Their good friend, who had been ill for some time, died late one night, and they were notified early the next morning. Ethan had been a fair, humorous man, and they had been devoted to him. He was the first of their age group to die. After they were told, they grimaced in sorrow and went aimlessly around their bedroom. Henry coughed in a jerky way, unable to say anything. Clara kept saying, "It's best, it's best. He won't suffer any more." Instead of calling Ethan's wife, Lilianne, who might be under sedation or distraught, they sent her a telegram.

On the day of the funeral, they woke to a freak April storm of driving rain mixed with snow. Once a vivid flash of lightning turned the slate-colored Hudson River below their house an eerie white. For a brief while they lay in bed complaining about the weather, then got up and dressed in old working clothes. They were expecting some furniture and several cartons of china and glass from a relative's estate in Boston and had had to make their plans for the day carefully. Because the articles were part of a consignment of things being delivered to other people in the area, it had been impossible to change the date. But they had been promised delivery the first thing in the morning. This would give them time to direct the placing of the heaviest furniture and leave the house at eleven. The funeral services were scheduled for three in the afternoon and it would take them about two and a half hours to drive out to the Long Island town in which their friend had lived and allow three-quarters of an hour for a good, sustaining lunch on the way.

"I don't want to be pressed or flurried," Henry said. "I want to get to the church in plenty of time. We must be as relaxed as possible under the circumstances."