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1928-1929: WP 19-17-01:6). Many victims were not recovered for days and weeks following

the failure as their bodies were buried under feet of silt or within dense piles of debris

(Dickie 1928:866; Hoffman 1998:8).

In the weeks following the flood survivors within communities of the flood zone

expressed their loss on individual and collective levels. Some submitted poems and other

forms of personal expression to local papers. One poignant example is from William Miller,

who wrote about the golden-haired daughter of his neighbor, Hezikiah Kelley, later published

in the Fillmore American on March 22, 1928:

Now Phyllis Comes No More

When Phyllis comes to visit me
My ecstasy untold;
For Phyllis’ eyes are bonnie blue
And Phyllis’ hair is gold.

When Phyllis comes to visit me
We sit upon the grass;
And as she sweetly lisps to me
The time doth swiftly pass.

Now Phyllis is as frank as fair,
I’ll pledge my word on that;
And often sweetly says to me:
“My, ain’t you awful fat?”

Yet Phyllis likes me passing well,
I’d ask of maid no more;
And I forgive her frankness, quite,
For Phyllis is but four.

Others rallied through their associations with community clubs and other civic organizations.

The Saugus Community Club of Saugus and Southwest Improvement Club of Santa Paula

both organized formal commemorative ceremonies and placed memorials following the

disaster and subsequently on anniversary dates.

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