Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1913-04-04

for their homes in different parts OF
the country.
AT Celina saw the same suffer
ing. The town was under ten feet
Of water. saw them take ten bod
les from the water at MassiIlon, o.
Prospect, o., is under IA feet Of water.
and the river at that point is four
miles wide. / saw them take more
than dozen bodies from the water.
1.-THE reparts of the dead have not
been sent In from these small towns
and the country will be appalled, when
| the full number is known. From what
| saw do not think the reports have
been exaggerated.
'sPiQua and Fostoria are under wa
| ter, and many people are drowned.
The nearest / could get to Dayton
was Piqua. Most OF the town was I'M
der water 1t was impossible to get to
Dayton"
Goods Tell Of Horrors.
Four weary young women, co-eds
from Ohio Wesleyan university at Del
aware, o.. climbed from a Pullman on
| delayed Lake Shore train in the La
Sale street station. They were the
first arrivals in Chicago from the ac-
tual scenes of death and desolation
attending the floods throughout CEN
| trail Ohio.
Eagerly questioned by newspaper
men, the young women talked freely
| Of their experiences and painted
| graphic word pictures Of the horrors
of the inundation of large part of
Delaware.
They were Miss Florence Wyman of
3633 Sheffield avenue, student in gen
eral work and instructor in the art
school of the university; Edith and
Esther Quayle of 233 North Harvey
street, Oak Park, and Mabel Lees of
| 325 Elmwood avenue, Oak Park.
| Fear Horror to Follow.
| Miss Wyman, who had chaperoned
the party on the trip, was the spokes-
man, but the other girls broke in from
time to time with eager calculations
to emphasize the horror of the tale
she told.
1.-THE thought that is uppermost in
my mind" said Miss Wyman, lis not
so much of the horror that has passed
as of the greater horror that must in
evitably come to those poor people in
Delaware and elsewhere throughout
the flooded district. There are some
| dead bodies still in the houses at Del
aware, and thousands elsewhere in
Ohio, and it is staggering to the imagi-
nation to attempt to conjure up the
picture of desolation. famine and pes
| thence that will follow the recession
| of the waters.
1.-The food itself was like horrible
nightmare. The water crept up slow
| ly, but, oh, so steadily and relentless
| ly. First it was six inches deep in
some of the lower streets; then foot
| deep, and at last it had covered all
| the lower part OF town and was lap
ping at the foot of the hills, while the
houses in the flooded portion stood,
many of them, with only the upper
stories and roofs visible.
| Hear Prayers for Safety.
"And on nearly every house there
was a family, or what was left of the
family, clinging to the ridgepole and
chimneys and praying for deliverance.
"The university stands on the highest
hill in town, and we were not affected
by the food itself But all night, that
first night, the 200 girls in Monnett
hall, our dormitory, walked the floor
and wept and prayed as the walls Of
the unfortunates only few blocks
away were borne to their ears. Closed
| windows could not keep out the
sound. Now and then woman shrek
ed above the general lamentations,
and we knew when that sound reached
us that some one had seen a loved
relative, an aged father or mother, or
perhaps child, lose the grip of
numbed fingers and slide off into the
black, chill waters.
Throughout the night the men stu
dents and members of the faculty did
what they could to rescue the suffer
ers, but we had no boats at the uni
yersity and it was almost impossible
to guide raft through the blackness
of the night, which was intensified by
cold, drizzling rain.
Rescue Work Makes Heroes.
AS soon as dawn came the boys
got together in an organized rescue
corps. Our school produced a hundred
heroes in half an hour. Every one Of
those students risked death on the
| fiimsy RATS they were able to con-
struct, but they never hesitated. They
! found some small boats, too, and did
as well as they could with these. Prof
w. E. Dixon, the physical director of
the university, headed the work OF
rescue. He had dozen active lieu
tenants in the work of directing op-
erations.
"Some of the houses could not be
reached at ALL The RATS we're un-
manageable. and the few boats were
4 u