“She was visiting in the valley when the wave came,” was the mournful reply. Then he beckoned the young man to enter the chamber of death.
A moment later Mr. Ogle was kneeling beside the rough bier and was kissing the cold, white face. From the lifeless finger he slipped a ring and in its place put one of his own. Then he stole quietly out.
“Mamma! mamma!” cried a child. She had recognized a body that no one else could, and in a moment the corpse was ticketed, boxed, and delivered to laborers, who bore it away to join the long funeral procession.
A mother recognized a baby boy. “Keep it a few minutes,” she asked the undertaker in charge. In a few moments she returned, carrying in her arms a little white casket. Then she hired two men to bear it to a cemetery. No hearses were seen in Johnstown. Relatives recognized their dead, secured the coffins, got them carried the best way they could to the morgues, then to the graveyards. A prayer, some tears, and a few more of the dead thousands were buried in mother earth.
A frequent visitor at these horrible places was David John Lewis. All over Johnstown he rode a powerful gray horse, and to each one he met whom he knew he exclaimed: “Have you seen my sisters?” Hardly waiting for a reply, he galloped away, either to seek ingress into a morgue or to ride along the river banks. One week before Mr. Lewis was worth $60,000, his all being invested in a large commission business. After the flood he owned the horse he rode, the clothes on his back, and that was all. In the fierce wave were buried five of his near relatives, sons, and his sisters Anna, Louise, and Maggie. The latter was married, and her little boy and babe were also drowned. They were all dearly loved by the merchant, who, crazed with grief and mounted on his horse, was a conspicuous figure in the ruined city.
William Gaffney, an insurance agent, had a very pitiful duty to perform. On his father’s and wife’s side he lost fourteen relatives, among them his wife and family. He had a man to take the bodies to the grave, and he himself dug graves for his wife and children, and buried them. In speaking of the matter he said: “I never thought that I could perform such a sad duty, but I had to do it, and I did it. No one has any idea of the feelings of a man who acts as undertaker, grave-digger, and pall-bearer for his own family.”
The saddest sight on the river bank was Mr. Gilmore, who lost his wife and family of five children. Ever since the calamity this old man was seen on the river bank looking for his family. He insisted on the firemen playing a stream of water on the place where the house formerly stood, and where he supposed the bodies lay. The firemen, recognizing his feelings, played the stream on the place, at intervals, for several hours, and at last the rescuers got to the spot where the old man said his house formerly stood. “I know the bodies are there, and you must find them.” When at last one of the men picked up a charred skull, evidently that of a child, the old man exclaimed: “That is my child. There lies my family; go on and get the rest of them.” The workmen continued, and in a few minutes they came to the remains of the mother and three other children. There was only enough of their clothing left to recognize them by.
On the floor of William Mancarro’s house, groaning with pain and grief, lay Patrick Madden, a furnaceman of the Cambria Iron Company. He told of his terrible experience in a voice broken with emotion. He said: “When the Cambria Iron Company’s bridge gave way I was in the house of a neighbor, Edward Garvey. We were caught through our own neglect, like a great many others, and a few minutes before the houses were struck Garvey remarked that he was a good swimmer, and could get away no matter how high the water rose. Ten minutes later I saw him and his son-in-law drowned.
“No human being could swim in that terrible torrent of débris. After the South Fork Reservoir broke I was flung out of the building, and saw, when I rose to the surface of the water, my wife hanging upon a piece of scantling. She let it go and was drowned almost within reach of my arm, and I could not help or save her. I caught a log and floated with it five or six miles, but it was knocked from under me when I went over the dam. I then caught a bale of hay and was taken out by Mr. Morenrow.
“My wife is certainly drowned, and six children. Four of them were: James Madden, twenty-three years old; John, twenty-one years; Kate, seventeen years; and Mary, nineteen years.”