Viewing page 345 of 547

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Erie, Pa.,
Monday, Aug. 19, 1940.

Got away at 8:15 AM and ran through rain on and off all the way to Erie, hampering our progress enough so we arrived home at 4:10 PM after lunching at Lancaster. The children leaped out of the car and made a bee line for the back yard. In less than a minute they both let out a yell and came flying back to us crying as though their hearts would break. We rushed back and looked behind the garage. Roger's shack was lying level with the ground, a pile of splintered lumber, completely demolished! I think it was the dirtiest, meanest trick I ever saw pulled on anyone! He had spent all summer fixing it up - painting it inside and out, building furniture for it, caring for his garden around it training morning glories up it, building a "penthouse" on the roof - and here it was utterly destroyed deliberately by someone for God knows what purpose. The neighbors thought the orphanage kids may have done it. We were all absolutely sick at heart at the sight and I thought Bab and Rog would tear their hearts out crying, Bab taking it much worse than Rog himself. For the moment it seemed to spoil the whole vacation but gradually they calmed down and after I reported it to the police, Rog felt much better. Whoever did it, smashed one of the garage windows, got in the garage and took our spade out with him to use as the major instrument in the wrecking! Nothing was stolen - just the shack wrecked and completely too, without a chance of rebuilding it. The more I think of it, the more incomprehensible it seems to me that anyone could be so mean.