Summer's End

Midge making sand castles with a friend. I wish I knew who he is!

Making Sand Castles, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Summer's End

It is always hard for New England folks to give up summer. I learned from studying The Great Hurricane of 1938, that the people who died in the area where the descendants of the sea captains (I have been blogging about) lived, had a different view of summer than we do today. This surprised me. 

Now I think of the people in New England as traditional hard working people of the land and the sea. Summer was a time of work for our ancestors not one of vacation as you see here in this photo of me at the beach.  

The people who lived on Napatree Point in-between the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island were killed by the hurricane. (It is not that far from this beach pictured here to where people died.) 

They were swept out to sea and many bodies were never found. The hurricane deforested New England, damaged the railroad and crippled the economy. Remember, that was the depression era. 

The houses on Napatree Point were not summer beach shacks. There were built for the wealthy people who summered there who lived in Boston and New York. The September of the hurricane was so warm and sunny, that they didn't return to the city as usual and they didn't send their children to school. In fact, I learned that school didn't start until October. I went to teacher's college. No one ever mentioned this...

Although the many books about this summer event are criticized as not historically accurate, you will get a really good picture of how the sea can change your life (and your ancestry) from a book called Sudden Sea. Horror stories are not always about zombies and vampires. Don't call me and tell me you can't sleep! (Video by PBS)