SHAKEN DAYS: Reflections on reading and memory

Place is important in all fiction, and especially so in historical fiction. I learned that in third grade when I first read Shaken Days by Marion Garthwaite (published by J. Messner, 1952). The book presents a story of a young girl’s experience of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. As I remembered it, the setting of the story is San Jose, at that time a heavily agricultural area and the actual epicenter of the famous earthquake.

Shaken Days caught my interest immediately when the main character, Megan, talks of the fields of mustard flowers in the orchard. My family had moved to San Jose the year before. For a short time, we lived in a small apartment across the street from an orchard, specifically, an orchard full of mustard flowers, beautiful waves of golden flowers, exactly as described in the book. Unfortunatelly, the orchard was private property and across a busy street, forbidden territory for me and my siblings. No matter how much we begged, we were not allowed to play there. 

When I read about Megan’s secret rooms in the midst of the mustard flowers, I could vicariously experience the tantalizing mustard flower wonderland. Even though the San Jose of 1962 was very different from the San Jose of 1906, I recognized Megan’s long ago world, and easily immersed myself in it. Garthwaite writes of “a green and yellow tunnel” (5) and a “green and gold room”(6). I identified with Megan and her world in many ways. LIke Megan, I had moved from a place I knew (San Bruno) to somewhere new and strange and quite different, although the move didn’t upset me as much as her move upset her. Even more telling was that Megan wanted to be a writer, a vocation I had recently discovered for myself. Reading Shaken Days took me to a time and place that was both familiar and fascinating. 

Except, I got it all wrong. I recently re-read the book, and discovered to my intense surprise that the story does not take place in San Jose at all. Megan’s mustard flower rooms are in San Leandro, and she moves to Oakland. Close, but not San Jose. Even the earthquake is not as much of the story as I remembered, occuring on page 144 of 204 pages.

It seems the book had such an impact on me, I transferred the story to the place I knew. Looking back at it, I see now why it struck a chord. Megan faces many restrictions as a girl in 1906. Her struggle gave me my first awareness of different rules and expectations for boys and girls.  In addition, her encounters with Charlie, a Chinese immigrant, and Mr. Davissohn, a Jewish rag-picker and talented musician, opened my eyes to a world of different people, each with his or her own perspective. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, Megan’s reactions to these people helped shape my own ideas of tolerance and understanding, and whetted my interest in other people and other times. Even though I got it wrong, , Shaken Days found a permanent and cherished  place in my memories.