INDIVIDUAL STORIES

Mr. & Mrs. Peter BOSS, formerly of Chicago, IL, were seated at supper with their son when the storm broke.  Mrs. Boss seized a handkerchief containing $2000 from a bureau, and accompanied her husband and son to the second story.  When the water reached them, they leaped into the darkness and landed on a wooden cistern upon which they road the entire night.  Several times Mrs. Boss lost her hold and fell back into the water, only to be drawn up again by her son.  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 from the entire block.

William BLAIR, a member of the Screwmen's Association and a resident of Galveston, had been caught in Houston when the storm arrived.  With a party of twelve, he took what he said was to be the first boat that carried news from the mainland, on Sunday morning.  The trip was both harrowing and heroic.

The BODDINKER boys, with the aid of a hunting skiff, rescued over forty people and took them to the University building, where they found shelter from the wind and waves.  The little skiff was pushed by hand, the boys not being able to use oars or sticks in propelling it, and is to be set aside in the University as a relic of the flood.

Capt. Charles CLARK, a resident on the East End, sustained little damage to his house.  He suffered but the loss of a few slat shingles, while other houses were torn from their foundations.

Dr. I. M. CLINE, the chief of the weather bureau at Galveston, lived on the south side of Avenue Q, between Twenty-Fifth and Twenty-Sixth streets, in a strongly built frame house.  It stood until all houses around it had gone down, and at last it had to give under pressure of the wind and waves and other houses that were thrown against it, and with it, about forty people went down, two-thirds of whom were drowned, among the number his wife.  Also with him in the house were his 6 year old girl, Esther.  On the roof, Dr. Cline felt something strike his hand.  He grabbed the object and it proved to be one foot of his baby that had been knocked from his grasp.

Joe CLINE, brother of Dr. I. M. Cline, and also a member of the weather bureau, assisted the Cline family members.  Standing on his brother's front porch, Joe Cline motioned to the neighbors on the opposite side of the street to go north, meaning to get out, for no voice could be heard across the street in the teeth of that terrible northeaster.
 
S. W. CLINTON was an engineer of the fertilizing plant a the Galveston stock yards.  Mr. Clinton's family consisted of his wife and six children.  When his house was washed away he managed to get two of his little boys safely to a raft, and with them he drifted helplessly abut.  His raft collided with wreckage of every description and was split in two, and he was forced to witness the drowning of his sons, being unable to help them in any way.

Mr. CRANE, chief rate clerk to the general freight agent of the road, spent the entire night with his wife on the roof of his residence.  His wife had been confined about six weeks ago, and in addition had an abscess on her leg, which bent it nearly double.  They were saved.  He was a mass of bruises, and his heel was crushed.

The Rev. and Mrs. L. P. DAVIS , of Paton Beach, and their five children reached Houston penniless and nearly naked, but overcome with amazement and joy and their miraculous delivery from what seemed to them certain death.  Wind and water wrecked their home, annihilated their neighbors and destroyed every particle of food for miles around, yet they passed through the terrible days and nights raising their voices above the shriek of the wind in singing hymns and in prayer.

Ben DEW, an attaché of the Southern Pacific, arrived at Houston on a relief train from Galveston.  Dew had been at Virginia Point for several hours, and said that he saw 100 to 150 dead bodies floating out on the beach at that place.

C. H. FEWELL, night yardmaster of the Santa Fe Railway Company at Galveston wrote, "The loss of life will never be known;  it will run into thousands.... I got up about 4 o'clock Saturday.  It was then raining and blowing hard. I left the house and started for the Tremont hotel and came near not making it.  We stayed there all night.  For four hours I thought every minute that the building would certainly go with the many that were going to pieces around it.

Jack FROST on early Sunday morning walked into the Tremont Hotel, nearly naked and broken and bruised form head to foot.  He fainted and was carried to a room and a doctor sent for.  The doctors said that the bones of his right hand were broken, one clavicle broken and his left shoulder dislocated, besides being horribly bruised and mangled.   He had been caught at Murdocks pavilion on the beach when the storm came up, and could not get away.  No one knew just where he landed.

Mr. Frank GROOM had to swim home, and later had the unpleasant task of telling survivors of the deaths of their relatives.

[Unknown first name] HUGHES, a longshoreman, bravely tackled the problem of burning the dead.  Under his direction, hundreds of bodies already collected and other brought from the central part of the city were loaded on an ocean barge and taken far off into the Gulf to be cast into the sea.

Mr. and Mrs. James IRWIN got out on the roof of their dwelling.  They ere seated on the side of the comb, and when the building blew over, they floated off separately on sections of the roof.  Mrs. Irwin was on the raft alone all night.  Mr. Irwin, who had found refuge at the Ursuline Convent, and who despaired of seeing his wife again, heard a cry for help. Hoping to rescue a human being, he pulled off through the water and was surprised and overjoyed to find his wife still afloat on the roof.

John Paul JONES, the general agent of the Santa Fe, succeeded in saving his family.  His wife was very sick, but he saved her by swimming across the street with his child on his head and his wife between himself and another person.

Mr. JOYCE, who recalled that he had been in the Galveston storm of 1875, described the 1900 storm as far worse.  He said the wind was blowing Saturday afternoon and night at about 75 MPH, blowing the water in the gulf and completely covering the city.

Mr. KELSO, County Road and Bridge Superintendent, spent the night of the storm with 125 people in the lighthouse at Bolivar.

Edward KETCHUM, Galveston Chief of Police, became a member of a triumvirate, with absolute power, and declared the city under martial law.

Father KIRWIN, of St. Mary's Cathedral, preached a feeling sermon on Sunday after the storm.  He  spoke of the awful calamity that had befallen the people.  After expressing sympathy for the afflicted and distressed, he advised not to lose confidence, for back o them the humanity of the world stand with relief;  to hope for the future and build a more secure, a larger and better city.

George KORST, manager of the Tremont Hotel, along with his employees, did everything in their power to help the sufferers from the effects of the storm, and to give them shelter.

LABETT family, of which five generations lived on the island before the storm.  The family was nearly wiped out.  One young man connected to the family was down town, and escaped.  When the parties of searchers were organized and proceeded to various parts of the city, one of them came upon this young Labett near the ruins of his home, all alone.  He had made his way there and had found the bodies of father and mother and other relatives.  He had carried the dead to a drift of sand, and there without a tool, with his bare hands and a piece of board, he was trying to scrape out gravel to bury the bodies.

Will LOVE, a printer of the "Houston Post" who formerly lived in Galveston, swam the bay Monday to reach his family, whom he found to be alive.  He swam from pier to pier on the railroad bridges and at each he rested.

Mate Emil C. LUNDWALL, a cook, and two men were aboard the lightship which was moored between the jetties at the point where the harbor bar was located before it was removed.  The lightship broke her moorings, and with a 1500 pound anchor and 600 fathoms of 2-inch cable chain, drifted to the point where she grounded, a distance of about four miles.  The damage to the lightship was slight, consisting principally of broken windows.  The mate showed himself to be a skillful seaman and managed to save the vessel by his skill as such.

Quarantine Officer Dr. MAYFIELD showed the greatest bravery and self-sacrafice when the storm came on.  He sent all of this employees and his family, except two sons who refused to leave him, to places of safety.  He remained in the quarantine house with his two devoted sons throughout the terrible night.  All of one wing of the house was taken away and the floor of the remaining part was forced up and carried away by the waters.  Dr. Mayfield and his two sons spent the night on a stairway leading from the upper floor to the attic.  Despite the  destruction of the station, the quarantine was never relaxed, and all vessels were promptly boarded upon arrival at Galveston.

Ernest MAYO and Mrs. Brice ROBERTS were married on Thursday after the storm, at the Tremont Hotel.  Both had lost family, but Mr. Mayo stepped bravely forward and took his sweetheart to his home.

Alderman C. H. McMASTER, of the water works and a member of the Chamber of Commerce, took charge of the work in the absence of chief engineer Reynolds.  The machinery was cleared of the debris and the pipes found to be badly damaged.

T. C. MOORE used a small skiff to carry Mr. Kelso across the bay in a small skiff the morning after the storm.

Clarence N. OUSLEY, editor of the Evening Tribune, had his family and the families of two neighbors in his house when the lower half crumbled, and the upper part slipped down in to the water.  Fortunately, no one was hurt.

[Unknown first name] RUTTER, a boy of 12, was found on Monday morning lying beside a truck on the land near the town of Hitchcock, 20 miles to the north.  His father, mother, and two children remained in their house.  There was a crash and the house went to pieces.  The boy said that he caught hold of a truck when he found himself in the water, and floated off with it.  He thought the others had drowned.

C. J. SEALEY, a young man of Galveston who was in La Junta, CO at the time of the storm, receive a telegram from the Mayor of Galveston informing him of the death of 21 of his relatives, among whom were his mother, two sisters, and three brothers.
 

Richard SPILLANE, a well known Galveston newspaper man and day correspondent of the Associated Press in Galveston, reached Houston September 10th after a terrible experience.  He described the storm as "...one of the most awful tragedies of modern times.," and issued an appeal for help.  "When I left Galveston," he said, "the people were organizing for the prompt burial of the dead, distribution of food, and all necessary work after a period of disaster."

Mr. and Mrs. STUBBS, after their house went to pieces, climbed upon the roof of a house floating by.  They felt tolerably secure, when without warning, the roof parted in two places.  Mr. and Mrs. Stubbs were separated and each carried a child.  The parts of the raft went different ways in the darkness.  One of the children fell off and disappeared, and not until some time Sunday was the family reunited.  Even the child was saving, having caught a table and clung to it until it reached a place of safety.

I. THOMPSON, a young man who was very active in saving life during the night of the storm, became insane because of the awful scenes he witnessed.  One evening he retired to his room on the third floor of the Washington Hotel, seemingly sane.  Soon afterwards he began to moan, and soon became violent, rushing from one side of his room to the other, and declaring his determination to commit suicide. Employees of the hotel did all they could to pacify the man, and during the night he became more rational and lay down.  In the morning it was found that Thompson had wrenched the shutters off his window and leaped out upon an awning and thence to the street.  It is believed he ran to the bay and threw himself in, because he was not seen again.

James C. TIMMONDS, a resident of Houston, had been in Galveston during the hurricane,  a resident at the Tremont Hotel. After the storm subsided, Timmonds departed the island on a schooner.  He witnessed hundreds of bodies floating in the water, and rescued two foreign sailors from the Middle Bay who had been many hours in the water.

Mrs. John VINCENT found a live prairie dog locked in a drawer of a bureau.  It was impossible to identify the house or the name of its former occupants, as several houses were piled together in a mass of brick and timber.  It was taken home by Mrs. Vincent, who promised to feed and hold the pet for its owner, if the owner survived the storm.

Alderman John WAGNER, while gathering remains for interment, spotted his nephew, a youth 18 years old.  The youth was found lodged in the forks of a tall cedar tree, two miles from his wrecked home, and tightly clenched with a death grip in his right hand $200, which his father gave him, with two $20 gold pieces, to hold while the father attempted to close a blown open door, when the house with down and the whole house perished in the raging storm and flood.

Dr. S. O. YOUNG, Secretary of the Cotton Exchange, was knocked senseless when his house collapsed, but was revived by the water, and was carried ten blocks by the hurricane.
 
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