Tuesday, March 7, 1922

Overcast, mild, wet. Arose 8:15 A.M. Breakfast etc. Read letter from Hazel. Out on business. Dinner. Cleaned out desk. Wrote letter to Hanford etc. Supper. Hard shower. Streets like rivers. Banked cellar with ashes. Shoveled water out cellar. Typewrote. To bed 10:15 P.M.

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Another first - Stanford mentions reading a letter from Hazel, probably sent as a result of his speaking with her in New York on his visit the week before.

I'd never heard of banking ashes against a cellar to prevent flooding, but I can sympathize with Stanford's having to bail out his cellar. I remember doing that in my childhood when our cellar flooded.

The heavy rains and flooding generated a front page article in the Schenectady Gazette on March 8th. Below is an excerpt. Note the reference to damaged "home brew" stores that people were reluctant to acknowledge. Also the threat of sewage getting into cellars. Perhaps that's why Stanford used ashes to bank the cellar--they served as a filter?




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