1926HURRICANE.COM
Movement
Philadelphia to Miami, then Dania
The September 28–October 9 voucher records $48.48 rail fare, a $14.63 Pullman berth, the September 30 Miami arrival, $1.50 at the Hotel McAllister, and the October 2 move from headquarters toward Dania.
Primary Document Room · Hurricane Relief
Ruth Addams: hurricane relief
Sixteen original Red Cross pages reconstruct one nurse's assignment after the Great Miami Hurricane: a train south, a room at the Hotel McAllister, field work in Dania and the Hollywood area, illness, return travel, and a final struggle to be paid correctly.
16original hurricane-service pages preserved here
29 daysfrom Philadelphia departure to return
$141.66monthly home-organization salary used in the adjustment
$62.75final expense account still being pursued after her return
Begin with the record
Four documents tell the center of the story.
The interpretation follows the paper trail. Each image below is an original page from the National Archives. Open it to zoom, pan, turn pages and read the principal entries alongside the scan.
Labor
From graduate nurse to supervisor
The form identifies the “Hollywood Area,” records $5 and $6 daily rates, changes Addams's title to supervising nurse, and then recalculates her pay using the $141.66 monthly salary of her Philadelphia employer.
Her voice
Addams disputes the calculation.
Writing on Visiting Nurse Society stationery, she works through the checks already received and states that another $4.72 remains due. The next page raises a separate missing $62.75 expense payment.
Health
Illness strains two organizations.
Katharine Tucker writes that illness has complicated Florida relief and depleted the Philadelphia supervisory staff. She asks that Addams return as soon as she is well enough to travel.
The assignment route
The receipts place her on the road.
This route comes from dated rail fare, hotel, taxi, meal and correspondence entries in the surviving vouchers.
Philadelphia
Addams begins the trip south. The voucher preserves the rail fare, Pullman berth, meals, taxis and tips.
Miami and the Hotel McAllister
Breakfast was taken aboard the train. The September 28 voucher shown above then records a porter at Miami station, meals in the city and $1.50 lodging at the Hotel McAllister.
Headquarters to Dania
The same voucher records a $1.85 taxi from Red Cross headquarters toward the Miami city limits. Her meals and lodging then shift to Dania, including the Dania Beach Hotel.
Fort Lauderdale connection
The second voucher records lunch in Fort Lauderdale and dinner back in Dania. The paper trail shows a relief geography extending beyond Miami headquarters.
Departure while recovering
Addams left Florida that night, accompanied as far as Washington by another nurse. A letter says she was recovering but not entirely well.
Back in Philadelphia
The return voucher ends with breakfast on the train, a porter tip and taxi. Her employer later reported that she arrived in “fair condition.”
The complete hurricane sequence
Examine every original page.
Objects 39–54 form the hurricane-service section inside Addams's seventy-four-image Historical Nurse File. The original high-resolution scans are preserved here; the National Archives catalog remains the authoritative repository record.
A household-scale loss
No insurance. Total loss. A name and an address.
The Coast Guard pages identify Max K. Chamberlain of 328 N.E. 35th Terrace, value the vessel at $2,500–$3,000, list no insurance and mark it a total loss after it went ashore on rocks.
The later court record adds the household. In 1934 the Florida Supreme Court described Max and his wife providing years of unpaid labor and care to photographer John N. Chamberlain. John had orally given them a frame bungalow; after his 1925 death, his legal heir brought an ejectment action. The court protected Max and his wife. The opinion does not prove that the bungalow was 328 N.E. 35th Terrace or that the hurricane caused the later litigation.
Read closely
What these documents do—and do not—establish.
The Addams pages establish her travel dates, expenses, localities, employment titles, salary basis, illness-related recall and the later payment dispute. They do not identify her patients, exact clinical facilities, diagnosis or complete daily duties.
The Chamberlain pages establish the named master, address, vessel characteristics, uninsured total loss, location and survival account. The court opinion establishes a separate property dispute and history of unpaid family labor. It does not prove that the frame bungalow was the 35th Terrace address.
Repository and use: the Addams file and Coast Guard scans are preserved here as original-source evidence. The National Archives catalog remains the authoritative record. NARA marks the Addams file's access unrestricted and its use possibly restricted; visitors should consult the repository before republication.