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10

Another feature of the backyard that became increasingly appealing, to me, was a patch of colorful hollyhocks in the southwest corner adjacent to the Jeffries garage. It was in a rather isolated spot and as far from the house as it could be in our small tract. And it was a riot of big pastel—shaded blossoms. Somehow, as I stood back there by the hollyhocks I felt as if I were temporarily in another world where everything was good, there was no depression and no worry.

At this time, I was still young enough to be impressed very strongly by death when it struck close. In Walt Harris' Automotive Engineering group which transferred from Lynn, there was a young engineer named Lawrence "Curly" Tyrell, age 27, whom we all knew pretty well. He was a big, plump, boyish—looking guy with curly black hair and one of Harris' best men. He was mar— ried and had one child, a two-year old boy. On June 7th, he died in Hamot Hospita1 from blood poisoning complicated by Bright's disease and brain hemorrhages. He'd had Bright's disease since he was 12 and had been told his life expectancy was low. But he'd refused to diet or take care of himself. He left his wife almost penniless. He was an orphan and his wife's family were in poor circumstances, so the whole thing was tragic in various ways. Curly had a brother who drove all the way from Iowa and got here in time to see him before he died. He had been a very hard worker but careless of himself. An abrasion in a nostril had become infected, spreading through his face and on into his brain, a ghastly thing. There was no hope but he hung on longer than the doctors expected. The night he died, our Dr. McCallum said to me, "Your man is going out tonight." There was a terrifying storm just before he died. The whole affair left a deep impression on me regarding life's hazards and tragedies.

However, just four days after Curly died, I wrote the following on a card and put it in my idea file:
  
June 11, 1933. Babbie beside me doing her jigsaw puzzles. Summer here. Life ahead. The great game to play with no compromises.

Youth could be greatly impressed by death but could also snap back and look ahead with optimism even at the bottom of the Depression. 

The very next day, June 12th, Willie and I drove to Syracuse presumably to attend to some business for Mother, who was in Buena Vista I should judge.  Willie and I had dinner on the Onondaga Hotel roof, an obvious extravagance. We looked out over the lovely, tree—shaded city and up the eastern valley--and then to the south down Onondaga Valley, the country my great-great—grandfather, Joshua Forman had come to from Dutchess County a century before and founded this city. And here was I, unknown as his flesh and blood, come back in the midst of a