March, 1936 was such an exciting month to transcribe.  There was the New England flood of the century and Babu was out taking pictures, but as before, a larger conflict filters its way through.  In these pages there have been these reverberations of history, not just personal history but national history, that sometimes collide with the diary writings of an 18 year old girl from Chicopee.

The month of March, 1936, ended with this simple sentence:

Bruno Hauptmann was to die tonight at 8, but he got another reprieve of 48 hours.

Of course, that came after an off hand remark that Andy told her she looked good in shorts, but this shocking sentence still merited enough importance to be included.  Perhaps, though, as an afterthought.

The Lindbergh baby.  This was the man accused of kidnapping and murdering the Lindbergh baby.  It’s such a gruesome story.  I have been hearing about this kidnapping for as long as I can remember and so has my mom and and here it is on Babu’s pages.  I’m used to marking spots in this blog to remember and honor life but Bruno deserves no such thing.  He was executed on April 3 via electric chair.  He maintained his innocence but was also the kind of guy to rob two women out on the street who had babies with them.  This was a previous crime along with others he was incarcerated for.

So I turn my sympathies to the Lindberghs and thank Babu for giving me something so darn cheery to think about today.
The one thing these diaries don’t have is the elucidation to answer even any of the questions I have that if asked now she won’t remember.  She never talked about her thoughts and feelings on the kidnapping, trial, or execution.  Clearly, she was following the story and there was a media blitz over this so all of the coverage was there, but that one sentence was all I get!

A site I found useful research on:

history.com

Something interesting I found:

Video clip