Editorial Note:
May Bragdon's letter to
Trudy about the
Orphan Asylum
fire, date : January 10,
1901. “…besides a number of nurses and servants more or less injured. It’s a like a nightmare-the memory of it. and the big black empty west wing still smells of fire and smoke and there is the ominous rattle of falling
glass and a sort of a grim horribleness that makes me shudder whenever I look outdoors.
Miss [illegible] the 30th victim died last night. She might have saved herself but staid with the babies—two sick ones—and they all perished. No one will ever know all the heroic things that were done that night and I think
every single person did the very best they knew how-nurses-children-firemen-policemen-neighbors and people from everywhere-the ambulance doctors were fine and so were the many other doctors who helped and the reporters even-most of them-were…”