Norma’s Mom in the 1934 New Year’s Flood – Part 1

Norma Quinn Potter has been such a treasure-trove of info. These past few weeks I’ve related her memories and last week some memories of Norma’s daughter. This week we’ll hear some of what Norma’s mother went through in the New Year’s Flood of 1934. Norma Quinn Potter’s mother, Leone Quinn, was interviewed in 1977 and I’ll print some of those memories here. As we head into a hot summer with not enough water, let’s look back on a time when the valley was literally drowning in water.

Norma’s mother Leone was an important volunteer with the American Legion. In fact, she was in charge of disaster relief for the entire LA area. As such, 1933 was a very busy year for her with the Long Beach earthquake and numerous wildfires.

As New Year’s Eve rolled around, she and her husband were scheduled to go to a New Year party in Glendale while her mother babysat young Norma and Jeanne. But during that day the rainfall increased and by that night she was detoured from the party to activate a relief center at Glendale’s American Legion Hall on Arden Avenue near Central. The American Legion Hall in La Crescenta had earlier been activated and had already been accepting families forced out of their homes by floodwater.

Leone and other volunteers began making coffee at the Glendale Legion Hall and assembling dry blankets. As the evening wore on the rainfall increased until it was a constant downpour and refugees began to come in.

Leone said, “The refugees [who] came to the Legion Hall in Glendale came from along the wash [Verdugo Wash], below the Glendale College, Ethel Street, right in the center of the pass [Verdugo Canyon]. It was a dirt wash. It ruined a lot of houses, but I don’t know if it took out any houses. People, refugees [who] came in, looked like they didn’t come from very high-class homes … the people with their dogs and their cats and their birds – all in their arms. They just had to clear out.”

This fits in with the legend that many of the victims of the flood were poor “Okies,” the homeless of that era who were camped by the Verdugo Stream and were not counted in the total casualties.

Meanwhile, Leone was getting worried about her own family up in La Crescenta. Phone contact had gotten spotty so she called her next-door neighbor Mabel.

“I phoned and asked Mabel how Mom and the girls were. She said that she had been over there and that she would watch out for them. We had phone communication at that time but pretty soon it went out. I don’t know what time that was. You don’t know when you are doing anything like that. You aren’t watching the clock. Everything was just a mess.

“I told her if it got any worse would she take Mom and the girls down to the Legion Hall [in La Crescenta], and she said yes, we were thinking about going.”

So as far as Leone knew her family had gone to the La Crescenta American Legion Hall. Leone continues:

“I don’t know how much longer, maybe an hour, when we got the word. Someone came and told me that they had just gotten the call that the Legion Hall up there had gone out, had been washed out, and I didn’t know that Mom and the kids weren’t in it. No way to find out. The phones were out. I sat down on the stairs, went down to the basement and sat down on the top stair and groaned and moaned. I had told Mabel to be sure and take them if things got any worse, to get out of there and go down to the Legion Hall because they would be safe there. I didn’t know if they had made it. And finally I decided I can’t do this, I can’t do this. Maybe they are all right. They’ve got to be all right. Maybe they didn’t go…”

We’ll find out what happened next week.