Summary: Oliver (Ollie) Hamlin III was interviewed by Julie Sullivan in July of 2004. His great-grandfather came to California from Quebec during the Gold Rush and eventually bought a 200-acre ranch in Lafayette in 1871. Ollie Hamlin, who himself was active in the real estate business and also in civic affairs in Lafayette, tells how […]
Oral History: Curran Family
A History of the Curran Ranch, Glenside Drive, Lafayette Most people in Lafayette, especially those who live in Burton Valley, drive by land that once belonged to the Curran family. Today, it is still a cattle ranch where Reliez Station Road joins Glenside Drive. Open acres extend into the hills above Michael Drive, all the […]
Oral History: Sherril Lercari – Barber
A memory walk up Springhill Road Sherril Lercari – Barber A primary entertainment activity in the l940’s was to take a Sunday ride into the country with a picnic lunch. Our family was living in Oakland and enjoyed our weekend rides and picnic lunches. One Sunday in 1945, we came from Oakland through the tunnel […]
Oral History: Russell Bruzzone — November 20th, 1984
Summary: Russell Bruzzone was interviewed by Oliver Hamlin on November 20, 1984. Russell’s grandfather, Frank Ghiglione, was a truck farmer who came to Lafayette in 1906. He previously ran vegetable farming operations in San Pablo and in the Rockridge district of Oakland. In this interview Russell looks back over his long career as a homebuilder […]
Oral History: Susan Mott — August 17th, 2015
Summary: Susan was born in Lafayette in 1945 and has lived here, or within 5 miles of Lafayette all of her life. In the 1930s, Ina Schmidt, her grandmother, bought property in Lafayette and developed the Lafayette Garden Estates next to what is now El Charro Restaurant. Susan remembers an area of farms, and walnut […]
Oral History: Mary Machado Ginochio — October 23rd, 2018
Summary: Laura Torkelsen interviewed Mary in October 2018, when Mary was 96. Her daughter Sophie was present. The Machado family has long been associated with the Alta Crest Dairy, which once existed on the former Hamlin property in the Silver Springs area in Lafayette. The dairy was actually started by Mary’s older sister, Cecilia. When […]
Oral History: Fred Ravazza — April 14th, 2014
Fred’s father came to San Francisco from Liguria, Italy, “around the time of the Great Earthquake.” He eventually settled in Lafayette where he and his wife raised two sons. Lafayette had the perfect soil and climate for the same kind of dry farming the family had been doing for 250 years in Italy–dry farming, which […]
Oral History: Mabel Bowbeer — November 14th, 1977
Summary: Mabel Bowbeer and her husband Earl moved to the Daley Ranch in Lafayette in 1928. The entrance to this ranch was located near the El Charro restaurant. The depression hit soon after they settled here, and Mabel recalls that there were usually “extra children” — those whose families were without seated around their table. […]
Oral History: Catherine Sinnott — September 30th, 2011
Catherine Sinnott, who was born in 1924, was on the move most of her life–growing up on a sheep ranch in Sonoma country, studying nutrition at UC Davis, working as a food researcher in Albany, and being on active duty with the Marine Corps women’s Reserve during the latter stages of World War II. Then […]
Oral History: Robert and Sophie Wing — September 28th, 2011
Sophie and Robert Wing, who brought together two old Lafayette families when they married in 1961, were both born in 1930. Sophie was the youngest of 8 children in the Machado family that ran the Alta Crest Dairy in Lafayette. She describes the dairy operations and in particular the roles assigned to her, from a […]
