Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1915-07-29
EASTLAND VICTIMS
FILL Bic ARMORY
Bodies Are Taken to Second
Regiment Quarters.
STEADY STREAM TO M0RGUE
Thirty or Forty Undertakes at Work
Preparing Remains, Which Are
in Shocking Condition When
Brought From the River.

Chicago, July 26.-On the great drill
floor Of the Second regiment armory,
at Curtis and Sangamon streets, the
dead from the Eastland were assem-
bled for Identification.
They lay in rows that reached from
one end of the armory to the other.
At five o'clock the work Of bringing in
the dead from undertakers' shops,
Reid, Murdoch & Co.'S warehouse and
the various other temporary morgues
began.
Al $50 over 700 bodies were laid
out on the drill floor and patrol wag
ons, ambulances and motor trucks be-
longing to private firms were con-
tinually bringing more.
Stretchers in Steady Stream.
A never-ending procession of police
men carrying stretchers on which lay
the victims of the great disaster came
in two doors.
Outside a great crowd packed the
streets for two blocks in each direc-
ton. A double line of policemen
drawn around the armory had all it
could do to hold back crying, agonized
men, women and children, begging to
be admitted that they might claim
their dead.
The people outside were continually
told that not until ten o'clock would
relatives of the victims of the disaster
be admitted, but they refused to go
away. Sometimes the screams and
sobbing of those waiting outside the
armory penetrated to the interior of
the building in spite of the solid brick
walls.
In the armory the scene was one
never to be forgotten. In one corner
arc lamps had been rugged up and shed
a brilliant light, under which thirty
or forty undertakers we're at work en-
balming the bodies.
Police stretcher bearers picked up
the bodies one by one from each row
and brought them to the embalmers
and then returned them again to the
floor.
A volunteer corps of sixteen men
from the Hamilton club was put to
work putting the personal effects
found on the bodies into envelopes
and numbering them to agree with the
number on the tag tied to the wrist
or toes of the bodies.
When the bodies we're brought in
from the outside they were shocking
to see. The clothing was torn and dis
arranged, and the features sometimes
covered with dirt and blood.
All This Is Changed.
But after the undertakers had
finished their work the poor victims of
the Eastland lay as serene and peace
full as though asleep. Some of them
seemed fairly to smile.
There were young girls, children
and grown-ups of all ages, but most of
the victims seemed to be young. Girls
in their teens or the early twenties
predominated and young men not yet
twenty-five.
At times in spite Of the police guard
around the armory relatives would
slip in and hunt down the long rows
looking for their loved ones.
Suddenly Finds Wife.
A man in overalls, who was thought
to be one of the electricians at work
putting in the emergency lights, sud-
denly burst into hystericaI sobs and
sank by the side Of young woman
who had just been brought back from
the embalmer's table. The black
haired, pretty girl wrapped in the
shrOud was his wife
He was taken by the police to rooms
in the armory belonging to the head
quarters staff, where DR.. G. Pruyn
Struggled with corps of volunteer
nurses had established an emergency
hospital to take care Of the relatives
who were overcome. Within a few
minutes a young man who had found
his sister among the dead was car
ried in and a second later a young
girl who had found in one Of the long,
silent rows the body of her sister.