The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph by Skye Dunlap

Elected to Stay: Wilma and Lewis Lanini have lived on Nevada Avenue since 1932. They voted to annex Willow Glen to the city of San Jose in 1936.

Longtime residents recall the incorporation of Willow Glen

Wilma and Lewis Lanini bought home 4 years before annexation

By Cecily Barnes

Homeowners who are buying into Willow Glen are willing to pay top dollar for real estate in what's considered a prime area of San Jose. But back when Lewis Lanini bought his home in the Glen, housing prices were a lot lower, and the address was still outside San Jose's borders.

When Lewis Lanini's future bride was only 13 years old, he paid $750 and two empty lots for the sweet, one-story home where the couple would later live. Six years later, with wedding bands on their fingers, Wilma and Lewis moved into their home on Nevada Avenue. The year was 1932, and Willow Glen had been its own city for five years.

"At that time the streets were all dirt, and we had no sewers; there were cesspools," says 93-year-old Lewis Lanini, sitting in the living room of that same house. "Each house had its own cesspool."

"But we were young, and you don't really think about what the city needs; you just go with the flow," Wilma interjects.

Every day Lewis would climb into his black 1928 Ford and drive to work in the next city over--San Jose. Wilma would stay home and tend to the house and her children. In the evenings the couple would lay low or visit with nearby family.

"It was kind of a religious area," Wilma says. "There was nothing after dark."

And during the day, there wasn't much more. Wilma recalls the Garden Theater, the Pronto Pup soda shop and a Safeway in the building that now holds Victoria's Theatrical Supply.

"We had the firehouse on Lincoln Avenue and the Methodist Church, and where Starbucks is now, there was a service station," Lew says.

The couple never became too involved in the politics of the city. At that time, they were much more concerned with keeping food on the table.

"You realize this was the Depression," Lew pipes up. "Money was hard to come by."

The Laninis knew that Willow Glen had incorporated to keep Southern Pacific Railroad out of town, but they moved in after the conflict had been resolved. With Lew working downtown and family in San Jose, the Laninis didn't share the hard separatist attitude of some Willow Glen residents. When locals were called to the polls in 1936, Lew and Wilma Lanini both cast ballots in favor of consolidating with San Jose. Their view was in the majority by 57 votes.

Cement trucks and sewer lines weren't waiting to spring up in Willow Glen the moment it joined with San Jose. As the Laninis remember it, repairs were slow in the coming. But the community was thankful to get some resources, and the railroad threat had since passed.

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