Daly City Earthquake of 1957: Personal Accounts, Page 2

This is the second page of personal accounts of the Daly City Earthquake of 1957. The other pages are Page 1, and Page 3.

If you experienced the Daly City Earthquake and wish to have your recollections included here, feel free to email them to me!

Beverly High

Yes, I will remember that one! I lived in Broadmoor Village, in Colma. I was 17 yrs. old and was a Senior at Jefferson High School, in Daly City. I went to the afternoon session (school was crowed and all Seniors went in the afternoon), my brother, 3 yrs. young than me, went to the morning session.

The scariest occurrence was when morning session was out and I was at Foster Freeze on my way to school and the big shake came on and the 2 large windows in front of Foster Freeze waved like thin gelatin and I wasn't sure where to go to escape. Then I turned around I saw a women I new by sight, that worked in the school office and she must have been 8-9 months pregnant..she panicked and ran out into the street. I stood there frozen, not knowing what to do for I didn't want to endanger myself but I wanted to stop her. She managed not to get hit by a car.

Once I got to school us Seniors were told there would not be classes that day...Oh Boy!

Heard that the swimming pool had cracked and in some classes parts of the ceiling came down on the students. Then I was concerned as to whether my brother was okay. He was not seriously injured but debris had fallen on him.

After my brother left school he went, like others, to earn money cleaning up stores on Mission St.

I went home and mainly stayed outside with friends. The aftershocks were a heavy rolling motion. This is where, now us brave, kids stood and waited for aftershocks.

If there was any damage in my house, it must have be slight, for I don't remember anything major.

I'm still in California, and have felt many earthquakes, but the one in 1957 has been the strongest I have felt and I wouldn't want to feel one any stronger than that. Also, when talking with friends today and I mention the 1957 quake...they are not aware of it happening..never heard about it.

-Beverly High (class of '57)

Victor Levchenko

Interesting, isn't it? I cannot find a place to live without earthquakes. It all began with the '57 Daly City Quake.' My parents had just purchased a home (in February of that year) in the Richmond District of San Francisco, and a month later it shook. Give me a break, as I was only 3 years old. I remember being in the kitchen and all of a sudden the plates that my mom had just washed and stacked were bouncing up and down, literally leaving the countertop by a few millimeters or so, and I was terrified. My grandmother grabbed me by the arm and we ran outside, where for some reason we stayed for a very long time. Well, it's been a long time since then, but it didn't end there! I got married and bought a house in Daly City overlooking the ocean. Lord behold, a month after that, it shook! Well, nothing bad happened, and eventually we moved to Gilroy for nicer weather, and after a month, it shook again (6.2 quake at Coyote Lake, which was just a mile from our house). My water heater was displaced, but aside from that we rode it well, well aside from me running through the screen patio door in panic and breaking it. BUT it didn't end there either. We moved back to San Francisco to the inner Richmond District in '89, and Lord behold, one month later Loma Prieta hit! As I was running down the stairs, my left foot landed where my right foot left off, oh boy, that was a bad one. Luckily, not too much damage. Any way, I've inherited the house where I grew up in the Richmond District, and am now contemplating living here, but I often wonder if that means that we must all prepare for another quake, that is, if history repeats itself. Interesting, isn't it?

Jim Sipes

I was searching for information about Daly City government when I was delighted to come across your website about the Daly City earthquake of 1957 This earthquake is the earliest memory I have in my life. I was three years old at that time. My mother, grandmother and I had only recently moved into our house on the east side of Daly City. My mother was at work I was playing in the backyard when the quake struck. Terrified, I ran screaming up the back stairs. My grandmother rushed out of the back door. We stood on the porch holding on to each other as the porch swayed. My grandmother finally pulled me into the kitchen. When my mother came home from work she inspected the house and found a hairline crack in the stuco on a wall in the back of the house. My mother died last year (2003) and I inherited the house where I now live. That crack is still there. A relic of the 1957 quake.

Jim Douglass

The things I find surfing the net .... I was looking (unsuccessfully) for a 1939 map of San Mateo County when I stumbled on your site. My memories of this quake are still quite vivid. I was in Mrs. Kennedy's second grade classroom at Baywood elementary school in San Mateo when the earthquake occurred. Mrs. Kennedy froze in front of the class while the ground rumbled and those hanging celiing lights we all remember (you remember them, surely, the ones with the central globe and the three concentric rings radiating from the globe) swung wildly back and forth. We rremained in silence for perhaps thirty seconds after the earthquake had ended, and then Mrs. Kennedy said, "I suppose I should have had you all get under your desks."

I remember that evening's television news pictures of stores with canned goods strewn through the aisles and buildings with windows broken out, but I do not recall any reports of injuries. I have since experienced stronger quakes (the 1971 quake in Los Angeles for instance), and I flew relief supplies into Guatamala City after the killer quake there in '76, but none of them provided an image that tops the one of Mrs. Kennedy's befuddled expression during the Daly City episode. The things that remain in our minds ....

Elithea Whittaker

In March of 1957 I would have been five; we would have been in the house for less than a year, but it is the only one I remember from my childhood and probably was then, too. My parents bought it in 1955-56 using my Uncle’s GI-bill loan approval (I suppose he “bought” it and immediately “sold” it to them from the Doelger company that had put it up—it cost under $15,000.00. I suppose I would have gone to school that next September, is the only reason I can think why I would have been at home, but I was, with my mother (my father worked in the City, to which he carpooled) when the earthquake hit. I was watching television at the time, either Liberace (candelabrum on the piano) or I Love Lucy, and my mother was in the kitchen. She later said she watched the dishwasher (a “portable” model one hooked up to the faucet with a hose, a machine about the size and heft of a washing machine) “dance across the floor.” I remember she immediately came out of the kitchen to get me and she must have shown no fear because I had none, not knowing what it was, and even later on in my life I never had any fear of earthquakes at all. I don’t remember much about the quake itself, but I do remember later that day standing with my mother at the French’s bakery bread truck n the street in front of our house (from which we bought our sourdough bread daily as it passed through the neighborhood; milk was still delivered three times a week as well) and the “breadman” was chatting about it when I felt the ground rumble under my feet beneath the pavement. My mother explained it was “just an aftershock.” This was merely a curiosity to me.

I also remember the story that our next-door neighbor had two thermos bottles sitting on the windowsill in the basement (basements were not underground in Daly City; the houses were two stories, and the first story was unfinished and used as a garage and was called a “basement”) and one shot off the sill and broke while the other one, right next to it, didn’t move. I also remember visiting some friends of my parents in a different part of the town, they had a mess all over their kitchen floor because their refrigerator door had opened and spilled out everything in it. It looked like a total disaster to me, but of course it was just a mess. I think our house got a small crack or two, or maybe the driveway. But otherwise it was not remarkable, certainly not scary. But then that was probably due to my mother’s calm.

Paul Mosel

Hello: I remember the 1957 San Francisco earthquake very vividly. I was born and raised in San Francisco.

I was 14 years old at the time and attending Everett Jr. High school. I can remember the fore shock at about 11 AM. That was just one jolt. At the time I thought nothing of it.

Then while in my typing class at about Noon or about, the big one hit. It seemed like the shaking would never stop. I was on the third and highest floor of that old concrete building and at the time I thought my life was going to end because i was sure that it would collapse. Luck would have it, the shaking finally stopped. All the teachers then led all us students to the front yard for the remainder of the day, after of which we were allowed to go home. I don't remember any damage, but the very intensity of it really frightened me.

Later on when I got home, the first after shock I can remember hit. Then going to work in St. Joseph's Hospital, walking past the trays of glasses and glass cups, I remember the noise they made in the shaking of yet another after shock.

The next aftershock I can remember was near midnight. That was real scary and big. I don't remember any more after shocks from that event.

I experienced the 1989 Loma Prieta quake but to me that one was of less intensity. I was at home cooking at the time and I can remember running out of the house while stupidly leaving the fire on, on the stove. But then again while outside I turned off the gas in the garage.

To me, the 1957 earthquake was "the big one."

Rita Wright

On that sunny day in March, 1957, I was seven years old and in the second grade at Sheridan Elementary School in San Francisco’s Oceanview district. I remember hearing a loud roar at about 11 AM and looking out the window of the classroom to see where it was coming from. I didn’t feel any shaking, but the teacher said "earthquake" and all of us dove under the tables (we sat at tables, instead of desks). After a few minutes we came out from under the tables and the teacher praised us for our quick response.

Later we had our morning recess and returned to the classroom. Sometime after that the real quake started. This time it seemed like forever that we had to stay under the tables. The children around me were mostly calm and discussing the situation as though it were no big deal; I was indignant because we weren’t getting out for lunch. Some of the kids were crying and screaming though, and I remember that the teacher threatened to put them out in the hall if they weren’t quiet. I guess she was frightened, too.

My mother was one of the first parents to arrive at the school. Right after the 11 AM foreshock she placed her coat and purse by the front door because she believed that there would be more shaking to come and she wanted to be ready to leave. When the earthquake hit, she headed out the front door, only to be beat out by the family dog, Toni, who ran yelping down the street and around the corner.

When the teacher said that my mother was there to pick me up, I got out from under the table and saw the plaster that had fallen from the ceiling. Outside, roof tiles had fallen down on the playground. Until then, I didn’t realize what was happening.

Soon after we got home a neighbor came by to shut off our water heater. He told us to keep the front door open because another tremor could cause the door frame to bend, and then we’d be trapped inside the house. That scared me so bad that I didn’t want to stay in the house, so my mother and I walked through the neighborhood for hours looking for our runaway dog and walking up to the M-street car line on Broad Street to see if my sister, who was 12 and a student at Aptos Junior High School, had been let out of school. We passed Mary’s Liquor store where they were sweeping out the shards of broken bottles and I remember running into the middle of the street when an aftershock bowed the plate glass windows of Pesce's Grocery store and thinking that maybe we would be safer inside our house.

It was a Friday, and by that evening everything was mostly back to normal. My sister finally got home at her usual time (the school wisely didn’t release the students early). My mother went to her usual bingo game at St. Michael’s parish hall. We didn’t suffer much damage, but the basement was messy because a lot of stuff had fallen, but only some jars of canned fruit were broken. My father opened the basement door and while he was straightening out the mess, he looked up and saw our dog Toni, who finally came home.

Don Monson, Danville CA

Just a note about my experiences...I was just a few days short of my 19th birthday & in my car at the "Top of the Hill" (Mission St. north bound at Hillside Blvd.) in Daly City.

Just as I was slowing down for a red stop light, noted that the large plate glass windows in the buildings on the west side of Mission St. were moving & the reflection were dancing around...then the radio station playing on my car radio went off the air...in that I had been moving I did not feel any rocking motion but knew that something important just have happen...a moment later the radio station (KCBS, I think) came back on the air & then I learned the earthquake news.

Then continued on my trip to San Francisco...late in the afternoon when I returned to my parents home (W. Cavour St. ) I found that the cabinet doors had been thrown open & the contents deposited on the floor of the kitchen & bathrooms...plus some cracks in the exterior stucco.

Thanks for the opportunity to share my experiences on the very exciting day.

Roger H. Aylworth, Chico CA

I stumbled on your website and decided to kick in my two cents worth.

At the time of the quake I was a 6-year-old, first grader in Mrs. Biggs' class at West Portal Elementary School, which is located on the edges of both the Sunset District and Forest Hill in San Francisco.

I remember plunging under our desks at the first quake rumbled through the school.

As soon as the shaking stopped, as good first graders we lined up two by two and were marched out of the room and to the nearest exit to the playground area.

I remember with that frozen moment clarity walking past Mrs. Brauer's kindergarten class. Like most of the kids in my class, I had attended Mrs. Brauer's class the year before. The Initial quake hit between the end of morning kindergarten and the commencement of the afternoon session. As a result Mrs. Brauer was alone in the room at the time.

I can remember marching past her door, waving as a first grader would, while poor, dearly elderly Mrs. Brauer was going absolutely berserk trying to open her door. When the quake it the section of wall over her door sagged enough to functionally seal the door shut and no power under heaven was going to get this frantic little old lady out of the room. Eventually she was helped out of a window by the school's vice principal.

The 600 plus students in the school stayed in the playground the rest of the day until we were sent home. Looking back I doubt the school district had an established policy for what to do in such situations at the time.

While this was going on at school, my mother and father were trying to get ready to leave for a week-long business conference my dad was going to attend. Mom was going along for fun.

I recall my mother telling me a couple of things. First our mutt house cat, Whitey, had just given birth to her one and only kitten, but moments before the temblor hit, Whitey abandoned her kitten in the nest she has created in a hall closet to hide under one of the beds. Mom had noticed this behavior and so she wasn't surprised when frame house located at 12th Avenue and Pacheco Street began to shake. Mom and dad had lived in San Francisco since 1939 and mom thought of herself as an old hand when it came to quakes, so she stepped into an open doorway and waited for the shaking to stop. However, the quake continued. A woman of the 1950s, mom had the obligatory avocado plant she she had sprouted from a seed. The two-foot tall plant sat on the mantle. As the quake continued the plant was flung from the mantle and shattered against the opposite wall. Mom lost it at that point. The woman who never said "darn" in my presence began swearing at the earthquake. It was she explained the the shaking creature time to stop the blanketty-blank quaking.

The quake did stop but the avocado was done for.

At the time of the quake my dad had a man working with him named Russ Rodgers. Russ lived in Westlake, almost on top of the epicenter. At the time he had a three-year-old son. On the morning of the quake the little boy had gone out front to play. After the quake hit the boy's mother went out in search of her son. She found the boy a few doors down. The boy was sitting in the center of a two-car garage. Around the boy was a scene of total chaos and destruction. Every bottle, can, box and container of any shape size or description had been tossed onto the concrete floor. The boy was looking around in a state of amazement, when he spotted his mother. Looking again at the debris around him, the little lad jumped to the obvious conclusion. Knowing nobody would ever believe that everything in the garage jumped off the shelf by itself the little guy immediately began to plead his case. "Mommy, I didn't do it! I didn't do it!"

Tim Dineen

More recollections of the 1957 quake! We lived at 1891 – 19th Avenue, in San Francisco. Just across the street from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. My father was a San Francisco fireman – at work. My mom, 7 months pregnant with my twin sisters, my younger sister, and I were home. My older brother was at school at St. Cecelia’s on 18th Ave & Vicente – about 9 blocks away.

The house was typical SF 1920’s construction. Living area up, garage below. Lathe and plaster walls and ceilings. We had a room built off the back of the house, on stilts.

My sister and I were playing in the back room when the first wave hit. The room went rolling up and down. We

The biggest damage, though, was the entryway, where plaster fell from the ceiling and huge cracks and holes appeared on the walls. It was a mess. Electricity was knocked out, as was the phone, although Ma Bell had the phones up pretty quickly.

Mom was pretty nervous, but kept the façade of calm to keep us quieted down. She checked for gas leaks and did all the necessary things to keep us amused and distracted. Each aftershock brought more shattered nerves for her – especially since she couldn’t reach my father, but we were taking it pretty much in stride. My brother made it home, and after fixing us dinner, we all sat in a huge overstuffed chair in the living room, with mom reading us stories until, one by one, we fell asleep and she carted us off to bed.

The real thrill was the following day when my dad was home. He took us all on a ride to see where John Muir Drive had slid into Lake Merced, and then up to Land’s End where El Camino del Mar slid into the Golden Gate. We used to always drive down El Camino del Mar to go to the Golden Gate Bridge and over to San Anselmo to visit relatives. The road was never reopened and today is called The Earthquake Walk.”

The Conservatory across the street was pretty banged up. Lots of cracks and broken windows, Spanish tiles fallen from the roof. He drove us all over the neighborhood, pointing out boarded up windows, huge cracks in houses (everything out in the Sunset District is built on sand) passed schools with broken windows everywhere… It was a thrill!

As shaken as mom was, she carried the twins full term and delivered them 2 months later. And, while our house was not severely damaged, it was a rental. Three months after the twins were born, they bought their first house and we moved to 46th and Ulloa. 47 years later, Pop is still there!

In speaking with him after the fact, he says that the earthquake itself was not a huge problem from a firefighter’s perspective. Not a lot of fires. But the “cat in tree” calls kept them running all night. People locked out, trapped inside, minor injury stuff that they dealt with every day – just compounded a hundredfold.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

Bob Tilley

On that day in San Francisco in 1957 I was in a Lutheran Elementary School at 9th and Anza. The teacher made us get under some big tables. Our parents were called to come pick us up. My parents arrived and we drove around San Francisco to survey any damage. We saw some ambulance drivers helping an elderly lady down the front stairs of her house to the street. We noticed that there were some cracks in the middle of another street that weren't there before the quake. There were rumors that the ferry building had been twisted so you see part of the southern face when looking east.

One interesting fact about the 1989 quake. I was flying back from Guam. I left on the 19th and flew back across the International Dateline, back into the 19th in San Francisco. I hadn't been home at Church and Market Streets for 15 minutes when it hit. My passport has October 19, 1989 stamped in it as a remembrance. We live on the edge in the Bay Area.

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