2005: Fall From the Archives

By Daria D’Arienzo

Amherst College’s “year of the flood” was 1936. This was not because the College on the Hill was itself affected by rising flood waters. Rather, for a week in March 1936 the college served as a camp for evacuees from the town of Hadley.

As President Stanley King (Class of 1903) recalled, he received a call from the chief selectman of Amherst at 11 p.m. on March 18. The State Police had ordered an immediate evacuation of the entire populations of both Sunderland and Hadley, where severe spring flooding was underway. Massachusetts State College was taking evacuees from Sunderland. Amherst College, King agreed, would take Hadley’s residents.

Unseasonably warm conditions that month had caused the winter snows to melt. This melting, combined with five days of rain in the middle of March, provided conditions for flood waters that broke all records. The low-lying town of Hadley was directly in the path of the rising waters of the Connecticut River.

The entire college rallied immediately. Pratt Gymnasium and the Cage were turned into “an evacuation center.” Henry Thatcher, the college’s superintendent of buildings and grounds, mobilized his department to prepare those buildings to provide a large space for the expected evacuees. Within two hours cots with blankets and pillows were set up, and the space was ready to receive people who had been forced out of their homes by the rising waters. Lloyd Jordan, the college’s director of intercollegiate athletics, worked with the State Police to mobilize faculty and students with automobiles to shuttle evacuees. The women of college families took over the Morrow Dormitory cafeteria, and within 45 minutes food and coffee were ready.

For nine days the college housed almost 400 men, women and children, including babies. During this time emergency conditions prevailed. Since many of the evacuees spoke Polish, the college needed interpreters. Harold Sigda ’36 and R. L. Trembicki ’36 volunteered for this task, and others helped. Some enterprising students even chronicled the event with a “Flood Extra” of the Amherst Student dated March 19, 1936. Students organized play groups for the children, musicians entertained the inhabitants of the gymnasium, and the Morrow Dormitory cafeteria continued to provide meals. It was estimated that some 5,300 meals were prepared for the evacuees.

By Monday, March 23, weather conditions subsided, and Hadley residents began returning to their homes to assess the damage. By March 27 the last evacuees had gone home, and the college closed for Spring Recess.

Though Amherst was physically untouched by the flood waters, it was touched by the gratitude of the people of Hadley after they were able to return home. In reply to the expressions of thanks he received on behalf of the college, President King noted that more than a century before, the residents of Hadley had contributed very generously to the Charity Fund that had helped create the college in 1821. Coming to the aid of Hadley during the flood of 1936 was a small gesture toward repaying the generosity of 1821.

If you were at the college during this time, or if you were a resident of Hadley who stayed at the college during the flood, please share your memories and any photographs you may have with Archives and Special Collections. You may e-mail Daria D’Arienzo, head of Archives and Special Collections, at ddarienzo@amherst.edu or by write to Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Robert Frost Library, PO Box 5000, Amherst, MA 01002-5000.

D’Arienzo is the Head of Archives and Special Collections.

Photos: Amherst College Archives and Special Collections