Through the Eyes of a 7 Year Old

by Mona Biehl
(Utah)

It was Good Friday, March 27, 1964.

At the time, I was known as Ramona Ore'. I would also be known as Mona Talley and Mona Helgesen.

I had gotten new Easter Shoes at Red Goose. Then Mother and I walked to a store and got some chocolate.

We walked home, about two or three blocks away. We lived on the second floor of a two-story apartment.

Later, Mother was reading a catalog, and I was watching Davy and Goliath on TV.

There was a pan was on the stove and Mother intended to cook dinner.

I remember in the show I was watching, Sally said to Davy, “Oh, I'm so scared.”

Then the ground started shaking.

I thought the earthquake would end, but it got bigger and bigger. On the TV, Sally and Davy stared at each other, and then the TV screen turned into a bunch of lines. Our TV set rolled toward us. Mother turned off the TV. But she was unable to stand up. Then she said, “Quick! Under the table.”

We began praying. “Oh, Heavenly Father, please stop this!”

It seemed endless.

There was a thundering noise. I could see the trees outside shaking. A picture on the wall slid back and forth. Things were falling. A knife fell off the table. The pan, on the stove, hit the table and fell to the floor. Mother's African Violets fell off the window sill, filling the living room with dirt.

The apartment was small and there wasn't much of a division between the living room and kitchen.

The shaking continued. Then it seemed to die down, only to pick up again, this happened several times. Then the shaking was over.

There was no electricity. It was dusk.

The apartment was a mess, but there was no damage. We went out in the hall to meet with other tenants. Our landlord opened up a vacant apartment and let us spend the night there so none of us would have to be alone.

There were three families in that apartment. No one had a radio, so we sometimes sat in the car so we could listen to the radio.

I was surprised to hear the Earthquake lasted 5 minutes. It seemed like an hour.

Through the night we had aftershocks, some were big.

The next day, Mother was going to take me to the 4th Avenue movie theatre to see “The Sword in the Stone”. But the theatre was closed.

Mother decided to go back to work at the hospital where she worked as much clean up needed to be done.

We stayed with a lady whose husband was in the hospital in Seattle. We stayed with her for a week.

Then we returned home and had our clean-up job. Not a lot of damage, but a lot of dirt on the floor from the African violets. We had a glass break but apart from a big mess, not much damage.

I was 7 years old. That was over 60 years ago. I can still feel the shaking, hear the thundering sounds from the earth and the sound of things falling.

And I still have the fear that I may have to endure all that again someday.

Yours Free

Great memories of the Anchorage you love

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