This is the story of my Chinese great grandfather and grandmother and the 7 children they raised on a ranch in the late 1800’s in Dogpatch, the Potrero, San Francisco. How and why did they raise their family on a ranch in outlying San Francisco instead of in Chinatown? This was a time of intense anti-Chinese sentiment? Some of the answers spin out in the lives of their children. And these answers suggest an unexpected interface between early Chinese entrepreneurs and San Francisco’s early business elite tied to the Pacific Ocean trade and to the railroads.
