“But his day as we approached the town we missed a landscape feature, the four tall steel towers supporting the tanks that held the town’s water supply. With the first shock they had collapsed, flooding the downtown area. Already, tank-wagons were hauling water from the Bond Estate reservoir to supply the town’s citizens. Fortunately, we saw no sign of fires. At least we knew that the town was prepared as well as that era allowed. The old hose-carts and hook-and-ladder buildings were still standing. Franklin Street was almost impassable for us. Every brick building of over one story was in collapse. This might have applied to many ‘Valley Villages’ that day. As one writer later expressed it, ‘Nothing was so rare in the Santa Clara Valley as an atheist or a brick building standing firm that morning of April 18, 1906.’

“One of Santa Clara’s catastrophes was the Methodist Episcopal Church on Main Street. It was a beautiful tall-towered building built entirely of brick. We saw it in ruins but learned that after the first shock the sharp-spired tower had remained leaning at an ominous angle. Then, just before we had arrived, there was a terrific aftershock at 2:30 p.m. This was the coup de grace for the church tower. In the next 60 years we would see first another church and then a nine story high rise take its place.

“We made our way out of town driving through rubbled streets. Little damage was evident to the College (now University) or to the Mission. Many of the students and priests were still engaged in rescue work at Agnews, their efforts long to be remembered. Eberhard Tannery (since 1847) was little disturbed. The long rows of tanning hides were hanging in sedate order. This area is now in University and Library buildings facing the old Alameda. Then came the Pacific Manufacturing Company, always referred to as the “P M.” It occupied many acres on both sides of the Alameda, one of the largest mills and lumberyards in the west. Its framed manufacturing buildings were totally destroyed. We later heard that the employees had gathered that very morning and pledged reconstruction without pay.

“Then we drove down The Alameda, in those days generally confined to large stately residences of prominent citizens. It would be reported that 12 of these between Lenzen Avenue and Santa Clara were damaged beyond repair.

“With night approaching, Dad whipped up the tired horse and we were back on Stevens Creek Road. When we reached Doyle School we stopped to allow our canine passenger to dismount. However, he had no such intention. Still in the back seat with Mary, his head was in her lap, one eye open. So we drove on.

“Agnews Asylum was 18 years old. It held 1018 patients. The main building was four stories high. There were four towers and it was two blocks long. The construction was all brick with no metal reinforcement. Its cost had been a million dollars, an enormous sum in those days.

“The quake would leave 119 dead and 400 wounded. Doctor Stocking, head of Agnews escaped but Gustavus Braden, Superintendent, and head doctor E.A. Kelley were killed in the wreckage. The first shock toppled the towers; the second tumbled the interiors into the basement. The search for bodies would continue until April 20th.

“When we arrived there was some apparent confusion, but it was well controlled by sheriff’s deputies. The bodies of the dead or wounded had been laid out on the lawns for identification or attention. We saw Santa Clara Mission priests giving aid or in some cases last rites. The violently insane had been tied to trees until they could be transferred to the Stockton Asylum. There were no recorded escapes (but in a sense there was to be one.) Some of the less violent cases wandered the grounds closely watched. Fortunately, many did not realize their predicament. A couple greeted us warmly as visitors. One man stood on a tree stump and recited verses from the Bible. He had a little audience of inmates.

“There were other points of interest. One was the exposed upper story of business buildings. Those made of framework and brick. Downstairs the stores’ contents might lie in shambles in the street mixed with crushed plate glass, bricks even with the window displays. Ah, but the upstairs area served as a rental apartment of a cheap hotel. The beds had typically scooted across the room, covers thrown back, all pictures askew, chamber pot upset, all just as the terrified occupant had left it that morning.

“I marveled at the huge old City Hall. Tall, ornate, all brick and considered by many a monstrosity. But it withstood the quake except for some hidden cracks: in fact it would defiantly stand for the next 56 years. Close by, St. Joseph’s grand old church withstood the quake remarkably well, but the Post Office next to it, built of Almaden Quarry stone, lost its tower clock. Eastward along Santa Clara Street, severe destruction took place amongst churches and schools including the First Methodist, First Presbyterian, Unitarian, St. Patrick’s, Trinity Episcopal, San Jose High School and San Jose State Normal. The new annex to the Vendome Hotel was crushed flat, trapping twenty people and killing one man. One of the most tragic events was the collapse and fire in a large poorly built lodging house on Locust Street containing 59 people. Seven were unable to escape. Chinatown, with its usually flimsy construction and with many living in deep cellars, never had its dead counted. We saw native occupants still departing with belongings slung in loaded oriental baskets across them.

“All banks were to be closed this day and only a few stores were open for shopping, except for food. There would be no serious food shortage. In San Francisco bread sold for 80 cents a loaf. But C. Doerr, San Jose’s largest baker, refused to be a profiteer. He baked 10,000 loaves and sold them for five cents each.

“I supposed my desire was to contact my neighboring school friends and playmates, the Coykendall Brothers, and nine or ten Portuguese-American kids, the Whites, in their neighboring home. We could exchange reactions, arguments and childish forecasts.

“My mother’s thoughts took first place. They can be discussed frankly now but in those long-gone days they would be a very delicate subject. Her half sister “Mary” was an inmate of the Agnews State Hospital, commonly known or called Agnews Insane Asylum… Mary had occasional, unpredictable, often violent, melancholy “Spells” as they were termed. Today such symptoms would no doubt bear a complicated neurotic appellation. We shall settle for old-fashioned melancholia… [The family] had Mary quietly committed to Agnews. There Mary was comfortably settled in a group of cottages facing a broad lawn in the shadow near a tall building. Now this sudden earthquake (and Mary’s location near a tall building) gave Mom a serious concern. Agnews became the most important objective for Dad and me.

“Dad and I used the two-seated surrey instead of the buggy for this rescue mission. So armed with ample advice, and an equally ample lunch of thick bacon sandwiches and a quart of Gravenstein applesauce, we set off down Miller Avenue. In those days the avenue dead-ended at Stevens Creek Road opposite Bill Craft’s 100-acre hayfield. Bill was in his four-horse team, preparing to plow for his spring planting of grain.

“Stevens Creek road was strangely deserted that morning. People were staying at home, trying to return to normal. After all, brick chimneys were down everywhere. House furnishings were upset and people like us had lost their water supply. And the continuing aftershocks were strong reminders of what might happen again soon. We saw not one automobile, but despite the earthquake we did meet one of the Picchetti Brothers coming down from their mountain ranch in the upper Stevens Creek Canyon.

“We soon came to my one-room 26-pupil Doyle School. Naturally I was pleased to see it vacant on that Wednesday school day. Built in 1883, it had sturdily withstood the quake, and so had its boarded up tank house and Scott windmill. Whoa! It was not vacant! At least it was partly occupied. There on the high steps of the school was our school dog! He was a most friendly animal, one of strange habits. He had no owner but attended school regularly. When we stopped he ran to us shivering. He squeezed in between us. I looked at Dad. He spat his tobacco accurately over the dashboard and said nothing, clucked at the horse and we drove on. We had made our first rescue.

“Made a short detour in order to see the quake’s effect on the Winchester House. But later we would learn that one of its tallest spires crashed through Sarah Winchester’s bedroom. Rescued by servants, the terrified lady fled to her Northern Peninsula Mansion. There she had built a large barge on the bayside. She lived in it for a short time.

“All was not as serene as it looked as we finally approached O’Connor Hospital, then on Meridian Road and Race Street. It turned out that the patients were showered with plaster and the chapel had been destroyed, but no one was killed.