Aunt Mary's Earthquake

At 5:12 A.M. On April 18, 1906, my great-aunt Mary was thrown out of bed by the Great San Francisco earthquake. Aunt Mary and her household staff were alone in the remains of what had been a luxurious house on Nob Hill. Her husband was out of town on business and my grandmother, her youngest sister and live-in companion, was visiting relatives across the bay in Oakland.

Aftershocks opened cracks in the house wider and wider. A neighbor's house collapsed, killing that family before they could flee. Within a few hours she was sitting on the front stoop, watching fires crawling towards her home, devouring the city block by block.

Not one to sit around and wait to be rescued from the flames, Aunt Mary ordered the coach to be brought round front while she and the staff scavenged the house for useful things: silver and jewelry, blankets, sturdy clothing, non-perishable food, water, cooking equipment, a pistol and ammunition, and all the unbroken bottles of liquor.

She locked the door and tacked a note on it - the note reputedly said "I have gone to the Square, where I shall wait as long as it is safe to do so." - and ordered the coachman to drive on. After a day in Jefferson Square they went to the Presidio, where her frantic husband finally found her and the staff sitting in an army tent, sipping tea.

What was left of her San Francisco life?

The fashionable house was dynamited by firefighters in their desperate attempts to keep the fires from sweeping across the whole city.

I have a cup from her wedding china that survived only because the maid hadn't washed it. The rest of the elaborate set was shattered with the china cabinets, but this cup was still in Mary's bedroom. The curio cupboard she took to Jefferson Square, and later to the Presidio to hold the supplies they salvaged is holding my collection of Zuni pottery.

A small parlor table, chosen because she and the maid could move it to the carriage without help, is in my niece's house. The chairs she took have been lost, as have the rugs. Her silver and jewelry were donated to the earthquake relief fund.

Aunt Mary liked her tea well-fortified, so she drank some of the liquor and traded the rest for food or fuel.

Her housekeeper fled back to the Midwest, her maid married a soldier from the Presidio, and the coachman stole the horses and carriage and vanished into the chaos.

What she left from her life is more than the few bits and bobs my family treasures. She set an example of courage in the face of disaster for us to live up to.