My maternal grandmother, Mary Ellen Mylon Corey, lived in San Francisco at the time with her parents (my great-grandparents), Thomas J. Mylon and Rose Ann Conlon Mylon, and her siblings. They lost everything but escaped with their lives.
One year later, this was published in the Coast Seamen’s Journal:
San Francisco’s First Birthday
“The city that is now San Francisco is one year old to-day. There was a city of San Francisco a year and a day ago; an old city, as time runs in this new land; the embodiment of fifty years of stirring Western life; a fair city, a rich city, a gay city; set at the gate where the Farthest West meets the Farthest East, and sharing many of the characteristics of both; a loved city, whose generous faults are remembered with no less affection than its virtues. That city is gone, never to return. Its place is in history, and in the memories and affections of men. One year ago the world woke up to learn that that city had been destroyed. To-day, the people of a new city already founded on its ruins, meet to celebrate their first anniversary.”
Photo: San Francisco City Hall After the Earthquake [public domain]
