Stories told by Doris Harvey Ominski
On March 10, 1933 one of California's most famous earthquakes, the Long Beach quake occurred. One hundred and twenty persons were reported killed. The main shock, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale, occurred just before 6:00 P.M.
When the earthquake struck, Daddy was in his automotive shop working (in Alhambra where we had been living for several months). He could see all the buildings swaying and knew what was causing it. He did not like earthquakes at all. Mama was with her brother and his girlfriend, Olive. They were driving nearby and then the car suddenly started spinning around in the middle of the street. Lorraine was at home in the front room sitting on the couch with her boyfriend who was a sailor. They were both thrown off onto the floor. Rollie and I were playing at a local park. He was either on the swing or climbing on the monkey bars while I was standing by a cyclone fence when it started rattling very loudly. Rollie climbed down and I had to hold on to the fence to keep my balance. We quickly went home wondering if this was indeed an earthquake. Shortly after that our folks came home.
The house we lived in was a large two story, with all the bedrooms upstairs (this was on Electric Street). We tried to go to sleep in our own beds, but too many frequent aftershocks finally drove us downstairs to sleep on the floor. Shortly after that, we moved up to Gull Lake (by June Lake in the Sierras close to the Nevada border).

Summer at Gull Lake
We camped here because Grandma Harvey (Daddy's mother) worked at Boulder Lodge as a cook and housekeeper, so she lived at the lodge. His brothers, Charles and John worked at the CCC camp stationed here. Daddy, Mama, and we three kids (Lorraine 13, Rollie 9, and myself 11) slept in a tent several hundred yards from the lake. We often visited nearby June Lake where Daddy was a fishing guide. On an outlet of Gull Lake, where "No Fishing " signs were posted, Daddy hired Rollie and I to net fish for which he paid us $.10 for a dozen fish (which he then sold to the lodge for $5.00). We caught these fish by working together; one of us would hold a net in the narrow little stream while the other one shook the bushes upstream to frighten the fish into the waiting net. We had to keep a watchful eye out for cars, trucks, and especially rangers or the CCC. Also during this time, Rollie and I would climb the side of the mountain (Sierra Nevadas) which was close to our tent. Mama, who was expecting in the fall (Dick would be born October 10), was always busy washing clothes, doing dishes, cooking, etc. Our dog, a whippet, stole a ham off a nearby camper's table. Daddy gave the dog away. Our cat, who came from Alhambra in the car with us, eventually became so wild that we could hardly catch it.
Daddy's car was dark and square, possibly a 1926 or 1927 model. The closest store around the campground was small. We were, however, able to spend our earnings on penny candy, since they had a wide selection of this. But no fresh milk was available. We had to buy canned evaporated milk. I can still remember how awful it tasted. While camping that summer, Daddy would take us all to visit ghost towns around the California-Nevada border. One was Bodie, another was a smaller one called Aurora. They were just a few miles apart. (Bodie was to become a state park many years later.) Not far from the ghost towns was Mono Lake, a mineral lake with nothing alive in it. I remember trips there were always during very hot weather. It was a very barren area; almost no shubbery grew there at all. When we went wading in this lake, we always came out with white feet and legs due to the alkali.
While starting to move to Oregon, but still at the June Lake area, Daddy stopped our packed car by the side of the road. He got out and picked up what turned out to be a $20 bill that he had spotted along the road. When we got to Oregon, a large forest fire was raging in the Tillamook area. Mama was afraid that Daddy would be recruited to fight the fire. This had been frequently done when not enough firefighters were available, but they were not stopped.