miles below, just stricken down among its flowers and fruits,
reached out its hand 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 accordingly
left Washington on the morning of November twenty-second 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 centre
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
saved every 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 cannot 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 fever spread during the fall to several points in Georgia, Alabama
and Mississippi, and resulted in the usual panic and flight from many
places; but happily the disease got no great headway before the frost
put an end to its career.
It was late in November when we closed this work; worn and disheartened
as we were by both the needful and the needless hardships of the
campaign, we were glad of the two or three months in which no call for
action was made upon us.
[Illustration: JOHNSTOWN, PA., BEFORE THE FLOOD OF 1889.]
[Illustration: RED CROSS HOTEL, LOCUST STREET, JOHNSTOWN, PA.]
THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD.
On the thirty-first of May the knell of disaster rang over the entire
world, and we were sharply reminded that the need of the Red Cross is
ever present, and that its members must hold themselves in readiness to
move at a moment's notice. The news of the awful calamity of Johnstown,
Pa., with all its horrors, appalled us; and so frightful and improbable
were the reports, that it required twenty-four hours to satisfy
ourselves that it was not a canard.
In order to get an intelligent idea of this disaster and the terrible
damage wrought by the irresistible waters, it may be well to give a
short sketch of the city of Johnstown and its adjacent surroundings.
Before the flood there were thirty thousand people in this busy
community, which embraced the city of Johnstown proper and numerous
suburbs. The city is situated at the junction of Stony Creek and the
Little Conemaugh, forming the Conemaugh River. These streams are liable
to sudden overflows, and owing to the contraction of the waterway in the
lower part of the city by the dumping of cinders and slag from the large
iron works on the banks of the stream, and also encroachments by
riparian owners, the upper portion of the city is liable to inundations.
About nine miles above the city a dam had been thrown across the Little
Conemaugh River many years ago for commercial purposes, but had been
abandoned and the site with much surrounding property had been
subsequently purchased by a sporting club, whose membership embraced
some of the wealthiest citizens of Pennsylvania. These gentlemen were
attracted by the picturesque scenery, and the hunting and fishing of the
vicinity, and they spent thousands of dollars in improving and
beautifying their holdings. The dam was raised to a height of over
seventy feet and held an immense body of water covering many acres.
This large mass of water was a constant source of fear to the
inhabitants of the lower valleys, who were aware of the danger that
threatened them; and many protests were made against the continuance of
the danger, but owing to the prominence of the owners of the dam, and
the strong social and political influence they exerted, they remained
unmolested in the possession of the monster that was to break its bounds
and carry death and destruction in its pitiless pathway.
A steady rainfall for several days in the latter part of May caused
overflows in all the streams in western Pennsylvania, and much of the
city of Johnstown was already under water to a depth of from two to ten
feet, when suddenly the dam over the Little Conemaugh gave way, and its
flood, resembling a moving mountain of water thirty feet high, was
precipitated upon the doomed city. Numbers of the inhabitants, who had
carried the fear of this disaster in their minds for years, had become
so alarmed by the long continued rains, and the floods that were already
upon them, took their families and fled to the high grounds on the
hillsides. But the great majority of the people, who, though fully aware
of the danger, had lived with it so long that they had become careless
and indifferent, took no precautions whatever. These were overwhelmed by
the tide almost without warning, and before they could seek safety were
swept away.
The number of lives lost will never be accurately known; but in all
probability it reached in the entire valley nearly five thousand. It is
said that property to the amount of twelve millions of dollars was
absolutely lost.
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 godlike 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 these scenes of
destruction, desolation, poverty, want and woe; sometimes in tents,
sometimes without; in rain and mud, and a lack of the commonest
comforts, 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 day of our
arrival--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; among 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 on 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 he could be convinced that the
Red Cross had a way of taking care of itself at least, and was not
likely to suffer from neglect. I don't believe he quite got over his
mistrust until a week later, when carloads of lumber from Iowa and
Illinois began to come in consigned to the president of the Red Cross.
As this was the only lumber that had come, the military were constrained
to "borrow" from us in order to erect quarters in which to entertain the
Governor of the State on the occasion of his first visit.
Our first duty was to study the situation and take up the line of relief
as necessities developed and opportunities presented. Western
Pennsylvania and Ohio had been "instant in season." Pittsburg had mainly
provided for the survivors who were injured. Ohio had sent its troops
under its efficient Adjutant-General Axline; and food, the first
necessity, was literally pouring in from every available source.
But the wherewithal to put and keep clothes upon this denuded city full
of people, and something to sleep on at night was a problem; and shelter
for them, a present impossibility. The _possible_ must be attempted.
The first days brought in dispatches and letters to the amount of about
a hundred a day, tendering sympathy, offering help, and giving notice of
material and money sent. We were then living in tents and working
literally night and day, some of us at work _all_ the time.
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 ever to 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 battlefields--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 boxes 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, 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.
Let it not be supposed that all this was accomplished without perplexity
to someone. Goods came in from many sources of transport, five entries
by freight and express requiring to be constantly watched; for, strange
to say, there is no work in which people grow more reckless, selfish and
jealous, than in the distribution of charities. Persons outside grew
anxious that the receipt of goods was not acknowledged before they were
received; that checks were not drawn and returned before the bank safes
were out of the mud; and that houses were not built and the people
living in them before it was possible to find a cleared spot for a
little tent in which a workman could sleep at night. We finally found
space, however, for the erection of a pine warehouse, fifty by one
hundred and fifty feet in dimensions in the centre of the old town. The
building was put up in four days, and, still in the rain, our
accumulation of supplies was removed to it on the first of July.
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 homes 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.
It now became possible to more fully systematize the work; and a
committee of Johnstown ladies of every denomination was formed, at our
request, to receive the people and ascertain their greatest wants, which
were carefully noted on printed blanks to be returned to us. These wants
we undertook to fill without further trouble to the people themselves.
The result of this committee's work was the written requests of three
thousand families, aggregating eighteen thousand persons, to be served,
in addition to two thousand others whom we had previously promised to
help.
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 car loads of mattresses, feather pillows,
bed-clothing,--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.
Meanwhile our building contracts were not neglected. 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 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, and return to Cresson
at night, if he would sleep, or, indeed, escape being picked up by the
military guard.