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Honorable Malcolm Mercer Hollett
1940

Credits:
Photo courtesy of Legislative Library, Confederation Building

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Magistrate Malcolm Hollett, Great Burin

"Believe it or not, the Magistrate live in Great Burin. He was Malcolm Hollett. He served in the First World War and after the war he was honoured as a Rhodes Scholar and went to England and received his degrees. When he came back he became a Magistrate and later served in the Newfoundland Governent. (He was a strong supporter of a return to Responsible Government, and was opposed to Confederation with Canada.) "He was instrumental in helping organize provisions and help for those affected by the tidal wave. He was my mother's first cousin and it was to his house we went and stayed when the tidal wave was at its worst."

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Wreckage In the Water
November, 1929
Burin, Dominion of Newfoundland

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"My father, Joseph Emberley, and another man was down to Swift Current cutting wood, because hardly anybody lived there then. The other man had one of these little Jack Boats. They ran up in the bottom, which they call Piper's Hole. That evening, they noticed that the tide was pretty high, and swirling. The boat used to spin around, but he didn't know what was causing it. He didn't know anything about what was happening. But when they were coming home, three days later, they met the wreckage of things and found out it was a tidal wave."

58

Marion (Kelly) Moulton
1980
Burin, Dominion of Newfoundland

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Marion Kelly, a resident of Kelly's Cove, was thriteen years old when the tidal wave hit. It happened on a Monday, a beautiful day for washing clothes.
"I was at a woman's house to write a letter for her. She was an old woman. She was writing her daughter, in Boston, I believe. She couldn't write, so I was writing it for her. After the shock( tremor) I wanted to go home. We didn't know what to think really. I didn't stay. If I didn't go when I did, I would have been caught in the wave, going down around the shore on the way home.

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Kelly's Cove In Centre Background:
1900
Burin, Dominion of Newfoundland

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Marion Kelly Moulton's Story:

"Some time after the shock, I was at the kitchen table working by the light of a kerosene lamp. I was still in my school clothes, a navy skirt and white blouse. I was doing my homework. I was doing English. You know the sentence I was doing? "If you do not leave the house, I will send for the policeman with that fine." Of course, we didn't expect a tidal wave. we didn't know anything about it, really. It came round seven o'clock. They say that the harbour dried out. Whether it did or not I really don't know, but that' what people said. Then it came back in. Well, you could hear the sea coming in. It was roaring. Of course we all ran out in the yard to see what was going on. the sea was just like a mountain coming, but slowly. That's what it seemed like to me. Right straight. There were three waves. My little brother and sister were in the doorway. I ran and got him and ran behind the house and jumped the fence. Id really don't know how high. When I got over the fence the water was coming underneath it. I don't know how I did it. Because Elroy was biggish. He didn't remember anything though, he never did. He was only three and a half. When I got over the fence I looked back and the house was just going with the light in the window.

62

Devastation After the Tidal Wave
November, 1929
Kelly's Cove, Dominion of Newfoundland

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Mom came out in the yard. I don't know if she went back in the house or not, I never knew. Mother and my little sister didn't make it. they never did fin my mother Frances, or my sister Dorothy. I took everything when it came. Later, the schooner "Daisy" was in here at the government wharf. The "Daisy went out looking. She towed in a house, but it was not ours. In Kelly's Cove three or four hosues washed out. Mrs. Carrie Brushett and her five children were in one. the first wave came and tookt he house and took it out to sea and they were all in it. The second wave came and brought it back adn put it on the beach. then they all got out before the thrid wave came and took the house right out to sea."

"My other brother Curt was at my aunt's house at the time. I raised them up, the two boys, Elroy and Curt."

"Father was down in the woods. We had a big schooner, and he was down getting wood for the inwter. He didn't know a thing about it until he got home, a week later."

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Homes Sheltered by Cliffs
1910
Shalloway, Dominion of Newfoundland

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The homes were built close to the shorelines for easy access to the family flakes and stages. Oliver Inkpen (Oli), married to Stella Foote from Step a Side, lived in the first home on the left side while his brother, Teed Inkpen lived next door. Teed, known as Uncle Teed, married Lena Parsons, a school teacher from Great Burin.

66

Floating Wharves, Stores, Flakes, and Debris Scattered the Harbours.
November, 1929
Burin, Dominion of Newfoundland

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During the Tidal Wave, Emmanuel Inkpen and his wife, both sick at the time, were swept away from land in their houses. Stella's brother, Chesley Foote, a cripple with an artificial leg, being the only man nearby, forgetting his own safety, took a broken and leaky dory and rescued the Inkpens from certain death by getting them out of the house through a window.