The bitter fight between Abolitionists and Southern sympathizers was immediately reflected in the public schools. Defenders of the Union worked for a formal oath of allegiance to the National Government, as a preliminary to granting teachers' certificates; while the Confederates, incensed at what they deemed a violation of personal rights, assailed the institutions. The result was that attendance at the public schools gradually fell off until, in the winter of 1865-66, only about three hundred and fifty children of school age were being instructed by public teachers; another third of a thousand was in private schools, while some three hundred and sixty-nine were not on any roster. The gloom naturally caused by the outbreak of war was sometimes penetrated by the brightness of social life, and among the happier occasions of the winter of 1861 was the marriage, on December 23d, in the presence of a large circle of friends, of Tom D. Mott to Ascención, daughter of Don José Andrés and Doña Francisca Ábila Sepúlveda. The winter of 1861-62 recorded the greatest of all floods, especially in the North where, in December and January, something like thirty-five inches of rain was precipitated. In Los Angeles County the rivers soon rose and overflowed the lowlands; but the rise was gradual, causing the loss of but few or no lives and permitting the stock to reach the neighboring hills in safety. In Anaheim the water was four feet deep in the streets and people had to seek flight to the uplands or retreat to the roofs of their little houses. Vineyards were sometimes half-ruined with the layers of deep sand; banks of streams were lined for miles with driftwood; and ranchers saw many a clod of their farms carried off and deposited to enrich their neighbors, miles away. For a month it rained so steadily that the sun peeped out for scarcely an hour. I witnessed this inundation in Los Angeles, where much damage was done to business buildings, especially to Mellus's Row, and saw merchants in water up to their waists, trying to save their goods. The wall of the room occupied by Sam Meyer fell first, whereupon Hellman & Brother became intensely interested in the removal of their stock, while poor Sam, knee-deep in water, sadly contemplated his losses. Before the Hellmans had made much headway, they observed a tendency on the part of their walls to crumble, and their exit was neither graceful nor delayed. After that the store occupied by Meyer & Breslauer caved in, smashing show cases and shelves, and ruining a large amount of merchandise. The ludicrous picture of this rush for "safety first" is not a fit reflection of the feelings of those pioneers who saw the results of years of labor obliterated in a moment. Friends and neighbors lent assistance to the unfortunate, and helped to save what they could. After this flood, Hellman & Brother and Sam Meyer removed to the Arcadia Block, while Meyer & Breslauer secured accommodations north of the Plaza Church.