Young Love Cut Short by America's Fiercest Hurricane






Bascom Grooms and his sister, Rosalind

(NOTE: This story was first posted on Drye Goods for the Labor Day weekend of 2007)

On this date 77 years ago, Rosalind Grooms Palmer sat down at her typewriter in Key West, Florida and banged out a teasing, affectionate note to her 12-year-old kid brother, Bascom Grooms, who was visiting friends up the islands in the village of Tavernier.

She apologized for the brevity of the note and, perhaps to ease the guilt she felt at not writing more, enclosed 50 cents so Bascom could buy an ice cream sundae for himself and a young friend named Elizabeth. She told her brother that she’d like to be with him on Key Largo “enjoying the ‘squitoes and other varmints such as sand fleas,” but added that she wouldn’t be taking any trips for a while.

That wasn’t entirely true, but her travel plans weren’t exactly the kind she wanted to reveal to her little brother or to the family he was visiting. She would be joining her boyfriend, 19-year-old George Pepper, at the Matecumbe Hotel in Islamorada for the upcoming Labor Day weekend.

That note from Rosalind was the last communication Bascom would ever have from his sister. Five days later, she and George were killed when the most powerful hurricane in U.S. history came ashore in the Upper Keys.

Rosalind's note to her brother a few days before her death

I interviewed Bascom at his home in Key West in December 2002, when he allowed me to copy photos of him, his sister and George Pepper. The old sepia-toned photos tell a tragic story of young love that was cut short by the fiercest hurricane to ever make landfall in the U.S.

Rosalind was only 21 in August 1935, but she had already been through a brief, unhappy marriage to George Palmer, a U.S. Navy officer she’d met when Palmer’s ship docked in Key West. Rosalind – young, impulsive, fun-loving and beautiful – had fallen for the Navy officer, and they were married in Key West in 1933. They moved to San Diego, where Palmer’s ship, the destroyer USS Perry, was based.

But less than two years later, Rosalind suddenly appeared in Key West and said her marriage was over. Bascom recalled that she didn’t say much about her reasons for leaving her husband and filing for divorce.

Rosalind got her old job back as a court clerk. She was considered one of Key West’s most beautiful young women, and as soon as word got out that she was no longer married, lots of eager young men sought her attention.

Rosalind didn’t take her looks too seriously, however. She thought her legs were too skinny for her to be really attractive. She loved to dress well, and white high-heel pumps became a trademark of her wardrobe.

In early 1935, she met George Pepper, and soon she was again in love. Her new boyfriend was the nephew of Claude Pepper, who was just beginning his legendary career in Florida politics.

George had gotten a job as a mess hall steward at one of the work camps that housed World War I veterans working on a New Deal construction project in the Keys. The vets were building a highway from Miami to Key West.

Rosalind and George were gaa-gaa over each other. In July 1935 they went to a photographer’s studio in Miami and posed with various props for charmingly cheesy photos.

Rosalind Grooms Palmer and George Pepper, 1935

A day or so after Rosalind wrote the note to her brother she went up to Islamorada to meet George. They shot more pictures of each other on a pier, Rosalind in a knit dress and her ubiquitous white high-heel pumps, George in a white shirt and tie and summer slacks.

Rosalind Grooms Palmer and her white
high-heel pumps

But while George and Rosalind were enjoying each other's company on that long-ago Labor Day weekend of 1935, a tropical storm crossed the Bahamas into the Florida Straits. As it crawled slowly across the bathtub-warm water of the Straits, it began rapidly intensifying. By September 2 – Labor Day Monday – it had mushroomed into a seagoing monster with sustained winds of about 185 mph and gusts that may have exceeded 200 mph. By late Monday afternoon, the worst of the storm’s winds were starting to claw at the Upper Keys.

At a veterans’ labor camp at the foot of Lower Matecumbe Key, George Pepper was instructed to use his boss’s car – a big, heavy 1934 Dodge – to take some of the veterans’ wives to safety in Miami. Sometime around 5 p.m., George and Rosalind climbed into the big automobile and set out for the short drive to the Matecumbe Hotel to pick up the women.

They never reached the hotel. For weeks, survivors and rescue workers wondered what had become of them.

They finally got a clue to the grim fates of Rosalind and George on September 18, when rescue workers found the 1934 Dodge submerged in Florida Bay, about 100 feet from shore. The storm's rising winds may have literally blown the car off the causeway. After the storm, another man who'd been driving the same road at the same time as George said a gust of wind had shoved his car into a ditch.

That same powerful gust may have pushed the Dodge into the bay.

A diver found a pair of white high-heel pumps in the submerged car, but no other sign of the young couple.On September 19, rescue workers found Rosalind's body. The storm had hurled her onto Raccoon Key, one of the small, soggy islands that dot Florida Bay.

George’s body was found several weeks later. The storm’s ferocious winds had carried him across Florida Bay to Cape Sable at the tip of the Florida peninsula. The body was about 30 miles away from the car he'd been driving.

March 24-25, 1935: Washington Post Story Portrays Vets as Living in Island Paradise

NOTE: This post is the second in a series observing the 75th anniversary of the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, which struck the Florida Keys on September 2, 1935.

By late March 1935, the Roosevelt Administration had for months been quietly sending hundreds of jobless World War I veterans to oceanfront work camps in the remote Florida Keys to work on a New Deal construction project. The vets were building a highway from Miami to Key West.

The work program had been out of the national spotlight but that changed on March 24 and 25, when the Washington Post published a two-part series about the down-and-out vets' presence in the Keys. The Post headline for the story of March 24 said the vets were partying in their island paradise.

Post reporter Edward T. Folliard's stories had a decidedly sarcastic and patronizing tone. His story of March 24 said the vets were "encamped on a pretty little coral island as working guests of Uncle Sam." The men had recently gone on a "booze rampage," Folliard wrote.

The 600 or so men in the Keys camps were casualties of the Great Depression. Many of them also had been psychologically scarred by combat in World War I. Today, their condition is known as post-traumatic stress disorder. In 1935, it was called shellshock.

For many of the vets in the Keys camps, life had been a constant struggle since they'd been discharged from military service after World War I ended in 1918. Even during the booming economy of the 1920s, they were troubled. They'd been plagued by depression and a sense of alienation. They'd had trouble holding down jobs, staying married, and raising families. Many of them drank far too much.

The economic catastrophe of the Great Depression had made their troubled lives even more chaotic. In 1932, about 40,000 desperate veterans gathered in Washington, D.C. seeking help from the federal government. The vets had been promised a $1,000 bonus -- about $15,500 in 2009 dollars -- for their wartime service, but payment wasn't due until 1944. The veterans who came to Washington in 1932 wanted Congress to pay them half of the bonus immediately.

President Herbert Hoover opposed the early payment, and in July 1932 he ordered General Douglas MacArthur to evict the men from federal property. MacArthur exceeded Hoover's orders, however, and used troops to chase the men out of the District of Columbia and set fire to their ramshackle camps.

Photos of the eviction were published in newspapers across the country. The incident helped turn public opinion against President Hoover and contributed to Franklin Roosevelt's landslide victory in the November 1932 election.

Roosevelt had campaigned on a pledge to help the "forgotten man," and after his inauguration in March 1933, jobless vets again assembled in Washington to urge early payment of their bonus. The vets were the epitome of the men Roosevelt had promised to help. Like Hoover, FDR also opposed paying the bonus early, but recalling Hoover's public relations blunder, he sought a way to help the vets while simultaneously getting them out of the nation's capital.

When Key West -- once one of the nation's most prosperous cities -- declared bankruptcy in 1934, Roosevelt Administration officials saw a chance to showcase the New Deal, put the vets to work, and get them far away from Washington. They decided to remake Key West as a tourist town.

In August 1934, the Roosevelt Administration's efforts to restore Key West were showcased in a New York Times editorial written by Julius Stone, who was in charge of the federal government's emergency relief operations in Florida. The federal government would use Key West's natural beauty and the labor of its residents to return the city to prosperity and demonstrate the effectiveness of the Roosevelt Administration's policies to pull the nation out of the Depression.

But in 1934, getting to Key West by car wasn't easy. Motorists had to use a combination of secondary roads and ferries. The journey was slow, and the ferries didn't operate during rough weather.

The solution was to build a major highway down the islands so tourists could easily drive from Miami to Key West. And the jobless vets were the ideal labor force for the project.

When the Washington Post reporter arrived, about 600 men were living in the camps and more were arriving every day. Their meals were provided at no charge, and they were being paid $30 a month for their work -- about $465 in 2009 dollars.

But Folliard had little sympathy for the vets' plights. His March 24, 1935 story focused on the "debauchery" in the work camps and said almost nothing about the construction work the vets were doing. The story of March 25 -- 75 years ago today -- briefly mentioned a bridge construction project the vets were working on, but again focused on politics and described the primitive work camps in terms that made them seem comfortable.

Folliard did not mention, however, that only a few months earlier, conditions in the camps had been so bad that two vets died from meningitis.

The photo at the top of this post shows one of the work camps in the Florida Keys that housed World War I veterans working on a highway construction project in 1935. The camp was destroyed by a hurricane that struck the Keys on September 2, 1935.

Commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935

September 2, 2010 will be the 75th anniversary of the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, the most powerful hurricane to make landfall in the United States. The eye of the hurricane came ashore at Long Key, Florida on Labor Day Monday of 1935 with winds that probably exceeded 200 mph and a storm surge that may have reached 22 feet or more.

The official death toll of the storm was 408, but the actual toll could have been higher. Most of the victims were jobless World War I veterans who had been sent to the Florida Keys as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program to provide jobs during the Great Depression. The veterans were living in three makeshift work camps on the low-lying islands and were unprotected from the powerful storm. They were building a highway from Miami across the islands to Key West.

Keeping tabs on the unruly vets was difficult, and they often came and went without camp administrators being aware of their movements. So it was impossible to account for all of the vets after the hurricane. Some of the missing veterans may have left camp just before the storm without notifying camp officials; others undoubtedly were literally blown away by the hurricane and their bodies were never found.

Had the vets not been in the Keys, the Labor Day Hurricane would have been little more than a meteorological oddity – an extremely powerful hurricane that made landfall on islands that were sparsely populated in 1935. But their presence transformed this hurricane into a national tragedy. The vets were from all over the country, and their deaths made headlines across the U.S. The political fallout caused some headaches for the Roosevelt Administration as FDR was about to launch his campaign for his second term in 1936.

In 2002, National Geographic published my book, Storm of the Century: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. A paperback edition was published in 2003. The book also was the basis for “Nature’s Fury: Storm of the Century,” a documentary that premiered on the History Channel in 2006.

I spent more than four years researching and writing the book, and in the process I compiled a detailed timeline of the events related to the storm. For the next six months, I’ll be using that timeline – as well as excerpts from my writing about the hurricane – to make regular postings about the events leading to the tragedy that occurred on Monday, September 2, 1935. Please check back from time to time as I commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935.

1935 flight of first hurricane hunter has been forgotten

Seventy-four years ago today, Leonard Povey climbed into the cockpit of a tiny fighter plane and went in search of one of the most powerful forces ever to roam the Atlantic Ocean.

Povey found his quarry in the Straits of Florida – the storm that became the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, still the most powerful to make landfall in the United States. It was almost certainly the first time that an airplane was used to track a hurricane. But Povey’s historic flight has been forgotten.

Povey was an American who was a flight instructor for the Cuban army air force. He was based in Havana. Cuban authorities decided to send Povey in search of the hurricane because there were conflicting predictions about its position and forecast track. The U.S. Weather Bureau – the predecessor to today’s National Weather Service – said the storm’s center was just off Cuba’s northern coast and would make landfall at or near Havana. But barometers in Havana were rising, an indication that the hurricane was moving away from that city.

“Conflicting reports of Havana observers kept the capital in jitters most of the day,” the Havana Post, an English-language newspaper in the city, reported in its edition of September 3, 1935. “One of the reports said that the hurricane would strike here at 6 p.m.”

So on the afternoon of Monday, September 2, 1935, Povey was dispatched to locate the storm.

The Post said that Povey made his flight in an “army pursuit plane.” He confirmed that the hurricane had turned to the north and was moving away from Cuba and toward the Florida Keys.

The Associated Press wrote about Povey’s flight a few weeks later, and the story was published by newspapers in Florida, including the Miami Herald. The story, published in the Herald on September 23, 1935, included a few quotes from Povey about his flight.

“I was unable to fly close to the disturbance, visible to me for miles,” Povey said. “It appeared to be a cone-shaped body of clouds, inverted, rising to an altitude of 12,000 feet. The waves in the sea below broke against each other like striking a sea wall.”

Povey didn’t try to fly into the hurricane’s eye, as hurricane-hunters do today.

The storm’s eye made landfall a few hours later at Long Key, Florida. Its lowest recorded barometric pressure reading at landfall was 26.35 inches, or 892 millibars, making it the most intense hurricane on record for the U.S. The storm’s winds – thought to have been around 200 mph – and its storm surge of 18 feet or more devastated a 40-mile section of the Keys from Tavernier to Marathon and killed more than 400 people. The death toll included about 260 World War I veterans who were working on a New Deal construction project building a highway between Miami and Key West.

Povey suggested that airplanes be used to monitor hurricanes. But there’s no indication that anyone followed up on his suggestion. In 1944, however, military pilots based in Texas flew into a storm in the Gulf of Mexico. By that time, Povey’s pioneering flight had been forgotten, and the 1944 flight is regarded as the first time an airplane was used to track a tropical storm.

Quiet summers can produce a monster hurricane

The forecast for the 2009 hurricane season predicts a calmer summer than we’ve usually had in the past decade or so. But very powerful storms have formed in summers that have been otherwise very quiet.

The forecast for this summer from William Gray and Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University predicts 11 named tropical storms forming by November 30, when hurricane season ends. Five or so of those storms are expected to strengthen into hurricanes with winds of at least 74 miles an hour. And two of the hurricanes are expected to intensify into major hurricanes with winds exceeding 110 miles an hour.

That’s slightly above the average for hurricane seasons since 1851. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website says that an average of nine tropical storms, five hurricanes and two major hurricanes have formed each summer for the past 158 years.

But a quick look at NOAA’s hurricane archives reveals some worrisome statistics about below-average hurricane seasons.

First, two of the three most powerful hurricanes to strike the United States formed in seasons when there was very little activity otherwise. The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, which is still the most powerful hurricane to make landfall in the United States, formed in a summer that saw only six total tropical systems – far below the 158-year average. That’s the same number of tropical storms that formed in 1992. But 1992 also produced Hurricane Andrew, the third-most powerful hurricane at landfall.

Only Hurricane Camille, which became the second-most intense storm to make landfall in 1969, came out of a very active season. That year, 18 tropical storms formed.

There’s more unsettling info among the list of other very intense hurricanes that have made landfall in the United States.

· The summer of 1900 produced only seven tropical storms. But one of those storms became the Category 4 killer hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas and killed 6,000 or more people.
· In the summer of 1915, only six tropical storms formed. But one of them intensified into a Category 4 hurricane that struck New Orleans and Galveston.
· Only five tropical storms formed in 1919. But one of them was a Category 4 bruiser that devastated Key West and crossed the Gulf Coast to strike Texas.
· In 1928, six tropical storms formed. But among them was another infamous Category 4 killer, the so-called “Okeechobee hurricane” that came ashore at Palm Beach, roared across the Everglades, and shoved a deadly flood out of Lake Okeechobee. That storm killed perhaps 3,000 in the small lakeside towns.
· In 1960, Category 4 Hurricane Donna followed a track very similar to the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, making landfall in the Florida Keys. Only seven tropical storms formed that summer.

Powerful and deadly hurricanes also formed in seasons that saw exactly the same activity as is predicted for this year.

Hurricane Hazel, the most intense hurricane on record for North Carolina, formed in 1954. Eleven tropical storms formed that year. And Hurricane Hugo, a devastating Category 4 hurricane that made landfall near Charleston, South Carolina, formed in 1989, a summer that also saw 11 total tropical storms.

I don’t know that there’s a correlation between quiet hurricane seasons and very intense storms. But this list of murderous monsters that blew away otherwise quiet summers is a pretty clear indication that residents on the Southeast and Gulf coasts should keep a wary eye on the Atlantic for the next few months.