San Franciscans commemorate the Great Quake of 1906 -- and a dress

SAN FRANCISCO -- City officials and celebrants in period dress packed old-timey John’s Grill here Thursday to remember the great 1906 earthquake -- and gasped in wonder as a dress belonging to a society woman of the day was carefully unveiled.

The annual commemoration resumes before dawn Friday -- the anniversary of the temblor and fire -- when hundreds will likely gather on Market Street at Lotta’s Fountain, a re-creation of the original landmark that served as a bulletin board for the displaced.

Survivors have for decades served as the luncheon headliners at John’s Grill, immortalized in the novel “The Maltese Falcon” by regular Dashiell Hammett. But this year, the two known living survivors made it clear they preferred to stay home.

“He said, ‘Hell, no!’” Janette Barroca of San Francisco reported of her uncle, 108-year-old Bill Del Monte, whom she prodded Thursday morning (for the third time) to come with her to John’s.

Instead, attendees were treated to a peek at what organizers hope will become the event’s new emphasis now that survivors are all but gone: authentic garments that survived the devastation.

Kevin Jones, historian and curator for the Los Angeles-based Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, had evaluated the first such find last month.

Thursday, Jones donned white gloves and peeled back a veil of acid-free paper to reveal it: a cream-colored wool broadcloth coat and two-piece black silk taffeta dress, with shamrock-patterned netting and beadwork applique.

“These garments weren’t meant to survive,” Jones said, adding that in order to slow down the natural process of disintegration, the ensemble will never again be worn by a living being. That way, he said, “In 2106, people will be able to look back and commemorate San Francisco and San Franciscans.”

FIDM, which opened a San Francisco campus 39 years ago, has pledged to establish a gallery here by next year for the dress and other surviving garments that can be authenticated.

Wilkes Bashford, longtime San Francisco haberdasher to the wealthy, said the goal is to find two dozen such garments belonging to men, women and children of the day.

Bashford, who is assisting in the effort, called on San Francisco’s long-established families to look in their “attics and basements.”

Indeed, it was in a basement that Thursday’s starring ensemble sat for a quarter of a century.

It was donated in late 1988 to Ron Ross, president of the San Francisco History Assn., by Elizabeth Jacklin, then of Buffalo Grove, Ill. Jacklin now lives in Sarasota, Fla., and said in an earlier interview with The Times that the dress had belonged to her grandmother, Anna Liberty Jacklin.

Her grandfather, John Joseph Jacklin, was in the restaurant supply business and owned several San Francisco stores, selling glassware, dishes and -- later, records indicate -- dolls and meats.

According to family lore, Anna Liberty Jacklin had either worn the outfit or intended to wear it to a performance of “Carmen” by Enrico Caruso, who -- according to San Francisco lore -- was chased from his hotel by the earthquake and ran into the streets in his bedclothes.

In deference to that tale -- which Caruso disputed in his own account, insisting he was clothed -- Ross showed up at John’s Grill on Thursday in a nightshirt.

He had kept the dress rolled up in a suitcase until commemoration organizer Lee Houskeeper, elated, found out about it recently.

As Jones explained the destructive influence of gravity and human oils on aging taffeta, Ross quipped: “Now you tell me!”

Also attending was former Assembly speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who helped restore Lotta’s Fountain during his tenure at City Hall.

As Houskeeper joked that the fountain might one day be named after Brown, he retorted: “I prefer the bridge.” (The western span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was recently named for Brown, not without controversy.)

In closing, a costumed Emperor Norton -- a celebrated 19th century San Francisco figure who declared himself “Emperor of these United States” and “Protector of Mexico” -- issued a proclamation containing a gentle warning.

He declared “April 18, 2014 to be earthquake remembrance day throughout the realm” and ordered “all San Franciscans to prepare for the next great temblor, which is sure to come.”

Twitter @leeromney

lee.romney@latimes.com