Part Two recalls the myriad tragedies that befell Taylor’s Bay that singular night. There were almost a hundred livyers in the village in 1929. Although the majority of the houses were demolished by the tidal wave, the community seems to have recovered within a few years; by 1935, it had a population of 104, including two new families, the Pikes and the Chafes. After World War II, however, the village went into decline when people began to move away in search of year-round employment.
When I visited Taylor’s Bay on a bright fall day in 2003, the only sounds were made by black-backed gulls in search of food on the shore. Most of the few homes near the beach seemed deserted. The 2003/4 phone book lists only three families for Taylor’s Bay. But standing among the grasses that encircle the harbour it is not hard to imagine the boats, wharves, fishing rooms, clapboard homes, and people that once made this achingly beautiful place a community.
Also from Part Two, Nurse Cherry stayed in Lamaline until 1932, thus serving two full contracts with Nonia. Nonia’s 1932 Eighth Annual Report delivered at the organization’s headquarters in St. John’s read:
Nurse Cherry remains, as she has been from the first, our ‘high liner’ in number of patients treated and visits paid. She has given 624 treatments in the Dispensary and 1,305 in the homes, and paid the astonishing number of 6,153 visits. Her district reaches from Point Crewe on the West to Lord’s Cove on the East, a distance of eighteen miles. She answers many calls, also, which are long distances from her Centre, going as far as St. Lawrence. This would not be possible but for the motor car given to Nurse Cherry by an American gentleman following the reports of her work during the week of the tidal wave. This is Nurse Cherry’s second term with us, her third year. She has made many friends and done much splendid work in that time.
After the rebuilding operations were underway in the winter of 1929, Nurse Cherry went to St. John’s for a vacation. There she received many accolades, including a cheque for $250 from Dr. Mosdell on behalf of the Government of Newfoundland. In sending the cheque to Nurse Cherry, Mosdell wrote, “The whole Government feel that services such as yours should be signally and at the same time practically recognized.” Nurse Cherry was also awarded an engraved silver clock from the Nonia executive presented by Lady Middleton at a reception at Government House, the home of the governor.
During the summer of 1930 Nurse Cherry went home to England for a three month holiday. Her local committee back in Lamaline invited her to return and she assured them she would. In fact, she spent many years in Newfoundland, serving as district nurse in Heart’s Delight, and ending her career at the Markland Cottage Hospital, where she supervised a staff of nine. Mary Harris, who still lives in nearby Whitbourne, worked with Nurse Cherry as a food supervisor and housekeeper. Mrs. Harris remembers a large silver tray that the people of Lamaline had given to Dorothy after the tidal wave.
Although the two women liked each other, Mary describes Dorothy as a very private person. Indeed, an interesting postscript to the story of this enigmatic hero concerns her life in England prior to her arrival in Newfoundland. Despite the fact that almost all the newspaper accounts and most Nonia records refer to the nurse as Miss Cherry, Dorothy was a widow when she sailed across the Atlantic. Her husband may have been a soldier, as is implied in the preceding text.
In addition, Nurse Cherry seems to have had a daughter who would also have died young. Little information about Dorothy’s family is available (thus, I have had to make up a Christian name for her husband on page 95); according to our sources, she rarely spoke of her past or of home. Perhaps her work in Newfoundland served as a refuge of sorts for her:
I have been here for some time and have settled in with a garden, profusion of flowers and it seems like home. Markland Hospital is a very pretty one, for it is set back in a wooded land and has nicely kept flower beds. The hospital is built in the style of a bungalow and the rooms are painted in pastel shades. It has accommodation for 17 patients but there are times when beds have to be found for 27.
In 1947, Nurse Cherry was made a Member of the British Empire for her long years of nursing service in Newfoundland.
I am uncertain which unheralded local men accompanied Nurse Cherry on her post-tsunami journey to the stricken communities. From the list of Lamaline residents, I chose Thomas Foote and Albert King, both young, relatively unencumbered, and not too badly affected by the tidal wave. The names of the local members of the relief communities, however, are from the historical record.
Prime Minister Richard Squires was in his second administration during the sad events of 1929. He was exonerated of charges (unrelated) of corruption during this term in an enquiry conducted by Governor Middleton (the same thing had happened during his first term). But the Great Depression and a crippling war debt caught up with the tiny country of Newfoundland and on April 5, 1932, ten thousand city residents rioted outside the Legislature—Squires, in disguise, barely escaped. The House was dissolved two months later and Squires’ Liberals lost the election.
Squires spent most of his time on his farm on the outskirts of the city and died in 1940 at the age of sixty.
From Part Three, Magistrate Malcolm Hollett later enjoyed a career in politics. He was elected to the National Convention, formed to debate Newfoundland’s post-war future at a time when the map of the world was being redrawn. Hollett favoured Responsible Government (roughly, independence) rather than Confederation with Canada. This battle was lost—fifty-two percent to forty-eight percent on a second referendum—but Hollett was elected to the House of Assembly in 1952 and became leader of the Progressive Conservative party the following year. In this capacity, he was leader of the opposition against Premier Joseph Smallwood, holding the position for several years. Hollett’s political career ended after ten years in the Canadian Senate.
Captain Dalton is the real name of the man who skippered the Meigle, the relief ship sent out by Squires’ government. However, so little information was available on him—his first name even seems to be lost to history—that I invented virtually everything else about him. The historical record shows that the relief team of the Meigle responded quickly and generously to the dire needs of the people they encountered on their south coast trip; in addition, Dr. Mosdell had written that the captain had been particularly valuable to the relief team. Thus, I envisioned Dalton as a kind and generous man.
The Meigle was in the passenger and cargo trade until the early 1930s. In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, the ship became an auxiliary jail when the penitentiary in St. John’s turned out to be too small to hold the thousands of unemployed people who rioted over inadequate government relief. For eight months, the Meigle sat in the capital’s harbour, known as “the prison afloat,” fully staffed with prison personnel. It later returned to more conventional seagoing duties. Finally, after surviving several wartime close calls, in the summer of 1947, the Meigle was wrecked at Marines Cove, losing her cargo of livestock, hens, and pigs. Her crew, however, survived.
Back on the Burin Peninsula, the body of fifteen-year-old Gertrude Fudge of Port au Bras was finally found in July, 1930 entangled in wreckage in the harbour bottom. Gertrude had drowned with her mother, Jessie, and two sisters, Harriet and Hannah, when the waves hauled their house out to sea; the other bodies had been found shortly after the tidal wave. The people of Port au Bras held a church service to remember the victims of the tidal wave on the sixty-fifth anniversary of the disaster ten years ago.
Magistrate Hollett decided to make special arrangements for the widow Lydia Hillier of Point au Gaul as her family had lost their breadwinner and their situation was unique. These arrangements are explained in Appendix Five.
Tidal wave victims were not compensated for lost winter provisions or their salted fish. Most of the monies paid were for house repairs, lost boats and the like. Not all gear was eligible for compensation. Anecdotally, at least, there is some evidence that many survivors were unhappy with the financial assistance rendered. While that is
a topic for another book, perhaps, interested readers are referred to Tidal Wave, by Garry Cranford.
This book does not pretend to introduce all the heroes of the fall and winter of 1929. Many are already forgotten to history, but I hope that over the coming years other researchers and writers will turn their attention to this remarkable event in Newfoundland’s history.
Photographs
A house floats alongside a schooner near Burin after the tsunami. (Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives)
Waterfront debris. Sticks, staves, posts, cribbing and a wharf platform, left behind in the wave of the tsunami. (Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives)
A house moved off its foundation and deposited at the water's edge, Burin North.This one could be salvaged. (Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives)
Lord’s Cove. From an “H.M.M.” postcard found in the Trinity Museum, Trinity Bay. (Photo: Gladys Bonnell)
Dozens of houses were washed out to sea. Miraculously, some survived intact, but most, like this one, were totally destroyed. (Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives)
West side of Taylor’s Bay. From an “H.M.M.” postcard found in the Trinity Museum,Trinity Bay.(Photo: Gladys Bonnell)
The graveyard at Lord's Cove. Crosses mark the graves of Sarah Rennie and her three children, trapped and drowned in their sea-level house. (Photo: Garry Cranford)
Burin. The site where Bartlett's Shop once stood. The tsunami lifted it off the foundation and transported it to another location. (Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives)
The devastated shore properties in Port au Bras. (Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives)
At sea, the energy in the waves of the tsunami passed unnoticed under ships. In shallow water, however, the energy intensified and vessels were at the mercy of troughs and crests of harbour waves. (Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives)
Burin Relief collection vehicle.When news of the South Coast Disaster reached the outside world, a committee based in St. John's coordinated the campaign to collect cash and materials to rebuild the fifty communities affected. (Centre for Newfoundland Studies Archives)
Lucy and Malcolm Hollett, 1962. A magistrate at Burin in 1929, Malcolm Hollett coordinated and administered the relief efforts, inventorying the damage, and distributing the relief to those in need. (Photo: Grace Hollett.)
Left: Nurse Dorothy Cherry on the steps of Markland Cottage Hospital. Nurse Cherry received commendations for risking life and limb in travelling from town to town on the Burin Peninsula, giving medical aid to victims of the tsunami. With her is a nursing colleague, Bessie Sellars.
APPENDIX ONE
St. John’s, November 22, 1929
Daily News Editorial
WHEN OUR HEADS ARE BOWED
Recovered from the somewhat unique and rather alarming earth shock of Monday the matter had become with most people, one to joke about, since the occurrence seemed to have passed off without any untoward incident; when suddenly the country was plunged from light levity into a realization that gaunt tragedy of unusual proportions had been enacted close at home. The very genuine expression of sympathy on every lip yesterday, when shortly after noon the first reports of the disastrous effects of the tidal wave on the Burin Peninsula came in, gave a very practical evidence of the way in which that tragedy and distress had touched every heart.
Recovered from the first alarm of the five o’clock earth shock we can picture the inhabitants of these houses gathered around the fire. Supper things had been cleared away. Mother is busy with her knitting or household mending. Children are studying their household lessons. Suddenly, without warning, there is a roar of waters. Louder than that of the ordinary waves on the shore, it breaks on their ears, and then, with a shuddering crash, a fifteen foot wall of water beats on their frail dwelling , pouring in through door and window and carrying back in its undertow, home and mother and children!
The catastrophes of seafaring life we can understand. As a seafaring people we have matched our lives and wits against an old ocean. In the pursuit of their calling as sailors and fishermen, our men dare the ocean’s moods; but that in well-found craft where the odds are evenly matched. But in this case women and children and aged people housed in dwellings that had sheltered generations, and proof against winter’s blasts and ocean’s sprays, were suddenly engulfed and defenceless life obliterated. Never, perhaps, has such a tragedy been enacted in Newfoundland. Certainly never before has an earthquake laid its seafaring finger across our peaceful community.
The loss of property has been very heavy. Stocks of provisions, and fuel accumulated for the winter have been washed away and homes rendered uninhabitable for the present at least. That can be replaced in time; but the lives lost cannot be recalled. We can only mourn and give our deep sympathy to friends and relatives who have been bereaved.
The Government has been ready in action and the rapid dispatch of the relief ship was well engineered and carried out. The Daily News has nothing but approval for the prompt response made to the urgent necessities of the unfortunate sufferers in the dispatch of the Meigle last night.
APPENDIX TWO
Sympathy Message from Abroad
as it appeared in the Evening Telegram, Dec. 16, 1929
Sympathy from the Bishop of London
Bishop’s Court, St. John’s
13 December, 1929
The Editor Evening Telegram
Dear Sir,—The note of sympathy from the Right Hon. And Right Rev. The Lord Bishop of London, a copy of which I enclose, will be read not only with great interest but with deep appreciation by residents in the stricken parts of the Burin District and by our citizens generally.
Yours very truly,
WILLIAM NEWFOUNDLAND
* * *
Fulham Palace,
St. Andrew’s Day, 1929
Dear Bishop,—I want to send you my deep sympathy and that of my Diocese with you all in the great misfortune which has occurred in Newfoundland in consequence of the great tidal wave.
I fear that it has worked great havoc among some of the finest of your people and I would like them to know how deeply we sympathize with them in London.
If any Fund is being raised to help them I am sure we shall support it to the best of our power.
Yours very sincerely,
A.F. LONDON
APPENDIX THREE
Letter to Local Committee from Relief Expedition
On Board Relief Ship “Meigle”,
November 23, 1929.
Mr. C.C. Pittman, J.P.,
Chairman Relief Committee,
For Earthquake Sufferers.
Dear Sir:
Having been given full powers by His Majesty’s Government to deal with such relief measures as are required in connection with the recent disaster to various settlements through earthquake shock and tidal wave destruction, we hereby delegate to you the authority to deal with conditions in your district as circumstances may show to be necessary.
You are to act as chairman of the committee which will arrange and supervise the necessary relief measures in the section from Lord’s Cove to High Beach, inclusive. Your committee consists of: C.C. Pittman, J.P., Chairman, John Foote, J.P., Rev. Fr. Sullivan, Rev. Mr. Spurrell, Messrs Lewis Crews, John W. Hillier, Edward Cake and John Haley.
Relief supplies for your section are at your disposal to be distributed as you and your committee see fit. You are, further, to take care of clothing supplies, of housing conditions, of fuel and other conditions and to handle these matters as you see fit under all the circumstances, being hereby invested with whatever powers are necessary to enforce your decisions in connection with the various undertakings concerned.
It is not possible to give your duties or to state your powers in detail, but you are generally to undertake and do such things as may from time to time appear to be necessary from the standpoint of relief or to facilitate such relief measures, until you are further advised by the Government of Newfoundland.
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The Government are particularly concerned to ascertain the full extent of the damage in your section. You will, therefore, arrange to have a thorough survey made as expeditiously as possible, employing whatever means or agencies are necessary for this purpose and using forms supplied you by us.
We have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your obedient servants
(SGD.)
H.B.C. Lake
H.M. Mosdell
Alex Campbell
P.T. Fudge
APPENDIX FOUR
Letter from Magistrate Hollett to Captain Davis, Ianthe
(note: Davis was one of the schooner captains commissioned to assist with the relief operations)
Earthquake Relief Committee
Tsunami Page 16
