Legacies of 1906
Apr. 17th, 2006 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonWhen I was a young girl we had a landlady named Mrs. J. who had, when she was a young girl, survived the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. She talked about it occasionally, but not much. Maybe nobody asked. Or maybe, like many survivors of trauma, it wasn't something she wanted to talk about.
I recently asked my mother what Mrs. J. used to say of those times and Mom said, "I don't remember much—people running, the fires."
"Did you ask her about it?"
"Maybe. I don't remember. It was a long time ago."
I don't remember, either. The one story I remember is that she told me of seeing a man running down the street, completely naked, carrying a birdcage with a parrot inside. Oh, how she laughed at that! And still blushed after all those years.
The other stories, the darker ones—no, nothing. The questions I wish I'd asked! Now that it's too late, now that this witness to history is gone.
Perhaps it wasn't in her nature to dwell on such things. She had such a lovely smile and a jolly laugh, though I don't remember her employing that laugh much. There was something sad and solitary about her. Or maybe she just seemed that way to the kid I was. She lived alone in that big house on the front of the lot while we lived in the back house. What ghosts lived with her I can't really say. I can say this: whatever she witnessed back then, it was a defining moment, that one dark thing in the midst of every day—some days large and looming, sometimes only a small blemish on the face of a perfect rose.
Her family lost everything in 1906. I remember her saying that they turned their back on the city because her parents didn't have the heart to start over there. They came south to Los Angeles. I may even have an inheritance from that time, a lovely old chest of drawers she gave me, with a laurel of leaves and a rose carved on the front. An antique guy said it was made circa 1910, so I call it my earthquake chest. I have no illusions it survived the quake, since they did lose everything, but I think it likely was part of their new start.
When Mrs. J. died, her son who lived in Seattle sold the property to developers and everything from my childhood—those two houses and their yards, my sacred combe—are gone, like the living memories of the big quake. Sometimes I imagine myself as a kid again, walking through her immaculate front yard, trailing my hands over the velvet petals of her fragrant roses, walking up those large steps to the porch with the immense white wood pillars—always cool, even on the hottest days. Mrs. J. sits in her favorite white wicker chair with the high back in an old-fashioned floral dress, wearing the wide-rimmed black straw hat she always had on outside, smiling benignly at me. There was always something welcoming and forbiding about her: "Come close, talk to me, but not too close." She'd let me chatter awhile, then the smile would fade, and she'd look off into the distance. I knew it was time to go.
Only this day, the day of my imagination, it's bright and sunny, oveny hot like a July day. I lean against those cool, white pillars on her porch. She smiles. And I say to her, finally, "What was it like in 1906? What did you see and smell and hear? What did you think?"
On this day, her benign smile never falters, but she shakes her head, just shakes her head slowly and for a long time. Then she looks away into the distance.
I recently asked my mother what Mrs. J. used to say of those times and Mom said, "I don't remember much—people running, the fires."
"Did you ask her about it?"
"Maybe. I don't remember. It was a long time ago."
I don't remember, either. The one story I remember is that she told me of seeing a man running down the street, completely naked, carrying a birdcage with a parrot inside. Oh, how she laughed at that! And still blushed after all those years.
The other stories, the darker ones—no, nothing. The questions I wish I'd asked! Now that it's too late, now that this witness to history is gone.
Perhaps it wasn't in her nature to dwell on such things. She had such a lovely smile and a jolly laugh, though I don't remember her employing that laugh much. There was something sad and solitary about her. Or maybe she just seemed that way to the kid I was. She lived alone in that big house on the front of the lot while we lived in the back house. What ghosts lived with her I can't really say. I can say this: whatever she witnessed back then, it was a defining moment, that one dark thing in the midst of every day—some days large and looming, sometimes only a small blemish on the face of a perfect rose.
Her family lost everything in 1906. I remember her saying that they turned their back on the city because her parents didn't have the heart to start over there. They came south to Los Angeles. I may even have an inheritance from that time, a lovely old chest of drawers she gave me, with a laurel of leaves and a rose carved on the front. An antique guy said it was made circa 1910, so I call it my earthquake chest. I have no illusions it survived the quake, since they did lose everything, but I think it likely was part of their new start.
When Mrs. J. died, her son who lived in Seattle sold the property to developers and everything from my childhood—those two houses and their yards, my sacred combe—are gone, like the living memories of the big quake. Sometimes I imagine myself as a kid again, walking through her immaculate front yard, trailing my hands over the velvet petals of her fragrant roses, walking up those large steps to the porch with the immense white wood pillars—always cool, even on the hottest days. Mrs. J. sits in her favorite white wicker chair with the high back in an old-fashioned floral dress, wearing the wide-rimmed black straw hat she always had on outside, smiling benignly at me. There was always something welcoming and forbiding about her: "Come close, talk to me, but not too close." She'd let me chatter awhile, then the smile would fade, and she'd look off into the distance. I knew it was time to go.
Only this day, the day of my imagination, it's bright and sunny, oveny hot like a July day. I lean against those cool, white pillars on her porch. She smiles. And I say to her, finally, "What was it like in 1906? What did you see and smell and hear? What did you think?"
On this day, her benign smile never falters, but she shakes her head, just shakes her head slowly and for a long time. Then she looks away into the distance.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 11:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 12:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 11:57 am (UTC)There's an old woman who lives in a former one-room schoolhouse in the woods behind the house my parents raised my siblings and I in. It's amazing how much I learned about teh neighborhood through her (though, honestly, she could have been making it up).
It's amazing how beautifully you (and a specific you, not general) can write, even when only wondering about the stories you'll never get to write.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 12:27 pm (UTC)That probably comes closest--although I did find myself thinking a lot about Katrina while watching the NGeo documentary on 1906--the complete destruction of a city aspect.
It's amazing how much I learned about teh neighborhood through her (though, honestly, she could have been making it up).
Old people are treasures, even if they are making it all up! Those storytelling sessions are the true grit of being human, I think.
(And thank you.)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 12:32 pm (UTC)I'm actually mad at myself now for not realizing that... and you are correct, as usual. ;-)
Old people are treasures, even if they are making it all up! Those storytelling sessions are the true grit of being human, I think.
Yeah, I can't wait until I'm an old codger... I'm as of yet undecided as to whether I'll tell the truth about pre-Internet days or just make stuff up.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 12:35 pm (UTC)lol--The challenge, for old codgers, is getting people who will listen, especially kids. The ones who do will probably grow up to be writers. :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 12:11 pm (UTC)My dad was four when the Long Beach quake hit--directly under them. He only remembered a single thing, the sideboard containing all their dishes crashing down before they ran outside, and that was it. He didn't seem to remember that all those cheap clapboard houses came down completely, all he knew was his next memory was in Eagle Rock, where they moved afterward.
My husband's grandmother was in a huge quake around the turn of the century, down here. She just remembered the red car (which she'd been riding) was off the track, and she found herself standing outside it on a hill. No other memory.
My single memory of the Sylmar quake was the realization that I was getting seasick as the doorway I stood in not only went up and down but kind of corkscrewed. It seemed to last forever.
'Last forever.' That I read over and over after the interviews with Alaskans in 1964, after that horrific 8.2 up there.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-17 12:29 pm (UTC)That could very well be the case. She was 16 when she went through it, but deep trauma can affect even adults with that kind of amnesia. Heck, it's happened to me from just run of the mill stuff like car accidents. I have a ton of memories of Sylmar, but I lived in Venice, not Sylmar. If I'd have been right on top of it, no telling how much I would have forgotten. :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-18 05:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-18 09:22 am (UTC)I'll bet. I'm glad that testimony got preserved, and I think it's important for people to face these kind of stories now and then, to remind ourselves. But it's never, ever easy to listen to/watch.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-22 06:03 pm (UTC)This is the kind of writing I love.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-22 06:11 pm (UTC)