Two Women Tell How They Were Affected at Galveston—One Arrived After the Catastrophe, While the Other Was in the Storm from Beginning to End.
Two Women Tell How They Were Affected at Galveston—One Arrived After the Catastrophe, While the Other Was in the Storm from Beginning to End.
A woman—a newspaper correspondent, and the first of the fair sex from the outside to gain admittance to the Sealed City of Galveston—wrote a description of what she saw and heard there. She arrived in Galveston on Friday, and although she was on a relief train carrying doctors, nurses and medical supplies, she had hard work to get past the file of soldiers at the wharf, but she at last succeeded.
Said she:
“The engineer who brought our train down from Houston spent the night before groping around in the wrecks on the beach looking for his wife and three children. He found them, dug a rude grave in the sand and set up a little board marked with his name.
“The man in front of me on the car had floated all Monday night with his wife and mother on a part of the roof of his little home. He told me that he kissed his wife good-by at midnight and told her that he could not hold on any longer; but he did hold on, dazed and half-conscious, until the day broke and showed him that he was alone on his piece of driftwood. He did not even know when the woman that he loved had died.
“Every man on the train—there were no women there—had lost some one that he loved in the terrible disaster, and was going across the bay to try and find some trace of his family.”
As the train neared Texas City, near Galveston, a greatflame leaped up, and she said to one of four men near her, “What a terrible fire! Some of the large buildings must be burning.”
She then went on to say:
“A man who was passing on the deck behind my chair heard me. He stopped, put his hand on the bulwark and turned down and looked into my face, his face like the face of a dead man; but he laughed.
“‘Buildings!’ he said. ‘Don’t you know what is burning over there? It is my wife and children—such little children! Why, the tallest was not as high as this’—he laid his hand on the bulwark—‘and the little one was just learning to talk.
“‘She called my name the other day, and now they are burning over there—they and the mother who bore them. She was such a little, tender, delicate thing, always so easily frightened, and now she’s out there all alone with the two babies, and they’re burning.’
“The man laughed again and began again to walk up and down the deck.
“‘That’s right,’ said the Marshal of the State of Texas, taking off his broad hat and letting the starlight shine on his strong face. ‘That’s right. We had to do it. We’ve burned over 1,000 people to-day, and to-morrow we shall burn as many more.
“‘Yesterday we stopped burying the bodies at sea; we had to give the men on the barges whisky to give them courage to do the work. They carried out hundreds of the dead at one time, men and women, negroes and white people, all piled up as high as the barge could stand it, and the men did not go out far enough to sea, and the bodies have begun drifting back again.’
“‘Look!’ said the man who was walking the deck, touching my shoulder with his shaking hand. ‘Look there!’
“Before I had time to think I had to look, and saw floating in the water the body of an old woman, whose hair was shining in the starlight, A little farther on we saw a group of strange driftwood.
“We looked closer and found it to be a mass of wooden slabs, with names and dates cut upon them, and floating on top of them were marble stones, two of them.
“The graveyard, which has held the sleeping citizens of Galveston for many, many years, was giving up its dead. We pulled up at a little wharf in the hush of the starlight; there were no lights anywhere in the city except a few scattered lamps shining from a few desolate, half-destroyed houses. We picked our way up the street. The ground was slimy with the debris of the sea.
“We climbed over wreckage and picked our way through heaps of rubbish. The terrible, sickening odor almost overcame us, and it was all that I could do to shut my teeth and get through the streets somehow. The soldiers were camping on the wharf front, lying stretched out on the wet sand, the hideous, hideous sand, stained and streaked in the starlight with dark and cruel blotches. They challenged us, but the marshal took us through under his protection. At every street corner there was a guard, and every guard wore a six-shooter strapped around his waist.
“I went toward the heart of the city. I do not know what the names of the streets were or where I was going. I simply picked my way through masses of slime and rubbish which scar the beautiful wide streets of the once beautiful city.
“They won’t bear looking at, those piles of rubbish. There are things there that gripe the heart to see—a baby’s shoe, for instance, a little red shoe, with a jaunty tasseled lace—a bit of a woman’s dress and letters.
“The stench from these piles of rubbish is almost overpowering. Down in the very heart of the city most of the dead bodies have been removed, but it will not do to walk far out. To-day I came upon a group of people in a by-street, a man and two women, colored. The man was big and muscular, one of the women was old and one was young.
“They were dipping in a heap of rubbish and when they heard my footsteps the man turned an evil, glowering face upon me and the young woman hid something in the folds of her dress. Human ghouls, these, prowling in search of prey.
“A moment later there was noise and excitement in the little narrow street, and I looked back and saw the negro running, with a crowd at his heels. The crowd caught him and would have killed him, but a policeman came up.
“They tied his hands and took him through the streets with a whooping rabble at his heels. It goes hard with a man in Galveston caught looting the dead in these days.
“A young man well known in the city shot and killed a negro who was cutting the ears from a living woman’s head to get her ear rings out. The negro lay in the streets like a dead dog, and not even the members of his own race would give him the tribute of a kindly look.
“The abomination of desolation reigns on every side. The big houses are dismantled, their roofs gone, windows broken, and the high water mark showing inconceivably high on the paint. The little houses are gone—either completely gone as if they were made of cards and a giant hand which was tired of playing with them had swept them all off the board and put them away, or they are lying in heaps of kindling wood covering no one knows what horrors beneath.
“The main streets of the city are pitiful. Here and there a shop of some sort is left standing. South Fifth street looks like an old man’s jaw, with one or two straggling teeth protruding. The merchants are taking their little stores of goods that have been left them and are spreading them out in the bright sunshine, trying to make some little husbanding of their small capital. The water rushed through the stores as it did through the houses, in an irresistible avalanche that carried all before it. The wonder is not that so little of Galveston is left standing, but that there is any of it at all.
“Every street corner has its story, in its history of misery and human agony bravely endured. The eye-witnesses of a hundred deaths have talked to me and told me their heart-rendering stories, and not one of them has told of a cowardly death.
“The women met their fate as did the men, bravely and for the most part with astonishing calmness. A woman told me that she and her husband went into the kitchen and climbed upon the kitchen table to get away from the waves, and that she knelt there and prayed.
“As she prayed, the storm came in and carried the whole house away, and her husband with it, and yesterday she went out to the place where her husband had been, and there was nothing there but a little hole in the ground.
“Her husband’s body was found twisted in the branches of a tree, half a mile from the place where she last saw him. She recognized him by a locket he had around his neck—the locket she gave him before they were married. It had her picture and a lock of the baby’s hair in it. The woman told me all this without a tear or a trace of emotion. No one cries here.
“They will stand and tell the most hideous stories, storiesthat would turn the blood in the veins of a human machine cold with horror, without the quiver of an eyelid. A man sat in the telegraph office and told me how he had lost two Jersey cows and some chickens.
“He went into minute particulars, told how his house was built and what it cost, and how it was strengthened and made firm against the weather. He told me how the storm had come and swept it all away, and how he had climbed over a mass of wabbling roofs and found a friend lying in the curve of a big roof, in the stoutest part of the tide, and how they two had grasped each other and what they said.
“He told me just how much his cows cost and why he was so fond of them, and how hard he had tried to save them, but I said: ‘You have saved yourself and your family; you ought not to complain.’
“The man stared at me with blank, unseeing eyes.
“‘Why, I did not save my family,’ he said. ‘They were all drowned. I thought you knew that; I don’t talk very much about it.’
“The hideous horror of the whole thing has benumbed every one who saw it.”
ILLINOIS GIRL HAS A TRYING TIME IN THE RUINED CITY.
Miss Alice Pixley, of Elgin, Ill., arrived at her home on Sunday, September 16, from Galveston, where she had a most trying time during the storm. She told her story in a wonderfully graphic way.
“I had been in Galveston for about six weeks, visiting Miss Lulu George, who lives on Thirty-fifth street between N and N ½ streets. It was not until after the noon hour of Monday that we were frightened. Buildings hadgone down as mere egg shells before that death-dealing wind.
“About 1:30 o’clock I told Miss George that we must make our way to another building about half a block away. The water had risen over five feet in two hours, and as I hurried to the front door the wind tore down my hair and I was blinded for a time.
“I turned my eyes to the west and for three long miles there was not a building standing, everything had been swept away. How we ever reached the two-story building a hundred yards away I do not know. We waded through the water and every few minutes we were carried off our feet and dashed against the floating debris.
“The building we were trying to reach was a store and the foundation kept out the water. We hurried to the cellar and stayed there for several hours. At last the wind-swept waves found an opening and broke through the foundation and we had a mad run to escape the rushing, swirling waters.
“We reached the first floor and I shrank into a corner, expecting every second to be carried out to my death. How it happened I can never tell, but this and one other building were the only ones left for blocks around.
“As it was several people were killed in the building we occupied and the other house that was left standing.
“After a time I felt faint from hunger and, while too weak from fright to seek food, I told Miss George that I would go into another room. I staggered along the floor until I reached a window, and fell, half fainting, through it. As I leaned there I witnessed sights that I pray God will never make another see.
“Whirling by me, bodies, more than I could dare count, were crushed and mangled between a jumble of timbers and debris. Men, women and children went by, sinking,floating, dashing on I know not where. I wanted to close my eyes, but I could not. I cried aloud and made an attempt to go to my friends, but I was exhausted and all I could do was to watch the terrible scenes.
“Babies, oh, such pretty little ones, too, were carried on and on, gowned in dainty clothing, their eyes open, staring in mute terror above. Thank Providence they were dead.
“I was partly blinded by tears, but I could still see through the mist. Little arms seemed to stretch toward me asking assistance and there I lay, half prostrated, too weak to lend assistance.
“How it all ended I know not. I must have fainted for I awakened with ‘We are saved, Alice,’ ringing in my ears.
“When I found we could get out of the city I declared I would go at all costs. I thought of home and my parents and I wanted to telegraph, just like thousands of others, that I was safe.
“It was days before we could get away, however, and then it was in a most terrible confusion. Eighty-eight persons crowded on a small boat and started for Houston.
“The day we left the militia was out in all its force. I could hear the sharp report of a rifle and the wail of some soul as he paid the penalty for his thieving operations.
“Later I saw the soldiers with their glistening rifles leveled at scores of men and saw them topple forward dead. Oh, they had to shoot those terrible beasts, for they were robbing the dead. They groveled in blood, it seemed.
“I saw with my own eyes the fingers of women cut off by regular demons in the search for jewels. The soldiers came and killed them and it was well.
HUMAN BODIES IN FIRE HEAP.
“As we made our way toward the boat that was to take us from the City of Death I saw great clouds of smoke rising in the air. Upon the top of flaming boards thousands of bodies were being reduced to ashes.
“It was best, for the odor that arose from the dead bodies was awful. Still it made one’s heart ache with a sorrow never to be equaled as one witnessed little children tossed into the midst of the hissing flames. Do you wonder I cry?
“Before me, no matter which way I turned, I could see dead bodies, their cold eyes gazing at me with staring intentness. I closed my eyes and stumbled forward, hoping I might escape for a moment the sight of dead bodies, but no; the moment I would open them again, right at my feet I would find the form of some poor creature.
FULLY 10,000 ARE DEAD.
“Coming to Chicago on the train I read the papers. They are mistaken, away wrong. They only say 5,000 dead. It will be more than 10,000.
“I know I am right; every one in Galveston talks of 12,000, 15,000 and 18,000 dead, but it will be 10,000 at the very least.
“I believe the worst sight I witnessed was the 2,800 bodies being carried out to sea and buried in the gulf. Huge barges were tied at the wharves and loaded with the unknown dead. As fast as one barge was filled it made its way out from the shore, and weighting the bodies, men cast them into the water.
“Oh, those eyes,” she cried, “that I might put themfrom my mind. I can see those little children, mere babies go floating by my place of refuge, dead, dead! God alone knows the suffering I went through. Thousands, yes thousands of poor souls were carried over the brink of death in the twinkling of an eye, and I saw it all.”
Twenty Thousand People Fed Every Day at a Cost of $40,000—Incidents at the Relief Stations—Applicants and Their Peculiarities—Great Mortality Among the Negroes.
Twenty Thousand People Fed Every Day at a Cost of $40,000—Incidents at the Relief Stations—Applicants and Their Peculiarities—Great Mortality Among the Negroes.
Twenty thousand people were fed and cared for daily in Galveston for many days with the supplies which poured in from all parts of the country. This number was cut at least one-half about October 1.
The estimated cost of the aid extended after the first week of suffering was $40,000 a day. The great bulk of the aid went to the 4,000 men at work cleaning up the wreckage, digging for bodies and cleaning the streets. Through them it went to their families. No able-bodied laboring man was allowed to escape the work, whether he needed aid or not, though most of them did. The business men in position to resume were allowed to attend to their stores, and their clerical forces were not interfered with.
On Tuesday, September 18, the debris-hunting and street-cleaning work was put upon a cash basis, the wages being $1.50. Time had been kept from the beginning, though the records were not complete. All were paid for the full time they worked. This applied to those who had to be made to work at the point of a bayonet as well as those who volunteered their services.
This aid was given in the form of orders for tools for mechanics, lumber for those who had homes they wished to repair, etc. Heretofore practically every able-bodied man had been made to work, and unless he worked he got no supplies. The first few days’ wages consisted entirely of rations, which were given according to the number and needs of the laborer’s family, regardless of theamount of work he accomplished. Since other supplies began coming in they had been added.
The work of distribution was conducted systematically and with an apparent minimum of imposition and fraud. There was a central committee, of which W. A. McVitie, a prominent business man, was chairman. Then there was a committee for each one of the twelve wards. As fast as goods or provisions arrived from the mainland they were placed in the central warehouse, from which the different ward chairmen requisitioned them, and they were taken to supply depots in the different wards. All day long there was a motley crowd around every one of these depots, negroes predominating at least two to one. Every applicant passed in review before the ward chairman.
“Ah want a dress foh ma sistah,” said a big negress.
“You’re ’Manda Jones, and you haven’t any sister living here,” replied the chairman.
“Foh de Lord, ah has; ah ain’t ’Mandy Jones at all; we done live on Avenue N before de storm, and we los’ everything.”
“Go out with this woman and find out if she has a sister who needs a dress,” ordered the chairman to a committeeman. In this way check was kept on all the applicants for aid.
At the Fifth ward distributing station clothing was given away the evening of the 17th. A negro woman, who had been refused a supply, went outside and by way of revenge pointed out different ones of her friends and neighbors whom she alleged were similarly unentitled.
“Dat woman done los’ nuthin’ at all,” she shrieked. “Ah did not los’ nuthin’ mahself and doan wan’ nuthin’.”
“What’s the trouble?” asked a bystander.
An old negress who was lined up waiting her turnreplied. “Oh, she’s mad ’cause de white folks won’t give her nuthin’.”
So far no woman had been required to work, but a strong feeling developed to compel negro women to work cleaning up the houses. There were plenty of people who were willing to hire them, but as long as free food and clothing could be secured it was hard to get colored women to go in and clean up the partially ruined homes.
“Our supply of foodstuffs is adequate,” said Chairman McVitie, “but just now we are a little short of clothing. We have no idea of the contents of the cars on the road to us. Frequently we don’t know anything is coming until the cars reach Texas City. With the money which has been coming in we have been augmenting our supplies by purchasing of local merchants in lines where there was a shortage. What do we need most? Money. If we have money we can order just what we need and probably get better value than the people who are buying it. Many people have made the mistake of sending money to Houston and Dallas and asking committees there to buy for us. They do not know just what we need, and if we had the money we could do better for ourselves. Money should be sent to us.”
One of the most remarkable things attending the Galveston disaster was the fortitude of the people. Their loss in relatives, friends and property had been so overwhelming that it seemed too much to be expressed with outward grief.
Two men who had not seen each other since the disaster met in the street.
“How many did you lose?” they asked by common impulse.
“I lost all my property, but my wife and I came through all right.”
“I was not so fortunate. My wife and my little boy were both drowned.”
There was an expression of sympathy from the other, but nothing approaching a tear from either.
“They are making good progress cleaning up,” remarked the one whose losses were heaviest, with a pleasant smile. The other one made a light answer and they passed on.
The people of Galveston had seen so much death that they were temporarily hardened to it. The announcement of the loss of another friend meant little to a man who had seen the dead bodies of his neighbors and towns-people hauled to the wharf by the drayload.
No services were attempted for the dead until nearly a month had passed. Neither were there memorial services.
The Rev. J. M. K. Kerwin, priest in charge of St. Mary’s Catholic cathedral, said: “It was impossible. Priest and layman had to join in the work of cleaning the city of dead bodies. I don’t expect there will be memorial services for a month.”
Father Kerwin’s church was among the few which was comparatively little damaged. He set the value of Catholic property destroyed in the city at $300,000. Included in this loss was the Ursula convent and academy, which was badly damaged. It covered four blocks between Twenty-fifth and Twenty-seventh streets and Avenues N and O. It was the finest in the South.
The city rapidly improved in its sanitary conditions. The smell from the ooze and mud with which most of the streets were filled was stronger ten days after the tragedy than that which came from the debris heaps containing undiscovered bodies. When these heaps were being burned and the wind carried the smoke over the citythe odor was very similar to that which afflicts Chicago at night when refuse is being burned at the stock yards, and no worse. Soon even the odor of the slime was gone. Every dumpcart in the city was at work.
Every Galveston business man talked confidently of the future of the city, though many of the clerks announced their intention of going away as soon as they can accumulate money enough.
“I am not afraid of another storm,” said a clerk in one of the principal stores. “But I’m sick and tired of the whole business.”
The Southwestern Telephone and Telegraph Company, which is a branch of the Erie system, early began to rebuild its telephone system there.
“This will take us three months, and in the meantime we will give no service save long-distance,” said D. McReynolds, superintendent of construction. “We will install a central emergency system the same as that in Chicago and put all wires under ground. We will employ 500 men if necessary to do the work in ninety days. The company’s losses in Texas are $300,000—$200,000 here, $60,000 at Houston and the rest at other points.”
Residents were greatly pleased at this announcement, as it showed the confidence of a foreign company in the future of Galveston.
FIFTEEN HUNDRED NEGROES PERISHED AT GALVESTON.
William Guest, a Pullman car porter, returned to Chicago from the storm-stricken district Monday, September 17. He said:
“I left Harrisburg night before last, and things then in the neighborhood were in a dreadful state. Galveston is about twenty miles distant, and the refugees were pouringin the direction of Houston in great numbers. Many well-to-do colored people have lost all they had. The Rev. W. H. Cain, a colored Episcopal minister, and his entire family were killed, and it was reported to me that Mrs. Cuney, the widow of Wright Cuney, was also lost, as well as a number of colored teachers employed in the public schools. At Houston relief committees have been organized.”
The Rev. Mr. Cain was well known in Chicago, having preached several times from the pulpit of the St. Thomas Episcopal church on Dearborn near Thirtieth street.
Cyrus Field Adams, publisher of the Appeal, Chicago, received a letter from Galveston from W. H. Noble, Jr., saying that about 1,500 Afro-Americans lost their lives in the storm, and that fully 10,000 were homeless.
Cooped up in a house that collapsed after being carried along by a deluge of water, John Elford, brother of A. B. Elford, No. 269 South Lincoln street, Chicago, his wife and little grandson, met death in the flood during the Galveston storm. Milton, son of John Elford, was in the building with the family at the time, and was the only one of the many occupants including fifteen women known to have escaped.
A. B. Elford, bookkeeper for A. M. Foster & Co., No. 120 Lake street, was dumfounded when he received the first information of the disaster, for he had no idea of his brother being in Texas. John Elford was a retired farmer and merchant of Langdon, N. D. He had taken his family on a trip to old and New Mexico.
On September 17 Mr. Elford received the following letter from Langdon, N. D.:
“We have just received a letter from Milton. Father, mother, Dwight and Milton went to Galveston from Mineral Springs, Tex., where they had previously beenstopping. They were so delighted with Galveston on reaching there that they sold their return tickets and decided to remain about two months. They were at first in a house near the beach, but moved farther away and to a larger and stronger house when the water began to rise.“All at once the water came down the street bringing houses and debris. They started to build a raft, but before it could be got together the house started to float. It had gone but a short distance when it went to pieces. Milton was struck with something and knocked out into the water. He came up, caught a timber and climbed to a roof, and thus managed to make his escape. He saw no one escape from the building as it collapsed. We do not believe the bodies have yet been recovered.“We have wired for more definite news regarding the bodies, but have heard nothing more.“EDGAR ELFORD.”
“We have just received a letter from Milton. Father, mother, Dwight and Milton went to Galveston from Mineral Springs, Tex., where they had previously beenstopping. They were so delighted with Galveston on reaching there that they sold their return tickets and decided to remain about two months. They were at first in a house near the beach, but moved farther away and to a larger and stronger house when the water began to rise.
“All at once the water came down the street bringing houses and debris. They started to build a raft, but before it could be got together the house started to float. It had gone but a short distance when it went to pieces. Milton was struck with something and knocked out into the water. He came up, caught a timber and climbed to a roof, and thus managed to make his escape. He saw no one escape from the building as it collapsed. We do not believe the bodies have yet been recovered.
“We have wired for more definite news regarding the bodies, but have heard nothing more.
“EDGAR ELFORD.”
Dwight Elford, one of the drowned, was only five years old. He was the son of George Elford of Langdon.
THE TAIL-END OF THE WEST INDIAN HURRICANE.
On September 18 a tropical cyclone was central near these islands. The storm set in Monday morning, September 17, and was raging with increased severity the next day. Heavy cyclone rollers were sweeping in upon the coast and a strong northeast gale was blowing.
All of the telegraph wires were blown down.
Southeast rollers began to wash the shores Sunday, but the barometer continued high. During the night, however, it commenced falling, showing 29.91 inches. At 7 o’clock in the morning the wind was rising. By noon it had reached gale force from the northeast and rainwas falling. The barometer then recorded 29.71 inches. The storm continued to increase during the afternoon, and at 4 o’clock the wind was blowing more than sixty miles an hour, carrying away the telegraph wires. Heavy seas were rushing in upon the coast. The barometer continued to fall, recording only 29.32 inches, but the wind veered to the north, although it was still blowing with some violence.
A correspondent at St. John’s, N. F., telegraphed as follows the same day:
“From all quarters of Newfoundland come reports of devastation wrought by the gale of last Wednesday and Thursday, the outcome of the Texas hurricane sweeping north. So far sixty-five schooners are reported ashore or foundered, over 100 more being damaged.
“Thirty-one lives have been reported lost so far. This small list of fatalities is due to the fact that most of the vessels have been in harbor latterly, as the fishing was poor. Several vessels are still missing, however, and it is feared the death roll may be enlarged. Labrador has suffered severely, fishing craft having been driven on the rocks by the shore, which fact, added to the bad fishing season, makes the condition of the coast folk pitiable in the extreme.
“In Belle Isle strait the whole of the fishing premises has been destroyed. On the French shore over fifty vessels have been battered, ten being a total loss. The steamer Francis has been wrecked at St. George’s. The bark Mary Hendry anthracite laden from New York is dismasted and derelict off St. Mary’s.
“On the Grand Banks the gale raged with the greatest fury.
“Twenty-four men from Provincetown fishing schooner Willie McKay were landed at Bay Bulls Monday morning,their ship having foundered from buffeting in the storm Wednesday,Thursdayand Friday. The men drifted about on the sinking hulk, without food, water or shelter, and only by incessant pumping kept her afloat.
“The seas were constantly sweeping the decks and the entire crew were lashed about the rigging or bulwarks. They were ultimately rescued by the schooner Talisman of Gloucester, which landed them. One man perished from the exposure. The crew say the storm must have done awful damage on the banks. It seems certain many vessels could not escape the disaster when theirs, the finest of the fleet, succumbed.”
CLARA BARTON’S VIEW OF THE SITUATION.
Miss Clara Barton, head of the Red Cross Society, wrote of the situation at Galveston on September 18:
“It would be difficult to exaggerate the awful scene that meets the visitors everywhere. The situation could not be exaggerated. Probably the loss of life will exceed any estimate that has been made.
“In those parts of the city where destruction was the greatest there still must be hundreds of bodies under the debris. At the end of the island first struck by the storm, and which was swept clean of every vestige of the splendid residences that covered it, the ruin is inclosed by a towering wall of debris, under which many bodies are buried. The removal of this has scarcely even begun.
“The story that will be told when this mountain of ruins is removed may multiply the horrors of the fearful situation. As usual in great calamities, the people are dazed and speak of their losses with an unnatural calmness that would astonish those who do not understand it.
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DESTRUCTION OF HOMES BY THE GALVESTON STORM
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GALVESTON SUFFERERS AFLOAT ALL NIGHT
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BODIES OF THE DEAD ALONG THE SHORE AFTER THE GALVESTON STORM
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A DESPERATE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE IN THE GALVESTON STORM
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A HERO SAVING HIS WIFE AND MOTHER IN THE STORM
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THE WATER FROM THE GULF DESTROYING GALVESTON
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GALVESTON NEW COURT HOUSE, BUILT 1899
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LOCOMOTIVE AND TRAIN DASHED INTO FRAGMENTS BY TEXAS STORM, GALVESTON
CHILDREN THAT WERE NOT HURT BY THE STORM
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BURNING THE BODIES OF GALVESTON VICTIMS
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JESUIT COLLEGE AND CHURCH, GALVESTON
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SHOOTING VANDALS AT WORK ON THE DEAD BODIES IN GALVESTON AFTER THE DISASTER
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EXODUS FROM GALVESTON
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A SURVIVOR’S DREAM OF THE AWFUL GALVESTON NIGHT
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HEROIC MEN TRYING TO SAVE WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN THE GALVESTON STORM
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SURVIVORS INSANE OVER THE LOSS OF HOMES AND DEAR ONES
“I do believe there is danger of an epidemic. But the nervous strain upon the people, as they come to realize their condition, may be nearly as fatal. They talk of friends that are gone with tearless eyes, making no allusion to the loss of property.
“A professional gentleman who called upon me this afternoon, a gentleman of splendid human sympathies and refinement, wore a soiled black flannel shirt, without a coat, and in apologizing for his appearance said in the most casual, light-hearted way: ‘Excuse my appearance; I have just come in from burying the dead.’
“But these people will break down under this strain, and the Red Cross is glad of the force of strong, competent workers which it has brought to their relief.
“Portions of the business part of the city escaped the greatest severity of the storm and are left partially intact. Thus it is possible to purchase here nearly all the supplies that may be wanting. Still, the Galveston merchants should be given the benefit of home demands.
“Mayor Jones has offered to the Red Cross as headquarters the best building at his disposal.
“Relief is coming as rapidly as the crippled transportation facilities will admit. No one need fear, after seeing the brave and manly way in which these people are helping themselves, that too much outside aid will be given.
“In reply to the question, ‘What is most needed?’ I would say: The most immediate needs are surgical dressings, the ordinary medical remedies, and delicacies for the sick.”
THEY READ THEIR OWN OBITUARIES.
Reported dead several times, their obituaries printed in Galveston and Houston papers, Peter Boss, wife and son, formerly of Chicago, were found on the afternoonof September 18, after having passed through a most thrilling experience.
Mr. and Mrs. Boss were the persons in search of whom Mrs. M. C. McDonald, No. 4501 Drexel boulevard, Chicago, went to Houston.
Mrs. Boss’ story of her experience in the disaster was a thrilling one. With her husband and son she was seated at supper in her home on Twelfth street when the storm broke. She seized a handkerchief containing $2,000 from a bureau, and, placing it in her bosom, went with her husband and son to the second story.
There they remained until the water reached them and they leaped into the darkness and the storm. They alighted on a wooden cistern upon which they rode the entire night, clinging with one hand to the top of the cistern. Several times Mrs. Boss lost her hold, and fell backward into the water only to be drawn up again by her son. Timbers crashed against their queer boat, people on all sides of them were crushed to death or drawn into the whirling waters, but with grim perseverance the Boss family held on and rode the night out.
Mrs. Boss was pushed off the cistern several times by her excited husband, but young Boss’ presence of mind always saved her. With her feet crushed and bleeding, her clothing torn from her body and nearly exhausted, the woman was finally taken from her perilous position several hours after the hurricane started.
Her companions were without clothing and were delirious. They were the only persons saved in the entire block in which they lived. They were taken to emergency hospitals, where they all tossed in delirium until Sunday. Mrs. Boss lost her money, and the family, wealthy a week before, was penniless. They had to appeal to the city authorities for aid, and got but little.
TERRIBLE SCENES WITNESSED AT HOUSTON.
The terrible scenes and happenings in Houston, Tex., the great amount of damage done and the intense suffering of the people there as a result of the recent storm were vividly portrayed in a letter from Walter Scott of that city to his sister in Chicago, received September 15.
“Much has been written about the damage done to Galveston,” Mr. Scott wrote, “and I suppose things there are so terrible that little thought is given to other places. But right here in this city the damage is so great that one would not believe even time could repair it. Furthermore, the suffering here is indeed the greatest I ever heard of. Thousands of refugees are here from Galveston and other places and the city is being taxed to the limit to find places for all of them.
“Wednesday morning the first contingent arrived. There were about eight hundred, and a more forlorn, dejected and suffering lot of people never were brought together. The sick were cared for in hospitals and private homes, and the greater number of the others were assigned to places. But they apparently could not quiet themselves unless so fatigued and weak from loss of sleep and want of food that they practically fell down exhausted.
“They roamed the streets with scarcely any clothing on them, men, women and children; all were hollow-eyed and sunken-cheeked and on the verge of despair. It is terrible to realize how many families have been broken up.
“I have listened to harrowing tales until I am actually sick. The newspaper reports have not been exaggerated one iota. There is really nothing one can say which will express the situation. When I arrived at home from NewOrleans at 10:30 o’clock Sunday night there wasn’t a light in the city. Everything was in total darkness. It had been reported on the train that 7,000 lives had been lost at Galveston, but this we believed to be a gross exaggeration.
“But I have changed my mind. I think now it is a conservative figure. I groped my way through the darkness, stumbling over piles of debris, to my boarding place, and after no little difficulty succeeded in reaching my room. Upon lighting a match I found the place denuded of everything; the paper was stripped from the ceiling and was hanging in shreds from the walls. It was damp and cold. My landlady, hearing me, soon came in, and standing there in the darkness she gave me a harrowing account of what they passed through, the details of which the newspapers already have described. All the other people in the house had gone elsewhere, and she, her husband and myself were alone in the house.
“That night I slept in a fairly dry bed in a tolerably dry room, but all the windows in the house had been blown out, and the building was so damp and cold that we were almost afraid to sleep there. Some of the rooms in the lower part of the building were still flooded. There wasn’t a room in the entire house that had not been damaged, and the servants’ house in the yard was almost completely wrecked. The ruins were toppled over and leaning against our next-door neighbor’s house.
“There is scarcely a structure in Houston which escaped the fury of the storm. With the exception of the First Presbyterian, every church lost its steeple, and all were damaged to some extent. The streets for two or three days and even longer afterward were filled with debris—telephone and telegraph poles and wires, hugepiles of bricks and timber, tin roofs and all kinds of miscellaneous things, such as furniture, trees, etc.
“At Seabrook, a little seaside resort near here, only two homes were left standing.”
Walter S. Keenan, general passenger agent of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad, arrived in Chicago September 17 from Galveston. He was in the general office, which is connected with the Union station at Galveston, during the great storm and escaped without injury. He said the accounts of the Galveston disaster were in no way exaggerated. The debris, in some of the streets, he declared, was thirty feet high. He went to his office in the station Saturday morning and was compelled to remain there until Sunday afternoon without a bite to eat.