Entire Family of Albert Kraal, of Middle Village, Perished on the Slocum.

(Special to the Eagle) Middle Village, L. I. June 21 – One of the many heartrending incidents in connection with the burning of the steamer Slocum was revealed here yesterday. Albert Kraal, an expert worker in pearl and ivory, whose home is in this village, returned yesterday from a trip to Newport. R. I. He had been gone a week or more, and while away had read of the Slocum tragedy — read of it as thousands did, with horror, but thankful that it had not directly affected him. He came home to give a surprise to his family, for his trip had been a prosperous one and he had planned to take his wife and children — there were three of the latter — away on a trip.

He came home with a light heart and knocked gently on the door of his cottage. The knock was unanswered and the house was dark and evidently untenanted. Kraal went to the house of a neighbor, and it needed but a glance at the latter to reveal what had befallen him, and why his knock was unanswered. His wife and children — a son and two daughters — were among the unidentified victims of the Slocum.
All day yesterday the stricken father searched for tidings of his dead, but his persistency was unrewarded. Their bodies may be in the grim trench in Lutheran Cemetery or are perhaps still in the water. Where they are, he cannot tell.

Kraal’s grief is pitiful. He does not cry nor moan, but in a dazed way continues to repeat, “I only ask to find one body — only one. This is not much to ask of God.” The sympathy of his neighbors for the grief-stricken husband and father is deep, but they are powerless to aid him.