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MG 1 vol 2124 number 141

HALIFAX DISASTER RECORD OFFICE
Chronicle Building
Halifax, N.S.
February 12, 1918

PERSONAL NARRATIVE
Mrs. Henry Dustan, 10 Lorne Terrace.

Was in her bedroom, a front room on the second floor, at the time the explosion occurred. Was bending over to take something from a drawer in a bureau that stood just behind the door opening into the hall. The door stood open and Mrs. Dunstan was holding to the knob with one hand. Because of this support she was not knocked down. "Everything came in on me". There were two other doors in the room, one to a closet and the other opening into XX another room. Both these doors were closed, and both were torn off their hinges. The windows, too, were blown in casings and all. Mrs. Dunstan through it was a bomb of some sort, and thought, "Well, if we were hit, some one else escaped." The maid, who was downstairs began to scream. Mrs. Dunstan called "Jennie, be quiet! Run to the cellar. I'm coming." She ran down the stairs and after she got to the cellar she remembered that they (the stairs) had swayed as she passed down them. They were all broken away from the wall. They stayed in the cellar for some little time, until Mrs. Dunstan decided that everything was over, then they went to the open, because Mrs. Dunstan was afraid that the house might fall on them. When she went out on the street "the cloud was the most beautiful sight I ever saw". People were bleeding terribly and very dirty. Mrs Mosher, Mrs Black's mother (6 Lorne Terrace) was so black that Mrs. Dunstan thought she was a negro woman who had been working for Mrs. Black. Her skin was so discolored that it has not yet come back to its natural hue.

the stairs [written as insert above the word 'they' in 14th sentence]