100 Years Ago Today (February 3, 2013)...

Bernie Mayer Arrives!

100 years ago sounds like so long ago, so let's just say that everything started 36,536 days ago, and the world was never quite the same...

February 3, 1913 began like any other day for four-year-old Cecelia (Ce) Mayer. It was a typical Monday. Her Dad had gone off to work at the Southern Pacific Railroad while she remained at home with her two-year-old sister, Aline, and their mother.

The Oakland Tribune carried headlines about he inauguaral plans for President-elect Woodrow Wilson, the latest activities for the suffergette movement, and the ratification of the 19th amendment  establishing a new federal income tax. The weather report predicted "a stormy period from February 3 to 7," and Ce stayed warm by the "Old Betsy" style wood stove in the kitchen inside their house at 1679 11th Street in west Oakland, California.

Life went on as usual for the girls that winter day, but by evening, Ce sensed that something exciting was underway. Although it was an early delivery date by everyone's calculations, the doctor was summoned to the house to usher a new baby into the world. It was a boy, and his parents named him Bernard Joseph. The baby was tiny; he barely had eyebrows or fingernails. Baby Bernie would probably have been placed in an incubator had he been born in a later era.

 

Feb. 3, 1913
On February 3, 1913, the newest member of the Mayer household, Bernard Joseph, was born at home in west Oakland, California.