Description
The Flower Collection consists of: correspondence (1900-1968); KGDM "City Journal" radio
scripts (1945-1955); notes, drafts, photos, pamphlets and clippings pertaining chiefly to
San Joaquin County, the southern Mother Lode and the West.
Background
Elsie Flower (1886-1969) was a northern California print and radio journalist based
principally in Stockton. While still a child (1902) she was brought to that city by her
parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin L. Flower of Knight's Ferry. Flower attended Stockton High
School, but left before graduating to work as a reporter for Chester Rowell's Fresno
Republican. She was subsequently employed at the San Francisco Chronicle, the Stockton
Daily Independent (1920s) and the Stockton Record (1925-1945). In 1944 Edward F. Peffer,
owner of Stockton's CBS-affiliated radio station KGDM, conceived a fifteen minute local
news show and hired Elsie Flower to produce and moderate it. The program began with
stories about the war service of returning soldiers, then gravitated to boosting local
events and businesses, fostering an interest in local history and helping local people in
trouble. Flower's "City Journal" program ran thrice-weekly for nearly fourteen years. It
was superseded, due to a change in station ownership (KGDM became music station KRAK) and
format, by "Valley Journal" a shorter "women's news" program covering all areas of the
Central Valley and the southern Mother Lode (1958).