Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1896-05-28


called to the Kohlers to follow them.
Prof. Kohler caught up the baby and
started for the stairway. He glanced
out and saw the cloud so near that ne
concluded they would not have time to
join the Longs. He told his wife to
drop down on the floor, and got down
beside her. covering the baby with his
own body.
II don't think | was unconscious at
any time" said the Professor Il saw
the house lifted from over us and car
ried away. We remained, as it SEEM
ed to me. fiat on the floor. Yet my
trousers we're drawn off, and l haven't
any idea when or how it was done.
When things stopped moving we were
still lying on the floor The baby,
which had been under me, was sitting
on my breast. Timbers were over us.
A plank was under the small OF my
back. We were covered with black
mud. The baby was the first to speak.
She cried out:
81 can't see mamma, my face is so
dirty
Never mind, baby said. Let's
be thankful we're alive.
The first person who came TO the
rescue of the Kohlers was woman.
She ran away, got quilt, came back
and spread it over them.
Il and my wife were both dressed
when the cyclone came, said the Pro-
fessor. Our clothing was stripped
from us, except very small portion.
When the debris was lifted off us. cloth
ing had to be brought to us at once.
We needed it. How that plank got un-
der the small of my back while | was
lying fiat on the floor can't imagine.
At first | didn't feel any serious effects,
but in couple of days | became black
and blue. Everything l had went ex-
cept that bundle of orchestra scores
put down by the door The baby had
pulled loose the string before the storm
came; after the storm that pile Of books
was just as | had left it"
It is a relief to get away from the
CHASTITY horrors and consider the mirac-
ulous escapes One of these escapes oc-
Cured at the residence of Capt. Ely the
jeweler The Ely family lived in
large brick house. Nine-tenths OF the
architecture of Sherman is wooden.
There we're but few brick buildings in
the path of the cyclone. Capt Ely's
was the most notable of them. The
original house had been added to and
there was a new wall The thought
flashed through Mrs. Ely's mind when
the cyclone came up that the new wall
would be the strongest. AS she closed
the door she saw the Montgomery
house, opposite, go up. She ran to the
new wall and with the two children
huddled down on the floor close to 1t.
The house began TO crumble.,.A large
old-fashioned wardrobe toppled over
against the new wall and made with it
a crevice in which Mrs. Ely and the
children we're protected. The bricks
from the Ely house were scattered far
and wide, hardly enough being left
where the walls had stood to make
respectable ruin. Brick walls were no
more substantial than wooden ones be-
fore such forces. OF the family which
lived across the street from the Ely
house four were killed. OF the family
that lived next door three were killed.
Capt Jim Woods's place was one of
those on the edge of the cyclones path.
1t was so near the barn was taken and
the house was left When the family
looked out of the windows just after
the cloud had gone by there stood the
horse where the barn had been, looking
around him inquiringly. Capt. Woods
had thirty or forty bales of hay in the
loft of his barn The cyclone took
those bales, broke the string bands and
scattered the hay as thoroughly as
an adjoining field.
The cyclone had its humors. Some
man will rise up at the crack of doom
and crack his joke. Before the roar
of the storm cloud had died away in the
distance a boy came running up from
the vicinity of the Houston street
bridge crying
They're all dead down there"
And then people rushed from the
business houses to the work of rescue.
AS a negro woman was taken from be-
meath the wreckage at one place she
calculated fervently:
Thank the Lord! Thank the Lordw
Thank the Lord repeated one of
the rescuers. You'd better say:
Thank Foster He's the one who got
you out of this
When Bob Jones galloped down to
the Houston street bridge on the first
call for help he saw black head just
above the seething waters of Post Oak
creek. Running down to the edge he
pulled out a negro girl, who was stand
ing in the edge of the water TO her neck,
paralyzed with fright, and unable to
move or speak. +,
To the eolored people along Post Oak
creek that passage of the cyclone was
a section of the Day of Judgment.
They prayed and calculated with in
tense fervor, but were as helpless as lit
tie children The white people came
and gathered up the black dead and in
jured. They turned the stores on one
side of the public square into hospi-
tails, and there white ladies have sat
day after day and night after night,
tanning the black faces and putting
cool drinks to the fevered lips. In the
presence of great calamity the race
problem has shrunken into at least
temporary insignifcance.
The beating or pounding force exer-
cised by the cloud in its rear is seen
in many ways. One of the most nota-
bic evidences is in the cemetery. There
the cloud raised the pointed shaft of
monument from its base, turned it point
downward in an angle and hurled 1t
against the ground with such power
as to pillow hole deep enough to half
bury the shaft. This was not exercised