<TITLE>21. Par 81-84</TITLE>L-81 Just right after that, the 1937 flood come on. And when it did, the... I was--got a job then. I went to working for the conservation. And I was patrolling out in the... So when I--the floods begin to come up and you remember hearing it here. Many of you was there, and how people being washed away and things.
And Hope taken sick. She was going over to get me a--a Christmas present. And... the Foxe's "Book Of The Martyrs," is what I wanted for a Christmas present. And she got me a little fish box.
And when I come in that afternoon, she was laying on the floor, fainted. And I called our family doctor, Doctor Adair. And he--he came up there, and he said, "Well, Bill, she's got pneumonia." So he said, "You have to stay up all night...?... nights." And during that time...
Before that, a little girl baby, little Sharon Rose (Bless her little heart. She's in heaven too today.), she had been born into our home, just the sweetest little thing you ever seen, just a few months old.

L-82 And so then I remember that Doctor Adair told me, he'd say, "Have to stay up late, Billy, keep the children out of the room here." And said, "Stay up and--and--and give a lot of fluid that night." And I did. And the next morning her mother wanted to take her down at the house. And she didn't care too much about Doctor Adair, and taken her out and throwed her into the--the tubercular.
So then, I remember the flood coming on; they rushed her out to the government depot, out there for the hospital. And--and, oh, that part of the night, it raining, twisting, blowing; and how brother, sister...?... now.
Always mind God. No matter what it is, God says for you to do. And I tell you, today, that God in heaven, Who looks down upon me standing in this platform, will forgive me. I know that many thousands of souls that I'll have to answer for at that day, for listening to somebody else instead of God. That's true.
Now, I remember out there that night. They taken her out to the government barracks where, used it for people who are in hospitals. And the floods were on.

L-83 And I was down trying to patrol. I slip out to see her. And she was sick, and both babies had taken pneumonia. And they were laying there sick and... And I'd worked back. They was calling me everywhere in patrol car I was in... I went downtown. And--and I was coming up the street along about eleven o'clock.
And the old dike had broke through up there. And down through the other part of the city it'd washed, just washed out. And they didn't know how many was killed or--or nothing. And such a horrible time.
And I remember I heard somebody hollering and screaming. I looked way over there past Chestnut Street, a big two story building and it was shaking like this. And there stood a mother out there with her baby in her arms, and the building going down, screaming for mercy.

L-84 Well, I lived on the river, and I thought I was a pretty good boatman. I'd get... went and got my boat out of the back of my car, and set it in the water, the little patrol car I had. And I set the boat in the water.
And I got out there to her, and got her in and two or three other girls in the--in the room. And I got them out. And just the time I got them to the bank, they heard... She said, "My..." She fainted. She hollered, "My baby, my baby. Get my baby." I thought she'd left her little bitty baby in the room, and I'd left it.


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