Tidal Wave: Kelly's Cove

Marion (Kelly) Moulton

Marion Kelly was thirteen years old when the tidal wave hit. It happened on a Monday, a beautiful day for washing clothes. She was living at Kelly's Cove, near Burin.

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, 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.

So, I don't know, I think all our lives are planned. Don't you?

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.

That was later, a couple of hours after the shock.

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's what people said. Then it came back in.

Well, you could hear the sea coming in. It was roaring.