She died a martyr’s death in 1919 storm

Sister M. Thais Desroche, CCVI. Archived Photo

The sisters “were wakened by the wind about 4 o’clock Sunday morning and found rain leaking into the building.” As the storm approached Corpus Christi North Beach on September 1919, the bay water began to fill the front yard close to the buildings of Spohn Sanitarium and the anxious sisters went to the chapel to pray.

Sister M. Paula, CCVI one of the sisters serving at Corpus Christi on Sept. 14, 1919 recalled the event in a Sept. 11, 1960 news article that appeared in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. The 1919 hurricane that struck Corpus Christi claimed hundreds of lives, including that of Sister M. Thais Desroche, CCVI.

In 1919, there were not the many early warning systems available today and there was no way of knowing for certain how serious and deadly the storm was. In fact, by midmorning the sisters had made calls to the weather bureau to ask for the latest storm information as bay waters continued to rise and cut off all escape from North Beach. The sisters were told there was “no danger.”

However, by noon the bathhouse of the sanitarium and other smaller buildings nearby began to turn over and blow away “like feathers,” Sister Paula recalled. All phone lines were down when the sisters attempted to contact the weather bureau again.

The Southern Messenger, in an article published after the storm, reported the memories of the sisters who said that after the loss of those buildings it was decided it was best to move as many patients as possible to the south wing of the sanitarium, which was not so much exposed to the wind and waves. The Messenger noted, “The rocking of the building terrified the inmates who expected every moment would be their last.”

Among those moving in those darkened halls was Sister Thais, one of the first to realize the impending and possibly life-threatening danger to the sisters and their patients. Born in Quebec, Canada on Aug. 15, 1868, Lea Desroche had chosen at age 19 to enter the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word (CCVI) to serve God in the medical and pastoral care of those hospitalized.

For her religious name she chose “Mary Thais” and after her formation as a postulant and novice, she took annual vows for six years before making perpetual vows in March 1897. She served from 1890-1917 in hospitals–often called infirmaries or sanitariums–in New Mexico, Missouri and cities in north Texas before coming to Corpus Christi in 1917.

She also served as a Consultor in the community of Corpus Christi beginning in 1918. This veteran of some 29 years of medical care joined her sisters and other workers at the sanitarium to transfer patients to greater safety. Realizing too that the first floor would soon be inundated as the waters rose, they moved about 40 patients to the second floor.

The old Spohn Sanitarium was located on Corpus Christi North Beach Archived Photo

Fortunately there were no newborn babies in the hospital at that time, said one survivor of the storm. Some of the patients had been out of surgery only a short time, but were among the 51 survivors who crowded into a corner of one of the rooms of the hospital that proved to be the most sturdy room because it was near the boiler room and chimney which were both made of brick.

In the chapel on the second floor of the southeast wing of the building, Msgr. Claude Jaillet recited the rosary and prayers for the dying and heard confessions. At that time, Sister Bruno, in going to relieve one of the sisters on duty in the north wing, was knocked down several times as she passed a connecting hallway, the windows of which had been blown out. Sister Thais had heard boards ripping earlier in that wing and hurried to see to the patients still confined there.

She was warned of the danger of the weakened structure and the winds in the corridor, but replied, “My duty is to God and my patients.”

She and Teresa Reece, a 37-year-old native of Ireland, opened the door to the corridor and crossed over into the threatened wing to care for the two remaining patients. Shortly after 4 p.m. they heard a terrible crash. The north wing split open, the roof fell in and the wreckage was swept away by the flood.

Sister Paula and Sister Frances Ignatius, who were serving at Spohn at the time, recalled that two patients remained in that weakened wing; one was a paralyzed man named Milton Plum and the other an employee of the Corpus Christi powerhouse, Jose Hernandez, who had been injured in an explosion the Friday before the storm and was under treatment for severe burns. Sister Thais and Reece had gone to serve them, and all four were together when the crash came–carrying them away in the raging waters.

Less than two hours after the front of the main building was swept away the chapel porch was carried off. A little before 6 p.m. Msgr. Jaillet consumed whatever hosts still remained in the tabernacle and had scarcely left the chapel when that wing also began to go to pieces. At 8 p.m. there was another crash, and that entire wing disappeared. Now only four rooms remained.

The wind, changing to the west, sent the great smokestack of the boiler room crashing through the roof and ceiling where the sisters and patients had taken refuge. Sister Aloysius was sitting on the side of the bathtub in that room with a patient when part of the brick wall caved in on them. She was blown over the side where the wall had been, but some of the bricks fell on the skirt of her habit, pinning her so that she was left dangling outside of what had been the wall. Men in the room pulled her back into the remains of the room, and one of them cut her skirt free from the bricks.

With two more rooms gone, the sisters and patients grouped themselves in their close quarters and awaited aid.

One of the heroes in the midst of disaster was 18-year-old W. Coulter McCuistion, son of Corpus Christi photographer George McCuistion. Coulter McCuistion was in the army, attached to the medical corps and stationed in San Antonio when he came to Corpus Christi on a 72-hour furlough shortly before the storm hit.

He worked all Sunday afternoon during the storm to rescue people trapped on Chaparral and Water streets, taking them to the safety of the county courthouse, which was of brick and with multiple stories. He then swam through the old Plaza Hotel to be sure that no one was left there.

Through field glasses he had seen lights from the kerosene lamps in the sanitarium Sunday night, and on Monday morning at 7 a.m. he was the first man to swim across the flood waters to reach the Spohn Sanitarium and the Military Service Hospital on North Beach to assure survivors that aid was on the way. It was noon before the rescuers arrived.

With a few patients and a sister in each boat, the relief workers rowed to the courthouse. For his efforts, young McCuistion was recommended for two Life Saving Medals, one from the United States government and the other from the Sisters of Charity.

The body of Sister Thais was recovered some days later, 10 miles away, close to present-day Portland. Survivor Sister Frances Ignatius recalled that Sister Thais was found still in her black religious habit and with her rosary beads at her waist. The sisters felt she had died a martyr’s death–sacrificing her own life in the service of her patients.

Headstone at Holy Cross Cemetery of Sister M. Thais who died in the 1919 hurricane while trying to save her patients. Archived Photo

While the death of Sister Thais occasioned great grief among her sisters, the community found some consolation in laying her remains to rest in the consecrated ground of Holy Cross Cemetery in Corpus Christi. Though notified by their Reverend Mother Mary John and Mother Wendelinus that another corps of nurses would replace them, the surviving sisters insisted on continuing their duties.

Within days the John G. Kenedy home on N. Broadway and Lipan was offered to the sisters to serve as a temporary hospital until other arrangements could be made. In time, the sisters–with the support of a grateful community–built new facilities and continued their mission of mercy for the people of south Texas.

Others like Sister Thais would also give of their lives, through hours of work and tons of effort.