A Lesson in Adversity

These photos and the accompanying text were printed on cards that were distributed by Sterling Name Tape Co. of Winsted shortly after the devastating flood of August 19, 1955.

At this writing, the Great Flood of August 19, 1955 is five months back in History. The great flood in California is hardly one month old. Help came to Winsted from California; now Winsted is returning the favor. As most of us obtain our pleasure from a sufficiency of Food, Shelter and Friends, giving to each word broad meaning, seemingly bad may be good in reality. Most of us have sufficient food; we have sufficient clothing and housing, but we always can use more friends. Adversity, on a large scale, shows us that we all are "in the same boat" and that we have friends both near and far.

Now about the picture. Winsted's Main Street is about a mile-and-a-quarter long, following the course of Mad River. Here is a portion of it as it looked after the Flood. All the buildings you see, and for a mile not in the picture, have been torn down, whether badly flood-damaged or not. These buildings were between the street and the river. Our shop is on the other side of the river, down stream about a half-mile and standing on ground a little higher than that surrounding. Our loss amounted to a few thousands of dollars but we were not put out of business or even hampered in filling our usual August flood of orders for our name tapes and identification pins. We had many offers of help but didn't need any of it. We could shed tears for others but not a single tear for ourselves.