A Young Rescuer on Union Street - Halifax Explosion

Fort Needham Memorial Park, Halifax, NS - Cal Shook

While doing research this month, one story about a brave young rescuer stood out.

On December 6, 1917, the Myra family lived at 52 Union Street. My relatives, the Landry family, resided at 38 Union Street. With the exploding of the Mont Blanc, houses in the Richmond section of Halifax were leveled which included Union Street..  At the Myra residence, thirteen-year-old Doris and her mother, Mary were the only ones home.  Uninjured, Doris found herself in the midst of the debris from the house, a fire had started and was closing in on her and her critically wounded mother.  After a failed attempt to lift her mother and with fresh blood covering her clothes, Doris took a piece of rope and tied it around her mother’s feet and then dragged her outside to safety.  Sadly, her mother Mary died later that day.

“Doris was one of three people believed to have survived on Union Street near Fort Needham as of the paper’s printing. Edward A. Myra, Doris’s father also survived,” according to author Katie Ingram in her book, Breaking Disaster. *

Ninety-four people from Union Street are listed among the dead in the Halifax Explosion Remembrance Book.  On that day my great Uncle Dan Landry lost his pregnant wife Annie and their 18-month-old son Clarence.

I’m grateful that among those who lived, was my grandfather’s next to youngest sibling, Anna Bella. Fourteen at the time, she was pulled from the rubble in a semi-conscious state and lived to share family stories.  In August of 2003, Aunt Anna Bella shared:

“It must have been terrible for my father and Dan to come home and see that, everything mowed down… And everything was burning, burning next to me. The house next to me was burning. And the next thing I saw was Elizabeth. But someone had taken me out and brought me out in the street because I was half unconscious… coming out like that… and I saw Elizabeth and thought, my God she’s safe…”



Note:
*from  page 88 of Breaking Disaster by Katie Ingram.  The newspaper that Ms. Ingram referred to was “The Morning Chronicle” published on December 10, 1917. The quote contained a footnote: "Doris Myra would later work as a clerk before marrying Joseph Paul Dubois in 1925. Her father Edward never remarried and would pass away in 1966 at the age of 91.”

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