THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE
This was in 1906 – April 13, 1906. It was an experience you remember the rest of
your life - the house shaking. We had hanging lamps and they were going this
way (she swings her arm from side to side) in the ceiling. And we had a little bird
that was sitting on eggs and by the time the earthquake stopped that cage was
tipped but that little thing was still on her nest.
Early in the morning the family woke up, brother (George), sister (Ann), Mother
(Elizabeth (Liz)), and Dad (Wilhelm (Bill) Gottschalk). They come running into
Ann and my room and Mother said, “We’ll all be together. We’re going.” She
thought it was the end. It shook hard. We all stayed close and stayed in the house.
But after it was over everybody ran outdoors. And I stopped to put shoes on and I
had two right shoes that I had to wear for quite a while after the earthquake
because all of the stores were closed. You couldn’t buy groceries. You couldn’t
buy anything.
Then Dad says, “Mother, well, aren’t you going to cook some breakfast?” And
she went in and started the wood stove and nobody was supposed to. That was
before they alerted, “Don’t start any fires in the stoves.” Everybody had wood
stoves then.
We all had to move out because of the fire – they never knew when the fire would
hit our house. The fire went according to the way wind blew. It started downtown
because of gas ruptures. It went to the edge of town. It didn’t hit the suburbs.
She (Mom) fixed breakfast. Then there was another shake and we all run out
again. That’s the end of breakfast. So then they announced. I wonder how they
announced. We didn’t have any radios. I think they had megaphones. After the
earthquake had settled down everybody had to go out further. We had some
friends that lived a mile or two out of the city. A woman hitched a wagon and a
horse up and she came and we piled all our stuff on that wagon and she took it
out to her house and stored it. And mother always thought she was such a brave
girl to do that – that was Emily Duckner. So then after that was all loaded – and
you know even between our loads like that people went into the house and looted.
never cared much about that pipe because a girlfriend in Germany gave it to him and she had made a beautiful
velvet sack and it was long and that was hanging in the closet. Mom evidently didn’t see it hanging there or
maybe she left it hanging there. Anyway it was gone. That was one of the prized things we lost. But everything
else we got out. Most of our dishes were all thrown out of the shelf.
And the fire came up – our house didn’t burn. It stopped across the street. Isn’t that odd? Everything was
gone. You could see for miles clear down to the bay. But everything was ruined in that house because by that
time they were fighting the fire with salt water that they had piped up from the bay and that was a long ways
off. But anyway, the carpets and everything were all soaked. There were a lot of things we lost but we got out
with our clothes and some furniture.
We walked to these people’s house that had our furniture. See, we still carried some things. We had to take our
dolls. We put them all in a pillow case. Ann and I, we weren’t going to leave our dolls behind and me and my
zither. That was in quite a box. And I’ll never forget.
We were walking along and some man came along and said, “Isn’t that a pretty big load for a little girl like
you?” And I said, “Well, it’s pretty heavy.” So he took it for me. I thought that was nice of him. See you
always remember those things. I wasn’t quite twelve.
So then we stayed at these people’s house. They had a nice basement. And there was room for us to sleep there
so we lived there and we would eat with them. But we kids would all run out. You know, they had lines where
you’d stand in line and they would give you canned food or whatever they had for that day, biscuits, whatever.
We’d stand in line so we would each get something, oh dear.
And dad, he tried so hard to get a pair of shoes for me. And at last we found, well, it was several weeks after;
we found a place where I could get a pair of shoes. People would say, “She’s got new shoes on. I wonder where
she got them.” Probably they thought I’d stand in line and get shoes. You would stand in line and get clothes.
There were no groceries open. You couldn’t buy anything.
So then you’d look at that city all burned and everything. See, Dad worked across the way from where we lived
in a big building, big brewery, Milwaukee beer. That was all gone. Everything was flat. He figured he wanted
to work. He couldn’t think of anything else but that he’d have to get a job and support his family. So then my
uncle (Jacob Kober— Bill’s brother –in-law) that lived in Portland wrote and said, “Come up here and maybe
we can find some kind of a business for you to get into.”
So that’s how we got to Portland. Dad came up. It must have been about a month after the earthquake. Then
my uncle talked him into buying this tavern in Sellwood and that’s where he settled. And then he got all
settled before he sent for us to come in July. Mother had rented a house and we were getting established again.
Then he said, “Pack everything and come to Portland.” She says, “I have to do it all?” And she thought she
was really abused having to take care of all that furniture that we had. That was when we three children had
our first long train ride and that took about two days and a night, two nights and a day, something like that
but we were all excited about that.
And you know all of our playmates (left). It broke up the whole street. Everybody was gone. Nobody knew
where anybody else was because we just had to move out without telling everybody where we were going.
Everybody was excited. And so we left San Francisco. That was worst on mother, to leave all her friends down
there. She never made friends like that again – (let them) get close to her. She missed that but, with children
going to school, pretty soon you’re acquainted. So we settled in Portland, Oregon and that’s where we stayed.
