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HAMBLEN, GILBERT & BROOKE

ATTORNEYS AND COUNSELORS

PAULSEN BUILDING

SPOKANE, WASHINGTON 99201

Cy: Della van Heyst

January 3, 1968

Mr. David S. Jacobson

Secretary to Stanford University

Stanford, California

Dear Mr. Jacobson:

I have read with considerable interest your article in the
October Almanac and the numerous responses to the same in the
next edition, particularly the one from Wendell W. Ward, '07.
According to Mr. Ward, it must have been my brother, R. D.
Brooke, '09, of Spokane who saved Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz
by pulling him from his perilous position as he hung from the
upper most reaches of Encina Hall. He arrives at this conclusion
because the "Bawl-Out" listed R. D. Brooke as rooming
with Wentz in room 157, Encina.

I dislike very much to dispel this heroic image of my brother
portrayed by Mr. Ward, but I am convinced that at the time of
the quake, he was living in the Phi Kappa Psi House, which at
the time was either in Palo Alto or in its present location.

I quote from a letter from R. D. Brooke to his mother, written
April 19, 1906.

"The big shock occurred at 5:15 yesterday. I woke up
and the house was jumping back and forth and plaster
falling all over. The chimneys fell over and came
crashing through the ceiling. It is a wonder to me
that the house didn't topple over. The frame buildings
stood the shock pretty well with the exception of the
plaster and chimneys but the brick and stone buildings
are the ones that caught it."

Bob never mentioned the incident concerning Wentz to me at any
time, and I am convinced that while he lived at Encina when he
first entered Stanford, he was living in the Phi Kappa Psi House
at the time of the quake, notwithstanding the address contained
in the "Bawl-Out". A possible explanation is that the "Bawl-Out"
may have been published in the fall, and my borther moved to the