“For as long as I could remember, the small cottage on Castro Street had been home.”

So begins Kathryn Forbes’ 1943 fictionalized memoir Mama’s Bank Account. The book is a collection of more-or-less chronological stories about her childhood on Castro Street where her Norwegian-born mother used her ingenuity to help her family struggle through tough times. In one anecdote, her mother disguises herself as part of a hospital’s janitorial staff in order to be able to visit her daughter in the hospital. In another story, Mama persuades a surgeon to operate on Papa by promising the labor of a well-respected carpenter – and then warns him to do a good job because his patient is the carpenter.

The family eventually moves briefly to a farm in Oakland before returning to San Francisco where they lived in and managed a boarding house on Steiner Street.

The book became the Broadway play I Remember Mama in 1944, and then in 1948 a movie of the same name starring Irene Dunne as Mama and Barbara Bel Geddes, best remembered as the matriarch in the 1980s prime time soap Dallas, as Katrin. The film received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Actress for Irene Dunne, Best Supporting Actress for Barbara Bel Geddes and Ellen Corby (Aunt Trina), Best Supporting Actor for Oskar Homolka (Uncle Chris), and Best Cinematography for a black & white film. This was followed by a television show called Mama starring Peggy Wood that ran from 1949 to 1957, and then two different Broadway musicals in 1972 with Celeste Holm and in 1979 with Liv Ullmann. Interestingly enough, none of the other adaptations focus on Castro Street: the film is set on Larkin Street (though filmed on Rhode Island Street on Potrero Hill), and the television series is set at 115 Steiner Street in the Lower Haight – locations where the real Kathryn never lived, though she lived in many homes very close to 115 Steiner.

In 2014, twenty historical plaques were embedded on Castro Street as part of the Castro sidewalk widening and street improvement project. Each plaque includes a brief description of historical events that occurred in the Castro neighborhood. One of the markers, located near Castro Tarts at 564 Castro Street, commemorated Forbes’ contributions to the neighborhood’s fame:

1943: CASTRO STREET BECOMES NATIONALLY KNOWN AS THE SETTING OF MAMA’S BANK ACCOUNT, A NOVEL BY LOCAL NORWEGIAN-AMERICAN AUTHOR KATHRYN FORBES. IT INSPIRES THE BROADWAY PLAY I REMEMBER MAMA AS WELL AS A 1948 MOVIE AND 1950s TELEVISION SERIES.

But where on Castro Street did they live?

As it turns out, they never lived on Castro Street, and only briefly lived in the neighborhood.

Early days in Little Scandinavia

Kathryn Forbes is actually the pen name for Kathryn Anderson, who became Kathryn McLean after her marriage in 1926. It’s been well-reported that Forbes’ novel drew more on the experiences of her grandmother, a Norwegian immigrant, than her own parents who were both born in the United States. This would have been her maternal grandmother, Annie Lund, who was born in Norway in October of 1849. Annie moved to the United States, where she met Frank Jesser, a Danish immigrant. They married on April 26, 1873 in Missouri and had several children, including Della Jesser, Kathryn’s mother, who was born in 1975 in Missouri.

Kathryn’s paternal grandmother, Anna Anderson (maiden name unknown), was born in Iowa, not Norway. The genealogical research I’ve found has focused on Kathryn’s mother’s side of the family and very little was found about her father’s.

Lee Ellis Anderson, Kathryn’s father, was born in January of 1874 in rural Northern California, where he met and married Della Jesser in 1895. Their eldest son, Ellis Reid Anderson, was born in 1896 in the Northern California town of Biggs in Butte County. Their second son, Raymond Anderson, was born in 1900. By 1905, they were living in San Francisco; the Crocker-Langley San Francisco Directory for 1905 shows Lee E. Anderson, carpenter, living at 848 Fell Street in the Western Addition near Alamo Square Park.

The devastating 1906 earthquake and fires disrupted the publication of the Crocker-Langley directories. Three versions were published that year, but all focused solely on businesses listings and omitted the residential portion of the directory.

Sadly, Raymond died in December of 1906 at the age of six.

The 1907 directory showed the family living at 134 Hancock Street, their first presence in the Castro area – then known as Finn Town or Little Scandinavia. Kathryn Anderson was born March 20, 1908. The directory that year shows them living at 132 Hancock, a unit in a duplex in a building next door to the previous address. It’s unknown whether the directory transcribed one of their addresses incorrectly, whether the city changed street numbers, or whether the family did indeed move next door.

By 1909, the family was living at 22 Diamond Street (a building that apparently no longer exists). This was their last residence in what can properly be categorized as today’s Castro District or what was then Little Scandinavia.

Lower Haight and the Western Addition

By 1910, they lived at 460 Scott Street. The 1910 census lists Lee Anderson as the head of household there with his wife Della, his children Ellis R. and Kathryn C., his mother Anna, his father-in-law, Frank Jesser, and nine other people listed as boarders. Curiously, Annie Jesser is not listed as living there, though she lived for nearly two more decades. Perhaps she and Frank temporarily separated? Perhaps she had to care for another relative elsewhere?

From 1911 to 1912, the Crocker-Langley directories show the family lived at 758 Haight Street. Then from 1913 through 1915, the family disappeared from the City. It’s possible the directories simply missed them (which happened in 1920), but it may be that this was the period in Mama’s Bank Account where the family briefly lived in Oakland. But by 1916, the family was again living in San Francisco, now at 1134 Hyde Street near Grace Cathedral and Chinatown. This is the only time during Kathryn’s childhood that the family lived in a San Francisco neighborhood that wasn’t the Castro or the Western Addition, broadly speaking.

Kathryn’s maternal grandparents apparently stayed in the East Bay: the California Death Index lists Frank Jesser’s death on December 29, 1917 in the town of Alameda, and Annie’s death on November 2, 1928, also in Alameda.

The 1917 Crocker-Langley directory shows Lee Anderson and his wife Della living at 1400 Webster near Japantown, back in the Western Addition. This is the first time in Kathryn’s lifetime that the directories included the names of spouses. Prior to this, women were generally only listed if they were widows or single women living alone, though in a few instances young women with professional careers were listed separately in the same homes as their parents.

Lee Anderson died on April 21, 1918. The 1918 Crocker-Langley directory shows Mrs. Della Anderson living at 410 Steiner Street, where she continued to live through 1922 – the Steiner Street boarding house described in Mama’s Bank Account. The 1920 Census shows Della Anderson as the head of household at that address with her daughter Kathryn, then 12, and 13 other residents listed as lodgers. Kathryn’s brother Ellis, then 23, was not living with them. Curiously, the 1920 Crocker-Langley directory missed Della, listing only four of the Steiner Street lodgers: Maude Durand, Leon and Margaret Rash, and Edna Wilson.

After 1922, there are no more listings for either Della or Kathryn in the Crocker-Langley directories. Perhaps they moved to Alameda to be with Della’s mother? Kathryn married Robert Edward McLean in 1926 when she was 18, and they had two children whom they raised in Burlingame, a suburb to the south of San Francisco.

Della Anderson died on February 24, 1949 in San Francisco. Kathryn died on May 15, 1966 in San Francisco at the age of 58.

Expanding the search to relatives

Mama’s Bank Account is classified as a book of fiction and is written as a “fictionalized memoir.” Her family in the story is much larger than Kathryn’s actual family and most of them have different names. Many of the stories either happened to Kathryn’s grandparents, perhaps with embellishments, or are completely fictional. For example, the Castro Creamery, where Papa takes a second job washing bottles in one of the stories, isn’t listed in any of the Crocker-Langley directories during Kathryn’s childhood and may have never existed.

Since Kathryn’s parents in Mama’s Bank Account were actually modeled after her maternal grandparents, Frank and Annie Jesser, perhaps the Castro Street home was also modeled after a relative’s?

If so, it wasn’t the Jesser home. Frank’s first listing in the Crocker-Langley directories was in 1903, where he (and presumably Annie) are listed as living at 605 Fell Street with their adult son, Harvey, who is listed as an electrician. In 1904, Frank is listed at 406 Oak Street with another son, Leland, a packer for Doliver Brothers. Harvey moved in there in 1905. By 1907, Frank was living 710 Haight Street with his sons George, a cement worker, and Leland, now a carpenter. In 1908 and 1909, Frank was living with Leland at 57 Portola. During this period, we assume Anna was living with Frank, but the directories didn’t list spouses during these years. By 1910, Frank was living with Kathryn and her parents, but the census doesn’t show Anna living there.

Perhaps the Castro Street cottage was modeled after another relative’s home? None of Kathryn’s maternal uncles are listed as ever living on Castro Street, but it could have been a relative on her father’s side. Unfortunately, we could not find any names of Kathryn’s father’s relatives except for his mother, Anna.

The early Crocker-Langley directories show numerous Anderson families living up and down Castro Street. The 1912 directory, for example, shows six different Castro Street addresses with Anderson families: Jacob H. V. Anderson and Miss Mabel E. Anderson at 313 Castro, George Anderson at 396 Castro, Jason and Jason Anderson, Jr., at 428 Castro, Mary Anderson (widow) at 657 Castro, Henry G. Anderson at 829 Castro, and Augusta Anderson (widow) at 1886 Castro.

Of these, the larger family homes 313 Castro and 829 Castro seem to match Kathryn’s description the closest, with the former in particular being large enough to hold Kathryn’s fictional family and boarders (much larger than her actual family) while still being small and quaint enough to be characterized as a “small cottage” and a single-family home.

It isn’t actually that important whether the “small cottage on Castro Street” ever actually existed (except for those of us with Castro Street addresses hoping for some residential claim to fame). Whether the home was real or completely fictionalized, by setting her novel on Castro Street, Kathryn Forbes brought early notoriety to the street that would later become a byword for the gay rights movement.