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‘As we were sitting and praying at my aunt’s’
By Blanca Chapa Bell
Published July 27, 2003
In 1943 we lived on 64th Street in an old two-story Victorian house, moved there don’t know when. There were very few homes west of 61st Street except for a few summer camps facing the bayou. Our house had two large bedrooms, large kitchen and bathroom. The first floor was used for storage and a garage.
I remember when the wind started blowing the wooden shutters banged against the house and broke a window and the glass cut my sister’s arm.
The water was beginning to rise since the seawall ended at 61st. We were all frightened and decided to drive to our aunt’s house on Victory Street, about two blocks away.
While we were there, my two brothers swam to my aunt’s, water up to their necks or higher because the wind had blown the roof off our house and it collapsed. As we were sitting and praying at my aunt’s, her house cracked almost in half and being scared to death we all piled into two cars, about 10 or 12 people.
The last thing I remember was being picked up by an Army truck and it taking us to what I believe now was American Printing Co.
We lived with my aunt until my dad, a building contractor, built a temporary two-room house with an outdoor john.
Later that year my brother in the Army got a hardship furlough to help my dad build a beautiful house next to the temporary house. This new house still stands today because he built it to withstand 200 mile per hour winds.
Blanca Chapa Bell (about 9 years old in 1943) Galveston
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