Rescuers took them to an emergency hospital that had been set up at the Church of Christ, at the corner of Grant and Summit streets, where they were treated for minor injuries. Chick grabbed the child from Tomlin’s hands but could not grab Tomlin herself in time, and she slipped away under the water.Īdditional rescue boats picked up the overturned boat’s other occupants, which included Tomlin’s two sons and mother-in-law. Chick recovered, either stabilizing his own boat or finding his way to another, in time to answer Tomlin’s cries of “Save my baby! Save my baby!” as she struggled to hold her 18-month-old daughter Alberta above the water. ![]() The boat then turned over, spilling Tomlin and everyone else into the cold, muddy floodwater. The splash startled one of the occupants, a 22-year-old African American named Bessie Tomlin, who stood up from her seat, making the boat unstable. However, as the boat was turning left (north) from Eleventh Street onto Waller, a wave of water splashed into the boat. The boat was rowing towards Waller Street, which it would then follow north to Lincoln School on the Hilltop. One boat, commanded by a fireman named Walter Chick, departed Washington School around 7:00 pm that evening carrying eight refugees. On Monday, January 25, emergency workers were evacuating refugees from Washington School, which had been without access to food or fuel for a day and a half. Washington School, located at the corner of Eleventh and John Streets, also held refugees, but it had to be evacuated as floodwaters quickly reached it.ĭuring the evacuation of Washington School, the drowning of Portsmouth’s only 1937 flood victim occurred. McKinley, on Kinney’s Lane at the north end of Baird Avenue, held 400 people before being converted to a hospital on January 29. Garfield, at the northeast corner of Gallia Street and Mabert Road, held at least a few hundred, and at one point a sandbag barrier was necessary to keep water out of the basement and keep the heat running. Highland, on the northwest corner of Hutchins and Logan streets, held as many as 1,300. At one point, Lincoln School, located on the northwest corner of Kinney’s Lane and Waller Street, held about 1,600 people, before several hundred were evacuated elsewhere due to overcrowding. The local schools utilized for refugee housing included: Lincoln, Highland, Garfield, McKinley, Roosevelt, and Rosemount. Hilltop schools, which still had heat, opened to refugees, and the students were asked to take their textbooks home with them, to free up as much space as possible. Schools located in the flood zone were opened up for storing furniture (on the upper floors, of course), and all the students’ books were locked in one room. TextĪll the public schools in Portsmouth, Ohio, closed at the end of the school day on January 21, which, as luck would have it, was the last day of the semester anyway. ![]() Her untimely demise, told here, has become forever linked with that of the Flood of 1937. While Rob Black, a local musician with the Boneyfiddle Project, has written and recorded " Bessie Lift Your Baby Up," which tells the story in song. Robert Dafford's flood wall mural, perhaps more than any other image, commemorates the tragedy in the popular imagination. Her grave in Greenlawn Cemetery was refurbished with a new engraved black marble stone, her image etched into its face. ![]() The story of Tomlin's death by drowning resurfaced in the 1990s and has since gone onto inspire local artists and musicians. But soon she and the other refugees at the Washington School would run out of food and water, and heat, and would need to be evacuated by boat to the other refugee centers in the dry Hilltop neighborhoods. When the Flood of 1937 hit Portsmouth, Bessie Tomlin, like others in the city's African-American neighborhood, first found safety on the second floor of the Booker T.
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