Move to California
Train Travel , the 1906 Earthquake, and Rainbow Farm
From Chapter 25 of Martha's autobiographical manuscript "Memories: Grave and Gay":
In 1906, Edith's doctor told her "you must give up and close work, to save your eyes; and also go to a warmer climate, spend not another winter in Chicago." They were worried about leaving a home that Martha had lived for thirty-eight years and Edith her entire life. They looked for warmer climate states and for an opportunity to get some land to grow fruits and vegetables near a market where they could sell the produce. They "both had always been fond of working in a garden." I think this is evident by the numerous gardening and farming related articles and recipes written by Edith. They initially decided on Tidewater, VA, but a friend who had traveled through California and Oregon provided a report of the attractions out west and also gave them literature on California. They eventually decided on some land near Santa Rosa in Sonoma County, near the Luther Burbank's Experiment Farm.
On 1 April 1906 Martha and Edith boarded an Illinois Central train for New Orleans. Since they had never visited the city before and they had friends there, they thought they would just "go the longest way round" as they would eventually reach their destination where they would "find life is real, life is earnest."
Occidental Hotel, San Francisco, 1875. Published advertisement, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
They traveled through Texas, Arizona deserts, passed close to the Salton Sea and "rode in sight of snow-capped Mt. San Jacinto. At last we began to see the lovely green of California and the brilliant orange of her poppies, the State Flower."
They stayed in Pasadena for five days and took "a balloon trip from Los Angeles, seeing Santa Monica, gathering moonstones at Redondo Beach, seeing Venice, and best of all, Hollywood, the home at that time of Paul de Longpré." Martha notes that his "house was lovely, somewhat Moorish in design. Three large rooms were filled with his paintings, and open to visitors."
They made their way to San Francisco, first staying at the Occidental Hotel, and then off to Santa Rosa. There they visited some friends, Mr. and Mrs. Turney (formerly of Chicago), at the Baptist parsonage and they were advised to stay at a boarding house a few doors down from the parsonage.
The next day, 18 April 1906 they were awakened at five o'clock in the morning by "the bed being violently shaken as if all its joints were loose."
This was the great 1906 Earthquake of San Francisco. The Occidental Hotel was damaged in the earthquake and the ensuing fire and had to eventually be dynamited. The night Edith and Martha stayed there was one of the last nights the Hotel would have had guests.
Martha's Account of the 1906 Earthquake
"The next morning, Wednesday, April 18th, we were awakened at five o'clock by the bed being violently shaken as if all its joints were loose. Daughter said, "Its an earthquake!" We had to cover our heads, the lime dust from the falling walls was so thick. The ceiling did not fall, apparently because the tremors were circling, as pictures on the walls had swung out and turned completely around, their faces to the wall. Our heavy bed had rolled about six inches from the wall, letting the plastering fall between it and the wall, so that none of it fell on us. There were several shocks, the last one taking the house from its foundation and letting it drop with a thud straight down.
As soon as it seemed quiet and the dust a little settled we arose and dressed. While doing so, the landlady's daughter pounded on our door and called, "Are you alive?" We then found the lock on the door had jammed so it could not be opened. Then her father came with an ax and opened it. So many buildings had been leveled that we could see across, the fires were starting in many places. So we packed our trunks, plaster and all, and went down the stairs, which were deeply covered with plaster, by hanging tight to the railing, and went out on the street. We found that the kitchen, which was an addition, had not fallen, and could be reached by a step-ladder; but our landlady had been thrown against a bedpost and had two broken ribs, and could not get us any breakfast. So we walked around and saw the frantic efforts of about fifty men trying to rescue the dying and the dead from the Occidental Hotel ruins, by pulling on ropes to raise the roof of the hotel so they could be reached. The dead, among others, a bride and bridegroom on their wedding trip, were taken to the rooms in the back of the Christian Church, opposite our boarding house, for a temporary morgue. The front entrance to the church, being made of large stones, had fallen into the street. The injured were taken to the High School buildings for a temporary hospital which seemed not to have suffered so much. All chimneys, of houses left standing, were down, and the Mayor issued orders for no fires to be built in stoves until the chimneys were repaired. Ladies piled up the fallen bricks to make fires in, so they could make coffee for the men working so frantically to save lives. Hearing I was a stranger from so far away, the ladies gave me a cup of coffee.
We walked past a yard where a boy about ten years old was lying dead, on the grass. We took a snapshot of the Court House, partly fallen down. We took only a few photos, for it was all so dreadful we could not.
We had stood in line at the Post Office Monday morning to ask for mail, and a young lady in the line, had a yellow Persian cat in her arms, which she said she had brought all the way from St. Louis. Later, one day we passed by a house where the lady was talking to a man by the fence who was hobbling with a cane. He said he had been injured in the collapse of the Hotel St. Rose. While listening to him a neighbor woman came in the yard with the Persian cat I had seen the young lady from St. Louis hold, and I said so. The woman said the cat had come to her house and she had cared for it. The man said he knew where the young lady was staying, who had been in the Hotel St. Rose collapse, but was not injured much, and he would tell her where to find it, as the woman gave her name and address. No doubt the young lady was glad to find her pet, glad that ships "pass in the night."
By afternoon on that Wednesday there was a continual procession of buggies, etc. going up and down the streets, loaded with people who came to town to see the effects of the earthquake, which had thrown down chimneys all over the county."
Finding a Farm - "Rainbow Farm"
"When we left Chicago, although intending to settle on a farm, if we did not find a place to suit us or if anything went wrong, Daughter had intended to seek a position as Librarian in some rich person's library in San Francisco, for which she was eminently fitted but the earthquake and great fire there had destroyed the libraries, so we had to go about the country with real-estate men, in search of a small farm. We found all were called ranches, from one or two acres up to fifty thousand. We went once toward Sebastopol, and just before crossing a creek where there was no bridge, the man happened to see a ring around the sun and was frightened, thinking it meant another earthquake. He wanted to turn back, but as we saw a couple of women were coming down to the creek on the other side, waited until they were near us, and he asked them about the ring around the sun. When they said they had often seen one, he felt better, and drove on, carefully going through the creek just where he had seen them drive.
Another man took us to see a place he had for sale. After showing us all around, inside and out, just as we were about to start, the lady said she had given the place to another man to sell. This made "our" man so angry he gave the horse such a blow that it jumped and we were almost thrown out on the ground.
Another man took us to see a mountain ranch, with buildings in a little cleared space, tall trees close around from which he said we could sell enough wood to more than pay for the place. As we were two women we did not want such a farm. Whenever there has been a forest fire, how glad we are not to have invested in that place, where fire would have wiped it and us out in a few minutes.
We found one real estate man in Sebastopol seated on a pile of bricks with revolver in hand guarding the safe in the ruins of his bank, who would not consider sales just then.
After viewing many places, we decided on one about four miles northwest of Santa Rosa, and later named it Rainbow Farm, because we saw so many rainbows across the valley, in front of our house. It had an almost new house of four rooms, with a wide back porch, one end of which had a little room opening into the kitchen, which we promptly planned to use for a bath room. There was a good-sized barn with a large loft in which we could store such furniture as the house would not contain. We moved into the house May 9th, having ordered a bath tub, sink, and cookstove brought out by a plumber from Santa Rosa that day, and also our furniture, which arrived at the ranch about half an hour before we did, we having to wait for the ten o'clock train. One load was unloaded and the wagon sent to the station at Fulton, nearly a mile, to meet us. I was somewhat dubious about getting up so high as the driver's seat, but the ascent was safely accomplished, and we were glad to be saved the walk.
Everyone said it did not rain here so late in the spring so we left many boxes on the front porch and in the back yard, for further time to unpack them. But one day a big rain came and we had to hurry and cover what we could not move to shelter.
Twenty-five or thirty years before, the place had been a part of a large cattle ranch, with a dug well about twenty-five feet deep which by that time was pretty well filled with rubbish and bones. There was a "drive" well on the back porch but the water was not good, nor much of it. So the agent advised us to have the old well cleaned out and a windmill and pump installed, which we did.
There was a chicken house, and we bought the flock of a family next door who were just leaving. There was then no fence on two sides of our holding, being on a corner, with neighbors on the south and west. Every night the rooster, which we called "Captain," led his flock to their old home, and after dark we would go after them. This continued until a fence was made on the south side. After our windmill was up we kept a trough full of water for our chickens. Our neighbor on the west had some horses, which found our chicken's drinking place, and we had to fill it often, till a fence was made on the west also.
Our farm had never been plowed, and had many wild flowers in bloom, and a dozen or so large old trees, valley (white) oak and black oak, scattered here and there, parklike, as it was in the whole of Sonoma Valley at first, and is yet in many places.
For instance, in Burbank Park, where the first unit of the junior college has just risen, just in time for the graduating class of 1931 to receive their diplomas there. We often think how beautiful the scene must have looked to the weary pioneers as they came to the top of the hills to the east and gazed into this valley, a very paradise.
We bought one hundred and fifty hens of a dealer, some of them roosters. When the dealer brought them, there seemed to be a preponderance of roosters. We sold eggs in Santa Rosa, set hens and raised chickens. Later we learned to buy baby chicks, thus getting them to laying size sooner.
I sent Mr. Burbank some tree seeds, given to me while having to wait in Charlottesville, Virginia, on the way to Washington in 1902, by residents who said the trees had been brought from France by Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Burbank was so pleased by the courtesy that he wrote me a letter and sent a dozen packets of choice flower seeds. Afterward I bought of him some of his Spineless Cactus, and one of his new cherry trees.
California was so proud of Luther Burbank that his birthday, March 7th, was made the State Arbor Day. Now, each recurring year that day is celebrated with exercises around his grave, which by his own wish is under the much-loved Cedar of Lebanon he planted in his garden and reared to be the lofty and lovely tree it is today. At Christmas time the tree is lighted with electric globes for a week. Scientists from all parts of the world visit this shrine, as they used to visit Mr. Burbank.
From year to year we have hired plowing and cultivating done and planted some small fruits, grapes, and flowers. Later we had the yet unoccupied ground all marked out for fruit trees, mostly prunes, and each hole-to-be, dynamited through the "hard pan" (rock) to let the surplus water from the rains filter through and drain away. In course of time the whole place was planted to peaches, apples and prunes. The peaches were soon large enough to bear so we had some fruit to sell. The apples were slower to come into bearing. The prune trees grew well and were greatly admired by the neighbors and all passer-by. Finally we had a good crop and they continued to bear well."