1938 Hurricane (part 2)
New Ipswich Historical Society
Marion Davis Audio-Tape Transcriptions
Sometime before her death in 1986, Marion Davis recorded her memories at the encouragement of her brother, Walter Buck. The recordings were transcribed by a secretary.
The Friends of Wapack have made these available to the Historical Society. Marion was born on February 8, 1894 in Fitchburg, MA.
September 21, 1938
I had 3 goats. We put then into the pen in the barn and in the morning we found one of the goats had tried to get out and jumped up over a gate (we had sort of a picket gate, which was a mistake) and she was hung there. She was dead. We went to the Annex to see how things were and there were 2 women there, one in a wheelchair. Her companion had got wastebaskets from every room in the house where water was coming down thru the roof living room ceiling; everything was well otherwise, safe for them.
Mr. Robbins started to go down to the garage to see what had happened and he felt himself being lifted right off the ground so he came back in. When he got in the screen on the Lodge porch had blown in against a window and broken the sash. Previous to that the Uliches had taken their back cushion out of their car and brought it in to our dining room. pom. They were lugging wood home to Cambridge. We took that cushion, moved a table up against a window put the cushion on top up against that window and braced it with chairs to keep the wind from coming in there. It felt just like it was going to lift the ceiling off the lodge, the wind was so powerful. At 7 o'clock it had quieted down, and I went up on the hill to the cottage. The Uliches, all 7 of them, were in the northwest room, huddled there. The roof was gone off the porch, and they were frightened. I went around to the back side, pulled off one of the screens, opened the window and said, "Come on down to the Lodge".
Photo Archives
1938 Hurricane, downed tree near lodge
James Roger diary entry
26th January 1913
Frost; fine day; wind southwest. Mr. M., a Finnish missionary, gave a description of his mission work in the State and principally about Newport, his headquarters. S.S. after. 25 present. Evening service at 7:00 p.m. Subject: overcoming hindrances; average attendance
My father was a teenager during the hurricane of 38 and I don’t think I there’s been a storm that bad since in town. He watched out the farmhouse kitchen window as dozens of trees crashed to the ground. He said the wind was howling and screaming around the house.