Part 15
"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.
To meet these necessities, and being apprehensive that some good lives might go out under the existing lack 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 yards 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 centre, sixteen feet in width by one hundred in length with second floor gallery.
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 that same ground on the roof of her house in thirty feet of water five miles below the city, rescued in a tree top, 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 glad 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. We 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 worldly 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 men and their families. The idea once conceived was soon put in the way of realization.
[Illustration: RED CROSS FURNITURE ROOM, JOHNSTOWN.]
[Illustration: TYPICAL SCENE AFTER THE FLOOD AT JOHNSTOWN, PA., MAY 30, 1889.]
It was decided that we should erect the house as quickly as possible, furnish it completely, and when ready, invite the citizens to a reception within its hospitable walls. This arrangement was carried out, and a printed invitation was issued, of which the following is a facsimile:
[Illustration: A Five O'clock Tea
is to be given at the
New Red Cross House, Locust Street,
Johnstown,
Saturday, July 27, 1889.
Your presence will be esteemed a favor.
Clara Barton,
Prest. Nat. Red Cross of America.
J.B. Hubbell,
General Field Agent.]
On the afternoon of July 27, 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 the 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 cannot 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.
This revealed a want so great, that a second house of the same dimensions and qualities was erected just across the river, known as the "Kernville Red Cross Hotel." Another competent landlady was installed in charge, who had not only lost her home, but her beautiful daughter of twenty years. This house was also filled; and a fourth house of forty by one hundred feet was next built in the form of a block, the families living separately, for the accommodation of the working people of Woodvale, where no house was left. This was known as the "Red Cross Block," or "Woodvale House."
There was no rent to pay for accommodations in this house, the only cost to the tenant being for fire, lights and living.
Johnstown had neither a hospital nor an almshouse--never had, its poor being taken to Ebensville, twenty miles distant. Under ordinary circumstances this might do, but with the scant, poor homes of this winter we felt it to be unsafe, and saw that better provision should be made. Accordingly the use of some half-dozen unset portable houses, known as the "Oklahomas," was asked of the Flood Commission, and erected adjoining our warehouse, as separate wards connected by a covered way, and provided with an adjoining house of eighteen by thirty feet, two stories high, for kitchen, dining, store, sleeping and living rooms for the use of the wards and attendants. These were all fully equipped and warmed for the accommodation of thirty patients, with the best of new outfit, and the hospital was known as the "Johnstown Infirmary."
These things accomplished, there remained but one more danger to be guarded against. The citizens still had no organization of their own for the relief of their needy people through the coming winter, and no protection against any alarming report which might be sprung upon them. Any sensational writer could still, if he chose to, report two hundred cases of typhoid fever in Johnstown, alarming the whole country, with not a case of genuine typhoid there, and there were none to say him nay; or that its people were freezing or starving, with nowhere the authority to correct the misstatement. This protection was needed, not alone for Johnstown, but the people at large as well.
A few well-timed suggestions were sufficient. The meetings were held in our house and some of the leading men and women of the city effected a permanent organization to be incorporated under the name of the "Benevolent Union of Conemaugh Valley."
This completed, we had only to turn over to their hands, as the leaders of the town, our warehouse with its entire remaining stock, amounting to some thousands of dollars; the care of the infirmary; one of our trained clerks, with all papers and accounts of our relief work from the day of its inception; one of our experienced working men to handle transportation--to fit up for them large, warm rooms for winter use; give them our blessing; accept theirs in fullest measure; say good bye to them and to our faithful helpers, with heavy hearts and choking voices, and return to our home, bearing the record of a few months of faithful endeavor among a people as patient and brave as people are made, as noble and grateful as falls to the lot of human nature to be. Enterprising, industrious, and hopeful, the new Johnstown, phoenix-like, rose from its ruins more beautiful than the old, with a ceaseless throb of grateful memory for every kind act rendered, and every thought of sympathy given her in her great hour of desolation and woe. God bless her, and God bless all who helped save her!
We had employed during our sojourn in Johnstown a working force of fifty men and women, whom we had housed, fed and paid, with the exception of the volunteers who worked for the good they could do and would accept nothing. The means which we so largely handled came from everywhere; accounts were rendered for everything, and no word of business complication ever came to us. There never has in all our work.