Childrens Home c1898


Description:
Children's Home (looking northerly), owned and operated by the Ladies Relief Society, Temescal district, Oakland, Calif. This view is of what originally was the building's front entrance, which faced inward toward the other care facilities on the 10-acre site the Nursery and the Home for Aged Women.

Date of Document:
1898 (publication date)

Document Author:
Unknown. Published in Mariposa Magazine, page 103, 1898

Geographic Location:
365 45th Street, Oakland, Calif.

Context:
In 1872, the Ladies Relief Society of Oakland was founded to provide for the city s indigent children and elderly women. The organization, which was among the earliest charitable social service organizations in California, was made up of women from a number of Oakland s most prominent families (including, the wives of Solomon E. Alden, James De Fremery, and J. W. Dwinelle). The following year, the Society purchased the old Beckwith estate a ten-acre parcel in Temescal that extended from about present-day Manila Avenue west to about Shafter Avenue, and from 42nd Street to 45th Street. The spacious, two-story Beckwith residence was converted into a care facility for children and elderly women, and in 1878 lifted and expanded the house. In 1882, the Society built a new Home for Aged Women on its Temescal property, and the former Beckwith house became used exclusively as the Children s Home. Two years later, the children's residence was destroyed by fire, but before the year ended, a new, two-story Children's Home, constructed of brick and wood, was erected near the 45th Street side of the property. In 1925, the Society constructed a new facility the De Fremery Nursery and in 1928, the new Autumn of Life Home for elderly women opened, replacing the 1882 structure. In 1942 and continuing through World War II, the Army leased the former Children s Home for use by the Military Police. In 1947, the North Oakland Recreation Center Committee launched a community-wide fundraising drive to purchase the Children s Home and donate it to the City of Oakland for use as a recreation center. The purchase included the adjacent former boys playground, chosen as the site for a municipal swimming pool. The re-purposed Children s Home opened in 1948 as the North Oakland Recreation Center, which also housed the fledgling Studio One Art Center program. The Temescal Pool opened next door the following year. In 1951, the Society leased the De Fremery Nursery (370 43rd Street) to the Califor





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