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<br />relationship with the three presidents. Jack became a frequent caller, <br />his historical appetite whetted by the titillating tidbits which Lucy <br />fed him. When she calculated that he was satisfactorily impaled on the <br />hook of curiosity, she announced her desire to be kidnaped from the <br />nursing home and'returned to Iowa where, she finally confessed, the <br />diaries were located. <br />The professor's response and subsequent events make wonderful <br />light reading. I won't spoil your pleasure. My point is only that <br />historians dream of being first to plow through significant primary <br />sources. Seldom do we have the chance. My good fortune, t~~ third <br />event .of 1992, resulted not from a nursing home experience, but from a <br />freak accident that nearly destroyed eighty-five boxes of records <br />containing Delph Carpenter's professional and family history. <br />In that year Carpenter's only son, eighty-five year old Donald, <br />lived in an old refurbished school house east of Greeley. Devoted to <br />his late father and convinced that Delph's life story merited telling, <br />Donald spent countless hours revisiting his father's career by <br />organizing the many maps, books, diaries and other papers to which he <br />had become heir. All were located in the basement of a house with an <br />aging foundation. Although Donald had made a sizeable donation of some <br />materials to the Hoover Presidential Library in 1976, the great volume <br />of unsorted material remained untouched and uncatalogued. During the <br />night of September 5, 1992, Mrs. Carpenter discovered water in the <br />ba'sement. It was entering the house because irrigation tail water, <br />unable to pass through a blocked culvert adjacent to the Carpenter <br />property, had no other place to go. Everything on the floor was soaked, <br />including some of the old boxes in which the Delph Carpenter papers were <br />stored. By Sunday morning, the water was 3 inches deep and rising. <br />Mrs. Carpenter called in help from friends, employees and county <br />officials. .Vacuum pumps, dehumidifiers and air movers were brought in. <br />Not until September 9 did the level of water begin to subside. For <br />another week, volunteers continued to dry out the wet documents and <br /> <br />2 <br />