Elmhurst student illustration of hurricane damage at Linden Lane

Our next book club selection – Sudden Sea – has great stories about the Hurricane of 1938, but it doesn’t have many Portsmouth stories. As I prepare for the book club, I am looking for local hurricane stories. Over ten years ago I interviewed Nan Howell Waters about growing up on Glen Farm. She remembered the hurricane. She was at Anthony school and she was frightened by the stones hiting the windows at school. For a while they wouldn’t let them go home because they had to wait for the bus. She remembered her father, Arthur Howell, meeting her at the head of driveway (Linden Lane). The Howell family and the Camara family lived at the Brown House. The Howells lived on the first floor, but they went upstairs and rode out the hurricane with the Camara family. She remembered looking out of the windows and seeing some of the beautiful Linden Trees falling down.

Nan Howell Waters