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

MG 1 volume 2124 number 214a

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


in such confusion that Miss Parker can "hardly remember details." On the first night women and men indiscriminately slept on the floor in the huge ball-room on the top floor. They slept this way for ten nights. Then the ball-room and the other large rooms of the house were divided into smaller rooms by beaver-board partitions.
No particularly pathetic cases, but all were pathetic enough. Got on her nerves to hear the people tell about the awful things they saw. Between work and hearing harrowing stories she could not sleep, Didn't get to bed until midnight anyway and was up at six each morning. The worst case they had was that of Mrs. W. F. Cookson, of 51 Bilby St., whose eye was hurt, i.e. the lid was cut so that part of the upper lid and of the brow hung down on her cheek. There was no anaesthetic and the doctor cleaned the dirt and gravel out of the wound and put nine stitches in it. Mrs. Cookson was wonderfully brave. Did not make a single moan.
There are now between eighty and ninety inmates, of whom fifty are children. School is held each morning for the children. They have a Catholic teacher, Miss Tolson, and also a Protestant one, Miss Lily Gregg. Every thing is going well and the inmates seem very happy. They stay at Columbus Hall until a suitable residence is available.
Miss Miner went home on the 10th of January. Miss Parker had been in charge alone ever since. On Christmas Eve the Knights of Columbus presented both nurses with gold wrist watches, in recognition of their services.