Detroiter Sees Vesuvius Belch

Detroit News, April 10, 1906

In my attempts to search for non-Thomas Jerome stories on the Yondotega Club which aren't boring I have found myself failing miserably. Unless one wishes to hear about the time the body as a whole challenged their 10,000 tax bill in 1938 and subsequently lost while being probed of their secret activities. But everybody knows that story who has searched around on the Yons.

So back we go to Thomas Jerome. In April of 1906 Vesuvius had an eruption and Jerome was an eyewitness to the cataclysm having a front porch view of the spectacle. Co-owner of the Villa Castello, Charles L. Freer, who was back in Detroit. expressed little concern for Jerome's safety as he was situated out of the reach of its expulsions.

There is a mention of another Detroiter, author Roy Rolfe Gilson, who had planned to spend his summer on Capri with his family but changed course with the event. He was seemingly a minor novelist and unlikely a Yondotegan.