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Shaky memories
Anniversary: 70 years later, readers open up about their scary night.
By Tim Grobaty
Staff columnist (Long Beach Press Telegram)
It's been 70 years since the end of the world or at least what passed for the Long Beach apocalypse, with the falling of walls, the hailing of bricks, the violent undulations of the very face of the planet and the remaining survivors of the Long Beach earthquake of 1933 still recall the day as vividly as this moment right now.
The city 70 years ago wasn't considered a place where an earthquake would occur. It had grown since its founding nearly 50 years earlier with not so much as a shiver. The only things that had boomed here were the population, the harbor and the oil business.
The town's 28 schools in '33 were thought to be solid, both in terms of education and architecture, particularly the venerable educational institutions of Poly High and Jefferson Junior High.
It was a quiet town, one that still had a seaside resort feel to it. ... Then it all came tumbling down.
The first frightening jolt hit at about 5:55 p.m. supper time, give or take 5 minutes and some seconds and immediately Long Beachers and residents of nearby cities fell to the ground, ran out into the streets or cowered under doorways.
That first quake ran on for what seemed an eternity. Aftershocks came faster than people could scramble back to their feet: 6:06, 6:10, 6:12, 6:15. ... Thirty-four of them kept the citizenry moon-eyed with fear between the initial shock and midnight of March 10, 1933.
Fifty-three people died in Long Beach as a result of the quake, estimated in recent years as having a 6.3-magnitude. Some 1,831 homes were destroyed, more than 21,000 were damaged. Each one of the 28 schools was severely damaged, with Poly and Jefferson in virtual ruins. The most blessed spin on the disaster was that school was out for the evening with Jeffersonians barely escaping. Scores of children had packed that school's auditorium for a performance of "Little Women' that concluded about an hour before the quake.
The city's children who were spared are now in their 70s and 80s; a few of them have parents still alive, now in their late 80s and on into their 90s.
When we asked for readers' recollections of the '33 quake, we expected maybe 30 or 40 respondents. Instead, we were buried by more than 200 letters detailing, with way more precision than one might expect, the moments during and after Long Beach's most memorable disaster, though it's a disaster that's been softened for those who shared their memories softened both by the passage of time and by the fact that, because so many of the writers were children at the time, the quake and its trailing days were considered not so much a terror as an adventure.
Unfortunately, the sheer number of responses makes it impossible for us to reprint them all. What follows are some excerpts of some particularly memorable moments. More will follow in Monday's Press-Telegram: At the time of the quake I was a junior at Poly High School, and I was going to dinner with my boyfriend and another couple that evening (or so I thought). I was getting ready and turned on the bathwater, but then turned it off because I wanted to start some dinner for my mother and brother. I had just walked into the kitchen when the quake hit. Thank goodness I still had on my underwear and a short robe!
The four-family flat was separated from the courtyard in front by about 10 feet, so we were able to get out with just a few scratches and bumps. As you can see from the photos taken from the front of the court, there were about 3 feet of bricks piled up. Thirteen people were rescued from beneath those bricks, including a mother and a baby.
My younger brother Gary and I were worried about our mother, who was working in Steele's Dress Shop next to Buffums', since almost all the buildings downtown were brick. We didn't realize that she had been sent to work at the Santa Ana store that day and (we) had no way to contact her. She had an awful time getting back into Long Beach after the quake but finally got to us around 8:30 that evening. When she arrived, she gave me her coat to wear.
My future husband, Kenny Johnson (who was working at the Press-Telegram at the time and continued to work there for 42 years), was driving down Atlantic Avenue in his Model A Ford when the quake struck. The shaker moved his car to the curb right in front of Poly, and he watched as the dome came crashing down.
Being a newspaper man, Kenny rushed back to the P-T as quickly as he could. The building was badly damaged and the water tower on the top of the building had fallen and broken through the roof. Kenny and several other young fellows ran upstairs and brought down some desks and typewriters. They set up a makeshift office in the middle of the Pine and Sixth Street intersection where reporters could type their stories.
Leone R. Johnson
Long Beach
(Leone's daughter, Valerie Johnson, adds: "My mom has been through all the subsequent quakes in this area, and she never even bothers to get out of bed when they strike. She says they're all insignificant compared to the quake of 1933.') While I was a member of the 1932-33 Long Beach Junior College basketball team, we practiced in the Wilson High School gymnasium from 5 to 7 p.m. every day. Since we were to play Fullerton for the Southern California championship on March 11, Coach Griffin called off practice for the 10th. The quake brought the entire roof of the gym to the floor, and I'm sure there would have been many casualties if we had been practicing. One young man died in the shower room.
I was also a member of the golf team and had taken the opportunity to play a practice round at Recreation Park. When the quake hit, I was in the middle of a swing and was knocked flat.
I thought the incident to be quite humorous until I heard the wailing of sirens throughout the city. I ran the three miles to my home to be sure my parents were OK.
I was supposed to have a first date with a young lady by the name of Martha Hudson that evening. The quake postponed the date for two days, but did nothing to slow the relationship. Four years later, Martha Hudson became Marty Walker, and we enjoyed 62 years of a beautiful marriage.
Del Walker
Long Beach
I was home sitting on the sofa putting my skates on, and I had just put one on when I wondered what was happening. I stood up and went rolling across the room on one skate. The bricks from our fireplace missed my head by inches.
We camped outside in a tent on the vacant lot next door for a few days. I was so sorry about the damage that had been done, but at my age, 14, I thought camping was fun.
Bill French
Long Beach
Mrs. Curtis from next door came running over to tell my dad that fireplace bricks had hit her son Jerome in the head and that he needed immediate help. My dad sent my mother, my sister Nan and me to the vacant lot across the street on the corner of Granada and Vista while he took Jerome to Seaside Hospital. We couldn't get to my sister Mary Lou because her crib had jiggled across the floor and had wedged the door shut, so in the absence of my dad, I was elected to take the flashlight back across the street so I could look in the window to see if she was OK. She was sound asleep, having missed the whole thing.
Meanwhile, my dad got Jerome Curtis to the hospital and found that the entire ground floor was flooded. He found a bathroom with a dry bathtub, put Jerome in it and flagged down a passing doctor to stitch up his head.
We spent the next couple of weeks with cousins in Glendale. I was a celebrity at my new school in Glendale because I had been in the earthquake, and I got to choose the games at recess.
Jack L. Herron
Seal Beach
I was born in 1922 in Carroll Park and, in those days, water heaters were not automatic and we kids were always forgetting to turn the gas off after taking a bath. Consequently, when the hot water was turned on later, nothing came out but steam. I can still hear my mother saying, "One day, you're going to blow up the house.'
On March 10 at 5:55 p.m., I was across the street at my friend's house. Five minutes earlier, my dog Brownie started howling in the park. When the shake came, I was certain the hot water heater had blown up.
My father, who was sitting near the front door, ran for the back door and skidded through the kitchen on the lamb stew that was meant for our dinner. Brownie was nowhere to be found. He showed up several hours later.
We had our radio on. KGER kept playing music, and we could hear the announcer sorting through broken records.
For the next few days we lived in the garage. There was a big portable washtub we could use for bathing.
One night my father gingerly suggested to my mother that he knew it was hard living like this, but she really ought to bathe. My mother was furious. "I'll have you know I bathe every day!' It was then they discovered the sack of fertilizer that was at the head of their bed.
Frances Harding
Long Beach
I woke up to find white lilies all over my body, and I was very wet. Then I remem bered that I had been sitting by the fireplace in our living room doing my homework when the room started going up and down and around, and I couldn't get up. The large vase above me on the mantel had fallen off and landed on my head and knocked me out. Being only 10 years old, I had no idea what was going on and screamed for my mom. When I got no answer I tried to go out the front door but it wouldn't open, and the other two doors were also jammed. I climbed up the ladder in the closet that led to an upstairs bedroom and found my mother and my 7- year-old sister on the floor hugging each other and crying. We finally managed to get outside and joined our neighbors.
Dottie Reider May
Long Beach
My brother, who learned "moonshining' in Arkansas, made whiskey in his garage in Long Beach. He was frequently raided by the police, escaping only minutes ahead of them, simply to start another "still' somewhere else. After the quake, word came that whiskey was needed for medicinal purposes. He walked into City Hall with a case of whiskey on his shoulder, left it and walked out again to continue his business.
Hazel Bentley
Lakewood
I had just turned 4 years old, and my mother and sister and I went along with our father in our Model T coupe to a print shop in Long Beach. While waiting for Dad to come back out of the shop, I sat behind the steering wheel and jumped up and down, making the car shake. My mom said, "I don't care if you turn the wheel a little, but don't be jumping up and down!'
So I stood there, making a motor noise with my mouth. Then the car started jumping up and down. Mom hit me on the leg and said, "I told you no jumping!' I said to her, "Mom, I'm hanging on to the steering wheel!' Mom looked at me and the car was still moving. She looked out the window at the house across the street and saw the rock wall with rocks falling. She said, "Oh, my God, we're having an earthquake!'
Donald Bowman
Long Beach
I am 90 years old and remember the '33 quake well! I was living with my husband and 3-year-old son in an apartment over the Watts Grocery Store in Los Alamitos. My son was chattering away at my feet as I prepared dinner.
Suddenly, the entire building gave a big jerk and then began shaking violently and, at the same time, the building was bouncing up and down very hard. It threw me back from the stove just seconds before it fell forward to the floor. I grabbed my frightened child up into my arms before it slammed us both into the wall where we slid to the floor, landing on my bottom. I truly believed the world was coming to an end.
Our son, who had always been a chatterbox, said almost nothing for three days, which worried us some, but fortunately it was only temporary.
Arlene Otte
Los Alamitos
Merle Shaver was at the top of a ladder at Safeway when it toppled. With canned goods pelting him, he had the presence of mind to leap into a display of bread. His kid brother was playing tennis in southwest Los Angeles. He slammed the ball and the school wall in front of him disintegrated. ... Bill Siler was only 5 and living in Compton. He was sick in bed an iron bed with wheels. As the quake flung the house off its foundations, the bed ricocheted from one wall to another with Bill hanging on. He could hear things crashing in the kitchen. "It was kinda neat,' he says. "I just stayed in bed and enjoyed the ride.'
from interviews conducted by
Jessica Shaver
Long Beach
A Merchant Marine who lived a few blocks from us had a parrot that came off a transport ship. The bird could really cuss. On the day of the quake, it escaped from its cage and was walking up the sidewalk cussing a blue streak while all the people looked and laughed.
There was a lot of excitement that day. I heard that one man had been taking a bath when the shaking started, and he ran outside naked. He looked at himself and said, "I better get something on,' so he ran back inside his house and came out with his hat on.
Warren Hutchens
Westminster
There had been a small, brick, dry cleaning business next door to us that had the word CLEANING painted vertically on the wall. After the quake, the entire wall was left leaning at about a 30-degree angle and the C had fallen off, leaving the word LEANING on the wall.
In those days, presidents of the United States were inaugurated on March 4, so the quake was less than a week after FDR became president. One of his main issues had been to repeal Prohibition, and I recall many comments to the effect that the quake was God showing His wrath that we had elected such a pro-booze sinner.
I recall my 7-year-old sister and her 8- year-old girlfriend learning entrepreneurship that summer as they set up a lemonade stand behind the apartments where the WPA workers who were tearing down the school buildings, which had been badly damaged, came to have a drink of lemonade and sneak a cigarette that they weren't allowed on the job. The kids had to buy their own lemons, sugar and ice, and they charged a penny for a small glass and three cents for a regular eight-ounce glass. They each made more than $20 that summer, which was big money in those days.
Duane Mooney
Long Beach
We spent that night around a bonfire across from Community Hospital in a vacant lot. We had a relative who had just had surgery, and her bed had been moved to the lawn for safety. We were on a high spot there and heard rumors of a tidal wave and could see the headlights of cars leaving the area. Between and after the shocks, we would run over to hold the hand of our relative in the hospital bed on the hospital lawn.
Vivian Seabridge Braunlich
Los Alamitos
On March 10, 1933, I was working as a messenger for Western Union on Broadway between Pine and Locust. I was on a bicycle coming back from the Navy landing when the quake struck. I was at Ocean Boulevard and Magnolia Avenue. Street lights seemed to explode. So many buildings, especially of brick construction, collapsed. Our office was a madhouse with people wanting to send tele grams.
The day they opened Long Beach up to outsiders, I stood at Anaheim and American Avenue (now Long Beach Boulevard) and watched the endless procession of people in cars who came to look at the destruction.
Fred S. Clare
Long Beach
I lived on St. Louis Avenue in the '30s in my grandparents' house. The lady that owned the house next door was a widow who everyone in the neighborhood called Aunt Mae. Aunt Mae had a palm reading business on the Pike. Every afternoon she would come home and fix dinner for her and her sister. She would park her car in the driveway in the same place every day. After they had dinner, Aunt Mae would return to the Pike for evening business. The day of the earthquake, she didn't park her car in the usual place. She parked it in the garage. When the quake struck, the brick fireplace on our house fell on her driveway right where she usually parked. If her car had been there, it would have been demolished.
John Footdale
Long Beach
My mother was 8 months pregnant with my sister at the time of the quake, and she went into labor immediately. As we tried to scramble out of our duplex on East 16th Street, I remember the boxwood hedge along our property weaving like a snake. I can still see it in my mind!
My father couldn't get my mother to a hospital as all the city was in a panic. The labor pains subsided for a time, and I remember we headed out of town from the threat of a tidal wave ... had to get to high ground. We spent the night, parked atop Signal Hill, along with what seemed like hundreds of other frightened people.
Afterward, it was so long before I would even go outside to play. I remember my Grandma bringing me roller skates to entice me outside. NO WAY!!
To this day, when a rumble hits, I inwardly panic and think, "how much worse will it get?'
P.S.: My sister finally arrived on March 25, 15 days after the Big One. She was fine!
LaWahna Eldred
Long Beach
Mom was 8 months pregnant with her first child. She and my father were sitting at the kitchen table with my aunt and uncle when they suddenly felt violent shaking and rumbling. All rushed for the front doorway to seek safety. This was very difficult since Mom was one month from delivering a 10-pound baby and took up more than her share of the space. From their position in the doorway, they could see the cars, one in the driveway and one in the street. One was rolling north and south and the other east and west.
Submitted by Jerri Davis
as related by her mother
Doris Davis, 88, Garden Grove
When I was attending Washington Junior High school in 1933, Jefferson Junior High School was putting on a play after school at 3:30 p.m. on March 10, 1933.
After school, the mother of my chum drove us to Jefferson to see the play, and we each had a nickel for the bus fare home.
After the play, we walked to take the 10th Street bus and were at the corner of 10th and Redondo when the earthquake shook us. Two frightened little girls clung to the light post to hold them up as the earth shook. We finally did get home, safely, after dark.
Later that year we moved, and I started attending Jefferson. One day I was talking to a classmate about the quake, and she said that her mother was directing the play we saw, and she said her mother had felt the need to get the children home as it was getting late and she dropped one act from the play.
I now think of the many children and what could have happened inside the building. I am very thankful for the director and her premonition.
Helen Hayden
Long Beach
Our family slept out of doors after the quake, sleeping on army cots and a lawn swing with a tarp over us. My Dad dug a hole in the back yard, put up metal stakes and hung a cooking pot on it. Mother made good meals and even turned the iron pot lid upside down with another on top to make corn bread.
On the night of the quake, we were to have had a Mexican dinner and one of our invited guests stopped by a private home to pick up the chile and the tortillas (no market carried them back then). He drove in the driveway at the time of the quake and didn't know what had happened. When he went to the door to pick up the tortillas they were scattered all over the floor. He said to himself, "Well, I didn't know this is how they made them.'
Lorraine Morrison Shelley
Long Beach
After the quake, we were on the curb lawn at the corner of Lime Avenue and 60th Street. In between shakes and the advance of night, it was a very eerie kind of adventure.
The children were all quiet and probably scared. The adults were sitting by the fire all talking in very subdued tones: "Will our houses fall down?' or "Do you think we will have a bigger earthquake?' or "Is anyone killed downtown?'
To add to the surreal quality of the night, we heard and saw a constant parade of ambulances and firetrucks going up and down Atlantic Avenue. I was 9, and I can remember hunkering down into the blanket with my younger sister Beverley, 7. We were warm, but every so often we could feel the ground beneath us start its shaking. Then we would hug each other so we wouldn't fall off anything.
All the big intersections were closed to local traffic by the Naval Police. They were called in to protect the city. They carried rifles and looked very sharp. We felt well protected. I don't remember hearing about looting or other kinds of mischief.
Every day, a big truck would come down the street with a load of coal, which would be distributed at each little encampment. Then, the best part was the help of the Red Cross. Right away, everyone was told that we could walk up to Houghton Park three times a day, and the Red Cross would provide a nice meal for anyone who came. What a treat that was for me. It was not only delicious, it was plentiful! I still remember the luxury of sitting down and eating until I was really filled up.
Doris Murphy
Long Beach
In 1933, Dad was working in the area that would later become Lakewood, and the family was living in a brick house near Lakewood Boulevard and Del Amo. When the earthquake hit, the house collapsed, and their youngest child, a boy, was killed in his crib. The next youngest, also a boy, was badly hurt and, in fact, died a year later from his injuries.
Not only were my parents devastated, but their house was also destroyed. They ended up moving the family over to Clearwater-Hynes, which would later become Paramount, and which is where they had five more children, including myself.
My Dad got a job with the railroad, working at the station in Paramount to stop the constant traveling of his other job. He eventually opened a grocery store that he ran for over 60 years.
Manuel E. Guillen
City Council member
Paramount
My husband Fred was at work, and I was at home with the two girls, ages 4 and 1, when the shaking started. Fred worked in the oil fields but got home as soon as he could. Luckily, his dad had given us a complete camping outfit when we were married in 1927 for our honeymoon in Canada. Fred went to the garage and got everything out. He set up the tent, cots, sleeping bags and cooking supplies next to the curb outside. We still had water, so he filled up jugs from the outside faucet. All the neighbors joined us as we had quite a nice set-up.
Charleen O'Connell, Paradise
as told to her by her mother, Clementine, now 99
I remember that day, but only as a happy 4-year-old who was playing on the back steps of my home when I was bounced so hard down those steps that I was black and blue. I was amazed that the dishes and pans and all sorts of things came flying down the stairs also. At night, we got to sleep outside and all of my relatives were there. In my mind, the quake was like a big camping party.
Ruth Weaver, Long Beach
We lived on 52nd Street in North Long Beach and the neighbors in that area all rallied together at our friends' down the street. They had a vacant lot next door and a huge bonfire was built. I was 9 and my brother was 5, and we were put in our 1933 Chevrolet to sleep, hopefully, in safety. One of the women in the group had been cornered by her refrigerator in her kitchen, and she was absolutely terrified and would scream at the top of her lungs at every aftershock, all night long.
I have asthma and, of course, with the excitement, I had an attack, so my dad went looking for a drugstore that was open. I remember he had to drive all the way to town. There, the druggist used a rake to look for the right medicine because everything had fallen to the floor.
Gweneviere Colman
Lakewood
After a track meet at Wilson High, one of my friends was showering when the quake hit. Outside, someone gave him a towel to wrap around himself. A lady offered to take him home, but she would not let him in the car, so he rode standing on the running board, hanging onto the towel with one hand and the car with the other.
Don Anderson
Signal Hill
When the earthquake happened tenants in our apartment house rushed outside. The landlord, who lived in an apartment upstairs leaned over a railing and said, "If you do not pay your rent, I will shake it again!'
Arthur & Mary Powers
Long Beach
I went past my parents' bedroom and saw my little baby brother, John, crying as his crib rolled back and forth along the wall. Then I ran to the kitchen and saw my brother Ed in his high chair pinned behind the table and against the wall. My sister Susie had just ran down to the little store on Market Street, and she was knocked down. My father ran after her and had a hard time trying to stay on his feet.
After the main shaking stopped, it was fun with the aftershocks to get out and ride the back fence. It was a small scale of the Cyclone Racer on the Pike.
Life eventually came back to normal, slow but sure, but it had the makings of a lot of storytelling in the years to come.
Hugh R. Inlow
Seal Beach
I lived on Newport Avenue and, after the quake, we lived in our garden for several days. We had a silver-crested cockatoo and we kept him in the garden with us. The cockatoo adored our mother. Every time we had an aftershock he would yell, "Joe Boy is a good boy!'
Betty Lou Lovell
Long Beach
I was 11 years old, and we lived at 332 W. 31st St. We were so frightened by seeing and feeling the earthquake, my buddy tried running toward his home but the force of the earthquake would knock him down every 50 yards or so. By that time, some of my brothers and sisters and my mother came running out of the side door of our home. Each person took giant steps with each jump as they proceeded from the house. It was hilarious to see their bodies so off- balance as they tried to move away from the house.
My brother came home about 6:30 p.m., and he was so tired, he proceeded to go straight to bed in his room on the second floor. I was thinking, how could he just go into the house with all the plaster everywhere and the continuous shaking of the ground? The next day our family questioned him about it, and he just said that he had an extremely painful toothache and just wanted to lie down. Our family, after that, gave him the title of Oh Mighty One, the King.
Charles Bakovic
Long Beach
When it was announced that schools would be closed for two weeks, my father took my sister and me to Texas to see my very elderly grandmother. We played tag with a couple of cyclones and electrical storms. After those experiences, I decided that I preferred earthquakes!
Lucille Cox Anderson
Signal Hill
I was eating dinner in the northeast corner of our kitchen at 932 Coronado Ave. I was 7 years old.
The corner of the kitchen was under the cupboard my father had built to hold our large turkey platters.
I was trying to get out of eating my lima beans, and my mother and dad were insisting I eat them.
All of a sudden, the house stood on end and the turkey platters sailed over my head and smashed on the floor.
We slept in the car the first night and then in a tent in the back yard for the next couple of weeks. The house slipped off its foundation, and it was jacked up and placed on a new foundation using blocks of ice to move on. I eat my lima beans these days and so do my children after I told them what might happen if they don't.
Gerald "Jerry' Cocks
Long Beach