What follows is a short remembrance based on my great grandfather Michael Landry's experience.
9:00am
December 6, 1917
Halifax, Nova Scotia
It’s a warm beautiful sunny day in December.
Sixty one year old, widowed dad, Michael is at his job at the Round House about a half mile from home.
He’s walking toward a rust colored freight car parked next to an outbuilding. His job is to clean the car. Michael walks between the building and the car, unlatches and slides open the door, then climbs in to assess what needs to be done. Before he can open the door on the other side, he feels the ground rumbling. As its force increases, he’s knocked off his feet. The large metal box shakes violently. There’s a deafening sound reverberating within its walls as Michael’s body is jostled about. Abruptly it stops. Silence.
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| Shops C.G.R. adjacent to the Round House – Photo #36 (Halifax Relief Commission Photos – Mass. State library) |
Lying on the floor, Michael lifts his head and turns toward the door. The air feels heavy and it’s dark outside. Getting up, he makes his way to the door and climbs down. As he rounds the car, he sees a debris field containing a mixture of splintered wood, glass fragments, and shattered equipment. There’s a huge dark cloud hovering over the harbor.
My family, he thinks as he stumbles through the debris and heads toward home.
Oh, God, my family, my two girls. He starts running out of the yard.
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| C.G.R. Round House – Photo #41 (Halifax Relief Commission Photos – Mass. State library) |
As he's running, he thinks about his two girls and how he'd hugged them before he left for work.
He thinks about his older daughter, fourteen year old Anna Bella at home doing the household chores; something she's done since her mother's death in January. Elizabeth, age eleven, is at school.
He continues to run. The usual landmarks are missing. Somehow his internal compass takes over as he makes his way down what was Young Street to look for Elizabeth. The time it takes him to reach St. Joseph’s School feels like an eternity. The closer he gets the worse it looks. Houses are in various stages of demolition.
As he approaches the parishes block, he sees there’s no roof on the church and the walls are barely standing. The school is a windowless bulged-out mess. A set of stairs has collapsed, so he moves around the building to discover a few children and a couple nuns covered in blood with soldiers assisting them.
"Has anyone seen Elizabeth Landry?" he asks.
“She’s not here,” said Sister Cecilia.
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Burnt District – Photo #16
(Halifax Relief Commission Photos – Mass. State library)
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Michael heads down the hill. He smells the burning ruins and flesh. Human carnage is strewn about the ground with cries of anguish coming from under the wreckage. Soldiers and civilians are pulling people from the rubble. Fireman using their equipment are doing their best to keep the fires at bay, but there aren’t enough of them.
He fears that Anna Bella may have perished. It appears that the area where the house stood is now totally burned.
In front of him, the injured are being loaded onto horse drawn carts and motor powered vehicles. Running from one to the other he checks for his two girls. It is hard to find them since most everyone is unrecognizable. He continues his frantic search.
Then he hears, "Papa, we're over here!"
He turns to see two girls, seated and holding each others hands, on the back of a buckboard. One has a swollen face and is covered with blood and dirt. The other is covered with plaster dust.
"Anna Bella, Elizabeth!"
"Yes, Papa, it's us," says Elizabeth.
Michael moves to them and wraps them in his arms
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To read more about the family during the explosion at "A Picture on the Wall."
Permission granted for photos used in this blog: Folder #17 Photos 1-79, MS Coll. 90 Massachusetts-Halifax Relief Committee Records. State Library of Massachusetts Special Collections.To read more about the family during the explosion at "A Picture on the Wall."
