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

RESCUED TWO BABES FROM DEATH.

Ray Ayers, an eight year old boy, unwittingly rescued his sister’s two babies during the flood. He was floating on a raft in Galveston when he passed a box with the two children in it. He seized them, but the weight was too heavy for his raft, and so he placed them on two bales of hay on top of a floating shed. When he found his sister he learned that her children were lost, and when a searching party discovered them, they were still sleeping, unconscious of their danger.

James Battersole, of Galveston, was one of the men who were carried far out to sea during the storm, whirled back again in the rush of waters, and lived to tell of it. The roof of his house, on which he had sought refuge, served as his raft, and the spot on which he landed was very close to the location his house had formerly occupied.

Margaret Lee’s life was saved at the expense of her brother’s. The woman was in her Twelfth street home, in Galveston, when the hurricane struck. Her brother seized her and guided her to St. Mary’s University, a short distance away. He returned to search for his son, and was killed by a falling house.

While George Boyer, of Galveston, was being carried with frightful velocity down the bay he saw the dead face of his wife in the branches of a tree. The woman had been wedged firmly between two branches.

Mrs. P. Watkins is a raving maniac as the result of her experience. With her two children and her mother she was drifting on a roof, when her mother and one child were swept away. Mrs. Watkins mistakes attendants in the hospital for her lost relatives, and clutches wildly for them.

Harry Steele, a cotton man, and his wife sought safety in three successive houses, which were demolished. They eventually climbed on a floating door and were saved.

Though separated by the storm and washed in different directions all the members of the Stubbs family, of Galveston, were rescued. Father, mother and two children were on a floating roof that broke in pieces. The father, with one child, went one way. The mother went another, and the remaining children went in still a third direction. Sunday evening all four were reunited.

L. F. Menage, of Austin, who returned from Galveston Friday night, reached the Tremont Hotel, Galveston, the Friday evening before the terrible storm began. He says it has been the most terrible week in his experience, the most awful two days a man could imagine were the Sunday and Monday succeeding the hurricane.