Month: May 2010

EARTHQUAKE PTSD – OR NOT?

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Two months after the 1906 earthquake, Mrs. August Herbst was strolling in Oakland with her husband and 11-year-old daughter. She was distracted for a moment and the next thing she knew, her husband and child had vanished. Days passed, weeks passed, with no sign of them. She moved to Santa Rosa to live with friends. And finally, four months later, she decided it was time to report their disappearance to authorities.

Her daughter was found months later and had a remarkable tale to tell. She had been taken to Arizona where her father ordered her to say her name was Miller, not Herbst. She was told that her mother would be joining them “soon.” It sounds like a classic parental abduction except that dad began distancing himself from the girl, taking a job where he was seldom home. When she received a letter that he was now living in another state, she asked strangers for help. Mom was eventually located in Santa Rosa, and she was reunited with her daughter about seven months after the child had been spirited away.

Just as she had been remarkably patient waiting four months for her hubby to return with her daughter, she now was uncommonly generous excusing his behavior: “Mrs. Herbst believes that the earthquake and fire have affected her husband’s mind and that he is hardly responsible for the things that have transpired and the anguish he has caused her to suffer.”

Yes, there were undoubtedly many who suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the earthquake, and some even likely died later as a result – see the cases mentioned in casualty wrap-up for a few examples – and Mr. Herbst’s wandering ways certainly make him seem like a candidate. Still, there’s a “dog that didn’t bark in the night” mystery to this story; why did she wait so long to report her child missing, particularly if she feared that her husband had become unhinged?

WOMAN FEARS SHE WAS DESERTED.
Asks Police to Aid Her in Locating Husband and Little Daughter
MAN ACTED QUEERLY

OAKLAND, Oct. 23–Mrs. A. E. Herbst, whose home is in Santa Rosa, today sought the aid of the local police in locating her husband, August E. Herbst, and her 11-year-old daughter, Gladys Herbst, who have been missing for the last five months. Mrs. Herbst fears that she has been deserted by her husband, and that he has taken his daughter with him.

Shortly after the San Francisco fire Herbst, who until that time had resided in San Francisco, removed to this side of the bay, and up to the time of his disappearance resided with his family on Redwood road, in Fruitvale. On June 28, Herbst, with his wife and family, were walking on Broadway, and in some way the wife became separated from her husband and daughter. Since that time no trace of the missing father and daughter has been found. Some time after the disappearance of the husband Mrs. Herbst went to Santa Rosa to live with friends.

[…]

– San Francisco Call, October 24, 1906

GLADYS HERBERT IN SANTA ROSA
Mystery of Father is Deep as Ever

Gladys Herbst, the girl whose father took her away just after the April earthquake and fire, and whose mother has been almost heartbroken over the continued absence of the father and daughter, arrived at her home here on Monday morning. She is now safe with her mother and both are happy in being reunited.

The mystery concerning the disappearance of the father, and the causes which impelled him to desert his wife and take the daughter with him to Bisbee, Arizona, are not cleared up in any manner by the return of the daughter. The girl is between eleven and twelve years old and the father’s actions caused here to be frightened. He refused to talk to her concerning the matter and refused to permit her to talk to any one else. He forced her to tell people her name was Gladys Miller and compelled her to assume that name from the time they left San Francisco together. When the heartless father finally deserted the child in Bisbee, she was fearful of his wrath if she divulged her true name of Gladys Herbst.

The time since the separation from her mother has been as a hideous nightmare to the little girl. Living among strangers, seldom seeing her father, and being refused permission to talk, and fearful of his wrath, the days have seemed like years to the child.

When the mother and other members of the family came here according to arrangements, Herbst pretended he wanted to get Gladys a dress and some things. After separating from his wife, the father left Gladys at a residence in Oakland, where she was not acquainted. He went to San Francisco to straighten out some affairs pertaining to a lodge, and returned for the girl that evening. Together they crossed the bay to San Francisco and took the coast route toward Los Angeles. They went straight to Bisbee, where the father, unter the name of Gus Miller, secured a position superintending some timbering in the tunnel being driven by the owners of the spray mine. He seldom saw his daughter, because the mine was a couple of miles from Bisbee. He gave the girl to understand that they were soon going to her mother, and the child was happy in this thought.

When her father left her stranded in Bisbee, among strangers, the child’s plight was desperate. Letters were received from Herbst, or Miller, as he was known, saying he had gone to El Paso. Friends whom the girl had bade undertook to find her father for her, and finally she told them her name was Herbst, not Miller. Attorney Ross, an influential member of the legal fraternity at Bisbee, took the child to his own home and through his influence and kindness, assisted by the ladies of the Episcopal church in Bisbee, the mother’s whereabouts were found and the child returned.

En route to this city the protection of the Episcopal ladies was around the little girl. She came to Oakland with a couple of ladies of that denomination and remained in an Episcopal home until she started for Santa Rosa.

There were tears of joy as mother and daughter met in a long embrace Monday morning, and they will not be separated again soon.

Mrs. Herbst believes that the earthquake and fire have affected her husband’s mind and that he is hardly responsible for the things that have transpired and the anguish he has caused her to suffer.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 14, 1907

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A GLIMPSE OF SANTA ROSA’S UNDERWORLD

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

For a town with so many bordellos, early 20th c. Santa Rosa had little crime associated with prostitution – or so you’d assume by reading the old papers.

As discussed here earlier, there was a sizable redlight district centered around the intersection of First and D streets, with no fewer than eleven brothels on the 1904 map. But except for a small item in 1906 that revealed this neighborhood was commonly known as Santa Rosa’s “tenderloin,” the newspapers were silent about the roaring scene just two blocks from Courthouse Square.

This self-censorship eased in 1907 as the Santa Rosa Republican began publishing more items from the police blotter, although the paper still couldn’t bear admitting in print that there were prostitutes in town; the women were instead described euphemistically as vagrants, a “tenderloin habitue,” or a “member of the demi-monde.” Even the staid Press Democrat loosened up by reporting that police were ordered to crackdown on after-hour liquor sales at the whorehouses.

Would that the newspapers had offered more items about this underworld than doings at the Elks Club, or who won the cutlery at that month’s meeting of the Fork Club. It was a constantly shifting subculture where intentions and names were uncertain. May Ahren was alias May Raymond, and M. Rinse “set up a terrible wail” when May and another woman were arrested, the result being himself brought into court for “using language likely to provoke a quarrel.” And what of the lovelorn Joe Peck, who caused a scene one spring afternoon, claiming his cocotte was leaving on the afternoon train with a diamond? There’s a story there that deserved a full telling.

WOMEN MADE NIGHT HIDEOUS
Arrested and Charged With Vagrancy Saturday

Police Judge Bagley had a variety of sentences to pronounce Monday morning. May Ahren, alias May Raymond, and a Mrs. Chambers, who were arrested for vagrancy Saturday evening by Officer Skaggs, were fined ten dollars each. They were released on their own recognizance and promised to return Saturday with the amount of their fines.

M. Rinse, a companion of the women, was greatly incensed at the arrest of his consorts and set up a terrible wail. He was arrested on the charge of using language likely to provoke a quarrel and was released on fifteen dollars cash bail.

Ed Mc.Reynolds was sent to jail for ten days for becoming intoxicated. The man had been taken into custody some time previously, and given his liberty to raise money to pay a fine. He raised the coin, all right, but instead of handing it over to Police Judge Bagley, collected another jag, and was again taken into custody.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 28, 1907
A MAN ARRESTED FOR MOLESTING A WOMAN

A man giving the name of Joe Peck, believed to be fictitious, and who is said to be a resident of Fort Bragg, was arrested Wednesday afternoon by Officer C. Edward Skaggs. The man was taken from the afternoon train, where he was attempting to prevent a woman leaving town. The woman is a tenderloin habitue with whom the man had become enamored, and he swore that she should not leave him. When the woman arrived at the depot she found the man there and appealed to Officer Skaggs for protection, at the same time making charges against her tormentor. Peck claimed that the woman owed him money for a diamond ring but the woman denied this. Peck was released on ten dollars cash bail, and departed on the evening train for the north, taking the opposite direction to his inamorata.

– Santa Rosa Republican, March 7, 1907
HOUSES TO SELL NO MORE LIQUOR
Ordinance Will be Strictly Enforced and Will include Places at First and D Streets

In a day or two stringent orders will be issued to the Chief of Police to suppress the unlawful sale of liquors in the tenderloin district of First and D Streets. This has been determined by the Mayor and members of the City Council, and it will likewise do away with the arrest and fining of the proprietors of the houses concerned for disobeying the ordinance and selling liquors after saloons, who have to live up to the letter of the law have closed their business for the night.

There is a determination on the part of the City Council, expressed by themselves to have the ordinance in future enforced very strictly and there will be no evading any of its provisions in the future. For some time complaints have been made regarding the sale of liquors in the section mentioned. Mayor Overton was interviewed on Saturday morning and he confirmed the information mentioned above.

– Press Democrat, March 10, 1907
FINED FOR BATTERY

A woman of First street, who created a disturbance Wednesday night and was arrested and charged with battery, was fined $20 by Judge Bagley Thursday morning. He warned her that if there were any more complaining, that it would cost her $50, or fifty days.

– Santa Rosa Republican, April 11, 1907
FORFEITED TEN DOLLAR BAIL

Ruth Stanley, a member of the demi-monde, forfeited ten dollars bail in Police Judge Bagley’s court on Monday. She had been arrested for disturbing the peace. The woman had an altercation with another of her class.

– Santa Rosa Republican, June 4, 1907

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BICYCLISTS: FIX THE STREETS OR GIVE US THE SIDEWALKS

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Santa Rosa’s streets were in terrible shape in the years before the 1906 earthquake, and they didn’t improve afterward, as noted in the Press Democrat editorial below. There still were still “chuckholes” everywhere, and at least one famous crater that could sink a buggy up to its axle.

It was the many bicyclists in town that mainly suffered from the abysmal conditions of the streets, and a couple of years earlier, an advocate had published a bicyclist’s manifesto in the paper, declaring the “laboring man” at least had a right to ride on sidewalks to get to work. Unswayed, the police continued writing hefty $5.00 tickets to riders of the “silent wheel” caught on sidewalks.

Following a convention of the Retail Bicycle Dealers’ Association in Fresno where a “good roads” resolution was adopted, locals asked the City Council to construct “cinder paths or other suitable tracks” on the streets for cyclists. And if that can’t be done, at least let us legally ride on the sidewalks, they requested. Nothing came of it, of course; as the PD noted, “the petition was placed on file.”

HOW ABOUT OUR STREETS?

The weather has now cleared, and people expect to see some move made to put the city’s streets in order–not all dug up and entirely rebuilt, necessarily, but at least put in such shape that human life here will be reasonably safe. [illegible microfilm] with the plans then under way, and a hard winter followed, but the time has now come when something must be done. With very few exceptions, Santa Rosa’s streets are in a frightening condition. On almost every street in town dangerous “chuckholes” exist, and while there may perhaps have been some excuse for not filling them up while it was raining, the clouds have now rolled away–so far away, in fact, that people have begun to ask why the street-sprinkling wagons are not at work–and it is time to be up and doing. A few loads of crushed rock or gravel would in many instances make a street presentable, and in dozens of cases a few shovelfuls would make a crossing safe. But no shovel puts in an appearance, and the gravel and crushed rock refuses to budge. Our winter snooze is o’er. Spring “has come.” Wake up, everybody! Arise ye, and “get busy!”

– Press Democrat, March 31, 1907
CYCLISTS WANT CHANCE TO RIDE
Petition Presented to the City Council at the Meeting Held Here on Tuesday Night

Devotees of the silent steed who must not ride the sidewalks and desirous that cinder paths be constructed so that the streets can be used all the year round by cyclists, presented the following petition to the City Council last night.

“We, the undersigned, your petitioners, desire to call attention to the following facts:

“First, the bicycles are among the most used vehicles in this city, and that the aggregate number of miles traveled by riders of bicycles in good weather is probably greater on our streets than that covered by pedestrians, or by wagons and buggies. Most of our business and professional people depend to some extent on the bicycle for means of travel in the ordinary routine of their duties.

“Second, that for several months of the year most of our streets are impassable to a bicycle, and under the present law that means of conveyance cannot be used. This condition works a hardship upon many of our citizens.

“Therefore, we desire, request and petition that your honorable body make some provision by which bicycles can be ridden at all times upon the streets of Santa Rosa, and we respectfully ask your attention to the following suggestions:

“First, that cinder paths or other suitable tracks for bicycles be provided in the streets.

“Second, in the event that this is deemed too large an expense for the present time that some plan were enacted into law which will, with proper safeguards to life and limb, permit riding of bicycles upon the sidewalks.

Among the signers of the petition were…

…The Rev. L. A. Turney addressed the Council in support of the petition and suggested that possibly a small tax might be imposed and a number provided for each license so issued, and with proper regulations cyclists might be allowed to ride on sidewalks. The revenue might be applied to the construction of cinder paths, etc. The petition was placed on file.

– Press Democrat, January 16, 1907

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