Drowned, Sept. 8, 1900

I have been accused of becoming obsessed with those who don't have descendants to carry their memories. Without a doubt, the Great Storm of 1900 in Galveston, Texas, truncated the stories of thousands of individuals. So many died in the hurricane on that September night that hundreds couldn't even be counted. Recent immigrants or whole families were swept away without a trace. Estimates of the dead range from 6,000 to 12,000, as much as 1/3 of the population of the booming city known at that time as the "Queen City of the Gulf."

This monument called out to me as I wandered around Lakeview Cemetery, which occupies the area between 57th and 59th Streets, just a block from the Gulf of Mexico. The stained marker reads:

In memory of 

JAMES N. WALSH

Born 1874

EMA WALSH

BORN 1882

Drowned Sept. 8, 1900

I was able to locate them on the 1900 census taken in Galveston in June of that year, listed as James and "Ama." He was a painter, born in Illinois, aged 25. She was only 17, and born in Texas. They were newlyweds, married the previous November. They were living in a rented single-unit home at 4110 M Street. Marriage records indicate her name was Emie Bentinck, likely the daughter of Henry and Eliza Jane (McHugh) Bentinck. Her parents and siblings are also interred in Lakeview Cemetery. They would have erected this memorial in her name, and lived out their lives in Galveston, fearing each storm that came on the horizon.