Rarely does a person give back so much to the neighborhood she settled in as Vicki Wees. Wees, now 64-years-old, first moved into a rented house in the Felton Grove neighborhood in 1979, when she was 25. Except for a few years here and there, Wees has lived in Felton Grove ever since. About 10 years ago, as something of a hobby, Wees began collecting historic photographs, documents and maps of the Felton Grove neighborhood.
This sideline interest, with the support of neighbors and friends, slowly grew into a passion. Wees is now recognized as a local authority on the history of Felton Grove, and has assembled the most impressive collection of historical photographs of Felton generally, and the Felton Grove neighborhood specifically, available anywhere.
Inheriting a keen interest in genealogy from her mother, as well as some informal training in cross checking dates and facts with different sources, Wees eventually extended her interest in family genealogy to compiling a near complete history of the Felton Grove neighborhood, going back to 1870.
Wees’s passion for local history and accurate archives, helped along by many local folks seeking her out to review old family photos, which Wees would scan and post on her blog, has resulted in a treasure trove of local history that is freely available to anyone with a computer. This comprehensive archive of historic photos and entertaining stories relayed to Wees, indexed by subject and year, is available at https://feltongrove.wordpress.com.
About seven years ago, Wees launched a blog about Felton Grove, with digitized copies of dozens of historic photographs she had acquired. That was the start of what is now several hundred photographs and a roomful of tri-fold story boards tracing the history of Felton and Felton Grove.
“People just started sending me things. Contacting me out of the blue and telling me about local history, and asking if I’d like to see some old photographs they had….and it just kept going,” Wees said. Wees was surprised at the response to her blog and the interest people had in local history- many of whom began asking her if she could identify people or put a date on old photographs they found in family albums. “I became something like of a magnet of local history,” Wees said.
One example: A 1937 photo of three men posing with arms over shoulders with a young woman, displayed on the website with the question, “Who was that guy who outlawed Jitterbugging in 1939 at the Felton Grove Resort Dance Hall? Here’s a photo of him in 1937. I got this from a delightful woman I recently met who is the 17-year-old young lady on the left,” Wees wrote on her blog.
This photo is accompanied by a newspaper article from the time identifying the man as H. V. Witham, owner of the “popular” Felton Grove Resort, where he forbade “jitterbug dances” at his dance hall. “It got so that the dances were attracting merely a certain few so-called ‘jazz hounds’, with the result that our regular, worthwhile guests and other patrons were staying away,” Mr. Witham commented.”
Just beginning her career as a realtor, Wees bought her first house in Felton Grove in 1982. Wees included a picture of this house on her blog, with the caption, “It was a wreck, but it was all I could afford in 1982. I was thrilled to be able to buy my very own home! …I was a single mom and raised my two sons in that house for seven years. p.s. The County posted an “Unsafe To Occupy” sign….The neighborhood had flooded Jan 4, 1982 when five and half feet of water came inside this house. I bought it shortly after for $25,000 and paid 14 percent interest!”
Flooding of the San Lorenzo River plays a big part in the history of Felton Grove. The website includes an article in the San Lorenzo Valley Reporter dated January 19, 1956, headlined “Incidents at Felton Grove During the Flood,” by reporter Natalie Bruce.
“Thumbnail sketches of some happenings in the flood area of Felton Grove on the night of the recent flood, Dec. 22, 1955, where humor and near tragedy rode side by side on the swirling, debris-filled San Lorenzo river, which suddenly went berserk, sweeping in, out and over buildings, driving out all moveable things with devastating fury, contemptuously leaving great deposits of mud and complete wreckage.”
Local history finds its way to the present day in unpredictable ways. Greatly assisted by Wees’s historical research, the Press Banner published an article last month on Captain Ed’s Boy Land, a summer camp in Felton Grove dating back to the 1930’s that operated until the early 50’s. The Press Banner received a response to that article from Larry Werner, who wrote:
“We were everyday people with the camp, went to every campfire and enjoyed every performance except when my sister and her friends (five years older than me) performed the song “How much is that doggie in the window”, and I was the dog that barked “arf arf” on all fours. FYI, Paul Kantner was one of the boys who played guitar and sang and was my sister’s boyfriend. Years later he went on to form the “Jefferson Airplane” with Marty Balin who he met in SF. What a fond memory I have. THANKS”
Wees became accustomed to helping make these kinds of connections. Wees has slowed down her historical research over the last few years because she has developed cancer, which she is currently handling the best she can. There will be a showing of Wees’s vintage photographs, articles and maps at the Felton History Fair, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the founding of the town of Felton, scheduled for October 6 in the Felton Community Hall.
