Memorial: Helene Critler

Tom Ferenz, a teacher at Farallone View Elementary, sent us a letter about his great aunt, a San Francisco Earthquake survivor who died recently:

My great Aunt Helene [Critler] was 104 when she died.  She was alive and remembered the great earthquake and fire and had the moxie to be able to talk about it. She was cool as a cucumber, even up to the last breath. I loved her dearly and will miss her. She opened up to me about her life in SF during and after the earthquake.

Tom pointed us to an excellent obituary on the Chronicle:

As it turned out, though, Mrs. Critler remembered clearly how the April 18 quake knocked the plaster off the walls of the South of Market flat where the family lived. Her father, Theodore Ferenz, an immigrant from Poland, thought the house was about to collapse—and that the fierce fires that ravaged the city would soon destroy the neighborhood and everything in it.