Lost with her son

I almost didn’t spot this marker, lying flush with the ground in Lake View Cemetery, to a woman and child lost in Galveston, Texas, in the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. The deadliest natural disaster, not just hurricane, in US history (which predated our modern tropical storm/hurricane naming system) crashed into an unprepared city on September 8, 1900. The technology of the time simply didn’t provide the necessary warning of the danger in time for much to be done. By the time the waters were rising on the island, it was too late to evacuate, and the city was at the mercy of the wind and water.

After the winds and storm surge had done their work, much of Galveston and its population on that fateful day were simply eradicated. At least 6,000 people died. The number of dead rendered burials impossible, and bodies were dumped into the sea, only to have them wash back ashore. Many of the bodies were ultimately burned.

I haven’t been able to find much about Edith and her son Clayton. I have found them on this transcribed list, where she appears as Mrs. Harry M. Perry. On another list, they are identified as residents of Houston. I don’t know what cruel stroke of fate placed Edith and her son in Galveston on that day. I don’t know if her husband was with her and survived the storm, or if he was back in Houston, worrying and hoping against hope that his wife and son would be among the survivors. I must assume that Edith Perry had family in Cleveland who placed a marker for her here, over 1,000 miles away from where she and Clayton became two more names on a seemingly endless list of victims of the power of nature.