Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-07-08
Payne Home
Untouched
ByHurricane
Storm Hits Earthampton
but House Is Spared
BY EDWIN C. HILL

from the Caribbean broke
savagely upon the Long Island
shore two or three years ago,
tragedies occurred too painful
for the telling.
Nature showed her crueleA
side to men. women and chill
dren-all so helpless, so defense
less and so weak.
But the story was not all grim
and dreadful. When the great
storm broke, ii brought wide
devastation to old and beautiful
Easthampton as TO all the other
Hamptons.
Grand old trees il had taken
more than century 10 grow
were broken. uprooted, stripped
and ruined.
Lovely beaches became raw
sand dunes.
Buildings collapsed like the
houses of cards children build.
Everything was down, fat
tened or washed away in an old
quarter of Easthampton except
one house. house where a very
celebrated man had lived more
than 100 years ago.
LIE WAS much like the poet
H Shelley. this slender fas-
tidious. wistful man.
He was so precocious that. at
Is. he had established a the
atrical review.
He went on the stage and
made fair success. though not
nearly so great as in the society
of the day
His brilliance and great per-
sonal charm won him the friend
ship Of Henry Brevoort. Wash
ington Irving and many other
distinguished figures OF the New
York Of that time.
He appeared on the stage in
England. at first very successful
and prosperous. then downed by
misfortune. in debt for thou
sands OF dollars. and-a prisoner
in the old Fleet Prison. where
most men left hope behind.
He wandered in Italy his cir
cumstances improved, but not
happy.
One bright day he heard an
Italian peasant girl singing in
the fields az she reapcd. singing.
AS Browning's Pippa sang. with
her heart in her throat. and the
melody haunted him for months
to come.
4 ND one dull October day
"A when the skies were gray
over London. but no graYer Than
his mood. he was seated by his
window as the crowds Swirled by.
The peasant girls simple
melody came back 10 him and
words formed in his mind 10
suit the melody
He was not penniless. stranded.
and homeless. He was a fairly
successful playwright with ex-
cellent prospects ahead. But he
was depressed al the time he
wrote the words.
He was lonesome. He had
strayed far from home
There came 10 him memories
OF the dav he had spent in
happy childhood with a mother
En A..
at Easthampton. there on Long
| Island.
Sitting at his window he
jotted down the notes Of the
tune he had heard the peasant
girl sing, penned the words Of
the lyric, and sent both 10 the
composer, Henry f. Bishop. who
produced the air which so ad-
mirably fits the words.
before death came to this
- man in Tunis, Africa. in 1852.
he knew his song was a success.
But he never lived to see the
| full success il was to achieve.
He never knew that the
pretty little song that people
liked so we'll when il first ap-
peared 11S years ago, in 1923,
was to make him immortal and
that people with full hearts,
would sing that song more than
any other ever written.
He could not know that two
world wars would revive his
song in the hearts Of young men
turning their backs on loved
homes 70 60 into battle for all
that makes life dear.
Today his fame Is higher
greater than ever and il is still
growing.
For his name was John How
ard Payne. who was born in the
house so miraculously preserved
in the great hurricane. born on
June 9. 80 years ago, and the
song he wrote was inspired by
wanderers boyhood memories OF
the little home by the sea. at
Easthampton, the little home
that even a raging storm would
not touch. that a hurricane
passed by-John Howard Payne's
Home, Sweet Home"
Copyright, 1871. King Features synd. Inc.