Complete Story of the San Francisco HorrorWhite, Trumbull
History
Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror
White, Trumbull
Disasters; Earthquakes; San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, Calif., 1906; Vesuvius (Italy) -- Eruption, 1906; Volcanoes
* * * * *
R. F. Lund of Canal Dover, O., was asleep in apartments when the shock
rent the city. "I awoke to find myself on the floor," said Mr. Lund.
"The building to me seemed to pitch to the right, then to the left,
and finally to straighten itself and sink. I had the sensation of
pitching down in an elevator shaft--that sudden, sickening wave that
sweeps over you and leaves you breathless.
"I got into my clothes and with some difficulty wrenched open the door
of my room. Screams of women were piercing the air. Together with a
dozen other men, inmates of the apartments, I assembled the women
guests and we finally got them into the streets. Few of them tarried
long enough to dress. We went back again and then returned with more
women.
"In one room particularly there was great commotion. It was occupied
by two women and they were in a state of hysterical terror because
they could not open their door and get out. The sudden settling of the
building had twisted the jambs.
"Finally I put my two hundred and thirty pounds of weight against the
panels and smashed them through. I helped them wrap themselves in
quilts and half led, half carried them to the street.
"While passing through a narrow street in the rear of the Emporium I
came upon a tragedy. A rough fellow, evidently a south of Market
street thug, was bending over the unconscious form of a woman. She was
clothed in a kimono and lay upon the sidewalk near the curb. His back
was toward me. He was trying to wrench a ring from her finger and he
held her right wrist in his left hand. A soldier suddenly approached.
He held a rifle thrust forward and his eyes were on the wretch.
"Involuntarily I stopped and involuntarily my hand went to my hip
pocket. I remember only this, that it seemed in that moment a good
thing to me to take a life. The soldier's rifle came to his shoulder.
There was a sharp report and I saw the smoke spurt from the muzzle.
The thug straightened up with a wrench, he shot his right arm above
his head and pitched forward across the body of the woman. He died
with her wrist in his grasp. It may sound murderous, but the feeling I
experienced was one of disappointment. I wanted to kill him myself.
"Along in the afternoon in my walking I came upon a great hulking
fellow in the act of wresting food from an old woman and a young girl
who evidently had joined their fortunes. No soldiers were about and I
had the satisfaction of laying him out with the butt of my pistol. He
went down in a heap. I did not stay to see whether or not he came to."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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