The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-03-27
Stories of Human Interest Seep
Through the Dispatches.
Tales of Heroic Effort and Self
Sacrifice in Floods.
PARENTS AND CHILDREN PART
Aged Head of Cash Register
Company Doing Noble Work.
He Assumes Personal Charge of
Relief Expeditions.

Toledo, O.. March 27.-The story OF
what really happened during two
nights and a day in Dayton is slowly
being told by relatives of the supposed
dead and the exhausted reseuers ana
the Frustrated victims as they are
brought to places of safety. Each
fragment of the story is a tragedy IN
itself
Here is the story of George Fl.
Schaeffer a rescuer, who went out IN
to the flood with a sk1ff ana saved
woman and baby:
"A house that had been torn from
its foundation came floating up be
hind us" Schaeffer said. THE woman
was frightened. l told her tnere , was was
no danger. Suddenly she stood up
and iumned over with her baby in her
arms. She went straight down ana
never came up again. -,
Then there was the horror that BIZ
Riley former clerk of the Uniteu
states court at Cincinnati, ana now
salesman for the National Cash Reg
lister company, saw himself.
I'VE saw a very old woman stand
ing at the window of house waiting
for rescue" said Riley. I'VE roWea
mn to it. Suddenly the house parted
and the woman in it was enguIfed.
That was the last we saw of her..
Then there was the man who, near
" rescued, had stepped into the skill
and then walked back into his nome
which a short time later floated away
And the story of the colored moth
er who was being rowed to saiety
with her two babies when tne Skill
struck a tree and the little craft cap
sized. The babies were drowned. the
mother was rescued by Robert Bur
ham, the owner of the Skill only 10
die before she reached the hospltaI:
John Scott, an employee of the Ma
tional Cash Register company, VINO
came recently from Butte, Mont, as,
cended a telegraph pole and suided
across the cable to places OF SAFETY,
men, women and chlidren rescueu
from flooded houses. 1t would have
seemed so real if presented in melo-
drama, this method of bridging
flood, but here it was done IN lhe
presence of hundreds who STOOD at
safe spots appalled, by the inminence
scott had guided dozen persons
across the swaying bridge OF wires
when the explosion that started the
fire occurred and. the shock Knocked
scott from the pole and he fell into
In Path of the Fire.
THE last I saw of him he was try
ing to get into the window of an bafp-
branches of the tree said Frank
Stevens a fellow employee of Scott
The house was in the path of the
fire.
--Wn Is your HdHlS- dShSu NAiO
registrar who received refugees at the
National Cash Register plant of a
slender person in mems clothing.
Norma Thuma," was the reply.
Norma ?" they asked.
Eyes. I'm a girl" was the answer.
She had put on mems clothes in or
der to cross the perilous span of wires
unhampered by skirts.
Norma came in with Ralph Myers,
his wife and their little baby. Myers
had climbed the pole first. He let
down a rope to his wife, who tied it
to a meal sack, which contained their
baby. months old. Myers pulled up
the rope with its precious burden and
then let it down again to aid his
wife to ascend. With the meal sack
over his shoulder and his wife behind
him Myers, holding on to two thin
wires, walked across the cable a full
block before he reached safety.
There were brought from the flood
last night Mrs. James Cassidy and her
three children. Mrs. Cassidy was
grief stricken over the report of the
death of her husband. Even as she