My Great Grandmother Never Forgot the 1906 Earthquake and Fire
Her story as retold by her daughter
I've been sorting through old letters that my Grandma Shellabarger wrote me. Many are not noteworthy. “Hello, how are you? Lunch was awful. I couldn’t eat it whatever it was.”
Sometimes she’d be in a good mood and write about her past or share stories her mother shared with her. Her mother, Marguerite (Jones) Jackson was a San Franciscan native and had some good tales.
In one letter, Grandma passed on her mother's recollection of the moment the 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck. I'm glad the memory was shared with her children and handed down to me. My great grandmother's story would not be complete without it.
There are no young photos of Marguerite. This is the earliest photo I have of her taken ca 1930 with her grandson, Donald Smith. My grandmother was the spitting image of her mother.
Now let’s set the scene. Marguerite, her husband Harry (aka Ernest Jobson), their baby, John, and Marguerite's father Thomas Augustine Jones all shared a home at 449 Natoma in San Francisco. It was early morning and the family was just rising to begin the day.
This excerpt is exactly as written in my grandmother’s letter as told to her by her mother.
"My mother was up at 5 am in the morning to get the two men off to work. Grandpa was a blacksmith and my dad worked on the ferry boats which plied between San Francisco and Oakland.
My mother told us the sky was pitch black. She got very frightened. As she looked out the door, fire in the streets erupted. Then, all Hell broke loose. The earth began to shake and roll, and people came to their doors and began to scream as their houses began to fall apart.
I forgot to tell you that my brother, John, (who would be your great grand uncle) was only 3 weeks old. In a short time, which to my mother seemed like an eternity, they were going down the street.
The street was bursting open and flames were gushing out and as they were going along. They came upon this woman who was sitting on the steps of a house. My Dad and Granddad told her to hurry and get away before the house burned. As she didn't move, the two men went up to her, and each of the men took her arms. At first she started to go along with them.
They had not gone far when she broke away from them and ran back to the steps to set down again. My Dad hurried along to get her and he hollered "Hurry up or you will get hurt". She hollered back "I'll be damned if I move. I paid my rent this morning and by God, I won't move!" As my Dad started up the front sidewalk of the home, he saw the roof was collapsing. He hurried back to get back out of the way, when the house collapsed. The woman was killed instantly."
This was the beginning of their harrowing experience. They would see many horrors as they fled through the city, baby John held tight in my great grandmother’s arms. Somehow that baby survived.
This photograph was taken of their old neighborhood. It was nothing but rubble and ash once after the earthquake tore it apart and the fire swept through.
They ended up at the Bernal Heights refugee camp according to my mom's cousin. After a few days there, they moved in temporarily with one of Marguerite's sisters whose house was still standing.
By 1907, Marguerite and Harry bought a house at 22 Aztec. They were still there when the 1910 US census was taken. However, the following year, they'd moved across the bay to Oakland. Perhaps the constant reminders were too much for them.
My mom said her grandmother never quite got over the earthquake. She was jittery when the house shook or cars backfired. I don’t blame her! I can’t imagine the terror she felt and the things she couldn’t unsee.
Marguerite and Harry divorced in the late 1920s. She eventually returned to the city of her birth. I imagine she experienced a mix of emotions. Some of her best times and the stuff that haunted her dreams happened in San Francisco.
Wow - such a horrifying experience.