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Friday Evening, November 19, 1909
GET BODIES FROM MINE |
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Cherry, Ill., Nov. 19 - The second and saddest act of the mine
tragedy - the recovery and attempted identification of the dead began today.
Besides the bodies recovered fifty or seventy-five others beyond reach for time being, because of fire were seen by the fire-fighters in the smoldering fire beyond. GRIEF TERRIBLE Grief stricken men, women and children formed a great circle about the bodies as they were brought up, but many of them turned away, unable to endure the sobs and cries of those who mourned, seeking their dead. Only two bodies were identified by noon, Dickie Buckles, stable boy, and Louis Gibbs. BRINGING UP BODIES Cherry, Ill., Nov 19 - Three bodies first recovered through the main shaft, were brought to the surface at eight o'clock. A pile of others was in sight, but the pasage to them was being hampered by fire. Four other bodies, one of them, that of a boy, were brought up on the next trip of the cage. The ambulance, guarded by militia-men and followed by crowds, took the bodies to the town hall which had been turned into a temporary morgue. Here scores of women sought to identify the dead as their own, but the condition of the bodies made this difficult. CONFUSION IN IDENTIFICATION There was much confustion in the identification of bodies, in some instances two or three persons claiming the same body. The identification of the first two is now in doubt. The condition of the bodies recovered shows clearly they died from suffocation and that they had been dead many days. BODIES BOILED Water was pouring into the mine during the fire without quenching it. The flames turned the water on the floor of the veins, where lay the dead, into boiling rivers and in it were cooked the unfortunate dead. That they did not die by fire is evident because the clothing was not even scorched. |
