Catherine Uhlmyer Gallagher Connelly was the second-to-last, and the longest-living survivor of the fire of June 15, 1904.
Background
She was born as Catherine Uhlmyer in Manhattan, New New York Her father died before she was a year old, and her mother, Veronica, remarried John Gallagher. The total death count was 1,021 of the 1,331 passengers who were on a Sunday school outing, and among the victims were her mother, her nine-year-old brother Walter, and her 9-month-old sister Agnes.
Career
On that tragic day, she (at age 11) was one of the passengers aboard the when it caught fire on the East River in New New York She remembered a boy shouting "fire" while a brass band was playing on the deck of the ship to entertain the travelers. Others were killed as they were drawn into the blades of the paddlewheel.
"Sometimes he is very cruel, the man upstairs," she said in her interview with The New York Times on May 24, 1989, when she was already 96.
This remained the largest single disaster in New York until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The New York Times wrote: Her pleasures included cooking rich food, and her secret for longevity was a banana a day.
But every year in the weeks leading up to June 15, the anniversary of the disaster -- New York City"s most lethal fire until 11 September 2001 -- she would become sad. She grew up in what was known as Little Germany, an enclave between Houston and 14th Streets on the East Side.
Pickles were a penny each, and stacks of rye bread with apple butter were the delicacy of the day.
The church chartered the, a wooden side-wheel steamboat, for the outing. A grocer who belonged to the church gave the Gallaghers, who were Roman Catholics, three tickets. But they needed one more.
Mr.
Gallagher had to work. "I went over to the store crying and they gave me a ticket," Mistress Connelly said. "I was never on a boat before." Nor did she ever set foot on one again.
The passengers boarded at 9:40 a.m. for the trip to Long Island for a picnic.
After catching fire at Hell Gate, the put ashore on North Brother Island at 10:40 and burned. Catherine Gallagher was rescued by a tugboat.
An investigation revealed that life jackets and fire hoses had fallen apart with age. Lifeboats were wired in place.
And the crew had never conducted a fire drill.
Only the ship"s captain went to prison. In the days after the disaster, Little Germany"s doorways were draped in black, and on June 18, 1904, the neighborhood saw 156 funerals. More than 600 households lost loved ones.
In Mistress
Connelly"s later years, she was interviewed for many articles and television documentaries on the, but she never lost her perspective. "You know," she said in the interview with the Times, "you don"t fully grasp the meaning of everything.".
Views
Quotations:
"Sometimes he is very cruel, the man upstairs,". "I went over to the store crying and they gave me a ticket,".