No president, no flood, no fire - "a great community"

Monday, September 12, 2011 BMartin 0 Comments A⁺ a^-

Jeanette Giovannoni's homework assignment was the second oral interview transcript regarding Friendly Acres that I found at the Redwood City Archives. Irene Winnick's essay/transcript was the first. Irene's work is from April 12, 1945, the day F.D.R. died - but Jeanette's essay is undated. When I initially saw them I presumed they were written in the same year, for the same class, but they may have conceivably been written a couple of years apart. Both documents are wonderful artefacts and a creative way of recording and preserving local history information.

Both girls spoke to Mr. Giovannoni to get information. While Irene Winnick spoke to several people, Jeanette interviewed one person only: - Giovannoni. Her excuse for not interviewing anyone else smacks of classic chauvinism, maybe that's because Giovannoni was her father? - then again, it could simply be teenage unwillingness to complete assigned homework, for whatever reason.

For those of us in the know, Giovannoni's comment on the lack of flooding is an eyebrow raiser... Presumably, rain and storm runoff in those days had a better chance of getting back into the bay.

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Jeanette Giovannoni. 9. Sequoia Union High School

When Friendly Acres is the reply to the question of where I live many people ask "Where in the world is that?" The best description that I know of is "Friendly Acres is between Redwood City and Palo Alto on the Bayshore Highway."

The great "Community" of Friendly Acres started with approximately six or seven houses. This was about nine years ago. In 1938 a grocery store was built and a service station next door. The service station has been evacuated by the original owner but the grocery store is still managed by the same person.

Mr Giovannoni is the name of the man who owns it. He has watched Friendly Acres grow for the seven years that he has been there. He was not the first man in Friendly Acres but I believe he knows just as much about it as some of the earlier settlers.

While interviewing him I was told that there was nothing outstanding about Friendly Acres. What I mean is, no president was ever born there, there has never been a flood or fire, and no great person has ever lived in Friendly Acres.