If this is Thursday it must be postcards, 320

Madison Square, Oakland, California, 1907

Here is a second postcard sent by Sigrid “Taxi” Landaas Oliver from her trip to the Bay Area in October 1907.  This color-tinted card was produced by Paul C. Kroeber Company of New York and has the number 4215 at the lower left corner. 

The reverse side of the card is interesting because this was just before divided back cards became legal and it has a division for the sender’s address as well as the larger section for the addressee.

Reverse side of the postcard showing the division for addresses and the logo of the Paul C. Kroeber Company.


Only addresses were to be printed on the reverse side of the card, hence once again Sigrid has penned a short note in Norwegian in the margin on the front of the card sending greetings.  The date is 9 October 1907.  She says something like, “Here it is still extremely warm.  Greetings from Sigrid.”  Sigrid, her mother, Karen Landaas, sisters, Nora and Klara and their youngest brother, Trygve, all arrived in Seattle in 1902.  They were the last members of the large Peder Landaas family to come over from Norway and join the others who started arriving with Mikkeline “Maggie” who arrived in 1892.  

Sigrid Johanna Landaas, ca 1905

Madison Square has also been called Caroline Park and Dragon Park.  Caroline Park was established in the late 1800s and was known as Madison Square in the early 1900s.  It is located in the area of San Francisco known as Chinatown and was moved from its original space a block to the east to make room in 1965 for the BART Headquarters that also eventually moved in 2004 leaving the BART plaza, a flat even surface.  Local community efforts started a movement to renovate the park.  The result is that the park was moved and expanded and in the spring of 2008 celebrated a reopening of a newly transformed park.  There are statues of dragons here and there in the park, some partly buried and others complete.  In addition to local Tai Chi groups that meet in the park other activities include Qi Gong, Sword/Fan Dance, Taiwanese Dance, Line Dance, Stretching and Badminton.  Many of the participants are older residents of Chinatown.  There is also an ongoing oral history project to preserve memories of the area.

For additional information, see:

https://localwiki.org/oakland/Madison_Square_Park
http://www.10ksteps.org/madison.php
http://www.streetstoriesoakland.com/items/show/155