The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon. Charlotte “Polly” Gobar Snyder was interviewed in 1981 for the Fullerton College Oral History Program. Here are some highlights from this interview.  She was born in Durand, Wisconsin around 1899. Her father was Dr. Frank…

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon. The Local History Room of the Fullerton Public Library has microfilm from the Fullerton Tribune newspaper stretching back to 1893. I am in the process of reading over the microfilm, year by year, to get…

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon. Orla Jencks was interviewed in 1971 by Anne Riley for the Fullerton College Oral History Program. Here are some highlights from this interview, along with some historic photos of things he mentions. He was born…

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon. For this series of posts, I will find a historic photo of Fullerton and then juxtapose it with a photo of the same subject matter today, from approximately the same angle. For this first post,…

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon. Anthony Ondaro (of Brea) was interviewed in 1971 by Sonia Eagle Dias for the CSUF Oral History program. Here’s what I learned from reading this interview, with some historical context provided by the excellent web…

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon. During World War II, thousands of Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in “internment” (i.e. concentration) camps because of the United States’ fear of Japanese spies. One such Japanese American was…

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon. The Bowers Museum is one of the premier local repositories for artifacts of Orange County history, all the way from native Americans, through Spanish colonization and the missions, to Mexican rule, to American conquest. There are…

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon. In 1896, Homer Plessy, who was 1/8th black, entered a whites-only railroad car in New Orleans and was arrested. The Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that the doctrine of “Separate but equal” was…

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon. As part of my ongoing research on Fullerton history, I have been reading various Oral Histories conducted by The Center for Oral and Public History at Cal State Fullerton. I read an interview with local…