Victims, Survivors of 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Honored

NBC Bay Area ^ | 4/17

[nickcarraway]

People will gather in San Francisco this weekend to mark the 109th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake.

SNIP

The only survivors are believed to be 113-year-old Ruth Newman and 109-year-old William Del Monte. It was not known Friday if they would attend the early-morning ceremony Saturday.

Mayor Ed Lee, San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr and Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White will attend.

[cripplecreek]

My great grandmother survived it.

She was 6 years old and in Michigan at the time.

[greene66]

I seem to remember hearing that cowboy actor George O’Brien was a SF resident, and lived through it when he was a young’un.

[laplata]

Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy survived it, too.

[George from New England]

But they’re dead now so forget them.

[laplata]

But they’re dead now so forget them.

---

But they made many more movies after that one.

[hanamizu]

There was a film shot from a cable car going up Market Street four days before the quake (and fire). Apparently, they asked for every automobile in town to be in the film to make SF look modern. You’ll find several versions of it on YouTube. In one, the film ends at the Embarcadero. As the cable car is turned around, the camera pans the crowd. For a second you see a very old man with a long beard. He looks old enough to have been part of the Gold Rush.

[JimSEA]

My Uncle, six at the time, went with his family to find an uncle of theirs who was in San Francisco at the time. They found some of the uncle’s neighbors but not a sign of him. The building was a smoldering ash heap. Even a 6 yo, that left a lasting impression on Ray. He’s passed on about 1996.

[Milton Miteybad]

Until his death in 2007 at the age of 102, Charles Lane, a veteran character actor and native of San Francisco, was one of the oldest living survivors of the 1906 Earthquake. He had at least 330 acting credits in a career that spanned nearly seven decades; it's uncertain exactly how many film and TV appearances he actually had, as some were uncredited. Mr. Lane himself admitted, late in life, that he would find himself watching an old movie on TV and see himself in the film, but he would have no distinct memory of having played the role or having worked on the film. But he was one of the most solidly recognizable character actors ever to work in Hollywood. He was assisting with a unfinished documentary on his life just prior to his death which was to be entitled "You Know the Face!"

You recognized him every time you saw him on TV, which was often, but you might not remember his name. His last professional appearance was in the 1995 Disney remake of The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. In 2005, on his 100th birthday, he was recognized by the TVLand Awards, where he announced that if anybody was interested in his services, he was interested in going back to work.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Will they honor those citizens trapped on top of burning buildings, so the militia was ordered to shoot them to death so they would not burn to death.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Q_71JLwlm-kC&pg=PA140&lpg=PA140&dq=people+shot+by+militias+at+the+san+francisco+earthquake&source=bl&ots=Dop6wUGvfH&sig=SgbE0TiV00M30x_r3NBeVunQdlQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=m4MxVZqBA4uUyQTtjoHoDw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=people%20shot%20by%20militias%20at%20the%20san%20francisco%20earthquake&f=false

[Verginius Rufus]

My great aunt married a survivor of the 1906 earthquake, but he died before I was born.