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13

Lynch: Well, I'm down to one suit now. 
Craton: Why don't you wear it?

That summer we took a vacation at Chautauqua. I don't know what we used for money but we did it anyhow as the three pictures show. As best we can remember, we had a tiny "efficiency" apartment, maybe just one room with a hot plate, on the second floor of one of the ancient frame houses over in the area behind the St.Elmo Hotel. I have a vague recollection of having a porch also. Willie can remember preparing the children's breakfast in the place. I can remember vaguely that it was almost insufferably hot in the room some of the time. I presume we took turns babysitting while the other attended lectures and concerts. Also I imagine we hired a babysitter some evenings while we went to the opera or the symphony. The pictures indicate that we spent some time along the lake shore with the children. The shot of Willie and the two children is one of my extra—special favorites. The surprising thing is how little the place has changed in the past forty years. I doubt if we stayed up there more than a week because we must have had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to go at all. But it was a nice thing if for no other reason than it produced the three pictures ; I think that all three of them are priceless. I recall one incident specifically. At the foot of the hill which descends from the "village green" to the lake, is the Miller cottage, which belonged to one of the founders of the Institute, and at that time was owned by Mrs. Thomas A. Edison who spent her summers there, she having been a Miller daughter. One day we were wheeling Rog in his Taylor Tot past the Miller Cottage when Mrs. Edison was in the yard and she stopped us so she could admire Rog, patting his head and praising him. Of course, we were proud as peacocks over this. It is interesting that Rog now works for Henry Ford II who is the grandson of one of Mr. Edison's great friends, the original Henry Ford.

I believe the turn finally came in the summer of 1933. My [[r over f]]ecords indicate that the stock market bottomed out in June. At Mother's behest, I bought her a few stocks about that time and disposed of some of them on August 29th at a profit of $1,115.67. As of June 5, 1933, her holdings were worth about:

Bonds    $16,840   63%
Stocks     5,900   22 
Cash       4,150   15
         _______  ___
         $26,890  100%

The income from this was $1,410 annual rate. I aimed to change the proportions to 48% bonds, 48% stocks, and 4% cash. At the peak in 1929, I believe her holdings were worth close to $50,000. But we'd made out far worse. In 1933 we had to start practically from scratch and build from very little, certainly not much more than $1,000. But things had turned at last. It looked like the real thing this time.