(Memorial Day)

I saw something kind of eerie down near Seventh, a middle-aged woman dressed entirely in a white 1920s outfit — not trace of color, just white. What I could see of her face was just as pallid as her dress, as if it had been powdered or painted white.

I saw her as I was walking to the old Rincon Building south of Market, which was still operating as a post office back then. Everything was a bit misty because it was early in the morning so I could not see her clearly at first. I thought how odd it was that the woman at the end of the block looked as if she were dressed for the twenties, with a low-waisted short dress and a cloche hat. As she drew nearer I saw it was no illusion, she truly wore the fashions of six decades before. I could not see her face until she was quite close and I was shocked to see it thickly caked with white powder.

That was my first look at the person Tim and I called “the white-faced woman,” a fairly well-known figure in downtown San Francisco. A local writer even wrote a poem about her.

Though she was always seen walking the streets, I hesitate to call her a “street person” because I don’t believe she was homeless. Her white dress, white hat, and white stockings looked too spotless, the thick-heeled white shoes she wore too polished. I saw her many times afterwards. It took a couple of more sightings for me to realize she was a black woman in white-face.

The legend was that this was her wedding dress, that, as a young beautiful bride, she had waited at the church only to learn her groom had died that morning from Sleepy Sickness.

Once, in the early nineties, while I was riding a BART train over West Oakland, I looked out the window to see, far below, that tiny but unmistakeable white figure making its way along the pavement beside the main post office. That was the last time I saw her.