Washed Away: How the Great Flood of 1913, America's Most Widespread Natural Disaster, Terrorized a Nation and Changed It Forever (50 page)

As for the newspapers I utilized for the book, and I'm sure I've left some out of the list you're about to read, but I focused on the dates of March 23–27, of course, although I frequently was looking ahead into April and May 1913 and beyond, and immersed myself in the
Dayton Daily News,
the
Dayton Journal,
the
Dayton Evening Herald,
the
Middletown Journal,
the
Middletown News-Signal,
the
Springfield News-Sun, Xenia Daily Gazette,
the
Fort Wayne News,
the
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
and the
Fort Wayne Sentinel,
the
Indianapolis Star,
the
Indianapolis News,
the
Columbus Dispatch,
the
Columbus Citizen-Journal,
the
Ohio State Journal,
the
Galveston Daily News,
the New
Castle News
(New Castle, Pennsylvania), the
Gazette and Bulletin
(Williamsport, Pennsylvania),
Lebanon Daily News
(Lebanon, Pennsylvania),
Chester Times
(Chester, Pennsylvania), the
Evening Record
(Greenville, Pennsylvania), the
Pittsburgh Gazette Times,
the
Neosho Daily Democrat
(Neosho, Missouri),
Moberly Weekly Monitor
(Moberly, Missouri), the
Daily Democrat-Tribune
(Jefferson City, Missouri),
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Alton Evening Telegraph
(Alton, Illinois), the
Daily Free Press
(Carbondale, Illinois),
Monmouth College Newspaper Oracle
(Monmouth, Illinois), the New
York Times,
the Los
Angeles Times,
the
Washington Post,
and the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
I went through as many newspapers as possible, repeatedly, because so often during the 1913 flood, when communication was difficult and confusion reigned, an account would be wrong or wouldn't quite tell the whole story, but when two, three, or ten papers started reporting an incident from varying angles, and you compare it with other facts you pick up at sites like
Ancestry.com
, you start to get a clearer picture.

I used other sources, however, beyond newspaper articles, magazine articles, Web sites, and books. I need to thank Gregory McDonald, a forensic pathologist at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, who has performed many autopsies on drowning victims over the years and gave me as close to first-hand information as possible on what happens when you drown and what it's like. Donna Randall and Sara Houk, relatives of Theresa Hammond, the Fort Wayne teacher who saved two orphans, were able to fill me in on what her aunt was like and filled me in about Teresa Hammond Dinnen's life, post-flood. Ms. Houk was especially helpful, as were Helen Steele Lehman and especially Elinor Kline, who both provided information about the
Saettel family. (George Saettel, as you may recall, was the shopkeeper who was caught up in an explosion but managed to survive in the flood for a little while.)

Felicia Korengel, Lyn Keating, and especially Elaine Korengel Durham were all able to provide a little more information about Ralph Korengel, the ten-year-old kid in Cincinnati who almost became a flood statistic when he was sucked through a sewer tunnel. Ralph lived a good long life, married, but never had kids. I was pretty horrified to learn that in 1980, when he was ill with cancer, he ended his life in his garage, turning on his car. That was bad enough, but he didn't realize the carbon monoxide would go anywhere beyond his deathtrap. It did, the poisonous gas drifting up to the room above the garage, and killed his wife, Ruth.

Other people I should mention who helped out with a little advice, or pointed me in the right direction, include Edward Roach, a historian at the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park; Megan Griffiths, conservation technician at the Gerald R. Ford Conservation Center at the Nebraska State Historical Society; Eric Mankin; Leslie Mark Kendall, the curator of the Petersen Automotive Museum; and Patricia R. Shannon, the director of education at the Thurber House.

One of the most invaluable was a recounting that I found at the Dayton library written by Charles Adams, the father of the twin babies who almost drowned in the flood. He wrote about a ten-page manuscript, detailing the day it flooded in Dayton and of how he and his wife and their babies almost died. His son, Charles Adams, Jr., also wrote extensively about his role in the flood, and I think their stories really added a lot to our understanding of the flood; but of course, there are probably so many stories written by people and waiting to be discovered in libraries and probably in numerous aging trunks and shoeboxes heaved to the side in attics and basements.

Trudy E. Bell is a science journalist who wrote
The Great Dayton Flood of 1913
(Arcadia Publishing, 2008). I didn't utilize her fine book all that much—anyone familiar with Arcadia knows that their books are filled with more photos than prose—there are 200 in Bell's 128-page book—but Bell has written extensively about the 1913 flood on the Internet. Somewhere in the last few months of writing this book, I came across her Web site, in which she says, “My ultimate goal is
to write the definitive book on the Great Easter national calamity of 1913.”

I felt a twinge of guilt when I read that, since I hope
my
book is the definitive book on the Great Flood of 1913, but I hope she still writes her own all-comprehensive account. In my opinion, and I'm sure Ms. Bell's, there could and should be bookshelves full of tomes about the 1913 flood. What happened to America during the spring of 1913 is, I think, just as tragic, compelling, and relevant as other prominent historical disasters, like the
Titanic
and the 1906 San Francisco and 1871 Chicago fires, are today. Not to make it a contest or anything, but the flood victims and heroes of the 1913 flood deserve to be remembered as much as anyone else.

So, anyway, Bell's research about the storm and weather that hit the Midwest, Northeast, and South was very helpful to my understanding of the tornadoes and flood that pounded the country, and I'm grateful for all the work she has done in helping to unearth information about the flood.

I also have to sing the praises of John R. Repass, who wrote a lengthy document for the West Indianapolis Historical Society about his mother's family's ordeal during the flood and a tale of his grandfather, Philander Gray. That account, which the society put online, added a lot to the Indianapolis portions of the book.

In general, historical societies and counties in the region have stories about the flood on their Web sites, including the Shelby County Historical Society, which has a nice recounting of the flood from 89-year-old resident Gene Rees. The Emmitsburg Area Historical Society, of Emmitsburg, Maryland, also stands out; it had a little snippet on their Web site about John Hoke, possibly Maryland's only flood casualty, which sent me searching the newspaper archives to learn more.

In 2002, local historian Jim Blount published a 68-page book entitled
Butler County's Greatest Weather Disaster: Flood, 1913.
I found some invaluable material, especially on Hamilton!, Ohio, in his book. ‘Sigh. I should mention here that Hamilton—wonderful, scenic community with good people—renamed its city in 1986, Hamilton!, Ohio. That's right. To the chagrin of many Hamiltonians even, there's an exclamation point after the city, although almost nobody, including
mapmakers, uses it. I didn't in the book, in large part because it was set in 1913, long before the exclamation point was added.'

And, of course, there are others I would like to thank for their help with writing
Washed Away,
front and center my affable agent Laurie Abkemeier, who I mentioned at the start of this book and can't say enough nice things about, frankly. When I was trying to come up with an idea for another book, she pushed me to write about something local until I suddenly remembered all of the scattered stories I had heard about some flood a long, long time ago, and I definitely need to thank Jessica Case, my editor, who was able to tighten the prose and offer a lot of useful input. She is also unfailingly cheerful, never making me feel bad when I turned in my drafts slightly past our deadlines. Any author would be lucky to work with her.

I also would like to thank some of the people who have been ever-present in my life: my parents, of course, Jim and Rita Williams, who are about as perfect a pair of parents as you'd ever want; my younger brother and confidant, Kevin; my kind and generous grandmother, Mary Wellinghoff (born in Middletown, Ohio, twelve years after the flood); and some close friends of mine, Brian Kieffer, Mike Johnson, Richard Welch, and Stu Rubinstein. I'd also like to thank my ex-wife, Susan Kailholz. Our marriage not unexpectedly came crumbling to an end a few weeks before Pegasus Books gave me the go-ahead to write this book, and while divorce is obviously pretty unpleasant, ours was thankfully amicable, and I feel like we've kept our friendship intact.

Most of all, though, I thank our daughters, Isabelle and Lorelei, eleven and nine, who both inspire me, keep me on my toes, and simply make life interesting, exciting, and fun. One night at dinner, I told them that I wanted to dedicate the book to them, and Isabelle, who isn't one for mush, rolled her eyes. Lorelei, who loves history maybe as much as I do, cheerfully suggested that I dedicate the book to the flood victims. Isabelle quickly seconded that. And how could I argue? Those who survived the flood and those who didn't spent several harrowing days, famished and thirsty, often putting their lives at risk in order to save their families, friends, neighbors, and complete strangers. The 1913 flood may be mostly forgotten, but its victims and survivors should long be remembered.

Index

A

Abbott, Albert,
166

Abbott, Chief,
233–234
,
236

Abel, Mildred,
51

Abkemeier, Laurie, xii

Adams, Charles,
67–69
,
77–81
,
86
,
110–111
,
115
,
151–156
,
185
,
195–197
,
286–287
,
336–337

Adams, Charles, Jr.,
152–153
,
155–156
,
196–197
,
336–338
,
340–341

Adams, F. J.,
7–8
,
15

Adams, John “Grandpa,”
69
,
81
,
86
,
151–154
,
161–162
,
196–197
,
286–287
,
336–337

Adams, Lois,
151–153
,
156
,
185
,
196–197
,
336–337

Adams, Viola,
67–68
,
77
,
79–81
,
86
,
110–111
,
151–156
,
197
,
287
,
336–337

Adams Sentinel
,
51

aftermath of flood,
291–309
,
313–341

Akron Beacon Journal
,
93

Allen, Charles,
9

Alton Evening Telegraph
,
250

American Architect and Building News
,
6

American Biography: Arthur Ernest Morgan
,
326

Anderson, Albert A.,
246

Anderson, Christian,
124

Andrews, Henry,
93

Annual Report
,
307

Aring, Fred,
66–67

Arnold, Chester,
186–187

Artz, Dudley,
154–155

Atchison Daily Globe
,
45

Atlanta Constitution-Journal
,
323

Aughenbaugh, James T.,
307

August, Edwin,
212

Axline, Addline,
187–189

Axline, William,
187–189

B

Bachelor Bill's Birthday Present
,
212

Baggot, King,
172

Baird, Glenn,
228

Baker, George,
125–126

Bakersfield Californian
,
294

Baldwin, Irwin,
265

Ballard, Wilbur,
41

Balls, Dan,
246

Bannon, Flora,
125–126

Barnhorn, Marie Zang,
115

Barron, Thomas,
209

Barrymore, Drew,
313

Barrymore, Ethel,
313

Barrymore, John,
313

Barrymore, Lionel,
313

Barton, Clara,
22

Bear, Hollow Horn,
60–61

Becker, C.J.,
316–317

Bell, A.John,
73
,
92
,
149
,
180–181
,
206
,
264
,
334

Bell, Trudy E.,
x
,
3
,
304

Bennett, Clarence,
84
,
232
,
261
,
286

Benting, Josiah,
51

Bernhardt, Sarah,
313

Bernstein, Mark,
326

Betts, Adam,
294

Bicknell, Ernest P.,
21–23
,
29–30
,
62–63
,
98
,
208
,
281
,
285
,
303
,
328–329

Biddle, Pearl Clifton,
63–64

Blackner, John,
123

Blair, Harry Laban,
220

Blair, Hattie,
220

Blanck, Max,
43

blizzards,
5
,
24
,
236

Block, Maurice,
324

Boardman, Mabel,
22
,
98
,
208
,
303

Boeh, Valenti,
46

Boggs, Harold,
228

Bourne, G. W.,
216

Boyer, Fred,
90