The Great Galveston Disaster / Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Including Vivid Descriptions of the Hurricane and Terrible Rush of Waters; Immense Destruction of Dwellings, Business Houses, Churches, and Loss of Thousands of Human Lives; Thrilling Tales of Heroic Deeds; Panic-Stricken Multitudes and Heart-Rending Scenes of Agony; Frantic Efforts to Escape a Horrible Fate; Separation of Loved Ones, etc., etc.; Narrow Escapes from the Jaws of Death; Terrible Sufferings of the Survivors; Vandals Plundering Bodies of the Dead; Wonderful Exhibitions of Popular Sympathy; Millions of Dollars Sent for the Relief of the Stricken Sufferers

by Paul Lester

EIGHT CHILDREN THROWN OUT OF WINDOW.

So, having no time for a second thought, he picked up one of those eight children, whose life was part of his and who made his life worth living, and with a prayer tossed him out of the window, to alight on what he did not know, if to alight on anything. But he thought, and wisely, as circumstances proved, that they would have a better chance in the open than in a falling house. He risked their falling into that turbulent sea and sinking, never to come up, to leaving them in the building to be maimed by flying timbers and killed by the falling house.

Thus he threw out all of the eight, then came his wife, then the others who had come to him for refuge. He did not know what the fate of each of the former was when he threw out another, but trusted to Divine Providence, and not in vain. For as he threw the first out a shed in the rear of the house, as if with heroic instinct, washed against the building directly under the window, and there it stayed for a few seconds, catching each member of the family as he or she fell, even waiting for him.

The rest of Irvin’s story is that of a continual fight to keep his family from being blown and washed off of the raft that Providence had given him. This fight lasted for hours and their perilous position was made even greater by the flying timbers and pieces of slate which the wind would seem to take such delight in hurling at them. It was a battle between providence and the elements to see which should claim the family for its own, and not until nearly three o’clock did the wind and water cease in their efforts to add the Irvin family to their long list of victims. The elements were recompensed by taking one of the eight children and injuring the wife so that she would later become one of their dead.

At about three o’clock the next morning Irvin found himself and family, except the little one who had been lost, several blocks from where he had formerly lived, and mixed up in the debris. At daylight he succeeded in getting his wife and children out and brought them to the business part of the town.