EDMONTON, ALBERTA, IS A MODERN NORTH AMERICAN CITY WITH all the usual emergency agencies, including well-equipped police and fire departments and a sophisticated ambulance system. On 31 July 1987, it had five large hospitals, two of them trauma centres. That day, the city was hit by a tornado. For more than an hour, the storm ripped up the east side of the city and part of neighbouring Strathcona County, leaving behind downed power and telephone poles, smashed cars, and damaged homes and businesses. Twenty-seven people died and about 400 were injured. Within an hour or so, despite that many roads were blocked by debris or flooding, most of the injured were in hospital. Most people got to hospital—as always happens in a disaster—in private vehicles, in some cases driven by strangers. Other people got there by ambulance.
Halifax in 1917 was very different from Edmonton in 1987. It was a tiny community with far fewer resources. It had seventy times as many dead and twenty-five times as many injured. Because of the limited number of motor vehicles available, many injured walked or were carried to where they were going. Others were taken on horse-drawn carts or carriages. A few were moved along the waterfront by boat. Instead of going mainly to hospitals, they went to physicians’ offices, to army medical huts, to buildings hastily converted into medical centres, and to ships in the harbour. In one sense, though, what happened in Halifax after the explosion matches what happened in Edmonton after the tornado: most of the injured made it to places where they could get medical assistance. The medical community did not go to the victims, the victims came to them. When the Rhode Island medical unit did a residential canvass several days after the explosion, it produced reports of the number of people still without adequate medical treatment. The reported numbers varied, but the highest of them was 163. Given 9000 injured, that means that more than ninety-eight per cent of the injured received medical care immediately after the explosion, even though the situation was overwhelming.
The situation with social services was very different. While people in Halifax knew the location of physicians’ offices and hospitals, they knew little if anything about social services. Before the explosion, most would have assumed correctly that if they needed food, clothing, or shelter, they would have to get it from their families, from relatives, or perhaps from their church. But the situation had changed dramatically. Not only were thousands of people in need, most had no experience with being forced to ask for assistance, and many had lost their traditional support systems. They no longer had families to whom they could turn for help. The social-services situation was also different from a response perspective. The people might go to medical services, but social services would have to go to them. At first, this is what happened. Over time, the situation changed. The social-assistance program became immersed in red tape, and the victims, feeling humiliated, started to revolt. The problem was twofold: the unprecedented nature of situation, and the American attitudes about social welfare.
At first, the initial relief effort in Halifax resembled initial search and rescue and initial medical care. The survivors helped others, often before taking care of their own needs. Staff Sergeant F.G. Cable of the Halifax Rifles, for example, left his family and his damaged home to spend five hours helping to search for other survivors. Then he returned home and made some emergency repairs before he and his wife took in two homeless families—three adults and nine children. Finally, he looked for his own missing children. It was Saturday before he finally located one daughter on Old Colony. He spent the next two days there helping to look after his daughter and a niece.
At the Monaghan’s, where three-year-old Alfred’s father was away with the army, a neighbour covered the family’s broken windows with carpets, and a friendly carpenter hammered on boards from the outside. At 48 Lawrence Street, Mrs. James Pitcher, with six children, took in Mrs. William Hamm and her three surviving children. (Mrs. Hamm’s husband and two other children were killed in the explosion.) At the Conway house, 212 North Street, there were six families, eight adults, and fifteen children in a single room. Howard Glube and his five brothers and sisters moved in with his uncle, Samuel Conn. Glube’s mother joined them when she was released from hospital. The Conns already had two children in their small home, but the two families made do for seven months.
At the Connolly’s, Harold was the eldest of ten children and was at school when Mont-Blanc exploded. When he got home, he found it badly damaged and his sister, Margaret, injured. The others were all right. When Harold’s father returned from work, he boarded up the kitchen windows so the children could sleep on the kitchen table. The family stayed home during the storm the following day, but Connolly’s father had been injured in the explosion and eventually had to go to hospital. Harold’s mother and the younger children went to stay with a woman who had worked for the family as a nursemaid, and some of the older boys went to the home of an aunt. Harold went to the home of another family, named Shields. Sadly, Harold’s father was one of the many who died from infection in those days before antibiotics. Young Connolly went to work to support the family, but he never forgot his father: “I dearly loved my father and no amount of material possessions made up for his loss. I had always been shy and sensitive. He understood that and he helped me with his understanding. I have revered his memory throughout my life.”
Although the Connollys had enough relatives and friends to take care of their needs, and a boy old enough to work, many others were destitute. Some were children. Others were adults who had lost their homes and their families, and whose neighbours had disappeared. Even after the huts used for new recruits were made available to civilians, there were thousands of homeless. Some 350 jammed into St. Paul’s Hall, fifty into a furniture store warehouse, and another fifty into the Masonic Hall. There were several hundred at the Academy of Music. Others were at the Salvation Army Citadel and at the Knights of Columbus Hall. (The Hall eventually accepted about ninety residents, including fifty children, and found two teachers—one Protestant and one Roman Catholic—to hold classes.) However, those who could, tried to carry on, huddling in the wrecked basements of their homes or wherever else they could find shelter: “A woman and two children were found in a freight car on a siding and many more were found in uninhabitable houses, loath to leave them, not knowing where to go … twenty people were found in a cellar … in Richmond, some in night clothes and very, very hungry and cold.”
Altogether, even a month after the explosion, there were still 9000 people homeless, some in shelters, others sharing accommodation. Even those who had a home were often in dire straits. One list of victims included the following families:
The saddest cases were the children. A few were in boarding houses. For example, Sadie McInnis in Truro had seven boarders: Mr. and Mrs. Earl Bayers; the three Hardy children—Gordon, eight, Dorothy, three, and James, one and a half; and the two Little children—Nellie, thirteen, and Rita, ten. Most children left without a family were sheltered in the Methodist Church, in Halifax, where they were kept until someone came to identify them or until it was decided what to do with them. (Since many people were still in critical condition in hospital, it was possible that one or both parents were alive but too seriously injured to search for their children.) One child kept telling everyone she had seen her mother and her cat disappear through the floor. The child’s grandmother eventually came from New Glasgow and identified her. More often, adults would come, take a look, and then shake their head and say, “Sorry, not mine.” Childcare workers found the experience harrowing.
Of course, not everyone was unable to cope. Some people, including some in the North End, were able to carry on without help from others. Nathan Frank Loomer was only seventeen when he returned to Canada from Auburn, Maine, to apply to join the Royal Canadian Navy. Because he was a licensed wireless operator, he was immediately accepted and assigned to Niobe. He ran of one of the wireless stations at the harbour entrance. The day of the explosion, he arrived at Niobe after Mont-Blanc had caught fire, but he ignored the excitement and went below for a coffee. He was on his way up again when Mont-Blanc exploded. As soon as the debris stopped falling, Loomer raced across the gangplank—he crossed before the wave swamped it—and headed home. Though Loomer was filthy from the black rain that poured down after the explosion, he was young, single, and uninjured. When he discovered that his room was a wreck, he packed up and found another: “The roof was all in and the chimney off and my bed was piled with plaster, laths and beams…. I got my valise from under the bed and threw into it my underwear and other essentials and took it up to Mrs. Walker’s where I got partly washed.” When the cry came that there would be a second explosion, Loomer joined others in telling everyone to evacuate. After spending the afternoon helping some injured people to hospital and finding others a place to stay, he went back to his new quarters. After covering up the broken windows with rugs and mats, he lay down and slept like a log. The next morning, he helped Mrs. Walker board up the windows of her house. He did some more patching over the next few days as the snowstorms were followed by rain.
Loomer was an exception and many people were not coping as well. But the real challenge was trying to understand the overall situation. It seemed that most children had found a home, or at least a shelter, but it was far from clear that was also true for adults. For more than twenty-four hours, no one at the newly created Halifax Relief Committee had any idea of the real situation in the North End. Although teams of men went around offering to take injured survivors to hospital, and the homeless to shelter, they did not keep track of where they went and who was left behind. Nor did they make any attempt to provide assistance to those who said they did not want it.
The person who recognized that something had to be done to correct this situation was Clara MacIntosh, lady superintendent of the Halifax Division of St. John Ambulance. Like many other key figures, MacIntosh was a member of Fort Massey Presbyterian. Her husband was a doctor, so on Thursday morning she was at home looking after the injured, and then helping her husband. After that, she made certain that her trained St. John volunteers were assisting at the shelters and hospitals. On Friday, however, she showed up at City Hall at eleven o’clock with something else in mind. She felt it was crucial to learn how the victims were coping and what assistance they needed, and to tell those victims what was being done for them. She put her ideas forward forcibly and, after twenty minutes, was given approval to put them to work. She rounded up a corps of volunteers—teachers, doctors’ wives and daughters, members of the Salvation Army—paired them up, and sent them out with two assignments: find out what the problems are, and tell those in need where they could get assistance. All but thirteen of the volunteers were single women. The others included nine married women, two Salvation Army captains (from the records, it was not clear if these were men or women, but they were probably women), and one man who volunteered to work with his wife.
Each two- or, occasionally, three-person team was assigned a specific area and handed a scratch pad on which to list the status of each family, including information about whether the father and mother were alive, how many children there were, what medical problems they faced, and what assistance they needed. The idea was not just to assess each family’s situation but to bring information about what help was available. The volunteers were given typed sheets stating where coal, food, clothing, first aid, and shelter could be obtained. They had cars and planned to take first-aid supplies, food, and clothing too, but the storm forced most to go on foot. Despite this, they finished in one day. The canvass was not confined to the city: some canvassers went out to St. Margaret’s Bay, others to Kearney Lake. As each team returned, their information was passed to the appropriate committee. Sometimes needed supplies were then delivered by others. Sometimes, despite the worsening weather, the volunteers walked back with what was needed.
The survey was not entirely successful, in part due to the inexperience of many volunteers. But it did show that such information was useful and it supported the contention that many survivors had not received help. For example, two men—still working on the original zone-by-zone coverage—found four women crouched around a dying fire in a small kitchen. One was seriously injured. The women said they had no way of getting to the city’s centre. The same men found another group of people on top of the nearby reservoir. After reviewing her canvass, Mrs. MacIntosh put together a small form that each investigator could fill out, and suggested that a second canvass be made. By then she had an ally. The head of the Salvation Army in Canada, Commissioner William Richards, was in Montreal when the explosion occurred, but immediately came to Halifax. He arrived on the first train to get through the snow. After reviewing what had been done, Richards decided that before an effective relief operation could be mounted, it was essential to have better information. He told his staff they should drop everything until a proper canvass was done, and he told Mrs. MacIntosh she could count on fifty Salvationists to do just that.
During the next twenty-four hours, Salvation Army staff and volunteers visited 1000 homes. In addition to noting any problems, they established what, if anything, had been done since the first visit. By late Sunday, they had a picture of social service problems in Halifax:
The original volunteer canvass and the second Salvation Army canvass were crucial first steps to an organized response to victim needs. They were also the first of a series of attempts to gather information. On Sunday, there was the canvass by medical people from Rhode Island, then a fourth by people from the Toronto Board of Health. Each canvass had its merits. The first volunteer survey gave, as well as got, information. Through it, some survivors were notified that shelters were available and that dressing stations had been set up. The Salvation Army survey focused on social-service needs. The one from Rhode Island was designed to look at health requirements. The Toronto health workers were the first to document that some people were having problems because they had lost their false teeth, a situation that was fixed by the dentists without charge. (Anyone who needed dental help as a result of the explosion was given it—no questions asked, no fee requested.) The victims were slowly becoming tired, however, of the endless questions. What at first had seemed like genuine concern, and had provided information as well as asked for it, now seemed more and more intrusive.
While the initial canvasses were being carried out, the relief committee was providing help without charge to anyone who asked.
The grocery stores were all the small neighbourhood kind and their stocks were soon gone; so the authorities set up food depots, doling out a daily ration. The depot for our district was an old church on Windsor Street. The process had to be simple, and it was. You went to the depot with a basket, gave your name and the number of people in your family and received tins of baked beans, bully beef, condensed milk, tea, stale loaves of bread, and a small pat of butter.
Bill McCall recalls getting permission from Mrs. Arthur C. Phillips to act as a delivery boy and taking food supplies to destitute families. He and his friends delivered the packages after sampling a few stale cookies. Howard Glube’s brother was involved in the same task: “They sent in packaged food and canned food from Montreal, St. John, Boston and New York. My eldest brother was with the corps that helped to distribute this food…. He told us stories how they were out in their trucks distributing these goods and medicine to people who were huddled in foundations with no roofs over their head and houses burned to the ground.
Food was also available from the Canadian army, which ordered its facilities to serve meals to anyone who asked. Camp Hill served 4000 meals a day the first few days after the explosion. The military also looked after its own: “Four lieutenants personally visited the damaged houses and found out what was needed in the way of doors, sashes, etc. Then working parties were formed from glaziers and carpenters in the regiment, materials were obtained … and repairs were made.”
Over time, these services were done more formally. The emergency food service hastily put together at City Hall originally sent out baskets of basic necessities: bread, butter, and milk. Later, it operated from St. Andrew’s church. The church was filled with cases of goods and the gymnasium became a butchering facility. Fresh meat was cut as soon as it arrived and was distributed along with other food to the six food depots: City Hall, the Armouries, St. Matthias church, the School of Domestic Science, the Oddfellows’ Hall, and the Alexander McKay School. So many people were in need, there were soon as many as 100 to 150 people standing in line waiting to have their baskets filled. It was the same at the clothing depots.
The volunteer response to the explosion was not limited to the formal relief effort. Volunteers like Hugh Upham, the minister who came in from Shubenacadie on the first train from Truro, helped family members get together. Volunteers from Sydney went house to house to assist those who could not do their own repairs. (Every time they fixed up a home, they left a sign: “Temporarily Repaired by Sydney Relief.”) Other groups quietly did what was necessary. The day of the explosion, the staff of the Nova Scotia Hospital for the mentally ill did their best to board up broken windows. Over the next few days, volunteers from the Acadia Sugar Refinery and soldiers from the 10th Siege Battery did the other necessary repairs. As one physician commented: “These volunteers came from everywhere, did everything … prominent lawyer or clergy or businessmen, all grimy with dust, laboring with supplies, and carrying in carcasses of meat.”
It was the same in other communities. In New Glasgow, carpenters removed desks from classrooms at the West Side school, boys carried them to the basement, and girls swept out and cleaned the rooms. A team of volunteers collected linen and bedding, and then turned the rooms into wards under the direction of Mrs. Frank H. McNeil of Little Harbour. Menus were prepared by domestic-science graduates, and food was served from what was once a chemistry lab. The nursing care was provided mainly by retired graduate nurses. Meals were prepared by women from churches in New Glasgow, Trenton, Stellarton, and Westville. Bandages and dressings were prepared at Red Cross headquarters. The telephone and electrical installations were installed without charge by Maritime Telegraph and Telephone and the Pictou County Electric Company. When patients were discharged they were provided with clothing.
In Truro, where several hundred victims went the day of the explosion, the local paper carried regular announcements telling what was needed. On 11 December, for example, the Truro Hospital Service committee advertised for food for the survivors still in hospital: “The majority of surgical cases now take strong foods. We have abundance of bread, except rolls and biscuits. The calls now from the Matrons are for cooked vegetables of all kinds, chicken stews, cooked meats of any kind, and fresh eggs. Jams and jellies are always acceptable.” Donors were told that food could be brought in cold and that they should put their names on the containers they supplied. Many donors apparently ignored that advice. Two weeks after the explosion, the hospital was advertising that it could not locate the owners of two pie plates, two pillows, a metal hot water bag, and six enamel, graniteware, and aluminum pots. It was not just food that was wanted. There was a need for a horse to pull the wagon picking up and delivering supplies. There was a need for clothing. There was a need for money and for rigs and drivers to take care of the volunteers.
We are endeavouring to feed and clothe these sufferers, chiefly by voluntary subscription. We solicit cooked foods from our town’s people and clothes—particularly children’s and women’s—and cash subscriptions.
There are also a number of our good women working hard in the clothing department in the Civic Building, fitting the destitute to clothes…. We can not expect these women to walk back and forth to their homes and to toil all day in such hard and unpleasant work.
The Daily News reported that seven persons responded to that last appeal by offering their carriages for the women volunteers. The paper said that showed advertising works.
While all this was useful, there were problems. The free food was making it impossible for the small grocery stores to survive. The free clothing was leaving downtown merchants without customers. As mentioned earlier, one soldier asked for and was granted emergency leave because his wife was destitute: not only had her home been destroyed, but her small grocery business had also collapsed since everything was being given away. A more general problem was lack of organization. With so many individuals and groups helping, some received more help than they needed, others were left out. Of course, no one could be sure of this as record keeping was not a first priority, and it was hard, in any case, to keep track when there were thousands of people needing all kinds of assistance.
There was also a problem with the surveys. For one thing, there was overlap. The Salvation Army volunteers supposedly were covering social-service needs, but they also noted health problems. When visiting Mrs. Gibson at her house at 32 John Street, for example, Army volunteers recorded, “Arm badly hurt, has had no attendance.” Similarly, the team from Rhode Island was supposed to be checking health concerns, but it also reported social service problems. In addition to identifying some people with medical needs, the Rhode Island team recorded that twenty-three families needed food, shelter, and housing. Now, with the Americans, a new problem surfaced. The American relief specialists, who had assumed real control of the relief process, insisted there be further inquiries done on a family-by-family basis, and that these include questions about the family’s financial resources. The Canadians had not inquired about such things, but the Americans were determined that help go only to those who could prove they needed it.
On the whole, volunteers were sensitive to victims’ feelings. One woman noted: “It was, of course, necessary that these terrified and afflicted people should be visited and their cases investigated by social workers under Medical relief. Though entirely unavoidable, it was, nevertheless, painful…. To conservative Halifax, it was one of the most trying experiences of the [victims] to have to meet in their destructed condition people whom they did not know even though they deeply appreciate their motive in coming to them.” Sensitive or not, the volunteers were strangers prying into victims’ personal affairs. People forced by disaster to seek help for the first time find the experience demeaning and horribly intrusive. People on regular social welfare become accustomed to having their privacy invaded, even though they never like it.
There was yet another problem: the growing complexity of the relief organization. Although the response was supervised by the Halifax Relief Committee, functions like food, fuel, clothing, transportation, shelter, and medical relief were assigned to different subcommittees. Those in need had to go to each one in turn if they had problems. Thus, a person whose home had been destroyed, who needed glasses, and who wanted to leave town would have to visit three different committees. And most visits would involve long walks. Few people could afford to pay for public transportation, let alone taxis, and the army chauffeur service was not available to the victims, only to those providing assistance. This was only part of the problem. To protect against the possibility that someone might receive help more than once, each committee was ordered to document everything it did. The victims were engulfed in paperwork, and they were becoming increasingly unhappy.
The Halifax Relief Committee was also showing some signs of grandeur. The committee now had regular office hours—9 a.m. to 1 p.m., 2 to 6 p.m., and 8 to 10 p.m.—with different members working each shift. It had two drivers assigned as chauffeurs, standing by to take managing committee members where they wished to go. On 20 December, a staff check showed that the various committees now owned thirteen cars and two trucks. There was also letterhead that proclaimed R.T. MacIlreith as chairman, Ralph P. Bell as secretary, Horace A. Fleming as treasurer (Judge Harris had stepped aside), and the Bank of Nova Scotia as the committee’s bank. There was a regulation that all forms must be submitted in duplicate, and rules about how such forms were to be initialled. There were even guards for committee meetings to keep out the unwanted. The committee did draw the line at a commercial advertising campaign. When R.E. Day of MacKim Publishing proposed as much, it turned him down. The committee also decided against investing its money in MT&T securities.
Bit by bit, there were rules and regulations covering everything, and everything had a set price. Free food and clothing were now distributed on the basis of signed forms, and the rules had to be followed. A woman was given a travel warrant by the Halifax Relief Committee to travel from Pictou to Charlottetown by ferry, but that ferry was not running, so a helpful station agent arranged for her to cross from Cape Tormentine to Borden. The committee approved payment, but warned the railroad it would not do so again: “I wish, however, to definitely state that according to our arrangement with the Halifax civic committee, no transportation is to be issued to Halifax disaster sufferers, refugees, relief workers, etc., except on surrender of the standard form or order, which had been prepared and is now being issued by the Transportation Committee, Mr. F. A. Gillis, chairman, Halifax.”
On other occasions, common sense was used. When a father wished to take his four children to Sydney (the children were going to spend the winter there), the Halifax Relief Committee provided one-way tickets for the family but a return ticket for the father. The committee also responded promptly when Mrs. Thomas Jewers wrote from River Charlo to say she was still having eye problems as a result of her injuries during the explosion, thus could she see a specialist? She was sent an answer the following day: “I have no doubt your eye needs special treatment and the sooner you get it attended to the better. This letter will authorize you to get such treatment as is required by a specialist.”
Soon there were standard rates for everything. Fred Parker from Sydney complained that he was not getting paid enough. He had been promised 35¢ an hour to drive a truck, but he ended up receiving $2.50 a day. Halifax said sorry, that was the going rate. Mrs. Howard Macdonald sent in a bill for $5 a week for looking after a survivor, Mrs. Robert Wilson. She was told that $4 was the maximum. (The weekly rate for taking in adults was $4, and for children it was $2.) When an undertaker in Truro charged more than the standard rate for a coffin, he was told that was unacceptable.
There was another problem not resolved at the time, and identified only recently, though a solution had been proposed. Many victims were injured and in hospital. Others were sharing shattered quarters, trying to look after injured family members, including children. Most were women left alone because their husbands were away at war, or dead—killed either in the war or the explosion. It was extremely difficult for these victims to get the help they needed. For women, it meant either leaving their children behind or bringing them along, while they stood in line at multiple locations. The solution, of course, would have been an extension to what Clara MacIntosh had proposed the day after the explosion: taking the services to the victims rather than asking the victims to seek help. Another step would have been to locate a relief depot in the North End.
Although many businessmen were skeptical of handouts, there was growing recognition among some in the business community that the relief process was not even-handed. This led members of the Rotary and Commercial clubs to suggest that they spend a weekend doing another canvass of the city—it was now 20 December—documenting precisely what remained to be done. The suggestion was opposed by the Rehabilitation Committee and by its adviser, Christian Lantz, of Salem, Massachusetts. His committee was already visiting the victims and doing so systematically. While no new canvass was conducted, visits still seem to have been stepped up, perhaps as a result of the business community’s concerns. By mid-January, social workers were visiting 225 families a day—one day they canvassed 376 families. Amid growing criticism, the committee’s chair, D. MacGillivray, announced his resignation. When R.T. MacIlreith accepted the resignation, he noted: “There seemed to be general agreement—outside the Rehabilitation Committee—that the great mistake made was not putting on the ‘whirl wind’ census of the City. This suggestion has been made many times, but has always been rejected by the committee, and they, of course, must take the responsibility.” This was the only time he criticized the work done by a subcommittee. MacIlreith himself was never blamed for any of the problems. When the Halifax Relief Committee shut down, he was strongly praised: “For the first ten days and nights he never had his clothes off and he never saw his own home. No better tribute can be paid to him than the organization as it stands today, for it required a man of personal magnetism, honor, integrity and ability.”
There was, of course, something more to the complaints than the lack of a whirlwind census. There was growing awareness among the victims that the philosophy of relief had changed from “help the victims” to “catch the crooks.” There was now a blacklist that identified persons no longer eligible for social welfare. All aid agencies were required to report suspicious cases to an investigating committee, and this committee decided if someone would go on the list. “As the days went by, this list rapidly increased. By personal investigation, mistakes were avoided in placing cases on the black list, which were of a deserving nature. The investigation was conducted systematically each street in the ruined area being gone over and the names of the occupants compiled. It was found that A NUMBER OF PERSONS from outside places were visiting the different supply depots and were carrying away supplies of clothing, food, etc., which should have gone to the really needy ones.” It is hardly surprising the victims showed ever-increasing signs of resentment. They had been devastated by a disaster and now they were being suspected or accused of cheating the system. Today, social workers call this the punitive approach to relief.
Right from the start, there were some complaints about the way victims were treated. When one woman applied for boots at the Green Lantern, for example, she got a size too small. When she returned and asked for a larger size, she was told she was “too fussy.” Another woman wanted boots, but was turned away because she appeared too well dressed. She had been dressed to go out when the explosion occurred and the clothes she was wearing were all that she had. She left in tears. Early on, these complaints were usually corrected quickly. But this changed in January. Media snippets, especially in a newspaper section called “The Halifax Herald’s Public Information Bureau,” highlight the change:
Demand grew for a meeting between the mayor and the residents of the North End. It was eventually held after ward-by-ward meetings were held with aldermen. The same complaints were heard at each meeting: too much bureaucracy, too many questions, too little sensitivity. Increasingly aware that they faced a groundswell of opposition, the aldermen, three controllers, and the mayor met with the Halifax Relief Committee on 14 January. They brought with them a list of ultimatums. (Although the mayor was an ex officio member of the relief committee, he had not attended its meetings.) A major beef was that the people most affected—residents of the North End—had been left out of the recovery process. Moving forward, the mayor said that persons from the North End would sit in on all committees, including the managing committee, whether committee members liked that or not. A litany of complaints followed:
Controller John Murphy tried to soften things by suggesting the victims were merely trying to help the relief committee improve its services and learn from experience. But he also said it was crucial that the victims, namely the people from the North End, be represented on the Halifax Relief Committee. That, he said, “would eliminate the necessity for 90% of the present investigations,” which, he felt, were very objectionable to the people. The chair of the Rehabilitation Committee said he thought many of these complaints were fair and reasonable, but that patience was required: “The difficulties will dissolve and the problems adjust themselves in due course, if Committees are only given sufficient time.” Alderman Godwin said it was all right to talk about keeping people quiet and patient, but it was impossible to keep people happy unless they got some good clean clothing.
When the Halifax Relief Committee reviewed the complaints, it apparently decided that the real issue was clothing. In a letter written immediately after the meeting, it ordered that issuance of second-hand clothing be stopped immediately and that victims needing clothing could go to a local firm, “so that our people can have some choice in what they are to wear, instead of it being selected by others for them.” It also made arrangements for a depot in the North End. But it did nothing about the major complaint: that the victims were playing no role in the recovery. They were the ones who had suffered and they had no say about what should be done about their situation. Today, in most jurisdictions, at least in Canada, such complaints would lead to an immediate reaction. It is now common not only for the victims to have a voice in what happens after a disaster, it is normal for governments to send in skilled people to help them organize, and to make certain that their concerns are known. Often this is done at public meetings, where everyone can hear the questions and the answers and leave knowing that all are hearing the same story. In Halifax, however, media coverage of the increasing protests remained low-key. The story about the call for a relief depot in the North End was buried on page six. The meeting between the mayor, controllers, alderman, and the relief committee made page one, but under a one-column headline at the bottom of the page.
In the midst of this, the Halifax business community was recovering nicely from the explosion. Reconstruction had attracted 3500 workmen to their community. The money from Boston, Ottawa, and London provided an enormous economic shot in the arm. Hotels, restaurants, and theatres were full. By mid-January, soldiers were again arriving from overseas. The outbound convoys had never stopped. When W.A. Major of R.G. Dun and Company (the same man who spent two days helping the injured and homeless in the North End) issued his economic review of 1917, he reported: “In Nova Scotia we had a year of unprecedented profits, people making and spending money freely, manufacturing industries and munitions plans working actively and farmers obtaining higher prices for their profits.”
Like the war, the explosion had brought prosperity. Like the war, the explosion had little negative impact on the community’s elite. For them, it was time to forget and move on.
In addition to dealing with those who needed assistance, the Halifax Relief Committee had to try and help those who were left alone. The explosion separated about 1000 children from their families and left 120 orphaned. (Some had fathers serving overseas.) For the most part, there was no problem finding a home for these children. However, some people were rather particular and others—when the committee checked them out—less than impressive. Many letters survive:
In a single day, one newspaper carried seventy-two names of people offering to become foster parents to destitute children. Most wanted one child, a few two. Father Arsenault at Mount Carmel said he could look after twenty children. Fifteen people said they would take one or two children of any sex and any age. Thirteen had an age preference, but did not care about the child’s gender. Seven had a gender preference but did not specify an age limitation. Overall, the preference seemed to be for girls aged two to four or boys aged five to eight. Only two people wanted younger children, only three wanted someone older than eight. Although records have disappeared, it seems that most children were placed with families. One of the visiting American social workers, J. Prentice Murphy, argued strongly that children were best left in their own homes even if their parents were too ill or too injured to look after them. He said that should be done, if necessary, with government support. Murphy also argued against sending children to orphanages, the usual custom in 1917.
No matter where these children went, Ernest H. Blois, superintendent for neglected and delniquent Children, checked out their situation. To make certain there was no misunderstanding about what had to be done, Blois took out an advertisement in Halifax newspapers eleven days after the explosion:
The public are hereby warned that any person who without legally constituted authority takes and retains possession of any child is liable to prosecution and will be proceeded against.
[Signed] Ernest H. Blois, Chairman Children’s Committee and Superintendent Neglected & Delinquent Children
By mid-January, most problems were at least partly resolved. All but one child was identified (he later moved to Sackville), even if one or both parents were dead. All but about 100 orphaned children had been found a suitable home. On 2 January, for example, Mrs. John Reid came from Moncton looking for her nieces and nephews. She started with J.C. Stredder at the Information Bureau and then was sent to St. Joseph’s Orphanage. There she found the only two survivors of her sister’s family: Annie and Lizzie White, aged ten and fourteen. The children’s father, Walter, had died overseas. The children’s mother and four siblings—Walter (two), Francis (four), Marcella (seven), and Minnie (twelve)—died in the explosion.
While children, in most cases, could only hope and wait for their parents to find them, parents pursued all means to find their children. Mrs. Gertrude Reid, too injured to get around, wrote letters asking about her eighteen-month-old son: “Fair complexion, fair hair, cut in bangs in the front and short in the back, had black shoes and stockings and an old rose-colored dress on and embroidered flute petticoat on, could not talk very plain, but will answer to … Raymond or Bo.”
Mrs. Reid said she could not travel, but that Bo’s grandmother would come and get him if he was located. No one replied with any information about her child. Having exhausted all other measures, some families placed advertisements:
MISSING—Information is wanted of the whereabouts of the following children: Pete Wiswell, age 8, dark hair with white spot on side of head; Patrick Wiswell, age 9, fair with blue eyes, long, light hair; Katie Wiswell, 13 months, fair with blue eyes. Red birth mark on wrist. Communicate with J.A. Wiswell.
The search also went on for missing adults. Ellis Young wrote to Truro because he had heard that Alfred Young had been taken there the day of the explosion. He described him as “55 years old, hair grey or black (he sometimes dyed it) about 5 ft. 7 inches tall, weight from 175 to 185 pounds, blue eyes, wears nose glasses and is ruptured on one side.” The Truro Central Relief Committee said a seriously injured man named Alfred Young had been in hospital since the explosion, but was discharged on 11 December. It said it did not seem likely that he was the right man, for he was between twenty-five and thirty years old, did not wear glasses, and was five-foot-five.