Where’s Waldo?
by Laurie Thompson
We invite you to join us under the dome of the Civic Center Library on Thursday, February 25, 2016 at 12 noon for “Where’s Waldo,” presented by Larry Clinton and Michael Moyle, historians and members of the Sausalito Historical Society.
They will take us on a fascinating audio-visual tour through Sausalito’s history from the early days through World War II. They will focus on significant parts of the community that no longer exist, including the Northwestern Pacific railroad line, Pine Point (dynamited during World War II), the American Distilling Company (destroyed by fire in the 1960's), and the Waldo community (supplanted during World War II by the housing project for Marinship workers).
Before there was Marin City, there was a community called “Waldo,” many of whose residents had roots in the Portuguese Azores Islands. Mary Angela Avilla Rosa (1904–1998), both of whose parents came from the Azores, grew up in Waldo. In her autobiography, Mary tells us:
My Father bought an acre of land at Waldo Point, which is about five miles north of Sausalito…. On the land was an old cabin which the owner had built himself. He was a carpenter and only had one arm. They say he would make the best bread using the stump of his arm to knead the bread. The cabin was made all of wood. There were two bedrooms, a parlor, and a large kitchen…. There was a back porch with grapevines all over it and we often ate our meals out there. We had no icebox or refrigerator then, we kept our milk and cheese…in screened shelves on the porch…. We had a large wood stove. We baked all our own bread. We did all our washing by using a large galvanized tub with a washboard…. In those days we did not have a freeway, it was just a dirt road, and they were County roads. We had a horse and wagon and we would go to Novato to get fruit to can for the winter…. We would leave about five o’clock in the morning, pick our fruit, filling the wagon, and then start back home. The load was so heavy that my Mother had to walk leading the horse….
Learn more about the early days of Sausalito and Waldo on Thursday, February 25, 2016.
Originally published at https://annetkent.kontribune.com.
