of writer in “Seeking 1906”
Katie Schermerhorn went on a quest to delve into the mind of writer Simon Winchester as he researched his 18th book, the hugely successful “A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906.”
By Joe Fasbinder / Special to The Malibu Times
So, how did a woman from Malibu wind up with a British author from Massachusetts in San Francisco and Alaska, working on a project centering on the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906?
Kate Schermerhorn says it all had to do with the ex-wife of author Simon Winchester, a woman who had befriended her former boyfriend.
“We met in Hong Kong in 1990,” Schermerhorn said, and the two instantly hit it off.
Schermerhorn is the producer, director and photographer for “Seeking 1906,” a documentary film that chronicles a year in the life of journalist, author, geologist and adventurer Simon Winchester as he researched his 18th book, the hugely successful “A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906,” which looks at the stories behind the nation’s greatest natural disaster (until Hurricane Katrina), as well as the modern-day science of earthquakes.
It was not the first time the two had worked together.
“I did another project with Simon, a photography book called `America’s Idea of a Good Time,’ which was about all the things Americans consider to be fun. When I found out he was coming to California for a project, he asked me if we could work together, and the film originally started off as a photography project.
“I had this idea about authors: When I read a book, I wonder about what went into making that book, and I thought a film about what Simon was thinking while he prepared for writing the book might be interesting. I wasn’t interested in earthquakes as much as I was interested in Simon’s project,” she said.
The film depicts Winchester traveling as far afield as Alaska in search of information on the San Andreas Fault, the meeting place of two giant sections of slowly moving earth that moved a little more than normally in the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, shattering buildings and lives, and starting spectacular fires that consumed most of the city of San Francisco.
The movie opens with Winchester saying, “I have never experienced an earthquake in my life,” something that Schermerhorn can’t honestly say about herself.
“I was in Venice for the Northridge Earthquake [on Jan. 17, 1994],” Schermerhorn said. “I was living in a second-floor apartment and when the shaking started, I just waited to fall through to my downstairs neighbor’s living room.”
Born in New York, Schermerhorn moved to Malibu when she was 10 and went to Malibu Park Jr. High School. After several years, and several moves, she wound up in San Francisco.
“I never thought I would wind up here heading up a documentary production company,” she said, adding that “Seeking 1906” was the first film for her Luna Park Productions company.
In Winchester’s search for information about earthquakes in general, and the 1906 disaster in particular, the author meets with geologists from the U.S. Geological Survey to learn about methods being used to map the movements of the deadly San Andreas Fault. It sounds dull, but it’s not. Winchester makes the narrative move with ease and grace.
He also encounters some eclectic characters. Among them are Gladys Hansen and her son, Richard, who have spent decades chronicling the true death toll from the 1906 earthquake. Officially, the tally stands at 478 lives lost, but the Hansens feel the true count is well into the thousands.
Also met is Ron Hengeller, an eccentric San Francisco historian and artist, whose house is filled with more than 1,000 restaurant-sized glass jars (from maraschino cherries and cocktail onions), which hold items he has found and collected, including many associated with the famous earthquake.
“Seeking 1906” is a co-production of Luna Park Productions and San Francisco-based Public Television station KQED. For PBS broadcast schedule and more information, visit KQED.org/seeking1906 or lunaparkproductions.org