Summary:
He was born in 1950 and was raised in Burton Valley. His parents founded and ran a coin-operated laundry and dry cleaning business on Golden Gate Way called Sunshine Cleaners. Chris worked in the business while he was growing up after his father taught him how to maintain and repair the equipment. The business continues today under the name Hamlin Cleaners. Chris has retired in Lafayette after a career in construction management and has recently expanded his long-term home here. He recalls the friendliness and slower pace of life people in Lafayette enjoyed 50 years ago.
Oral History:
Andree Hurst: Hi, this is Andree Hurst with the Lafayette Historical Society’s Oral History Project, and I’m joined by Chris Young. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Chris Young: My pleasure. My pleasure.
AH: Let’s start out, Chris, with your history in Lafayette. When you arrived, where you live, why don’t we start there?
CY: Okay, well, let’s see, I was born in 1950 in Stockton when my parents were still going to school there at the then College of the Pacific, and then we moved to Lafayette. As far as I can tell, right after I was born, I don’t have any actual records, but I know our house was being built and we moved in in March of 51 on Los Palos, and that’s where I grew up. My two brothers and sister.
AH: Nice. What was the address there?
CY: 700 Los Palos.
AH: So that’s in Burton Valley. What was Burton Valley like back then? Was it before it was developed or was it being developed?
CY: It was, boy, it was being developed, Los Palos. There were a few empty lots. There was an empty lot next to ours that had a pear orchard in it for the longest time, and then somebody bought the property and built a nice house on that. But as kids, we used to play there. My parents used to host the Easter Egg Hunt, and we have one in that orchard and one in our backyard. The orchard was for the older kids, and the backyard was for the younger kids.
AH: Oh, what a good idea. How big was that orchard? Do you remember?
CY: It was a house plot size, so quarter acre, quarter to maybe not quite a half an acre, but full of old pear trees. I mean, pear trees look old anyway, but then…
AH: Did you ever ride your bike down to where the train would…
CY: Oh, yeah. Well, the train ran, which is now where the Moraga, Lafayette-Moraga Trail is. That was the right of way, and it was behind my neighbors across the street, so it was behind their house. So nobody had fences back then, so we just walked through the yards of all of our neighbors. So if we wanted to see the train, we could see it from our house between homes, but we walked over there, and they sort of had a fence to keep people from walking across the tracks, but that got knocked down years ago. And behind that were walnut orchards, there was lots of walnut orchards around, and behind our house, nobody had fences. So we could walk from my house all the way up to Glenside Circle, which is like diagonally opposite the little, you know, the Los Palos bisected Glenside. So we could, you know, as kids, we walked all over back there, and there were lots of kids in the neighborhood. Everybody had two, three, or four kids, so we could field a couple of football teams or baseball teams, and we played baseball in the backyards of somebody’s house, or front yards.
AH: It sounds like an idyllic childhood in terms of just having that kind of freedom.
CY: Yeah, we didn’t know, of course, that’s where we grew up. We didn’t know any different, but, of course, now everybody’s got fences and you can’t travel. You can’t, as I say, travel, but yeah, it was just everybody, you know, it was back in the day where, you know, you came home when it was dark, you know, it was, you know, nobody had watches, nobody, you know, the kids played.
AH: For dinner, right?
CY: Yeah, exactly. One of the neighbors had, they had a big bell out in their backyard, and if the kids knew they heard that bell, it was time to come home, and then the rest of us got to go, okay, the Summers have to go home. I guess we got to go home too, so that’s the way it was.
AH: Tell me a little about your family, the names of your parents, and when they were born, if you remember, and if, I guess you all moved to Lafayette around 1950, is that what I’m hearing?
CY: 1950, yeah.
AH: Okay. Your brothers or sisters, their names.
CY: Sure. My dad was Fletcher Young, born in 1924, everybody called him Fletch, that was, that was what he called him. Everybody, you know, that’s the name, his nickname, excuse me, my mother was Carolyn, she was born in 1926, and everybody called her Carolyn, it was just, you know, and then I have the two brothers, Marshall, whom we called Mush, there’s a long story that goes on, how he inherited that name, that nickname, excuse me for a second, and then my brother David, and my sister Terry, or Teresa’s her full name, but everybody, we all called her Terry.
AH: So there were four of you, and what was the order, in terms of oldest to you?
CY: I was the oldest, myself, I’m the oldest, and Marshall, David and Terry was the youngest.
AH: Are they still alive, and do any of them live in Lafayette?
CY: Say they are alive, Mush lives in up near Sacramento, Rancho Cordova, David lives in Park City, Utah, and Terry lives in Walnut Creek.
AH: So you’re still in Lafayette?
CY: Yep, I live over in the Lafayette Estates.
AH: Are you still living in the family home?
CY: No, we sold that, unfortunately, none of us could afford to buy it, so we sold it in, let’s see, when my dad passed away in 2010, and we sold it in 2013, and my mom passed away in 1998.
AH: So you lived in that home a very long time?
CY: Yeah, well, it was, they lived, my dad lived in there for quite some time, and then he died from complications of dementia, and so we, he was in an assisted living facility and my oldest daughter lived in the house until we sold it, and so, yeah, it was in the family for quite some time.
AH: And your family now, tell me about your family?
CY: My family, well, I’m married, 49 years this September. I have three children. My oldest is Shanda, that’s S-H-A-N-D-A, she actually lives in Lafayette. My son, Evan, lives in Seattle, and my youngest daughter, Catherine, lives in Vacaville. She has three children, we have three grandchildren, my son and his partner adopt a little baby girl, so, and then, nice, yeah, so great.
AH: You have some history with Sunshine Cleaners, why don’t we go?
CY: Yes, yeah, so my parents, or my dad and my mom, my dad worked for a couple of different companies and things, and then they decided to go into the coin-operated laundromat and dry cleaning business back in 1963, and 62, 63, and they, so they opened up, then called Sunshine Cleaners on Golden Gate Way, right next door to the then Pioneer Market, and, you know, just down the street from the Park Theatre, and they actually opened two, two, they had two of them, one in Lafayette, and then they later on, and a couple years later, they opened up one in Walnut Creek, and for the most part, it worked out okay. My dad was very, you know, very, very handy, he could do electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and so he did a lot of the maintenance himself, which saved them money, but it was a lot of upkeep, and the coin-operated dry cleaning, as a concept, was okay, except people didn’t understand, they thought dry cleaning was, you put something in a cabinet, and it, you know, dry, and it came out dry, and but somehow it was clean, and it’s, but it’s not, that’s not the process, it just means it’s cleaning without water, uses chemicals and solvents, and so people didn’t understand that, so we had to have somebody there to kind of show them how to do that, and after a while, you know, they come in and say, well, can you do it for me? It’s okay, and one thing led to another, and we ended up, you know, the coin-operated part of the dry cleaning business, you know, disappeared, and they ended up, you know, having a full-time operator there to, to manage that, and then my dad, which was, one, my dad was part of that as well, then people wanted, you know, the closed press, so we, you know, we started putting in steam presses and all that finishing work, so that became part of it, and then the coin-operated laundry just was more trouble than it was worth, so.
AH: Well, I imagine, so that was 1950s, 60s, 70s, is that roughly how long did the business run?
CY: They, they sold it in the, in 87, so that we’re open for 26, 27 years, and by then it was a full-service dry cleaning, no laundromat at all, though we did take-in shirts and stuff like that, but that was, and I worked there all through high school, junior college, and then they come home from college and run the place for them, if they wanted to take a weekend off or something. My brother’s sort of worked there, my sister was kind of, but my dad taught me how to do all the maintenance, so I could tear washing machines apart or dry cleaning machines apart and put them back together, change up bearings, things like that, so very mechanical.
AH: And that was sort of during a time when people really liked to go to work with a, you know, I remember my dad would come home with his dry cleaning, you know, and it’s not as popular these days, but back then it was very popular, wasn’t it?
CY: Well, yeah, yeah, well, people buy clothing for the style and how it looked and, you know, and the fabrics were, you know, just, you know, wool or whatever, and they didn’t understand that you can’t just throw it on a washing machine, and clean stuff could, you know, wool would shrink and things like that, so dry cleaning doesn’t do that. You know, suits, you know, Lafayette’s full of, you know, business people or commuters, so people were wearing, you know, suits, and so those needed to be dry cleaned, you just can’t put those in a washing machine, so that, you know, the business did well. My mom went down and started, you know, working the counter and doing the spotting, and, you know, we all learned how to do finishing, how to press clothes and things like that, and that was kind of fun in the summer when it was hot and steamy, but anyway, we, you know, but it was like the family farm, you know, everybody just kind of chipped in, and that’s how we, how they did it, and they, they retired in the 80s, sold it to a family that, a husband and wife, and he passed away a few years later, and it’s now Hamlin Cleaners, which was down at the other end of Golden Gate Way, they bought the place and moved in, and so that the location of the current Hamlin Cleaners is where the Sunshine Cleaners was, and they did, and as far as I know, the equipment in there is still the same, may have upgraded a little bit, but it, you know, I’ve walked in there once or twice, and it still looks the same, you know, with a few upgrades.
AH: Tell us a little bit about your early memories of what Lafayette was like.
CY: Boy, I used to describe Lafayette as, I remember when it only had one stoplight in town, which is right at, you know, Mount Diablo and Moraga Road, right by Safeway there, that’s, that’s so far back, I can remember, at least in terms of, you know, what the downtown was, you know, gas stations, there was Lafayette Pharmacy, which is now Starbucks, next to the Roundup, gosh, there’s just, you know, the bus used to come through town, and there was an A&W root beer place at one end of, now where I think, it used to be called Scotty Rents, I forget what it’s called now, there’s an equipment rental place in that location, and the post office was on the corner of First and Mount Diablo Boulevard, it was, you know, for the store, that’s what we called Sunshine Cleaners, in the family we call it the store, so it was convenient to, you know, if we had to do mailing, you just walk up the street and, you know, go to the mailbox or, you know, the banks were close by, there was a hardware store where Petco is now, so my dad needed, you know, a piece of a nut or bolt or something like that, he just walked up there and get it, it was just, there was lots of conveniences in town, all of them walking distance or short drives, all those have disappeared, but that goes back to, you know, early, early memories, going to nursery school, went to Lafayette nursery school, which bounced around to a couple of different locations, we were in the basement of the, then the Masonic, which is now where the library is, Masonic Hall, and then they built a permanent one by the time I graduated from there, and then when, I think, you know, we mentioned the Sacramento Northern Railroad used to run through town, following the current Lamorinda, or Lafayette Orinda, excuse me, Lafayette-Moraga bike trail.
AH: Could you hear the train, and how often did that go through, how much of a part of sense of the character of the town was it?
CY: It went, it hauled freight, it hauled passengers, it was an electric train, so it had a little, little, little spring thing on the top of the train, so it did, you didn’t hear, you know, a chug, chug, chug, or chugging, it just, you could hear it rumbling past the neighbors, you know, across the street, but it really didn’t make a lot of noise.
AH: Interesting.
CY: And there was a trestle that we used to play on as kids, or, you know, a bridge that ran right next to, it’s the current Las Trampas Pool.
AH: Is that where that nice footbridge is now?
CY: Yes, there’s a footbridge there now, yeah, that was, but that was a big train trestle, and, you know, as little kids would climb it over, climb all over that, and we’d play on the creek, and, you know, the older kids would say, there’s a boogeyman that lives in the creek, you got to be careful, you know, and as little kids would go a big wide eye.
AH: Do you ever think you would see the train disappear, or the tracks disappear?
CY: Well, as a kid, I didn’t know any better. It stopped running, I want to say 57, 58, so I was old enough, the tracks didn’t get torn up for many years. I used to walk the railroad tracks to get to school, get to Burton, Burton School, which is now the Lafayette Community Center. That’s where I went to elementary school, and then, you know, just walk along the old railroad tracks, try to ride my bicycle, which was a challenge because of the bumps, but we could do it.
AH: I bet people rode their horses along that route.
CY: Yeah, there were people that had horses in the neighborhood, family down the street, two doors down the Summers, their oldest daughter, I can’t remember her name now, they built a horse barn behind their house, right between the house and the railroad track, and she probably, she had at least two horses, as I remember. God, I’m trying to think of her name, it’s not, it’s escaping me at this point. But yeah, I mean, there was kids around bikes, you know, the cars didn’t have seatbelts.
AH: What about the, all the creeks in town, the, and the wildlife, what was that like, birds, different?
CY: Yeah, we, we, you’d see the occasional raccoon, deer. There were, you know, now we see crows and turkeys, and in my neighborhood, I live in Lafayette Valley Estates now, and I’ve been there for 38 years, 39 years, and, you know, there’s, you can hear the turkeys and the coyotes around, I don’t remember those as kids, the crows, don’t remember those at all. We even got a peacock, hollers at night in that, in our neighborhood. So that was, you know, we didn’t see a lot of them, they pretty much stayed, the creek was a good place, but there was a lot of open space too, the hills, we used to call the cowhills, because that’s where the cows roamed, behind our house, and there was a house and then Glenside Drive, and then a house behind that, and then there were just big open grass hills, and as kids we used to get pieces of cardboard and slide down those hills and get all sorts of, you know, road rash or abrasions, but that was fun, fun as a kid, I mean, some kids, some guys took it to the next step and they actually, you know, made specific slides with, they’d wax up the, they look like snow slides, and they, you know, go as fast as they could down the hill, and of course they’d roll over, they’d get their faces all scraped up and stuff, but that was just kids, everybody got scraped up and nobody thought anything about it.
AH: Now, when you got a little bit older, do you remember going to the theater or what did you do for, let’s say in your teen years?
CY: Well, I can start with my preteen years as little kids, you know, the Lafayette Theatre, Park Theatre was the place to go, I mean, they took you, you know, the parents would drive by, drop you off, give you a quarter to get in, and ten cents for something, you know, for candy or whatever, and that was an afternoon, and if it was a double feature, that was even, you know, better for the family, for my parents, because they didn’t have to deal with us for that length of time. One thing about the Park Theatre that I always remember is in the early days, if it was like between features or between a cartoon or something like that, the owner of the theater would get down and there was like a little stage in the front, he’d get down and he would tell everybody about what’s coming next week or the next couple of weeks, so that would, instead of, you know, having previews, he would tell everybody what I would get him all excited about, okay, we got this new science fiction movie, you know, Target Earth, and it’s really exciting, it’s got this and that and other things, other than the kids would go, yeah, yeah, okay, so we got in, of course, parents, you know, we tell the parents, yeah, we want to go next week, okay, okay, so that was, you know, but the Park Theatre was always a place to go, as we got older and could travel a little more, we went over to the Rheem Theatre and the Orinda Theatre, occasionally we go into Walnut Creek to the El Ray Theater, but those were, those were the big things, Lafayette Theatre, you know, Park Theatre was the place to go, and I’m glad, I’m glad they’re saving it, I’ve talked to the people that are working on that, and it’s, it’s worth, it’s a landmark, it’s part of, part of the history of Lafayette, in fact, when I was the church that I go to, which I’m currently sitting in St. Anselm’s Church, before the church was built in 1960-61, services were held in the Park Theatre, and then it kind of bounced around, there was a Park Theatre, there was a mortuary in town, that we had services in, while the church was being built, I was baptized in the rectories in the garage behind the church, that’s where the rector lived, while the church was being built, that’s another memory I spent, you know, my youth is an acolyte here, and I still raise my kids here, baptize my kids here, so it’s multi-generational, but then I’m just trying to think back on some of the other stuff that we, you know, my teen years-
AH: What about the Town Hall Theatre, did you, were there ever anything, things going on there that you enjoyed doing?
CY: The basement was used a lot for, my preschool was in there, before they built the permanent one, Sunday school classes were held in there, in the basement, actually going to the theater, I didn’t start going to the theater until I was an adult, the Town Hall, the Town Hall building itself went through several iterations of different things, but, you know, again that’s another, another thing that’s been around forever, the Masonics, Masonic building across the street, same thing, you know, remember going there a couple of, couple of times, again, nursery school in the basement, we bounced around a lot, trying to think of other places in town, you know, it was, it was thing about working, working for my folks and the cleaners, is to get to know a lot of people, people knew, people knew me by name, I didn’t know, necessarily know them, but you know, they know I was associated with, with the store, everybody knew my mom and dad, and it’s still, you know, my people running, I run into occasionally say, I remember your mom, you know, she was so nice, and you know, mom got involved with school, she was, you know, back then, they had room moms that did things for the, for the teacher, my mom was, was always doing that for all, all four of us kids, as we were growing up. Boy, I started getting in my teen years, boy, that was, I was in Scouts, part of Troop 204, which has the log cabin next to Lafayette School.
AH: Sure, it’s still there.
CY: It’s still there, my son, and I got my Eagle there, my son went through there, got his Eagle there too, up until about two, three years ago, well, actually COVID was, when things stopped, but I used to go back every year, and teach them how to do snow camping, snow camping. And that’s something I did, I did a lot of, a lot of outdoorsy stuff.
AH: Snow camping, so did you go up towards Tahoe to do that?
CY: Yep, yep, we did that around, yeah, different places up in the mountain, you know, around Tahoe, Lake Tahoe, or up Highway 4.
AH: Mm-hmm.
CY: But yeah, those are fond, fond memories.
AH: What, what are your favorite landmarks that are still here when you drive by that still bring back memories and say to you, yeah, this is Lafayette?
CY: Boy, well, certainly 204 cabin, I drive by it all the time, and that has lots and lots of memories there. Boy, I don’t, you know, I drive, occasionally I go down Golden Gate Way and by the store, and, you know, because it says Hamlin there, and, you know, it’s been there long enough that most people don’t remember that it was Sunshine Cleaners. I kind of sigh about that. The Great Wall Chinese place was the Pioneer Market when it was growing up. Mm-hmm. The Lombardos that ran the, that owned the place, they also owned the building that the store was in, and the apartments above. And as a kid, I remember I come home from school, go to the, go down to work at the store, I go next door and get something to eat or whatever, then, but the Lombardo, they were, I miss them. They were a great couple. Gosh.
AH: And then, and then when the BART came in, I guess in the 70s, right, that was right around, you were, you know, in your 20s, was that exciting for you then to be able to easily get into San Francisco in places?
CY: Yeah, it was actually when I got married. We lived in apartments, you know, that backed up to the BART, BART line, you know, a half a block away or a block couple blocks away from the BART station. I used to take that to, when I was going to graduate school at UC Berkeley, that was always, you know, didn’t have to drive, I just took BART, which made it really convenient. And but yeah, when I started my work career, when I came out of graduate school, I worked on Pier 39 in San Francisco. And so I take BART into the San Francisco day and read the paper and Herb Cain.
AH: What was your line of work?
CY: I was a project manager, senior project manager, operations manager for general, general contractors. The one I started with was called Swinerton and Wahlberg. I left, came back years later, it was then just called Swinerton Builders.
AH: Oh, yes.
CY: Yeah, I worked for them for 29, 30 years and retired three years ago.
AH: Did you ever do any big projects in Lafayette? Or were they most in San Francisco?
CY: No, they were, well, I did, most of my work was in San Francisco, did several projects there. As far north as Santa Rosa, far south is Los Gatos, actually take that back. Be Santa Cruz, see Bakersfield, and then I worked over in Hawaii for seven months, worked in Colorado at a plutonium research and development site called Rocky Flats. So I did a lot of high rises, hotels, hospitals, university projects. I built the first academic building at UC Merced. So I had the opportunity to do a lot of, fortunately I worked mostly in the Bay Area.
AH: Do you think Lafayette has done a pretty good job of zoning and just maintaining the character of the town over the years?
CY: All right, don’t get me started.
AH: Maybe that’s a loaded question. It is after all historical oral history.
CY: The ambiance of the town has changed. There’s a few of us that still, some of my closest friends and my closest friend, we remember the days when it was just a nice quiet town, like say a one stop light town. Now it’s just gotten so big and the ambiance has gotten a little more. It’s not the community where people said hi to you and were friendly to you and you knew everybody. I mean it was a small town. It was a bedroom community for those that commuted to San Francisco or went other places to work. I mean it was a combination of blue collar and white collar. Not too much blue collar anymore. It’s pretty much all white collar. And I mean the neighborhood, the house that we’re living in, what we paid for to what is worth now is like that’s crazy. And then people are fighting each other to try to get into our neighborhoods because of the school systems, which again we took for granted. And yes, I raised my kids in the same school system and they came out okay. But it’s, I miss the localness of it. And I reminisce with my friends that I still keep in touch with about you know the good old days that kind of thing.
AH: Do you have a group of people that you know for your reunions and things like that that still live here?
CY: A few people that I went to high school with still live in the area. I had been active in our the Del Valle High School class of 68 class reunion. I’ve been doing that. We did the 40th, the 45th, 50th and 55th. So 20 years. And it’s fun to see some of the people and where they’ve gone. A lot of people just moved out. They didn’t stick around. I’m an oddity. I have to say, at least I feel like I am at times, but that I still, still live here. I never thought I’d end up buying a place here and raising my kids here.
AH: Yeah. Do you think you’ll stay now for the duration?
CY: Yeah. Yeah. Because that’s where we’re adding on. I had, I raised three kids with the one, three bedroom, one bath house. And we are now adding a, I can’t say master anymore.
AH: Large bedroom.
CY: Large bedroom. Yes. Another bath and a walk, something like that. And you know, we added more square footage because this is where we’re going to spend the rest of our lives. That’s my way, my wife. I don’t look at it. So, and we brought a place for the grandkids to come.
AH: We have around two minutes left on this Zoom before it disappears. We can continue this if you like, or we can have one more question and wrap it up. What do you think?
CY: Well, we can do one more question. I’m just looking at my list here of things that I think I’ve covered all the stuff, all the schools or names enclosed. It looks like, yeah, if you’ve got another question, go for it. I’ve gone through, I think, everything that I wanted to touch on.
AH: Did we ask your wife’s name?
CY: No. Her name is, she goes by Peggy. That’s all I, and I didn’t know that she had a, her name was really Margaret, until I’m dating her for about a year and a half. And, yeah.
AH: Did you meet in college or high school?
CY: I was going to Cal Poly at the time. I sang in the Men’s Glee Club, and we were on a music tour, and her best friend was dating somebody in the Glee Club. They got invited to the after-concert party, and I met her there, and we got to talking, and one thing led to another.
AH: And then you said, let’s get married, move to Lafayette.
CY: Well, it wasn’t quite that easy, because I was going to graduate school at the time.
AH: Sure.
CY: And, so I, that, you know, when I was going to the grad school, that was tough. I ended up, we ended up, started up, UC Berkeley, ended up in Oregon. And then we bounced around, we moved like every year for a couple of years, for one reason or another, and then we ended up buying here in Lafayette. And then since retirement, I went back to school and got a PhD. So it’s like, crazy, crazy stuff.
AH: Well, thank you so much for the time today, and for sharing your story about living in Lafayette and your memories. And a lot of people will enjoy listening to this, and it will be going up on the Lafayette Historical Society website. So let us know if you have any other memories you’d like to share. Otherwise, hope you have a really good day.
CY: I probably do. And, you know, you get me talking, I could probably come up with lots more stuff, but you asked a lot of really good questions about what it was like to grow up here and, and still live here. So I, I love the, love the place. And I love talking about it. So thank you very much for inviting me.
AH: Thank you.
CY: I look forward to hearing it.
AH: Okay, very good. Take care.
CY: You too. Bye-bye now.
AH: Bye.
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