Isaac's Storm - Erik Larson [96]
The death list took up a full page and a fraction of the next, and included fragments of information that telegraphed to readers larger truths about the disaster. Black victims were identified as colored. The list provided vivid evidence that the storm had crossed all lines of race, profession, and class. It killed steamship agents, mailmen, longshoremen, a prizefighter, a deputy U.S. marshal, and thirteen unidentified inmates of the Home for the Homeless. It killed twenty-two people at the residence of “Francois, a well-known waiter,” and pruned to a stalk the family tree of the Rattiseau clan, killing Mrs. J. C. Rattiseau and her three children; J. B. Rattiseau, his wife, and four children; and C. A. Rattiseau, his wife, and seven children. It drowned Mr. and Mrs. A. Popular and the four Popular children, Agnes, Marnie, Clarence, and Tony. It killed Sanders Costly and Clara Sudden, Herman Tix and H. J. Tickle. It killed John Grief and the entire Grief family.
The list included a man named Pilford of the Mexican Cable Company and his four children. The place of death, the entry said, was “Twenty-fifth and Q.” Isaac’s corner. Perhaps even his house.
On Friday the newspaper returned to its practice of running “Personals,” but now these took on a rather different character.
W. M. R. Clay placed a notice to the attention of Jetta Clay. “I am here,” it said, “2002 L. Come at once.”
Charles Kennedy placed one seeking Fred Heidenreich. “If alive, come to 24th and Church. Your brother Ben is there.”
The following Tuesday, a query read: “RYALS—If Myrtle, Wesley, Harry or Mabel are living, please address their mother, Mrs. Ryals, 2024 N.”
HELP BEGAN ARRIVING. The Army sent soldiers, tents, and food. The train-ferry Charlotte Allen brought a thousand loaves of bread from Houston. The steamer Lawrence brought one hundred thousand gallons of fresh water. The Grand Dictator of the Knights of Honor arrived to look after the needs of his Galveston brethren. Clara Barton arrived to look after everyone, and immediately telegraphed home: “Situation not exaggerated.” She had expected many orphans, but found few. The storm had been hardest on the small. She came with a trainload of carbolic acid and other disinfectants supplied by Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal sent a train too. It left first but arrived last. Which peeved Hearst no end. He dispatched one of his top writers, Winifred Black, his famed “sob sister,” whom he had brought to New York from San Francisco specifically to battle Pulitzer. The storm, she found, had unearthed a Galveston cemetery. The Journal’s headline shrieked: “EVEN THE GRAVES GIVE UP THEIR DEAD.”
The great hurricane dominated the front pages of newspapers from Miami to Liverpool and generated a tidal wave of contributions, most channeled through the Red Cross. Hearst, in the name of an outfit called the New York Bazaar for Galveston Orphans, gave $50,000, a fortune. In his role as publisher of the Journal, he gave $3,676.02. The Kansas State Insane Asylum sent $12.25. The Colored Eureka Brass Band of Thibodaux, Louisiana, sent $24. The Elgin Milkine Company of Elgin, Illinois, sent seventy-two bottles of its dried-beef tablets and powder. The tablets came in lemon and chocolate. The Fraternal Mystic Circle, Elmwood Ruling, No. 430, of Gainesville, Texas, sent $50. The Ladies of the Maccabees of the World, Sacramento Hive No. 9, sent $329.25. The city of Liverpool gave $13,580, the Cotton Association of Liverpool, $14,550. In the United States, the state of New York sent the most money, $93,695.77. New Hampshire sent the least—a buck—matching the contribution of Moose Jaw, Canada. The Sabbath School of Odell, Illinois, sent $4.10 for the few orphans Barton did find, and got a warm personal letter in return. “It