Lloyd Ivie during the Great Kanto Earthquake

(actual transcription page 1-2)

(The Following Information was Provided by Provided by, D. Staples, Kansai Branch, Japan.)

EDITOR'S NOTE: (D. Staples)
Lloyd Ivie was the Mission President in Japan during the Great Kanto Earthquake. The following account was typed by his own hand and obtained from my mother. Lloyd Ivie was her uncle, my grandmother's brother. There is one page missing from the account.

When the Earth Begins to Tremble.

I am still unable, except with God, to find a reason why I took my wife and two-year old daughter, Ruth, from the western suburbs of Tokyo, where we then lived, to Sapporo for the balance of the summer. Nevertheless on July 4th we left from Shinjuku Station and arrived four days later after easy stages because-- Well!-- our second daughter, Janet, was born in the Hokkaido University Hospital on August 18th. Otherwise mother would have been in Saint Luke's, down in Tsukiji-- a subsequent center of the inferno.

As it happened however, on the evening of September 1, 1923 I was at her bedside talking to some visitors when Kumagai, a lady reporter and close friend, came over from the news building to tell us that there had been "a great earthquake in Tokyo- wires down- transmitters out - communications cut off. An air pilot had flown over and reported huge fires everywhere and a tidal wave covering downtown Yokohama.

Being in the teaching profession, we had fellow-teachers and a circle of friends in the area to consider. Besides, the responsibility of reporting to headquarters in America rested on me. I worried. Why don't they let me know? Is everyone wiped out? Much of that night was spent at the bulletin board. For a day - two days-- three-- I shuttled from news office to railway station to prefectural building seeking some way or other to make contact.
Nothing turned up. Finally, with "impossible" ringing in my ears from every direction this decision was made: Mr. Mauss would accompany me and we would go to Tokyo. The station master would not sell tickets so we huddled. They could not refuse Sendai; it was not in the stricken district. This maneuver enabled us to clip off 550 of the 750 miles during the next two days and nights, including steerage across the boisterous Tsugary Straight which left us both pale behind the gills.

At Sendai the woods had changed but the ghost remained the same. The station master wailed,- "Without an official pass I am helpless; you must see the mayor." The mayor protested,- "You are not citizen's of Sendai; try the governor." The governor washed his hands,- "I have no word about aliens; it is up to the station master." Finally after more argument and explanation, the SM relented enough to sell us tickets to Omiya - 24 miles short of Tokyo, while protesting it would not be his responsibility if the army stopped us.

Holley and Hicken joined us in Sendai. When the southbound pulled in at five in the afternoon four Americans were on the platform- the floor level of the passenger cars. I had seen packed trains before. This one was bulging! -aisles, windows, vestibules - many were seated on top of the coaches. Station attendants did not bother to clear the doors. Then I heard a redcap say that two empties would be added; but luck stopped us amidships, rendering either entrance utterly unreachable through the crowd. So we opened the window, gave each other a leg and a hand, and were seated inside before they could jostle down the aisles.