to stay with his widowed cousin in Oakland. I called her “Grandma Ellen”. I like living in Oakland. My Grandma had three cows and lots of chickens. I would scatter the wheat and yell “chick, chick” and see them all come running.”
As I was diving back into my Bay Area roots on Ancestry.com, I came across this “Grandma Ellen’s” side of the family. I am not blood related to her. She married into our family. Last name was “Cronin.” And the Cronins were already established in Oakland as far back as the 1860s. Tonight I came across a fun word for the occupation of one of Grandma Ellen’s brothers:
What’s a “hostler” I thought? So I looked it up:
A hostler (/ˈhɒslər/ or /ˈɒslər/) or ostler /ˈɒslər/ was traditionally a groom or stableman who was employed in a stable to take care of horses, usually at an inn, in the era of transportation by horse or horse-drawn carriage.
Then I asked AI to draw me a picture of a hostler:
I like Wikipedia’s picture better:
I think I have become obsessed with this Grandma Ellen because according to my Great Grandmother, she lived in a big farmhouse in Oakland and there was a fireplace in the living room and…
“Quite high above the couch was a sort of mantle made from a long shelf. It was draped with yellow silk edged in the same color chenille balls. On the shelf was a big black onyx clock that had little marble columns on each side. It was always wound on Sunday after mass. A few fancy framed pictures of members of the family were on the mantle along with a cut glass vase.”
This memory would have been around 1899 in Oakland. All I can think of now, is…who inherited those family pictures? Did any of her descendants inherit them? The descendants of the family she married into, the Connollys, have sort of died off according to my research on Ancestry.com. But I think the Cronins are still around as she came from a huge family, and now I am obsessed!
Wednesday, October 22, 2025 in Oakland:
Theresa Donahoe 