San Jose Escorts: Reminiscing about the agricultural roots of Silicon Valley’s prosperity
The accounts covered amusing and nostalgic highlights told through the filters of time, comfort and hazy memory, making farm life sound as if it indeed created a valley of delighted hearts. The event at the Saratoga Library was sponsored by the Saratoga Historical Foundation and Museum .
“We had a good time growing up that way,” said Vince Garrod, 91, after he told how “anybody that could hold a knife” pitched in to cut and dry fruit from the Saratoga orchards. His family has lived on the same land for 100 years.
Garrod and three other speakers were full of tidbits from the past.
They talked about the Peninsula interurban street car that served Saratoga, Los Gatos, San Jose and Palo Alto. They reminisced about the state highway commissioner who insisted that all churches needed steeples and financed the addition of a bell tower to the Saratoga Federated Church, designed by Julia Morgan. And they told tales about the wild neighborhood known as Monta Vista, home to saloons and houses of prostitution.