I wrote last week about finding my grandfather’s letter to my grandmother from back in the fall of 1931. I actually discovered two letters. The second one he dated “Saturday night,” which I found out was October 25, based on an event he writes about.
Times were still difficult two years after the Stock Market crashed on Black Tuesday. In fact, the long, Great Depression was much nearer its beginning. My grandfather had gone to Yale to earn his doctorate in philosophy while my grandmother and my future mom, who was two in 1931, stayed home in Arkadelphia.
The letter was penned the evening after the day of the big game - Army vs. Yale, which had attracted 75,000, excited fans.
My grandfather wrote:
“The day has been pretty good financially honey. I was paid $4 for taking tickets from 11 till 5 and then besides that I picked up a “little extra.” A man came through my gate – one of these rich birds – with two tickets. He said, ‘Here, maybe you have a friend you can pass this on to. My girl couldn’t come.’
Well, you know I have no special friend up here, so although I wasn’t supposed to do it, I sold the ticket for $2. It was a bargain at half price. Then later I found (just imagine me, luckless and slow) a shiny new dime, a whole ten-cent piece. I think I was about as proud of the dime as of the $2. But $6.10 is not too bad, honey, in times like these.”
He continued:
“I saw most of the game and it was thrilling – in spots. Tonight, I heard that one of the Army boys died as result of an injury received. If that is so, it is terrible. But I can’t believe it yet. I saw the play in which he was hurt, and it didn’t seem dangerous to me at all. He tackled a man and they both fell hard, but you know, that is football. They carried him off the field but you know we see that often and think not so much about it. If tomorrow’s paper says that he died, it will be a surprise to me. I hate to think I saw a man killed, even accidentally.”
During my grandfather’s time at Yale, they didn’t have the luxury of instant news, much less Google. I found the following from The Frederick Post, dated October 26, 1931.
“Cadet’s Neck Broken in Game With Yale
New Haven, Conn. – Cadet Richard B. Sheridan, Augusta, Ga., Army football player, whose neck was broken yesterday in the game with Yale, lay in a critical condition tonight. Physicians held out little hope for his recovery.”
Then this, in The Frederick Post, dated October 27, 1931:
“As a tragic climax to two sensational plays in the Yale-Army game at New Haven, Conn., when both teams scored in rapid succession, Richard B. Sheridan, one of the West Point Ends, sustained a broken neck. The cadet, from Augusta, Ga., a member of the class of ’33, was rushed from the field to a New Haven hospital and died there Monday afternoon.”
And finally this, in The Frederick Post, dated October 29, 1931”
“Taps Is Sounded For Cadet Sheridan
West Point, N.Y., Cadet Richard Brinsley Sheridan of Augusta, Ga., who died from a broken neck received in last Saturday’s Army-Yale football game, was buried here this afternoon with full military honors. While a hollow square of his comrades stood rigidly at attention, their black pom-poms waving slightly in the breeze, Sheridan’s body was lowered to its last resting place in the Cadet Cemetery.”