It was September 1938. My husband, Pat, and I were living in Boston. He was a research chemist for National Dairy, and we were enjoying getting acquainted with Boston and its fascinating history, as well as that great ocean nearby.
One day when Pat came home from work, I met him at the door saying, “You know what I’d like to do?”
“Yeah, you want to see the waves. Well, get your coat on. Cold out.”
I got into my coat, and we went out to our car, a little Ford coupe. As we drove to downtown Boston, I was surprised at how the wind speed was increasing.
“Look, Pat, there on the embankment,” I said. “Those waves have slapped against it. They must be 20 feet in the air.”
“Wow, Josie,” he said. “This is really shaping up into some storm.”
“Oh, no! All the street lights went out,” I said.
“It’s OK,” he said reassuringly. “We have our car lights.”
Pat drove the car along the harbor. As we started to cross to the fish pier, a place where we loved to go on Sunday afternoons to watch the boats and the waves and harbor activity, Pat said, “We can’t do it. That wind is picking up our little car and setting it over a foot. I’m afraid we might get turned over.”
I suggested we go home.
“Yeah, I think you’re right. Sorry about the fish pier,” he said. “You know, Josie, I don’t know if I can get this car turned around. Maybe, if I turn very slowly.”
He finally got the car turned around and headed toward downtown Boston. As we drove along Commonwealth Avenue, we saw one of the beautiful, old elms fall into the center of the road.
We slowly drove along, then were suddenly stopped by several stopped cars ahead and another elm across the road.
Pat shook his head. “Gotta do something.”
He got out of the car, went and talked to the other drivers, who all got out of their cars and managed to turn the elm aside, and traffic flowed again.
A half a block away, we saw a plate glass window suddenly blow out. Pat drove up on the median strip to avoid as much of the glass as he could. We both heaved a huge sigh of relief when we got past.
“Josie, we’ve got to get out of this,” Pat said. “I just hope we can get home!”
It was strange, driving along the darkened streets, some with water in them. Pat drove slowly, trying to find higher ground.
Driving past an embankment, Pat stopped for a man on the curb who was holding his thumb out for a ride.
“Poor guy. Gotta pick him up,” Pat said.
It was still a tight squeeze for the three of us in our little Ford coupe. We had an excited conversation about the heavy wind and the storm. The young man lived in Newton Center, which was several miles away. We finally got to his house and were happy to meet his wife and kids, who had been terribly worried about him. His wife wanted to feed us and make coffee for us.
“No,” Pat said. “We’d like to, but I am still worried about getting home in our little car.”
The young man tried to slip some money into Pat’s hand.
“No, it’s OK,” Pat said. “Just glad we were able to help. It has been quite a night. At least Josie got to see some real waves.”
“I don’t think I want to see waves for a while,” I said.
We got home about 11 p.m., still too keyed up to settle down for sleeping.
The next morning, I read in the newspaper that a hurricane had hit and that the wind was measured at 100 mph in downtown Boston at 6 p.m., the very time we were there. I read further about a man on Long Island who had just bought a new barometer, but it was stuck at “Hurricane.” Indignantly, he drove into town to the store to complain. When he got back, his house was gone.
We were the lucky ones.
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