The Great Halifax Explosion: The Weak and the Strong of It

By Terrie Todd

Charles Upham, a Halifax Harbour yardman, finished his night shift on December 6, 1917, and returned home. After eating a big breakfast and stoking the furnace for the day, he burrowed under the covers to sleep for a few hours. In the next bedroom, his daughter Millicent, nine, was staying home from school sick. Her brother Archie, seven, was visiting her for a moment before leaving for school.

Location of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Suddenly, the children heard a huge rushing wind tear through their house as shards of glass flew from the windows. Glass lodged into the back of Archie’s head while Millicent’s face was sliced to shreds. Their screams roused their father.

Cloud created by the Halifax explosion. Photo: Wikipedia

Although he’d been protected under the blankets, Charles ran barefoot into the next room, cutting his feet on glass fragments strewn about the floor. Seeing his children cut and bleeding, he led them out of Millicent’s room only to discover the entire east side of their house gone. The explosion had knocked out their staircase, trapping them on the second floor of a building about to collapse. The long strip of oilcloth that had covered the stairs, still attached at the top, flapped in the cold December wind.

Charles used the oilcloth like a rope to let himself down, then pulled it taut. He persuaded the children to slide down, even as beams and walls were caving in. Both children, though covered in blood and oily soot, did as their father urged and slid down the oilcloth. Immediately, the house went up in flames.

Charles carried Millicent piggyback and led Archie by the hand to safety. Though Millicent lost an eye and Archie later had twenty-two pieces of glass removed from his head, all three survived thanks to a humble oilcloth. All over Halifax, the strongest and most important parts of buildings (beams, joists, bricks) often became instruments of death while lesser, weaker items (like oilcloth) became lifesavers.

Oil Cloth Factory (Hubbard Free Library Collection)

The Reluctant Healer of Halifax is the final and sixth book in Barbour Publishing’s Enduring Hope series by various authors. In one-fifteenth of a second, the world’s prettiest harbor suffered the world’s largest man-made explosion prior to Hiroshima. A story of love, loss, faith, and honor set against Canada’s most devastating moment of the First World War. Watch for it in August 2026.

Terrie Todd is the award-winning author of ten historical novels, all set in Canada where she lives with her husband Jon. A former church drama team leader and newspaper columnist, she’s also a frequent contributor to Guideposts Books, mother of three, and grandmother of five.

 

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THE HUMBLE ENVELOPE

By Mary Davis

 

We all know what an envelope is and what it’s used for. If you go back in time, envelopes were once a luxury, not as common as we have today.

 

Envelopes might be thought of as a fairly recent invention, right? Invented in the last 300-500 years, right?

 

Surprisingly, not. They go back to antiquity. Though they might not have gone by the name of “envelope”, the concept of them dates back to between 3500-3200 BC.

 

Back then, people didn’t write on paper, parchment, or animal skin because those writing surfaces didn’t exist yet. So, what did they write on?

 

Soft clay, of course. It was abundant in Mesopotamia. A lump of this moldable earth was rolled into a small slab, then with a stylus, information was drawn into it, in the form of symbols. After the message was complete or the slab was full, it would be left out in the sun to dry.

 

But how to send these so that everyone along the way to their destinations didn’t read it?

 

A clay envelope, of course. A slab of would be gently folded around the dry tablet and sealed, then dried in the sun. This guaranteed that no one could read it secretly. No steaming this puppy open and resealing it. It had to be cracked open. Because of the laborious effort and length of time clay “paper” and “envelopes” took, it was almost exclusively used by the elite, governments, and historians.

 

Fortunately, along came a crude form of paper in roughly 1200 BC invented by the Chinese. Japan followed close behind.

 

Early envelopes were created from a kite/diamond shape or something that resembled a short-armed cross, folding the tips or ends toward the center to form a rectangle or square. Then the message could be put inside the envelope, secured in some fashion, often a wax seal, but sometimes string.

 

Not everyone had the luxury of owning the supplies for a wax seal, nor wasting a whole piece of paper to enclose it. People without these items could use letterlocking, a form of folds, tucks, slits, and strips. My article on letterlocking can be found HERE.

 

Each envelope had to be hand cut, folded by hand, and glued one by one, a slow laborious process. This made them expensive and not readily available to the masses.

 

The next major advancement came in 1840 when George Wilson of London got a patent for an envelope-cutting machine.

 

Then in 1845, a steam-powered, letter-folding machine was patented in England by Edwin Hill and Warren de la Rue that also cut them first.

 

After that, a faster way of gluing was needed. This came in 1879 when a gum dryer feature was added to the machine.

 

Envelope making machine

The final major innovation came in 1901 with the invention of the window envelope by Americus F. Callahan.

 

I’m sure my mail carrier is grateful we no longer write on clay tablets.

 

THE LADY’S MISSION (Quilting Circle 5)
2023 SELAH Award Finalist

Will Cordelia abandon her calling for love? Cordelia Armstrong wants nothing more than to escape the social norms for her station in society. Unless she can skillfully maneuver her father into giving up control of her trust fund, she might have to concede defeat—as well as her freedom—and marry. Every time Lamar Kesner finds a fascinating lady, her heart belongs to another. When a vapid socialite is offered up as a prospective bride, he contemplates flying off in his hot air balloon instead. Is Lamar the one to finally break the determination of Cordelia’s parents to marry her off? Or will this charming bachelor fly away with her heart?

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE LADY’S MISSION. Her other novels include MRS. WITHERSPOON GOES TO WAR, THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (Quilting Circle 3) is a Selah Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; THE WIDOW’S PLIGHT, THE DAUGHTER'S PREDICAMENT, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection , Prodigal Daughters Amish series, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.
Mary lives in the Rocky Mountains with her Carolina dog, Shelby. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at:
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Sources

https://www.backthenhistory.com/articles/the-history-of-envelopes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envelope

https://baddeleybrothers.com/the-history-of-envelopes/

https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/the-art-of-cards-and-letters/undercover-the-evolution-of-the-american-envelope

https://www.paperpapers.com/news/more-than-a-wrapper-the-5000-year-history-of-the-envelope/

https://medium.com/@mecoberbo/a-brief-history-of-the-envelope-eec25011d98f

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NZA8XpNs0w

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7KfMS5N5zJU

 

Kristallnacht: The Start of it All

 By Sherri Boomershine

In writing my new book about the Kinder Transport, I was amazed at how many of my friends and relatives know someone who was a child on the Kinder Transport. I want to capture those stories while those children, now in their eighties and nineties, are still alive. One single event led parents in Germany, Austria, and other Nazi-occupied countries to give their children to strangers in England in order to save the children’s lives. That one event: Kristallnacht.

On the night of November 9–10, 1938, Nazi German leaders unleashed a nationwide anti-Jewish riot. This event is known as Kristallnacht, often referred to as the “Night of Broken Glass.” What led up to the fateful two nights when countless Jews were sent to concentration camps and thousands of Jewish schools, synagogues, and businesses were destroyed by fire? Antisemitic sentiments had been steadily growing since 1933 when Adolph Hitler rose to power, blaming the Jews for a weak economy, so it only took a single spark to set off the fire.

On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Jewish refugee living in Paris, walked into his city’s German embassy and assassinated Nazi diplomat Ernst vom Rath. Grynszpan had just learned that his Polish-Jewish parents, along with thousands of other Jews, had been herded into boxcars and deported from Germany. His actions would later be used as justification for Kristallnacht. Grynszpan had emigrated to France two years earlier when he walked into the German Embassy on Rue de Lille in search of the German ambassador. Since the ambassador was out on his daily walk, Grynszpan was brought in to meet with diplomat Ernst vom Rath. Pulling out his revolver, Grynszpan fired five times at vom Rath and shouted, “You are a filthy kraut, and here in the name of 12,000 persecuted Jews is your document!” Vom Rath died two days later.

Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels immediately launched a vast pogrom against the Jews living within Germany’s borders. He sent a teletype message to state police stations and secret service headquarters with detailed instructions on organizing and executing a massive attack on Jewish properties. Goebbels ordered the burning of Jewish houses of worship, businesses, and homes. He ordered the storm troopers to arrest as many Jews as the prisons could hold—“especially the rich ones”—and to prepare the concentration camps for their arrivals. Firemen were told to do nothing to stop the blazes unless the fires began to threaten non-Jewish-owned properties.

Starting in the late hours of the night of November 9, 1938, and continuing well into the next day, Nazis in Germany and Austria torched approximately 1,000 synagogues and vandalized thousands of Jewish homes, schools and businesses. Nearly 100 Jews were murdered during the violence, and approximately 30,000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Following the night of terror, the shattered windows of vandalized Jewish businesses littered the sidewalks of Germany and Austria, which led to the rampage being known as Kristallnacht, German for “crystal night.”

A week following the assassination in Paris, vom Rath’s coffin draped with the Nazi swastika flag was paraded through the streets of Dusseldorf as thousands of mourners raised their arms in salute of the murdered diplomat. Grynszpan was transferred from prison to prison in France until he was extradited to Germany where he was incarcerated in a concentration camp. https://www.history.com/articles/kristallnacht-75-years-ago

Ruth Winkelmann, now in her nineties, remembers that night, "Our father took me and my little sister in his arms that night, and said, 'this is the beginning of a very difficult time, and we'll try to live through it.' On our way to school, we saw broken shop windows and shards of glass lying in the streets. And then we saw a shop where someone had painted the word 'Jew,' and smeared on a star of David. In retrospect, I became a grown-up on that day. The pogrom night took away my childhood."  https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-46152567

Sherri Boomershine is a woman of faith who loves all things foreign whether it’s food, culture, or language. A former French teacher and flight attendant, her passion is traveling to the settings of her books, sampling the food, and visiting the sites. She visited a Netherlands concentration camp for A Song for Her Enemies, and Paris art museums for What Hides beyond the Walls. Sherri lives with her husband Mike, her high school sweetheart, whom she married fifty-five years later. As an author and editor, she hopes her books will entertain and challenge readers to live large and connect with their Savior. Join, chat, and share with her on social media. Newsletter Facebook Twitter Instagram Website

A Song for Her Enemies

Tamar Kaplan is a budding soprano with the Harlaam Opera company. Her future looks bright, despite the presence of the German soldiers guarding Haarlem. But when Nazi soldiers close down the opera company, families start disappearing in the middle of the night, and Jews are stripped of their freedoms, Tamar realizes her brother Seth was right about her naiveté. She joins the resistance, her blond hair and light features making it easy for her come and go under the watchful eyes of the German guards. Tamar becomes Dr. Daniel Feldman’s assistant, as they visit families hiding out in forests and hovels, tending to their health needs. But when she returns home to find her parents gone and the family store looted, she and Daniel must go into hiding. As they cling to the walls of an alley, Tamar recognizes a familiar face—that of Neelie Visser, the neighbor, who beckons to them to follow her. Can she trust this Gentile woman who talks about God as if he’s standing next to her? https://bit.ly/40Yucjv