Enjoy the history of 244 Westlake – Owned by the same family for 92 years. Otho and Lydia Talbott bought 244 Westlake in 1924, as a brand new house, for their young family. Otho was a mining engineer and worked 9 months of the year in South America. At the age of 5, he moved from Kansas to California, in a covered wagon in the 1880s. Previous to 244, the only house on the block was 232 which was on the lot where the garden is now. This lot was purchased in 1906 one month before the Great Earthquake for $10 and built on in 1910. The wood for that house arrived on 2 horse-drawn wagons. The Scheppi family lived there until Mrs. Scheppi passed away in the 1940’s. The front door for the house at 232 Westlake is currently stored in the garage.
William Talbott, son of Otho and Lydia, grew up at 244 Westlake and graduated Class of ’39 from Jefferson High. He was drafted in 1942 into the Army and fought from Australia, through New Guinea, the Philippines, and Okinawa, to Tokyo. He returned home, with 10,000 other GIs, on an aircraft carrier on Christmas Day 1945, with all of San Francisco welcoming them home as they sailed under the Golden Gate. He took the tram to ‘Top of the Hill’ Daly City and walked down Westlake with his kit bag, to finally come home.
In 1947, William purchased the adjacent 232 Westlake lot for $1,000 and built the garages in the 1960’s. From 1945 to 1982, Lydia Talbott lived alone at 244 Westlake. She was well-known locally for her neat garden and bright colored poppies until the local police stated that she was growing opiates, and needed to remove them.
From 1982 to 2007, the house was inhabited sporadically. Oliver Talbott, a grandson of Otho and Lydia, briefly lived at 244 while waiting to join the Marine Corps in 2002 and after coming home from Iraq in 2006. In 2007, in ill-health, William returned to 244 with his wife to live out his final years in Daly City. The house was then – lightly – modernized. In those years before 2011, the few remaining Daly City ‘original’ old-timers also passed away. We believe 244 is the only house in original Daly City to still be with its original family.
Todd Wiley and Kim Wiley
