Barbara Franke Boyle came to Lafayette from Oakland in 1937, when she was 10. Her family had been using the ranch in the Happy Valley area as a summer place only prior to the that. They raised pears, and Barbara’s father operated the Walnut Creek Cannery. In the years that Barbara was going to grammar […]
Oral History: Gloria Duffy – April 2006
Summary: Gloria Duffy had an illustrious career. She was a pioneer of Bay Area radio, involved in the arts, and was part of a flourishing real estate business in Lafayette from the 1950s to the 1970s. Oral History: Interviewer: This is the interview of Gloria Duffy, broadcasting in real estate, lady of Lafayette, given in […]
Oral History: Patricia Boyer – April 2006
Patti grew up in the Lafayette Horse Show. Her father, George Brooks, was the horse show announcer for many years. Patti won a trophy in the 1939 horse show riding her paint horse Pagero. After growing up in Richmond, Patti moved permanently to Lafayette 1957. Her recollections of early Lafayette are significant in the development […]
Oral History: Russell & Joan Bruzzone – October 2006
Summary: Joan and Russell Bruzzone remember Lafayette in the 1950s. They discuss their ongoing residential and commercial real estate activities which created housing for hundreds of Lafayette families and gave the town its major commercial shopping center. To create the Plaza Shopping Center in the 1960s the Bruzzones removed 200,000 cubic feet of dirt from […]
From The Archives: Jennie Bickerstaff (Oral History)
We are starting to open up our archives of oral histories and videos beginning with a talk given by Jennie (Mrs. William) Bickerstaff Rosenberg at a meeting of The Contra Costa Historical Society held in Lafayette on the evening of May 23, 1956. Mrs. Rosenberg was 85 years old at the time. The link will […]
An Oldtimer’s Reflections of Lafayette (Oliver Hamlin)
I was asked by the Lafayette Historical Society to jot down some of my memories of the Hamlin property in Lafayette. My first remembrance of my life in Lafayette started in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s when I was growing up in Piedmont. Those were the days before the Caldecot tunnel was opened. You […]
