Tsunami

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}