Page 26 - Galveston Monthly Apr2019

islaNd hisTOrY | GALVESTON REPuRPOSEd

St. Mary’S Orphanage

This month Galveston Monthly continues our new series: Galveston Repurposed, which explores
Galveston’s uncanny ability to reinvent itself with a specific focus on its 20 century evolution.
th

By Donna Gable Hatch

n the mid-19th century, Catholic Bishop Claude M. ended up together in a tree floating in the water.
Dubuis charged the Sisters of Charity of the incarnate A day after the storm, they made their way back to land.
Word to care for the orphans of Galveston. from 1867 The sisters were found with the children still tied to their
until 1968, the Sisters not only provided a safe haven for waists. Thirty thousand people, almost the entire population
Ithe children but also educated them. of the city, were left homeless.
The original St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum, located at 69th Shortly after the storm, St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum
Street and Seawall Boulevard, housed 93 children, who reopened a new orphanage on 40th and Q streets, known
were cared for by ten nuns. On September 8, 1900, a as the Wharton Davenport Estates, and the orphans, who
Category 4 hurricane came ashore and carried with it had been staying at St. Mary’s infirmary, were moved to a
devastation that remains on record as the deadliest natural large frame house there in 1901. A year later ninety orphans
disaster and the worst hurricane in u.S. history. and a staff of nine sisters occupied the orphanage.
As the hurricane blasted through the island - with winds “According to ‘Serving with Gladness,’ a history of the
estimated at 140 mph - the nuns tied a piece of clothesline Sisters of Charity of the incarnate Word, the original
around each of their waists, and then each tied line around building that the orphanage was relocated to in 1901 was a Image courtesy of Galveston College
the wrists of six- to eight children, and attached the children wood-frame building,” says Lisa May, director of Archives &
to their line. it was a valiant effort, but God had other plans. Records, Archdiocese of Galveston-houston.
The orphanage was completely destroyed and much of “A three-story brick building was completed in 1950, to Photo by John Hall
it washed out to sea. All of the ten nuns and 90 of the 93 replace the 1901 building. it was built on the same site, the
children aged two to 13 drowned. Three boys somehow property purchased on Avenue Q and 40th after the storm.”

26 | GALVESTON MONTHLY | APRIL 2019