Summary:
Fran Stanley Schroder, the daughter of M.H. Stanley, was interviewed by Julie Sullivan in November 2004. Her father had been instrumental in developing Lafayette Schools for over 30 years while serving on the Lafayette School Board and the Acalanes High School District Board. Fran has fond memories of growing up in Lafayette in the late 1930s when it was a “country town” and a great place for kids to roam and play. She became an active volunteer in local civic affairs, as did her husband, Bob Schroder, and son, Rob Schroder, who served as Walnut Creek City Councilman and mayor of Martinez respectively.
Oral History:
“We were lucky because Lafayette was a secret for a long time,” Fran Schroder says. She has fond memories of growing up here in the late 30’s. “We lived in the country, yet we had all the good things of the city nearby. We had fruit trees, pears and apricots. There was lots of land around us. There was a creek behind where the Park Theater is now that used to be a swimming hole for all of us kids. We had a big rope we’d swing on and jump into the water. We collected pollywogs and snakes. There was a path all around down by the creek, and we strung tuna fish cans with wires and tried to talk to one another.”
Fran’s father, Matthew Howard Stanley, was instrumental in the development of Lafayette’s schools. In 1927, two years after moving to Lafayette, M. H. was elected to the Lafayette Elementary school board, where he served until his retirement in 1951. “He realized the need for the Acalanes School District, so he really instigated to get that started, too,” Fran explains. Stanley served on the board of trustees from 1939 to 1956.
M. H. was also a director of the Lafayette Fire District and helped organize the Central Contra Costa Sanitary District. He participated in a planning committee for the Caldecott Tunnel and was secretary of the Pleasant Hill Water District. He was secretary, general manager and auditor of the Lafayette County Water District (which later merged into EBMUD) from 1931 to 1958.
M. H. was born in 1888 in San Diego. In the late 1890’s his father moved to Alaska, leaving the family in Oakland. M. H. worked in a lumber company and earned his high school diploma at night. “I think the reason he felt education was so important was that he was not able to have the education he wanted, because he had to go to work to help support his family,” Fran recalls. “It was a natural thing that my brothers and sister and I should go to college.”
Fran’s mother, Grace Eagles, was the daughter of a sea captain. Her family moved from Massachusetts to Oakland, where Grace and M. H. met and married. Fran’s dad owned a lumber company in Berkeley when her parents moved to Lafayette to raise their family, which eventually numbered three boys and two girls.
“My dad built a house on what was Old Tunnel Road (now Golden Gate Way). Old Tunnel Road came through Orinda and went to the little wooden tunnel up in the hills to Oakland. He commuted for quite a few years because he still owned the lumber yard. You didn’t have commuters in those days. Most of the people who lived here were farmers.
“My father loved lumber,” Fran remembers. “He knew all the trees. He went back to school and got his contractor’s license.” Stanley had property in different areas of Lafayette. “He was always building,” Fran says. “We’d move to one house and he’d get the urge, then all of a sudden, overnight we moved. We lived in three different houses.”
Dr. Leech, the only doctor in Walnut Creek, delivered Fran at Grandma Wilson’s house on Mt. Diablo Boulevard. (In 1933 Fran’s mother was one of a group of women who planted an evergreen tree in Lafayette Plaza in Dr. Leech’s memory.)
“Across the street from our house were two big hills which have been taken down,” Fran says. “The two-lane highway went all the way to Walnut Creek.” Fran attended Lafayette Elementary School and graduated from Acalanes High School, which her father was instrumental in seeing built.
Fran’s parents owned the Stanley Building, original site of the Lafayette Drug Store. “It was two doors down from the Roundup, near the Garrett Building (now Postino),” Fran explains. “My mother worked in the soda fountain in the 30’s and 40’s. The pharmacist was Mr. Winkler. Everybody in town used to go in there, and people liked to read the funny books.”
Fran’s father was Lafayette Citizen of the Year in 1955. Stanley Intermediate School and Stanley Boulevard near Acalanes High School were named in his honor.
“My father was actually kind of reserved,” Fran says. “If he made up his mind on something, he just made up his mind, and he didn’t make any scene about it. I think he was very pliable and very direct when he was working with people.” Fran’s memories include taking the train to San Francisco. “The seats had a wicker back.” She describes a different lifestyle growing up. “We could always just run downtown and get whatever we wanted. The Plaza was where the grocery store was. There was a hardware store up the street, too. My parents never worried about us. I think of myself going hiking alone on the hills, and my parents just said, be careful of the cows.”
During the World War II years, there was an Air Force pre-flight school at St. Mary’s College. “When I was in high school, I’d go hand out cigarettes to them,” Fran says. “Our family would invite them over for dinner. We had quite a time during those war years. We had blackout shades in our house, and we also had a siren that blew for (air raid) practice. We watched for airplanes up on Monroe Avenue, across from Lafayette Elementary School, and had to write down what we saw.
“My father was really concerned in the earlier years when they put in what they called ‘the freeway,’ which was the main road through town and developed all the businesses along the strip,” Fran remembers. “He felt that was bad. On one side there was nothing, but when they started building on the south side, he thought they should have made the businesses more centered instead of spreading it out on the long street. It seems unbelievable when we called Mt. Diablo Boulevard ‘the freeway,’ then they built the real freeway.”
In 1951, Fran married Bob Schroder and moved to Walnut Creek. Bob served on the Walnut Creek city council for sixteen years, is a past mayor, was on the board of supervisors and was also head of the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Bob retired from Schroder Insurance Services, and their son Rob runs the company.
“Bob’s dad was named Man of the Year in Walnut Creek, my dad was Man of the Year in Lafayette, and Bob and I were Man of the Year and Woman of the Year in Walnut Creek,” Fran says proudly. “We’ve always been community oriented. I’m active in the Assistance League, the Walnut Creek Historical Society, the Cancer Society, the Diablo Ballet, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, and I also work at Talbot’s and help with the symphony.”
Fran and Bob have three children. Rob is mayor of Martinez, and Susan and Sharon are teachers.
“Lafayette did a good job of holding onto the small town feeling,” Fran says. “I have a lot of friends in Lafayette. That’s what’s nice about being around for a long time.”
Excerpted from “Voices of Lafayette” by Julie Sullivan. This book is available for purchase in the History Room.
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