Water Just Under My Feet
One of my earliest clear childhood memories is of riding in a car through flooded streets and realizing that the water had come into the car and was reaching my bare feet.
I had just turned six years old on August 1, 1944. At the time, my family lived at 51-01 61st Street in Woodside, Long Island, New York, in what is now normally described as Woodside, Queens.
After doing some research more than eighty years later, I now believe this happened on Thursday, September 14, 1944, during what became known as the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944.
I also believe that the beach we had visited that day was probably Rockaway Beach. I cannot be certain of that after all these years, but it fits my memory and the circumstances.
Rockaway Beach is on the Rockaway Peninsula, at the southern edge of Queens on Long Island, with Jamaica Bay on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. It was a popular beach destination for New York families long before I was born. From our home on 61st Street in Woodside to Rockaway Beach is roughly 14 miles by road—far enough to have been a real family outing, but certainly close enough for my father to take us there for an afternoon at the beach.
The hurricane struck the New York City and Long Island area on September 14 and continued into the early hours of September 15. The center of the storm crossed eastern Long Island later that night, but the storm itself was enormous, bringing powerful winds, heavy rain, high surf, and flooding to the region.
My father was the plant manager at Silvercup Bakery, only a few miles from where we lived. What puzzles me today is why he would have been home and taking us to the beach on a Thursday.
I cannot answer that with certainty. My father loved being outdoors and in the sun, and the weather had been warm. His work also involved accounts such as restaurants and hot dog stands that became particularly important going into a weekend. It is entirely possible that his work schedule allowed him to take that Thursday off, although after more than eighty years I simply cannot know.
I do know that we went to beaches as a family. I still have photographs from that period showing my father, my sister, and me at a beach, with what appears to be some kind of pier in the background. My mother apparently took the photographs, because I do not believe she appears in them. That was the way family photography often worked then. There were no selfies, and we certainly were not setting up tripods so everyone could be in the picture.
What I remember most clearly is the trip home.
Apparently the weather had changed dramatically while we were there. We left the beach and, on the approximately 14-mile trip back toward Woodside, drove through areas where the streets were flooded.
I do not remember what kind of car we were in. My father sometimes had company Plymouths decorated for Silvercup Bread, but I do not believe this was necessarily one of those cars. I do remember that our family had only one car, and at other times one of my father's supervisors would pick him up to take him to work.
Somewhere on that trip home, the water outside became deep enough that it entered the automobile.
That is the part I remember.
My feet began to get wet
We had been at the beach, and I was probably barefoot. Shoes were not something children treated casually during World War II, when many things were rationed or difficult to obtain. It seems quite possible that my sister and I simply climbed back into the car barefoot when we left the beach.
I don't remember being terrified. In fact, at six years old, I may not even have understood what a hurricane was. I don't remember my parents being frightened or what they might have said to one another. I don't remember exactly which roads my father took or how deep the flooding became.
But I remember the water.
I remember sitting in that car as my father drove through the flooded streets toward our home in Woodside. And I remember the extraordinary sensation of realizing that the water had come through the automobile and was reaching my bare feet.
More than eighty years later, that small piece of the day remains with me.
I cannot prove that it happened on September 14, 1944, or that the beach was definitely Rockaway Beach. Memories from the age of six do not come with dates and addresses attached. But when I compare what I remember with the historical record—the warm September weather, the hurricane striking Long Island that Thursday, the heavy rain and flooding, the location of our home in Woodside, and Rockaway Beach being only about 14 miles away—the pieces seem to fit remarkably well.
So today, my best conclusion is that this childhood memory comes from Thursday, September 14, 1944, when my family had gone to what was probably Rockaway Beach and the Great Atlantic Hurricane was reaching the New York and Long Island area.
I was six years old.
I may not have understood the storm.
But I remember the water under my feet.
Rockaway Beach
