note: transcription publicly contributed - please contact us with comments, errors or omisions

MG 1 VOL 2124 number 203


HALIFAX DISASTER RECORD OFFICE
CHRONICLE BUILDING

HALIFAX, N.S.

Jan 27, 1918

MORGUE AT CHEBUCTO SCHOOL.

Communicated personally to Director, 72 Victoria Road.

Professor McRae worked at Morgue from Sunday December 9, till [sic] December 25, inclusive, - sixteen days. Spoke highly of the work done by Richard H. Williams of St. Matthew's Church, Manager of Roberts, Simpson Co. Bodies were brought in and laid on the floor of the basement without order or any information as to whence they had come. Consequently there were many difficulties in the way of identification, bodies being charred and disfigured so as to be unrecognizable. Each body was given a number on a ticket, but as the wndows [sic] of the basement were broken by the explosion, snow and rain came in, obliteration [sic] the numbers. The soldiers in charge made mistakes in recopying the numbers. The effects of the dead were removed and placed in bags bearing the corresponding number. In some cases the effects had been inaccurately described and it was necessary for McRae and Williams to go over everything, re-identify, and re-describe. Gave three cases of identification, First Louis cope, a body of a boy about sixteen years of age, case of features Semitic, only claws [sic] to identify a Catholic leaflet on prayer and a memorandum of names, evidently Indian, with initials or abbreviations in a peculiar coloured red ink which seemed to indicate that this boy had been playing soldiers with other boys. Among the names was Cope. The body could not be identified, but was taken away and buried. Some time after that Professor McRae, while attending to an applicant in the office, noted out of the corner of his eye, an Indian near the door when a soldier was