Interviewee: James Leach (JL) Interviewer: Carla Ehat (CE) Date of Interview: July 27, 1978 For a full transcript of this interview, please click here. In the first excerpt, James recalls how he fled his family’s home on Dolores Street for a camp in Marin County. In the second excerpt, James describes saving a Swedish church from burning. Audio Clip from the Interview: Transcript 1 (2 minutes 5 seconds) Audio Clip from the Interview: Transcript 2 (1 minutes 13 seconds)

Transcript of Audio Clips

Transcript 1

JL: Well, at nighttime, after dark, I didn't know where to go or what to do, so I said, “I'm going home,” and home was a camp in Marin County. And I had to get all through all the devastated district of San Francisco still burning, lots of it. And so, I laid three sheets on the ground and I put everything I could, that I thought I could carry, and I really had a load. I zigzagged across over to Van Ness Avenue and then down Golden Gate Avenue -- there was a way -- and I got to where the Irish Bank -- and it was dark. And as I came around the turn, you know the army was in there to --

CE: Martial law.

JL: Yes. And I had a gun right into my face, but I told them what it was, and they believed me.

CE: Told them you didn't loot anything.

JL: They didn't open the bundle.

CE: They were looking out for looters.

JL: But the big points in my life, I guess, were from there to the ferry. To go through all of that burnt section -- it was still burning, lots of it, and these large beams, steel beams, that hung out into the air. It was light enough because there was plenty of fire going on, but I had to zigzag from there to the ferry, and I went from Market to Mission to Howard to Folsom and then back again, you see, then down then back again and I zigzagged with this big load until I got to the ferry. And I never saw one person in all that trip.

Transcript 2

CE: Where was the family living at the time of the fire and earthquake, Jim?

JL: On Dolores Street, near the Mission Dolores Church.

CE: Big, wide, lovely.

JL: Wide street, and that's the one street, of course, that saved the west side of San Francisco, and I was one of the young squirts that saved a little Swedish Church on the corner of 16th and Dolores.

CE: What happened?

JL: We got up in the belfry. It was only a two-story building, and we pulled water up in these large cans that we found at the well in the back of the church.

CE: I was wondering where you got the water, because the city couldn't get the water.

JL: Yes. I was up there in the belfry and they were at the bottom and I pulled this water up and the building was shingled, and dry shingles, and wherever the fire blaze would come -- why, I'd put it out. But that street, I think, was 150 feet wide, same as Van Ness Avenue. Both of those streets were the things that stopped the fire from where it was stopped.


CONTACT: Laurie Thompson at ljthompson@co.marin.ca.us
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