Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Have you ever noticed that on our Park Day School campus, we have historical artifacts, markers, and relics all over the place?
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Well, on today's episode, our third grade podcast team will be taking you along with us as we uncover historical facts and other fun stories behind some of these historical features.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: Get ready to learn some new and surprising facts about our campus directly from some of our primary campus caretakers.
Let's get started.
Before we get going, we need to make sure everyone understands what a historical marker is. Around the world, there are a lot of old locations that hold incredible meaning and significance.
Each place has a past, and historical markers are one way to document and remember who and what was there before.
[00:00:53] Speaker C: All around Oakland, you'll find historical markers, signs, plaques, statues, even gardens that have been made to honor a person, movement, or an important moment. Have you ever been to the Huey P. Newton statue in West Oakland? Well, the third grade went there not so long ago.
[00:01:15] Speaker D: What historical markers do you know about in Oakland? You guessed it. We want you to let us know on this episode's padlet.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Okay, I think we're ready to get started.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Wait, before we go, there's another reason.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: To head over to this episode's padlet.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: We made a map to help you find the historical markers on our campus.
You can use it to follow along with us while listening to this episode or use it to explore these parts of campus on your own.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Okay, now we're ready to begin.
[00:01:44] Speaker C: Cool.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Let's do this.
[00:01:48] Speaker C: Since our podcast club meets in the basement of the Magnolia Building, we're going to start here. Can you find the Magnolia Building on the map? Once you do, see if you can locate the closest historical historical marker. Do you see it? There's a cluster of them at the entryway of the Magnolia Building. Let's head there now to check them out. We're going to meet up with two campus caretakers and historians, Jennifer Cooper and Hannah Davis, and see what they can share about our campus's historical markers.
[00:02:21] Speaker E: Hi, I'm Jennifer Cooper, and I'm the facilities director here at Park Day School. And one of my favorite places on campus is the Sunken Garden.
[00:02:31] Speaker F: Hello, I'm Hannah Davis, and I am a gardener that's been taking care of these grounds for about 25 years. My kids went to school here, and I have to say that the sunken garden is one of my favorite places on campus, too. I also love the redwood grove and the magnolia tree being under the magnolia tree.
[00:02:55] Speaker G: Yeah.
[00:02:55] Speaker E: So is this the place where people.
[00:02:57] Speaker F: Were calling it a fountain?
[00:02:58] Speaker H: Yeah. This crew has dubbed it the Magnolia fountain. And they have wild stories about how it got shipped.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: It was probably a fountain. And then maybe like after time, someone maybe accidentally like shattered it. So then they just took it all down except for the very little bottom bowl.
[00:03:16] Speaker H: And we all agree it's still beautiful, but we're trying to imagine what's the history behind it.
[00:03:21] Speaker E: I don't know very much about it, but it looks like it used to hold water. I was looking at the tile some time ago to see whether there might be a place where water maybe came out. But I don't see in that tile mosaic other than maybe above it where water might have come out.
Do you?
Oh, so you think right there at the bottom.
[00:03:45] Speaker H: So makes me wonder if this could have been a.
[00:03:47] Speaker C: A bird bath.
[00:03:48] Speaker E: I was wondering about that also because we have a number of bird baths that are here on campus that were part of the old Matilda Brown home.
[00:03:57] Speaker F: Right.
Only one of them is. I brought the other one in.
[00:04:01] Speaker E: Yeah, I didn't know that.
[00:04:02] Speaker G: If you can't picture what we're talking about, think about where you put your dirty dishes at lunchtime. Can you picture the tiled concrete structure underneath the bay windows in front of the Magnolia Building?
What is that thing?
[00:04:16] Speaker C: Aside from talking with Hannah and Jennifer, we also learned a lot from several other sources, like our school's archive room and two different books.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: One book, Temescal Legacies, includes some amazing photos and all kinds of information about the Ladies Relief Society's Home for Aged Women, which happens to be one of the oldest charities in the West Coast. The and born back in 1874, the Ladies Relief Society's Home for Aged Women once owned a 10 acre parcel of land that housed the orphanage that is now Studio One Art center, the nursery for infants that is now our very own Palm Building, and of course, the Home for Elderly Women, which became known in time as the Matilda Brown Home.
[00:05:08] Speaker D: And the other book, A City for Children, is all about the historical efforts made to house orphaned children in the East Bay.
[00:05:15] Speaker C: You can find links to both of these books on the episodes.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Padlet.
[00:05:20] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: There really are so many historical markers hidden in plain sight. We walk past them every day and never stop to check them out. And it seems like the more we look, the more we find.
[00:05:31] Speaker C: I know, right? I'm getting the impression that we're probably going to need to update our map by the end of this investigation.
[00:05:39] Speaker D: Yeah, it's starting to feel like we won't have time in this one episode to focus on all of them.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Let's use this episode to highlight a.
[00:05:45] Speaker D: Few of these time capsules and think about covering the rest later.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: That sounds like a plan.
