Memories From Hurricane of '38

Betty Holmes of the Swampscott Historical Society recalls the New England Hurricane of 1938.

In 1938 there were no light ships, no radar, no warning of any kind. I was ten years old. We lost our wonderful sand dunes that we hid in and played in at the Inman Street beach. After the storm, which drowned a bull tethered in the meadow at a farm in Dennisport, we had one tiny six foot tall dune left with one sprig of beach grass on top. A dynamic redesign of the shore. I used to think the old maps of Cape Cod were wildly inaccurate. Seeing how things changed after the hurricanes, I now think the maps may in fact be pretty accurate.

When I was a kid, Chatham had Monomoy Point, which we could see from the beach at Dennisport, and which birders could drive down the length. Now it has become Monomoy Island, separated from Chatham. Erosion meant a lighthouse on the eastern side has been moved three times in 150 years. The parking area by the lighthouse from my childhood is under water. Where Thoreau stood and "put all America behind" him is at least 1/4 mile out to sea. Marconi's spot may also now be underwater. With the ocean rising, I wonder how much of Cape Cod and Long Island will be left.

During the 1944 hurricane, in which the eye of the storm went right over Hyannis, Dad, Louis Dean, walked uptown as the wind increased to help Main Street storeowners board up their shops, his own radio store included. He was a carpenter before he became a radio repairman. In that storm, on the south side of the Cape, many beachfront houses lost the first floor, totally scooped out, right down to the studs with a six foot storm surge, but the second floor was fine. The houses looked pretty weird. After the storm, some houses I saw had been washed back a quarter mile into the swamp. And it is strange to see boats of all kinds on peoples' lawns. We lost all of the pine grove at my old elementary school in South Dennis. The Cape lost many trees. Those that were not blown down were salt covered and died.

My mom, Esther Moody Dean, was instrumental in getting a donation of 5,000 trees, which were given to Cape Cod school kids to plant. Somewhere I have a newspaper picture of her in her wheelchair passing out tiny tree seedlings.
From the distant past, there is a story of Lady Deborah Moody losing the roof of her house here in Swampscott in a storm in 1642. Just called big storms in those days.