My maternal great-grandparents Ruth and William Moore were married in March 1919 by the pastor of First Methodist Church, which used to stand at 1116 Sixth Street. The church is, of course, long gone — demolished in 1938 after a fire, as I wrote about in a piece for the Sacramento Bee last year. Near as I can tell from a map overlay that one of the editors at The Bee created for that article, the church was somewhere near where sections 116-118 of the arena are now located.

The Golden 1 Center is a major economic engine for downtown Sacramento and the broader region, and has helped shape nearby development and the city’s financial obligations over the past decade. The arena is what defines this land and will define it for the foreseeable future. Still, I can’t help but also be struck by the land’s connection to my family history and what it says in broader terms about how we as a society set priorities, preserve history and decide whose stories get told.

To the outside world, my great-grandparents Ruth and William were average people. William was born in 1880 in what is now Northern Ireland and came to California in 1905. He eventually became a successful rancher in Tokay Colony, a rural farming community just outside of Lodi. Ruth, who was 12 years younger, grew up in Portland, Oregon, and met William in 1918 when she traveled to Tokay Colony to visit relatives of hers who lived on land he owned. They corresponded by mail after, with William eventually proposing and Ruth taking the train down to marry him.

I know all of this partly because it’s long-accepted, oft-told family lore at this point. I also know what I do about my family history because in the early 1980s, at the prodding of my family who’d been inspired by the miniseries “Roots” to explore their genealogy, Ruth began to write down memories of her early life. She would live to 97 and was lucid until the end of her life. Getting to read her writings all of these years later provides a window into the soul of someone who was intelligent, kind-hearted and, I think more than anything, strong.

History was important to Ruth because it was a way to keep William’s memory alive. My great-grandfather was a jovial, hardworking man who, by all accounts, treated those around him well. Ruth and William had a happy marriage but a brief one, raising seven children in Tokay Colony before William died unexpectedly of a heart attack at 56 in January 1936. It was near the height of the Great Depression, and by some miracle, Ruth kept her farm and finished raising her children. Every time I think about the situation, it puts my problems in perspective.

All of this was a long way off in March 1919 when Ruth boarded the train south. I imagine her excitement pulling into the Sacramento Valley Station where William greeted her. I’m curious if they went first to the church and then elsewhere, with church records saying the ceremony was performed at a parsonage, which is where the pastor would have lived. My great-grandmother was clear that the wedding was at First Methodist Church, so I assume that whatever the case, the church played at least a role in the day.

Other parts of the day were preserved decades later in my great-grandmother’s writings and family stories. She and William got a nice wedding meal at the Senator Hotel, which still stands (now as an office building) across from the state Capitol. They got a good laugh when, at the beginning of their drive back from Sacramento to Tokay Colony, they accidentally drove the wrong way down the street. That was that, and it was on to build a life together, one that eventually helped produce me.

Near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, my mom wound up in possession of copies of old family documents, including my great-grandmother’s writings. With my training as a journalist and a general interest in historical research, I used the documents as a springboard to write a 167-page book, “American Dreams: The Moore Family,” about my great-grandparents and their children. It’s how I learned about the connection between Golden 1 Center’s land and my family and other fun facts, such as that my great-great-grandfather and his parents came to America in 1878 on the same boat that would take a very young Harry Houdini there a month later.

We live in a world that can be quick to glom onto surface-level information. Me, I prefer the stories that live below the surface, that take time to discover and fully understand. It’s something this magazine does well. And it’s my family’s story.   

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