The Fremont Podcast
The only podcast dedicated to telling the stories of the people and places of Fremont, CA. The diversity and integration of people and cultures of Fremont truly makes it a special place. This podcast explores these stories.
The Fremont Podcast
Episode 132: This podcast is history.
The Washington Township Museum of Local History is a wonderful cultural resource here in Fremont.
The collection at the museum covers the history of Fremont, Newark and Union City.
The museum is open to the public. The museum wants you to stop by and ask questions. Their open hours of operation can be viewed here.
Their website is a a vast online resource unto itself and worth a look.
They offer local history walking tours throughout the year.
Located at the corner of Anza Street and Ellsworth Street (near Ohlone College) in Fremont.
A direct link to their audio archive can be found here.
The documentary about Russel City has a website here.
The documentary about Marion Stokes, a woman who recorded the news for 30 years, has a website here.
"Candy" Annie Fowler can be seen in her Newark candy shop here.
If you would like to contact The Fremont Podcast, please text us here.
Petrocelli Homes has been a key sponsor of The Fremont Podcast from the beginning. If you are looking for a realtor, get in touch with Petrocelli Homes on Niles Blvd in Fremont.
Haller's Pharmacy is here to help. They have been in our community for decades.
Founder: Ricky B.
Intro and outro voice-overs made by Gary Williams.
Editor: Andrew Cavette.
Scheduling and pre-interviews by the amazing virtual assistant that you ought to hire, seriously, she's great: your.virtual.ace
This is a Muggins Media Podcast.
Coming to you straight from Fremont, california. This is the Fremont Podcast, dedicated to telling the stories of the past and present of the people and places of the city of Fremont, one conversation at a time.
Speaker 2:Can I get each of your names and just your for now, just your position here at the museum.
Speaker 3:I'm Patricia Shafarsik and I work with the collections.
Speaker 4:I'm Kelsey Camelo, president of the museum.
Speaker 2:And this is the Washington Township Museum of Local History. Yes, here on Anza and Ellsworth if I'm not mistaken. Yes, Awesome. When does history start Like how recent is too recent.
Speaker 4:Well, that's something we've been playing with for a while, trying to figure out.
Speaker 3:I think history is yesterday.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it just keeps going.
Speaker 3:Yeah, history is continuous. It's a continuum. History is continuous.
Speaker 4:It's a continuum, but people tend to have a view in their mind and then they don't think about it until they're asked, like when we tell people oh, bring us your pictures from the 70s, and they're like you don't want those? Yeah, we do, we want stuff from the 90s now.
Speaker 3:So yeah, definitely. And the other thing is you can find history everywhere that you are and you can relate it to today. And that's what I love so much about history is the fact that I can walk in a place or read about someone or hear a story and I can relate to it as if you know, I was there, and I think that's what's so exciting about history that history is history but actually history is today and we live through our memories and hopefully we learn from those.
Speaker 2:Do you actively collect things, objects and reports and things now, knowing that they will become history?
Speaker 4:Yes and no. It depends on capacity and workload. Sure, but yeah, that's the intention.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean the historical stories that are written. We collect those. But when we interview people it's up to today, it's finding out the history up to today. So I mean, but I don't think we actively say let's collect what happened yesterday, right.
Speaker 4:It's hard because you'll open the Tri-City Voice as an example and go, okay, what should be saved from this? Yeah, you could say the whole thing, but usually it's one or two small things, and then you file them away and you go well, did I miss something? Well, life will go on. It's really it's kind of stressful. There are a lot of things in life. If you think about them too much, they become too stressful, and that's one of them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and making we have to. We're so small. We have to make decisions about what we're going to save and not save. It has to be relevant to the Tri-City area, but what's relevant, and you know, and with the information we have today it's easy to find present day things more than things that happened in the past or what happened in the past.
Speaker 4:But ironically it's harder to search for Fremont or anything Tri-City during the Argus years than like any other newspapers, because those ones are on microfilm versus being able to just pull it up, because those ones are in microfilm versus being able to just pull it up. So it's sort of ironic. The stuff that's more recent is harder to locate.
Speaker 3:And the other thing is I was at a presentation about Russell City being taken away, actually in the I can't remember what era it was like the 70s, I can't remember what era it was like the 70s and the film that the people made about that happening. They went back and started talking to former residents and all of those records, those official records about what happened, were destroyed because they only keep them in the county for 30 years. And so it just happened that somebody who witnessed it or who was related to somebody had saved those transcripts and they had it in their closet and they heard about the people who were making the film and she sent the transcripts to them and it made all of the arguments and everything that went down alive again and actually they were able to act upon it. At least the county now is saying you know, we'll have to give you restitution. We, you know, and somebody it wasn't even a museum, but somebody had saved those particular things and we have lots of things like that here.
Speaker 4:Like these maps. You know, people think, a lot of people think that someone else is doing the job. Well, someone else is saving that. Well, that newspaper is keeping their records, that library, but everybody has X materials that they toss out. And like these aerials that we have that you can't see on the radio, but you know the first thing you see when you walk into our museum.
Speaker 2:Gigantic aerial photos that take up your entire wall.
Speaker 4:They were in the trash, so when the city moved, from Mission Boulevard to the city center.
Speaker 3:That is now gone. They're in a different city center. They threw them in the trash and collectors for our museum not, then, it wasn't a museum then got them out of the trash and that's the story of the big rip. Got them out of the trash and that's the story of the big rip.
Speaker 4:But this is the like. Not only is it what we start with a lot of people, it's what draws them in and they come back over and over to see the change.
Speaker 2:It's on the point that you were making, where everyone is collecting. It reminds me of that woman who, with a series of VCRs, just taped the news every night for like 30 years.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 2:And so that's all she did. She just taped the local news for 30 years. However many news stations were playing at the time, that's how many VCRs she had, and she just taped the news for 30 years, and now that that record is is like invaluable, because not only does it have the news, the little incidental things, but also commercials aired during that, you know, and so it's like there's a film about that as well.
Speaker 3:she's amazing and they didn't save all of those things, did they? They?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it wasn't. The news station did not save all of those things.
Speaker 3:That's right, but it's hit and miss. You know, certain things get saved and it's just amazing the things we uncover. I mean, the other story that is so interesting is a woman was coming here to research her family the driver family and so we had some information for her. But we have these scrapbooks that Dr Fisher one of the main collections that we have here from him from many years ago had something on Irvington, where her family was from, and she's leaving through this scrapbook, and she actually found the marriage certificate of her great-grandfather. Who would have known that that was there? And she got it.
Speaker 4:Well, and you know what else is cool is cool? It's like the little rabbit holes and how they open up really big stories because someone will come in. Oh I just, I don't know what to do with this stuff and can you guys use it? And then, okay, well, you've taught me, patricia, to ask a lot of questions. So first tell me where were you born, and they just start talking and next thing, you know you've got this, all these little tiny tidbits, and then when you start researching those tiny ones, you get really big things. And that's when you remember why it's fun to come here and do your job, because sometimes you get bogged down with yeah, like the other stuff, the hundred emails every day and people asking you why it takes so long to get back to them. But then you're like, well, I was researching this tiny little thing that seemed very important that day. So, and sometimes for the person, the patron that comes in, it is a big deal to them that you took the time and and found that information.
Speaker 3:So remember, too, when we had we all worked on this together, we, I we had put together a list of dairies and farms oh yeah, yeah, yeah, a huge list. We've been working on it for ages. And some guy comes in and he wanted to know. He remembered this guy is in his 70s but he remembered his grandfather lived somewhere. Oops, excuse me, I hit that His grandfather lived somewhere on Fremont Boulevard and he only knew one part of his name. And we looked on this list that we've been doing this cataloging with and it came up and we found out close to where it was. And then we happened to have an aerial of that area and we figured out where he lived in the 40s. And it was so exciting because then he brought he brought, uh, pictures of the farm and had no idea that there was even a farm there, a small 10-acre farm or 5-acre farm or something. These are like gems, aren't they? It's so fun.
Speaker 4:Sometimes we forget about the fun stuff. I know One question and you got too much.
Speaker 2:It's good. That's why we're here. Let me ask this because you've mentioned how a few people have come in to look for their et cetera, et cetera, which is obviously wonderful, as the population of Fremont has, let's say, rapidly changed in, say, the last 20 years. If it were graphed, there would be a spike. Yeah, there would be a spike, as the population of Fremont and the surrounding, all the areas that you cover with this museum, as it changed. Who is this museum? Who is this collection of history? Who is it for? Like, I wouldn't ask that if there hadn't been a change, Right?
Speaker 4:Does it change with it? If?
Speaker 2:there's a brand new crew.
Speaker 3:Well, the collection is for the whole population, including the new. When we had the 50th anniversary, 2006?
Speaker 3:2006. One of our projects was to do oral histories, and we did 30, and we did them in eras of when the people arrived. So we had those who were born here or came before it was a city, those who were there while the city was growing, and then we had interviews with those who came after. So the new immigrant waves and they continue to be expanding. You know, the new immigrant waves started with, I'd say you know, vietnam and Afghanistan, and of course then China and Chinese and Indian, but they started actually even earlier than that. We have some board members who are or people who work in our historical community that you know came. His father came. Paul Sethi's father came from India and his mother was Swiss and we had a Swiss immigration here in the 30s. So we collect a lot of it, but maybe our face isn't always the celebration of these ethnic communities as much as it should be, and we've talked about that.
Speaker 4:We've talked about. I always think about the time we discussed putting a timeline above these aerials and doing like a timeline of immigration to this area, starting with well, you can go before statehood, but we haven't done it yet and I would say most of our visitors are younger people who are newer to the area.
Speaker 3:Yeah, who come here are younger people who are newer to the area, yeah, who come here and we've actually had I've had people who come in from India and they go. We used to have that kind of washing machine I mean, they even are relating to some of the things. Or we got sewing machines and it's really funny. You know the things that are in the tangible things in our museum people relate to because it's just an era gone by.
Speaker 2:Who visits the museum, Like who is interested and, roughly speaking, how many people visit you know?
Speaker 4:Well, that's a two-part answer.
Speaker 4:I mean, a certain amount are people who come to research or to donate. A certain amount are people who wander in because they're in the area. Sometimes it's people who just want to avoid traffic for a little while. And then you've got people who intentionally come in with their kids because they're just trying to help their kids learn about local history. But then we've got a ton of visitors who are students with their teachers and they come in for Diane's program. So we do school tours here and then third graders come to the museum, fourth graders go to Rancho Higuera and Diane runs both programs. Diane, Holmes.
Speaker 4:Yes, Diane Holmes and gosh. I wish I had a number. I could get it to you afterwards, but that's the majority of yeah, we have a lot.
Speaker 3:We have a very large student program and Diane fills up because there are just so many hours and we'd like to expand it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, she actually runs out of space. Every year she fills every slot and more. We tell her stop, but and she does. I don't want to call them box tours, because I think they're called history in a box. She does the history goes into the classroom for kids who aren't allowed to do carpooling or but they can't afford the buses. And so she gets the programming into the classroom for kids who aren't allowed to do carpooling or but they can't afford the buses.
Speaker 3:Um, and so she gets the programming into the class and the teacher administers it, or diane administers yeah, so again, I can give you the numbers afterwards, but so that's the, that's, that's the large number of people that that are exposed to, um, our programs or our museum, um, yeah, but you've days with.
Speaker 4:No, you have days with one person who comes in and days where it's like a revolving door. It just depends on the day and what people are doing.
Speaker 3:You know we have old-timers who come in too and just want to look. They really love the maps and yeah and talk.
Speaker 2:Switching subjects, getting a little more specific. The Internet Archive was recently cyber-attacked. One were you aware of it? It sounds like you were and two were your archives at all impacted?
Speaker 4:I don't think so, Not that I yeah, no, no.
Speaker 3:I think so, not that I yeah, no, no. So we, our collection on the internet is mostly been with archivesorg, or it's called CalRevealed.
Speaker 4:Yeah, everything we have on archiveorg is technically filtered from CalReveal. We don't have anything we've independently uploaded.
Speaker 3:Other than through our Past Perfect program. There are some things that we have.
Speaker 2:To the best of your knowledge, that stuff was left alone. I have used your online oral history recordings in a lot of my own work and I think they're great. I love them. Can you tell me a little bit about the two main, because there's more than two, but the two main, like oral history archivists that you have there Philip Holmes and Me. Patricia.
Speaker 4:Or are you thinking of?
Speaker 2:I'm thinking of the other name.
Speaker 4:Is it Dr Fisher? It's.
Speaker 2:Fisher.
Speaker 4:Okay, from back in the day, yeah.
Speaker 3:Dr Fisher, yeah, and Philip Holmes actually in in the archives that you, if you look at the ones that are posted on CalRevealed, those are all from Dr Fisher and I've been I've been doing more recent ones, awesome.
Speaker 3:More recent, meaning the last 20 years. Well, I've only been at the museum for like 20 years, so I mean those recordings are from the 70s and 80s and some of them back into the 60s and a couple from the 50s, so they really captured some of the people who are no longer here For the clarity of the people listening.
Speaker 2:the recordings were made in the 60s and the 70s and the stories go way farther back. They're not talking about their current life.
Speaker 4:No, some of them were close to 100 years old when they were being interviewed.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Like the drawbridge stories, I constantly find myself asking people did he ever sleep? Because he just the amount of things that we have that Dr Fisher touched. I don't understand how he did it. He had.
Speaker 3:He actually had a core of people who went around and did a lot of research for him. He had you know, some of the interviews are not conducted just by him but representatives of him and he, he got his. He got in the 70s and 80s there were a lot of people very interested in local history and Dr Fisher and later Phil Holmes had local history classes and they sent people out in the community. They didn't save every piece of what the people did, but there were a lot of active members and there's still people who worked with those two people to get a lot of local history.
Speaker 4:It's kind of funny how local history gets sort of like baked into you because we've had these waves of historians that I can think of going back, like Jill, like Phil and Lila and the people we have now and everybody did it for different reasons, I'm sure, but you sort of it's a way to feel connected to your community, because I live in Union City but I work in Fremont and my friends who don't live here because I grew up here.
Speaker 4:Also I have friends who don't live here anymore and they don't understand, well, why do you still want to live there? I mean, and that's not just pointed at one specific thing, that's just a general question and it's like well, this is my community. And when you learn history and you study it and you're doing it every week, you see history while you're driving around, you see what was there, or, like always, say, the trees can tell you what was there before, because they might lead to where a house once stood or some kind of path or something like that, and so you feel a connection that those people who don't study the history of where they live don't feel. I don't know if I'm explaining that right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is. What you're explaining is people who love history, and it's really amazing because if you look at the people who have been very instrumental in our museum and the other historical groups, many of them were not born and raised here. They love history and wherever they go, they just find out about their community.
Speaker 4:And they add to it yes, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3:I mean Philip Holmes came from Washington and he wrote all kinds of things about Washington, but he was so prolific here, I mean for more than 30 years, he wrote articles every week and you know, and Dr Fisher, I mean wherever they loved history and they collected everything.
Speaker 4:And it's not just the history of who was here, it's who is here now, it's the stories that are happening now, and that's you love history, because you love stories. And we were talking about people throwing things out. You don't save that old, dusty thing because it's cool. It tells you a story and if you don't have that, if you don't discover it again in the attic, then you forget the story. And once you tell someone the story and they record it, someone else can hear it in 20 years. So, yeah, we just love stories.
Speaker 3:That's what it comes down to, and that's what history is too, because the stories are personal and you relate to that, because you feel the humanity of people who lived here before and their struggles. You know there's always these little pieces and as you, you know, if you even go to research a person where they lived and see who their neighbors were, pretty soon you're building a life.
Speaker 4:It's like Minecraft. Yeah, it's so fun. You literally watch it, you can see it in your head happening and then you're like suddenly oh yeah, I'm back at this computer.
Speaker 3:Like even sitting here. You know God, the firemen were here and oh they were over there and hi, I wonder. You know, it's just that, it's that kind of thing.
Speaker 4:And being by Ohlone, I always think about it being just this open land and somebody just having an orchard up there. It's just so fun to imagine like an overlay on top of your real life it is, and then you can escape the other stuff that's stressing you out.
Speaker 3:So it's really quite nice. It's the stories and the place and they just keep piling on and you get to delve into those Like chipping off wallpaper in an old house. Yeah know, you get to delve into those Like chipping off wallpaper in an old house. Yeah and you get to delve back in. If you're in the place or you have the object or you know, you can revive the stories, and they're all human.
Speaker 2:Okay, so tell me individually, tell me your favorite tiny local history story.
Speaker 4:You just asked us to do something tiny. That's hard. We just told you so many.
Speaker 2:No, but like where the joy of it comes from. It's like disposability, Like it isn't some grand plan with a street named after it. Right, a real story. But like a little oh, they used to do this Mm-hmm, mm-hmm of this and that A real story, but like a little.
Speaker 4:Oh, they used to do this. Well, you have to think of some tiny tidbit that you have learned while working in history that gets you excited. Like I always think of Candy Annie, and I don't know why because she seems like a cartoon character to me. Like I want to write a book about how cute she is in her little candy shop, because in every picture of her in Newark she seems like she's ahead of her time. I think that's why she's like a figure that my brain constantly goes to so who?
Speaker 2:is. Candy Annie.
Speaker 4:Candy Annie Fowler. She owned a little candy shop in Newark. March Callow is her great-granddaughter or granddaughter.
Speaker 3:Was Something like that. I think she was. I don't know that Candy Annie had any children.
Speaker 4:I don't think she did, so that doesn't maybe it's her aunt. Yeah, Just someone in Newark who, whenever her name pops up, you get these like yeah, we have pictures of her too.
Speaker 3:It's really. She was close to six feet tall, and when she was young, we have pictures of her on motorcycles with friends, and this was in the 20s. So you know, it's just. You'll often wonder what was she like? Who was she I?
Speaker 4:think that's why she's so funny is because we don't know a lot about her. We don't know a lot about her and yet you're constantly wondering about her.
Speaker 3:And you wish somebody had interviewed her.
Speaker 4:Yes, Sort of yes, so that's one of my like big question mark ones. So that doesn't answer your question.
Speaker 2:Well, yes, it does what is your favorite. Well, yes, it does what is your favorite.
Speaker 3:Well, I can't. I mean Something swift, what's my favorite?
Speaker 2:I'm certainly not asking what is your favorite overall, but I'll give you an example. I'll tell you mine. I learned it here in this room, oh, and I just think it's delightful. It prompted the question, in fact. Okay, on Olive Avenue there are and have been olive trees. It's titular and I learned that way back in the day, I don't know when, the kids would climb up the first olive tree at like, say, this end, the Mission, san Jose area, kind of end of it, and they would. The streets weren't as they were and the olive, you know, the trees were way closer together because there were no cross streets and they would climb the branches from each of the olive trees and make their way all the way down into Irvington, kind of where it stops. Where did you hear that? In this room?
Speaker 4:Who told?
Speaker 2:you, I don't remember, but it was I. When I heard that I thought that was just so lovely. It's just a whole like highway of tree children making their way down into Irvington, just for the fun of it that's probably Barbara.
Speaker 4:That sounds like a Barbara.
Speaker 3:She lives on Olive but that reminded me of that is a great story, jim Griffin uh-huh, because he grew up in Irvington and he tells a story. There was, of course there wasn't the overpass, the way it is now going. So there was quite a steep hill going down and it went over the railroad tracks and he said they could get on their skates and skate all the way From the mission home, from the top of the hill, all the way down. They would skate all the way From the mission home, from the top of the hill all the way down. They would skate down.
Speaker 4:Was he on Bay Street?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they would skate to the four corners or the five corners. They would skate to the five corners.
Speaker 4:You know that's interesting, because one thing that is really fun is when you start researching and you are able to learn, you know four or five generations back and not just, oh, and that's the name. It's like you have these stories and Jim Griffin is a is a really good example of that. You know he when did his first? It's um Ricks, right, timothy Ricks, which is like 1850s, 1860ss. Yeah, it was way back and he's here.
Speaker 3:Jim is here now, fifth generation, yeah, fifth generation, and he can tell you stories all the way back, but the skating going down was not skate skating like now, they had the metal skates and they didn't have to do anything. They just had to hang on, basically, oh my goodness. And it was like we got all the way down without doing anything or just trying to stand up. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:I have a neighbor, hi Allison, who has told me that we live near the hills, really near the hills kind of in the Niles, adjacent Niles Crest area, and she's been there for a long time and she said that when she was a kid they would take pieces of large cardboard and go up the hills and then come down on the cardboard cardboard.
Speaker 3:And another tidbit actually, joe Bohoffer was one of the people at Cloverdale Creamery and they had the ranch that is where the hub is now, before they opened Cloverdale and he's talked about. Oh, I remember they used to feed their cattle at Coyote Hills and then when they moved them back to the ranch it was all on the roads and they would just you know the few cars that were coming by. They just would have to wait for the cattle to get past. That's how it's changed, right that's how it's changed right.
Speaker 4:It's kind of fun with history because you can you can sort of forget about the things you are thinking about now, like this morning on kqed. The perspective was about going to bed early and waking up early and how, in the morning, if you're awake before everyone in your house, you don't have any, you don't have any screens, you don't have any sound and you just have yourself and it's quiet. And that's how I feel when I walk from my house to Meyer Garden in Dry Creek. It's like you enter another world and nobody's thinking about the other side, which is just Mission Boulevard whizzing by side, which is just Mission Boulevard whizzing by. So that's what it is. When you start delving into history, you get to think about all the. It's not that the past doesn't have controversy and difficult things, it's just they're not your problem today.
Speaker 3:I live in the same house I grew up on and behind us was the dairy farm I grew up on and I still that's that. One story I remember all the time is that when my mother told the story actually because we lived in an agricultural area, the climate was very different, because when we had cold weather, tule fog or fog would raise from the earth because it was all wet and we could not see. In the wintertime you couldn't see anything. And just to make the turn from what is now Stevenson Boulevard to Omar, it was so foggy my mother had to get out of the car and walk in front of the car so that my dad could turn on the street that we lived on. That's crazy.
Speaker 4:Just follow me home.
Speaker 3:And I never moved from my house. And they changed the name from Cook's Road to Omar Street for who knows what reason.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you touched on this very briefly and let me dig into that what is the best way to deal with a city's troubling history?
Speaker 4:To actually talk about it.
Speaker 2:Like you know, mission, san Jose and the treatment of the Ohlones, irvington Five Corners and its original name, the Japanese internment. The buses that Dorothea Lange took in Centerville, you know.
Speaker 4:And the myriad others that we aren't even mentioning. And the ones that we aren't even mentioning, yeah, what's the?
Speaker 2:best way for us to tackle those darker moments.
Speaker 4:That's what Tracy's been talking about.
Speaker 3:We actually have been talking about that, because I was just at Muir Woods. I was just at Muir Woods and they're changing their signage to add real points about who they used to honor and put the reality of other aspects of people that they honored even. And I think we should start and we've talked about this start incorporating it both in our exhibits and then in any other presentations that we have and materials we have.
Speaker 4:I know Mission San Jose. They are working to alter their museum right now. They're going to start telling the proper story and that's really exciting.
Speaker 3:So that's, and then maybe our subject should actually have displays about you know, the things that you went on that are sort of not acknowledged.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because we're always talking about trying to tell the stories of the people who weren't heard, then Right. But you know you've got to go a step further than that and talk about the stuff that was really hard, right, and acknowledge it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like one of the interviews I did with a resident in Niles. You know, her father's family came from Mexico and Mexican people were very much discriminated against and he was in the war in the Second World War, and when he came back he worked for Rodin's Nursery, which was great. But he lived in a certain area in the Niles and he wanted to live up on the hills and they had covenants in that section and they named types of people who were not allowed to live there. So he bought the house through someone else and they tried to kick him out and the people in Niles actually supported him and helped him with a lawyer and he won. That's a great story.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a really good example to explain the situation.
Speaker 3:We should actually publish that. You know, get her to talk about it. There were newspaper articles and this happened in the 60s, I think.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you. We are in the kind of main area, the main workspace of the museum, and just over there through that door is the kind of the collection, the artifacts that were, is the kind of the collection, uh, the, the, the artifacts that were displaying the museum yeah, um, I wanted to ask this, like are there any objects of like historical importance or relevance that you know you don't have and want?
Speaker 2:obviously there's a lot of stuff that you don't you didn't even know that existed, but there's like, oh, there's that thing and we don't have and want. Obviously there's a lot of stuff that you don't, you didn't even know that existed, but there's like, oh, there's that thing and we don't have it. Man, that would be nice to have.
Speaker 4:I don't know if this is technically like, there's a city seal in city council chambers that was made by Alice Eve Wright and it's like, ooh, I wish we had that, but I'm glad it's somewhere and it's on display and it's part of you know, everyday use. But it's like, ooh, that'd be nice to have. And I would say an alternate answer is everybody's photo collections. For me, I'm always like just bring your photos in, I'll scan them, I'll give them back to you. You don't have to give them to us, know, because people don't want to let go of their photos, but I would love a scan of that because the photos are like to me, the most exciting thing, yeah they, they are.
Speaker 3:I think, yeah, every time I interview someone they say, oh, they bring a couple. I go, let me see your album.
Speaker 4:Yeah, let's see them all and can we borrow them for two days. You know it's like suddenly you're kicked into high gear about we're going to scan everything really fast but people don't think their history is valuable. But then when they start talking you realize we're all connected and everybody's history is valuable.
Speaker 2:I will say on this podcast. One of the things we've said in early, early, early staff meetings is we say it as a joke, but we mean it as a philosophy. We say we should keep track of what the population number is for Fremont, because that's how many episodes we can do, because everybody's story oh, you don't want to, you wouldn't want me on the podcast Like do you exist? Do you live here and or work here?
Speaker 4:Right, hi yeah.
Speaker 2:Episode number 7 billion, you know.
Speaker 3:I mean we're very similar in our goals. It's loving stories and valuing everybody and valuing everybody. We have it in just this area, but just the value of everyone's story and how it fits into this whole beautiful quilt.
Speaker 2:How have your walking tours evolved over time? You guys do great walking tours.
Speaker 4:I wasn't here when they began.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, they used to do tours a long time before I even came here. You know, Dr Fisher and Phil Holmes and others had walking tours. How have they evolved?
Speaker 4:Well, a lot of the buildings are gone. I would say that's true in every single walking tour. I mean we can't even do a Warm Springs walking tour because there's nothing here's Warm Springs Elementary, that's pretty much it. Yeah, so I would say a lot of the tours have changed in that, even just since I have been here, which is like 11, 12 years 11 years maybe a lot of the buildings are gone. Additionally, we do the hiking tours now, which are really cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've done a few hiking tours. Patricia will take me on several mile urban, rural hikes. Right, I've done a couple of those and I've done three. Actually, I've done three. I've done Irvington, and they're about five to six miles, but some people get pretty tired. But you can go out further and you can talk about things. You know, it's really nice because, like, yeah, it's nice to have a longer hike. You don't get as many people, though, because or you get them and then they leave.
Speaker 4:And it's kind of nice, because some years we have this really packed schedule and we have so much going on, it's actually overwhelming. And then some years it's very, very slow, but we always do the walking tours. That's like, no matter what guys, we're going to do the walking tours, so people can count on that, which is nice, and we do the walking tours, so that's, people can count on that, which is nice. And we have a bicycle too.
Speaker 2:yes, dakota, right, my home, um, tell me about some. Uh, we're gonna need to probably wrap this up what this is so fun.
Speaker 4:It's better than doing what I have to do, which is the emails and you didn't want to do it at all.
Speaker 2:I know I can't stop you now tell me about some future events that the museum not all of them, but some of them, any of them, even if they're rather far out. It's okay, you guys are under the year.
Speaker 4:The end of the year is always just the Mission, san Jose stuff, las Posadas and the tree lighting, and then typically we kind of come back around Women's History Month and I haven't talked to you about this yet, but we were talking about adding women into the coloring book. More women, another coloring book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah exactly. The museum has a coloring book.
Speaker 4:We have a coloring book. It's awesome. You've seen it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I've colored in it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and that is on our main webpage. It's on the main page, but what we've been focusing on the most is Union City History Museum and Union City History Group.
Speaker 2:Yes, that for the people that don't know, I will give the briefest synopsis, hopefully one that doesn't require correcting because it's so brief. There there has been for a long time a Union City local history museum. It's in a really cool old building, much like this one. It's really cool. It's in a really cool part of Union City. It's right near the mall, but it doesn't feel like you're anywhere near the mall. Yeah, there's a great little farmer's market next to it and another Bronco's Billy's and like a cool Ube-inspired. It's like there are a lot of cool things to do. Yeah, it's a very cute little area and the person who ran it is no longer running. It Passed away.
Speaker 3:Passed away and therefore there is an opportunity for the community, members of the community, members of Union City, members of the local history, like the larger area to pick up the torch and keep it going yes, that's the hope and make it even more dynamic and improve it more dynamic and improve it from what it was in the past, in collaboration with the Union City Chamber of Commerce. That's what we're hoping for.
Speaker 4:And working towards.
Speaker 3:And working towards.
Speaker 2:When can people visit this museum on Anza and Ellsworth near Ohlone College?
Speaker 4:Wednesdays, fridays, 10 am to 4 pm every week. Second Saturday and Sunday, 10 am to 4 pm every month, and the fourth Sunday, 10 am to 4 pm. And if there's one single thing on our website that is consistently updated and correct, it is our hours and dates open. So that is always going to. If you are ever worried, check our website. That is consistently updated and correct. It is our hours and dates open.
Speaker 3:So so that is always going to.
Speaker 4:If you are ever worried, check our website, yeah our website or and facebook.
Speaker 2:Yeah, website, for sure and um, until somewhat recently, there were not a lot of great restaurants. There was a gap, yeah, there was a gap in was a gap in the and there are good restaurants to time period and that gap is over because there are now really great. Let's say, excuses to come up here, do a bunch of stuff and then also see the museum.
Speaker 4:Yeah, mission. San Jose is very quiet and that can be difficult, but it's also also if we try to flip everything on its head and look at it as a positive. You can come up here. You can visit the museum, you can go to Forrest and Flower. You can go to Starbucks if you want a coffee or something to eat. Now we've got the burger place.
Speaker 2:There's several places to get milk tea.
Speaker 4:Yes, joyful dim. What is the other one? Ee Home Cooking. And while we don't have a park right here, we've got Palmdale, which is open to the public, beautiful garden, you have Olive Hide Art Gallery and you've got Ohlone College. Well, of course, you have the mission. It's like almost a given. I didn't even mention it, but, yes, you can visit the mission or walk around the mission and you can walk around Ohlone College campus which, believe it or not, is absolutely beautiful, and you can go up to the mission. Yeah, so it may seem like there's nothing to do here, but there actually is quite a bit to do.
Speaker 2:You could fill an entire afternoon and more. There's a really good ramen place down the street yes.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, oh, and there's, I think, a Loni Deli.
Speaker 4:There's plenty of. You know. Things have come and gone, but there's still quite a bit left, yeah so.
Speaker 3:And for walking, Sabercat Canyon is just right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's an entrance One of many entrances, but yeah, there's an entrance so beautiful. And Pine Street Park has a playground, I mean, yeah, so come up and visit us.
Speaker 2:I would say in this kind of I don't know what to call it, but like this main section, not quite as far out as Pine, not quite down the way to where the houses really start, but like this kind of slightly more commercial area where you guys really are, this kind of slightly more commercial area where you guys really are one of the more pedestrian-friendly spaces. So we're saying a billion things for people to do. You can do them all on foot, Like maybe Niles wins on that front, but like darn, it's a close second.
Speaker 4:It's a nice second. It's a. It's a. It's a nice second. Yeah, it is, it's very mission. San jose is it's I've, I've still I'm struggling to describe it, but it's like a feeling mission. San jose has a feeling and you don't, um, you just have to experience it.
Speaker 2:Like okay, granted, after 7, it's closed.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but that's part of the allure.
Speaker 2:But like there's kind of nothing to do at night, yes, but during the daylight hours, yes.
Speaker 4:Oh, there's the craft beer place too. There's a craft beer place. Yeah, I forgot about that there actually are quite a few.
Speaker 2:There's a bunch of bo's good stuff here.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I'd spend a week vacationing here, but like a Saturday, because you live in Fremont.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely Well, and some I will say, like for the museum. Some people say, well, some people come over and over, Some people oh, I've been there, I don't need to go again. But the fun for me of our museum yes, I love exhibits, but for me it's the collection. So come in and ask a question and then help us research in the collection.
Speaker 2:that's what's really really fun yeah, like if you think you've seen the museum, you're correct, but then come in again and ask a different question yeah and you won't have seen the museum yeah, and every time it's funny.
Speaker 3:Every time I orient people, I think of something else to talk about. It's like you don't always say the same thing, you know.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:I really think we should wrap it up. That was great.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much. Thanks, andrew, all right.
Speaker 3:You couldn't stop us.
Speaker 1:I'm Gary Williams. Be sure to subscribe wherever it is that you listen, so you don't miss an episode.
Speaker 3:This is a Muggins Media Podcast.