Bereaved family coming to terms with loss after deadly flood

Three days after a Houston couple drowned in floodwaters along Brays Bayou, family members are bereft with both shock and grief, but they also are feeling some sense of relief.

After all, it wasn’t until late Friday morning, May 29, that Shirley and Jack Alter’s children had confirmation from authorities that both of their parents’ remains had been pulled from receding floodwaters. Shirley’s body was recovered from a tree near Macgregor Park on Tuesday, May 26; Jack’s was found a few days later – in the Houston Ship Channel.

That 72-hour period, between positive identifications of their lost living-then-found-dead parents was excruciating beyond words for surviving members of this close Jewish family.

The Alters were faced with having to hold out hope that their father would be found dead, after receiving word that their mother also was dead, because the only worse outcome would be that their father remained missing, indefinitely.

A double burial, thus, became the best of the worst possibilities.

Most of the Alters’ immediate family, plus some of their in-laws, live near one another in Southwest Houston. The couple’s middle son, Kevin Alter, along with his wife, Robin, and their three teenaged children, visited Shirley and Jack’s empty home Friday afternoon, May 29.

Robin wanted to look at an ivory wall quilt that the family made together in celebration of Shirley and Jack’s 50th wedding anniversary, some 13 years ago. The family was thinking about draping the quilt over Shirley and Jack’s coffins upon their burial this Sunday, May 31, at Beth Yeshurun cemetery.

Family photos are prominently displayed throughout the home, particularly in the small sitting room, where Shirley and Jack spend a lot of their time. The most prominent piece of furniture in the space is a love seat, with its two seat cushions fitted tightly together.

Shirley and Jack were wearing lifejackets when they boarded a rescue boat from the 5000 block of N. Braeswood Boulevard at around 7 a.m. on Tuesday May 26, according to the couple’s daughter, who also was taken onto the boat during the flash flood. Minutes later, the vessel suffered engine failure, then capsized near the Braeswood bridge at 610 Loop, and the Alters were swept into the rushing waters.

It would have been virtually impossible for the elderly couple – Jack was 87, Shirley was 85 – to have survived the violent current, family members agreed. It was a miracle that the Alter’s 55-year-old daughter managed to float on her back until reaching a patch of dry ground near Frankway Drive on the other side of the freeway. Despite losing her own lifejacket after going into the water, the daughter was able to self-rescue – and survived.

Shirley, Jack and their daughter had been stranded outside Robin and Kevin’s Meyerland home prior to boarding the boat.

Earlier that evening, the family attended the high school graduation ceremony of Kevin and Robin’s eldest daughter. Shirley, Jack and their own daughter left the venue in Downtown Houston before the rest of the family, in order to beat the incoming storm. Kevin, Robin and their kids got stuck Downtown when they attempted to leave half an hour later, while Jack, Shirley and their daughter were stranded outside Kevin and Robin’s locked home. They were forced to spend the night in their car.

Rising floodwaters, early the next morning, forced them out and onto the front porch of Robin and Kevin’s home, where they remained, pinned down by the storm, until the rescue boat arrived.

After looking at Shirley and Jack’s 50th anniversary quilt on Friday, Robin and Kevin spent time revisiting family photo albums. Then, Robin broke away to search for special kippot that the family had made as another 50th wedding anniversary gift, and Kevin took the opportunity to search for some paperwork in his parents’ home.

They eventually came back together around Shirley and Jack’s kitchen table and were joined by two of their children, who had found three New York Yankees hats, in varying shades of navy blue, that belonged to Jack. Kevin and Robin’s middle child tried one on.

Her older sister, whose high school graduation night ended in tragedy, sat alone in the still living room.

On a counter across from the kitchen table, where all three Yankees hats now rested, orange medicine bottles with alternating white and pink caps sat arranged in rows.

Jack and Shirley made a life together, according to their family. They worked together and owned a business together. In the ’70s and ’80s, the couple ran a local chain of retail maternity stores. Family meant the world to them – especially their own. They had two sons, a daughter, two daughters-in-law, two grandsons and three granddaughters.

Sitting at his parents’ kitchen table, in the home where he grew up, Kevin considered his loss, as well as the legacy that Shirley and Jack left behind.

“My parents treated all of their children wonderfully, and treated all of their grandchildren wonderfully,” Kevin told the JHV as he leaned back into his chair and showed his father’s smile. “They prioritized the next generation.”

Turning to his own kids, Kevin continued: “They had five superstar grandchildren. They lapped that up – couldn’t get enough of hearing about you guys.

“You sure gave them plenty to dote on and brag about,” he said.

Kevin, Robin and their children currently are sleeping at Robin’s parents’ home, because their own home was severely damaged during the flood.

Robin’s day started early Friday. Wearing flip-flops, she unlocked her front door, then entered the damp, and began to search for a place to start cleaning. After an hour, she approached a large basket in her bedroom.

Inside were keepsakes from Robin and Kevin’s wedding and honeymoon, including a poetic story that Shirley wrote about Kevin’s birth for the occasion of his wedding.

The ink on the page had bled after the basket submerged Monday night. The same had happened to birthday cards to grandchildren that Shirley and Jack had signed, found in a box nearby.

Kevin arrived. At 11 a.m., they met up with the rest of the family at Beth Yeshurun synagogue to discuss funeral arrangements. As they sat down with the rabbis, city officials issued a press release, stating that a body, which was found the night before, had been identified as Jack Howard Alter.

Jack and Shirley’s children had knowledge of the discovery at the time, but held off telling their own children until they knew for sure. Apart from the two notifications of found bodies, and follow-up calls to confirm positive identifications, whenever the Alters needed a progress report from authorities during the 72-hour period between the discovery of Shirley’s remains and those of Jack’s, they had to place the calls themselves.

After Beth Yeshurun, the family met with the funeral home. By 3 p.m., Kevin, Robin and their three children were back at Robin’s in-laws. From there, they spent about an hour at Jack and Shirley’s. Robin walked to the house. Kevin rode in a car. Their children walked separately.

The family walked together back to Robin’s parents.

That night, the extended family attended Shabbat services at Beth Yeshurun. The rabbi’s sermon was held until the very end. It addressed the events of the past week in Houston and named the Alter family once, by name, in speaking about all those who suffered losses in the flood.

Relatives began arriving in town on Friday, with more expected over the weekend in time for the funeral.

Friday ended with the Alters feeling shock, grief and a sense of relief that somehow, they had made it through the day.