Saltwater and Driftwood

By Anna J Walner

The saga of The Great Storm in Galveston, Texas in 1900 comes to life once more.

The year is 1900, Galveston flourishes in the Gilded Age. It hails as the pride of Texas exports.

 

On the morning of September 8th, 1900, the hopes and dreams of Galvestonians will come to a tragic halt. In a time before storms were named, The Great Storm of Galveston, Texas has all but become a legend.

 

Through the eyes of Clara and the Gladys family, the past comes alive with love and hope, sorrow and tragedy. A historical novel that encompasses the scope of the storm, and the people affected by it.

 

A chilling re-telling of the day when mother nature would bring an island to the floor of the Gulf waters. A triumph of human spirit, and a testament to the great people who rose up amidst tragedy to rebuild against all odds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Silver Dawn Publishing
• Release date: Aug 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201587062

Book preview

All things fade with time. Memories, that were once vibrant are dulled by years that pass us by. Flowers that once bloomed brightly in vases will eventually lose their petals. Silver will eventually tarnish. Nothing is constant.

Nothing remains but things written down, memories, thoughts and feelings all captured on paper that itself may eventually turn to dust.

The book in my hands had instantly drawn my attention as we cleaned my grandmother’s things from the second bedroom in our house in Colorado. All of her belongings had been shoved in boxes and forgotten until now after her passing.

For some reason, it feels special in my hands as I look it over. There’s something mysterious about it. Something I need to know lies inside, I’m certain of it for some reason. Like finding it was not pure chance but fate of some sort.

The leather binding creaks, exposing the still cream-colored interior, as it fades into the outer brown of the pages, her carefully scrawled letters telling a story from so long ago.

Andrea!

Yeah, just a second! I call to my mother, paying her no mind, lost in the first sentence. It holds me captive, my eyes fixed upon the delicate writing on the page.

Someone should write what happened. Even if no one ever finds it or reads it. But I have to write it down. Before I forget completely. I had always meant to leave the past where it belongs, but I cannot ignore the call of the memories anymore. The last vivid memories are the ones I wish I could forget forever, and maybe someday they too will float away with the others.

I read the date September 8 th, 1964. I do the math in my head. She was 80 years old when she wrote these words. Her memory was already beginning to fail her then. Alzheimer’s taking the words and the memories from her that she tried desperately to hold on to were beginning to slip through her fingers even then.

I wrap the fragile book in a pillowcase, carefully laying a blue ribbon from between the first pages inside the book. There isn’t much of hers here. I wonder if there’s more with Auntie Ann, mother’s sister, or if this is all that she left behind.

Come on! We still have half the house to pack! My mother is moving us to Texas. Just south of Houston, an island called Galveston. I didn’t even bother to look it up, except for directions. The trip is going to take us at least three days to make. And we have until tomorrow to be out of this house, and on our way out of Colorado.

Since dad passed this spring, the house hasn’t felt like home. The absence of him rings silently from every open door and every piece of furniture. Pancreatic cancer, too far advanced by the time we found it to do much but make him comfortable, spending the last few months of his life here, watching him stare out into the mountains beyond. He was still in his chair, his eyes fixed on the vista below our home when mom found him that morning.

She wouldn’t let me out of the room. She didn’t want me to see him. I said my goodbyes, and they would have to suffice. We sprinkled his ashes from the balcony of the cabin and began making plans for our future.

We’ve both made peace with his loss, we had no other option. It’s just us now. Off to our next big adventure, as mom likes to say.

The movers will be here on Saturday. It’s Tuesday September 5 th, and again I feel a strange sensation. A prickling on my arms, a chill along my back. The date on the first entry is less than 3 days from today.

I want to keep reading, to know what happened. To know the story she was so desperately trying to hold onto just long enough to tell.

September 8 th, 1964

Someone should write what happened. Even if no one finds it or reads it. I have to write it down. Before I forget completely. I had always meant to leave the past where it belongs, but I cannot ignore the call of the memories anymore. The last vivid memories are the ones I wish I could forget forever, and maybe someday they too will float away with the others.

I can feel my memory failing. And I can’t afford to let their memory be completely forgotten. The events of that day cannot be lost to time.

No one should have to endure what we did. It wasn’t anything that we could control. It wasn’t anything we could prepare for. But it seems as if people are beginning to forget about it. And I can’t seem to sleep without it creeping into my dreams somehow. Even now, even decades later.

So, where should I begin? In the beginning, or slightly after? I suppose it doesn’t matter, as long as the important parts are there. That weekend I can never forget.

Mother says that when I was born, I was given a great spark of fire. A fire that, if left untended would burn out of control. She says that Constance has the same flame, only brighter. That eventually it will consume her whole.

Our family’s journey did not begin in Galveston, but in Harrisburg just outside of Houston. We were three daughters, myself, Clara, Lydia, one year my junior, and Constance, two years my elder.

Our small home in Harrisburg afforded very little in the way of plush luxuries, the city itself very little more than a farming town, cotton and sugarcane were our bread and butter.

Mother and father had married young, and three years hence, Constance was brought into the world. Upon first glance, mother said, she could tell that Constance would be quite the ball of fire.

My father began his journey at the Cotton Exchange as a young clerk, with a family to support, and a dream to rise high within the Exchange itself, and Houston businessmen in general. Around the time he received his first promotion, I was born. A year later came Lydia, or Lydie as Constance tended to tease her as we grew up together.

Somewhere along the way in our childhood, we would eventually leave the small cottage we grew up in, and head West, securing a finer house in Houston proper, along with other families who had ties to the Exchange, father’s friends, and mother’s eventually as well.

It became clear, once we moved among the other families that mother had begun to change. She asked that we be enrolled in dancing classes, sewing socials, and even school, which we did not have in Harrisburg.

We joyed in the dancing lessons, Constance outshining nearly all of us, and our peers in the class. I found that I had quite the talent for needlework in the sewing socials. And Lydia was well-rounded, as mother would say. Not good at simply one thing, but all things with equal measure.

I always remembered our young years in Houston fondly. It was a wonderful and simple place to live and grow. We played in the sugar cane fields after classes, hiding among the tall green stalks, pretending to be the wild animals in far away lands. Tigers, or panthers, jumping from behind a dense copse to scare one another.

Yellow fever began to make its way around, and we were suddenly told to stay indoors, for fear of succumbing to the illness. Mother and father both feared for us to be out any longer than necessary. It is the only time I can remember from when I was younger, that I was truly scared.

Some invisible force moving among us, unseen and waiting to pounce. Many children during that time were made orphans, losing their parents to the deadly illness and finding new homes in orphanages, or with far-away families in other states.

During that time, father continued to excel within the Cotton Exchange, taking over positions as they were offered, slowly rising among the others. By the time the war had ended, he had become a senior partner. A position of high esteem, and great respect.

Mother became quite well known as father’s success began to increase. As she learned of High Tea, so did we. Practicing, just the three of us young girls, with chipped cups and saucers mother allowed us to use, drinking sun tea and pretending to taste of the delectable goodies she would tell us of.

At fourteen, talks began of the great town of Galveston. Mother tells father that we should move from Houston. That the best life was to be had there, and of course the best future available to us as well.

It was then that our family was slightly fractured. For Constance, did not care for the idea of moving. I remember many go-arounds between she and mother during this time. She was sixteen and refused to attend the small coming-out party that mother begged her to attend in Houston.

All of the young Ladies do so. How else do you expect to find a suitable husband? Mother insisted. Lydia and I had hidden away, listening to the row, which were becoming more and more frequent.

"Yes, and if all the young Ladies were to suddenly develop a hysteria for coffee instead of tea, I suppose you’d insist we drink that. Your tastes and actions are not original mother. You merely follow the crowd blindly. And I do not wish to be married, I wish to live my own life. One of freedom." Constance spoke to mother with such brazen words. Words that Lydia and I would never dare to utter.

It is why, in the middle of the night, she came to both Lydia and me one night, sleeping in the same room at the time. At first we were scared that something awful had happened. A fire perhaps, or the first rasping coughs of the dreaded ‘Fever’, but we were mistaken. Constance would leave us, but not because of any illness.

Are you certain this is what you want? I fear we shall never see you again. I remember crying to her, clutching at her, while she stayed stiff against my pleas. Lydia was only struck silent, as we listened.

In time, you will understand why. Mother intends for me to follow the path she’s laid out while refusing to hear what will truly make me happy. Constance tried to explain, but we were too young to understand then.

But must you go tonight? You cannot leave in such a haste! I continued to try and sway her mind, though she stayed resolved.

I promise to keep in touch. She told us each, kissing us upon our foreheads, and leaving us alone together. We did not sleep again that night. We awoke the next day to mother delivering the news, unaware that Constance had already bid us her goodbyes.

C onstance has left for parts unknown. Mother paced the small room of ours. She had chosen to leave this family and become a vagabond among thieves and carnival debauchery. We shall never speak of her again.

Lydia and I turned to look at each other, reassuring ourselves that Constance had indeed promised to keep in touch. Promising each other that we would indeed hear from her again.

I am speaking to your father of moving us to Galveston proper, post haste. In the interim, I shall contact Madam Trousseau and advise her of your withdrawal from her classes. Mother turned and strode form the room, leaving us alone in our melancholy.

We never took another class of dance, though we learned later, that it was Constance’s love of dance that drew her to join the family of traveling entertainers, and so dancing became forbidden to us.

True to mother’s words, we did not hear from Constance, and father did agree to move the family to Galveston that following year, after constant persuasion from mother on the subject.

A plot of land was purchased, the location one of intense scrutiny by mother. We were to start off in Galveston on the right foot, ambitious social goals were set, and talk of finishing schools were highly debated upon in the parlor room late in the evening.

It would be the year I turned fourteen, or not long after that when construction on the house in Galveston began. Mother’s time was suddenly spent looking through newspapers and brochures, exacting down to the final detail how the house should appear both from the street, and inside.

Given the lavish nature of the island, we must fit in. Surely you want only the best for our girls. Mother would remind father constantly of Constance and her dim future, as if by moving us to a new city, and into the right house, attending the right functions, we could avoid that same ill fate.

As if Constance hadn’t chosen the path she did in defiance of the very lifestyle mother laid out for us now, before we ever moved into the house on the island. A life full of society obligations of High Tea and Debutante Galas, rubbing property lines with some of Galveston’s finest.

From the trips taken to the seashore, I can say the stark contrast in lifestyle is immediately of notice. The stately French Victorian homes make up the majority of the island, while The Strand is a place of sheer wonder, beckoning us into the shoppes promising unique or custom-made clothing. Something we do not have in Houston.

Last year we marveled at the luxurious items from far away lands, brought on the great ships that lined the wharves. Ivory trinkets, and candies flavored with exotic ingredients such as ginger and pineapple, which we begged repeatedly for, until finally, father gave in if only to bring about peace.

Even the shoreline itself was something to behold, the long piers stretching out over the waves that lapped along the beach. The smell of salty air, and the cries of gulls overhead, watching with a keen eye for some scrap of treat left behind from people who leisurely strolled, holding hands, or seeking solace in the sounds of the ocean.

Oleander lined walkways through town, the smell of Jasmine hanging in the humid salty air. Great mounds of sand, called dunes, sprouting seagrass amid the baren strip of brown waves, ever cresting and crashing in a chorus of soothing noise.

To us, it seemed like a magical land, ripe with fantastic things to do and see, but mother’s plans for us went beyond the sheer childish fun we dreamed of. There was a purpose to her planning, a methodology we would later learn, and a decorum to be followed.

Much note-taking was done on those trips, what styles of homes drew mother’s attention, where would be the best place to plant our new home, and our family. This we did not know at the time. Her planning, then done in secret, had taken flight just after Constance left, as if she were waiting for the perfect collision of events to persuade father that the move was best for us all.

The ladies in Houston all spoke so reverently of the Galveston society scene, that, looking back, I realize now there had been a gleam in mother’s eye hearing of all the grandeur of the island long ago.

Months of conversations between mother and father ensued as the house was being built. How high should the lowest level be, what kind of flooring, mother pushing for electric marvels, which had only just come available, even the furniture was discussed. How the parlor would be a grand entrance, the chandelier mother so desperately wanted for.

Father would eventually concede to most all of her wishes, and by years end, we would become official Galvestonians. Lydia was the most excited by the fresh change that lay before us. Making new friends, and agreeing to the things mother made sound so intriguing for young girls our age to partake in.

Upon our arrival, a mere week after settling our things, we were given strict instructions on how we were meant to behave, and how our behavior would reflect upon our social standings. The way with which she spoke, made it seem as if to deviate from those set of instructions would bring about sure ruin to the family reputation.

We came to realize that life among the other young women were exactly as mother had described. Well-mannered and cultured girls in finery, which we had yet to obtain, attending Sunday mass at St. Mary’s with brunch shortly after services.

All things she described in such vibrant detail, making them sound so lofty, were to my eye, quite banal and boorish, which mother constantly attributed to that fire which burned inside me. One which she would, over course of years, hopefully conquer and extinguish.

Constance had shamed our family into moving from Houston, or so it was implied, but never explicitly said. And such a great disappointment it was, that we were so careful to always be mindful of mother’s wishes, and our good family name.

September 1900

C lara, I swear you had best get up from the grass before you ruin that dress.

My mother is a proper woman, although her tone is far from it now. We all are or were implored to be proper young women. Although I seem to forget my place at times and let the wildness inside me take control, much to her chagrin.

A seventeen-year-old girl should be allowed to have her own mind, I think. But I bend