Strombotne / Specht

He was a schoolteacher, a carpenter, and a farmer. About 1899, Richard & Mary Coulter moved from northwestern Pennsylvania to San Jose, California, where their son Norman had settled in 1898. They owned peach and plum orchards at Morgan Hill. Mary died 15 May 1905. A year later, on 18 April 1906, the great earthquake struck the San Francisco area. Richard Coulter was home alone, ill and bedfast at age 70. With each jolt of the quake, his treasured grandfather clock--which he had hauled all the way from Pennsylvania--"walked" across the room toward him. He feared the tall, heavy clock would fall over on top of him; but luckily it smashed to the floor before it advanced that far. Richard survived the quake, but died several weeks later, on 7 May--51 weeks after his wife's death. Their ashes, plus those of their children Eva, Inez, Norman, & Millie rest in the magnificent San Francisco Columbarium.