1906 Earthquake

The early morning was bright and fair, after a warm night which helped the situation everywhere for the homeless ones. A few of the men who were on duty stood about on Lasuen St. The lawn in front of the Kappa house was reminiscent of "Iole"- about a dozen fair maids in a row on couches - tucked in snugly and each with an umbrella perched on the foot of the couch - facing the street. My heels clicked loudly on the pavement, arousing echos between the quiet houses, but still the rosy slumber held them all, and the kindly sun peeped over the hill, bade them good morning, and threw a beam of light true and fair on the Church - and oh the pity of it! No tapering red spire, but a truncated tower shorn of its encircling buttresses, and whose flanking transcepts shrank back in horror from what they saw within - A cruel rent in the roof of the nave marked the course of the chimes we used to listen for. The Sermon on the Mount a shattered mass on the Quad pavement revealing the Organ standing intact in its loft.

2317 W. 20th St.

Los Angeles Cal. 90018

Oct 15, 1967.

cy: Della Van Heyst

David S. Jacobson,

Sec'y to the University,

Stanford, Cal.

Dear "Alum":

Answering your call for help – "If you were there" – in the Alumni Almanac of Oct. 1967, there are two old sayings we should never forget! One is "You never can tell," and the other is "the "Bawl-Out" is always right."

Though I graduated in '07 – sixty years ago – yes, I was there and I am still here, and I have my copies of the "Bawl-Out" for 1905-06, and 1906-07. It is curious that years ago I solved a similar difficulty by referring to these little directories, so I decided to keep them, and my last copy of "Who's Who in the West" identifies you as a Stanford graduate (class of 1930).

At the time of the Quake I roomed with the late Fred Christy '06 in the NE corner room {caret: "(1st floor)"} at the south end of the Encina wing next to the Quad. Our door, and all but one window, were jammed but we jumped from that window and that is where we saw Walter Wentz hanging from the roof. I never knew who dragged him in but you say it was his room-mate. And so, according to the "Bawl-Out" I can tell you that Wentz, that year, roomed in 157 Encina, with R.D. Brook, of Seattle Spokane, who went {Latin letters: "Phi Kappa Psi"], graduated EE '09, and died Dec 7, 1918. If you wish to trace further it might be that the Phi Psi house could put you in touch with his family. Yours for Stanford.

Wendell W. Ward '07