Daly City Earthquake of 1957: Personal Accounts, Page 4

This is the fourth page of personal accounts of the Daly City Earthquake of 1957. The previous pages can be found here: Page 1; Page 2; Page 3.

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

Jan Fisher

I was stunned when this website about the 1957 Daly City earthquake turned up while I was "googling" the internet last evening. I lived in Daly City at the time.....on Maddux Drive, just off of Southgate... which is the main thoroughfare through Westlake. We did not live in a Dolger home, but a Broadmoor home. This had originally been Colma but had been annexed by Daly City because where we were was definitely in the heart of Westlake.

It was a beautiful March morning and my six-month old daughter and I had just said goodbye to a good friend and her daughter who had come to our house for the morning. I put the baby in her playpen in her bedroom while I went to the garage to wash a load of diapers (no disposable ones then). I had felt a little shake a couple of minutes earlier but didn't pay any attention. Suddenly, the washer was bouncing out from the wall. I had no idea what it was other than, possibly, the end of the world. Whatever was happening, though, I was fairly sure we were not going to survive. All I could think about was my daughter in the playpen under a window. I ran from the garage, trying to get up the two steps into the kitchen without f alling, when I saw the refrigerator roll out from the wall. The kitchen cupboards were opening allowing dishes to smash on the tile countertops below. This was not good; I knew we were in some serious trouble, but I couldn't think about that while I was envisioning broken window glass filling the playpen. I turned from the kitchen into the dining area where the chairs were coming out from their places under the table and blocking my path. I shoved them back and continued through the living room, catching a lamp just as it was falling off the table. The pieces of moving furniture created a definite obstacle course that was slowing my trip to rescue my daughter. This house was only about 900 square feet but it seemed like it took me hours to make my way through it. I tried not to look as favorite treasures fell off the mantle and tables as I passed by. My goal, still, was to reach the bedroom, the baby, and the broken glass, and that was harder than I'd ever imagined.

I finally got to the hallway leading to her bedroom and felt immediate relief that the window had not broken, but even if it had, the playpen was no longer under it. It was on wheels and had rolled the full length of the bedroom, stopped only by the crib which had rolled from the other direction. My daughter was laughing and squealing and waving her arms in the air at this sudden burst excitement! She had never before experienced a show like this one: rolling furniture, and a butterfly mobile, attached to her playpen, suddenly coming to life. Earthquakes are wonderful....IF you are six months old!

My husband worked in San Francisco and I was able to get through to him on the phone to let him know we were okay. From what he was hearing in the City, he fully expected us to be in a pile of rubble. I was surprised we weren't. I swept up the broken glass, and said goodbye to some of my favorite wedding presents as they went into the trash in a million pieces. Baking powder was all over the kitchen counter and milk filled the refrigerator. But, there appeared to be no damage, not even a crack, in our home.

I remembered, suddenly, my good friend and morning visitor, who, with her baby, had to have been in the car when the quake hit. I called her...she was home but said she hoped to never sit through another earthquake while passing through Golden Gate Park from 19th Avenue. I have since experienced an earthquake while in a car so I understand her feelings on this!

A friend on Southgate called and asked me to go to her home. She had a major mess and what looked like serious damage. With no car and three small children, she was terrified. She was a displaced Texan...and earthquakes were not something she had ever experienced. As I drove up Southgate, the damage was shocking. Many chimneys were on the grass, windows were broken and people were standing around in stunned silence. My friend's home was probably the worst mess I'd ever seen. All her cupboards had opened and dishes were broken on the floor. Trying to keep the three boys from stepping in it was her primary concern at the moment...we learned that you can't sweep glass and keep kids out of it at the same time. Her chimney was down, pictures were off the wall, and cracks seemed to appear almost everywhere.

The day ended with all of us watching ourselves on TV and thinking what a narrow escape we had. After that though, we hardly gave the earthquake another thought. As is typical of Californians, we just cleaned up the mess and moved on. Imagine my surprise when I saw the websites about that earthquake and how it had prompted a whole new study of seismic activity on the San Francisco Peninsula. I noticed I could listen to it on the website and go to a museum and experience a simulation of it. Had I known, I might have tried it this summer when I was in the City on vacation. On the other hand, once was probably enough!

Gene Poon

I was a third-grader on the ground floor of Sherman School, on Union St. at Franklin in San Francisco.

I had an individual assignment to write an short essay on a topic selected by the teacher, based on research from books in the school library. I had finished the research and had returned the book to its shelf; I had just closed the library door when the earthquake hit.

It felt like a huge shaking accompanied by rumbling, and somehow I wondered if my closing the door had broken something. Before I could wonder any further, the school janitor appeared from nowhere, saw me, and grabbed my arm as he went outside to the schoolyard. "In case we get another earthquake," he said. After a few minutes of calm we went back inside; I went upstairs to the classroom, and teacher Miss Fishbon said, "Good, Gene, you're okay."

I was excused from completing my assigned essay that day.

Unlike me, the San Francisco Call-Bulletin got their assignment done: a special edition with a huge headline, "BIG SF QUAKE". It wasn't until later that I realized the quake wasn't really centered in San Francisco; nor was it really all that big.

Since then I've been through some earthquakes of equal intensity or more, but most have been more distant than the six-odd miles of that Daly City quake. There was one nearby 5.5 that I can remember but it didn't make as strong an impression on me as did Daly City (5.3). I felt the twin Santa Rosa earthquakes of 1969 (5.6, 5.7) but at a distance of about sixty miles, they were more of a swaying, rolling motion, much gentler. Loma Prieta (magnitude 7.1) in 1989 was not as intense a shake for me as Daly City, since it was more than ten times farther away.

Laura D

I was a small child when it happened. I lived on "Head St" which is mostly gone now? But a Payless was built there during the 70's. Don't know what is there now. It was bordering Daly City.

I remember a violent earthquake and the house seemed to tip...my mom grabbed us as we skidded across the floor. I remember the phone flying across the room!

It made a crack in our house that when my parents were trying to sell the house I would point it out to potential buyers (I don't remember THAT but they always told me) I was born in 1954 so I was very young when it happened.

My mom called my dad at work and he was mad at being disturbed. Apparently he didn't feel anything? He worked with big letter presses in THE city.

I was always fearful of earthquakes all the way up to 1989. After that I don't really fear them anymore.

There were so many after shocks as I made my way up Mission St in SF to catch the very last bus I saw and felt windows bowing in and out as I made my way up the street as after shocks continued to hit...my husband at the time was in Alameda and missed being on the freeway to come home when it collapsed because he was talking with someone. He was a Fire Fighter at the Naval Air base and had to climb into the freeway to rescue people. All of what he will say is...the freeway and everything in there was crushed down to about 12" or a bit more...and the smell of blood/death everywhere. He won't talk about what he saw in there. He is a SF fireman, but we are not married anymore.

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