July 2, 1964

I can't believe this has happened! It's so unfair. Not that I could easily accept this if it had happened to any of the others, but it's such a cruel twist of fate.

The Skipper and Gilligan ended up back on this island, their raft destroyed by a shark! It was clear that we would be here for awhile, so the five men immediately began building the communal hut, with the help of us six women and the older children. It's very simple, just the five bedrooms and a living room. They've made outhouses and an outdoor kitchen and dining area. The important thing was to have shelter as soon as possible.

But that first night, the Howells got into a terrible argument. They've been married about twenty years, and apparently the last five have been difficult. I can understand how living on the island could add to the strain, since the children have been squabbling, too, and not just with their siblings. Greg and Marcia got into an argument earlier that day. But the quarrels of children are soon settled, while this spat between the Howells threatened to go on all night. None of us got any sleep. It was especially upsetting for my girls, because Tim and I never argue like that. We have our disagreements, but they're civilized. Yet here was one of the richest couples in the world, yelling like, as the Professor put it, "a fishwife and a truck driver." I heard Mr. Brady tell his wife, "So much for communal living."

The next day, yesterday, some of us tore the hut apart to use as material to build individual huts. The Skipper tried to stop us, since he was worried about a storm coming, but we thought our own little huts could withstand it as well as one big hut.

Mr. Brady's hut turned out all right, since he's an architect, and he had Barbara, Alice, and Greg to help him. My hut couldn't even have qualified as a condemned shack. I had Marcia helping me, while Jan watched the baby, but I know nothing about building, and of course a seven-year-old girl knows even less. Still, it was shelter of a sort.

Meanwhile, the two single girls built a hut and the Professor wanted one separate from the other two single men. They weren't much better than mine and soon fell apart.

It was agreed that we should go back to the communal hut idea, so we all worked together to build it again. We finished just as the storm hit. We all gathered inside. Well, almost all of us.

I'd managed to shoo Jan and Marcia into the hut, and Cindy was in my arms. But little Bobby Brady had wandered off. His five-year-old brother Peter was supposed to be keeping an eye on him but got distracted watching frogs. Their mother Barbara went looking for Bobby. Mike said later that he would've stopped her if he'd known, especially since Bobby toddled back on his own. Mike wanted to go searching for his wife, but Alice said he needed to stay with his boys. She didn't say it but we all knew that she meant that they needed at least one of their parents with them, during the storm and after. The Skipper pointed out that it would be impossible to find anyone in all that rain and wind. So he reluctantly stayed in the hut, his arms protectively around his sons, as mine were around my daughters.

We all waited in the living room. The children weren't the only ones who were scared. It was a fierce storm, as bad as the one that brought us to this island. But the hut held and we were dry and relatively safe.

When the storm ended, the Skipper insisted that he be the one to go outside first. I think he thinks of himself as our leader, with all the responsibility that entails. But when he opened the door, he fell in the lagoon! The hut had actually been picked up by the storm and carried out to the water. I don't think it's seaworthy, but it does show what we can accomplish when we all work together as a team.

It was hard not to laugh when the Skipper fell in, especially when Gilligan tried to save him and himself fell in. Luckily, they're both good swimmers, and the water isn't that deep. In fact, it was difficult to restrain the children from jumping in and going swimming.

It wasn't that we weren't worried about Barbara, but after the tension of the storm, we needed that release of humor. And the Professor had suggested that Mrs. Brady had found shelter in one of the caves on the island. I don't know why we didn't do that, except that I guess we were worried about a landslide. Also, it would've been very crowded with so many of us in a cave, as it was when we hid from what we thought were headhunters but turned out to be the Skipper and Gilligan.

Mike Brady and the Professor joined the other two men in the water, to help push the hut back to shore. Greg Brady wanted to help, but Alice insisted that he stay on board. Mr. Howell did not offer, but no one really expected him to.

Once the hut was on dry land, Alice and I shooed the children out so that the hut would be lighter. We, the children, and the Howells carried some of the furniture, while Ginger Grant and Mary Ann helped the four men move the hut back to its location. Bamboo is a light though sturdy material, so it was easier than if the hut was made of, say, brick and mortar.

I know Mike was impatient to go looking for his wife, but he also felt a responsibility to the group. Also, he wanted his sons to wait with Alice at the hut, while the search party combed the island for Barbara. This time the Howells did go along, although first they insisted on changing into safari outfits that they'd packed for some reason! It's strange to look at the funny moments in the midst of tragedy, but they were part of this.

Yes, tragedy. Because the Professor found Barbara Brady, lifeless in the jungle. Mary Ann told me later that she saw Mr. Brady when he came back from identifying the body. Although sometimes he seems almost as unemotional as the Professor, tears were streaming down his face. Yet, when we had the funeral, he was like a stone, a rock for his sons, who all wept heavily. I cried, too, although I didn't know her very well.

We buried her quickly and simply. I felt like she deserved more, but under these primitive conditions, there was only so much we could do. And we couldn't wait until whenever we're rescued.

Marcia and Jan are worried about something happening to me. I understand. Mothers seem like they'll always be there, but the Brady boys have lost theirs. Cindy is too young to understand any of this of course. As for the Brady brothers, I hope Bobby will never know that it was his "fault" that his mother died. He's just a toddler and he was acting like one. I also hope Peter won't blame himself for not looking after Bobby better. He's only five and it was a lot of responsibility to give him. I suppose it's only luck that Cindy didn't wander off when Jan was watching her. And I hope that Greg won't blame both his brothers for the loss of their mother.

I can imagine what Mike is going through. Perhaps Tim is going through something similar, thinking the girls and I are dead. But at least Mike knows. He won't have to wonder. It's not going to be easy to bring up three sons without their mother, but at least he has Alice, a very loyal, hard-working maid. And the rest of us can help while we're all on this island together.

So now there are sixteen of us, rather than seventeen. In such a small "community," the loss of one person is felt by us all. And that it was a beloved wife and mother makes it an even greater loss.

It wouldn't have happened if the Bradys hadn't taken that fateful trip. But I don't blame the Skipper, as Mr. Howell seems to. As I said, it's more like Fate. And we've all got to work together to make sure nothing like this ever happens again, that the rest of us survive until help comes.