“How many did you lose?” they asked by common impulse.
“I lost all my property, but my wife and I came through all right.”
“I was not so fortunate. My wife and my little boy were both drowned.”
There was an expression of sympathy from the other, but nothing approaching a tear from either.
“They are making good progress cleaning up,” remarked the one whose losses were heaviest, with a pleasant smile. The other one made a light answer and they passed on.
The people of Galveston had seen so much death that they were temporarily hardened to it. The announcement of the loss of another friend meant little to a man who had seen the dead bodies of his neighbors and towns-people hauled to the wharf by the drayload.
No services were attempted for the dead until nearly a month had passed. Neither were there memorial services.
The Rev. J. M. K. Kerwin, priest in charge of St. Mary’s Catholic cathedral, said: “It was impossible. Priest and layman had to join in the work of cleaning the city of dead bodies. I don’t expect there will be memorial services for a month.”
Father Kerwin’s church was among the few which was comparatively little damaged. He set the value of Catholic property destroyed in the city at $300,000. Included in this loss was the Ursula convent and academy, which was badly damaged. It covered four blocks between Twenty-fifth and Twenty-seventh streets and Avenues N and O. It was the finest in the South.
The city rapidly improved in its sanitary conditions. The smell from the ooze and mud with which most of the streets were filled was stronger ten days after the tragedy than that which came from the debris heaps containing undiscovered bodies. When these heaps were being burned and the wind carried the smoke over the city the odor was very similar to that which afflicts Chicago at night when refuse is being burned at the stock yards, and no worse. Soon even the odor of the slime was gone. Every dumpcart in the city was at work.