Katherine and William Kerrigan c1915

Description:
"This is a photograph of Katherine Kerrigan and a gentleman I suspect is her husband, my grandfather, William. I'm not certain. He looks like a Kerrigan. I don't recognize the location. The sign in the background includes the word "COAL." That sign may help locate the scene. Hickman Coal Company occupied the property where the Colombo Club now stands. The automobile looks more like a WWI tank than anything familiar to me. My grandfather owned a Model "T" Ford when he died in 1918. My dad inherited that "Tin Lizzi." [Spencer Kerrigan note)]The apartment building at 400 Avon Street (at Shafter Avenue) in the Temescal/lower Rockridge district of Oakland, Calif., was owned by Katherine Kerrigan who also owned the home next door at 5153 Shafter Avenue. Her son Walter Kerrigan built the apartment building at 400 Avon Street after his father, William, died. Income from the apartment rentals helped Mrs. Kerrigan support her seven younger children.

Date of Document:
circa 1915

Document Author:
Unknown

Geographic Location:
400 Avon Street, Oakland, Calif.

Context:
While Katherine was still single, she and a girlfriend double dated. Her girlfriend's date was A. P. Giannini. William Kerrigan was a San Francisco fireman who, on his days off, designed and built homes in and around the Temescal and Rockridge neighborhoods. Many people moved from San Francisco after the 1906 fire, creating a large market for homes in the East Bay. William was a devotee of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. This may have influenced the naming of Frank and Lloyd Kerrigan. William and Katherine's growing family left San Francisco for West Oakland during or shortly after the 1906 fire. Young Bert had one leg in a cast and was transported across the bay in a row boat by Katherine's brother, Walter Hampshire. . ."[The] home at 5153 Shafter Avenue was purchased by William H. Kerrigan and his wife Katherine after the [1906] earthquake and fire displaced them from their San Francisco home. [Spencer Kerrigan notes]