1938-09-23: ​​~TOUR STOPS~---images---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1938-09-23: ​tour stops---~IMAGES~---audio---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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Envelope to Alma
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1938-09-23: tour stops---images---~AUDIO~---transcript---notes---links---site navigation
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1938-09-23: ​tour stops---images---audio---~TRANSCRIPT~---notes---links---site navigation
Friday evening

Dear Aunt Eva,

This is just to let you know that we arrived safely.  Roger + I did enjoy our visit so much, but I'll write about that later.

Well, the train went as far as New Haven + then stopped.  To be brief we waited for four and a half hours before we could get a bus.  There were a crowd who had been there since the night before who had to be taken care of before us.

The bus ride itself was rather much fun.  There were several Harvard boys on the train + they amused the rest of us by wise-cracking most all the time.  At one point we were delayed for a long time due to an overturned truck.  There were about five buses traveling together.  Many, many huge transportation buses passed us going in the opposite direction carrying food + first aid.

Eventually we got here when the sun was almost ready to rise.  I phoned the Ryans, but no one answered.  Since then I've called Mr. Ryan's office.  The latest report is that they received the telegram from him in New York saying they'd arrive sometime tomorrow afternoon.  You see all the Chicago trains have been held up.

I happened to meet one of the Saville House girls in the station.  She was with a law student.  The four us came out to Cambridge in a car, left our luggage at Roger's room, + then tried to find a place to stay.  The hotels + tourist homes were all filled up.  At six thirty we came to the Sambles.  I didn't want to bother them before that.  They gave up their beds to us (the other boy went to his dorm which was to open about eight).  We slept until eleven.  Then Roger went + registered etc. + Jane + I walked over with him to his room + I brought back a few of my things.  By the way the yard policeman said last night that 50 freshmen had come in since one o'clock + that was about three!

Roger came by a little while ago.  He passed the physical exam for the Naval Reserve which he wanted to join.  He said he'd get to bed early tonight + I certainly will.

I can get into my dorm tomorrow, but I'm afraid our trunks won't arrive until at least Monday due to the train delay.

I'm going to call up Jean's brother in a few minutes + see if he's heard from Jean.

Providence was under marshal law, when we went through.  There were huge trees down all along the way.  So many of them just seemed to have missed hitting houses, but fortunately most of them fell in a slightly different direction.

Well, I'll write you again, but I just wanted you to know that we arrived all right.  I'm rather tired so you'll have to excuse this please.

With much love,

Kathleen.

P.S. Letter seems to be quicker + more reliable than telegraph right now, as the telegrams are subject to indefinite delay.​
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1938-09-23: ​​​tour stops---images---audio---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
The envelope is addressed to Alma, but the letter is to Eva.  So this is not the envelope in which the letter was originally sent.  But the envelope has "K's letter Trip to Cambridge" written on it, so it looks as though Eva sent the letter on to Alma.

2.
​Friday evening
Dear Aunt Eva,
The Hurricane of 1938 hit New England on September 21, 1938.  That was a Wednesday, so this letter must have been written on a September 23, 1938.
​
3.
This is just to let you know that we arrived safely.  Roger + I did enjoy our visit so much, but I'll write about that later.
Kay was a junior at Radcliffe in the fall of 1938, and her younger brother Roger was a freshman.  Apparently the two of them had visited their Aunt Eva in Philadelphia before going to Cambridge.  It seems possible that they were at Fernbank in the summer of 1938, but I don't know.

4.
When I first read this letter I kept getting confused with AM and PM for the times, so here's what I've worked out:
  • Kay and Roger arrived by bus in Boston around 3AM.  This seems to be considerably before the sun might rise in September, but I can't work it out any other way.
  • They went to Cambridge by car (what car?  I don't know) and left their luggage in Roger's dorm room, which I assume opened a few days earlier than Kay's because the freshmen were to arrive earlier than the upperclassmen, for orientation.
  • They looked around in the dark for a hotel room.  I guess that Kay and her friend Jane would not be allowed to stay in Roger's room, and it wouldn't be nice for Kay and Jane to be wandering around Harvard Square in the middle of the night, so Roger went with them.
  • At 6:30 AM they went to the Sambles and slept in that house until 11:00 AM.

​5.
Roger came by a little while ago.  He passed the physical exam for the Naval Reserve which he wanted to join.
Nearly fifty years later, I sat with my mother in a little office in a funeral home in Cambridge after my father had died.  As a veteran, he was entitled to an American flag, but the woman assisting us needed to know his dates of service.  My mother explained that this wasn't an entirely simple question.  He had come to Cambridge and joined ROTC in the middle of the Hurricane of 1938, and because of the confusion, it wasn't clear what his date of entry was.  And then at the other end, he came home from the Navy on Thanksgiving night of 1945, but he had lots of leave time accrued, so the exit date was sometime in January 1946.  We got the flag, and last I heard, my brother Roger was using it on the flagpole at his home.

6.
I don't know who any of the friends mentioned in this letter are - the Sambles, Jane, the Ryans, and Jean.

7.
Kay had a good story to tell, so I'm including this in:
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