below, just stricken down among its flowers and fruits, reached out its
hands for aid, and with one accord, after two days in camp, all turned
back from the coveted home and needed rest and added another month of
toil to their already weary record. At length this was ended, and word
came again to us that they would go into quarantine. Their unselfish,
faithful, and successful record demanded something more than the mere
sending of money. It deserved the thanks of the Red Cross organization
in the best and highest manner in which they could be bestowed; it was
decided that its President, in person, should most fittingly do this,
and I accordingly left Washington on the morning of November 22d in
company with Dr. Hubbell, field agent, for Camp Perry, the quarantine
station of Florida. Two days and one night by rail, a few miles across
country by wagon, where trains were forbidden to stop, and another mile
or so over the trestles of St. Mary's on a dirt car with the workmen,
brought us into camp as the evening fires were lighted and the bugle
sounded supper. The genial surgeon in charge, Dr. Hutton, who carried a
knapsack and musket in an Illinois regiment in '62, met us cordially and
extended every possible hospitality. Soon there filed past us to supper
the tall doctor and his little flock; some light and fair-skinned, with
the easy step of a well-bred lady, others dark and bony-handed, but the
strong, kind faces below the turbans told at a glance that you could
trust your life there and find it again. They were not disturbed that
night, and no certain information of our arrival got among them. It was
cold and windy, and the evening short, as nine o'clock brought taps and
lights out. In spite of all caution the news of our coming had spread
over the surrounding country, and telegrams bringing both thanks for
what had been received and the needs for more, came from all sides, and
the good Mayor of Macclenny made his troubled way to reach and greet us
in person, and take again the faithful hands that had served and saved
his people.
Surgeon Hutton's headquarter tent was politely tendered for the first
meeting, and as one could never, while memory lasts, forget this scene,
so no words can ever adequately describe it. The ample tent was filled.
Here on the right the Mayor, broad shouldered, kind faced and efficient,
officers of camp, and many visitors, wondering what it all meant; in the
center the tall doctor and his faithful band--Eliza Lanier, Lena Seymour
(mother and daughter), Elizabeth Eastman, Harriet Schmidt, Lizzie Louis,
Rebecca Vidal, Annie Evans, Arthur Duteil, Frederick Wilson, and Edward
Holyland.
I give these names because they are worthy a place in the history of any
epidemic; but no country, race, nor creed could claim them as a body:
four Americans, one German, one French, one Irish, three Africans, part
Protestant, and part Catholic, but all from New Orleans, of grand old
_Howard_ stock, from Memphis down, nursing in every epidemic from the
bayous of the Mississippi to Tampa Bay; and hereafter we will know them
as the "_Old Guard_."
Here, in the winds of approaching winter they stand in the light garb of
early September in New Orleans, thin, worn, longing for home, but
patient, grateful, and glad, some trifling "nubia" or turban about the
head, but only one distinguishing feature in common. A pitiful little
misshapen Red Cross, made by their own hands, of two bits of scarlet
ribbon, soiled, fringed, and tattered, pinned closely upon the left
breast of each, strove in mute appeal to say who they were, and what
they served. A friendly recognition and some words of thanks from their
President, opened the way for those anxious to follow. The rich, warm
eloquence of Mayor Watkins plainly told from how near his heart the
stream of gratitude was flowing, and his manly voice trembled as he
reverted to the condition of his stricken people, on that pitiless
night, when this little band of pilgrim strangers strayed back to them
in the rain and darkness. "I fear they often worked in hunger," he said,
"for then, as now, we had little for ourselves, our sick, or our well;
but they brought us to our feet, and the blessing of every man, woman,
and child in Macclenny is on them."
It was with a kind of paternal pride that Dr. Gill advanced and placed
before us his matchless record of cases attended, and life preserved.
"This is the record of our work," he said. "I am proud of it, and glad
that I have been able to make it, but without the best efforts of these
faithful nurses I could not have done it; they have stood firm through
everything; not a word of complaint from, nor of, one of them, in all
these trying months, and I thank you, our President, for this
opportunity to testify to their merits in your presence." The full cups
overflowed, and as we took each brown calloused hand in ours, and felt
the warm tears dropping over them, we realized how far from calloused
were the hearts behind them. The silence that followed was a season of
prayer.
Then came opportunity for some conversation, questions, and
explanations. "We wish to introduce to our President our chief nurse,
whom Colonel Southmayd placed in charge of us when we left the car, and
directed us to obey him; he is younger than any of us, Ed. Holyland." A
slight young man with clear, olive complexion, and dark-browed earnest
eyes that looked you straight in the face, came forward; his apparent
youthfulness gave rise to the first remark:
"How old are you, Mr. Holyland?"
"Twenty-nine, madam."
"And you have taken charge of these nurses?"
"I have done what I could for their comfort; I think that was what the
colonel desired; he knew they would need only care and advice, they
would do their best of themselves. During the few days that Colonel
Southmayd remained in Jacksonville," he continued, "he was able to send
us some such comforts as we needed for the sick, and some nourishing
food for ourselves; but this was only a few days, you know, and after
that we got on as well as we could without. I know that after he left
the nurses gave to the sick, the children, the old and the helpless,
what they needed for their own strength."
"But you did not tell us this, Mr. Holyland."
"No, we were dazed and frightened by the things we heard. We felt that
your organization was having enough to bear. We knew we must look to
you for our pay, and we thought, under the circumstances, that would be
your share. But permit me, please, to call your attention to Mr. Wilson
(a stout colored man advanced), who took charge of a little hospital of
six cases, and carried them all through, day and night, without an
hour's relief from any person, and never lost a single case."
"And permit me," chimed in the clear-toned Irish voice of Lizzie Louis,
"to tell of Mr. Holyland himself, who found a neglected Italian family a
mile or more outside of the town. He went and nursed them alone, and
when the young son, a lad of thirteen or fourteen years, died, knowing
there was no one to bury him there, he wrapped him in a blanket and
brought him into town on his back, for burial."
Holyland's face grew sad, and his eyes modestly sought the floor, as he
listened to this unexpected revelation.
"I wish to speak of something else," added one of the men, "which we
were held back from doing, and for which we are now very glad. We should
not have thought of it ourselves. It is customary," he continued, "when
a patient dies in an epidemic, to give the nurse ten dollars for
preparing the body for burial; this was done in our first case, but Mr.
Holyland had the gift promptly returned with thanks, and the explanation
that we were employed by an organization which fully rewarded its
nurses, and was too high and too correct to accept tribute for
misfortune; it was enough that the patient was lost."
By this time poor black Annie Evans, the "Mammy" of the group, could
hold quiet no longer, and broke silence with, "Missus President! whar is
de colonel? Colonel Southmayd; dey tells me all de time he's gone away
from New Orleans, and I can't b'l'eve 'em. He can't go away; he can't
lib anywhar else, he was always dar. I'se nursed in yellow fever and
cholera more'n twenty-five year, and I neber went for nobody but him; it
arn't no New Orleans for us widout him dar. I doesn't know de name of
dat place dey say he's gone to, and I doesn't want to; he'll be in New
Orleans when we gets dar."
There were pitying glances among the group, at this little burst of
feeling, for in some way it was an echo of their own; and Lena Seymour
added tenderly: "We have been trying for these two months to convince
Mammy about this, but she is firm in her faith and sometimes refuses to
hear us." But the subject changed with "How many cases did you lose in
this epidemic, Mammy?"
"I didn't lose no cases! Lor' bless you, honey, I doesn't lose cases if
dey hasn't been killed afore dey gets to me; folks needn't die of yellow
fever."
We didn't suppose that "Mammy" intended any reflection upon the medical
fraternity.
"But now, friends, we must turn to our settlement, which can not be
difficult. Three dollars a day for each nurse, for seventy-nine days,
till you are home on Thanksgiving morning. But here are only ten. There
are eighteen on our list who left with you and Colonel Southmayd; where
are your comrades?" Some eyes flashed and some moistened, as they
answered, "We do not know." "They remained in the car that night, and
went on to Jacksonville." Swift, dark glances swept from one to another
among them. Instinctively they drew closer to each other, and over
knitted brows and firmly set teeth, a silence fell dark and ominous
like a pall, which the future alone can lift.
The bugle sounded dinner, and this ended our little camp-meeting, than
which few camp-meetings, we believe, ever came nearer to the heart of
Him who offered His life a ransom, and went about doing good.
The winds blew cold across the camp; the fires shot out long angry
tongues of flame and drifts of smoke to every passer-by. The norther was
upon us. Night came down, and all were glad of shelter and sleep. The
morning, quiet, crisp, and white with frost, revealed the blessing which
had fallen upon a stricken land.
Thanksgiving was there before its time. The hard rules relaxed. One day
more, and the quarantine was at an end. The north-bound train halted
below the camp, and all together, President and agent, tall doctor and
happy nurses, took places on it, the first for headquarters at
Washington, the last for New Orleans, and home for Thanksgiving morning,
full of the joys of a duty well done, rich in well-paid labor, in the
love of those they had befriended, and the approval of a whole people,
South and North, when once their work should be known to them.
To the last, they clung to their little home-made Red Crosses as if they
had been gold and diamonds; and when at length the tracks diverged and
the parting must be made, it was with few words, low and softly spoken,
but meaning much, with a finger touch upon the little cross, "When you
want us, we are there."
The supplies forwarded by us were estimated at ten thousand dollars. The
money received was $6,281.58. Out of this sum we paid our twenty nurses
three dollars a day, for seventy-nine days--their cost of living, and
their transportation when needed. We paid our doctor in charge twenty
dollars a day, the customary price, for the same period. We paid our
office rent, assistants, telegraphing, drayage for supplies sent on by
us (railroad transportation free), and all incidentals for a relief work
of over three months' duration. This ran our debit column over on the
other side over one thousand dollars. Our little part of the relief of
that misfortune was estimated at fifteen thousand dollars, and only
those relieved were more grateful than we.
IV
THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD
On Sunday afternoon, May 31, 1889, with the waters of the Potomac two
feet deep on Pennsylvania Avenue, a half dozen of us left Washington for
Johnstown, over washed-out ties and broken tracks, with every little
gully swollen to a raging torrent. After forty-eight hours of this, we
reached the scene, which no one need or could describe, but if ever a
people needed help it was these.
Scarcely a house standing that was safe to enter, the wrecks piled in
rubbish thirty feet in height, four thousand dead in the river beds,
twenty thousand foodless but for Pittsburg bread rations, and a cold
rain which continued unbroken by sunshine for forty days.
It was at the moment of supreme affliction when we arrived at Johnstown.
The waters had subsided, and those of the inhabitants who had escaped
the fate of their fellows were gazing over the scene of destruction and
trying to arouse themselves from the lethargy that had taken hold of
them when they were stunned by the realization of all the woe that had
been visited upon them. How nobly they responded to the call of duty!
How much of the heroic there is in our people when it is needed! No idle
murmurings of fate, but true to the god-like instincts of manhood and
fraternal love, they quickly banded together to do the best that the
wisest among them could suggest.
For five weary months it was our portion to live amid the scenes of
destruction, desolation, poverty, want and woe; sometimes in tents,
sometimes without; and so much rain and mud, and such a lack of the
commonest comforts for a time, until we could build houses to shelter
ourselves and those around us. Without a safe and with a dry-goods box
for a desk, we conducted financial affairs in money and material to the
extent of nearly half a million dollars.
I shall never lose the memory of my first walk on the first day--the
wading in mud, the climbing over broken engines, cars, heaps of iron
rollers, broken timbers, wrecks of houses; bent railway tracks tangled
with piles of iron wire; bands of workmen, squads of military, and
getting around the bodies of dead animals, and often people being borne
away; the smouldering fires and drizzling rain--all for the purpose of
officially announcing to the commanding general (for the place was under
martial law) that the Red Cross had arrived in the field. I could not
have puzzled General Hastings more if I had addressed him in Chinese;
and if ours had been truly an Oriental mission, the gallant soldier
could not have been more courteous and kind. He immediately set about
devising means for making as comfortable as possible a "poor, lone
woman," helpless, of course, upon such a field. It was with considerable
difficulty that I could convince him that the Red Cross had a way of
taking care of itself at least, and was not likely to suffer from
neglect.
Not a business house or bank left, the safes all in the bottom of the
river; our little pocketbook was useless, there was nothing to buy, and
it would not bring back the dead. With the shelter of the tents of the
Philadelphia Red Cross, that joined us en route with supplies, when we
could find a cleared place to spread, or soil to hold them, with a
dry-goods box for a desk, our stenographer commenced to rescue the first
dispatches of any description that entered that desolate city. The
disturbed rivers lapped wearily back and forth, the people, dazed and
dumb, dug in the muddy banks for their dead. Hastings with his little
army of militia kept order.
Soon supplies commenced to pour in from everywhere, to be received,
sheltered as best they could be from the incessant rain, and distributed
by human hands, for it was three weeks before even a cart could pass the
streets.
But I am not here to describe Johnstown--the noble help that came to it,
nor the still more noble people that received it--but simply to say that
the little untried and unskilled Red Cross played its minor tune of a
single fife among the grand chorus of relief of the whole country, that
rose like an anthem, till over four millions in money, contributed to
its main body of relief, with the faithful Kreamer at its head, had
modestly taken the place of the twelve millions destroyed. But after all
it was largely the supplies that saved the people at first, as it always
is, and the distribution of which largely consumed the money that was
contributed later.
From one mammoth tent which served as a warehouse, food and clothing
were given out to the waiting people through the hands of such volunteer
agents, both women and men, as I scarcely dare hope to ever see gathered
together in one work again. The great cry which had gone out had aroused
the entire country, and our old-time helpers, full of rich experience
and still richer love for the work, faithful to the cross of humanity as
the devotee to the cross of the Master, came up from every point--the
floods, the cyclones, the battle-fields--and kneeling before the shrine,
pledged heart and service anew to the work. Fair hands laying aside
their diamonds, and business men their cares, left homes of elegance and
luxury to open rough boxes and barrels, handle second-hand clothing, eat
coarse food at rough-board tables, sleep on cots under a dripping canvas
tent, all for the love of humanity symbolized in the little flag that
floated above them.
Clergymen left their pulpits and laymen their charge to tramp over the
hillsides from house to house, to find who needed and suffered, and to
carry to them from our tents on their shoulders, like beasts of burden,
the huge bundles of relief, where no beast of burden could reach.
We had been early requested by official resolution of the Finance
Committee of the City of Johnstown to aid them in the erection of
houses. We accepted the invitation, and at the same time proposed to aid
in furnishing the nucleus of a household for the home which should in
any way be made up. This aid seemed imperative, as nothing was left for
them to commence living with, neither beds, chairs, tables, nor cooking
utensils of any kind; and there were few if any stores open, and no
furniture in town.
Of this labor we had our share. Six buildings of one hundred feet by
fifty, later known as "Red Cross Hotels," were quickly put up to shelter
the people, furnished, supplied, and kept like hotels, free of all cost
to them, while others were built by the general committee. Three
thousand of the latter were erected, and the Red Cross furnished every
one with substantial, newly purchased furniture, ready for occupancy.
The books of the "Titusville Manufacturing Company" will show one cash
order of ten thousand dollars for furniture. The three thousand houses
thus furnished each accommodated two families.
A ponderous book of nearly two feet square shows the name, sex, and
number of persons of each family, and a list of every article received
by them. To-day one looks in wonder at such a display of clerical labor
and accuracy, under even favorable conditions.
This was only accomplished by the hard, unpaid labor of every officer,
and the large amount of volunteer friendly aid that came to us.
The great manufacturers of the country, and the heavy contributing
agents, on learning our intentions, sent, without a hint from us, many
of their articles, as, for instance, New Bedford, Mass., sent mattresses
and bedding; Sheboygan, Wis., sent furniture and enameled ironware;
Titusville, Pa., with a population of ten thousand, sent ten thousand
dollars' worth of its well-made bedsteads, springs, extension-tables,
chairs, stands and rockers; and the well-known New York newspaper, The
Mail and Express, sent a large lot of mattresses, feather pillows,
bedclothing, sheets, and pillow-slips by the thousand and cooking
utensils by the ten thousands. Six large teams were in constant service
delivering these goods.
When the contributions slackened or ceased, and more material was
needed, we purchased of the same firms which had contributed, keeping
our stock good until all applications were filled. The record on our
books showed that over twenty-five thousand persons had been directly
served by us. They had received our help independently and without
begging. No child has learned to beg at the doors of the Red Cross.
It is to be borne in mind that the fury of the deluge had swept almost
entirely the homes of the wealthy, the elegant, the cultured leaders of
society, and the fathers of the town. This class who were spared were
more painfully homeless than the indigent poor, who could still huddle
in together. They could not go away, for the suffering and demoralized
town needed their care and oversight more than ever before. There was no
home for them, nowhere to get a meal of food or to sleep. Still they
must work on, and the stranger coming to town on business must go
unfed, with no shelter at night, if he would sleep, or, indeed, escape
being picked up by the military guard.
To meet these necessities, and being apprehensive that some good lives
might go out under the existing luck of accommodations, it was decided
to erect a building similar to our warehouse. The use of the former site
of the Episcopal Church was generously tendered us by the Bishop early
in June, for any purpose we might desire. This house, which was soon
erected, was known as the "Locust Street Red Cross Hotel"; it stood some
fifty rods from our warehouse, and was fifty by one hundred and sixteen
feet in dimensions, two stories in height, with lantern roof, built of
hemlock, single siding, papered inside with heavy building paper, and
heated by natural gas, as all our buildings were. It consisted of
thirty-four rooms, besides kitchen, laundry, bath-rooms with hot and
cold water, and one main dining-hall and sitting-room through the
center, sixteen feet in width by one hundred in length.
It was fully furnished with excellent beds, bedding, bureaus, tables,
chairs, and all needful housekeeping furniture. A competent landlady,
who, like the rest, had a few weeks before floated down over the same
ground on the roof of her house in thirty feet of water, was placed in
charge, with instructions to keep a good house, make what she could rent
free, but charging no Johnstown person over twenty-five cents for a meal
of food.
This was the first attempt at social life after that terrible
separation, and its success was something that I am very proud of. The
house was full of townspeople from the first day, and strangers no
longer looked in vain for accommodations.
The conception of the need of this house, and the method of selecting
its inmates, and the manner of inducting them into their new home, were
somewhat unique and may be of interest to the reader. I had noticed
among the brave and true men, who were working in the mud and rain, many
refined-looking gentlemen, who were, before this great misfortune
carried away most of their belongings, the wealthiest and most
influential citizens. Never having had to struggle amid such hardships
and deprivations, their sufferings were more acute than those of the
poorer and more hardy people; and it did not require any great
foresight to know that they were physically incapable of such labor if
prolonged, nor to predict their early sickness and death if they were
not properly housed and fed. As the salvation of the town depended in a
great measure upon the efforts of these men, it was vitally necessary
that their lives should be preserved. Realizing all this, it occurred to
us that the most important thing to do, next to feeding the hungry, was
to provide proper shelter for these delicate men and their families. The
idea once conceived was soon communicated to my staff, and, after due
consideration, it was put in the way of realization.
On the afternoon of July 27th hundreds of citizens called on us, and
congratulations and good wishes were the order of the day. As the
members of each family whom we had selected to occupy apartments in the
house arrived, they were quietly taken aside and requested to remain and
have dinner with us. After all the guests were departed except those who
had been requested to remain, dinner was announced, and the party was
seated by the members of the Red Cross. Beside the plate of each head
of a family were laid the keys to an apartment, with a card inviting the
family to take possession at once, and remain as long as they chose.
I can not describe the scene that followed; there were tears and broken
voices; suffice to say, the members of that household were made happy
and comfortable for many long months; and I venture to assert that those
now living recall those days with the fondest recollections.