The first residence of Jake and Elsie Caraway

On 13 Jul 2023, I was doing family history research on Jake Caraway’s life timeline. I was tracking where he lived and when, as well as where he worked and when. I found the home address in Oakland of where Jake and Elsie first lived when they got married (and where they brought home their first child, Ann). The address was 2240 Hopkins Street in Oakland.

In doing some online sleuthing, I happened to find an old photo from 1940 on the Oakland Public Library online archive and the caption showed that Hopkins Street later became MacArthur Boulevard.

I then searched Google Earth to find what the current address looks like and found that an historic apartment building still stands there. 

Then I went back to the 1940 photo and discovered that the very apartment building is in the old photo! So the photo shows EXACTLY what the neighborhood looked like when Jake and Elsie lived there!

Another fun discovery...When I looked closely at the texture of the building, the vent grates, and the banding along the bottom of the building, it realized it was the background in the photos we have of Jake holding Ann when she was a baby as well as the ones of the two of them when Ann was a toddler. It's fun tidbits like these that make family history research come alive for me.

Bill and El Munce's Yosemite Trip of 1912

Letter written to Elsie Munce Caraway by her father William "Bill" Munce:

Home 1-29-1960

Hello Kids:

Well, you have sure handed me a dilly of an assignment, requesting at this late date the mode and method of your arrival at 2010 East 16th St. in Oakland, Calif. (see photo at right) on April 15, 1913.








I'll have to go back to 1912 to get this tale off to the right start.

Our neighbors, named Garner, wife, and daughter, talked up a trip to Yosemite Valley, said trip to be made in a covered wagon and a team of horses.
Dad supplied the transportation and we russeled(sic) up the grub. So bright and early one July morning we hit the trail, and enjoyed every hour of the four days it took to reach Inspiration Point where we got our first glimpse of wonders of nature.

We made camp under the Royal Arch, and for about ten days we tell we were leg weary; and then went over to the North Fork were Mrs. Garner had a mother and brother on a sundown ranch close to a small Indian village where we stayed about a week...

...then took the trail back toward home by round about roads, arriving safely having spent about 25 days of dust and ashes with board and lodgings in the open. Believe me it was a close race as to who got the first bath. I ran a close second.

Time marched on, and on one occasion I see mother making baby clothes and asked her how come? She said I had planted seed under the Royal Arch and that she was going to make a dady(sic) out of me which she did, for she wanted her baby born in Oakland so here we are back where we started from.

When my mother hears the news she was real tickled and told your mother-to-be that she had been with each of her daughters when their baby came, so she would standby.

On the 15th day of April, old Dr. Beckwith was on the job with all his equipment and you took your own sweet time coming out to see what kind of company you were forced to keep.

You were a red, rosy, package, and I can still hear my mother singing, crying, and praying as she was giving you your first bath. She never got through telling folks of her new granddaughter's big blue eyes and ready grin.

She was the proudest Granny in town and was happiest when she had you in her arms and sang to you some of the old time scotch lulabyes(sic).

Hope this is what you wanted; but if it isn't sing out and I'll try again.

Dad

Below are scanned images of the original letter