Sunday, March 16, 2014

The Flood

     Anyone who knew Mom and talked with her much new that eventually Mom would mention “the Flood.”  Even as recently as October the year that she died, when Dave  and I visited her at Chapman hospital, she was telling stories of the early days in Santa Ana and mentioned the flood. It has always been  hard for me to get a handle on just exactly where and when this flood took place other than it was when she was still a teenager living at home with her parents, so I knew it took place somewhere in the first decade after they moved to California. The main point of the story, though, was that in the flood, her family lost everything.
     Yesterday I was attending an event called Ancestry Day at the Philadelphia Convention Center.  As the conference was just about to wind up, the main speaker was telling an anecdote about her grandmother who claimed that she used to ride her horse in the river bed of the Los Angeles River, something that the speaker disbelieved because the Los Angeles River is now cement.  Upon researching, however, she found out that it was now cement because of the great flood of 1938 I Los Angeles.
     The mention of a huge flood in 1938 in Los Angeles immediately caught my attention.  I went home and tried to find out what  could about the flood.  By coincidence, I also discovered that one of the few public records that I have of my grandfather Victor Wilkins other than census data is a 1938 list of registered voters o f Orange County.  He is listed as living in the west Santa Ana district.
     At the time of the flood, Orange and Riverside counties were predominately agricultural area  inhabited mostly by farm families.  As a result, most of the news about the Los Angeles flood ignores them and focuses on Los Angeles.  What the accounts do say, though is that Orange County because it did not have an infrastructure like Los Angeles was much harder hit.  Beginning Feb. 27, 1938 nine inches of rain occurred in a period of twelve days.  The first deluge did a fair amount of damage, but the real jolt hit on March 3 when the banks of all of the rivers began to overflow flooding  everything.    Jefferson Ave., which is now Tustin Ave. and runs down the center of the city of Orange, basically became a funnel for water and took on the appearance of a river with four feet of water.   In Anaheim, alone, 19 people died and there are varying conflicts about the whole amount but they seems to range between 40 and 100.  Here is a link to a video of the little town of Olive, that is just about Orange.  http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/history/la-as-subject/how-orange-county-tamed-the-santa-ana-river.html
The Anaheim paper of the time, the Anaheim Colony, reported that the National Guard had to be sent in because of looting going on.  Over 200 Hispanic people lost their homes and one small Japanese settlement was completely wiped out. 
     Although, no one can know exactly what the experiences was like for Mom and her family, this gives at least some idea of  what the situation was like.  It is amazing to me that, unlike many stories that our memories magnify, this was no exaggeration on Mom’s part. I remember her telling how their chickens all drowned, but little else.  I’m interested to know if anyone else in the family remembers Mom’s account of her experiences.  I did find out that the newspaper of Santa Ana at the time was called the Santa Ana Daily Evening Registered (which in 1939 became The Santa Ana Register that I delivered) but the archives for that year are all in local libraries that I do not have access to.  If anyone in the family feel the urge to see what they can find in them, it could be something interesting to add to our family history.


5 comments:

Maya Northen Augelli said...

What an interesting coincidence. Did you manage to catch the speaker afterwards or anything to mention that your mother talked about the same flood? Might be worth contacting him/her.. never know what connection could become really helpful/interesting. Obviously, I don't remember the flood, and oddly enough, I don't even remember stories of it (I feel it's almost impossible not to remember one of grandma's stories). An interesting piece of history!

EMMLP said...

I actually did mention it to the speaker afterwards just to let her know, but she was mobbed because she does all educational work for ancestry.com. Since, the flood was in 1938, I don't think actually too many of us remember it.

Ed Northen said...

Hello Mike I also remember the often told stories of mom during the flood. One time while telling the story she said that they all had to climb up either onto the rook or into the attic until the water subsided. I am not certain who was all present but I imagine most of the family,, which would make a very crowded attic.

When I worked in one of the west minister fire station I remember seeing a giant plow which they said had been used to help turn over the soil after the big flood in 1938. I remember thinking then, this must have been the same flood mom always talked about. here is a link to an article about that plow. http://ochistorical.blogspot.com/2012/04/worlds-largest-plow.html.

From the viewpoint of a conservationist and fishing enthusiast. I have read stories where salmon and steelhead used to run up the Santa Ana Rive to spawn. Progress has changed all of that and the Santa Ana River is now essentially large concrete ditch. When I worked for the fire department and we had heavy rains or flooding it was inevitable that somewhere in the county we would have a swift water rescue. People would try to raft in the Santa Ana river or it would flood out a homeless person and they would get caught. Fortunately we did not have too many deaths but there were some.

EMMLP said...

Ed,
Now that you have mentioned it, I do seem to remember as well that Mom talked about the whole family having to climb up on the roof. Uncle Armond, who was born in 1937, would have been the youngest. I think Aunt Lucille was married by then and Mom's sister Elaine had died a couple years, so Mom would have been the oldest child in the house at that point. It still eight kids, though. It must have been quite an ordeal.

Melissa said...

Very interesting. Must have been a terrifying experience.