Hurricane Carol, 1952; Part Two
HURRICANE CAROL, 1954: “AH YES, I REMEMBER IT WELL”
DAVID W. TEELE
H. HOLLAND CLAY
BETSEY B. HOROVITZ
With a nod to Honoré Lachaille (AKA Maurice Chevalier), we thought it would be good to round up those who still remember Carol well. Carol made landfall in eastern Connecticut on August 31, 1954. Packing sustained winds of over 100 MPH, she killed over 70 people (almost all in New England) and caused immense damage. Among other casualties was the steeple of Old North Church. As you will read, Annisquam was lucky to avoid deaths. If you were 10 years old, it was immensely exciting, as was the aftermath. No power for days. Green insulators to be stolen from downed power poles and hidden under your bed.
Unlike the Hurricane of 1938, most knew the storm was coming. Its exact path was not well forecast until just before the morning of the 31st. High tide around 2 PM coincided with the high winds and the storm surge. By the next day she had gone to Maine and the Maritimes; Hurricane Edna followed about 10 days later.
We elected to include the memories, just as sent in, and intersperse them with photographs. There is no special order to the stories other than a feeble effort to arrange them chronologically. The storm moved very quickly
“As Carol approached there was a rush to secure boats.
The Yacht Club’s “jolly boat” or launch was busy.
I was waiting to be picked up when the first gust hit.
It capsized my fish boat.
In a slicker and cap I had a real struggle to swim to shore.
The wind was picking up my hat which was strapped on.
That was a problem and I thought I might drown.
With all the boats docked before Labor Day that ended the sailing season
early.”
AHS5010 - EARLY 1950S - PRINT - SYLVIA TEELE
THE AYC “JOLLY BOAT” (ARROW)
“I was five years old and my brother Charles was thirteen. His boy scout
instincts kicked in as he corralled us into the hallway during the worst of the
storm. Our parents were in Brookline so Charles was the reigning patriarch.
When the storm subsided, we rowed all around our flooded backyard in our
beautiful lapstrake skiff.
Fortunately, the toppled willow fell away from the house. It was an adventure
I will never forget.”
CHARLES, AS A SUPER HERO
PIPPY
“In 1954 Hurricane Carol provides high drama and a trove of family lore. I’m
seven years old and the big storm is coming. We have a bird’s eye view of the
channel and the bay, huge turbulence and sluicing rain, the wind howling. I’m
outside on the driveway in the pouring rain, holding an umbrella. Water
sluicing over my boots, I am literally picked up off the ground by the wind
and moved a few inches towards the water. This is both a memory and a myth.
Later, the family is gathered on the sunporch marveling at the angry ocean
when with a “whump” and a huge crash, the giant multi-paned window in the
dining room blows in with a massive splintering of glass. The sucking pressure
thumps our chests. Fragments cover the dining table and all the furniture in
the room. I remember it, and I remember the story it became. On the river,
huge motor yachts and sailboats fly out the channel, having broken their
moorings. The tide is so crazy high that you can’t even start down the steps to
the beach for fear of being swept away. During that storm, we use even more
pots and pans than usual to catch leaks.”
“Although I had turned 4 years old little more than two weeks before
Hurricane Carol thundered over Cape Ann, I have a very clear memory of
watching it from the porch of our family home on Norwood Heights (directly
across from Lighthouse Beach, now the Peter and Roberta Kovner house). Our
porch provided a spectacular vantage point from which to watch the
indifferent power and destruction of Carol and I recall my parents and their
friends gathered on our porch watching boat after boat, ripped from its
mooring, no one at the helm, sweep out of the Annisquam River and into
Ipswich Bay. ”
AHS197 - 5x8 GLASS PLATE - UNDATED
THE LYMAN HOUSE (ARROW) IS TO RIGHT OF THE LIGHTHOUSE. FRONT ROW SEATS FOR THE PARADE OF SAIL OUT OF THE RIVER HEADED FOR YARMOUTH, NS
“I particularly remember Carol because, as I mentioned, my birthday had been
about two weeks earlier and my (now) lifelong friend, P.D. Littlefield, then 3
1/2, gave me a set of plastic toy binoculars as a present. But
P.D., as any 3 1/2 year old with any judgment would do, upon seeing the
binoculars and not being entirely familiar with the concept of gift giving,
demanded the binoculars back. It took a long lesson in juvenile etiquette by
Emmy Littlefield to convince P.D. to relinquish the binoculars. Having now
retrieved the binoculars from P.D., I soon lost them again, this time to all of
the adults who were watching Carol’s devastation from the relative safety of
our porch . Although my binoculars had tiny plastic lenses and did virtually
nothing to magnify anything, they were all we had. So they were eagerly
passed back and forth by everyone on the porch until, after Carol had finally
cleared Cape Ann, they were returned to the birthday boy.
Those binoculars are now long gone, but they, and P.D., and Hurricane Carol
are all inextricably joined in my memory from the summer of 1954.””
“I was here in Annisquam for Hurricane Carol on August 31, 1954. I was
twelve years old and had a friend down from Winchester staying with me. The
year before, we had moved across the street from the Old Custom House to
another house that Alice Clark owned & rented. This house had more room
but was torn down in the 60’s, I think. Located between what is now Mary
Curtis’s and the McAveeney’s houses, it was a wonderful summer house. The
porch had great views of the harbor and down the river.
On that August day in 1954, we watched our boat pick up its mooring
close to the Old Custom House’s dock. It all landed out by the AYC.
Miraculously, the boat, and the mooring, escaped damage.
At one point, my Mom felt the house we were in would ‘lift off’ in the
high wind, so we went next door which is now Mary Curtis’s. The Winthrop-
Sargents were renting it. I remember Mrs. Sargent made us soup, combining 2
soups, chicken and the other a mystery.
We worried about my Dad coming down from Monsanto in Everett
where he was a Chemical Engineer. In those years cars came across the
wooden bridge, as you know. We could hear the clack, clack of the tires even
where we were on River Road! He made it safely late day and we were able to
go back to ‘our’ house next door for the night.
My Dad died in that house on August 5, 1959, five years later. He was 59
years old. Later, when Mrs. Clark moved to Annisquam full time from Beacon
Hill, she tore down the house we had rented for years. It was very close to her
house and she wanted more privacy. She let me take any furniture, etc. I
wanted. I have the dining room table, that I refinished, and a collection of
ironstone plates here in my house at 5 Arlington Street. I also took bureaus,
our sons used these in college.
Funny what we remember, but I do remember that day well,”
AHS502 - 5x7 GLASS PLATE - UNDATED - LUFKIN
GIMME SHELTER! THE HOUSE MENTIONED ABOVE IS ON THE RIGHT (OR WAS)
“I REMEMBER THAT WE WERE AT MISERY ISLAND ON MY FATHER’S BOAT,
CALYPSO, A 28-FOOT GAFF-RIGGED KETCH, AS IT WAS A SUNDAY. NO
ADVANCE NOTICE [OF A STORM] HAD BEEN RECEIVED AND THERE WERE A
LOT OF BOATS OUT. AS WE HEADED BACK TO BEVERLY HARBOR, THE WAVES
AND WIND KICKED UP. WE WERE DIPPING THE BOW AND TAKING A LOT OF
WATER OVER THE CABIN TOP INTO THE COCKPIT. WHEN WE GOT TO THE
HARBOR, THE COAST GUARD HELPED US OFF THE BOAT AND ACCOMPANIED
MY FATHER BACK TO THE MOORING. A POWER BOAT SEAWARD OF OUR
MOORING DRAGGED DOWN ON US AND PULLED BOTH BOATS TO THE
BEVERLY/SALEM BRIDGE.
CALYPSO’S MIZEN MAST SNAPPED AND THE POWER BOAT WAS DESTROYED
AS CALYPSO BATTERED IT AGAINST THE BRIDGE, SUFFERING A HOLE IN ITS
TOPSIDES WHICH WAS REPAIRED.
I REMEMBER A PICTURE OF MY FATHER MAKING A NEW MIZEN MAST OUT OF
A SPRUCE USING AN ADZE. NOT SURE WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PICTURE.”
“Sorry to be late for this particular party, but if you’re adding to the
Hurricane Carol archives, here are two photos my mother took after the storm
passed. The house is at 5 Union Court (that’s the driveway that comes up from
the southwestern re-intersection of Walnut and Leonard.) The house is now
the home of Gerry and Peter Herbert. Gerry lived next door when we were
growing up.
My friend Johnny Shea and I were looking from the window on which
the locust fell. Fortunately for us, the roof took the brunt of the blow, so we
didn’t get scratched.”
