Love letters written between Bay Area teens preserved 100 years later

OAKLAND, Calif. - Most people can remember their first love. Many might have even written love notes to that person.

Two Bay Area teens in the 1920s did just that, and now their story is frozen in time.

Suzanna Robinson, from Oakland, found their personal love letters on the internet and decided to purchase them, revealing a treasure trove of century-old letters.

It was something Robinson never expected when she came across the estate sale on eBay.

"The person doing the estate sale just couldn’t bear to throw the letters away, so he just posted them on eBay," she said.

Robinson spent about $30 only to discover a priceless love story between pen pals, recorded on ink-blotted pages.

"I think there’s something really special about this story, these people," she gleamed.

The tale begins in 1921, with letters addressed to Conrad Zerbe in Oakland, written by a lovestruck teenager in Sausalito, Audrey Young.

"One of the letters, she signs it ‘Yours until the sun rises in the far west and sets in the near east, Audrey,’ and that, of course, means forever right because the sun will never rise in the west, so she’s basically saying in a clever way, ‘I’m yours forever,’" Robinson said with a smile. "Actually, she kind of is Conrad Zerbe’s forever because here we are in 2023 reading about this beautiful love story."

In one letter, there is a glimpse of the Roaring 20s when Young invites Zerbe to a friend’s party in Oakland to dance.

"She’s talking about how he changed her life," Robinson said, reading through the old notes.

In another letter, Young teases Zerbe about buying a car during an industrial era when cars were replacing horse-drawn carriages on the streets.

Erin Sanders, manager of the Oakland History Center at the Public Library, took a look back at archives with KTVU reporter Crystal Bailey to help place the letters.

"Towards the beginning of the 20s it wasn’t as common for people to have cars, but then the popularity of cars exploded over the course of the decade," said Sanders.

The letters point to the technological advancements in Oakland at the time and give readers an idea of what teenagers like Young and Zerbe were going through.

"There was sort of a post-war boom, there was a lot of development happening, our population grew by almost 30% over that decade," Sanders recalled.

"There are a lot of references to water and water transit cause there were no bridges, and also basketball and sports, and the things we do today that bring us all together," said Robinson. "Some things are not that much different, and some things are."

Many of the letters were addressed to a home in West Oakland, which no longer stands today, but there are several letters addressed to a house in North Oakland. Sanders believes this is Zerbe's second childhood home.

With the help of historical planning maps, Sanders helped find his first childhood home.

"Right now, the map shows it’s under a freeway, but we can look at this older map and determine exactly where that house was," she said, flipping through the 2-foot wide page of the historical index. 

"So, what we’re looking at is basically what it was like in 1911 when Conrad would have been four or five," she described.

The letters elaborate on his difficult transition into manhood, as he becomes a shipbuilder during the Oakland estuary’s industrious time. 

"He had the same issues a lot of people have after high school, ‘What am I going to do with my life,’" Robinson empathized. 

Zerbe's last heartfelt letter from Young in the collection was written in 1925. 

"Not long after 1925, he gets married to someone else, you know and they had a child, based on the census, right then and there," said Robinson, with a certain sadness.

Zerbe's adventure doesn’t end there. He went on to fight for workers in a labor union, getting arrested in the 1960s while he was striking with Local 1149, a union for carpenters and builders.

"I think they kind of went after him because he was leading the charge with better pay, better salaries," said Robinson.

A 1964 Oakland Tribune article said his charges were dismissed in the California Supreme Court because he was conducting "lawful labor activities." 

"It makes you wonder, right?" Robinson asked, "Why would someone keep all these letters for over 100 years and their whole life?"

Her simple explanation is love. 

"It’s true they didn’t get that story book happily ever after, but they had a love and that love was really impressionable you know," Robinson insisted.

Now, Robinson is finding a way to preserve the letters for the next 100 years and share them with others.

It is a love story for the ages, stuck in time.