I grew up in the Napa Valley. We actually lived on Vintage Street. You made a right on Pinot and down passed Chardonnay, Cabernet and left on Vintage.
As a child I used to look up at the hills and think, “I’ve got to get out of here…passed those hills!” I now know it is true, one can be from one of the most beautiful places on earth and not realize it until we are far away. I now understand how lucky I was to look up at the hills and have no skyscrapers blocking my view or wires or telephone poles.
We were originally from England on my maternal grandmother’s side and from Ireland on my maternal grandfather’s side. I did not know my biological father, so I have no idea where he was from or where he went.
My grandmother’s paternal grandfather worked for the government and had lived in China in 1900 around the turn of the century. My great-grandfather, his son, was just an infant. His mother wore the fashion of the day and claimed that many had lifted her skirt to see why she was shaped like a bell from the petticoats. My great-great-grandfather would report back to the US about the prison systems in China. He would write about how the Chinese would disembowel their prisoners by making them cut off their long braid (que) and force to eat it like noodles. The hair would churn inside their digestive track and cause them to die a painful death.
My great-grandfather as an infant was kidnapped while they were living there but their chef chased after the kidnappers with a machete and got him back. Otherwise, I might be part Chinese today.
It was the many stories my grandmother heard growing up which made her weary of Asians. When later on in life I lived in Japan she advised, “If they ask for money, just give it to them or they may spit on you!”
Around 1906 the family had returned to the United States. They lived in San Francisco and my great-grandfather would later tell the story about the great earthquake. How he would lay under his bed while the chandelier swung back and forth above him. Also in 1906 Shreve & Co. a fine jewelry store had moved into their new building on Post and Grant Street in San Francisco. On April 18,1906, it the building was gutted by fire after one of the largest earthquakes in San Francisco. The building, however, stood and it was one of the few that did. The great fire had burned for four days followed by 135 aftershocks.
In 1989, I had just returned from Japan after a summer holiday and newly transferred to the University of San Francisco. I quickly realized that finding a job to pay for my tuition was not going to be easy as I had thought despite the several previous years I had worked at Macy’s selling jewelry. One day while walking down the street in the Mission district, I spotted what looked like the envelope of a paycheck on the ground.
A few hours later, after dinner, when I was walking back from dinner the check was still there. So, I picked up the envelope and looked inside at a check that was for quite a bit of money. I did not recognize the address of the company in Minneapolis that issued the check but the address of the payee was in Sausalito so when I returned to my dorm room, I enclosed a note explaining how I had found the check and to contact me if there were any questions. I then posted it.
A few days later, I had actually forgotten about this episode when I received a phone call. It was the gentleman to whom the check belonged and he said he had already stopped payment on the check but wanted to thank me nonetheless. He went on to say that he was the General Manager of Shreve & Co. and if I should need anything, to look him up. I very quickly said, “Well, I just moved here and my background is in jewelry and I need a job!” He then said, “ Then come down to the store, your integrity has already been proven and perhaps we can use you for the holiday season.”
The Shreve & Co. store is one of the most impressive stores in the world. It really defines opulence with the lapis azules columns reaching up to twenty foot high ceilings and a darkwood paneled mezzanine which ran along the store’s perimeter. The executive offices were also along the mezzanine including the office of the president and receptionist and further vaults.
There were diamond counters, fine watches, Fabrege eggs in cabinets and on the other end of the floor was the fine china, crystal and silver. The most expensive items were kept in the vault to avoid anyone coming in and smashing the glass, taking the jewels and running. Tahitian black pearl strands and canary diamonds the size of small fruit.
In the original days in the late 1880’s the store had employed many artisans, jewelry masters, silversmiths, engravers, appraisers and pearl stringers. All catering to the wealth from the gold rush and wealthy settlers on the west coast. As years passed, the employees became independent vendors who then rented the spaces in the building above as they do today.
The store also had a basement which was deep below the streets of San Francisco…very old and very dark. A once functional elevator had been condemned to the basement floor and built over the shaft. This elevator became the make shift office of the old Italian man Henry who was the store’s maintenance man and where he would sleep during lunch.
The remaining two jewelry masters on staff worked there as did the entire shipping department including Julia the Mexican lady who had been wrapping gifts for 35 years. There were also further vaults that housed the china and crystal.
Luckily for me, after the holiday season they kept me on, so I was going to school full time but also working full time at the store. I felt that I was living two lives, one of the starving college student and then walking into the store of the super rich the rest of the time.
On October 17,1989 I was on a truck delivery which was made several times a week. We would deliver merchandise to other stores as well as transfer items in between stores. We were ahead of schedule that day and crossed over the Golden Gate bridge on the way back to the store. We parked the van and we descended into the basement. At 5:04:21pm…the building started to shake, the contents of the shelves started to fall off and all crashing on the floor around us.
Everyone in the basement, all six of us, ran to the only open doorway and huddled there clinging to each other. The next 15 seconds lasted for what seemed an eternity.
Yana, who was a very beautiful Russian merchandise manager exclaimed when it was over, “Wow, I haven’t been stuck between five guys in a shaking doorway for years!”
Meanwhile, Tom who was one of the jewelers, had run from his office through the basement to the stairway screaming, “EARTHQUAKE, EARTHQUAKE”, we decided to grab our stuff and go upstairs. When we reached the ground floor, we found Tom in the center of the stunned room assuring the silent customers, “this building stood in 1906, it is safe! It is safer to stay inside then to go outside!” I am sure Tom reassured himself this everyday as he worked in the farthest corner of the basement for years.
Safer here then outside!?! Outside was something we could not see through the windows. The steam and dust from fallen bricks and gargoyles left very little visibility.
An uncanny silence came over the entire city with every single person wide eyed, not knowing what to do or where to go…silence.
I had decided to venture home which was not too far from the store on Nob Hill. When I got outside, Eddie had his car waiting as he was there to pick up Dante as usual. Shocked but relieved we were alive, he drove us up the hill and I got out and walked the rest of the way.
At the top of the hill stood Lyn, my roommate. She grabbed onto my arm tightly without saying a word and we walked passed stunned neighbors gathered in the streets. We walked up the stairs of our building in the dark and like an idiot I lit a lighter to light the way not thinking until someone screamed, “TURN OFF THE GOD DAMNED LIGHTER…EVER HEARD OF GAS LEAKS?” I was glad it was dark and hoped no one knew it was me. I felt foolish to be so dumb and yet also felt lucky to be living amongst earthquake experts as most of the tenants had lived in San Francisco and in some cases, that building their entire lives.
Our building had been built in 1910 so was much sturdier then most. Our apartment was fairly untouched…at least my things were. Lyn had almost everything destroyed when it fell to the floor as she ran out barefoot while the plaster from the ceiling rained down on her. She fell down the stairs in the dark and realized she didn't have any shoes on so ran back to find her shoes under the fallen furniture and then ran downstairs again. There she waited for me to return.
These were the days before mobile cell phones were owned by everyone and I am not sure if they would have worked anyhow. I was surprisingly not too scared at all, to me it was very interesting to see how everyone reacted and how people you would usually pass in the hall and ignore were now like family.
There was no electricity but the phone could call out overseas as all the local lines were out for three days. Apparently a fire had broken out in the 911 telephone equipment room and people had to rely on the fire alarm boxes for emergency protection. I called my friend Marie in Tokyo who was just waking up and surprised by the news and turned on CNN which reported that the Bay Bridge, which I had been on earlier that day, had fallen. There was a fire in the marina district and we realized that where we were was as we could be.
We luckily, had been grocery shopping the day before. Since I was new to living in the city still and did not have a car, I tended to buy more then we could carry. So, like pack mules, we carried our bags and I remember the toilet paper falling out of the top of my bag and since I could not pick it up, I had to kick it like a soccer ball to our apartment. This made Lyn laugh in hysterics which made her load more difficult to carry.
So, with no electricity, we had to eat things faster then normal before then went off. Again, I ended up surviving on peanut butter sandwiches as I had done many times throughout college and growing up which is why it has always been a comfort food to me.
When night fell, we realized all the things we were missing; batteries, candles and water.
On the outskirts of Nob Hill, many of the grocery stores were owned by the Chinese. I am reminded of the quote, “during bad times, it brings out the best of people and the worst of people”.
(My Grandmother’s third husband Michael had bought a grocery store in the early 40’s on Nob Hill. His mother used to come in and rob him. He had to sell it when he was drafted into the world war. He had grown up in San Francisco and remembers selling papers on the piers and singing in the church choir. During the war, he went AWOL and when he returned his entire infantry had been killed. He got a dishonorable discharge but lived well into his 80s. Even today if you mention his name to the old timers at the Italian restaurants, the treat you like royalty.)
The shop owners in Nob Hill now had raised the price of their perishables and raised the price of votive candles which used to be 99 cents to $20.00!! Batteries were now like jewels. I looked them in the eyes and asked how they could cheat people at a time like this and vowed never to shop in their store again.
Out onto the pitch black streets, police officers were in their cars shining spotlights on people coming in and out of stores to deter looters. I thought they should have arrested the shop owners. The streets were unbelievably dark. No moonlight, nothing to illuminate the way or the street signs. We had very little cash and the ATM machines were not working for days, so we had to be very careful what we spent our money on.
We were more fortunate then most. The quake had killed 62 people , injured 3,757 and left 12,000 homeless. The exterior of a brick building crumbled and crushed six people to death. Dozens of fires had broken out in the city and people formed bucket brigades much like the quake my great grandfather survived. After three feet of water rushed out of the Santa Cruz harbor, a four foot tsunami hit in Monterey Bay. A cable car was stranded at the top of the crookedest street in the world and blocked it.
We also received more accurate news about the Bay Bridge, that it had not fallen into the bay but that one section had collapsed like a draw bridge. So people driving along the top, were spilling down to the lower deck like a ramp into traffic in the opposite direction having to break not to go up the ramp. People on the bridge were stranded and not able to get home.
There were stories of people who had walked up the ramp and the owner of a Mercedes Benz would swap his keys with a stranger who had owned a truck. They would then turn the cars around and head in the direction they needed to go promising to swap the cars back when they could.
The few people who had car phones were letting people call to check that their families were OK and wouldn't take a dime for the calls. The significant feeling of insignificance of mankind in the wake of an earthquake is sobering, to say the least.
The unlucky ones were those who had expressway overpasses collapse on them flattening them in their cars instantly, never to return home. People had been trapped under the bay in the BART trains. Finally they just opened the doors and walked along the tracks until they could get out, not knowing if the tunnel would hold or the waters of the bay above them come crushing down. I could not help but remember that I had just made it over the Golden Gate bridge which swings like a jumping rope in an earthquake.
The quake had also struck right before the opening of the third game of the world series at Candlestick park. My friend John was there and months later had come to the store to get a crystal baseball with the richter reading etched on it.
When I could no longer read my book by the light of my $20 candle, I fell asleep under my cardboard table that I used as a desk. Lyn was mad because I did not make room for her and the constant tremors and aftershocks scared her to death. I think in the end we slept with our heads under the table.
The next day Lyn’s brother Ricky had come to get her. It had taken hours for him to get across the remaining bridge into the city. They left for her mother’s home and I remained in the apartment. I got dressed and took a cold shower and headed down to the store where I found several staff who couldn’t get home, they had either camped there or booked into neighboring hotels without electricity.
The gates that protected the store were stalled open and so the policemen who worked for us on their days off as guards stood guard with shotguns around the vault. I thought about what it had been like that April day in 1906 at that very same store. Though our earthquake was 7.1, the one in 1906 was an 8. So strong, it had knocked the seismographs off their supports. It was felt from Oregon to Nevada all the way down to Los Angeles; 375,000 square miles.
Yet still almost 83 years later, an estimated three billon dollars of damage had been done by this quake. I walked passed the Palace Hotel which in 1906 had been home to the visiting opera singer Caruso. He had come down to the lobby screaming, “I will never return to a city that allows so much noise and commotion.!”
I saw the San Francisco Mint which in 1906 had stayed completely intact but moved from to is current location. On top of Nob Hill the Phelan Mansion still stood but is now a club unlike the other robber baron’s homes had in 1906. Many had been destroyed and the land was subsequently donated or sold. The Crocker bank family’s land is now where the Grace Cathedral stands and on the Huntington’s land now has the Huntington hotel.
Earthquakes seemed to follow me. I had just left Mexico city when it was hit by an earthquake. I was in the quake of 1989. I had left Los Angeles when the big quake hit and was in Japan when the Kobe quake struck.
I know live in Japan where earthquakes occur daily. In fact there is now a new system you can purchase for your home which is connected to the quake sensors and an alarm will go off prior to a quake striking so you can turn off your gas and flames if you are cooking and brace.
