The 1900 Storm Part IV

"From one end of the Island to the other--in their instinctive struggle to survive for even one more minute--people committed astonishing, desperate, heroic, and sometimes foolish acts."

From Galveston by Gary Cartwright, p. 169.

"During the storm, the men of the town, after leaving their wives and children in as much safety as possible, went into the flood areas to assist in rescue work. Harry (Hawley) left his wife and five month old son in their high raised home on Avenue K and went on such a mission. During his absence the water rose with terrifying rapidity. He was unable to get back to his family. His wife was alone in the house with the prospect of drowning along with her infant son, when she conceived the idea of tying herself and the child to her massive dining room table. It was by this means they were saved from being washed into the swift and deadly flood in the street, and so were rescued."

From Chips From Old Blocks compiled by Richard S. Willis 11 and Genevieve Murphy Willis, Chapter 11, p. 7.

JHH: "Harry and Sarah went aboard the S. Savannah Wednesday evening and remained there until Friday, when they left here for New Orleans, from which point Harry, Sarah and the baby will take the train for Litchfield."

"Tow days after the flood, Grandfather Hawley was instrumental in obtaining passage on a Lyke’s steamer bound for New York for Harry and his family. When Mary Willis greeted her brother in New York, the refugees had on the same tattered garments they had worn throughout the flood.

From Chips From Old Blocks compiled by Richard S. Willis 11 and Genevieve Murphy Willis, Chapter 11, p. 7.

"One reason the death count was so inexact was the massive migration that followed the storm. In the immediate aftermath people were paying huge sums for boat passage to the mainland. Once rail service was restored, railroads gave victims free transportation anywhere in the United States, and hundreds of families took advantage of it. Many never returned. So great was their suffering and grief--so terrible the memory of that night, that they didn’t even bother to go back for their possessions, or to look for or bury their dead."

From Galveston, by Gary Cartwright, p. 108.

JHH: "The whole territory from 9th St., east, out to the beach, and then for a distance of four and one half blocks of the densely populated district, clear out to Wellam’s Lake and beyond the Harris’ house, has been swept away and fully two thirds of the inhabitants given up to the angry waves."

"The storm has left the city without drainage and the limited supply of water prevents us from giving much attention, at present, to our sanitary condition. The wreckage I have referred to is fully 100 ft deep and in many places 25 ft high, undoubtedly underneath which, there still remains a great number of bodies yet to be found. Of course you understand the accumulation of filth, ect., the stench, arising from the lack of drainage from perhaps 40,000 people must produce sanitary conditions injurious to the health in the last degree. The weather is intensely hot, since the 8th of September to the present time. The weather has been perfectly clear and with the sun eating down on it, the odors arise make it most unbearable. There is no place today in our country that is not more desirable locality than Galveston for the weak and helpless."

"The entire Island was water-logged and covered with an inch-thick layer of foul-smelling slime. One-third of the Island was scraped clean, and the other two-thirds battered almost beyond recognition."

From Galveston by Gary Cartwright, p. 175.

"August saw some sort of gigantic shadow stretching across Avenue N, blocking his path. It looked like a levee, or a small mountain range, and it stretched from east to west, as far as he could see. August was nearly to the base of the shadow when he realized that what he was looking at was monstrous wall of wreckage. It was taller than a two-story building, and six to eight blocks wide. It started at the Flats on the far east end of the Island and ran all the way to 45th Street. In its relentless, grinding fashion the battering ram that Isaac Cline described had rumbled across 1,500 acres of the Island, finally playing itself out against a breakwater of its own creation." "August Rollfind stood looking up at this grotesque monument to death, trying to comprehend. ‘It seemed endless,’ he said. ‘House upon house, all broken to pieces, furniture, sewing machines, pianos, cats, dogs...and what was underneath? How many people had gone down with their house? And behind the wall of debris, nothing, and even a little stick of wood. For blocks and blocks, nothing, and then that terrible pile of debris.. And what was under it.’"

From Galveston by Gary Cartwright, p. 173.

Bradley, to whom JHH refers, is his younger brother, Robert Bradley Hawley.

The house of H Street was the first home for Mary Carter Hawley Willis and Short Adam Willis. Although they left Galveston in 1896, they still owned that house in 1900.

JHH: "All the glass on the west side of the Willis’ residence was blown out, and many of the beautiful wall frescoes put in at heavy cost were ruined. Walthew made his house a place for refuge for all persons during the storm."

From Miss Sissy

Family discussions say that Frank Walthew, the son-in-law of Narcissa Willis was living in the Willis Mansion with his wife Olive Willis (at this point I would like to say my mothers name was Olive Willis, a namesake of Olive Willis Walthew) and that Frank stood at one of the huge windows in the upper story of the house and extended a long pole out into the rushing water to snag as many people still alive and floating by on some object. The couple is credited with saving and housing many people doomed to death except for his rescue efforts. Frank Walthew was a native of the Eastern states, Connecticut, Maryland, and New York and the horrors of this experience, he was bale to persuade his wife to leave forever, what had been her childhood home.

Part V will continue next week.

Westmont Ranch, Montgomery, Texas. Home of Smart Highbrow Doc, son of Color Me Smart

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