Daly Family in Altamont

The Independent, MAY 10,2007

The Daly family—Lawrence, Nida and baby daughter Jeanne— moved to the settlement of Altamont in 1931 and lived in one of the railroad section worker's cottages located between the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific tracks. Lawrence had trained as a telegrapher and worked for Southern Pacific. The family lived there until 1935 when the Summit Hotel, built in 1868, became available for housing: They rented the hotel for 22 years from owners Tom and Joe Egan.

Two more children, a son, John, and another daughter, Marilyn, joined the family while they lived in the hills. Both were born at St. Paul’s Hospital in Livermore, delivered by Dr. John Degnan, the Hetch Hetchy doctor. The old hotel kept Lawrence Daly busy— painting, repairing modernizing. In addition to his work at the telegraph key during the graveyard shift from midnight to eight, he and Nida ran a store and a saloon downstairs in the building, but they did not run a hotel with overnight guests.

When the children were young, they enjoyed exploring upstairs. Across the front were two joined rooms and a large deck area over the store and bar. Two other vacant bedrooms were filled with old furnishings such as brass beds, ceramic pitchers and bowls, Edison cylinders, and lamps from the days when the building was used as a hotel. According to Marilyn, these belonged to the Egans, and the children were “strictly forbidden to touch anything in those two rooms.” Four other upstairs bedrooms served the Daly family.

The staircase with an oak banister and a landing ended at the ornate front door with its plate glass window. The first floor included “the toilet room and the room with a wash basin and claw-foot tub.” The “dance hall,” which contained a pool table, had an oiled wooden floor that “leant itself to roller skating.” The large bar-store area had an enormous dark mahogany back bar; Lawrence kept the wood gleaming and the glass sparkling. Some shelves held groceries, and sandwiches were served at a short order lunch counter. In addition to these were the living room, kitchen, laundry room and a utility area. The only heat in the building was generated by an oil heater in the living room and a pot-bellied wood stove in the bar.

All three children attended and graduated from Summit School, the Altamont one-room school. By the time Marilyn graduated in 1951, only three students remained under teacher Irene Nickerson Armstrong. The county closed the school in 1954. Lawrence Daly, when two of his children were students at the little school in 1941, worked with Rasmus Christensen to install a drinking fountain, make repairs and paint the building a gleaming white. They also repaired the two outhouses and painted them green. When the school closed, some of the heart went out of the community. The annual Christmas program and graduation programs had been important events. For these special occasions, students memorized poems, songs and dramas to entertain their guests. Blackboards covered with butcher paper were decorated with holiday scenes. The deserted school gradually fell into disrepair again. An arsonist burned it down in 1983.

Marilyn remembered that the little community of families at Altamont relied upon each other for support in emergencies and for carpooling into town. She named many of them: the Nickersons, the O’Loughlins, the Bass family who lived in the Southern Pacific depot with their daughters, Anita and Yvonne; the Scullion, Dias and Serpa families out on Dyer Road; the Dario family, and the Gonzales children—Irene, Amparo, William and Isabelle. Sylvain Bordes farmed where the Vieux family lives now. Marilyn recalled going to the Bordes ranch to ride their donkey; in an old photograph that captures the excursion, her siblings are dressed in rodeo outfits. Local residents gathered either at the school or the old hotel for dances or wedding receptions. They enjoyed picnics together up on Brushy Peak.

Altamont Road became Old Altamont Road when the new four- lane bypass opened on August 4, 1938. Gradually, fewer travelers stopped at the settlement of Altamont. Marilyn and her siblings, encouraged by their parents, graduated from Livermore High School and San Jose State University. Lawrence and Nida left Altamont for Hayward in 1957, where Lawrence retired from the Southern Pacific after 45 years. He died in 1984 and Nida in 2005. Marilyn looks back on those Altamont days with fondness: “Although it was hard being different from the ‘town’ kids, there were some advantages. Living in the country left time for reading and reflection and developed self-reliance. Loneliness was not fatal.”

The material for this column came from Marilyn Daly Bangs, who has written several essays about her experiences growing up in Altamont. She also created a scrapbook about the settlement; the Museum on Main in Pleasanton has a copy. The only buildings left now at Altamont are the Summit Garage and one house; the Summit Hotel is long gone. I learned recently that Dan Silviera, who has rented the garage for 10 years, has been asked to leave. What will happen to this dilapidated historic building?