Tuesday, January 10, 2012

The Carringer Gardens in 1935

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I posted Tuesday's Tip - San Diego Newspapers on GenealogyBank this morning, and wanted to go searching for more, but I had some non-blogging and non-research tasks to work on. 

After a torturous afternoon of updating and adding slides to my Genealogy Is Fun! Seriously! presentation, I decided to go searching for more interesting family history material this afternoon. 

Lookee here!  What a wonderful family history item!  From the San Diego Union, dated 24 March 1935, on page 18 (accessed on www.GenealogyBank.com):


And a more readable snippet:


A transcription:

Carringer Gardens, Model of Beauty, Have Also Wealth of Entertainment

By Ada Perry

Mr. and Mrs. Lyle L. Carringer, 2130 Fern st., are never bored with their garden.  They have four fish pools in it filled with finny pets that are always on the move.  Sometimes they move out on the grass but the Carringers chalk this up to playfulness and continue to enjoy the aquatic aspects of their home.

The Carringer place is distinctly in the livable small garden or outdoor living room class.  The pools are strategically located to invite folks outdoors for pleasure and relaxation.  One pool, the smallest, is placed near the rear door of the house as a starting point.  From there to a sunny larger pool planted to lilies and overhung with shrubs is a natural step.

Other parts of the garden planted in flowers, cacti and succulents and several fruit trees are easily accessible from the second pool and then the Carringers and their friends naturally gravitate to a lath house furnished with chairs and tables.

There are sources of amusement in the lath house.  The remaining pools are located there.  One is a rill in the heart of a pretty rockery and the other a shadowy oval presided over by a rice plant with curving stalks topped with leaves like giant hands.  Directly above the pool a tree rests apparently on the water.  The invisible stand which holds it up represents some clever household ingenuity.  It was formerly a piano stool.

A grill is built at the end of the lath house on a rock structure.  The grill space can be filled with a decorative potted plant when not in use although the Carringers have found it a consistent entertainer.

Next the grill in a glass house annex is a surprise feature.  On shelves are aquariums filled with tropical fish, paradise, moons, guppies and other fancy swimmers weaving about in grassy water jungles; blinking, gobbling and raising families in the most distracting style.  The glass house is heated for them and each aquarium has individual radiators and thermometers for perfect comfort.

Tropical aquariums are often kept indoors but the Carringers have theirs handy to the pools where fish life from goldfish to guppies can be observed.  Certain of the tropicals are moved to the goldfish pools at favorable times for variety.

This is the best description of my grandparents gardens, fish pools and lath house that I've seen.  I played in this garden as a child, but I don't recall all of these details.  When I was 9 years old, they sold this house and the gardens to Mr. Phillips, and he put a wall around it and we never ventured into it again.  I would love to go back and see if the pools and lath house are still there.

My grandfather was a very talented man, and my grandmother was a world class flower arranger.  I'm not surprised that they did this in their backyard.  After all, what was there to do for entertainment without television during the Great Depression?  They enjoyed their backyard, read books, discussed issues, listened to the radio, and worked on their collections. 

I wonder what else I can find?  Indexed newspapers are a Godsend for genealogists - thank you, GenealogyBank?

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/01/carringer-gardens-in-1935.html

Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2012

2 comments:

Lisa Wallen Logsdon said...

Gotta agree about the newspapers! I have found the most amazing, entertaining, and helpful articles about family members. You just never know what's going to turn up. Congrats on a really neat find!

Sharn White said...

What a great find!! I discovered how wealthy my g g grandparents were from a newspaper advertisement for the sale of their possessions after they went bankrupt. The auction article listed their beautiful artworks and two grand pianos, jewellery etc. it is amazing what one can find in a newspaper search. Your grandparents' garden sounded delightful.