The San Francisco Fire

A lot of you have heard about the 1906 Earthquake/fire in San Francisco. Now I get to tell you about the San Francisco fire that I know about.

Caroline and I worked in Dr. Bessemer’s medical office. We were both single parents so from time to time, we would pile our crews into a car and go somewhere. One time we took them to a mountain reservoir and went swimming. Another time we took them to the lake to play in the sand.

At work a lot of sales people came in as representatives of drug companies to tell the Doctor about their latest drug. One of these reps. was a man named Jack. Jack came in every other week. He lived in San Francisco and we were just another client for him. He started flirting with Caroline. To get to Caroline, he had to talk past me. Caroline was the medical transcriber. She didn’t have access to the people coming and going. When I would see Jack coming, I would suggest that perhaps Caroline could go to the storeroom and bring back something for the office. This took her out of the front area and they could talk in the back.

Jack had asked Caroline to come to San Francisco for a weekend. He did this every time that he came through. She didn’t want to go by herself so she kept trying to talk me into going with her. Finally I told her that maybe we could.

Caroline had two boys and I have two boys and a daughter. My idea was that we could take the kids with us (Neither of us had anyone to leave them with) and get a motel room where my daughter could baby sit.

It was agreed, so we took off one Saturday morning. When we got to San Francisco, we found an old motel that had two rooms together. One had a very large bed in it and the other had twin beds. Between the rooms was a set of French doors. The room with the twin beds was the only one with an outside door. We were on the second floor so it was perfect.

We went to Jack’s house. He was renting a little cottage-type house in an older section of town with a friend of his. (I know, we think all San Francisco houses are attached to each other but they aren’t.) There was a very small fenced in front yard and a porch. The living room was really tiny. OK so all the rooms were tiny. It was a tiny house. When we arrived, I think we overwhelmed Jack. He suggested that we feed the kids first and then the adults could eat in the tiny dining room and relax. He had made spaghetti and the kids loved this.

When they were done eating, we sent them into the living room. One wall of the living room was an entertainment center. Across the room was a sofa with large pillows sitting against the back. There was another chair in the room but with 5 children, the room was even tinier.

Jack wanted to take Caroline to a couple of Irish pubs that he knew about so he followed us to the motel. My teenage daughter was going to keep an eye on everything and I told her that I would call her every hour to make sure everything was OK.

We went to the first place that Jack wanted to “show off” Caroline. I had the feeling that he went there often.

After an hour went by, I went to the phone and called my daughter. She told me that the boys were in the large bedroom jumping on the bed and having fun. She told them that they had to watch the TV in that room because the one in the twin bed room was her’s. It sounded like everything was fine.

Caroline was having a great time so I just enjoyed the ride. After all this is why we came. I knew before I came that I was the chaperon.

I called my daughter an hour later and she told me that Caroline’s boys were in bed and that she was getting our boys into their sleeping bags. We had agreed that Caroline would have the big bed with her boys and my family would sleep in the twin bed room. The boys on the floor, with my daughter in the twin bed by the wall. I would have the bed by the door.

It was probably midnight when we called it a night and Jack took us back to the motel. I went in so they could have some private time. I got ready for bed and was climbing in when Caroline came up. She seemed pleased with the evening. I was glad that we had done this, as Caroline is usually very shy.

About an hour or so later there was a knock on our door. I put my bathrobe on and went to the door. There was Jack or someone that looked like Jack. He was white as a sheet and said, “I have to talk to Caroline.” My first thought was “What a line.” I told Jack that she was sleeping and he should come back tomorrow. In a zombie-like voice, he said, “My house burned down.” I wasn’t sure that I heard it so I asked him again what he had said. He said it again, “ My house burned down.” I took him by the shoulders and walked him into the room. I turned him around and sat him on the edge of my bed. Then I went to get Caroline.

I told Caroline to get up, that Jack was out in my room and she told me that she was trying to sleep. I told her that she had to come, it was an emergency. We both work in a medical clinic so we know about that word. She climbed over her boys and came out.

She talked to him and asked what happened. He said that when he got home, there were no lights on anywhere. So he went to the steps of the porch and started up them but they crunched. He bent down to see what was crunching. He found all sorts of pieces of wood but couldn’t see anything so he used his hands to find the steps and there were only a couple of them. The rest were gone.

What was upsetting him the most was that he didn’t know where his roommate was? He had gone to a few of their friend’s houses but didn’t know if Brian was hurt or not. Jack was in shock.

I pulled the covers back on my twin bed and we helped him lie down. He kept saying that he had to find Brian. We told him that he could do that in the morning. Caroline kept talking to him until she thought he had fallen asleep. I climbed in the other twin bed with my daughter.

Jack was up very early, I am not sure that he really did sleep. He said that he had to go and still in this semi-panic, he left. After he left, I told Caroline that we had to feed the kids first and then we could go over to the house.

The house was totally destroyed. I walked up to the front of it and I could tell where the major fire had been. In this tiny living room was a floor furnace. The wall behind and around that area was missing studs. The rest of the house had lost the sheet rock and you could see through all the walls but the studs were still there. The kitchen was like the dining room and all the studs were bare but standing in every place but that one part of the living room.

It hit me like a brick. The kids were in the living room before we left to go back to the motel. The living room was tiny for 5 children so they had taken some of the large pillows and were sitting on them. When we left to go to the motel, no one checked on the pillows that were probably still sitting on the floor furnace. Jack wouldn’t have checked that because he didn’t have children. We started a San Francisco Fire.

We left for home soon after because we knew that Jack wasn’t coming back. We found out later that Brian was OK. Jack left the area and his job. The next time Caroline heard from him, he was in Mexico.

Sometimes it is the little things that change people’s lives forever.