Household 80: 1611 F Street, Napa, CA

Household Record 80

Res.1/Male/Husb} Williams, Simeon Clyde (Si)

Family History} Hancock

Res.2/Fem./Wife} McFarren, Bess Crystal (Bessie)

HH Type} Historic household

Address/Location:
Name(s)}	Mr. & Mrs. Simeon C. Williams
Optional}	and family
Str./Apt.}	1611 F Street
City/etc.}	Napa, California

Household Dates:

Source} Exa 4 Apr 1930

Move-In} Cir Sep 1920

Move-Out} Fam 1934

Source 1}	9 = Biography
Source 2}	375 = Biography
Source 3}	732 = 1930 USA cen
Source 4}	1600 = City directory
Source 5}	675 = Photographs

Last Updated
by} Karen Hancock

Date Updated} 13 Jan 2023
Date Created} 10 Aug 1996

Notes: Simeon made the down payment on the 1611 F Street house when Bess, with their new daughter Viola, returned from a trip to Coffeyville, Kansas, to visit her ill mother Rebecca. This was late September 1920, and the house was Bess' and Simeon's first home. Simeon also bought a 1916 Dodge automobile.

Daughter Ruby Lorraine was born here at 1611 F Street in October 1922.

In 1924, Simeon had to go to San Francisco to have his leg amputated. To go there, he would catch the street car at Jefferson Street. It ran down to Vallejo, where he would catch a boat, the S.S. Napa Valley, for San Francisco. Bess had never driven a car. After Simeon drove to Jefferson Street and they said good-bye, it was up to her to get the car home. She did. But she didn't know the clutch from the brake, and went right through the back of the garage and ended up in the chicken pen.

Viola loved the two-story 1611 F Street house and all of its good memories. There was a boardwalk around the house. About once a year Simeon would lift up the sections of the walk and Viola and Lorraine would have a treasure hunt — pennies, marbles, and anything else lost during the year.

Viola had the South bedroom upstains. Simeon and Bess had the North, and Lorraine was in the East bedroom. The chimney went up through the middle of the house. If the girls slept together on a cold night, they would put their feet against the wall and keep them warm from the chimney. Out from the South bedroom was a roof on which they would sit to watch the Fourth of July fireworks from clear across town at the old Napa Pavillion at the Fair Grounds on 3rd Street.

Simeon also made boats and a canal for the girls under the fig trees. He had a pump and well out in the yard used for outside watering of the garden and plants. He would pump the water from the hand pump down the canal and the girls would sail their boats until all the water sunk into the ground. They sailed as long as he pumped.

There was not an outside toilet; they had a metal chemical toilet in the "toilet room" off the back porch. It was a large room for storage boxes and trunks. In about 1926, Simeon built a septic tank out of cement and bought the toilet from a school house that was being renovated. Sitting on the seat caused water to come into the pipe behind you. The longer you sat, the more pressure built up. Then when you stood up, it flushed because the seat came up about three inches. Once Viola sat too long and the pressure split the pipe behind her. She got drenched. They were really modern for living outside the city limits.

Viola remembered 1931 and 1932. Simeon sold illegal beer at his West Side Grocery (later named the Green Lattern), but only to certain known customers since this was Prohibition time. All of the beer bottling was done in Viola's bedroom. Four 15 gallon crocks of beer were brewing at a time with each crock dated and on a stand.

Bess offered a guest a glass of beer one hot afternoon. Evidently it hadn't been in the ice box long enough, because when she removed the cap, it blew to the ceiling and all over her newly mopped linoleum kitchen floor and shampooed hair. Simeon came to the rescue with a cold bottle, as Bess cleaned up the kitchen.

It was later that the roof needed re-roofing. Simeon, with his artificial leg would climb up those high ladders and carry heavy bundles of roofing material all by himself. A month later he had it finished. That night when he built the wood fire, the house started filling with smoke. He had left a piece of composition roofing material draped across the chimney. So in the dark with a flashlight, he put up the ladder and crawled up on the roof to remove it.

Simeon and Bess purchased the house at 1613 F Street (in the background of the 1944 photo at the left) — and the vacant lot next door to 1611 F Street. They rented out the 1613 house after re-modeling its interior. The photo at the right shows the 1613 house in its greatly updated July 2006 condition.

Simeon and Bess in about 1930 bought the 458 Brown Street house at a bargain, rented it out, and used the rental income to pay off the properties.

When Roy and Lorraine Stubbs bought the 1611 F Street in about 1934, Simeon and Bess moved their family to the 458 Brown Street house. The photo at the right shows this same 1611 F Street house in its July 2006 condition. It looks almost the same as it did six decades earlier.

Total # of Residents} 6

Other Residents:

Household	His Last HH} 142	His Next HH} 150
Links =>	Her Last HH} 196	Her Next HH} 150

3rd Res.}	Williams, Viola Clide (Vi)	150
4th Res.}	Williams, Ruby Lorraine	150
5th Res.}	McFarren, Roy Lee	165
6th Res.}	Bulgier, Nell	___

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