Viewing page 74 of 102

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

4

I must assume that we visited the Peninsula as usual that summer although there are no pictures or other references to prove it. I'm at a loss to understand this because we were still taking photos in 1936 prior to acquiring the Filmo 8 later that year. But once we got the movie camera, the snap-shots very unfortunately practically ceased until the early 50s. There are two shots of Bab and Bruce Harris and one of Rog and me apparently at a picnic at someone's cottage along the lake. But the summer was not a normal one without the usual visit from Nana and the Colonel and I'm sure we not only missed them but were also depressed over the tragedy that was now obviously quite imminent. 

Late in August Willie went to Louisville because the doctor judged that Nana was dying. Mother, with the help of Ann, our high-school-girl helper, was running the house. I got home from Boston August 31st to find both Bab and Rog with stomach upsets but we didn't advise Willie since they weren't very ill. She may have had an ESP flash about them because she phoned that day to inquire how things were going, not having had a  letter for several days. She said it was miraculous how Nana clung to life and it was a godsend that she had suffered very little. The doctor felt it would soon be over. I guess we all prayed that it would be because it would be a blessing to Nana, who must have realized by this time what she was up against and was probably suffering a lot of mental anguish as well as some physical. But Nana lived for another three weeks, passing away on September 20th. Although i can't remember the trip, I'm sure I went down for the funeral and Willie returned to Erie soon afterward. The Colonel soon moved to the Tyler Hotel where he was to live for the next ten years.

However, in spite of our family tragedy, my lone diary entry of the first eleven months of the year, on September 1st, indicates that it is realized life must go on and hopefully, after Nana's passing, the shadows will gradually clear away. Evidently we'd been doing some driving in the country where all was rich and mellow as the summer approached its end. I comment that I know that life is essentially worthwhile and very much worth living. The most beautiful months are ahead--September and October--and "I want to tune my living to that beauty and know the satisfaction that only living like that can bring." And that is the way it will be with our children after we are gone--that is the way it is.

And now the time shifts to December, when I suddenly begin my diary again and run it without interruption for three weeks, giving a fairly comprehensive picture of our lives during that period. Although I was up to my neck in handling the two big Illinois Central diesels which we were building and had a staff of several Illinois Central inspectors stationed in Erie to try to keep satisfied, we also had a very active social life during the month which I shall try to cover adequately because it does present a fair picture of this phase of our lives at the time.