Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:
It's Saturday Night again
-
Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!
Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:
1) Did extreme weather or a natural disaster ever affect you or your ancestor(s)? In what way(s)? How did you find this out? Describe one or more of the extreme weather experiences in your own life or in your ancestors’ lives.
Thank you to Marian B. Wood for this SNGF idea.
Here’s mine:
This was a tough assignment. I searched in my RootsMagic
database for someone who was in a hurricane, tornado, blizzard, or disaster,
and came up with nothing. Then I remembered an aunt was in San Francisco during
the 1906 earthquake.
I have several families who were living in San Francsico during the 1906 earthquake and fire. I don’t know much about their activities, only what was told to me.
My grandfather, William Cyril Hork’s sister, Ida Hork Colmann and her husband Martin J. Colmann, were living in San Francisco. He was listed in the 1905 directory as living at the Manhattan Hotel. He had a business with I Fiel, who were manufacturers of underwear. Their business was at 1429a Mission Street.[1] The Manhattan Hotel was located at the junction of Market, Fell, and Polk Streets.[2] Here is a map of the area where the hotel and factory were located and it clearly was in the affected area.[3]
The story that was passed down by Aunt Ida was they lived for a time at Golden Gate Park in tents. This map shows the areas in Golden Gate Park where the relief areas were, shown in yellow.
A year or so later, Ida and Martin were living in Oakland at 726 Fifty-third Street during the summer months.[4]
[1] Crocker-Langley,
San Francisco City Directory 1905 (H.S. Crocker Co, 1905), 478, Martin
J. Colmann; imaged, “U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2469/images/3314866
: accessed 8 Aug 2026).
[2] Crocker-Langley,
San Francisco City Directory 1905 (H.S. Crocker Co, 1905), p. 1194,
Manhattan Hotel; imaged, “U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2469/images/3315230
: accessed 8 Aug 2026).
[3] “Map
of San Francisco, California showing limits of burned area,” prepared by the
Chief Engineer, Pacific Division, U.S. Army, May 1906; imaged at New World
Cartographic (https://nwcartographic.com/products/antique-map-sanfranciscofire-harts-1906?variant=40292723728
: accessed 8 Aug 2026).
[4] “Society
by Lady Teazle,” San Francisco Chronicle, 4 Apr 1908, p. 23, col. 2.
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake had to be a really scary experience. Building codes were way different back then and the type of soil under SF added to the disaster. I experienced several EQs while we lived in CA, but thankfully nothing came close to SF.
ReplyDelete