New Years Day 2017 San Francisco
Ellis is driving crazy in more ways than one. He is handsome, charming, funny, and so many other things. He is everything a girl could want. He reminds me so much of another man that I used to love. I am crazy for him. Nothing would thrill me more than to jump in his bed and start 2017 off making love with him.
He is driving me crazy with his constant badgering of our relationship. He wants to know things about me. Things that I cannot share with him. I hate lying to him, but you would think I would be better at it by now. He keeps asking about my parents. I told him they had died in an accident. Technically it's true, in reality, they died during the Great San Francisco Quake of 1906. How would he react if he knew the truth?
How would he react if he knew other truths about me? Truths such as I have had 10 husbands and 13 children? How would he react if he knew that I was really 134 years old? Today is my birthday I was born Adaline Bowman on January 1, 1883. Yes, you read that right, 1883.
I have seen much in my lifetime. Things that Ellis thinks that he is an expert on, I lived through. Ellis is a graduate of Stanford University and he thinks he knows all about Governor LeLand Stanford Sr. He goes on and on about how Leland Sr. was a robber baron who stole from the poor.
I graduated from Stanford at different and under different names. I was excited when Stanford first opened in 1891. When it opened it was one of the first universities to fully accept women as a degree seeking students. I also met Gov. Stanford when I was a young girl, and I would get to know his wife in later years. I can tell you that Gov. Stanford was not as evil as enemies make him out to be, nor was he the saint that his defenders claim that he is. He was a decent man who did some questionable things, but you cannot deny his heart for the community and all that he did to help the citizens of California, especially those in the Bay Area.
Sadly, I can't talk about any of this with Ellis. I can't even talk about something that we share, our alma mater. If I mention that I graduated from Stanford, it will bring up many questions that I cannot answer.
Ellis is not the first relationship that has forced me to deal with these questions. There are have been many, too many men, too many questions. Too many times I have had to flee. Too many times I have had to leave my children behind. Too many times I have felt the heartbreak that only a mother can experience when she places the welfare of her children over her own happiness. Too many times I have left loved ones behind, leaving them to wonder what happen?
By now you are probably asking why does she get involved at all? And why does she have children if she is only going to leave them? The answer to those questions has changed over the decades. I am reluctant to share my story for several reasons. One reason that I am reluctant to share my story is that modern women will judge my actions by today's standards, and not understand the lack of choices that women experienced 50 or 100 years ago.
There is another reason that I don't share my story, who would believe me? They would think I am crazy and in need of psychiatric help. An even scarier thought would be those who would believe my story. This group would treat me like an animal, a lab rat. They would want to study me. Analyze me. Find out everything about me so that they too could experience the fountain of youth. If they only knew how much of a curse it is they would run from me.
You might be asking how is this all possible? How can I be 131 years and look 23? The answer to this question and all of the other questions are in a safe deposit box at the Bank of America on California Street in San Francisco.
Many people refer this 52-story tower on California Street as the Old Bank of America Branch. This branch was built in 1969 and is old by today's standards. Even though I have had safe deposit box there since the branch's opening, to me the old branch will always be the branch that was on 550 Montgomery Avenue.
My family started banking at this branch when it was known as the Bank of Italy back when it opened in 1908. Before we used this branch, we banked at the branch on Montgomery Avenue. Mr. Amadeo P. Giannini himself operated the branch and the one near North Beach. Mr. Giannini was a kind and generous man. He had granted my dad many loans and had given him sound financial advice over the years.
Mr. Giannini would demonstrate his resourcefulness when the Quake of 1906 hit. Following the quake, Mr. Giannini moved all of the Bank's resources out of the city so that he could make them secure. For months, his bank was the only bank open and the only bank available to make loans. Many credit him for making the first steps in rebuilding the city.
When Mr. Giannini reopened his bank, I established a Safe deposit box. And kept it there for several decades. In 1969, I moved the contents to its current location. Over the years I have had to add aliases and use a variety of disguises to access the box.
What is in the box? Various documents, cash, a few sentimental things, and the most prized possession, my burgundy diaries. And it is time for a new entry in these diaries, but first I need to take a trip back and remember how I became the person that I am today.