Over hill, over dale,

Through bush, through brier,

Over park, over pale

Through flood, through fire

 

Shakespeare: A Midsummer-Night’s Dream

 

 

THROUGH FLOOD, THROUGH FIRE

Personal stories from survivors of the Dayton flood of 1913

 

by

Curt Dalton

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 

     Primary manuscripts, books and letters have been used to create, what is hoped, a glimpse of what the people of Dayton went through during this cold, wet, desperate time when the waters broke through the levees on March 25, 1913.  Except for editing for content, the various narratives have remained untouched, including spelling and dialect.    

     In weaving together the many stories and photographs of the Great Flood of 1913, friends, research librarians, and collectors have offered their advice and help.

     Discovering these stories was not as difficult a task as I had thought it would be, not with the guidance offered by the kind librarians and archivists in the county - particularly Elli Bambakidis of the Dayton & Montgomery County Public Library and Mary Oliver of the Montgomery County Historical Society.

     Most of the illustrative photographs, so important to this effort, are from the NCR Archive, which is now in the care of the Montgomery County Historical Society.  Some of the 1866 and 1898 flood photographs come from the Lutzenberger collection at the Dayton & Montgomery County Library.  Photographs were also used from the Dayton Daily News archive.  My thanks to Charlotte Jones and Cox Ohio Publishing for their assistance, and to Jim Davis, whose knowledge of Dayton was of great help.

     Thanks, also, to NCR for allowing the use of the photographs from their wonderful archive and to my colleagues at the Montgomery County Historical Society for the effort and support they have given me.

     And Dad, thank you for the talks and for giving me the tools I needed to make this book possible.

 

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