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A photo taken in 1940 of Hugh White, left, and his father Jesse White, now deceased, who drove the navigational beacon to the top of Mount Diablo during a snowstorm in 1928. The beacon is lit every Dec. 7, in memory of Pearl Harbor victims. (Photo courtesy of Hugh White)

MOUNT DIABLO -- Jesse White saw clouds forming on that winter day in 1928, but he couldn't have imagined the danger ahead while delivering his valuable truckload to the mountaintop.




The truck had a top speed of about 8 mph, said White's son, Hugh White, a San Pablo resident.

"As he started up the mountain, the storm hit with full force," said Hugh White, who years later heard the tale from his father. "He was hit full blast by the blinding rain and 50-mph gusts."




He declined.


"He told them his wife was having a difficult pregnancy and he had to go back to Richmond to be with her," Hugh White said.




"Jesse made it home without further incident, arriving at the Standard Oil corporation yard 11-and-a-half hours after his morning departure," Hugh White wrote in an email.


Two months after the trip, White's wife, Carol Estella White, delivered a month-overdue baby boy, Hugh White, who described his father's adventure in a series of emails and phone calls.






Beacon lighting
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