Maura Hanrahan - Tsunami

“Well, yes, Nurse, you’re right there,” Elizabeth nodded. “Most of us have our houses and no one died, thanks be to God. I hear that’s not the case farther down the peninsula and we’ve been praying for those people and lighting candles in the church.”

“Yes, it’s the saddest sight, Taylor’s Bay,” Nurse Cherry said. “The Bonnell men, Robert and Bertram, losing their children, and Robert losing his wife, too. Bertram was driven mad with his loss when I saw him. His wife, Bessie, too, she was heartbroken, of course. And then poor Jessie Hipditch and her husband David in Point au Gaul—they lost all their children, all three of them. Jessie’s mother, too. And her sister Jemima’s daughter, Irene.”

The Cusack children stared at Nurse Cherry, trying to take in the gravity of her words. They were catatonic, like statues.

Elizabeth was silent.

“I know Jessie Hipditch. I’ve met her and she’s a good woman,” she said finally. “It’s not nice to lose your mother. But, you know, losing your children is never supposed to happen. It’s against nature.”

Nurse Cherry nodded. She could understand this. She had delivered many of them and she had closed the eyes of many old people. This was as it should be. In the past few days, everything had been upside down or backwards, just as Elizabeth Cusack had said…

“You’ll have to visit poor Michael Fitzpatrick, too,” Elizabeth said, as she cleared the dishes off the table and shooed the children away. “His house is gone, too. And his flake and that…Are you all right, Nurse Cherry?”

“Well, I’m a little woozy to be honest,” Nurse Cherry answered. Elizabeth paused and looked the nurse up and down.

“Lie down here on the daybed,” she said kindly. “Perhaps you’ve been working too hard or not eating enough or most likely both.”

“I’ve got work to do,” Nurse Cherry protested.

“Well, you can’t do it right till you rest,” Elizabeth said firmly. “Now lie down.”

Nurse Cherry moved slowly over to the daybed. Elizabeth pulled a thin woollen blanket over her legs.

“Just have a little rest now,” she said gently.

Then one of Joseph Cusack’s sons rushed back into the kitchen.

“Aunt Elizabeth!” he said urgently. “There’s a rescue ship in the harbour! The SS Meigle . Can I go see it?”

“Of course you can, child,” Elizabeth said. “Just don’t get in the men’s way, but offer to help if they need it. Off you go.”

Elizabeth smiled when she saw that Nurse Cherry had fallen asleep in spite of her nephew’s gleeful news. Her guest woke up only when the dark shadow of a broad-shouldered man standing over her hauled her from the quagmire of her dreams. Two hours had passed when Dr. Mosdell, Chairman of Newfoundland’s Board of Health, appeared in Elizabeth Cusack’s kitchen.

As Nurse Cherry blinked her way to clear vision, the doctor introduced himself.

“Nurse Cherry, on behalf of the government of Newfoundland I thank you for your efforts. Now you are coming with us,” he said firmly. “We shall take you to Burin on the Meigle for a well deserved rest.” He nodded and looked at Elizabeth as if for confirmation. She nodded quickly in return, delighted to be of service. By now the narrow little daybed was surrounded by a gaggle of Cusack children as well as some others who had wandered in to see what was going on. They shook snow all over the linoleum floor as they came in but Elizabeth ignored it, so focused on Nurse Cherry was she.

Nurse Cherry looked up at Dr. Mosdell and straightened her hair as best she could. “Oh no, I can’t go with you—I have work to do, sir,” she said weakly.

“Nurse Cherry…” Mosdell began.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Nurse Cherry interrupted. “I have to respectfully decline your kind offer.”

Two days later Dr. Mosdell dipped his pen in an inkwell and began a letter to the Honourable A. Barnes, the Colonial Secretary in St. John’s. He wrote:

On board Relief Ship Meigle Burin Nov. 25 the Florence Nightingale of the earthquake and tidal wave disaster on the Southwest coast is Nurse D. Cherry of the Nonia Centre at Lamaline. At every point the Meigle has called we have heard stirring tales of her courage and devotion to the interests of the survivors. Starting her work of mercy immediately after the occurrence of the catastrophe she has known no rest day or night since then and has been without assistance of any kind until the arrival on the coast of the Doctors and Nurses of our relief expedition.

It must have been almost superhuman effort for Nurse Cherry to make her way on foot all through the stricken area from Lamaline to Lawn a distance of twenty miles. Roads and bridges were swept away and she had to wade many of the streams en route. The weather was intensely cold with snow falling all the time. Her ministrations proved nothing less than providential to terror stricken and frightened women and children. She got through the District as quickly as possible sparing herself not at all and after rendering first aid in one settlement she moved on along until something had been done everywhere to help and to cheer the stricken.

Courage and devotion were required for the journey which was made right after the woeful destruction of the tidal wave with miles of desolation to be traversed at night and nobody just sure that the catastrophe would not be reenacted.

All day yesterday the Meigle sheltered at Lawn a Southeast storm with high seas and driving rain rendering communication with the shore almost impossible.

Toward evening the rain turned to sleet and there was nothing to do except wait until the dark and tempestuous night had passed. During a lull in the storm of the morning Nurse Cherry was taken onboard. She was almost in a state of collapse after her strenuous and self-sacrificing efforts. Despite her objections the expedition kept her with them and have taken her as far as Burin to enable her to recuperate. She returns to her District by the Argyle tomorrow…

From the South Coast of Newfoundland comes a tale of tragedy most appalling, following the earthquake of Monday evening 18 th. Owing to communications systems having been out of operation by the quake and storms, news of the tragedy was tardy in coming in, and the first intimation of the seriousness of the disaster was conveyed in a message to the Prime Minister from the captain of the S.S. Portia dated from Cape Race last Thursday, which read as follows: “Burin experienced very severe earth tremors 5:05 pm, tidal wave which swept everything waterfront, 16 dwelling houses with 9 lives mostly women and children gone, 4 bodies recovered. All communication of wire cut off. Report is that 18 lives were lost at Lord’s Cove and Lamaline.”

Nature showed no mercy to the people of the Burin Peninsula on the morning following the most harrowing event of their lives. November 19, 1929 dawned bitterly cold, and iciness seemed rooted deep in the earth. Soon snow fell, slowly at first and then thick and fast. Before long the villages of the peninsula were enveloped in a cold, cruel, blinding white. The wind howled like an angry husky dog at night, blowing the bodies of dead sheep into the waters of Lord’s Cove and Lamaline, and dashing teapots and broken dishes upon the rocks that hugged the shores of Burin and St. Lawrence. Pieces of lace curtain flew on the waves that the post- tsunami winds whipped up. If an airplane had been able to defy the winds and fly over the Burin Peninsula, its occupants would have seen clapboard floating like matchsticks and houses bobbing here and there, oddly, as if they were enjoying their sea-going excursion after decades of being anchored to land. Entire harbours were choked with the carcasses of cows, bulls, and goats, and with broken barns, wrecked fences, and dwellings cut in half by waves that had the sharpness of saws.