A fascination for what life once was caused Betsy Green to research life in Santa Barbara 100 years ago, and she relayed what she found in both The Mesa Paper and at Edhat.com . Those columns became the basis of her book, Way Back When: Santa Barbara in 1914, which she will draw from when she speaks to the Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society this Saturday, May 16, 9:30 a.m.-noon, at First Presbyterian Church. See sbgen.org . She answered a few questions about the book last week.
How did this project begin? I write a history column for The Mesa Paper, but since that paper is not online, if someone wants to read my column, I have to physically hand them a paper — which is so 20th-century! So I approached Edhat.com about posting my Mesa column on their website. That idea morphed into my Way Back When column on Edhat, a monthly column about weird and wacky stuff that was published in the Santa Barbara newspapers 100 years ago.
What made you focus on the year 1914? Nineteen fourteen was 100 years before 2014. (I can tell you’re mathematically challenged. So am I.) Since I’m a word nerd, I figured it was easier to subtract 100 from 2014 than, say, 57. Two thousand fourteen minus 57 would be … umm … let me see … carry the one, … oh, never mind!