The destruction and chaos caused by the 1900 Galveston hurricane was catastrophic. Yet, as the world seemed to crumble around them, the nuns at the Ursuline Academy in Galveston, Texas, led by Mother Mary Joseph Dallmer, did everything they could to help amid the disaster.
A Day Unlike Any Other
Dallmer was born March 19, 1852 in Oberhausen, Baden, Germany, the youngest child of Gregory and Mary Anne Dallmer. Sometime around 1858, Mary Anne’s two other children invited Mary Anne and her daughter Mary Joseph to immigrate to Galveston, Texas.
The youngest Dallmer attended Ursuline Academy, a Catholic boarding school for girls. She graduated in 1869, then joined the Ursuline Sisters, a religious order. She moved up the chain of command very quickly and was elected superior in 1891. She was then tasked with overseeing the construction of the new Ursuline Academy. Dallmer was the head of the Catholic girls’ academy in early September 1900.
“Saint Angela Merici” by Pietro Calzavacca. Angela Merici founded the Ursulines, an order of Catholic nuns dedicated to teaching young women. (Public Domain)Insufficient Warning
On Sept. 4, residents in Galveston, Texas, were first warned that a vicious storm had zipped past Cuba and was headed northwest. The residents had dealt with some storms in the past, but with no major damage. Few took the warnings seriously.
The people in Galveston went to work on Sept. 8 as usual. Rain started to fall in the morning before the storm hit land. Around noon, the clouds darkened and heavy rain accompanied it. The local Weather Bureau official, Isaac Cline, rode around in a horse-drawn cart to warn people in the low areas of the island city to move to higher ground or seek shelter in one of the city’s downtown stone buildings.
Survivors pick through the wreckage of St. Patrick’s Church in Galveston, Texas, after the 1900 hurricane. (Public Domain)However, few were able to evacuate. The bridge from the island to the mainland soon fell. Several people along the beach waited too long to get to the sturdy buildings at the center of the island. Houses started to collapse as the storm drew closer.
Right before it blew away in the hurricane, the city’s anemometer recorded wind speeds of 100 miles per hour. Weathermen later estimated that winds exceeded 120 miles per hour. From 3 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., the tide steadily rose to over 15 feet.
Those fleeing the storm got caught in flood water and were forced to dodge flying debris. “In an incredibly short time the water surged over the gallery driven by a furiously blowing wind,” Galveston Bible class teacher Ida Austin recalled, as recorded by Galveston’s Rosenberg Library, according to 1900storm.com. “Trees began to fall, slate shingles, planks and debris of every imaginable kind were being hurled through the air.”
Mother Dallmer ordered her community to open the doors of its buildings. She mounted a chair and rang the convent bell to welcome survivors inside. Over 1,000 victims came to seek shelter. She ordered the sisters to collect linens and use their own clothes to cover the victims. They shared all the food they could save from the storm’s wrath.
As the storm raged on, the nuns risked their lives to save people floating by the convent. Sister Clare recruited a local plumber to help rescue two children trapped in a house. They ended up breaking a window to bring the girls to safety after being unable to open the door.
The nuns in the convent continued to fight off the rising water with buckets and mops. They prayed and even conducted baptisms during the hurricane.
One pregnant woman was thrown from her collapsing house, but she luckily landed safely inside a floating trunk. When the trunk floated by the convent’s upper level window, the nuns pulled her to safety. They helped her give birth to a baby boy that night.
Victims of the Galveston hurricane weren’t aware of the storm’s deadly potential; they had been lured into a sense of false security by milder storms. (Public Domain)The Storm’s Lasting Impact
For the next several weeks, Mother Dallmer and her fellow sisters cared for the homeless in what was left of the convent buildings. It’s estimated that between 6,000 and 12,000 people lost their lives as a result of the hurricane. The storm demolished two thirds of the city’s buildings. That added up to total property losses estimated between $20 and $30 million—one estimate suggests this would be $825 million today.
The city’s clean-up efforts took an entire year, and it didn’t recover economically until 12 years after the devastating hurricane struck.
As the Ursuline Academy was beyond repair, Mother Dallmer picked Bryan, Texas, as the home for her new, inland school. It opened in September 1901.
Dallmer continued to advance in the Catholic order. In 1907, she moved to Rome after she was elected as American assistant to the order’s mother general. Dallmer passed away on May 25, 1909 and was buried in Rome.
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