Annual Report page 1872-73

Description:
Page from "Reports of the Ladies' Relief Society of Oakland, 1871-1895" listing Executive Committee, Managers, Advisory Board, and Matron for the years 1872-1973. Among the many locally prominent family names found on this page are: Blake, Chase, Curtis, De Fremery, Harmon, Dwinelle, Sather, and Woolsey.

Date of Document:
Publication circa 1895. The first and second annual reports were originally published jointly in 1873

Document Author:
Ladies Relief Society of Oakland

Geographic Location:
374 42nd 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