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MG 1 vol 2124 number 116

HALIFAX DISASTER RECORD OFFICE
Chronicle Building
Halifax, N. S.

Personal Testimony of Miss Geneva Bayers, taken December 21st.

Had played at party until twelve, the night before, and lay in bed late. Did not hear the explosion. The house fell around her. Her mouth was filled with plaster. The foot of the brass bed was hurled upon her chest, but she was uninjured. Thought that it was a storm which had only affected her own room. “Didn’t think she was lucky then!” Crawled up through ruins, and met one-legged brother hopping about on one foot. “My God!” He said. “The Germans have got us at last!” They saw a great crowd of people among them several negroes and, for a moment thought they had been blown to Africville. The flames from the next house were beginning to lick the woodwork of their own. They got on the street, where they met their sister-in-law, her face rendered unrecognisable by blood. Found their mother buried up to the neck in the ruins. Geneva tried to lift her out but fell into the ruins herself. The fire was creeping relentlessly towards her mother. Mrs. Bayers said “Neva, let go of me.” “Mother, I shan’t let go, I’ll die with you.” Finally, be a supreme effort, Mrs. Bayers managed to extricate herself. Geneva was in her night-dress with bare feet, she had saved a quilt but gave it to her sick sister. A girl, with what had been her face a bleeding pulp, cried “Neva, lead me! I’ve lost both my eyes!” But Geneva had to look after her mother. The panic on Fort Needham was terrible. It was heaped with dead, dying, and wounded. People were rushing everywhere crying “Where’s my baby?” “Father is dead!” etc. The sister-in-law was taken in a motor to Camp Hill. Geneva and Mrs. Bayers walked over Fort Needham and down Gottingen St.

MG 1 vol 2124 number 116 [written at top of page]